The Kansas troubles reached their highest pitch in the spring of 1856, and our family continued to be harassed as much as ever by our old enemies.  I cannot now recollect one-half of the serious difficulties that we had to encounter; but I very distinctly remember one incident well worth relating.  I came home one night on a visit from Leavenworth, being accompanied by a fellow-herder—­a young man.  During the night we heard a noise outside of the house, and soon the dogs began barking loudly.  We looked out to ascertain the cause of the disturbance, and saw that the house was surrounded by a party of men.  Mother had become accustomed to such occurrences, and on this occasion she seemed to be master of the situation from the start.  Opening a window, she coolly sang out, in a firm tone of voice:  “Who are you?  What do you want here?”

“We are after that old abolition husband of yours,” was the answer from one of the crowd.

“He is not in this house, and has not been here for a long time,” said my mother.

“That’s a lie!  We know he is in the house, and we are bound to have him,” said the spokesman of the party.

I afterwards learned they had mistaken the herder, who had ridden home with me, for my father for whom they had been watching.

“My husband is not at home,” emphatically repeated my heroic mother—­for if there ever was a heroine she certainly was one—­“but the house is full of armed men,” continued she, “and I’ll give you just two minutes to get out of the yard; if you are not out by the end of that time I shall order them to fire on you.”

She withdrew from the window for a few moments and hurridly instructed the herder to call aloud certain names—­any that he might think of—­just as if the house was full of men to whom he was giving orders.  He followed her directions to the very letter.  He could not have done it any better had he rehearsed the act a dozen times.

The party outside heard him, as it was intended they should, and they supposed that my mother really had quite a force at her command.  While this little by play was being enacted, she stepped to the open window again and said: 

“John Green, you and your friends had better go away or the men will surely fire on you.”

At this, point the herder, myself and my sisters commenced stamping on the floor in imitation of a squad of soldiers, and the herder issued his orders in a loud voice to his imaginary troops, who were apparently approaching the window preparatory to firing a volley at the enemy.  This little stratagem proved eminently successful.  The cowardly villains began retreating, and then my mother fired an old gun into the air which greatly accelerated their speed, causing them to break and run.  They soon disappeared from view in the darkness.

The next morning we accidentally discovered that they had intended to blow up the house.  Upon going into the cellar which had been left open on one side, we found two kegs of powder together with a fuse secreted there.  It only required a lighted match to have sent us into eternity.  My mother’s presence of mind, which had never yet deserted her in any trying situation, had saved our lives.