Democratic messenger. [volume] (Snow Hill, Md.) 1869-1973, 1881-06-25
CHIT-TO.
BY DORA p'oLY pEANE.
A Story of the Massacre.

In the summer of 1862, while we were
living in the new State of Minnesota,
an experience fell to my lot which l re-
have ever met.
was a small girl at the time-my
tenth birthday coming in that same
month of August, in which these extra
ordinary events occurred, and ON the
very day-the 1Sth-on which the terri
BILE Sioux massacres of Minnesota broke
out at the Lower Agency, as the station
was called, and which soon desoIated
such large portion of that fair land
with fire and blood.
We lived at Lac Qui Parle, or rather
quite close to it, for we were full mile
from the place, where at that time, the
devoted missionary, Amos Hugg1ns, and
his young wife and two children were
stationed.
There were only three of us-father,
mother and myself We had removed
to Minnesota three years before, the
prime object of my parents being to i'm
prove their health, for both were
threatened with consumption. At the
same time, they felt natural eagerness
to try their fortunes in new country,
where there always seems to be more
cause for encouragement than at home.
The first year, father and mother
were much benefited, but not long
after, father began to fail. was too
young to notice the signs at the time,
but / recall them now. / remember
how he used to take his chair out front
| in pleasant weather and sit there during
the balmy afternoons, SO still, with his
eyes looking off at the blue horizon or
into the solemn depths of the vast
stretch of wilderness, which came to a
point scarce a stones throw from the
door.
He wou' it there so long and so
quiet, that etimes thought he was
asleep, and Id steal softly up to him;
but when so, could notice that
his eyes werF -.de open, though he did
not seem to know what was going on
around him. Mother used to steal to
the door sometimes and peep quietly at
him, and then raise her finger and shake
her head in warning way for me not to
disturb him, and then her white sad
face would disappear in the door again.
Then again she would come out and
sit down beside father, and taking his
hand in hers, they would talk long and
earnestly in low tones. was too young,
/ repeat, to understand all this at the
time, but it was not long afterward that
the truth came to me.
Father was steadily and surely de-
clining in health, and he knew he was
doomed to die but the same climate
which was thus killing one of my pa
rents was more merciful to the other,
for mother became strong and rugged,
and the seeds of the dreadful disease
soon left her system altogether.
There is nothing which makes us feel
so hopeful as strong, stuldy health, and
when mother felt the life blood bounding
through her veins, and her strength in
creasing, she could not quite fully
realize that 1t was different with father.
She tried to encourage him, and really
believed his weakness was only tenn
porary. There were times when he
caught little of her hopefulness, and
thought it possible he was going to gel
well. Consumption, l am sure, is the
most deceptive of all ailments in this
respect.
But these self-deceptions did not last
long. He saw that death had marked
him for its own, and deep melancholy
settled over him, which in reality
hastened the ravages of the disease. He
became touchingly tender and loving tc
mother and me, and when he was not
sitting in front of the house in his deep
sorrowful reveries, or, if the day was
stormy, at the window, looking out into
vacancy, he was fondling and caressing
one of us.
! remember that more than once ]
saw tears in his eyes, though could mo-
tell why, for he and mother agreed tc
keep his fears, or rather his certainty
of what was fast. coming from me, aEC
/ never once suspected that death was
already looking into our window upor
us.
Scarcely day passed that did no
see some of the Indians who were scat
tered through that section. The Siou1
seemed to be everywhere, and in goinl
to and coming from the agency, the,
would sometimes stop at our house.
Father was very quick in picking VI
languages, and he was able to convers
quite intelligently with the red men
! How used to laugh to hear them tall