inches deep, weather very cold, and, taken all in
all, it was a disagreeable and unpleasant trip.

We went to the settlement on Log Creek and stopped with the
family of Robert Bidwell. He had plenty of property. This man had
good teams, and had reaped where he had not sown, gathered where
he had not strewn. He was engaged in removing families of his
helpless brethren to Quincy, Illinois, who had not teams to move
themselves, but who had a little money that he was after, and he
got all they had. For some reason unexplained to me he had been
permitted to keep all of his property; none of it was taken by
the troops.

While at Bidwell's I bought a crib of corn, about two hundred
bushels, for a pocketknife. I built a stable for my mare, a crib
for the com, and hauled wood enough to do the family the rest of
the winter. I also attended to Bidwell's stock and worked all the
time for him. They had five children, which made considerable
work for the women folks; my wife worked for them all the time.

During this time we had nothing but corn to eat. The hog I killed
at my farm was diseased, and I had to throw the meat away.
Notwithstanding our constant work for Bidwell's family, they
never gave us a drop of milk or a meal of victuals while we
remained there. Mrs. Bidwell fed six gallons of milk to their
hogs each day. I offered to feed the hogs corn for milk, so we
could have milk to eat with our boiled corn, but she refused the
offer, saying they had all the corn they needed. They did have
provisions of every kind in abundance, but not a particle of food
could we obtain from them.

Prayer meetings were frequently held at their house. They had
plenty of tallow, but Mrs. Bidwell would not allow a candle to be
burned in the house unless some other person furnished it. One
night at prayer meeting I chanced to speak upon the subject of
covetousness, and quoted the twelfth chapter of Paul to the
Corinthians, where he speaks of members of the Church of Christ
being united. I was feeling bad to see so much of the covetousness
of the world in some of the members of the Church, and I talked
plainly upon the subject.

The next morning Mrs. Bidwell came into our room and said that my
remarks at the meeting the evening before were directed at her,
and she wanted me to understand that if I did not like my
treatment there she desired us to go where we would fare better.
This inhuman and unwelcome language did not sit well on an empty