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
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