storm. What a sight when we opened the door! The sky darkened by myriads
of grasshoppers and no green thing could be seen. Everything in that
lovely garden was gone. By the middle of the afternoon, when they left,
the wheat fields looked as if they had been burned, even the roots
eaten. Not a leaf on the trees. My husband's coat lying outside was
riddled. Back of the house where they had flown against it they were
piled up four feet high. They went on after awhile leaving their eggs to
hatch and ruin the crops the following year. And enough the second for
the third, though we did everything. The last year the county offered a
bounty of three cents a bushel for them and my little boy, four years
old, caught enough with a net to buy himself a two dollar pair of boots.
You can perhaps get an idea how thick they were from that. The rail
fences used to look as if they were enormous and bronzed. The
grasshoppers absolutely covered them.

We lived only a short distance from my father's farm. One afternoon I
saw smoke coming from there and could hear explosions like that of
cannon. I caught our pony, jumped on bareback, and dashed for their
home. We trusted the Indians and yet we did not. They were so different
from the whites. I thought they had attacked the family. I don't know
how I expected to help without a weapon of any kind, but on I went. When
I got there I saw my father and mother tearing a board fence down. A
swamp on the place was afire and the fire coming through that long swamp
grass very rapidly. The swamp had a number of large willows and when the
fire would reach them they would explode with a noise like a cannon. I
don't know why, but I have heard many of the old settlers tell of
similar experiences. I jumped off the pony and helped tear down the
fence.

Governor Swift had paid me $5.00 to make him a buffalo coat. I had put
it all into "nigger blue" calico and had the dress on. When we went into
the house mother said, "What a shame you have spoiled your new dress." I
could see nothing wrong, but in the back there was a hole over twelve
inches square burned out.

Another time my husband was a short distance from the house putting up
wild hay. We had several fine stacks of it near the house in the
stubble. I happened to glance out and saw our neighbor's stacks burning
and the fire coming through the stubble for ours. I grabbed a blanket,
wet it soaking and dragging that and a great pail of water, made for the