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By Root 1608 0

ceased to be a virtue," the editor called for the proslave faction to "strike your piercing rifle-balls and your glittering steel to their black and poisonous hearts!" Their strategy seemed to be like that of a man who attacks another in a barroom and then, when he has his victim at the point of death, starts screaming that he is being terribly injured and must kill his victim in order to save himself. For the most part, these papers and the reports of what the proslave faction said of us were almost more inflaming than their actions, because they seemed calculated to insult us and deny the truth of what was all around us. Many in Lawrence, I have to say, were nicely warmed by resentment of these insults.

But for others, myself among them, the prolonged frigid weather made even the prospect of being hanged, shot, dismembered, killed, or otherwise cleared out rather an abstract one. The possibility of being frozen to death was distinctly more likely. Every day at the end of January and the beginning of February, gangs of men went out on the ice of the river dressed in every item of clothing that they could find, plus buffalo skins and blankets, like the Indians, to chop wood and carry it into town on every form of sledge or sleigh. The horses and mules wore blankets, too, though they were as furry as they could be. Most days, Charles and Thomas went with these parties, though some evenings the two of them were detailed to guard the town. No one knew when the Missourians would cross the border and make their attack. On the one hand, we feared it would be soon, and given Lawrence’s position, we would be unable to defend ourselves, but on the other hand, we feared it would be later, when there would be many more of them.

Some days, Charles and Thomas went to Leavenworth to get the mail, only to find once they got there that the mail had been stolen or destroyed in Missouri. Of course, the postmaster at Leavenworth didn’t say that the absent mail was stolen or destroyed, but all of Lawrence knew that it had been—enough got through to indicate what had not gotten through: all sorts of people were expecting bank drafts, letters, and goods that their relatives and friends in the east proposed to send or had sent, but they disappeared in Missouri.

Louisa kept her fires going and put on another light shawl, and when the men were out, she marched back and forth between our two rooms, knitting as she went. Unlike me, she was an excellent needlewoman, and it took her only a short time to knit up a cap or some mittens from her stock of wool. Most of these she knitted in children’s sizes and gave away to anyone she heard of who was poor or cold. I sat beside the fire, doing my best to get through our sewing. Louisa was alive to the rights and wrongs of our cause, and it was at this time that she somehow got to be acquainted with General Lane, an acquaintanceship that, as I have said, soon extended to Charles and lasted as long as General Lane was alive. And yet, even though General Lane and Louisa quickly became intimates, there was never the least gossip that their friendship was of the wrong sort. Considering General Lane’s well-deserved reputation, this was a great testament to Louisa’s strength of character.

I doubt that General Lane remembered from one time to the next that he had ever met me, but I certainly noticed him, for he was very noticeable and liked to be noticed. Perhaps knowing that he would never pass for a figure of elegance, he adopted quite the opposite standard and dressed very roughly, even for a Kansan. But he was a compelling-looking gentleman, as Louisa would say (often did say), with thick dark hair, pleasing, regular features, and a surpassingly intense gaze. His great rival then and for the rest of his life was Dr., then Governor, Robinson. Of the two, Robinson had lived the wilder and more exciting life, with stints in California and the war in Mexico, but he had the looks and demeanor of a steady man of middle age, while General Lane, who was ambitious, certainly, but had simply come to K.T. from Indiana,