Could Elliott
have heard, in his dying moments, that this prayer was soon to be
answered, so far as Mrs. Reed and her little ones were concerned, he
would have welcomed death joyfully.
As time wore wearily on, another and more severe trial awaited Mrs.
Reed. Her daughter Virginia was dying. The innutritious rawhide was not
sufficient to sustain life in the poor, famished body of the delicate
child. Indeed, toward the last, her system became so debilitated that
she found it impossible to eat the loathsome, glue-like preparation
which formed their only food. Silently she had endured her sufferings,
until she was at the very portals of death. This beautiful girl was a
great favorite of Mrs. Breen's. Oftentimes during the days of horror and
despair, this good Irish mother had managed, unobserved, to slip an
extra piece of meat or morsel of food to Virginia. Mrs. Breen was the
first to discover that the mark of death was visible upon the girl's
brow. In order to break the news to Mrs. Reed, without giving those in
the cabin a shock which might prove fatal, Mrs. Breen asked the mother
up out of the cabin on the crisp, white snow.
It was the evening of the nineteenth of February, 1847. The sun was
setting, and his rays, in long, lance-like lines, sifted through the
darkening forests.
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