Cady and Stone had
really got us to the cabins in time to go with the Second Relief.
We did not see Mr. Clark, but he had peered in, taken observations, and
returned by nightfall and described to her our condition.
John Baptiste had promised to care for father in her absence. She left
our tent in the morning as early as she could see the way. She must
have stayed with us over night, for I went to sleep in her arms, and
they were still around me when I awoke; and it seemed like a new day,
for we had time for many cherished talks. She veiled from us the
ghastliness of death, telling us Aunt Betsy and both our little cousins
had gone to heaven. She said Lewis had been first to go, and his
mother had soon followed; that she herself had carried little Sammie
from his sick mother's tent to ours the very day we three were taken
away; and in order to keep him warm while the storm raged, she had laid
him close to father's side, and that he had stayed with them until "day
before yesterday."
I asked her if Sammie had cried for bread. She replied, "No, he was not
hungry, for your mother saved two of those little biscuits which the
relief party brought, and every day she soaked a tiny piece in water
and fed him all he would eat, and there is still half a biscuit left."
How big that half-biscuit seemed to me! I wondered why she had not
brought at least a part of it to us. While she was talking with Mrs.
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