He took a seat, took his knife from his belt, stuck it
into the floor, then told Asa to pick it up and hand it to him; he
repeated this action several times, and Asa obeyed him every time. He,
seeing that the white man was afraid, said: "I have taken off the scalps
of six damned Yankees with this knife and me take off one more."
When father heard this, with other things he had said, he thought he was
the intended victim. We were all very much frightened. Whenever father
was out mother was uneasy until his return, and he feared that the
Indian, who always carried his rifle, might lay in ambush, and shoot him
when he was at work.
One day he came along, as usual, from Dearbornville and passed our house.
Father saw him, came in, took his rifle down from the hooks and told
mother he believed he would shoot first. Mother would not hear a word to
it and after living a year or two longer, in mortal fear of him, he died
a natural death. We learned afterward that Joseph Pardee was the man he
had intended to kill. He said, "Pardee had cut a bee-tree that belonged
to Indian."
According to his previous calculation, on our arrival, father bought, in
mother's name, eighty acres more, constituting the south-west quarter of
section thirty-four, town two, south of range ten, east; bounded on the
south by the south line of the town of Dearbon.
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