Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

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ANNALS OF OUR ANCESTORS
very feeling, of course, made her act the braver. She says:
"A few days before our arrival an alarm had been given by the
lookout at the fort that two pecuHar objects were approaching.
All was excitement. It was soon discovered that these were
two women, fugitives from the Indians, who had escaped with
the help of a friendly Indian after suffering the most dreadful
hardships and abuses. They were almost barefooted, and
their clothes were torn to rags. They were taken in, fed,
clothed, and escorted on their way."
Ida also tells about finding our relatives at the fort, and
thus describes their life there: "Our arrival was hailed with
joy by our brothers and sister-in-law. Each family had moved
some kind of a shanty up to the fort, so quite a little town was
formed about the defense, and here the cooking was done. We
got up early in the morning to go outside the fort and get
lunches ready for the men before they started out under protection
to do the yet unfinished harvesting. We slept within
the stockade in a great room upstairs. The arrangement of
our sleeping room was ever mirth provokmg to me, for this
vast bedroom was divided only by quilts and blankets, old
carpet; in fact, anything that would hang up. These apartments
were just large enough for our beds; first a straw bed
was brought in and laid upon the floor, then the feather beds
were placed on top, and there was just about two feet of space
left between the beds of each. I could always see the funny
side of things, and there was much happened even inside a
fort that struck my sense of the ridiculous. I looked upon all
the happenings as an 'experience.' Time passed in work, for
there was much to do. Baking, washing, ironing, making,
and mending — they helped to keep our minds more at rest
while our fingers flew.
"We were at the fort all through October. The three
months — September, October, and November — were the
most beautiful I had ever known, warm, sunny, and still. It
truly seemed providential, so all the harvesting and stacking
of grain could be done; but at last the November frosts did
come, and the leaves, the shield for skulking Indians, fell, and
the red men slunk back to their reservations. At the end of