Chapter 9

November 29, 1845 - December 19, 1845

I didn't know it at the time, but this started a very peaceful period in our lives. We now had eleven people living in a twelve by twenty-four foot cabin. There isn't much privacy when there are that many people living so close together.

We had an area with blankets and tarps around it for us to sleep in. This took up about seven feet by eight feet. There was another area for Abby's bed that was five feet by six feet. All three girls slept in there. On the other end of the cabin, Tess had partitioned off a space that was about five feet by seven feet for their bed. By the time we added a pallet for Mike, almost half of the cabin was used up.

The fireplace, table and chairs, and the kitchen counters took up a lot of room as well. Most of the time, we'd pull back the tarps and blankets that made up our partitions and we'd sit on our beds so we'd be out of they way of anyone working in the house.

A typical day for John and me would be for us to get up really early. We'd grab a bite of something that was left over from the night before, then we'd head out for our trap lines. It usually took about two hours to walk the lines, remove and skin anything we'd caught, and reset the traps.

When we got back to the cabin, the women would have a nice breakfast waiting for us. We'd eat and then we'd prepare our pelts. Preparing the pelts would take anywhere from a half an hour to two hours depending on how well we did that day.

The rest of mine and John's days were spent in sharpening tools, repairing harness, repairing tack, and making things out of wood or leather.

While John and I were gone on our trap lines, the women would cook breakfast and clean the cabin. The rest of their days was spent cooking, doing laundry, washing dishes, tanning hides and a million other little chores that had to be done almost every day.

The women had gotten very good at tanning, and they were making some fine buckskin and doeskin. All of us worked at making moccasins, and pants and tunics. John and I became quite good at sewing leather.

We had a water barrel inside the house that John and I kept full. Sometimes we'd have to make five or six trips a day just bringing in fresh water. The kids usually saw to bringing in firewood, and we seldom had to remind them to do it.

Taking a bath during the winter months wasn't easy, and taking a bath with any privacy was impossible. We had a washtub that was about three feet across and was about a foot and a half deep. We'd hang one of the large pots we had filled with water over the fire and leave it until it was boiling hot. Then we'd start adding cold water until it was at a comfortable temperature.

The tub was too small to sit down in, except for the kids. The rest of us would just kind of kneel in the tub and use a washcloth to clean ourselves. It wasn't as comfortable as taking a bath in the creek, but it was a lot better than trying to wash up from a bowl of water.

Most of us had taken baths together in the creek, so we weren't too concerned about the rest of the family seeing us naked. Eve and Mary were a little reluctant. By the time winter was though, they weren't nearly as concerned about clothes as they had been at first.

December 20, 1845

We were going through a period of warmer weather, so Abby, Mike, and Mary were outside, playing. The rest of us wore working at various things, mostly making Christmas presents for the family.

Our three new additions were fitting in with the family very nicely. Now that Wanda was an established member of the family, she and Eve had bonded like sisters. I was watching them whispering together, when I decided it was time to broach a subject I had been avoiding.

"Eve, when pap brought you guys to stay with us, he said your pa had made some Indian mad. Do you know what happened?"

"Yeah, we hadn't much more than gotten our wagons stopped when we saw the Indians for the first time. At that time, there were just the Cranks, the Privinces, and us. None of us spoke Paiute and none of them spoke English. They seemed friendly enough though and they even brought us a deer they had just killed. Pa tried to preach to them, but they didn't understand anything he said."

"Didn't anyone know sign language?" I asked.

"No, not at that time. It was about two weeks later that some other people joined us. By then pa had started building a church, although all of us were still living in our wagons. One of the new men, Warren Phelps, could speak Paiute. He also knew how to build something he called a hogan that he said we could live in for the first winter."

"How were the hogans built?" I asked, wondering if they were anything like mom and pap's wickiup.

"He said they had to have five sides to be traditional. He took poles and made a framework that looked like it was for a big tent. Then he laced branches between the poles, to form the sides. Finally, he covered everything with mud. He said it wouldn't be as warm as a house, but that we could survive the winter in them. The one they put together for pa was about twenty feet wide."

"Did they build hogans for all of the families?"

"Yeah. Not long after that, the Paiutes came back. Pa used Phelps as an interpreter. He tried to tell them about God and how they should accept our religion. They didn't seem very interested. The chief told pa that he would come back at another time and they would stage a dance that would show pa what the Paiute religion was like."

"What did your pa say?"

"He told the chief to bring back as many people as he liked, but they wouldn't convert him to the Indian religion."

"When did the chief come back?"

"It was right after they came up here, to try to take Abby away from you. Two of the men didn't come back, and pa was really angry. Did you guys kill two of the men?"

"Eve, I was on my way to the outhouse, when someone shot at me. I managed to get down and to get out of sight. Then they started shooting at the house. I managed to get around behind them. and I told them to put down their guns. Both of them tried to shoot me, so I shot them."

"Good. They deserved what they got. Anyway, it was only a few days later when the Indians showed up again. There were about thirty of them, all men. As they said they were going to do, they put on a dance. Phelps said it was a dance of thanks. He said they were thanking the forest for the fruits and nuts it gave them. It was also a dance thanking the animals for allowing them to take what animals they needed for food."

"Okay, I'm not sure your Mr. Phelps had that just right, but it is at least in the spirit of what most tribes believe."

"Anyway, pa got angry. He started yelling at them about their pagan beliefs. He got right in the chief's face and yelled at him to stop. The chief tried to ignore pa, but for some reason this made pa even madder. He hit the chief, and then everything went crazy."

"What happened?"

"The chief didn't even raise his hand, but one of the braves pulled his hatchet from his belt and chopped straight down into pa's head. I had been watching after Mary, so when I saw this, I grabbed her hand and pulled her under a brush pile. Someone, I think it was Mary's pa, shot the brave who had killed pa. The next thing I knew, there was an arrow sticking out of the man's back."

"I hope Mary didn't see that."

"No, I was holding her down. I was between her and the fight that was going on. By then, guns were going off and arrows and hatchets were flying. People were falling everywhere. Men, women, and children from our camp were dying, and several braves fell as well. I have to give Mary a lot of credit. I whispered to her that if we weren't completely quiet, the Indians would find us and kill us. She was as quiet as a little mouse."

"I have to give you both credit. You were a brave young woman, Eve. Do you know how Adam and Mike got away?"

"Yeah, both of them ran off into the woods when the fighting started. They weren't together at the time, but found each other later. When the fighting stopped, everyone but the four of us was dead. The Indians gathered up their own dead. Then they set the houses on fire, and left."

"That had to be a very frightening experience for all of you. We're all glad you got away safely."

"Thank you, Jase. I still have bad dreams about it."

Wanda went over to Eve, and put her arms around her.

December 25, 1845

Christmas day. I think every one of us was excited, even the ones of us who were supposed to be adults. We all exchanged presents and sort of established our own family traditions that morning.

John had been watching some turkeys for a couple of weeks. Yesterday, he went out and killed two of them for our dinner. Even though the women were cooking over a fireplace, we had a wonderful meal.

March 16, 1846

Although there wasn't a lot to do except take care of our trap lines, the winter went fairly quickly. By the middle March, it was starting to warm up. We didn't have much snow that winter, and what we did have was all gone by now.

I don't know if were thinking too big or not, but we planned out our house to have five large rooms. The main room would house the living room, and the kitchen. It would be about thirty feet by thirty feet. Off of each corner of the main room would be a twenty foot square bedroom. This gave all of the bedrooms considerable privacy from each other.

John and I knew it was going to be a lot of work, but we didn't shy away from it. We did decide to see if we could hire some of the boys who had driven for us on the way out to help.

Millie was as big as a cow by now. The rest of us teased her about it. This morning, Millie said she wasn't feeling too well when we got up, so she said she was going to go to the outhouse, and then go back to bed for a while.

I heard a yell when Millie was in the outhouse, so I ran out to see what was wrong.

"Are you okay, Honey?" I asked.

"Jase, get Tess out here. My water just broke, and I'm going into labor."

I ran inside and got Tess, and then I asked John if he'd go over to Ab's and get Pris. He took off like his tail was on fire. I walked back out to the outhouse, and Tess was helping Millie come out. I put my arm around Millie from one side, and Tess took up a position on her other side.

We helped her back in the house and helped her into bed. She looked awfully pale, but she gave me a big smile.

"You're going to be a papa, Jase," she said.

"Yeah, I'll love having a baby, but the most important thing I want, is for you to be safe."

Millie squeezed my hand and told me to get some breakfast.

"This is going to take a while, Jase. Could you send someone for ma?"

"Sure, honey. John has gone after Pris. I'll go for your ma myself."

"No, I want you here. Maybe Lettie would go."

"Let me talk to her. I'll get Eve to go with her."

God! What a day! Pris and Sally were at our place within four hours. John and Lettie had had to ride like the wind, to get there and back in that length of time. Caleb and Ab followed shortly after.

Millie's labor lasted for over ten hours. The women would let me in to see her occasionally, but they wouldn't let me stay with her. I was elated when I heard that first little cry. Shortly thereafter, Lettie came out carrying a precious little bundle. She put my new daughter in my arms. and said,

"Millie is tired but fine," she said. "This is our new daughter."

Everyone had to push in to see this little miracle. Caleb was the leader of the pack since this was his first grandchild. Lettie only let me keep her for a few minutes, because she said they wanted to see if they could get the baby to eat, right away.

It was about a half an hour later, when they said I could come in and see Millie. She had a smile on her face, but she looked as though she was totally exhausted.

"How are you feeling, Honey?" I asked.

"I'm fine, Jase. I feel like I've been dragged behind a team of horses, but I'm fine. Isn't our daughter beautiful?"

Now, personally, I couldn't have told you what our daughter looked like. I had seen her little red face, when Lettie brought her out. But a red, puckered up, face is all I could remember.

"Yes, she is beautiful. With a mother as pretty as she has, she would have to be beautiful."

Sally said we should let Millie rest, so I kissed her on the forehead, and went back out to talk to the men.

Sally stayed with us that night, but everyone else went home. After they were all gone, I went into our bedroom and sat with Millie for a long time. We talked about names for a while, and Millie said she'd like to name her Elizabeth Ann for her grandmother. It sounded like a good name to me, but I told Millie I'd probably call her Betsy. Millie agreed that Betsy was a lot better than Liz or Lizzy.

I offered to sleep on a pallet for the night, to give Millie the bed, but she insisted I sleep with her. She did allow Lettie, Emma and Wanda to sleep on a pallet.