Pioneer Lady Knitted All Night
(By Mrs. L.M. Prell)
When I was a child I enjoyed sitting by the fireside and listening to my grandparents,
Mr. & Mrs. Moses Mitchell, early settlers near Staplehurst,Ne. tell Indian
Stories.Some were amusing, and some were hair raising. One family joke was how grandmother
thought she fooled an Indian.
An Indian buck came at dusk and asked to sleep in the cabin. Grandmother was afraid to
refuse and frightened to have him stay, so she sat by the fire and knit all night, telling
the Indiana she was expecting her husband. The Indiana watched her knit until he grew
sleepy, then rolled in his blanket and slept. Father was a very small but brave lad. He
wanted to knock him in the head with an axe. The next morning the Indian ate a big meal
and left. Meeting grandfather coming from Lincoln he said he had camped at his place and
he said "squaw was heap fraid but Indian no hurt squaw", Grandmother did not
think he knew she was afraid.
Then came the awful stories. Grandmother's brother and son were killed on the Kansas
Plains. Grandfather's sister married a man named John Morris and he and his brother
Bill with their families went out by the Denver trail to keep tavern or lunch rooms and
were several miles apart. Indians came one day, rode around John's place, then went on
to Bill's. they smoked them out, took the wife and two children, killed the husband,
then because the baby was afraid of them, the chief threw it in the air and let it fall to
the ground until it was dead, then the mother was made to dig the grave with a sharp stick
and bury it. She never knew what became of her three year old son.