Waseca County, Minnesota - Chapter 6, 1905

And Nearly Starved

GREAT THAW IN MARCH FOLLOWED BY A SECOND WINTERALONE AND BLIND WITH CATTLE TO CARE FOR - MRS. SCOTT'S KINDNESS - TWO MEN FROM IOWA OUT IN ALL THAT STOR.M AND NEARLY STARVED.

The first week in Rlarch brought a thaw and a freshet. The snow entirely disappeared and the weather M-as warm and pleasant. So, on a very fine Sunday morning I concluded to take a tour oi' inspection around Silver Lake. In passing around the lake, when crossing its outlet on what is now the Pat Madden farm, I broke through the ice and was thoroughly ilj-enched in ice water. Very soon after this baiitism, the wind sprang up from the northwest and before I reached the cabin that afternoon, a severe snow storm was raging. In returning from school section 36, that m'eniiig, where I was obliged to go to feed the cattle, I faced the storm for half a mile, and my eyes were injured by the hail and sleet. I also contracted a severe cold that day, and the next morning my eyes were so inflamed that I could not open them nor bear the light. I was in a "Fletcherian fix" being all alone, with fifty cattle and sheep to feed and water, and I as blind as a bat. I tried to raise the only neighbors - those at Scott's claim a mile away - by loading and firing a rifle that was in the cabin; but this availed nothing.

However, as good luck would have it, the storm ceased about noon, and Mr. Plummer from Scott's claim, came over on an errand. He fed and watered the stock, brought in some wood and promised to return next morning. I could see no better that day than on the previous day ; so, when Rlr. Plummer had cared for the cattle, he proposed that I should go with him to the Scott cabin where ilrs. Scott could poultice my eyes and care for them. The proposition was grati^fully accepted.

"Sim" said that as soon as spring should arrive, he could furnish the eyes if "Pat" would the le^s, and they would "leg it" back to the scenes of their childhood, etc.

After being kindly treated for a week, I so far recovered my sight that I was able to return to the Sutlief cabin and attend to my duties. The country was really having a second winter in Jlarch. The weather was cold, and ice had again formed on all the streams and ponds. A morning or two after I had returned to the Sutlief cabin, and while I was preparing my breakfast, I heard rapping at the door and said "come in." A stranger, looking haggard enough, Avalked in, and, grasping me by the hand, expressed his joy at finding a cabin and some one living in it. He snid that he and another man, during the warm spell of weather had left tlie northernmost settlement, on the Des ^loines river, in Iowa, with a horse and "jumper," bound for ]Mankato. Ou the third day of their journey they had met the heavy snowstorm which had swept over the Northwest, and partly lost their course, but struck the headwaters of the LeSueur on the east side, and, supposing it to be the Blue Earth river, had followed along down, expecting to find the Mankato settlement.

For three days preceding their arrival here, they had been without anything to eat, except a few ears of corn that they had brought along for horsefeed. The horse had subsisted for s.'veral days on nothing save dead prairie grass, and the browse from the bushes in the small groves along their route. One of the men Vwis nearly blind from exi)osure to wind, sun, and storm, and both were very much reduced in strength for want of food and rest. The horse was nearly starved. They had come into the river bend opposite the Sutlief calun the evening before and had camped over night, almost discouraged and with little hope of ever reaching .Mankato or seeing their families again. Within the night they thought they could hear oeeasionally, the sound ol a cow hell, and at early dawn they surely heard the roosters eiow. Hope revived; and, as thiylight came on, the uuui who could yet see, following the sounds which they had heard, ci-ossed the river and found the shanty. They were ehullv wel- corned, and remained at the cabin several days before they and their horse were strong enough to pursue their journey to Mankato. I never saw nor heard of them afterwards.