Margaret Fuller (Marchioness Ossoli) made a journey
into the Western States, in company with Mrs. Clarke
(the mother of those tall sons). Providence led her to
the colonists on Pine Lake. Captain Schneidanu was
then lying on his sick-bed with an injury of the leg,
which had kept him there for some months. His handsome
young wife had been obliged, during that severe
winter, to do the most menial work; had seen her first-born
little one frozen to death in its bed, in the room
into which snow and rain found entrance. And they
were in the midst of the wilderness alone. They had no
means of obtaining help, which was extremely expensive
in this district; the maid-servant whom they had for a
short time had left them, and their neighbours were too
far off, or were themselves also suffering under similar
want. And now came the two ladies from Boston.
Margaret Fuller thus writes of her visit, in her “Summer on the Lakes:”
“In the inner-room the master of the house was seated; he had been sitting there long, for he had injured his foot on shipboard, and his farming had to be done by proxy. His beautiful young wife was his only attendant and nurse, as well as farm-house keeper; and how well she performed hard and unaccustomed duties, the objects of her care showed; everything belonging to the house was rude but neatly arranged; the invalid, confined to an uneasy wooden chair (they had not been able to induce anyone to bring them an easy chair from town), looked as neat and elegant as if he had been dressed by the valet of a duke. He was of noble blood, with clear, full blue eyes, calm features, a tempering of the soldier, scholar, and man of the world, in his aspect; he formed a great but pleasing contrast to his wife, whose glowing complexion and dark mellow eye bespoke an origin in some climate more familiar with the sun. He looked as if he could sit there a great while patiently, and live on his own
