| Description |
The word spread like wild fire as the wagon pulled into the small wooden fort, and the settlers gathered quickly to see the blood-caked old squaw as she cowered in the hay. "Walt Cox, have you lost your mind. bringin' an old cast- out squaw in here," Sylvester Hulet called out. "What she got blood all over her for?" a child's voice questioned. "Well, I guess you might as well know the whole story," Walt answered. "She's Chief Walker's mother. He went after her with his knife, but she wans't as feeble as he thought, because she got away from him and hid in the swamp for three days." "Ye're goin' to get us all killed," Ez Billings yelled angrily. "Wait 'til Isaac Morley hears 'bout this." "Now listen," Walt said. "What would you have done it it had been you out there instead of me?" The crowd muttered angrily but no one offered an answer. After looking from one face to another apprehensively, Walt said , " Rosalia , go get your mother, " and he turned to help the old woman climb out of the wagon. Emeline Cox appeared and took the situation in at a glance, turned back into the room, and soon emerged with a lindsey piece, a quilt, and a stool. Jemima Cox followed her with a brass bucket filled with warm water, a piece of lye soap, and some soft rags. "Fred," Emeline called. "Tie your rope between these two trees and hand this quilt over it." The two women removed the Squaw's mocasins- and dress and sat her down on the stool behind the quilt. They poured warm water over her and soaped her down with the lye soap. being careful to keep the soap away from the cuts. They found seven cuts on her arms and breasts and when they were clean they smeared them with a salve of equal parts of bees wax, mutton tallow, and soft pine gum to draw the infection out. She choked and almost smothered from the fumes when they poured keresone through her hair. Puck-ki poo-chup.- "Kill lice," Emeline explained kindly to the terrified squaw. Pi-equay. "Go," she continued, pointed to their living quarters in the fort, and as she stood, they slipped a lindsey nightgown over her head. Through each night Walt signed with relief as the guards called out the hours, "one o'clock, and all is well; two o'clock, and all is well; three o'clock and all is well..." - 13 - |
