Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow: One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsSnow, Eliza R. (Eliza Roxey)
Religion
Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow: One of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Snow, Eliza R. (Eliza Roxey)
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; Snow family; Snow, Lorenzo, 1814-1901
Before we left, the former owner of the place where we lived, came in,
and looking around very impudently, inquired how soon we would be out
of the house. It required an effort, but we suppressed our feelings of
indignation.
The weather was extremely cold, and the morning we bid adieu to our
honorably and honestly acquired transitory home, and much property
which we were obliged to leave, after assisting what I could, I started
before the teams, to warm my feet by walking. While musing on the
changing and wonderful vicissitudes of mortal life as I walked quietly
and alone, I was interrupted in my meditations by the approach of one
of the militia. After the usual salutations of "Good morning," he said:
"_I think this will cure you of your faith_." I looked him in the eye,
and, with emphasis, replied, "No, sir, it will take more than this to
cure me of my faith." His countenance dropped, and he said, "_Well, I
must confess you are a better soldier than I am_." And we parted.
It took two days to go by team to Far West, and seventy-five persons,
pilgrims like ourselves, put up at our stopping place for the night. It
was a small vacated log house of one room only, which was the general
nightly resort of people traveling from Di-Ahman to Far West. As we
found it, the chinkings between the logs had been torn out, leaving
open spaces through which gusts of wind had free play. When we arrived,
the provisions we brought were solidly frozen, and the crowd of people
was so dense, we could not avail ourselves of the fire. But we must
have supper, and we could not eat hard frozen bread, and we adopted the
following: The boys milked our cows, and before the milk was strained,
one of us held the dish while another sliced the bread, and the third
strained the warm milk into it, which thawed the bread; thus one after
another, until all were plentifully served.
Bed time came, but there was no room for beds, except for the sick,
and, indeed, there was very little sitting room. Our mother was quite
feeble through fatigue and exposure, and we managed to fix a place
for her to lie down, while our sister and myself sat on the floor,
one on each side, to ward off the crowd. I can well remember that
ever memorable night--how I dare not move lest I should disturb those
around me, so closely were we packed. And withal, it was a jolly time,
although with the majority, a sleepless night. Some ten or fifteen
feet from the house was a small horse shed, in the centre of which the
brethren built a roaring fire, and around it they stood, sometimes
dancing to keep warm, some roasting potatoes, while others parched
corn, and all joining in singing hymns and songs, merrily passing off
the hours till the morning dawn. Many started very early, which gave us
access to the fire for our morning meal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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