|
|
|
02/15/07 |
 
|
Then, as spring came and the Saints saw the first greens again, how their hopes were raised! Then came the great horde of black crickets that they had seen in the foothills, as they were coming into the valley! The Indians had been gathering them to use for winter food. The insignificant cricket an inch and a half long, of clumsy, loathsome, black body, multiplied into million. They swept down upon the ripening grain and destroyed anything in their path. All the things the pioneers tried seemed useless. Men, women, and children worked to beat them off the grain. They tried to drown them in ditches and they tried to drive them into fires, they buried them in trenches. They even tried using long pieces of string held by a person at each end, who would walk through the fields, knocking the crickets off the wheat. They cried, and they prayed, and just when all seemed lost the sky was darkened and great clouds of big grey and white birds came down and the plague was stayed! The seagulls would gorge themselves on the crickets until they could hold no more, and then they would disgorge themselves, return and eat and disgorge again. This went on for about three weeks from morning until night. Thus, some of the precious crop were saved! It was indeed a miracle and an answer to their many prayers, something that young Harriet would never forget! The Story of Samuel Moore and Eunice Sibley Bliss, Originally Compiled by Connie Annetta Sorensen Rausch Sept. 1985, Found at: Daughters of the Utah Pioneers, Salt Lake City, Utah
|
|
This site was last updated 01/31/07