This Monday morning we are sitting in Richfield, MN. Yesterday Mary wanted to participate in a Germans from Russia research group meeting at Concordia University in St. Paul, so down we come with little ole me the chauffeur. Actually to get us from Clint and Robyn's place in Richfield they acted as chauffeurs to get us to Concordia. I hate the thought of trying to find my way around here and driving in this traffic.
I stayed with Mary at Concordia, and having my little laptop with me, I was able to find a quiet spot and write more on my story. The opening paragraph goes like this: From the top of the northern-most blockhouse a sentry stood in his sweat-soaked uniform looking out over the hill where the burning sun beat down, as it had for several days. No one in the garrison could escape this heat, not even after the sun had set and the dark of the night closed in around them. The only green the trooper could find as he surveyed the countryside was in the grass surrounding the flowing spring at the bottom of the hill. There, two girls, maybe eight or nine years of age, kneeled to fill water bags with the clear, cool liquid. They were members of a camp of halfbreeds pitched just outside the fort, having gathered there to trade for goods in the suttler's store. When they finished, he watched them lift their containers into a small cart, slap the reins of the back of a pony, and start back. The girls seemed to be enjoying their chore even though they made the trip to the spring several times a day, laughing and chirruping as they bounced along.
The story tells of an occurrence at Fort Ransom in 1867 when a huge prairie fire roared upon the camp, and sadly, caught the two girls as they tried to escape in their cart.
