MY HERMITAGE.
It was midnight before we reached East St. Cloud, and the ferry-boat had
stopped running, so that it was a bright morning the 7th of June when I
found myself in half a dozen pairs of loving arms. In a few days we made
an excursion to the site of my cabin. It was more beautiful than I had
thought. On the opposite side of the lake lived Captain Briggs, with a
head full of sea-stories, and a New England wife. My hermitage would be
greatly improved by such neighbors only one mile distant, and as the
captain had lately killed two large bears between his house and the site
of mine, there would soon be no more bears. But I must have the loft of
my cabin large enough for several beds, as the children insisted on
spending their summers with me. Brother Harry bespoke a second room, for
he would want a place to stay all night when out hunting with his
friends, and my hermitage began to grow into a hotel.
I had commenced arrangements with workmen, when Harry said to me:
"Sis, Elizabeth and I have talked this matter over, and if you persist,
we will take out a writ of lunacy. There is not a man in this territory
who would not say on oath, that you are insane to think of going where
the bears would eat you if the Indians did not kill you. The troops are
ordered away from the forts; you'll get frontier life enough with us,
for we are going to have music with the Indians."
Next day the troops from Fort Ripley marched past, on their way to
Kansas, to put down the Free State party. Bleeding Kansas was called on
for more blood, and United States soldiers were to sacrifice the friends
of freedom on the altar of slavery. The people of Minnesota were left
without protection from savages, that the people of Kansas might be
given over to the tender mercies of men no less barbarous than the
Sioux.
I had run away from the irrepressible conflict, feeling that my work was
done; had fled to the great Northwest--forever consecrated to freedom by
solemn act and deed of the nation--thinking I should see no more of our
national curse, when here it confronted me as it had never done before.
My cabin perished in a night, like Jonah's gourd--perished that liberty
might be crushed in Kansas; for without a garrison at Fort Ripley, my
project was utterly insane.