Soon the great storm which had been lowering broke upon us.  We were not exposed to its fury as were those who had just gone from us, but we knew when it came, for snow drifted down upon our bed and had to be scraped off before we could rise.  We were not allowed near the fire and spent most of our time on our bed of branches.

Dear, kind Mrs. Murphy, who for months had taken care of her own son Simon, and her grandson George Foster, and little James Eddy, gave us a share of her motherly attention, and tried to feed and comfort us.  Affliction and famine, however, had well nigh sapped her strength and by the time those plaintive voices ceased to cry for bread and meat, her willing hands were too weakened to do much for us.

I remember being awakened while there by two little arms clasped suddenly and tightly about me, and I heard Frances say,

“No, she shall not go with you.  You want to kill her!”

Near us stood Keseberg, the man with the bushy hair.  In limping past our sleeping place, he had stopped and said something about taking me away with him, which so frightened my sisters that they believed my life in danger, and would not let me move beyond their reach while we remained in that dungeon.  We spoke in whispers, suffered as much as the starving children in Joseph’s time, and were more afraid than Daniel in the den of lions.

How long the storm had lasted, we did not know, nor how many days we had been there.  We were forlorn as children can possibly be, when Simon Murphy, who was older than Frances, climbed to his usual “look out” on the snow above the cabin to see if any help were coming.  He returned to us, stammering in his eagerness: 

“I seen—­a woman—­on snow shoes—­coming from the other camp!  She’s a little woman—­like Mrs. Donner.  She is not looking this way—­and may pass!”

Hardly had he spoken her name, before we had gathered around him and were imploring him to hurry back and call our mother.  We were too excited to follow him up the steps.

She came to us quickly, with all the tenderness and courage needed to lessen our troubles and soften our fears.  Oh, how glad we were to see her, and how thankful she appeared to be with us once more!  We heard it in her voice and saw it in her face; and when we begged her not to leave us, she could not answer, but clasped us closer to her bosom, kissed us anew for father’s sake, then told how the storm had distressed them.  Often had they hoped that we had reached the cabins too late to join the Relief—­then in grieving anguish felt that we had, and might not live to cross the summit.

She had watched the fall of snow, and measured its depth; had seen it drift between the two camps making the way so treacherous that no one had dared to cross it until the day before her own coming; then she induced Mr. Clark to try to ascertain if Messrs. Cady and Stone had really got us to the cabins in time to go with the Second Relief.