Soon the great storm which had been lowering broke upon us. We were not
exposed to its fury as were those who had just gone from us, but we
knew when it came, for snow drifted down upon our bed and had to be
scraped off before we could rise. We were not allowed near the fire and
spent most of our time on our bed of branches.
Dear, kind Mrs. Murphy, who for months had taken care of her own son
Simon, and her grandson George Foster, and little James Eddy, gave us a
share of her motherly attention, and tried to feed and comfort us.
Affliction and famine, however, had well nigh sapped her strength and
by the time those plaintive voices ceased to cry for bread and meat,
her willing hands were too weakened to do much for us.
I remember being awakened while there by two little arms clasped
suddenly and tightly about me, and I heard Frances say,
"No, she shall not go with you. You want to kill her!"
Near us stood Keseberg, the man with the bushy hair. In limping past
our sleeping place, he had stopped and said something about taking me
away with him, which so frightened my sisters that they believed my
life in danger, and would not let me move beyond their reach while we
remained in that dungeon. We spoke in whispers, suffered as much as the
starving children in Joseph's time, and were more afraid than Daniel in
the den of lions.
How long the storm had lasted, we did not know, nor how many days we
had been there.
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