father rode a
plow horse; he never tried flourishes in riding; but no man can stick
in the saddle longer, ride harder, and face any danger with calmer
front. If you think this is anything, you should have seen his face
the day he stood between me and a band of Indians, we had every reason
to think, I had angered to the fighting point."

"Tell me! Please tell me!" I begged.

All of us had been brought up on that story, but we were crazy to hear
it, and mother loved to tell it, so she dropped on a chair and began:

"We were alone in a cabin in the backwoods of Ohio. Elizabeth was only
nine months old, and father always said a mite the prettiest of any
baby we ever had. Many of the others have looked quite as well to me,
but she was the first, and he was so proud of her he always wanted me
to wait in the wagon until he hitched the horses, so he would get to
take and to carry her himself. Well, she was in the cradle, cooing and
laughing, and I had my work all done, and cabin shining. I was heating
a big poker red-hot, and burning holes into the four corners of a board
so father could put legs in it to make me a bench. A greasy old squaw
came to the door with her papoose on her back. She wanted to trade
berries for bread. There were berries everywhere for the picking; I
had more dried than I could use in two years. We planted only a little
patch of wheat and father had to ride three days to carry to mill what
he could take on a horse. I baked in an outoven and when it was done,
a loaf of white bread was by far the most precious thing we had to eat.
Sometimes I was caught, and forced to let it go. Often I baked during
the night and hid the bread in the wheat at the barn. There was none
in the cabin that day and I said so. She didn't believe me. She set
her papoose on the floor beside the fireplace, and went to the
cupboard. There wasn't a crumb there except cornbread, and she didn't
want that. She said: 'Brod! Brod!'

"She learned that from the Germans in the settlement. I shook my head.
Then she pulled out a big steel hunting knife, such as the whites
traded to the Indians so they would have no trouble in scalping us
neatly, and walked to the cradle. She took that knife loosely between
her thumb and second finger and holding it directly above my baby's
face, she swung it lightly back and forth and demanded: 'Brod! Brod!'

"If the knife fell, it would go straight through my baby's head, and
Elizabe