Page:Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow monochrome.djvu/68

 dilemma we had to resort to graters, made by perforating tin pails and stovepipes, on which we grated corn for bread material. We tried boiled wheat, but found that it did not retain much nourishment; and our grated corn meal, when cooked by the usual process of bread making, was not quite so solid as lead, but bore a more than satisfactory resemblance to it. "Necessity, the mother of invention," prompted experimenting, and we set our wits to work to make our meal not only eatable, but palatable.

We had a fine crop of "Missouri pumpkins" (which, being interpreted, means the choicest kind), produced from the soil our father bought; these we stewed with a good supply of moisture, and when boiling hot, stirred it into our grated meal, which, when seasoned with salt and nicely baked—well buttered or in milk, was really very delicious; the main thing was to get enough, especially after the mob had driven in the scattered settlers, by which the number of our family was increased to twenty-five.

Elder Abel Butterfield, Lorenzo's traveling companion, was stopping with us, while waiting for my brother to regain his strength sufficient for travel, and as he required clothing made, previous to departure, my sister proposed to join me in doing his needle work, tailoring, etc., if, he would give his time in grating meal for the family, which he gladly accepted. It was hard work, and after he left, we took it by turns, soaking the corn when it became so dry as to shell from the cob.

Not long after our young missionaries left us, very early one morning, we were utterly astonished with the announcement that all of our neighbors, the "old settlers," including those of whom our father had purchased, had fled the country. On entering some of the vacated houses, clocks were seen ticking the time, coffee-pots boiling the coffee, and everything indicating a precipitate and compulsory flight. What could be the cause, and what the meaning of this unprecedented and really ominous movement was veiled in the