Pioneer woman Part 3: Rats, grasshoppers, a log house

Perhaps our mystery pioneer woman did not reveal her name because at times in her reminiscing she is brutally honest in her misgivings; but, no matter what, she stayed, certainly not because their life was filled with earthly riches of the monetary kind. I’ll resume her story, which as you remember from last week, with their setting up housekeeping in a tent with a dugout kitchen resplendent with pots and griddles hung on the post.

“Our motto in starting out was, “to take everything as we found it and make the best of it,” but there were times when in loneliness and homesickness, I would stand at the tent door and ponder the wisdom of our coming to this country; and seeing my shadow cast by the burning sun on the parched earth, I found myself tearfully wondering: -“Is it possible this is I! and this is Nebraska and not Kentucky!” I was indeed transplanted, but must confess after 20 years, though I’ve never been out of the county, have not taken root.”

“I lay on my pallet and saw toads hopping; and centipedes were the bane of my life. Rattlesnakes of enormous size abounded and gartersnakes four feet long and bugs and worms of all kinds; but the most appalling pests were the mosquitos! We were not accustomed to them, never had seen but a few, but they were a terror here. It was impossible for the men to work in the woods without some kind of pungent oil on face, hands and neck and a towel over the head; and when it happened to be damp or cloudy, my life was a misery.”

“Wood rats were numerous and there was nothing they could handle but what they carried off. One of the settlers had a store on his claim and traded in hides and furs. There was one family with several boys, and the trader offered these boys ten cents a piece for rat hides. When they took him two hundred and forty in one batch, he told them he didn’t want any more! We laughed at him about glutting his market so soon.”

“We lived in the tent fourteen months, then moved into the log house, with one more in family, for one, cold, stormy Easter, our little firstling came to us. Not a physician within one hundred miles we had primitive ways. In sickness my husband was physician, nurse, friend, washerwoman and cook. The scourge of grasshoppers come upon us, three years in succession. Various plans were resorted to, to prevent the ravages, but all of no avail. Smokes were made, burning sulfur dragged over the field, two persons, each taking the end of a rope going over the corn, but we sat on our porch and would see the growing crops disappear as if by magic, only the base stalks remaining. The trees in the woods were stripped and sometimes they were in such clouds as to cast a shadow on the ground and sim the sunshine. They looked like smoke as they rose from the horizon and disappeared below it. We managed to buy a sow, but having nothing to feed her, had to kill her, convert the whole into sausage and then boil in water, because there was no fat to cook it otherwise. Potato bugs were destructive, too. We went through the patch time and again, with a stick to knock them into a pan and put them into boiling water, but still they destroyed the crop. Afterwards, in later years, we got in reach of Paris Green and this enemy was conquered. Ropes were scarce, and “J” learned of the soldiers how to braid rawhide and he braided lariats one hundred feet long. The lariat was used for all purposes. Horses and cows were tied out, and if a hog kept getting out of the pen, or a rooster scratch up the garden, or an old gobber persist in sliting, the lariat was resorted to and the offender fastened to a stake. Various kinds of meat were tried in times of scarcity. Before the Bostonian become disgusted with the life and left, he cooked and ate prairie dog and pronounced it good. One of our neighbors gave us part of a beaver and I liked the spicy flavor.”

In the re-telling of her story, I have not changed the vernacular she used. I’m not sure what sliting meant but it could have been referring to how tom turkeys will attack their competitors, intruders or enemies with their spurs. Her hardships are real to her but as you will see in the next installment, she feels the new generation does not understand how hard reality was for the pioneer woman.