Written in 1926.
CHAPTER 25
(Continued from last week.)
our legs and lungs were frozen to a state of immobility, but not for long. We soon found both and started running and crying to our father to leave the country where wild men and snakes abounded. He at a full gallop, with the rest of the family, we found that the Indians had vanished. My mother was near hysterics and implored father to leave the country where wild men and snakes abounded. He placated her fears and told her that possibly all the Indians had wanted was food. Nevertheless we all had the first visit of the red men indelibly imprinted on our minds.
Father was right in his opinion of the Indians in regard to the annual visits. Several times after the first meeting, the family did entertain the wandering braves. All they wanted was food and tobacco. Father aways fed them but not always were they given tobacco. The Indians never ate anything but meat, and if it happened to be a fowl, the carefully cleaned ones were placed back on the dish from which the fowl was served. Needless to say, subsequent visits of the Indians, were taken more clamly, but we all always heaved a sigh of relief when they departed.
The summer of 1878 presented to the pioneer another spectre, one of want. Who of the pioneers, does not remember the grasshopper? Announcing their arrival in clouds that obscured the sun, they settled and consumed all in their path. With the precision and despatch of machines there harbingers of poverty stripped the pioneer of his food supply in a few hours. Fields of verdant grain, gardens and even young fruit trees were destroyed, leaving the settler to eke out an existence the rest of the year.
We stood in the house during the first visit of this curse and watched them ravage our carefully tilled crops. Father and mother stood side by side with tears streaming down their cheeks as they pictured the possible want and poverty that could overtake them. It took a stout heart and grim determination to weather all the blows that the pioneer endured.
The hoppers visited us again in later years but they never completely destroyed our crops as the first time. I do remember one time, that when this plague visited us that my sister and I had forgotten our sun bonnets on the clothes line after washing them. The grasshoppers were not so fastidious this time and included even these two bonnets in their diet.
The early settler had many a day of woe and travail caused by the long hard winters of yesteryear. Snow usually came in November and the ground remainded white up until the end of March. The length of this season made the homesteader make an annual trek to town in the fall to stock up enough provisions to last throughout the winter. Once the snow came, hauling heavy loads was next to impossible. The trips served a twofold purpose one the above mentioned fact the other, it afforded the family to make their second annual visit to town, the first being on Fourth of July. Back in pioneer days, if we children came to town twice a year we counted ourselves fortunate.
The winter of 1888 will always be remembesed for its famous blizzard. I remember it very well. The day started out mildly, a typical January thaw. We had the washing on the line. By mid-morning the wind changed to the north and started blowing furiously. Before we could gather all the clothes the clothes the storm was in our midst. Hasty preparations were made to house the stock. We were none too soon. The storm lasted that day and most of the night. Morning greeted us with the snow level with the house. Regular tunnels had to be made to the different out buildings to do chores. It presented an awesome sight. Two of my sisters were compelled to stay in school over night much to their discomfort. While we fortunately had no loss there were many lives lost elsewhere and many herds of cattle perished further west.
Another fact worthy of mention, that was synonymous with pioneer life, was the abundance of small game in our locality. There were myraids of wild fowl whose fall and spring migrations literally darkened the sun. During their flight all water holes and streams were covered with birds. Our farmstead being only about 200 yards from the creek afforded us an opportunity to acquaint ourselves, quite well with our feathered riends, Our intrusions into their havens, never seemed to disconcert them greatly, if we came too close they either swam away or flew up, circled a bit and back to the water they came.
The now extinct wild pigeon was another bird whose flights were announced by darkened skies. Several times, some of the flocks stopped to rest over night in our vicinity. The trees did not have enough branches to accommodate them all. They roosted where they could. If we wanted pigeon pie the next day, all we had to do was to walk out beneath the trees in the evening, reach up and gather as many birds as we could use.
The prairie chicken and grouse were our chief delight. These birds were not migratory to the extent of the ducks and pigeons. The ranges of Hills on both sides of the valley afforded them ideal nesting places. During the summer one of our tasks was to herd cattle on the hills. Having great deal of leisure time, we children spent many an hour watching the birds. Wild life if not molested becomes remarkably tame, and the prairie chicken was no exception. We knew their nesting places, their habits and family life very well. Their lives were not a great deal different from human beings. There was love making, quarrels in the family, fights among the roosters, and even hens driven to distraction trying to round up their broods.
Flocks of wild turkeys and cranes used to pass overhead, but as I remember we never saw any stop near our homestead. Of the four footed creatures such as the buffalo and deer, we saw very few on the creek. On one or two different trips to town, I remember seeinng a few small herds of buffalo. However the range of these shaggy beasts was further west and all we ever saw were just stragglers.
In the years that followed four more children were born. This made a family of ten children, a real pioneer size group. During the next 16 years father added acres and improvement to his holdings and at the time of his death in 1891 he had 400 acres of Shell Creek Valley land. His untimely death was caused by a runaway span of mules.
His death left mother with seven children ranging from five to 17 years; three having already married. She took up the management of the farm and with the aid of a hired hand and older children, she carried on in true pioneer fashion. She did very well up to the time of her death in the fall of 1899. The estate was then divided among the children. Of the family of ten children, nine are still living: Mrs. Anna Moural, Schuyler, Mrs. Josephine Husak, Schuyler; Mrs. P. F. Svoboda, Schuyler; Mrs. Edw. Marohn, Euleta, Florida; Emma Rousar, Norfolk; Mrs. F. C. Mitchell, Omaha; Mrs. August Knipping, Schuyler; Edward Rousar, Oklahoma City; Adolph Rousar, Great Falls, Mont. John Rousar died in Chicago ten years ago.
(To be continued.)
