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

270
ANNALS OF OUR ANCESTORS
away from me; and one day he looked up at me and said,
"Papa never come!" He never asked for his father again.
Little did I know of what was happening down in the Grant
neighborhood—that my husband was lying there ill with
catarrhal fever. One night during his illness he had a troubled
dream and interpreted it to mean that either Charlie or I was
ill, or, worse, that death would occur. It left such a painful
impression on his mind that he told the friends where he was
stopping that he was going home, and that they must make
a bed in the sleigh and give him jugs of hot water to keep him
from chilling, and that he would lie down in the sleigh and
drive home, some fifty miles distant. They believed this most
hazardous, but he felt he must go and they did as he requested.
They handed him the lines and he started. Long before the
day was done the sled came down, breaking the jugs and
spilling the water so his clothes were wet in places; and there
he had to climb out in the snow, sick as he was, and try to re-
pair the sled.
Fortunately a man came along and helped him, so he could
proceed on his way until he came to Rosemount, where was
a Dutch tavern, and there he found a clean warm place for the
night. The next morning he started on the home stretch.
As he went up from the valley and was looking on a ridge he
saw a team coming, which he recognized as Brother Shoemaker's.
When they were close enough he called out and
asked the driver who was sick — was it his wife or baby?
When told it was Charlie, he knew how serious it must be. He
reached home about noon, but too late to be recognized by his
beloved child. Early in the morning he had been stricken by
death, and although he did not pass away until dark of that
sad March day, March 13, 1865, he never gained conscious-
ness; and so it was that he left our home desolate.
After this sad event Mr. Frost's health received such a
shock that for months he was unable to resume 'his evangelistic
duties. We buried Charlie in a new cemetery, where through
all the long years while we have come and gone, and set up
our home in diflFerent states, the little form of our first born
has rested in quiet sleep. Our promising little boy, gentle