FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85  
86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   >>   >|  
ard the door he said, "What are you going to do?" I said, "Call in a dog." It was bright moonlight. He said, "Let me see him." He looked and hastily closed the door saying, "The biggest kind of a timber wolf. Be careful what kind of pets you take in here." The upper part of the hotel where we lived the first winter, was all in one room. I was the only woman, so we had a room made with sheeting. Sometimes there were twenty people sleeping in that loft. We did not have to open the windows. Most windows in those days were not expected to be opened anyway. The air just poured in between the cracks, and the snow blew in with gusto. It was not at all unusual to get up from under a snow bank in the morning. I brought many pretty dresses and wore them too. Those who first came, if they had money and were brides, were dressed as if they lived in New York City. We had a dance one night in our little log hotel. It was forty degrees below zero, and very cold anywhere away from the big stove. The women wanted to dance all the time and so set the table and put on the bread and cake before the company came. Five hours afterward when we went to eat, they were frozen solid. The dish towels would freeze too, as they hung on the line in the kitchen over the stove, while the stove was going, too. One morning, after we were keeping house, my husband said, "I guess we have some spring company. You better go in and see them." I did and in the parlor was the biggest kind of an ox standing there chewing his quid. He had just come in through the open door to make a morning call. All kinds of animals ran at large then. Mrs. William Dow--1854, Little Falls. We came to Little Falls and built this house we are now living in in 1854. It was built right on an Indian trail that paralleled the Red River cart trail. You see that road out there? That is just where the old Red River cart road went. That is Swan River and it went between us and that. Our back door was right on their foot trail. You could step out of our door onto it. There is a big flat rock on the river up about four miles where the Chippewa and Sioux signed treaties to behave themselves. After this they were killing each other before they got out of town. You know our Indians were the Chippewas. They were woods Indians. The prairies belonged to the Sioux. They had always been enemies. Hole-in-the-Day was head chief here and a pretty good chief, too. His tribe got suspiciou
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   61   62   63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85  
86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   >>   >|  



Top keywords:
morning
 
windows
 
pretty
 
Little
 

Indians

 

company

 

biggest

 

spring

 

keeping

 

parlor


husband

 

William

 

standing

 

animals

 

chewing

 

Chippewas

 

prairies

 
killing
 
belonged
 

suspiciou


enemies

 

behave

 
treaties
 

Indian

 

paralleled

 

Chippewa

 
signed
 

living

 

people

 
twenty

sleeping

 
Sometimes
 

sheeting

 

winter

 
cracks
 

unusual

 

poured

 

expected

 

opened

 

bright


moonlight

 
looked
 
careful
 

hastily

 

closed

 

timber

 

afterward

 

wanted

 

kitchen

 
freeze