[Illustration: ELITHA DONNER (MRS. BENJAMIN WILDER)]
[Illustration: LEANNA DONNER (MRS. JOHN APP)]
[Illustration: MARY DONNER]
[Illustration: GEORGE DONNER, NEPHEW OF CAPT. DONNER]
Often we looked at each other and exclaimed, "How good to be here
instead of up in the snow." It was hard to go back to the house when
sisters called us. I do not remember the looks or the taste of
anything they gave us to eat. We were so eager to stay out in the
sunshine. Before long, we went to that dreary, bare room only to sleep.
Many of the women at the Fort were kind to us; gave us bread from their
scant loaves not only because we were destitute, but because they had
grateful recollection of those whose name we bore.
Once a tall, freckle-faced boy, with very red hair, edged up to where I
was watching others at play, and whispered:
"See here, little gal, you run get that little tin cup of yourn, and
when you see me come out of Mrs. Wimmer's house with the milk pail on
my arm, you go round yonder to the tother side of the cow-pen, where
you'll find a hole big enough to put the cup through. Then you can
watch me milk it full of the nicest milk you ever tasted. You needn't
say nothing to nobody about it. I give your little sister some last
time, and I want to do the same for you. I hain't got no mother
neither, and I know how it is."
When I got there he took the cup and, as he sat down under old Bossy,
smilingly asked if I liked lots of foam.
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