J 
 
 
ILLUSTRATED BY 
 
 ESSIE G.SAWTELLE. \ 
 
THE HEROINE OF 49 
 
 A STORY 
 
 OF THE Pf\GIFIG GOfVST. 
 
 By MRS. M. P. SAWTELLE, M. D. 
 
 Of San Francisco, Cal. 
 
 Copyright, 1891, by Mrs. M. P. Sawtelle, M. D.; in the office of 
 the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 
 
PRESS NOTICES OF THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 We herewith return thanks for the many complimentary notcies received 
 from the press, and give a few extracts from some of the leading newspapers: 
 
 "The story presents a realistic picture of frontier life in California." 
 Chicago Herald. 
 
 " The brave, young heroine, with a courage so sublime as to seem ideal, 
 passes through her tremendous trials, and by lofty courage and indomitable 
 perseverance wins her way to a sweet, noble and successful life." Seattle 
 Press-Times. 
 
 " It portrays in a very striking manner some of the evil effects of the law 
 approved ethics of pioneer days. The entire work is alive with the journalistic 
 touch and genuine newspaper instinct." Stockton (Cal.) Mail. 
 
 " Her characters are drawn from real life, and the incidents of the story 
 give a glimpse of domestic life on the Pacific coast during the days of its early 
 settlement. She writes with feeling, and often with power." 8. F. Bulletin. 
 
 "She has produced a graphic sketch of pioneer days on this coast. The 
 book depicts a life which is now only a memory ^among the generation that is 
 fast passing away, and, therefore, aside from its ethical purpose, it has a. value as a 
 picture of the pioneer days." S. F. Chronicle. 
 
 " In her most interesting book, Dr. Sawtelle has given a vivid picture of 
 the conditions which prevailed and which governed society life in the early days 
 on the Pacific coast. All this she has portrayed with a strong, true hand and an 
 unflinching purpose, so that the book stands outside the pale of romance asa 
 social and ethical study of the relations of men and women, of the duty of 
 parents to children, and of the further relation of the government to all its 
 wards. In all that she has treated of, there is a feminine delicacy of truth that 
 makes the book attractive in spirit, while it is none the less strong in pur 
 pose." SALLIE JOY WHIT* of Boston Herald. 
 
 " The book is well worth reading." S. F. Evening Post. 
 
 "The material existed for an excellent story, and Dr. Sawtelle certainly 
 has made good use of it. The book is one that will do much good if widely cir 
 culated." Los Angeles Herald. 
 
 " She writes with dramatic power and tells her story well. The heroine is 
 a high type of American girlhood, and develops into a most charming character 
 of perfect womanhood." S. F. News-Letter. 
 
 "A California novel of wide merit one which points a moral which few 
 authors would assume to point. It has a force and vigor which appeals to the 
 strong mind. A good book that can be profitably read by all." Ukiah Press. 
 
 " This tale of pioneer days in California, and of those who cast their lot 
 among the gold-hunters, is pleasantly touched upon and worthy of perusal. 
 The work is a splendid one and should be read by every one, whether pioneers 
 of the golden state or not." Si. Helena Star. 
 
 " The Heroine of 49, a story by Mary P. Sawtelle, M. D., has met with a 
 large sale, and already a new edition is called for. It will be revised, beautifully 
 illustrated and richly bound. The story is full of interesting incidents, the 
 characters being a young prospector seeking for gold, an Indian maiden, and 
 the usual sturdy persons of a mining camp." Argonaut. 
 
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY. 
 
 11 Why hold the government to account for infant girls being married to 
 secure land?" 
 
 Let the government deal as honorably with its women as its men. If it 
 gives a donation of land to women, why tack on the damaging clause "all 
 married women?" Is there a case on record where a land law was ever weighed 
 down with the clause" all married men?" 
 
 A matured, brainy physician writes : " I was overwhelmed with rage, from 
 cover to cover, but the book will be read. It will change the laws of property 
 and marriage for women, and will be translated into every civilized tongue." 
 
 A minister s wife writes: "Why didn t you make the Indian Caweecha kill 
 Miser?" 
 
 For the delectation of the sanguinary critics, the Indian will enact the 
 murder of Miser in the forthcoming drama of " The Heroine of 49." 
 
 A learned gentleman writes, desiring to know why we did not write like 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 Another one complains that it is " not equal to George Eliot s Mill on the 
 Floss "another "that it is not as artistic as Helen Hunt Jackson s Ramona " 
 and all with one accord declare that " Mrs. Murdstone is a fool." 
 
 She is a true, representative American mother, my dear lady critics. 
 
 Another critic writes: "The best passage in the book, or perhaps in the 
 English language, is where Jean says to her gray-haired friends, whose hearts 
 are true as steel, that all the laws and law-makers in the world can t ruin me ; 
 ril still be myself. 1 " 
 
 Another critic writes : " Why arraign a man before the bar of public opinion 
 for deeds committed forty years ago, when, no doubt, he has repented of them 
 long ago?" If he has repented, let him strip off his befouled ermine, worn so 
 long that the stench reaches to high heaven, and has tainted every other bench 
 in the land, casting a stigma upon the very name of judge, that no poor words 
 of ours, though brewed in bitterest gall, could ever do. Let him pay back the 
 ill-gotten gain to its rightful owners he so basely wronged, and do what poor 
 right is still in his power to do; let him do it now before he enters into the dark 
 unknown, where hissing devils will whisper remorse forever in his ears, and 
 where, before his unrepenting eyes, red-hot fiends will tear clinging babes from 
 tender mothers arms f orevermore. 
 
ace. 
 
 "AN EYE FOR AN EYE, and a tootli for a tooth," is the 
 old Mosaic law that has filled the world with admira 
 tion; the equity that admits of no fine balancing or 
 quibbling with the scales of justice "a consummation 
 devoutly to be wished." 
 
 This little work was undertaken with the hope of 
 awakening this sense of equity in regard to our girls, 
 and placing them as nature has done, on a fair footing 
 with their brothers. 
 
 People who are stung by the conviction that they 
 have aided in the great wrong of inveigling young 
 maidens into early marriages, will perhaps denounce 
 us as having exceeded the bounds of cool philosophy 
 in our criticism on the early marriages of girls. But 
 the first dawn of reason brought to our mind the full 
 tide of the overwhelming falsehood that girls arrive at 
 the ags of maturity sooner than boys girls being 
 legally of age at eighteen and boys at twenty-one to 
 gether with its evil effects upon the individual, as well 
 as upon the whole human race; and "though the 
 heavens fall," we are compelled to speak the truth, and 
 not complacently smile at this monster lie any longer. 
 
 The laws governing the property of girls, as well as 
 those of the marriage rites, are based most basely on 
 this idea. The wonder is, that a fact so wide of the 
 truth and fraught with so much evil and not an atom of 
 good, could acquire such a hold on honest people and 
 not find someone to refute it long ago. 
 
 We defy any physiologist to find, in the whole realm 
 jf nature, an atom of fact that will substantiate the 
 lie that girls grow faster than boys. We defy a person 
 
6 PREFACE. 
 
 living to bring an instance of one case, from an ele 
 phant to a mouse, including the human race, where the 
 parents can produce male offspring that will mature 
 less rapidly than the female offspring. Nature would 
 have to invent a new kind of parentage before she 
 could accomplish this great feat. Let any physician 
 refute this who can, but let him not forget that the 
 author still holds a pen. There are profound phy 
 siological laws governing growth and maturity that few 
 people could be made to comprehend. Even the aver 
 age physician would have to be better versed in physi 
 ology than he is, we are sorry to say, before he could 
 grasp these great truths that are before him, working 
 out, with unerring precision, the great laws of growth, 
 maturity and decay. 
 
 Just as the last drop of ink is drained from our pen, 
 there comes through the papers a wail from a great 
 statesman, because forsooth, a woman older than his 
 son has inveigled the youth of seventeen into marriage. 
 The blizzard of early marriage seems to have struck 
 the astute stateman hard, making his howl of pain reach 
 from Maine to Oregon. Though thought by some to be 
 the one man of brains in the United States, and though 
 his giant intellect is always bubbling and boiling like 
 the witches caldron, for the good of the people, yet 
 the comforting thought has never entered his head 
 that " What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the 
 gander." 
 
 If every girl in America were married at seventeen, 
 there would not have been such a sensation as has been 
 raised over this seventeen-year-old weakling because 
 he is a boy and will some day be a man. It would be 
 most absurd for one to suppose for a moment that 
 this great statesman could waste his time in better 
 ing the condition of women. Women! What are 
 women? Nothing but the mothers of men. 
 
 We are not a statesman and haven t been attitudinizing 
 for the last thirty years for the highest position in the 
 gift of the people, yet we know enough to tell you that 
 
PREFACE. T 
 
 you had better marry your sons a thousand to one, at 
 seventeen, than your daughters at that tender age and 
 we shall ever pray that the idea may be instilled into 
 the hearts of the people till every parent whose daughter 
 is married at seventeen will be as painfully shocked 
 as this man was at the marriage of his son at that 
 immature age. 
 
 The characters in the story are drawn from real life. 
 No living author could have produced them without 
 witnessing the scenes depicted in the work. It covers 
 a new, romantic, broad field. The characters are 
 
 fDod and bad, just as they existed; Murdstone being 
 rst cousin to Dickens s Murdstone, in David Copper- 
 field. Everybody is familiar with that hard character. 
 This Murdstone has, however, with bible in hand, de 
 termined to grind some good from out his own charac 
 ter, and there is hope for him. The world is as full of 
 Murdstones as it is of Smiths, and the name should be 
 used oftener to show up that hard type of man. It is 
 the intention of the author to try to make people see 
 the wrong they do to children by beating their flesh 
 to enlighten or cultivate their brains. The thing is 
 vile, and parental authority a crime ten times to one, 
 that should be abolished from families; love only, pa 
 rental love, guiding the childhood of our nation. 
 
 At the request of some upright judges and their 
 friends who thought the name "Boughtup " too sug 
 gestive, we have changed the name to Judge Didit. 
 
 It was never our intention to cast a slur on any 
 honorable court, but we would like to ask, if it is right 
 to thrust a person into jail for contempt of an honest 
 court, then is it not equally right to thrust the whole 
 world into jail if it does not hold in highest contempt a 
 dishonorable judge? 
 
 Judge Didit and Cursica Miser are characters too 
 often met with, alas, in real life, and if they did not 
 exist as they are portrayed, or act as they are repre 
 sented, the sun never hung in the heavens. 
 
 It is wonderful to note how the transaction of eight 
 
$ PREFACE. 
 
 thousand dollars, passing from the one man to the 
 other, left the one in the deepest obscurity, while the 
 other took the money and bloomed out where his das 
 tardly proceedings have made landmarks all along a 
 life brimful of iniquities perpetrated upon his fellows. 
 Feeling the necessity of a historic sketch giving at 
 least a glimpse of the family life of^the first settlers on 
 the Pacific Coast, this work was undertaken with the 
 hope that possibly its incompleteness may be the means 
 f inspiring some one to write a more perfect and com 
 plete account of this period, knowing how soon time 
 obliterates every vestige of the past; believing full well 
 that a time will come when a people enjoying the mag 
 nificence and marvelous wealth of these Pacific States 
 will look back with hearts filled with gratitude to the 
 people who laid the foundation for it all, made sacrifices 
 and endured privations that would be difficult for any 
 historian, however accurate or gifted, to portray, and 
 any account of those days, however imperfect, will be 
 held sacred by them forever. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 JEWELS OR NO JEWELS. 
 
 It was the winter of 1871 in New York City. "We were 
 at dinner in the richly draped, warm dining-room of 
 the brownstone-front mansion of the banker Barron. 
 The cheerful warmth of the room contrasted strongly 
 with the outside sleet and snow that was just beginning 
 to fall; it gave a soft glow to the silken draperies and 
 bright mirrors that served as doors on the china 
 closets, and extended from ceiling to floor, reflecting 
 the warm light of the fire, the stately clock above it 
 that told of the flight of time in a chime of bells, and 
 the fine, old, carved oaken side-board, with its antique 
 Persian ewer and tray of exquisite beauty, and its 
 dainty blue and gold china; for Mr. Barron was not a 
 poor banker he was a millionaire. 
 
 Jean Reining had been at the home of her queenly 
 sister-in-law a whole week, stupid mortal, and had 
 not observed that in eating soup (if such esthetic 
 mortals could be said to eat soup and not absorb it) 
 they dipped the soup away from them instead of to 
 wards them in conveying it to the mouth. We had 
 finished soup, however, and fish and fowl had been 
 brought, and Mr. Barron was carving with that ease 
 that comes only with practice. Madam Barron sat 
 waiting, resplendent in her beauty and jewels, flashing 
 her wit at Jean Reming She said: "You will write 
 
10 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 a story and put us all in it the bears of the Sierras 
 and the bankers of New York." And Mr. Ban-on 
 remarked: " Bears are good to write about, I am sure. 
 I have just bought a fine skin for a carriage robe that 
 is rich, black and glossy." " Perhaps, 7 said Madam, 
 " Mr. Barron will lend you the robe to enable you to 
 give a more accurate description of the bears/ " Oh, 
 that would be tame indeed," said Jean, brightly. " I 
 shall have real wild bears, perhaps not in * droves of 
 five hundred/ as Sam Slimmins describes them in 
 Picturesque Sierras, 1 but one, now and again, roaming 
 in dignified solitude, helping himself to acorns a 
 harmless, proper creature enough when you do not 
 venture to encroach upon his dominions. My ideal 
 bear would never wander into this great city and 
 molest you." 
 
 " What is the title of your book to be, Jean ? " in 
 quired Madam Barron. 
 
 " Now, really, I do not know what to call the book; 
 it s the most puzzling question I will have to grapple 
 with," answered Jean, feeling that she was being 
 laughed at, and wishing that Madam had her dinner 
 0n her plate so that she could give her attention to 
 that and not be able to talk any more, when to Jean s 
 relief, Madam said, with a little laugh, " I have it, I 
 will help you this much, call it Why is this Thus? 
 
 "Goodjenough," answered Jean with a smile. " The 
 book, if it is ever written, shall be called by your title," 
 
 " How soon shall you publish it? " asked Mr. Barron, 
 " I have promised Mark Steger that I will take one 
 hundred copies of his book that he is writing, entitled 
 * How Will it End ? and I will do as well by you." 
 
 " I shall be proud to have so good a reader, and will 
 order the bookseller to send you a hundred copies," 
 said Jean, plunging into her dinner with an appetite 
 that her sister-in-law s banter had only sharpened. 
 
 The two sisters-in-law were as unlike as could 
 well be. Madam Barron was a woman of thirty 
 years, with steel-gray eyes, dark hair, a Grecian nose, 
 
JEWELS OR NO JEWELS. 11 
 
 perfect features, and a complexion that rivaled a rose 
 in its fine tones. She was stately in her carriage, with 
 a touch of languor scarcely definable, and yet when you 
 came to know her, you would see that this love of ease 
 entered largely into her character, giving strong color 
 to all her acts. Her dress was of soft, pearl-gray silk, 
 one of Worth s, costing anywhere between three and 
 five hundred dollars. On her well-poised head, with 
 its wealth of rich, dark hair, hovered a dainty gold but 
 terfly, with eyes of costly diamonds, its outspread wings 
 seeming to flutter against her braids; diamonds fas 
 tened soft lace at her throat. 
 
 Madam Barren had been a poor girl, too, in her 
 childhood, but she had an ambitious aunt, who thought 
 it cheaper to spend one summer at Saratoga than to 
 care for her handsome niece many summers in the 
 humdrum town they lived in. Sure enough, one outing 
 did the business. Mr. Barron saw the beautiful Celia 
 at the opening ball of the season, danced with her 
 twice, and every mamma there decided the g i had won 
 her prize before the evening closed, and the gay throng 
 had passed from the bright scene into oblivion, to be 
 again reunited, walking, driving, boating, dancing again. 
 O, the happy, merry time ! Mr. Barron had only a 
 few days to spend from his business. Celia was far 
 too pretty a girl to leave un trammeled by an engage 
 ment. Her aunt was interviewed, Celia sought, and a 
 carefully arranged engagement made. Mr. Barron 
 always declared that he had to make love to his wife 
 all their married life because he had had no time to do 
 the usual amount of courting before, and surely he 
 always looked the lover and she the happy bride. 
 The aunt was the happiest mortal alive, saying 
 often: 
 
 "Supposing I had kept that splendid creature hid up 
 in that mountain village of Tuckertown, you would 
 never have had such a wife." 
 
 " O, yes, I should," declared Mr. Barron. " I never 
 
12 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 would have married any other girl than your niece, 
 Mrs. Mulford. I d have gone fishing for trout in Tuck- 
 ertown mill-ponds," heartily insisted Mr. Barron, " but 
 I should have found Celia." 
 
 The only thing that could be said to mar the ap 
 pointment of their elegant home and the seeming hap 
 piness of their marriage was that there never came any 
 little Barrens and Barronesses to add to their great 
 happiness; so to amuse themselves, they played that 
 Jean s little golden-haired Dot was their very own, 
 when mamma Jean was not near to hear. The little 
 lady would enter into the fun with as much zest as her 
 uncle and auntie did. They adopted her in their 
 hearts, bought her dresses that suited her type of 
 beauty, and petted her without stint. Every day her 
 loveliness increased, and she grew more charming in 
 her childlike ways. All their fondness and caressing, 
 however injudiciously lavished upon her, instead of 
 spoiling her, only brought out the more her eweet and 
 tender nature, as she nestled in the hearts of all who 
 saw her. Dot had hair like spun gold in the sunlight. 
 It fell in heavy waves all over her shoulders, reaching 
 below her sash, where it clustered in great heavy ring 
 lets that would have delighted the soul of a Titian. 
 Amie, the French maid, might brush it ever so straight, 
 and in a two minutes romp it would curl up in 
 those great, luscious curls at the ends, in the 
 most bewitching way. Dot had large eyes like 
 her mother, but they were blue, like her Auntie 
 Barren s. Her nose was slightly retroussb, with broad 
 nostrils that indicated good breathing capacity, and 
 insures to any animal good health. She had chubby 
 cheeks and a funny little mouth that she could kiss 
 very sweetly with, and with which she played the 
 diplomat in the most remarkable way; these kisses 
 deciding whether she should be a poor little girl and 
 live with Mama Jean all her life, or be the sole heiress 
 of her Uncle Barron, and always stay with Auntie 
 
JEWELS OR NO JEWELS. 13 
 
 Barren. Dot was a tall child for her five years, as 
 well rounded in limb and firm of flesh as any young 
 filly that ever won a race. No sculptor could ask for 
 a finer model; there was strength, endurance, delicacy, 
 perfection. The soft, velvety skin, glowing with health, 
 was not too white, but gave promise that a tinge of 
 the olive from Mamma Jean s dark eyes, hair and skin, 
 would assert itself in the little lady, and make for her 
 a wealth of rarest beauty when she grew to woman 
 hood. All the ills that children are usually tormented 
 with had touched her lightly, as water touches a duck s 
 back, and rolled off, much the same way, leaving her 
 bright, fresh, sunny as a great luscious La France rose 
 bud, giving promise of a long, strong, happy life, as a 
 morn in August gives promise of sunshine. 
 
 One evening as Madam Barron and Jean sat alone 
 in the library, Madame said in confidential, sisterly 
 tones: u Jean, my dear, I never in my life saw a hand 
 and arm so exquisitely molded as yours is," and Jean 
 raised her big brown eyes and answered in charming 
 frankness: " You surprise and please me. If you were 
 anybody else, my dear sister, I should think that you 
 were flattering. If I have a grain of vanity about me 
 you have touched it. Our family historian has lately 
 chronicled the fact that our English grandmothers 
 \vere fond ot their shapely fingers, and really I think 
 it is something to be proud of." 
 
 " Indeed, Jeau, you should wear jewels," said Mrs. 
 Burron; and poor Jean looked up with her great eyes 
 a little saddened and answered: 
 
 "Oh, I never could." 
 
 Mrs. Barron thought that she meant she could not 
 afford the expense of jewels, and said: 
 
 " Oh, never mind, my dear, I am going to Tiffany s 
 next week to get some beautiful diamonds, and as I 
 have so many myself, I shall deem it a great favor if 
 you will accept them." 
 
 " I appreciate your kindness, my dear sister. I fear 
 
14 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 you do not understand me. I cannot wear jewels. My 
 nerves are sensitive. Perhaps I may be possessed of 
 the same feeling that men have about jewels; you see, 
 yourself, they do not wear them," said Jean in her 
 directness, being half afraid, all the while, that she 
 would offend Madam Barron, and so went on 
 
 " I think, I get as much enjoyment in seeing other 
 women wearing ornaments, and, perhaps, more than 
 they do. I enjoy the sparkle of diamonds," and was 
 just about to add that she did not like to see orna 
 ments in the ears, but remembering in time, that 
 Madam Barron had worn such heavy rings in her ears 
 that one had worn its way through the lobe of the ear 
 leaving a horrid deformity, she refrained from saying 
 that she thought it was a piece of barbarity to have 
 holes pierced in the flesh for the purpose of attaching 
 ornaments to the person. 
 
 " Don t allow me to impress you with the idea that 
 I do not wish to appear well no ones cares more 
 for personal attractiveness than I," said Jean quietly, 
 " but it is impossible for me to wear gold bands 
 pressing on the delicate tissues of my fingers. 
 I have tried it, and they suffocate me. I am 
 sensitive. I like soft laces, and light, warm cashmeres 
 to touch my flesh something like those worn by 
 the women of the Orient would suit me." Jean was 
 feeling that she was getting farther and farther from 
 her sister-in-law s idea of what was proper for women 
 of culture and refinement to wear, and so she queried : 
 
 " If I had all the jewels in Tiffany s great storehouse, 
 what do you think I would do with them? I would 
 sell them, as he does, but I would not take the money 
 and buy more. I would build a great work-house, a 
 sort of emergency establishment, where the laboring 
 classes when they were thrown out of employment 
 would find work and be sure of their daily bread, until 
 they could get their old work back again or secure 
 better occupation; where women who had lost their 
 
JEWELS OR NO JEWELS. 
 
 15 
 
 husbands, and had young children to support, could be 
 employed until they could find more remunerative 
 business. I would have great work-shops, where boys 
 and girls could learn how to become skilled laborers, 
 and, if I were our great national government, I would 
 build this kind of establishment in every state in the 
 Union, jewels or no jewels." 
 
 Madame Barren sat waiting, resplendent in her beauty and jewels, flashing 
 her wit at Jean Reining. 
 
CHAPTER IL 
 
 JEAN REMING. 
 
 Jean Eeming was a firmly-built, compact woman, of 
 medium size, with very large hazel-brown eyes. Her 
 queenly pose impressed one that she was a much larger 
 woman than she really was. Her strength of character 
 diffused itself about her like an atmosphere you felt 
 it as you feel the brightness of a June day, or the 
 breeze of an ocean sea-side. If she stepped into a 
 brilliant social company, all eyes were upon her ; if in 
 to a legislative body of statesmen, each great man 
 armed his wit with a keener edge, found words to 
 convey his subtlest meaning, feeling sure that the deep, 
 brown, soulful eyes of Jean Reming would fathom his 
 profoundest thought, if no one else did. 
 
 When Jean was a mere maiden, and lived on the 
 border of those vast forests of the Pacific Coast, where 
 rolled the mighty Oregon, and heard naught save its 
 own dashings, the Indian was touched by the same 
 feeling, something akin to awe, and on two or three 
 occaBions, this power of Jean s had prevented an out 
 break of the savages. The Indian, with heart raging 
 with all the untrained passions of hatred and revenge 
 for the pale-faced foe, had been subdued into burying 
 his tomahawk, and wheeling into good behavior, sim 
 ply by the presence of this young girl at the door of 
 his wigwam. The untamed soul of the desperate sav 
 age was made to feel that it was better to look for a day 
 of deliverance by appealing to the better part of hia 
 foe than by total extermination of the whites who were 
 trespassing on his landed estates which he held by in 
 heritance in fee simple. 
 
 Jean called this power her fate. She hated to be 
 
JEAN REMING. 17 
 
 observed, and since her earliest recollection, it had 
 been her misfortune to be. It made her retiring and 
 careful, both to a degree. Her movements, if studied, 
 were almost classical in grace, her smile was only a 
 bright ripple that scarcely moved a muscle of her fine 
 oval face, and quickly faded into a Madonna-like sad 
 ness. 
 
 Jean Reming, when a child was an only daughter of 
 Benjamin Ames, a clergyman who had five sons. It 
 may seem strange that Jean should come nearer taking 
 the place of her father, when he died while the children 
 were all small, than any of the sons. 
 
 The older sons, as it often happens, had to rustle for 
 themselves; so it came about that Jean should be the 
 prop of her mother whose constant companion she was. 
 Alfred, the youngest, was an infant only one year old, 
 "Will seven and Jean nine ; the other two boys, Ben 
 and Tom, twelve and fourteen. The eldest son had 
 been left at school in New England. The Ameses had 
 immigrated to this country only the year before. 
 
 Mrs. Ames was a New England wife and mother; left 
 on the broad prairie of an Illinois rented farm, when 
 her husband, dying, left her with a narrow income 
 strangely inadequate to the almost unlimited necessities 
 of a vigorously growing family. The mother was a 
 well-bred lady. Her thorough education stood her 
 well in the stirring time of her great need. She was 
 wholly untrained to do business, however. Jean Ames, 
 being the idol of the house, her mother was afraid her 
 daughter would grow up boyish,, because she was the 
 only girl among so many boys. But if there had been 
 five daughters instead of one, Jean s nature would 
 have asserted itself just the same. Mr. Ames was a 
 man of education, and knowing that he would be away 
 from home preaching, always kept everything in order 
 about the place. So Mrs. Ames decided to remain on 
 the farm with her little ones until the following spring, 
 as the wood was all piled up under the shed for the 
 
18 T1IK MUKOINU OL -I ). 
 
 long winter s use walnut. and hickory logs, llio bent 
 wo.nl that was over ]>ut into a big, old-fashioned, open- 
 faced fireplace in tlio woi ld to Mi row out a bright blaze, 
 drying tho snow from Mm boy s ibot or making you 
 ashamed to lota tear glisten on your face even for so 
 great a loss as a biisbaud and father Hither of such a 
 promising (lock as tlio litMo Ameses wore. And then 
 the Iced was all stowed away in Mio big barn lor tlio 
 horses, c >ws, sheep and voting ea.lUe; corn lor the, 
 cackling hens, waddling ducks and clamoring geese. 
 Tlio hogs wore belli ;- fattened, (ivory t hing in readiness 
 for the king of winter s Hiiro coining when alas! the 
 king of terror had swept away the falher so suddenly, 
 giving only four days warning. The neighbors had all 
 decided that it was a very foolish tiling for Mrs. Ames 
 to try to stay on the farm all winter lhat she OUght to 
 Bell OUt everything she could and jjfivo away the i-ost 
 a,nd o-o bac-k to her family ill tho Kast. A Mr. Toot, 
 living near, came in to say that as she was lolt in so 
 helpless a condition with her litMo ones, he would tako 
 homo her fattest hoi;- in the pen, kill it and brini; 
 her buck all tho hoi;-; he keeping tho head, I eot and 
 ollal for his trouble. M i-s. Ames smiled at the odd prop 
 osition, saying : u I i ear that will be poor pay lor your 
 trouble, Mr. Toot." 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Ames, I shall not mind doin^ you a kind 
 ness; the bible tolls us to be good to the widow and 
 fatherless." 
 
 Mrs. Amos wiped away a tear she could not repress 
 at hearing her lilt lo ones spoken of in this helpless way; 
 she could scarcely realize the fact yet, as her husband 
 was often away from homo, and to her it seemed ho 
 must come back. lu a, moment she recovered and 
 said 
 
 "If you will prepare the pig for meat, Mr. Teot, I 
 shall be very glad. Mr. Rogers was going to send his 
 hired man over (Saturday to kill and areas the pig, but 
 your kind oiler will aave us from an obligation to Mr. 
 
JKAJT REMING. 19 
 
 Mr. r JV:t ; , :g next morning. If 
 
 anyone could have loo. ;ircamv-: ,rcine 
 
 /it laug: would have to be interested in the 
 
 Q of the family, as Jean was. Mrs. /, 
 looked at the remnants of the curtailed p: _; 
 
 10 was looking as though he thought for 
 the first time that possibly he had taken the lion s share 
 from the widow and orph ; as thou.. 
 
 nay that the pig had shrur. 
 
 ing before when he took it aw ather 
 
 apologetically: " You know, Mrs. Ames, the pig did uot 
 weigh BO much as we thought it would when it was in 
 the pen." Our meanest acts never look quite so bad to 
 us as when some one else is looking at them with u-i. 
 The children had gathered about the table, laughing 
 who could help it 
 
 " Well, Ida, I think the pig s head is cut off just 
 
 tie shoulder, and the tail up to the shoulder." 
 
 lira. Ames was looking seriously at the pig and Mr. 
 
 alternately. Jean was not ten years old, but 
 knew her mother would ray nothing to the man who had 
 ~o imposed upon them, and indeed what good would 
 words do. Little Jean was not so wise a ; if her 
 
 mother, however, so she stepped in front of Mr. Teet, 
 saying, with a directness that made him quai i 
 
 i t you take all the pig?" g would 
 
 have weighed one hundred and fifty pounds when Mr. 
 Teet took it away in his wagon, and he brought it back 
 weighing fifty pounds, in a small bag which he carried 
 with ease on his shoulder. 
 
 j, a boy of fourteen, wit? own curls pi> 
 
 back from a massive brow, with cheeks round and rei 
 apple, e: 1 with an impatient air, " Mother, 
 
 I think it is degrading to let a person swindle you that 
 
 Veil, nay child, very true, but what can you d 
 
 "Nothing;. rier, but our humiliation, 
 
 and look out for the next benevolently incliL 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE BOYS* GAME CLUB. 
 
 Ben Ames was both an active and scholarly little fel 
 low. He read history, to the great satisfaction of his 
 mother and the children, on dark, rainy nights. But 
 when the beautiful snow, together with the clear, cold 
 moon, made the hunting grounds almost as light as 
 day, Ben, with the boys of the game club, went out 
 hunting coon and rabbit, and the talk of these boys of 
 bringing down bears, deer and wild turkey was much 
 more plentiful than the game itself, although the boys 
 really did bring in game now and again, to the great 
 surprise of themselves and the old folks at home. In 
 those days the prairies of the West abounded with deer 
 and wild turkey. 
 
 It turned out that the fun-loving old nigger Johnson 
 captured the coons for the boys, and the club bought 
 the turkeys of some more fortunate hunter and dis 
 tributed the sports and the honors as they could, with 
 out being found out. 
 
 As winter was well advanced, one morning there 
 was great excitement over a delicious, fat wild turkey 
 hanging high in the wood-shed at the Ames s. When 
 Jean asked Ben who shot the turkey, "He or Joe 
 Rogers?" Ben said, u Neither of us, and you needn t 
 ask, Miss, for we boys have a rule in the club that 
 we shall not tell who shoots the game, for some of the 
 boys who never shoot anything but their guns oft 
 don t like it, that s a fact," with a little strut across 
 the floor, adding: " Girls could not make a rule like 
 that, because they would tell, every time; girls can 
 not keep a secret/ 
 
THE BOYS GAME CLUB. 21 
 
 " No," blurted out Jeau; " girls don t have secrets to 
 keep, is the reason. 
 
 " Children! children! " exclaimed Mrs. Ames, who 
 had heard more of this dialogue than either of the 
 children supposed, " you ought to be quite happy over 
 the turkey without caring who killed it. But I sup 
 pose your sister wishes you to. carry off the honors of 
 the club as you do those of the spelling-school," added 
 she, soothingly, to Ben. 
 
 "No," cried Jean, " I don t want him to get any 
 honors at all, if he struts so, and says such spiteful 
 things about girls, that are not true, either." 
 
 "My dear child," replied Mrs. Ames, you got the 
 best of your brother when you said girls had no secrets 
 to keep, and I should think that ought to satisfy yon." 
 
 "And I should think so too," said Ben, " but girls 
 never know when they do score a point, just because 
 we boys don t flinch when we re hit." 
 
 Mrs. Ames suspected there was something troubling 
 Ben s conscience a little, so she said, "You may bring 
 home some of the boys from school to-night, Ben, and 
 we ll eat the turkey and have some fun indoors and 
 not go hunting to-night." 
 
 Ben was pulling on two long mittens and came back 
 to his mother where she still sat at the breakfast table, 
 giving her a rousing hug, and a kiss that sounded like 
 a pop-gun, saying: " I will bring Will Niles, for he is 
 the best boy in school. How many boys can I bring, 
 mother six?" 
 
 "No," cried Jean, "only three!" 
 
 That morning Mrs. Ames sat thinking. "While she 
 washed and dressed the smaller children, curled little 
 Alfred s soft brown hair over her fingers her sweet 
 child treasure the tears would come, but she wiped 
 them quickly away with the corner of little Alfred s 
 apron and kissed his curia. She was so unused 
 to crying. The tears that had come to her eyes 
 were tears of sympathy; she had so often told 
 women with like affliction of the dear Father s love, 
 
22 ME HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 that she tried to think the same for herself now, but 
 found it a little harder to see the silver lining behind 
 this cloud that had bereft her of her husband. 
 
 Mrs. Ames knew no more of the little deceptions 
 and harmless tricks of the great social circles than she 
 did of the chicanery and fraud practiced in the busi 
 ness world. 
 
 She read in her Bible that there was good and 
 evil, but so far the evil had been far from her. 
 The telegraph and daily newspaper did not herald the 
 sins of the whole earth as they do to you and me, 
 dear reader. For herself, she had only dwelt on the 
 goodness of God and his infinite mercies. Her whole 
 life had been a hymn of praise, her thoughts of purity 
 and heaven. 
 
 There are tricks that damage the character more 
 than a lie an outspoken, frank, sturdy, stand-up-and- 
 face-it lie. This thought, not clearly defined, but 
 there just the same, had saddened and set Mrs. Ames 
 to thinking, and this thought saddens and sets the 
 whole world of mothers to thinking, without very 
 much available good coming from it either. 
 
 Think what it would be if we were all honest and 
 acted the clean truth. There never would be another 
 house of correction built to put little children in; 
 never another prison where, as Byron says, " man first 
 penned his brother man." Our great national institu 
 tions the dark blot on our civilization known as our 
 penitentiaries, costing our state governments millions 
 and millions annually to conduct them, would all be 
 turned into great thriving work-shops, where honest 
 labor would ennoble the toilers, and not taint them 
 with a stigma that is bitter and more galling to the 
 higher nature of man than the iron manacles of these 
 institutions that lacerate his flesh. 
 
 All the great cities of the world could do without 
 their army of policemen. Look at the immense ex 
 pense of the one item of bars and bolts and locks and 
 keys all over the world, to say nothing of the great 
 
THE BOYS GAME CLUB. 23 
 
 iron safes, and the eternal watch and ward that every 
 body has to keep over the merest trifle of any value. 
 Think of the millions that are destroyed every year 
 by the incendiary s midnight torch. Think of the 
 time spent in shopping; if you buy a spool of thread 
 to sew a button on Johnny s breeches, you are obliged 
 to sit on a stool ten minutes, and wait for the spool to 
 go meandering around somewhere and come back 
 again, all because an honest clerk cannot be found, or, 
 at least, not a whole store full of honest clerks. 
 
 Think of the mighty engine of the giant law, thun 
 dering out its vengeance In eternal jaw. Besides all 
 the lawyer s wrangle consider the time spent sitting, 
 waiting waiting waiting for the law s delay; all the 
 honest people as well as the rascals mixed up in the 
 interminable wrangle, until you can t tell one from the 
 other. It is time for somebody to call a halt, and say, 
 " Let us be honest." 
 
 We are proud to say that we are a nation of thieves 
 and liars, and every act of our lives and all our busi 
 ness transactions are conducted on this basis. Now, 
 why is this? 
 
 It is the first few drops of water that weaken the 
 dam, and unchecked go on and cause a flood. It is the 
 first little defect in our character that makes us at last 
 the great defaulter. It was just this almost untarnish- 
 able touch of deceit that rasped Ben on to irritability 
 at the mere mention of who shot ..the turkey. Mrs. 
 Ames felt sure that Ben was not quite satisfied with 
 himself, and felt savage with anyone who was going to 
 make the discovery of a flaw in his conduct, and she, 
 of all persons, was not going to see his fault, but if Ben 
 brought the boys home to dinner, she was sure that 
 they themselves would disclose it, notwithstanding the 
 boasted superiority of masculine secretiveness. 
 
 Mrs. Ames prepared that dinner with as much care 
 and ceremony as if the company were all to be church 
 deacons and archbishops. It had been one of her 
 chief delights to entertain, so it was no great trouble to 
 
24 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 receive such a bright troop of young gentlemen. She 
 had the knack of dispensing " those simple pleasures 
 that always please " with so much matronly grace that 
 no prince was ever prouder of his mother than Ben. 
 Mrs. Ames thought there never was such a splendid 
 company of boys, so full of manly dignity, so finely 
 balancing the fun, that, in spite of their efforts to 
 control, would every now and again, burst out into 
 uproarious laughter; in fact, they were very unlike 
 the boys in the poem instead of the forty boys behav 
 ing like one, each boy behaved like forty. 
 
 Mrs. Ames sat carving the turkey, putting a generous 
 slice of roast pork on every boy s plate. That dress 
 ing and those mashed potatoes seasoned with cream 
 and butter, that delicious dish of apple-sauce that went 
 to every boy s plate to be eaten with the roast pork! 
 Then came the pumpkin pie, the walnuts and hickory 
 nuts and big red apples; the stories about how Jean 
 climbed the trees and helped shake those hickory nuts 
 off, and was no more afraid than a boy. And then 
 more fun, until you would think that such a laugh after 
 such a dinner would be dangerous. But the funniest 
 fun of all the fun popped out of Dick Martin s mouth, 
 in a voice loud enough to be heard above all the other 
 boys, after the last delicious mouthful of that splendid 
 bird had been swallowed by that young gentleman. 
 
 "Mike Finnegan was a good fellow to shoot this 
 turkey when it was eating old Pattou s corn, and then 
 give it to us boys for our game club. Hey, boys, I 
 propose a toast and three cheers. May his good aim 
 always bring down as good game, and his generous 
 soul meet with equal generosity from all mankind! 
 The boys were on their feet in a moment, giving hea ty 
 cheers to that toast. Jean glanced at her mother who 
 sat smiling triumphantly at the boys method of keep 
 ing secrets, and glad in her heart that the little decep 
 tion that tempted them was no greater. She thought, 
 as the last good-night had been said, that a grander 
 deed could not well be done than to help steer such 
 
THE BOYS GAME CLUB. 25 
 
 boys into the clear paths of rectitude that would lead 
 to lives of honor. So she asked Ben the next morning 
 if it would not be a good idea to propose a new rule at 
 the next game-club meeting that would not prove such 
 a strain on the boys secretiveness. Ben, with another 
 hearty kiss, promised her that he would at their very 
 next meeting, saying: 
 
 " And if I just mention that you suggested it, mother, 
 it will be carried without a dissenting voice." 
 
 Ben had no opportunity of remedying his game-club 
 law, however, for before they met again he had an 
 offer from the village editor to come into his office and 
 learn to set type. 
 
 Ben and Mrs. Ames went to town soon after, talked 
 over the affair with the editor and his wife, for Ben 
 was to live with the family until he was twenty-one 
 years of age, then to go into partnership with the firm, 
 as one of the editors. The saddest time in a mother s 
 life came to Mrs. Ames early the time when the boya 
 leave home to make their own way in the world. 
 
 Thomas, who was two years younger than Ben and 
 not nearly BO strong, took largely to books, with very 
 little disposition for gunning. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE PROPOSAL. 
 
 The minister that took charge of the church after 
 the death of Mr. Ames, proposed to take Thomas, send 
 him to school, and if he should continue in his studious 
 habits, when he became older he would train him for 
 the ministry. So, after many tears and prayers for the 
 dear Father s guidance, Mrs. Ames gave up her boys. 
 
 These boys, with their early training, were a source 
 of income to these men, and of course the widow would 
 be relieved of all such burdens. If she had been brave, 
 and kept those splendid boys, and stayed on the farm 
 that had been leased her for a number of years, how 
 much better for them and for her! 
 
 The dear snuggery, where lingered all the sweet 
 memories of the last days with husband and father, 
 had to be broken up. Mrs. Ames took a small cottage, 
 and she, Jean, Will, and Alfred were soon settled in 
 the same little town with the boys. One night, after 
 they were all snugly fixed in their new home, Jean 
 arid her mother sat sewing by the fireside, Jean thread 
 ing all the needles. She put the last one down in a 
 long row on the cushion, and said, in a plaintive voice: 
 
 " 0, mother, why did you not arrange to have the 
 boys sleep at home? It would be like old times to 
 have them come home at night ; it s so lonesome this 
 
 way." 
 
 Then Jean was so sorry she had said it, for her 
 mother gave a great sob for an answer. Jean was be 
 side her mother in a moment, with her arms about her 
 neck. 
 
 " Mother, mother, do not cry so. I am here; I will 
 
THE PROPOSAL. 27 
 
 stay with you always. Everybody s boys have to go 
 out and work, don t they, mother ? It is not so bad, as 
 they are so near, and we see them every few days. 
 They will soon be men, and have homes of their own; 
 then we will all live together again." 
 
 " O, you poor child," sobbed her mother. " How 
 little you know of the ways of the world." Bat she 
 stopped crying, bathed her face in cold water, glanced 
 into the glass, and wondered if one with such a heart 
 ache could look only eighteen, as Mr. Sneekinswine 
 had said she did that day when she was in the tailor 
 shop of Messrs. Sneekinswine & Brassfielder, getting 
 her week s work of sewing. Mrs. Ames was mistress 
 of her needle. Emerson has said there is a compensa 
 tion for everything was it so now ? The fine stitch 
 ing and embroidery she had done for the infant throng 
 that had come right along without any interruption 
 year after year all her married life; the fine cloth 
 clothes for her little boys which she had often con 
 structed out of their father s old ones, had at least kept 
 her fingers deft at the work. 
 
 Messrs. Sneekinswine & Brassfielder had soon found 
 that the men s suits made by Mrs. Ames brought 
 higher prices than those made by their own workmen. 
 But they never offered Mrs. Ames any of the profit 
 brought to them by her good work. They, in fact, 
 kept very still about her doing good work, and even 
 had been mean enough at one time to find some fluw 
 in her sewing. The only way she suspected that she 
 did better work than any one else sewing for the same 
 house was that they insisted upon her taking home the 
 finest cloth suits that they had to make. 
 
 It was on one occasion, when Mr. Sueekinswine had 
 asked her to take two suits of fine black broadcloth 
 and have them returned by the next Saturday. The 
 suits were intended for a bridegroom and his best man. 
 Mrs. Ames had said: " Give me the light tweed, if you 
 please, Mr. Sneekinswine, I can sew on that at night, 
 and it will not be so trying to my eyes." 
 
28 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 Mr. Sneekinswine had said, with a quizzical smile: 
 " You do not look more than eighteen, Mrs. Ames." 
 
 Mrs. Ames did not glance at him, and whatever 
 meaning he might have had was utterly lost upon her, 
 as she firmly replied : "Send the light tweed and the 
 black suit to my house, as I am going to the next 
 store," and she walked quickly out. 
 
 The fact had got abroad that Mrs. Ames did fine 
 work. One law firm and two or three doctors had 
 ordered suits made by her; they not paying her quite 
 as much as they would pay the firm of Sneekinswine 
 & Brassfielder, but still, more than that firm would 
 allow her if they had had the order ; and knowing this 
 fact, she had felt a strong disposition to walk out of 
 that house and never return, but not being quite sure 
 that she could get custom-work enough to support her 
 children, and knowing that it was a woman s preroga 
 tive to avoid any little pleasantry that might or might 
 not be intended as an insult, she determined to keep 
 quiet and try all the harder to get custom-work, and so 
 be independent of this firm as soon as possible. 
 
 When Mrs. Ames arrived home an hour later, she 
 found the black and tweed suits awaiting her. Laying 
 off her bonnet and tying a long white apron over her 
 neatly fitting black cashmere dress, she untied the 
 work and assorted it in piles on a long, clean, white 
 pine table; the pants by themselves, the vests by them 
 selves, and each coat in a pile by itself. She took a 
 sleeve of the black cloth coat and commenced sewing 
 as if the long unbroken seam would give her more time 
 for quiet thinking. Stitch, stitch, stitching; for you 
 must not forget that the sewing machine was not 
 invented, and at that period a woman could sit grace 
 fully, stitch quietly and think profoundly; if she had a 
 mind to. 
 
 And this is what she thought: If I do not take my 
 eyes off this sewing for two days and a half, and give 
 myself only ten minutes for each meal, I can get the 
 black coat done in that time; the black pants and 
 
THE PROPOSAL. 29 
 
 vest will take two days more; then I have a day and a 
 half of daylight to finish the tweed suit, and make the 
 button holes. Almost the entire suit will have to be 
 made evenings, and I shall be compelled to sit up till 
 twelve o clock every night, and then the pay is a mis 
 erable pittance. 
 
 Just at this point of her soliloquy there was a rap at 
 the door, and the face of the family physician, dear 
 old Doctor Knight, beamed upon her like the dawn of 
 a new day. He sat down and told her of the probable 
 health and probable death of his numerous patients, 
 adding in a cheery voice, " but, Mrs. Ames, I have a 
 much more thrilling theme to talk to you about," but 
 with his eyes cast down, "you look so cosy and com 
 fortable here I hardly dare to tell you, and you have 
 plenty of work to do, too, I see," glancing at the piles 
 of work laid out on the long table. 
 
 Mrs. Ames answered: " Yes, too much work, but 
 not enough pay." 
 
 " Well, that gives me heart again, and I ll pluck up 
 courage and tell you, he continued. You know my 
 friend, Murdstone, who lost his wife about a year or 
 ten months ago. He is a member of our church. You 
 perhaps remember seeing his wife; a very quiet, odd 
 little woman, quite pale; she dressed the children so 
 like little old men and women when she brought them 
 to church; didn t know how to sew any more than a 
 mud turtle. She was a Virginia lady, always accus 
 tomed to slaves. Well, Murdstone married her when 
 she was quite young, and brought her out to this new 
 country about ten years ago. She brought an old col 
 ored servant with her who did what work waa done. 
 Mrs. Murdstone never liked the people here. I guess 
 she never spoke ten words in all those ten years to any 
 one except the servant and nurse that came when her 
 children were born. I have attended her with all her 
 children, and at her last confinement she died and left 
 a little girl not an hour old. A sad case. Murdstone 
 took it very hard, poor fellow. He is left with those 
 
30 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 five little children. He has a snug little home out there 
 six miles in the country, but everything is going to 
 rack and ruin, he tells me. Murdstone is not a bad 
 looking man when you cooae to that. You know he is 
 a big tall fellow, though he is not a rich man and never 
 will be not speculative at all, and so most likely will 
 never be a poor man. Pie is one of those plodding, 
 steady-going kind of mea, with iiot a particle of ro 
 mance about him. 
 
 The quick sympathy of Mrs. Ames had been follow 
 ing his recital. She had often listened to the stories of 
 the doctor s patients, and no more thought that the 
 doctor was getting around to a proposal of marriage 
 between Mr. Murdstone and herself, than she thought 
 of taking a trip to the North Pole. The doctor could 
 see this and it made it all the more difficult for him to 
 get at the pith of his story. 
 
 " As I was saying, he is a plain, blunt man, Mrs 
 Ames; no more like your husband was, than a gray 
 dull morning is like the noon-day sun, but then you 
 have brightness and sunshine enough in your nature 
 for two families. 7 
 
 Mrs. Ames raised her great brown eyes full upon 
 him, and said : " What do you mean, Doctor Knight ?" 
 
 " I mean that those four little, motherless girls need 
 just such a mother as you are, and that Mr. Murdstone 
 is coming into town with a load of grain to mill next 
 week, and he requested me to call upon you and ask 
 you if he might call and see you while his grist is be 
 ing ground. 5 
 
 Mrs. Ames laughed heartily, saying: 
 
 " That is romantic, I am sure, for a man to call 
 upon a lady and ask her to be his wife while the fam 
 ily flour is being ground for the year. I suppose he 
 will propose?" she added in her bright sparkling 
 voice. 
 
 " Well, yes," replied the doctor, " I think he will, 
 and you may as well think it all over and be prepared 
 with your answer." 
 
THE PROPOSAL. 31 
 
 " Well, I am glad it is next week he is coming, for 
 I could not give him ten minutes of this week for this 
 sewing." 
 
 " I see; you are stitching away with lightning speed." 
 
 " Yes, these are busy times. Mr. Murdstone will 
 not make a long call, will he ? How long will it take 
 his grist to grind, doctor ? 
 
 " The question is not so much about the length of 
 the call as the answer you give him, my dear, 5 a little 
 seriously. "If you were my own sister I could not be 
 more regretful of an unhappy marriage for you, espec 
 ially since I have been the one to recommend it." 
 
 "Indeed," replied Mrs. Ames, "this does look 
 serious." 
 
 The doctor rose to go, saying, " Tell me, my dear, 
 I am to see patients to-morrow near Mr. Murdstone s, 
 and if you don t object to his calling, I will say so for 
 you." 
 
 " It is a very delicate matter to make answer to, but 
 I will not refuse to see him, however, if he calls." 
 
 And the doctor s carriage was soon heard rolling 
 away, and Mrs. Ames stitching went on as steadily as 
 though the doctor had not called. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE UNWELCOME VISITOR. 
 
 Bather thoughts were turned in an entirely differ 
 ent channel. Her heart was especially tender towards 
 the infant brood of little girls. How she felt for her 
 own darlings out in the cold world among strangers, 
 who cared only for the amount of work they could 
 drive them through, subject to harsh criticism, untem- 
 pered by parental love. If Mrs. Ames had not been at 
 work herself, the meanness of sordid selfishness would 
 not have come home so keenly to her as it did. The 
 very idea of these children, that would have appalled 
 another woman, was the center of attraction to her. If 
 the doctor had not awakened her sympathy for the 
 little motherless ones, she would have said positively 
 and unconditionally, "No; he cannot call, even while 
 his grist is being ground." Now, she thought, he 
 can be a father to my little boys and I can be a mother 
 to the girls. There will be a big family; ten children! 
 How much wisdom will be required to train, direct and 
 rear ten children; his baby only one year old, her s but 
 three. What a nursery! how she would try to be a 
 real mother to the whole infant band, if it should be 
 God s will to place her in that responsible position. 
 No matter what Mr. Murdstone s proposal might be 
 when he came to mill, she would listen to no proposal 
 that did not insure her having all her children with her 
 again. There must surely be plenty of work on the 
 farm, and the boys would be far removed from the evil 
 influences of a small town, where there were always 
 more or less bad elements. 
 
 She knew the work for such a large family would be 
 
THE UNWELCOME VISITOR. 33 
 
 something enormous, but the love and gratitude of so 
 many little hearts would be something great also. The 
 wail of poor, old King Lear, of, "how sharper than a 
 serpent s tooth it is to have a thankless child," did not 
 enter into her plans for the future of these children." 
 
 Mrs. Ames s brain was as busy as her fingers that 
 week. She made plans and resolves that she, for her 
 part, carried out to the letter through a long and event 
 ful life. But the plans she made for others woefully 
 miscarried, as we shall see as we pass on through the 
 coming events of this history. 
 
 Mrs. Ames was surprised and annoyed, if not 
 alarmed, at a call from Mr. Sneekinswine the very next 
 day after Doctor Knight s visit. That gentleman 
 seemed so utterly unconscious of the embarrassment he 
 was occasioning, so supremely obtuse to anybody s dis 
 comfort, that Mrs. Ames assumed as much indifference 
 to his presence as she well could, and stepping to the 
 other side of the long work-table, stood with folded 
 hands awaiting his orders. It never entered her mind 
 that she could attribute his call to any other object 
 than some direction about the work, and as neither of 
 the firm had ever called upon her before, she was still 
 puzzled, and when he hesitated she inquired : " Why 
 am I honored with a call from you, Mr. Sueekinswiue ? 
 Perhaps some directions about the work." 
 
 " Well, yez; ve vished ferry much to haf it done 
 dees veek." 
 
 Mrs. Ames replied : " I have never disappointed 
 your firm in sending the work home at the time I had 
 promised it." 
 
 "Yez, and dare ia sumding elze, Meesis Ames. 
 Dos little shildren will all shtarve, as already not much 
 more vork goes out ov our house. Mrs. Smith, with 
 her seex shrnall shildren, gets no more vork. She ees 
 vurtuous, but her shildren vos go hungry. Dot don t 
 feed dem." 
 
 With unnecessary excitement Mr. Sueekinswine 
 3 
 
34 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 arose from his chair and walked to the table, and lean 
 ing towards Mrs. Ames, took up the black broadcloth 
 coat and stuck his clumsy finger through a button-hole 
 that gleamed with its firm silken stitches. 
 
 "You vork like dot ven you could leev zo much 
 bedder und no vork at all." 
 
 Mrs. Ames, whose fine eyes had been intent on di 
 vining his meaning, said: "I can do very well without 
 work from your house or advice from you, sir. I will 
 finish this piece, but will never do another stitch of 
 work for your firm, and you can go immediately," 
 pointing to the door. "God will care for me and mine, 
 and in Him will I trust. Not another word, but go!" 
 she exclaimed in decisive tones as she saw that Mr. 
 Sneekinswine was again about to open his mouth. 
 
 As he stood with his hat in his hand there was some 
 thing in his manner so odious, so repulsive and inso 
 lently overbearing, that Jean, who was too young to 
 understand the import of his broken English, was so 
 enraged, and knowing that it must mean something 
 terrible or her mother would not have spoken to him 
 thus, stepped at once to the door and opened it wide 
 that he might pass out as quickly as possible. 
 
 To add injury to insult, the great, coarse, vulgar- 
 eyed sensualist, stepping in front of Jean, said: 
 
 " Vot a buffictly boochiful girl Mees Ames eze. Of 
 she vos mine little girl I vud but her in von glass caze 
 only to be looked at; she should not vork ; " and with 
 an attempt at a bow, he passed out. 
 
 Jean was not long in giving the door a bang behind 
 him. 
 
 u Ho one will ever say he is buffictly beautiful, " 
 Jean sneered, as she jerked up the chair whereon the 
 wretch had only for a moment sat. 
 
 Mrs. Ames, divining her meaning, cried: 
 
 " Why, Jean, the man did not sit down at all." 
 
 " O, yes, he did, mother," and she carried the chair 
 to the woodshed, where old rubbish and odds and ends 
 were stored, and threw it on to the heap as she woul$ 
 
THE UNWELCOME VISITOR. 3D 
 
 have done such human rubbish as Mr. Sneekinswine. 
 Mrs. Ames would have been overwhelmed at this 
 episode had it occurred the week before, but to-day she 
 scarcely gave the creature a passingr thought of con 
 tempt, so supremely occupied was she with what Mr. 
 Murdstone would be like, what he would say to her, 
 and how the interview would likely terminate. But 
 this little scene had much to do in riveting her resolves 
 to listen favorably to Mr. Murdstoue s proposal. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE MARRIAGE. 
 
 One night, soon after this little event, as Jean came 
 home from school with her books on her arm, her 
 bonnet half falling off , her hair in great, loose, tumbled 
 curls in wild confusion over her neck and shoulders 
 (she had romped hard as well as studied hard that day), 
 she saw, as she neared the house, a gentleman sitting 
 just inside the door, so tall that there was no room for 
 her to pass, so she went around to the back entrance, 
 piled up her books, brushed her hair into a little less 
 confusion, but took small time; for since the unpleasant 
 visit of the man the week before, Jean was very 
 suspicious. When she entered, she saw in a moment 
 that her mother was looking very bright, and much 
 happier than usual; that the gentleman s face, too, 
 was lighted up, though he had on every-day working- 
 clothes, coarse boots, and flour all over his coat and 
 pants in spots that looked like "patches of snow in De 
 cember," giving him a very rugged, picturesque look. 
 He had a modest, retired, something of a gentlemanly 
 air about him, and seemed conversing in an easy, 
 friendly manner with her mother; at least Jean thought 
 he seemed friendly. 
 
 He scarcely looked at Jean when her mother said: 
 "This is my daughter, Mr. Murdstone," but went on 
 talking about Jean s father, whom he had often heard 
 preach, and greatly admired, and soon afterwards took 
 his leave, saying he would call the following Sunday. 
 
 Jean jumped up and ran to her mother as soon as 
 he was out of the house, crying, " Oh, mamma, what 
 does he mean by coming next Sunday? Nobody wants 
 
THE MARRIAGE. g? 
 
 to see him; why didn t you tell him, mother? What 
 is his business? 
 
 Mrs. Ames, with great candor, answered: "Why, 
 my dear child, he wants to marry us, and take us all out 
 to his farm in the country. 
 
 "And cover us all over with flour?" cried Jean, 
 "Marry us! he Jl not marry me," she continued with a 
 sneer, and sat down on a chair against the wall and 
 burst out crying. 
 
 " Why, my dear child," Jean s mother replied, 
 soothingly, " Mr. Murdstone has four little girls, all 
 smaller than you, that you can have for sisters/ 
 
 "I don t like Mr. Murdstone, and I can t have him 
 for my father," sobbed Jean. 
 
 " Why, Jean, I am astonished at you. Mr. Murd 
 stone may fall off his sacks of flour as he goes home 
 to-night, and never be thought of again." 
 
 " Oh, if it could be so," moaned Jean. 
 
 Mrs. Ames did not like to hear her child protest so 
 bitter! v against this marriage. She was not supersti 
 tious, but she did believe the sensitive soul stands bare, 
 sometimes, quivering against the cruelties of fate. Was 
 it possible that this step, taken only for her children s 
 good, might prove their greatest evil? For a moment 
 her eyes took on that far-away look, and a cold shudder 
 passed over her frame. In spite of herself, she felt the 
 great faith that she had in Mr. Murdstone an hour be 
 fore was shaken. 
 
 Jean remembered the bright look on her mother s 
 face when she first came home from school, and now 
 saw her looking sad. She was ashamed, ran away and 
 washed her face, brushed her hair, and, coming back, 
 said: 
 
 "Forgive your naughty child, mamma; but I did 
 feel so bad a moment ago," and then the tears gleamed 
 in her eyes again, and to hide them she ran and 
 brought some wood, made a bright, blazing fire, and 
 tried to think of everything for the evening meal; 
 hurried hither and thither to do this and that, deter- 
 
38 THE HEROINE OF 4& 
 
 mined to put the hateful reality out of her mind. 
 Then she brushed Alfred s hair, put on a clean apron, 
 kissed him, and said he was the sweetest little brother 
 a little girl ever had, and Alfred repeated all her words 
 over again in his childish prattle. 
 
 This marriage was much more terrible in its conse 
 quences in wrecking Jean s happiness than that of her 
 mother s, as we shall be able to prove as we proceed, 
 and right here let the metaphysician tell us if it is 
 possible that the "angel of the Lord " showed this to 
 Jean and not to her mother, as of old he appeared to 
 Balaam s ass but not to Balaam. 
 
 Mr. Murdstone, as he wended his way to the mill, 
 pondered on what he should do. He liked the fine 
 face of the young widow. She looked strong, almost 
 robust when compared with the pale face of the little 
 wife he had so recently laid under the sod, which was 
 a strong point in the widow s favor. No man who has 
 had one sickly wife wants another, no matter if it was 
 his own cruelty that made her so; and summing up 
 expenses, he said to himself: "The young girl might 
 want to stay in town and continue at school, and then 
 there would be but the two youngest boys. A few 
 hard whippings, and the oldest one would run away, 
 and as the baby looks delicate he may die. In that 
 case, I should have the widow unencumbered. Why, 
 here I am at the mill ! " Mr. Murdstone s mind and 
 legs had been making rapid strides and reached their 
 journey s end about the same time. 
 
 Mrs. Ames had much better have gone on with her sew 
 ing, and done by Mr. Sneekinswine as Ellen Douglas 
 did by James Fitz- James, who "knew every wily 
 train a lady s fickle heart to gain, but here he knew 
 and felt them vain." If she could have understood 
 Mr. Murdstone s meaning as she did Mr. Sneekin- 
 swine s, she would have sent him about his business 
 quite as rapidly as she did that gentleman. 
 
 We will let every one decide for himself which was 
 the greatest rascal of the two. The one spoke his 
 
THE MARRIAGE. 39 
 
 villainy right out, and she could defend herself and her 
 little ones from it. But the other was subtler in his 
 meaning, and came cloaked about in the garb of relig 
 ion and morality. Think of a man coolly planning 
 cruelty to the children of his beloved pastor, who had 
 gone before and gained the eternal heights of glory 
 that he himself was clambering for every day and hop 
 ing to gain. Just imagine a man planning to take a 
 mother from her children, leaving them, without the 
 slightest consideration, out in the world, deprived of a 
 mother s care, her love, her tenderness all diverted from 
 her children to his; not that he wanted his children to 
 have any special, tender care, but that he thought a 
 bonded slave by the marriage contract would be cheaper 
 than hired help. He would just as coolly turn Mrs. 
 Ames s children out in the world, and deprive them of 
 her care, as he would fling the weeds that he had pulled 
 out of his corn-field, over the fence into the road, and 
 never give them another thought. 
 
 Mr. Murdstone, according to promise, appeared 
 promptly on the next Sunday afternoon. Jean was at 
 Sunday-school with her brother Will. He found only 
 little Alfred at home with his mother. This fact of 
 itself was sufficient to put Mr. Murdstone in great good 
 humor with himself, and the thought was father to the 
 wish that even Alfred might soon be out of the way. 
 There were more than the average amount of subjects 
 to be talked over before the preliminaries of a mar 
 riage that united twelve people instead of two could be 
 satisfactorily adjusted by the high contracting parties, 
 to say nothing of the little objecting parties. Mrs. 
 Ames showed by her constant, motherly solicitude that 
 she took his children right into her heart, and would 
 care for and shield them from every harm just as she 
 did her own. For this very reason, Mr. Murdstone found 
 it rather difficult to propose to Mrs. Ames that she 
 leave her children around hither and yon, among 
 strangers, and the gentleman did not even make the 
 proposition that he had thought out so boldly, of leav- 
 
40 THE HEROINE OF 40. 
 
 ing Jean at school ; and when Mrs. Ames frankly told 
 him she would never think of taking this step, only to 
 gain a sober, steady, industrious husband, who would 
 be a good father to her children, Mr. Murdstone 
 thought, "I cannot adjust these matters in regard to 
 the children before my marriage." But, however re 
 ticent he was before, Mrs. Ames found him outspoken 
 enough, immediately after the ceremony had been pro 
 nounced. 
 
 Mrs. Ames often thought that it was so strange that 
 she had not noticed, before her marriage, that it was 
 an alarming peculiarity that Mr. Murdstone had never 
 showed any solicitude about her being good to his 
 children, but it was she who had to ask if her children 
 would be equally fed and clothed, and the same time 
 allowed them for their education, and she remembered 
 uow, with pain, that he had hesitated as if it were a 
 new idea to him, as indeed it was. Mr. Murdstone 
 had been thinking how he would avoid doing all this, 
 and not at all how well he would act the part of a 
 father towards these children. He could no more be a 
 kind father to his own children than a hitching-post could 
 be the graceful bough of a weeping-willow tree. He 
 was so cold, so sordidly mean and selfishly cruel, that 
 he would not permit himself to be comfortable, much 
 less allow children to be comfortable and happy. He 
 was simply an old tyrant, inventing tortures for ten 
 little children ; and just as busy moaning and beseech 
 ing the Great Giver of all good to keep him out of hell. 
 He never once dreamed of praying to be kept from 
 doing a mean act so that he would not deserve the tor 
 tures of hell. The burden of his whole plea was: 
 " God save me at last; don t punish me; don t sift my 
 conduct; but take me straight to heaveu without ask 
 ing any questions." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE DINNER PARTY. 
 
 Lest some tender soul should grieve for the fate of 
 Mrs. Smith, with her six small children, mentioned 
 before, we will tell them of the way Mrs. Ames provided 
 for their welfare in the few intervening days before 
 her marriage. She called on Mrs. Judge Seaton first. 
 The Judge beamed a good morning upon her, as he 
 stood in the hall, hat in hand, ready to go to his office. 
 
 " I am so glad to see you, Judge; I did not expect to, 
 for I thought you would be gone to your office. You 
 do look splendid in that last suit I made for you." It 
 was a drab-colored broadcloth. 
 
 The Judge, glancing at his legs and then at his arms, 
 replied: "It is comfortable very." 
 
 "I m glad to hear it," returned Mrs. Ames, " for it 
 does not prevent you from expounding the law with 
 great ease and composure." Just then a musical voice 
 was heard on the stairway, calling: 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Ames, do come right up; we ve heard 
 something about you. Dear old Dr. Knight was here 
 last evening. I am so glad for you," continued Mrs. 
 Seaton, kissing her rapturously. "You look as good 
 as a ripe peach this morning, and I hope your intended 
 is as grand a man as the world ever produced. He 
 ought to be, I am sure. The Judge says he knows him 
 quite well, and he is a good straightforward man in 
 business; a little awkward and peculiar, perhaps, but 
 all great men have their oddities. I know you have 
 come to ask me to be your bridesmaid, but I have 
 nothing to wear but my pearl-gray silk, and in that I 
 
42 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 should outshine the bride, and that would not do at 
 all." 
 
 " Oh, you would outshine the bride in anything you 
 might wear, Mrs. Seaton," returned Mrs. Ames, " so I 
 shall dispense with a bridesmaid altogether;" adding, 
 " You have not guessed my errand, and never could, 
 so I ll just tell you what it is. I am so glad that Dr. 
 Knight has already disclosed my secret to you." And 
 then Mrs. Ames went on to give an account of Mr. 
 Sneekinswine s risit, and Mrs. Seaton s eyes snapped, 
 and she looked like a general riding to victory on a 
 field of battle as she said: 
 
 "All the work of my household shall go to Mrs. 
 Smith after this, and I declare, my boys do wear out 
 their clothes so fast that sewing for them alone will 
 almost support Mrs. Smith." 
 
 The two ladies talked for an hour, and planned for a 
 basket dinner, to be given at Mrs. Smith s on the next 
 Tuesday evening, when all of the people for whom 
 Mrs. Ames had been sewing for the past two years 
 should be especially invited to come. 
 
 As there were few people in that town who had the 
 audacity to attempt to get into the world or out of it 
 without the assistance of dear old Dr. Knight, so there 
 was not a woman in the town who had the bravery to 
 get up a party, or arrange any little benevolent scheme, 
 without the encouragement of this worthy gentleman. 
 They could come to no definite plans without first 
 seeing him. Mrs. Ames called on the doctor as she 
 went home, but he was ten miles out in the country, 
 and his wife was not sure that he would be at home 
 that night. She left word with this cheery, busy wife 
 for the doctor to corne, the next afternoon, to her house, 
 or as soon as he could. The doctor s wife said that she 
 knew he would be glad to enter into any plan by 
 which Mrs. Smith would be assisted in making a living 
 for her little children, and that Mrs. Ames could de 
 pend upon his calling at his earliest convenience. 
 
 Mrs. Ames, bidding Mrs. Knight good-bye, went 
 
THE DINNER PARTY. 43 
 
 straight home to find Mr. Boggs, from the country 
 awaiting her. Mr. Bocrgs was a brawny Scotchman 
 with a broad brogue. He said his son James was go 
 ing to be married this day two weeks, and insisted 
 upon Mrs. Ames making his wedding suit. The cloth 
 was a blue tweed, and Airs. Ames was greatly tempted 
 by the fine goods to do the sewing. Then she told the 
 story of Mrs. Smith and her six children. 
 
 The honest old Scotchman wiped a tear from his eye, 
 but said to Mrs. Ames, " Tha puir bie ha set his heart 
 on at to hav you mak tha suit, and he s such a hond- 
 some bie, it twa be a pity ta disappoint him, and the 
 bonnie lass as is gang to ba his woif is as particular as 
 can ba." 
 
 At last, Mrs. Ames promised to make the suit if Mr. 
 Boggs would agree to have all the work from his 
 neighborhood sent to Mrs. Smith in the future. 
 
 44 Upon ma woord, Mrs. Ames, it twa do ma sool 
 ood ta help tha puir widow," cheerfully remarked old 
 
 r. Boggs. 
 
 The next day Dr. Knight came, according to request, 
 and was greatly surprised to find Mrs. Ames busy 
 again with her needle. She laughingly looked into 
 his kind but surprised eyes, saying: 
 
 " Doctor, I think I ll give up that foolish idea, and 
 go on with my sewing." 
 
 The doctor heaved a long, deep sigh, and looking np 
 at the ceiling, said : " I am not sure but it would be 
 the best thing; not sure." 
 
 Mrs. Ames dropped her needle and her work slid 
 out of her lap. " Why, doctor, you alarm me. 
 
 The old doctor, looking at her with all the tender 
 ness of a father, continued : " Was there ever wisdom 
 enough in this world to enable anybody to know 
 beforehand whether or not a marriage would be 
 a happy one ? To all appearances, as far as I can 
 divine or look into futurity, yours promises to be the 
 right step for both parties. Men want to be good and 
 they want to be happy, but they don t know how to 
 
44 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 take care of their wives. There is not one man in a 
 thousand that is fit to take charge of the happiness 
 of a woman, and yet women trust them implicitly. 
 But, my dear, what did you want to talk to me about 
 this afternoon surely not about weddings and such 
 silly things?" 
 
 Then Mrs. Ames swallowed a sob that was about to 
 choke her, and said: "Why, its something about 
 planning this basket dinner for Mrs. Smith." 
 
 "Well, now, my dear, don t you know that not 
 many of these fastidious, dainty creatures would go 
 near Mrs. Smith, not even if they were invited to a 
 funeral, much less an entertainment to prevent any 
 number of funerals." 
 
 Mrs. Ames was again startled, thinking the doctor 
 was going to throw cold water on her proposed mar 
 riage, and was also opposed to giving &id to Mrs. 
 Smith. What had come over the doctor? She looked 
 up with astonishment and asked: "Doctor, what do 
 you mean?" JBu-t the doctor, who knew the exact 
 social status of every mortal in the whole county, 
 coolly replied: " My dear, send out your invitations for 
 the ladies all to meet here at your house, with their 
 baskets overloaded with good things ; they ll everyone 
 feel flattered, and such basting and brewing, such 
 mincing and stewing as you ll set going hasn t been 
 done in the last year. You get them all here, and I ll 
 make a little speech explaining everything, and put 
 them all in a good humor, notwithstanding their dis 
 appointment, if I can, and will head the procession 
 over to Mrs. Smith s. The poor thing is about prostrate 
 with grief, since she has lost her employment at the 
 firm of Sneekinswine & Brassfielder. She sewed for 
 them for so many years, and has not the least bit of 
 faith in being able to secure for herself custom-work 
 directly from the people. Poor woman ! there is some 
 excuse for her. I don t know what I should do if I 
 were thrown out of my practice and compelled to go 
 into a drug-store. I would feel lost, and would scarcely 
 
THE DINNER PARTY. 45 
 
 know where to begin. Old Badger and I have tramped 
 day and night over the prairies, into town and out of 
 town, and we shouldn t either of us know what to do 
 if we didn t keep jog, jogging along; 7 and pulling on 
 his gloves, he said: "This won t do. I ve at least three 
 more patients to see to-night. Badger s hungry and 
 tired, and ought to be put into the stable to feed and rest. 
 The merciful man is merciful to his beast. I will 
 call in the morning and take some of your invitations, 
 if you will have them ready, Mrs. Ames, and hand 
 them to the parties myself. Whatever aid I can give, 
 you can depend upon." So saying, he stepped into 
 his buggy, and old Badger went jogging along. The 
 days passed quickly by and the evening came, and with 
 it the ladies, their baskets brimful, carried by grum 
 bling husbands, smiling lovers, expectant brothers, 
 and one or two charmingly brave old maids trudging 
 along with their heavy loads. 
 
 Jean, who had been sent by her mother to hint to 
 Mrs. Smith to get into her best dress, said, in her 
 sweetest accents: " Mrs. Smith, put on your best dress 
 and brush up your hair. Mamma and Dr. Knight are 
 coming." 
 
 But Mrs. Smith, being wholly unused to pleasant 
 surprises, protested, and looking in her very worst 
 plight, answered: 
 
 "I will do nothing of the kind. The doctor has 
 seen me in my worst dress many and many a time." 
 
 Just then the door opened, and there stood the doc 
 tor, Jean s mother, and about twenty others, and un 
 ceremoniously all tramped into the little room, which 
 was already quite full of children, there being three or 
 four of the neighbors children together with the six 
 little Smiths; but Dr. Knight, who was in a dilemma 
 every day of his life, and had his wits sharpened there 
 by, was ready for emergencies. 
 
 " Open the dining-room door, and the kitchen, too, 
 Mrs. Smith, for we ve all come to pay you a visit, and 
 
46 THE HEROINE OP 49. 
 
 have a good time. Right this way, gentlemeu; I ve 
 been here before, you see/ 
 
 And soon the baskets were emptied of their contents, 
 and such a sumptuous feast was rarely ever spread at 
 any gathering that that town had seen in many a day. 
 There were roast turkeys and baked chickens, ham 
 sandwiches, tongue sandwiches, and a whole roast pig, 
 with a corn nubbin in his mouth, which made all the 
 children clap their hands in fun to see. There were 
 boiled hams ; there were tarts and pies and jams, jellies 
 and canned fruits; and there were cheese and pickles, 
 and such heaps of bread, and such rolls of fresh butter, 
 and such piles of great, snowy cake, to say nothing of 
 the cookies and gingersnaps and gingercracks and 
 candies. 
 
 They soon all fell to, and the noise and laughter and 
 merriment, eating and drinking, and general good hu 
 mor, was heightened by the oddity of the whole scene; 
 and the funny jokes that went round. No one knew 
 what it all meant, excepting the old doctor, Mrs. Ames 
 and Mrs. Judge Beaton, and they did not tell until a 
 late hour. As each and everyone was acknowledging 
 to Mrs. Smith that they never had enjoyed themselves 
 so much any evening in their whole lives as they had 
 that evening, the old doctor said he wished to extract, 
 not their teeth, but a promise from them all that they 
 would bring all the sewing that they had brought to 
 Mrs. Ames to Mrs. Smith henceforth and forever, or as 
 long as they required raiment, since none of them knew 
 better than he, and his voice grew sad as he said it, 
 " there comes a time to us all when we are no more in 
 need of clothes, no more in need of human help; then 
 let us be as kind to each other as we can while we may," 
 and they were all glad to promise. Mrs. Smith, with a 
 more radiant smile than anybody remembered ever to 
 have seen on her face before, said she thanked them 
 everyone from the bottom of her heart, and tears were 
 just on the verge of coming, when her little five-year- 
 
THE DINNER PARTY. 47 
 
 old Ted jumped like a squirrel upon the table spread 
 over with good things, and glancing quickly at the table, 
 then at the people, with hands spread like an eagle s 
 wings, said: " I thank you all," and with a bound like 
 a dart jumped to the floor and hid under the table. 
 This electrified the whole company; their uproarious 
 laughter was something to be remembered. 
 
 One burst of merriment, and Mrs. Smith was alone 
 with her children and the loaded tables, for she de 
 clared she could not see that a mouse had nibbled off 
 the feast, and many of the good things lasted her and 
 the children a whole month. She also discovered two 
 big hams and a side of bacon nicely sewed up in cloths, 
 uncooked, but garnished with parsley leaves, and ex 
 claimed to the children: " Dear Doctor Knight has 
 done this dear, kind-hearted old soul." 
 
 Next morning, Yates, the big-hearted baker, came 
 with his bread- wagon, and said : 
 
 "Halloa there, Mrs. Smith; I see by the party you 
 had last night you hav too much brod for you and de 
 shildren to eat up in von month, so I tot, if you vil al 
 low me, I ll shust tak von basketful and sell it to my 
 gustomers and next veek I vill bring you some more 
 vat is vresh again." 
 
 And Mrs. Smith replied, "That is a good idea, and 
 you re very obliging, indeed. It looks now as if my 
 self and children could hardly starve in this town, Mr. 
 Yates." 
 
 "I should tink not, in this corn and hog country," 
 said the baker, and his face shone like a bake-oven all 
 in a glow, as he clambered into his wagon and drove 
 away. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PARENTAL AUTHORITY. 
 
 Mrs. Murdstone had been married a month. It was 
 Sunday evening; the boys, Ben and Thomas Ames, had 
 come out to spend the day with their mother, and see 
 Jean, who was getting to be quite a tall girl, have a 
 romp with their younger brothers, and get acquainted 
 with their new step-brother, a quiet blond boy of the 
 same age as Thomas Ames. When the two boys were 
 together the contrast was so great, that no one could 
 help noticing it. 
 
 Thomas Ames was a brown-haired boy, with dark 
 keen eyes, that met your own with a pleased gracious 
 expression, one that spoke as plain as words: " All the 
 best there is in me is at your command. I wish to 
 please you, and expect you to be pleased with me. 
 Nothing can hinder my walking the earth a buoyant, 
 expectant lad. There is a wealth of goodness, and 
 possible greatness in me, and I have no need of curb 
 ing any of my best endeavors to please." 
 
 Dan Murdstone was quite as handsome a boy, with 
 fine blue eyes. He was quiet and shy. Every act was 
 constrained and hesitating, which made him awkward 
 in the extreme. He did not dare to speak above a 
 whisper even when the boys were at play among them 
 selves, and on no account would ever speak in the 
 house to anyone, and if spoken to would answer only 
 in monosyllables. He was not a modest, sensitive, re 
 tiring boy, not that at all, but a stolid, alert, watchful 
 spirit, determined not to be surprised by the enemy, 
 who would promptly forbid any Doyish sports, or still 
 worse, wreak dire punishment upon him. A day spent 
 with this boy, the only son of Mr. Murdstone, waa 
 
PARENTAL AUTHORITY. 49 
 
 enough for Ben and Thomas Ames ; they had no notion 
 of submitting to tyranny that would make them into 
 such boys as Dan Murdstone appeared to them to be. 
 Ben had just been saying to his mother: " We have 
 made up our minds that we can never come to live at 
 Hickory Hall," and he held her in a long and tender 
 embrace, saying: "For your sake, dear mother, I would 
 come, but it would not help matters, not a bit." 
 
 He was as tall as she now and grown quite manly. 
 " No," she whispered, "you are right my son; there 
 are enough of us here now, quite enough," she added 
 loud enough for Mr. Murdstone to hear the last words, 
 knowing this would accord with his feelings. 
 
 Thomas was kissing his new sisters all a good-by 
 that made more merriment than was usual in that house. 
 A cloud was gathering on Mr. Murdstone s face that 
 made Dan tremble with fear; but Master Thomas, all 
 unmindful of terror, never stopped till every girl in the 
 house had been given a rapturous good-by, and walking 
 up to his step-father reached his hand in his gallant 
 fashion, and with great deference bade his towering 
 step-father good-night; said he had had a fiue visit at 
 the hall, and hoped it would be his good fortune to 
 visit it often, adding a request that his new brother 
 might spend a day with him in town. Mr. Murdstone 
 was pleased with the deference the bov showed him, 
 but he acknowledged it by no token or sign. The boys 
 took his hand and let go. It fell listlessly at his sid e. 
 Master Thomas bowed to his mother a little coldly, 
 she thought, the boys jumped into the buggy and drove 
 rapidly away. That was the only day the whole ten 
 children ever spent together; and they ever held it in 
 remembrance. 
 
 After the boys had driven out of sight of Hickory 
 Hall, Thomas said : "Ben, do stop driving so fast, I 
 want to talk." 
 
 "Well, I don t want to say a word," replied Ben, 
 pulling up the reins. 
 
 Then Thomas asked Ben: "How could you stop to 
 
50 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 kiss mother good-by. If I had, I should have turned 
 and clutched old Murdstone s throat. I could not 
 have helped it. Did you ever see such a suppressed 
 boy in your life as Dan Murdstone is ? That boy has 
 beenfbeat every day of his life, and I should think 
 twenty times a day by the way he acts. " Ben answered : 
 
 " Why did I not go and see old Murdstone and his 
 children before mother married him ? I was a boy, and 
 could not think of interfering in such matters, "he said, 
 as if talking to himself, "but I m a man now. I be 
 lieve my hair has turned gray to-day," and he took his 
 hat off and pulled his brown curls. 
 
 " Well," said Thomas, / I don t feel so bad about it 
 for mother, as I do for his own children. But wont he 
 have a merry time whipping those children with 
 mother in the house? She won t christianize him; oh, 
 no. He s already a Christian. Did you ever hear such 
 a long blessing given at the table, Ben ? She ll human 
 ize him, mother will." 
 
 "Well," said Ben, "what a philosopher you are. 
 Humanize him, indeed. It would take a far longer 
 and harder tussle to humanize him than the wild 
 est gorilla that ever was caughb in South America. 
 Just imagine his long arms swinging a whip over a 
 boy s back. Do you wonder that poor Dan lives in 
 perpetual terror ? You wouldn t think him so easy to 
 humanize if you had seen his face grow black, as I did, 
 when you were raising that rumpus, kissing the girls 
 good-by." "That little child, Nell," said Tom, "is the 
 prettiest child I ever saw; sweet as a rosebud, and a 
 gentle and affectionate little creature, too, and they all 
 love our mother as much as we do." 
 
 Ben was older than Thomas, and felt that he was in 
 some sense responsible for his mother s happiness. 
 His young blood made him restive. How was he to 
 live and know that his mother, his sister Jean, and his 
 younger brothers were daily subject to cruelty, his 
 lovely, cultured mother doing all the menial labor for 
 all that big family. Ben grew savage, took the whip 
 
PARENTAL AUTHORITY. 51 
 
 from its socket, and struck the horse a fierce blow that 
 made him rear and plunge, and finally run until he 
 had all he could do to hold him. 
 
 That night he moaned out a prayer, and awoke next 
 morning with a headache. He said to himself. I must 
 stop thinking of old Murdstone, or I shall be a lunatic 
 in less than a week." 
 
 If the boys could have looked back over that long 
 stretch of road, through the waving corn-fields, and 
 past the bendiog orchards, that night as they were driv 
 ing home, this is what they would have seen : 
 
 Little Alfred in his mother s arms, he being fretful 
 and she wearied with the cares of the day. She stepped 
 to a fence near by, which separated the door-yard 
 from the corn-field, and seated Alfred on the top rail 
 under the leafy canopy of a peach-tree bough that was 
 loaded with forbidden fruit Mr. Murdstone having 
 told the family not to pick those peaches. This amused 
 the child for a moment, when, with a scream of delight 
 he reached his little hand and snatched a ripe peach 
 that hung near his head. 
 
 Mrs. Murdstone saw her husband coming with rapid 
 strides, and took the child in her arms, saying: "My 
 precious child, how could I have put you up there ? " 
 He, without saying a word, jerked the child from its 
 mother s clinging arms with a hard, cold, determined 
 jerk that would have torn its little arm from its socket 
 if the mother had not let go; then breaking a limb from 
 the tree, he whipped the little three-year-old child un 
 mercifully. The poor little fellow, who never was struck 
 before in his life, was frightened almost to death. Jean, 
 the dauntless Jean, ran to her brother, took him in 
 her arms and tried to soothe him, but, as soon as he 
 could speak for the pain and choking and strangling 
 and crying, he cried out, like one making a terrible 
 struggle for help, " Mamma, oh, mamma! " 
 
 That cry went to his mother s heart. She was tremb 
 ling like a leaf, but did not dare to reach her hand to 
 her poor, bruised, defenseless child, but her heart could 
 
52 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 and did go out in a great silent cry to God for mercy. 
 Jean was outraged at what seemed to her like cowardice 
 in her mother, but which was really schooled wisdom, 
 and she took her little brother and let him slide into 
 his mother s lap. Then she confronted Murdstone, the 
 first time any human being ever had, and it was a new 
 experience to that gentleman. She said, with defiance 
 blazing in her eyes: " Don t you ever strike my 
 brother again. If you must beat little children , beat 
 your own, and let their mother in heaven look down 
 on the cruelty, and stay God s vengeance from your 
 head, if she can." 
 
 No words the child could have spoken could have af 
 fected Mr. Murdstone as these did. He was white as 
 death. Jean knew by his prayers that he was a coward, 
 and mistook his dyspepsia for religion; but in a moment, 
 however, he rallied from his terror, and clutched a 
 limb of that historic peach tree with such force that 
 one-half of the tree with its weight of precious fruit, 
 fell at his feet. It had been propped up on that side, 
 having shown signs of weakness under its bending load, 
 but prop and all now came to the ground. This mishap 
 terrorized him still worse, for he thought he saw the 
 vengeance of God at hand, but he was so used to whip 
 ping the children that nothing could deter him from his 
 strong force of habit. He broke off quite a large, but 
 now useless limb from the fallen trunk, and commenced 
 wearing it out in a most vigorous manner over Jean s 
 shoulders. Jean, instead of running to her mother, as 
 he thought she would, stood like a heroine as she was, 
 and took his blows, while he with his towering pride 
 and rage, cowed under her words of contempt. "A 
 noble father, beating a little girl! Oh, I shall respect 
 you all my life for this," she hissed at him; "but you 
 will never make me a poor, frightened, trembling thing 
 like that," she said, pointing to Kate Murdstone, who 
 had begged Jean not to say a word when her father was 
 whipping little Alfred. Jean had pushed her off, say 
 ing: "Not if he kills me, will I keep still." The en- 
 
PARENTAL AUTHORITY. 53 
 
 raged brute, as intoxicated with anger as ever a man 
 was with whisky, glanced at Kate as Jean pointed to 
 her, and the poor girl, under that angry look, fell 
 violently to weeping. This roused him still more, and 
 he struck Jean one fearful blow that sent her reeling 
 against her mother, and then flew at Kate with such 
 vengeance that Mrs. Murdstone had to interfere. Put 
 ting her hand quietly on his arm, she said: " Father, 
 father!" with such a wail "just stop, do, and think 
 what you are doing." He did stop, but not until the 
 girl s flesh was cruelly welted. 
 
 Just then, Dan, his eldest son, a boy of twelve, who 
 had been to drive the cows home, had the misfortune 
 to come at the wrong moment. He took in the situa 
 tion quicker than a flash, and started to run. His run 
 ning was a crime. Murdstone called him back. The 
 boy had nothing on but a straw hat and thin shirt and 
 pants. Every blow the father dealt made a welt as big 
 as one s finger on the boy s tender flesh. It had been 
 a hot day, and the boy had played harder that day with 
 his new brothers than he was accustomed to do. He 
 was looking for his mother to tell her how bad his head 
 ached, when the brute he called father accosted him. 
 The fear and anger together, so overcame the boy that 
 he grew deathly sick. He sat down on the door-step 
 and wailed : 
 
 " Oh, mother," and she was at his side in an instant. 
 
 The boy was white as death and limp as a rag. She 
 looked beseechingly to Murdstone and said: 
 
 " He is dying." 
 
 He rallied soon, however, and vomited, and together 
 they carried him into the house and laid him on her 
 own bed. Everything was soon done that could be, 
 but it was plain that he would have brain fever. 
 
 That night, Mr. Murdstone said the same long grace 
 at supper. No one heard it but his wife. He took no 
 notice of her wan face, nor asked why the children 
 were not there. He knew they would rather go supper- 
 less to bed than see his face again that night. He 
 
64 
 
 HEROINE OF 40. 
 
 wanted to rule, and he sat there in his princely author 
 ity over the dishes *and wielded his knife and fork 
 as though nothing had happened, and that night slept 
 iust as soundly as though he was monarch of a throne, 
 had conquered an army, and hundreds lay weltering in 
 thei^Jplood, while he was crowned with laurels of his 
 own tain imaginings. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MUBDSTONB S BEPENTANOE. 
 
 That night Mrs. Murdstoae sat by the bedside of 
 little Daia, who was quite delirious, throwing hia arms 
 about, muttering in his sleep, and writhing in pain. 
 She put cold cloths on his head. There should have 
 been hot cloths laid all along the spine. They would 
 have relieved the nervous irritation. When the boy 
 grew more quiet she knelt down and asked God for 
 guidance in her great need. Once she thought she 
 would call Danny s father, and crept timorously to his 
 room. He was sleeping so soundly that he did not 
 wake at her call, so she crept softly back to find Danny 
 awake and in his right mind. 
 
 "Don t call him, he said, "he ll whip me to-mor 
 row if you do. * 
 
 " Oh, no, Danny, he wont ever whip you again. I 
 have asked God to keep your father from getting 
 angry at you. He will hear our prayer, my child, I 
 know he will. 1 
 
 "My mother, oh,my mother," he sobbed. She stooped 
 and kissed him, and held him to her breast until he 
 was quieted. Then he said: " I am so glad my mother 
 is dead. She was not like you. It broke her heart; it 
 killed her. Do you think she sees you now so kind to 
 me? Do you think she can see all the way from 
 heaven?" 
 
 "Yes, my child," she answered, "she is right here 
 to-night, helping me to nurse you." 
 
 "I don t know," he moaned, "she was afraid to do 
 anything for me when she was alive." 
 
 " Well, I will lie down beside you, and perhaps we 
 
66 THE HEROINE OF 40. 
 
 can go to sleep," whispered Mrs. Murdstone, sooth 
 ingly. 
 
 He tried to turn, but found racking pain in everj 
 muscle, and then asked: " Do you think there is a 
 hell? He ll go there if there is. My mother always 
 said he would, and I know he will, too." 
 
 Kext morning Dan was in such a high fever that 
 even Mr. Murdstone himself was alarmed, and sent for 
 Dr. Knight. In a few hours the doctor was there, ex 
 amined the boy s pulse, looked at his tongue, asked a 
 great many questions, and shook his head mysterious 
 ly, saying: 
 
 " This is not like an ordinary fever case tongue not 
 coated. This is not bilious malaria. Murdstone, I 
 think the boy will have to be bled, to relieve the con 
 gestion of the brain," he continued, pushing up Dan s 
 sleeve for that purpose. 
 
 Mrs. Murdstone quickly but gently protested, feeling 
 sure that the doctor would see the bruises on the boy s 
 arm. 
 
 Murdstone, who had been standing by the bedside, 
 suddenly thought of the doctor s horse, and went to 
 put it in the barn. Dr. Knight was not going to allow 
 his medical advice to be so easily set aside, so took the 
 arm of the unconscious boy, and, turning up his sleeve 
 .deliberately, there to his horror found the great welts 
 and bruises, and exclaimed: 
 
 " Why, Mrs. Murdstone, what is this? " Then she 
 gave, through her tears, a short and wonderfully pal 
 liated description of the scene that ha4 taken place the 
 night before. The doctor, listening to the story, 
 gently laid the bedclothes aside and examined the 
 back and limbs of the suffering child. 
 
 " The only thing that can be done, Mrs. Murdstone, 
 is to soothe these wounds with a dressing of sweet 
 cream. Oh, yes, he will live; but it will be weeks be 
 fore he will be out of this bed. It was the fright and 
 the anger that affected his brain; so it will take much 
 longer for the nerves to recover than the muscles," and 
 
Do you think she can see all the way from heaven ? " 
 
MURDSTONE S REPENTANCE. 57 
 
 then he added to himself, "Murdstone ought to be 
 dealt with in the church for this." Then to Mrs. 
 Murdstone: " I will take Murdstone to town for some 
 medicine for little Dan. I will give him a talking to, 
 and see if he beats me too." 
 
 "Well," said Mrs. Murdstone, "Kate and Jean s 
 arms and shoulders are just as badly bruised as the 
 boys , but their dresses protected their limbs." 
 
 Dr. Knight looked at Mrs. Murdstone s wan face, and 
 said: "Why, how can you endure this? I should 
 think you would leave him; the man must be crazy." 
 
 "Leave him!" exclaimed Mrs. Murdstone, "and 
 leave these poor motherless orphans; disgrace myself 
 and little children ? ISTo; you don t know me, Doctor 
 Knight. With God s help and yours, I hope to per 
 suade Mr. Murdstone to control his terrible temper. 
 That is the only remedy." 
 
 Dr. Knight staid, watching the boy s symptoms, 
 until dinner was announced. As soon as the*meal was 
 over, the two men started on their long ride to town. 
 Murdstone was attacked by one of his depressed states, 
 bordering on the melancholy of insanity. The quick 
 eye of the man of science saw this, and saw, too, that 
 the man must be quietly managed, or the cruelty of 
 words from him might be much greater to Mr. Murd 
 stone than his blows had been to the sensitive nerves of 
 Dan with this difference, that the one man struck his 
 blows in ignorance of the wrong he was doing, while 
 he believed himself to be doing a duty. The doctor 
 could not plead ignorance, and therefore had to be 
 cautious and merciful as the gentle dew that falls from 
 heaven when most needed, at the time when the fierce 
 sun withers and scorches the tender plant. 
 
 The old doctor was a medium-sized, round, plump, 
 man, who settled himself into the well-worn cushion of 
 his old-fashioned gig in a most comfortable manner, 
 and let old Badger jog along over the smooth road in 
 the warm afternoon sunshine. Dr. Knight had intended 
 giving Mr. Murdstone the hardest talking to he had 
 
58 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 ever given a man in his whole life, but one of his 
 sighs, as he seated himself beside the doctor, together 
 with his dejected look, caused him to change his mind 
 and he pulled his hat over his eyes, gave Murdstone 
 the reins, and in two minutes was taking a refreshing 
 nap. Murdstone was restless, pulled old Badger this 
 way and that, and finally got into a quarrel with the 
 plodding, patient old horse, and reached over to get 
 the whip. Old Doctor Knight was awake in a moment 
 and arrested his hand, exclaiming: 
 
 " No, not for your life, Murdstone don t do that P 
 
 Then he took the lines and the whip to put it back 
 in its socket, adding : " I never struck my horse nor 
 my dog, my wife nor my children, in my life, and Murd 
 stone, had I known that you did, I should as soon 
 have asked Mrs. Ames to build a funeral pyre and 
 burn herself alive as to have asked her to marry 
 you. 7 
 
 The doctor wiped a tear away as he continued: 
 
 " You are dear to me as a brother, but I must tell 
 you that /have not skill enough to save your son. If 
 your wife s nursing and God s mercy will spare him he 
 will live, but nothing I can do will save him. If 
 you had been considerate and tender with him as a 
 father ought, you would have seen this fever coming 
 in the boy s languor, and by gentle sympathy have 
 soothed his headache yesterday, instead of making him 
 so much worse by giving him such a terrible whip 
 ping." 
 
 "Why, what am I to do," asked Murdstone; "have 
 no authority in my own house ?" 
 
 "Why, man alive, yes, all the authority in the 
 world, but not that kind; such harsh, not to say cruel 
 treatment of children, is not the kind to be given by 
 the father of little children. It is all habit, Murd 
 stone. Now, see me stop old Badger; a feather s 
 weight on this line will stop him," and with the slight 
 est touch, the horse stood still. 
 
 " Oh yes," said Murdstone, " that s very different. 
 
MURDSTONE S REPENTANCE. 59 
 
 He wanted to stop, but you just start him up and see if 
 it don t take a little more force." 
 
 "Oh, no," said the old doctor, "If I just take the 
 lines in the most quiet way, giving old Badger the 
 slightest hint of my wish, he will jog on," and suiting 
 the action to the word, sure enough, up trotted the old 
 horse. 
 
 " Now, Murdstone, don t I exercise as much author 
 ity over my horse by these gentle means as I should 
 if I used the greatest violence? It is just so with my 
 children, and you can do the same, Murdstone, if I 
 can." 
 
 " I used to whip the children too much 3 I think my 
 self, when they were little," confessed Murdstone, " but 
 I have not so much since their mother died, for they 
 were her last words: "Don t whip the children," and 
 they ring in my ears for days after I have whipped one 
 of the children." 
 
 " I should think then you would be very careful how 
 you ever let your temper get so much the better of 
 you as to strike one of them," said the doctor firmly. 
 
 " Temper?" cried Murdstone. 
 
 " Yes," said the doctor, " temper and bad rearing. 
 I would venture anything now, Murdstone, that you 
 grew up under the most stringent, if not the most 
 absolutely tyrannical domestic discipline. Is it not so ?" 
 
 "Well," said Murdstone, "if to be boxed on the 
 head by the great, heavy hands of my five old-maid 
 sisters, until I went spinning to the other side of the 
 room, about fifty times a day, was tyranny, then I had 
 it. I believe it is the cause of these awful headaches 
 I have so much now." 
 
 " It is very probable," replied the doctor. " To box 
 a child on the head like that is a fruitful cause of deaf 
 ness, and such treatment as you speak of would cause 
 the death of any child in the world, if he had not that 
 tough, muscular development that you are endowed 
 with, my friend. One of your children would not live 
 a week if they had to go through such an ordeal. 
 
60 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 What were your parents thinking of to allow it, Murd- 
 stone? " 
 
 " My father died before I was born. My mother did 
 often shield me from a hard knock, I tell you." 
 
 The doctor looked at Murdstone in pity, saying : 
 
 " What a spoiled childhood ! How sorry I am for 
 you. What a warped, hard, dwarfed life yours has 
 been. I am sorry for you in my very heart." 
 
 "Is my child so sure to die, then, doctor?" said 
 Murdstone. "And you think he would not, if I had 
 not whipped him yesterday? God s hand is heavy 
 upon me, surely. He is my only son. This is very 
 hard, very hard, Dr. Knight," and he leaned back and 
 groaned aloud. 
 
 The light was breaking in on the doctor. He was 
 finding that Murdstone had really got a heart, and 
 could grieve at the thought of doing a wrong to his 
 child, but the man had such a hard, selfish nature that 
 it took the fiercest affliction to thaw it out so that even 
 the old doctor could discern the better part of the man. 
 
 "My friend," said the doctor, "I have never had 
 such a wrenching since I commenced the practice of 
 medicine. I would never see another case while I live 
 if I had to encounter another like this, Murdstone 
 not if I knew it. I have been through many trying 
 cases, that you know, but nothing like this, nothing." 
 
 "You have no hope, doctor," he said, again, "no 
 hope? " 
 
 " What words? " repeated the doctor. " No hope 
 that you will change into a reasonable, tender, kind, 
 thoughtful father, as you ought to be as you ought to 
 have been yesterday, Murdatone ? Your wife believes 
 in your having the ability to control your temper ; but 
 I must confess I have no hope. The boy may live with 
 her nursing, but, Murdstone, he had better die than 
 live in perpetual fear of you. All the sweet, tender 
 love of his young life turned into demoralizing fear and 
 possible hatred of his father. No hope! Gods! to be a 
 physician. Why I would rather be a hangman, and 
 
MURDSTONE S REPENTANCE. 61 
 
 done with it a hangman, Murdstone. Why, that dead 
 man whose children I thought you would be a father 
 to, was my dearest friend. I loved him. Your wife is 
 a pitying angel, I held in high esteem. Mrs. Murd- 
 stone, whom I have so basely wronged in that I asked 
 her to listen to you kindly, is to me as a sweet sister, 
 and you I have loved, Murdstone, and pitied. Oh, how 
 I have and do pity you. Now, if your child dies, will 
 you, Murdstone, see in its death God s chastening 
 hand, and try to see the way to lead your children and 
 not drive them? Tell me, Murdstone, will you, living 
 or dying, try to lead your children to do right? And 1 
 will try to pluck up courage and go on with the case. 
 God may spare his chastening rod in mercy this time." 
 Murdstone was bent under his great grief, his head 
 almost down to his knees ; the tears were blinding his 
 eyes. They were at the drug-store as the horse stood 
 still. Murdstone silently pressed the doctor s hand, and 
 silently they got out, the doctor to compound the rem 
 edies required for the sick boy, and Murdstone to go to 
 the church-yard, to the grave of his wife. There he knelt 
 and took a vow never to strike his son again if God 
 would hear only his prayer. He had not long to linger. 
 There were no flowers on the poor, neglected grave. 
 No flowers had bloomed for her in life. Why should 
 they mock her in her peaceful grave? They did not. 
 Murdstone picked up a little piece of the stone that 
 had crumbled from that which marked her resting- 
 place. This he hastily put into his pocket to remind, 
 him of his vow. The stone wore smooth with time, 
 but not until it had worn many a hole through his 
 pants that Mrs. Murdstone had mended many a time. 
 She knew it meant something sacred to her husband, 
 but never asked why he wore that precious stone. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 PREPARATIONS FOR CROSSING THE PLAINS. 
 
 Dan s recovery was very slow indeed; just as Dr. 
 Knight had predicted. His new mother watched with 
 him day and night, giving herself no rest, only at such 
 intervals as the boy was sleeping peacefully. The next 
 day, as the doctor was questioning Mrs. Murdstone 
 about the symptoms of the boy s condition, he discov 
 ered there had been a complete change since the hour 
 that Mr. Murdstone had knelt at the mother s grave. 
 
 The doctor s faith in the power of drugs had been 
 greatly shaken many times of late, and his faith in 
 prayer was increasing as the years, with their accumu 
 lating evidence, had brought fact after fact of this 
 kind to his attention, and he confessed as much to Mrs. 
 Murdstone. Dan s fear, trembling and nervous rest 
 lessness had all disappeared, but he was compelled to 
 lie there, his prostrate vital powers at a very low ebb, 
 for weeks. Who can count the result of that one hour s 
 giving way to brutal anger, and cloaking the atrocity 
 in the mild term of " parental authority? " 
 
 No sooner were the alarming, symptoms of the boy 
 somewhat relieved, than it was noticed that Kate 
 Murdstone was moping in a listless, tired way, with 
 such a quiet, spiritless, inattentive state of mind that it 
 was positively painful to see her. She never recited a 
 lesson in school,nor seemed to take the slightest interest 
 in either play or study ; her hands lay idly in her lap, 
 or dangled heedlessly at her side. One evening, as the 
 children were running, jumping and playing pranks as 
 children do when dismissed from school, suddenly 
 Kate reeled, stumbled, and would have fallen, but a 
 
PREPARATIONS FOR CROSSING THE PLAINS. 63 
 
 strong boy, running back, saw her and caught her in 
 his arms. She cried, " Oh, I am blind." Jean rushed 
 to her side, saying : " Oh, no, it is the hot sun that has 
 made you dizzy; lean on me." 
 
 Kate never spoke again. It took both Jean and the 
 
 strong boy to carry her home. The next week they 
 
 laid her beside her mother in the church-yard. .The 
 
 pure young maiden, the fair young girl, was at rest 
 
 with her mother in heaven. 
 
 Dan was slowly recovering ; all the fall and winter 
 he could not take his place at work, only to do light 
 chores about the house and grounds with his mother. 
 He was never better pleased than when he could do 
 something to lighten her labors. She was more than 
 a mother to him, and he filled the aching void of her 
 heart for her absent sons, so they were all in all to each 
 other. 
 
 The harvest was over, the corn had been gathered, 
 the cattle housed for the winter, the sheep and hogs 
 fattened for the slaughter, the turkeys penned for 
 Christmas, the spinning-wheels had been humming all 
 the fall months, the heavy skein of woollen yarn had 
 been spun and colored into rich browns, greens, deep 
 blues and pale blues, all hung in the great loft ready 
 for the loom. Two hundred yards were to be woven. 
 Why so much for a family of eleven? There were 
 only eleven, now. "Why! were there to be no more 
 falls with spinning wool and weaving yarn in them? 
 I fear not, for this family. No more years of full- 
 garnered sheaves overflowing with plenty not here 
 on the old homestead. 
 
 Oh, yes, more years in plenty, but hardships, strug 
 gles and scattering the young flock the old story. 
 
 The old house had been sold. The family remained 
 until the next fall, but commenced early to have the 
 spinning and weaving done for the next year. Hence 
 the preparations for the two hundred yards of cloth, 
 which must be cut, fitted and made into garments. 
 
64 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 Mrs. Murdstone was not a weaver. All the weaving 
 was done at a little homespun factory just struggling 
 into existence at that time. Much of the spinning was 
 done by a hired girl, who was paid one dollar and a 
 half a week. The girl was neat, tidy, and tired every 
 day when the work was done; but she earned money, 
 if ever so little; was independent and happy, and her 
 wants were few. She was unlike some who worked 
 harder and got no pay; who, after their marriage, were 
 not independent, and too often wretchedly unhappy. 
 But such was life in the Hoosier state, as I remember 
 it, forty years ago. 
 
 The neighbors thought the Murdstone family, since 
 they had united with the Yankee family of Ames, had 
 gone daft. "They are anything but clear-headed. 
 Going to cross the plains in ox-wagons to the Pacific 
 coast! Of course, the Indians will kill them and take 
 the wagons, horses and cattle before they get half 
 way there. If the old fools wanted to go off by them 
 selves, and be killed by the Indians, it would be all 
 right, but to take all those helpless little children that 
 don t even know what it means, is just awful, and the 
 authorities ought to put a stop to the idea." 
 
 The scheme was so gigantic, the difficulties so ter 
 rifying, the preparations so all-absorbing, that it took 
 nearly the whole neighborhood, busily working with 
 might and main, to get the family ready at the end of 
 the year, for the journey which would take a year to 
 accomplish, even if it were successful. 
 
 " What if the Indians should take them all prisoners 
 and make them work for them as slaves all their 
 lives, and the journey never end ? Oh, the hor 
 ror ! " 
 
 The neighbors sat around their firesides and talked 
 "Indians" until they half expected the savages to en 
 ter with a whoop and yell, and, tomahawk in air, scalp 
 them all in their peaceful homes. Then they would 
 brace up at a corn-husking and say : " Oh, nonsense, 
 
PREPARATIONS FOR CROSSING THE PLAINS. 65 
 
 Murdstone will never go, DO more nor I shall; they are 
 only talkinV 
 
 "Yes, but see the way they are workin like all per- 
 sessed, the spinning-wheels just a-buzzing, and the 
 looms a-whirring. Old Jake Cobe told me he had 
 seventy-five yards of jeans to weave, some of it butter, 
 nut colored, and some of it indigo blue, and old Mrs. 
 Eogers were at our house last week, she were, and she 
 sez Belling s man, what s the wheelwright in town, 
 has got an order to put up two of the biggest kivered 
 ox-wagons ever he seed in all his life; and they are to 
 be made of the goldarndest tough hickory they kin git 
 in the hull country that sand wouldn t scrape, ner the 
 sun warp, ner the water faze, to make it shrink er 
 shrivel. You see there s hundreds an* hundreds o 
 miles o nothing but sand deserts, and then there s 
 nary a road the hull way, just brush and trees and 
 sand and rivers to cross, an savages don t make no 
 bridges as ever I hearn on; they just stay on one side 
 o the river while the water is high and wait till its 
 low. But you see, them Murdstones is a goin somers, 
 God only knows where; they ve jest got to push right 
 ahead, cos if they don t they ll never get across them 
 biggest mountains in the hull world, just afore they get 
 to that there awful fine valley, that I spose beats the 
 land o Canaan that Moses traveled forty years to see, 
 with them children of Israel, and then only sot eyes on 
 it and died. They say they are goin for to take up 
 land, and then they be agoin to live and build up 
 a country all by theirselves, with the savages just 
 a-hootin and yellin and a-scalpin of ? em all the time. 
 Oh, yes, Davie, they are a-goin , or leastwise they be 
 a-goin to start, cos I never hearn o Murdstoue s not a 
 doin what he said he wus." 
 
 " That woman that Murdstone married is a mighty 
 peert kind o woman, and as good as wheat. The way 
 she sot by them children o his n while they was sick 
 with the fever this summer; and them children Bets 
 
66 
 
 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 more store by her than mine does by me, a nnff sight, 
 aod she ses she can t tell no difference between which 
 is her n and which is his n, only when they re sick, or 
 be a-goin to die, then uatur will tug away at her 
 heart." 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 COMMENCING THE JOURNEY. 
 
 As there is an end to everything, so there was an 
 end to the preparations, and a beginning to the jour 
 ney. 
 
 On the morning of the twentieth of September, 1847, 
 the ox-wagons, with their great, snowy covers, were 
 standing in the yard, every inch of space packed with 
 flour, bacon and beans, dried fruit, bedding, blankets, 
 clothing and general camping outfit everything in 
 order. The wagons had been built for the trip; ev 
 ery convenience that could be thought of had been 
 added for the comfort of the family. All the friends of 
 the family, who felt the parting most keenly, had said 
 their good-byes a week before the good-byes never 
 to be repeated. The curiosity of the passing friend and 
 neighbor had been satisfied. Nurse Scott, who was 
 going as far as the village with the family, was seated 
 with all the little Murdstones in her ample lap, in the 
 spacious carriage with its proud steeds impatient to be 
 gone. If they could have known the weary miles they 
 had to travel, would they, like many a poor mortal, 
 have been so eager for the start ? 
 
 The carriage moved leisurely down the lane, the dull- 
 eyed oxen pulled slowly out, and the long journey was 
 begun. The neighbors were somewhat saddened by 
 this dropping out of a- whole family from their midst, 
 but they flung aside their stolid tears, and were soon 
 dispersed, feeling half glad the journey was not theirs, 
 as each took up his or her burden of life, lightened by 
 the contrast of their own peaceful homes, and their 
 paying avocations, to a long journey over an unknown 
 region, with no home, no employment, no civilization 
 
68 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 but one to be hewed out of the eternal nothingness of 
 a new world. 
 
 There were five yoke of oxen to each wagon. Mike 
 Flannigan drove one of the slow-footed ox-teams haul 
 ing the ponderous load, with its creaking wheels slowly 
 turning on their great iron axles, making a heavy doubt 
 spring up in the mind of any one who knew how far 
 those wheels were destined to roll, whether, at that 
 pace, they would ever reach their destined goal or 
 not. Mike s reason for braving the desperate foe, and 
 leaving civilization behind him, was that he wanted 
 more room to fling about his brogue, for "Begorra," 
 said he, " that s all I have left me since Pete Mulligan 
 married the widdy Daley." Any man w*ho has never 
 attempted to drive five yoke of oxen will have no idea 
 of the undertaking, especially until these dull-brained 
 animals get settled into the routine business of tramp, 
 tramping, with the heavy, groaning load creeping after. 
 There are always shirks in an ox-team, just as there are 
 in the human bee-hive, and if the driver was not on 
 the alert, two or three oxen would be left to pull the 
 load; and with a journey like that, it would work dis 
 aster, for the cattle that pulled the load would soon be 
 disabled, and as there were no recruiting hospitals on 
 the route, every man and beast must be able to move on. 
 
 Mrs. Murdstone told her friends that with such a 
 journey before her, there was no time for tears, and 
 bade them all a cheerful good-by, stepping into the 
 carriage; and poor, old nurse Scott s lap was left empty 
 of the little Murdstones, and her heart quite disconso 
 late as she said they didn t care for her any longer. 
 
 The teams had about six miles to travel before reach 
 ing the village where Mrs. Murdstone had formerly 
 lived, and from which town she was married two years 
 before, and where Thomas and Ben Ames had been at 
 work until now. The whole town turned out en masse, 
 as they passed through the principal street. The 
 horses were impatient, champing their bits, and could 
 scarely be kept quiet during the hour while the hand 
 shaking went on, but the patient cattle stood still chew- 
 
COMMENCING THE JOURNEY. 69 
 
 ing their cuds, and some of them actually lay down in 
 their yokes to rest, to the great amusement of the by 
 standers, with which the streets were thronged on either 
 side. Many citizens expressed a desire to join the 
 party, and wishing the Murdstones every success on 
 their journey, hoping to hear a favorable report, de 
 clared that they would join them in the course of two 
 or three years. Dr. Knight said it would not surprise 
 him if half the town followed suit. 
 
 As everybody knows, it was only the next June, 1848, 
 that the great gold discovery was made at Butter s mill, 
 California, and many a gawking boy who stood looking 
 in open-mouthed wonder that afternoon at the Murd- 
 stone outfit, found himself in California before three 
 years had passed, ransacking the mountains and hill 
 sides, and turning the rivers upside down to get their 
 gold, and some found the yellow metal in great abun 
 dance. But alas! too many found shattered lives and 
 broken fortunes, and some found early graves, while 
 others returned to the old civilization and settled down 
 to their former avocations, their minds stored with 
 wonderful knowledge of the great hegira to the Golden 
 West. 
 
 That night, the Murdstones, one and all, declared they 
 were glad to be in a strange country where no one could 
 say good-by. The romance of their first camp-fire was 
 something to be enjoyed; there they were under the 
 great spreading oaks, just three miles from the village, 
 the fire lighting up the grounds; the rustic table, set 
 with a clean, white, homespun flax table-cloth; new, 
 shining tin plates and tin cups for tea; the snowy bread 
 and cakes, jellies, cold chicken, cold ham, pickles 
 was not that a picnic, a peaceful, restful time after the 
 day s events ? The children were tired of being cooped 
 up all day in the carriage. The noise, the fun, the 
 frolic around that old oak tree was good enough for 
 them; the night was clear, with the stars shining over 
 head ; the fire-light, with its fitful glare, threw a glamour 
 about the whole scene that gave to the campers prom- 
 
70 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 ise that the whole trip was to be one of pleasure. 
 
 The Murdstone family was stowed away in the two 
 wagons, which, to their great surprise were almost as 
 comfortable as two little bed-rooms, with many conve 
 niences for toilet arrangements hid away in wall 
 pockets fashioned in the wagon covers. The boys and 
 hired men slept in a tent on the "ground floor" they 
 said, declaring they had daisies and buttercups for 
 carpets; but all they had to show for daisy carpets next 
 morning, was one little, belated dandelion that had for 
 gotten to bloom until all his neighbors had blown away 
 in the soft down that the dandelion, in its old age, 
 gives to the wind. 
 
 It is needless to say that these campers, one and all, 
 slept soundly; no crying children disturbed the mid 
 night air, no standing guard all night for fear of In 
 dians. These people were in Illinois, six miles from 
 the Indiana line; they had to traverse the two states of 
 Illinois and Missouri before reaching the Missouri 
 river, the starting-point, as it was then called, for the 
 emigrants who were crossing the great plains. 
 
 The Murdstones started on the journey in the fall, 
 aud wintered in the city of St. Joseph, on the banks of 
 the Missouri river, as many other emigrants did who 
 started from the interior of the Western States to cross 
 the plains. There were no railroads in those days, and 
 it would be utterly impossible to make the journey in 
 the early spring, as the ice, snow and slush made the 
 roads impassable for heavy loads to join the company 
 that was formed at this last point of civilization, to 
 travel together in hundreds for mutual aid and protec 
 tion against the savages through whose country they 
 had to pass. It was not deemed safe to travel with 
 less than one hundred and fifty armed men after leav 
 ing the Missouri river. Kansas and Nebraska were an 
 uninhabited wilderness, over which roamed the buffalo 
 and Sioux Indians. 
 
 Dear, old Doctor Knight had tried to reach the 
 Murdstone camp early, and take the evening meal with 
 
COMMENCING THE JOURNEY. 71 
 
 the family, in the open air, under the grand old oak 
 tree that had stood the storms of a hundred years, and 
 spread out its smiling branches to as many summers. 
 
 "Doctor Knight, I ve been in attendance with you, 
 many and many a time. You can t hurry up a case of 
 this kind. What s the use fussing ? I never saw you so 
 anxious to get away," said the nurse, Mrs. Chinks. 
 
 "No, I see," said the old doctor; "and since I am 
 compelled to wait, Mrs. Chinks, give me a pen and ink 
 and I will compose a letter which may compose me. 
 A doctor s life is but a slave s at best." 
 
 Mrs. Chinks, laying the writing paper before the 
 M. D., said: 
 
 "It s a lot of people you re always giving orders to, 
 and keeping em jumping to do your dictation, and a 
 king has seldom lived who has more people eager to do 
 his slightest bidding." 
 
 " Well, well, Mrs. Chinks, I wish there was not any 
 worse slavery in the whole world. I am quite content 
 with myself now, thanks to you," and with his ear 
 listening every moment, for a call from the nursery, he 
 took up his pen and wrote rapidly : 
 
 "At CARGASWALAGENS, Midnight. 
 
 "Dear Friends: I am detained. I don t blame a child 
 for not hurrying to be born to wear a name like that. 
 It doesn t sound so awful as it seems when written. I 
 was with you, in spirit, around the old oak tree last 
 night. It is glorious to have the seclusion of one s own 
 family. You must have enjoyed it to a degree, and 
 were really better off without me; but I am so selfish, 
 I wanted to have one more last time. You know we 
 have had several last good-byes. Your start is made, 
 and a very good one too, I think. You will have a 
 joyous time right through this fall. The cattle travel 
 so slowly that you cannot possibly be wearied with 
 your six weeks trip. 
 
 "The big family carriage, with its fine span of brood 
 mares, drawing its precious freight, looked proud and 
 defiant of failure. You are splendidly equipped, dear 
 
72 THE) HEROINE OP 4 
 
 friends, for the journey. I did not think when you 
 first talked of going, that such a magnificent outfit 
 could be got together in the whole county. Why, it 
 will inspire respect and admiration in the breast of 
 every savage nation through whose country you pass. 
 They will not harm a hair of your heads. They will 
 be glad to see you, and learn some of your methods of 
 life. They will not adopt them civilization is not so 
 easily reached but the savages will be pleased and en 
 tertained, and will make no war upon you since you are 
 only peacefully passing over their country. Do not al 
 low the young men of your company to disturb their 
 game too much ; keep your guns and ammunition out of 
 sight, but whe*e they can be reached at a moment s 
 warning. 
 
 " I shall miss you, but I am proud to have you there 
 in that new world. I know your lives will be so much 
 grander and broader than they could ever have been 
 here. Why, you are establishing a new civilization. 
 You will be so remote from other centers that it will be 
 slow to build up a new state; but so much the more 
 will your moral heroism be felt. Like primitive man, 
 God s first temple, the trees, will be your houses of 
 worship. But how soon will you build houses, churches 
 and schools, aud plant orchards. For the last two 
 years I have been gathering choice varieties of fruits, 
 flowers and garden seeds for you, and when they are 
 all growing and blooming in splendor, then you will 
 think of me. I know how readily you will lend a help 
 ing hand to the new world you are about to bless with 
 your noble, strong lives. 
 
 "And the dear children is there any four-walled 
 country school-house in all Christendom where they 
 could learn as much as they will next summer, in the 
 great world from which they will gather object-lessons 
 as they pass on and on ? Your girls will grace fairest 
 homes, and your boys will sit in the legislative halls of 
 a new state, and I shall probably read all this in the 
 letters you send back, and how soon it will all come to 
 pass, dear friends, and we shall b@ done with it all, 
 
COMMENCING THE JOURNEY. 
 
 73 
 
 and like Jacob of old, be gathered to our fathers; 
 and the old world where we have loved, lived and died, 
 wilLmove on just the same without us. I am called. 
 Gooa-by." DB. KNIGHT. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 CROSSING THE PLAINS. 
 
 Next morning, the family were at breakfast; the air 
 being cooler, the children would have been uncomfort 
 able but for this canvas house and the cooking-stove 
 fire, with its beefsteak frying as homelike as you 
 please, and the most fragrant" coffee, with cream Mr. 
 Murdstone had bought of a farmer who had allowed 
 him the use of his barn-yard for the cattle, and stable- 
 room for the horses, charging him but a trifling sum. 
 There was, however, many another farmer on the route 
 that took advantage of the situation, and charged him 
 most exorbitant prices for the same accommodations. 
 And while they were thus cosily and somewhat hastily 
 swallowing the early meal, little Alfred, on his mother s 
 knee, espied the letter that Dr. Knight had pinned on 
 the tent door, where he had written in pencil, " Be 
 ware of midnight prowlers. Baby boy mother doing 
 well.. 2:10 A. M. DR. KNIGHT AND OLD BADGER." 
 
 Mrs. Murdstone read the foregoing letter, and 
 Thomas Ames, as he lifted the tin cup of coffee to the 
 dawning down of his upper lip, exclaimed: "I will be 
 the legislator!" and Jean said, "Bead that again, 
 mother. "What kind of a home is it I m to grace?" 
 
 " The Murdstones, as they wended their slow way 
 along, could not have had a pleasanter journey. The 
 road was good most of the way, and those glorious, 
 bright days of autumn weather were just perfect in 
 that mighty valley of the Mississippi. There were 
 hundreds of miles of dead level, not a ripple nor rise 
 of ground, one mighty sweep as far as the eye could 
 reach in every way. The horizon sets down flat on the 
 
CROSSING THE PLAINS. 75 
 
 level plain. This vastness is sublime. It is awe-in 
 spiring. It takes away your power to dwell upon little 
 things like self. You wonder if this is eternity and 
 there is no end, as day after day you go on and on, 
 and meet only with endless expanse? 
 
 The people living along the route complained of be 
 ing oppressed by this immensity of space, where there 
 was nothing for the eye to rest upon, and they were 
 glad when night shut in the earth with darkness; and 
 yet, in the clear, bright moonlight, it was something 
 weird and almost terrorizing to look upon. Mountain 
 scenery is always soothing to the spirit of man. There 
 are such sheltering nooks, such sublimity, such pure 
 air, and yet, with all, such a protecting feeling. You 
 flee to the mountains for safety or shelter; but where 
 would you find shelter here if a storm should come, a 
 wind drive you before it, or, as often did happen in 
 those days, a devastating fire sweep over those 
 prairies? No earthly thing could save you. 
 
 Our travelers had spent a busy winter in the city of 
 St. Joseph, making the last preparations the finishing 
 touches, as it were for the long journey across the 
 plains. This was the last point of civilization through 
 which they had to pass. Any supplies that were not 
 laid in at this place would have to be done without; so 
 the great throng that had spent the winter in that city 
 had to have their wits about them, and decide what 
 would be absolutely necessary, and omit what was not 
 positively needed. A great many people took things 
 they did not need, and found, after hauling them a few 
 hundred miles, that it was necessary to throw them 
 away to lighten their loads. The special family with 
 which the reader is acquainted, were pretty level 
 headed, and did not make these mistakes. The won- 
 derfulness of this lively little city of St. Josephs was 
 that it sat on the rim of the world. You crossed the 
 Missouri river and were out of the world and into a 
 wilderness. It was wonderful, too, to stand on the 
 banks of the river, and watch the palatial steamers as 
 
76 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 they plowed through the muddy water. How quickly 
 the splash and whir and foam that they left in their 
 track was smoothed away by the moving waters, and 
 its bosom left unruffled by the slightest hint of any dis 
 turbance. 
 
 There are natures like this : Jean Ames was not un 
 like the great river in her calmness. Would the throes 
 of grief disturb her breast, and the current of her life 
 quickly close over it all, and smoothly glide on ? We 
 shall see. But first we must get our heroine, together 
 with the hundreds and hundreds of her fellow-travel 
 ers, " the plains across." It would req,uire the pen of 
 a Dickens to describe the bustle and confusion ; the 
 noise, hurry and jostling; getting across the river, tak 
 ing their places along the line, waiting to be numbered 
 and put into position. There were about six hundred 
 wagons that crossed the river in the first days of April, 
 1848. Each wagon was supposed to carry three adult 
 people, with any number of children thrown in. Now 
 this immense concourse of people had to be divided 
 into companies, the first company to start out two days 
 in advance, the next following in order, and so on. 
 These companies consisted of one hundred and fifty 
 wagons each. It happened that Mr. Murdstone was 
 chosen as the man to lead the van, and as the horses 
 walked faster than the cattle, they were allowed to go 
 ahead. The gallant steeds looked defiant of failure, 
 sure enough, though everybody was prognosticating 
 their inability to stand the journey. 
 
 Captain Wambaugh, riding back and forth along the 
 line of long teams, seemed proud as any general that 
 ever directed a battle or led soldiers to victory. He 
 was a French-Canadian, and understood the Indian 
 character thoroughly. He was a well-knit, compact 
 man of medium stature; a broad bronzed face lit up 
 with clear, blue eyes, that meant to be obeyed without 
 any palaver, and he was obeyed from first to last with 
 out anyone s feeling that he was under surveillance. 
 These companies were to travel so as to be within 
 
CROSSING THE PLAINS. 77 
 
 hailing distance of each other; should a company be 
 attacked by Indians, either at the front or rear; they 
 could fall back or advance, as the case required. There 
 were horsemen riding back and forth, so that each 
 company had an account of the other s progress nearly 
 every day. There were some rules to be observed, 
 and one of them was, that the family that led the train 
 one morning was to fall back to the rear the next. 
 The teams of each family were allowed to remain to 
 gether. 
 
 There were only two family carriages in the train 
 the Murdetones and that of Dr. Martin s family. These 
 were exempt from the rule of going to the rear, and 
 were allowed to take the lead the whole journey 
 through. Every night, when driving into camp, the 
 wagons were placed in a circle so that they formed a 
 compact corral, and as soon as the cattle were done feed 
 ing they were driven into this corral. A certain num 
 ber of men were stationed at equal distances around the 
 corral, to stand guard against the Indians until mid 
 night, when they were relieved by the morning guards 
 men. The hours after midnight were considered the 
 most dangerous, as it is the Indian s character to creep 
 up upon their foe just before daylight. Hence these 
 were picked and tried men. Captain Wambaugh 
 maintained a general supervision over all the com 
 panies, but a special one over the first company that 
 led the van that year. He was chosen to this high 
 trust because he had crossed the plains once before, 
 and returned alone, braving every danger that his 
 alertness could not dodge, which made him a hero 
 with all the companies. Men were glad to trust some 
 one who had had experience over these rough marches. 
 It took stout hearts and strong hands to bid good-by 
 to civilization, and move on with slow and steady 
 tread to the goal of their destination the sunset land 
 of the Pacific ocean. Mothers folded their little chil 
 dren to their breasts and asked that God, who led 
 Moaes through the wilderness to the promised land, 
 
78 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 would care for their little ones. " Those were times 
 that tried men s souls." There were roads to make, 
 and bridges to build; there were trees to fell to make 
 way through mountain gorges; there were swollen 
 rivers to cross, made so by the melting snows, with 
 only wagon-beds calked tight for ferry-boats; there 
 were midnight vigils to keep, standing guard for Indians 
 to shoot you if they chose; there were ravenous 
 wolves, whose faintest howl would send the soul 
 of a coward shivering to his boots. There were 
 great bands of wild buffaloes, with frightened tread, 
 thundering over the plains, making the earth tremble 
 with their onward bounds. Horsemen must meet these 
 frantic beasts, and turn them from their course, or they 
 would sweep everything to destruction in their terrified 
 way. There were hundreds of them, packed so closely 
 together that each one must make his bound with pre 
 cision or his fellow would trample him to death. Their 
 fiery black eyes would look as if bursting from their 
 sockets ; their short horns almost bent to the earth ; 
 their great flowing manes glistening in the sun-light. 
 If they were not warded off, they would crash right 
 through the train, killing everything within their 
 sweep. They were more to be dreaded than an Indian 
 massacre. 
 
 There were mountain sides around which to clamber, 
 where it was impossible to cut the solid rock and make 
 a grade. Strong men would walk beside the wagons, 
 holding them from falling off and tumbling down 
 hundreds of feet into a torrent below. There were 
 some mountains to climb so steep that teams had to be 
 doubled to haul up one wagon. Then there were 
 mountain sides to descend, when the cattle were taken 
 away from the wagons, the tongue attached to the 
 wagon, and large trees, with heavy tops, were cut 
 down and fastened to the back for a weight to prevent 
 their falling end over end, the places were so steep. 
 There were other places over precipices where the 
 wagons were let down with ropes. Then came the 
 
CROSSING THE PLAINS. 
 
 79 
 
 long marches over the burning sands, without water 
 except that carried in casks, and sometimes the men, 
 as well as the cattle, would give out on the long drives 
 over alkali deserts. And here, as always, since the 
 world began, the women came to the rescue when the 
 men failed. There was one long march of three days 
 that had to be driven over at -night, as the heat of the 
 sun was too intense in the day-time. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 CROSSING THE PLAINS. 
 
 The last night of this terrible tramp over the des 
 ert stretch Mr. Murdstone said to Jean: "There is 
 no one to take the place to drive this carriage but you. 
 There are so many men sick, and one poor fellow I fear 
 will die before morning. The horses will keep the 
 road. They will obey your lightest touch. All you 
 have to do is to keep a tight rein when you go down 
 the steep places." The brave girl did hold a tight rein 
 down the steep places, trusting in God and the horses, 
 and was wearied and worn with the marching when 
 daylight dawned on the sand desert, and they were in 
 sight of the winding river that lay a mile and a half 
 below. The moment the almost famished cattle gained 
 sight of the water they were unmanageable, and had to 
 be unhitched from the wagons. T.hey dashed pell-mell 
 into the stream, which being shallow water saved them 
 from drowning. There was a camp struck on the banks 
 of Green river, and several days spent in recruiting 
 the men and beasts from their never-to-be-forgotten all- 
 night march. 
 
 The reader must not think that the whole journey 
 was made up of such hardships as we have just de 
 scribed. There were weeks and weeks of very com 
 fortable traveling, without anything occurring to disturb 
 the even tenor of their way. There were miles and 
 miles over the most beautiful undulating plains, 
 covered with waving grass, and studded with gorgeous 
 wild-flowers; over this delightful country they went 
 creeping along at a very snail s pace. The cattle could 
 not be made to travel more than ten or twelve miles a 
 day, at the farthest, which gave the company ample 
 
CROSSING THE PLAINS. 81 
 
 time to enjoy the grand sights along the route. Away 
 to the right and left there were snowy peaks crowning 
 lofty mountain ranges, whose glowing tints in the warm 
 afternoon sunlight were lovely to look upon; but 
 resplendent, bathed in the glow of the setting sun, mak 
 ing the whole camp peacefully contented after the 
 day s journey was ended; the cattle feeding leisurely on 
 the vast plain; the camp-fires dying out; the evening 
 meal over; men and women contested, happy and hope 
 ful; children making the wild earth ring with their joy 
 ous merriment; young men and maidens acknowledging 
 by their shy looks that " love rules the court, the camp, 
 the grove " all these, as they sat by the camp s dying 
 embers, or wandered by the running stream s low banks, 
 felt that the God who hewed out the mountains, set 
 their snowy boundaries, sent the rivers singing through 
 the valleys, and hung the sun, moon and stars over all, 
 would shelter His children even in the wilderness, and 
 this thought brought peace and rest and renewed 
 strength, and thus they journeyed on and on, meeting 
 new trials and new pleasures daily. 
 
 Hunting parties were often out by the dawn s early 
 light, scouring the valley, the hill-top or mountain, 
 just as it happened. Thus the company were rarely 
 without the choicest game, elk, deer, mountain sheep; 
 and the delicious antelope and buffalo, I fear, wore 
 killed too often, just for the mere sport, the men some 
 times bringing in only the tongues, to show how many 
 they had slaughtered of these fine animals, these mon- 
 archs of the plain. 
 
 Captain Wambaugh warned the company that they 
 might get into difficulty with the Indians, if this wanton 
 killing of the game was not stopped. On account of 
 this, the whole train was compelled to halt one fine 
 morning in June, and hold a pow-wow with the Sioux 
 tribe of Indians. Some of the chiefs rode into camp 
 and informed Captain Wambaugh that their people, 
 who were just^ starting on a buffalo hunt to the south, 
 would wait upon the company and receive what presents 
 6 
 
82 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 they had to offer for allowing the cattle to eat and 
 tramp the grass; also for the game that the company 
 were killing; a very honorable and praiseworthy 
 proposition, and surely a company of the great Ameri 
 can nation were not marauders, nor beggars; and so 
 the captain said that the quicker the debt was paid, and 
 with the greater show of generosity, the safer it would 
 be for the scalps of the whole company; and the best 
 policy for their pockets, as this tribe of well-dressed, 
 well-fed and well-bred Indians, as Indians go, would 
 not be outdone in generosity by the pale-faces, and the 
 Indians, to make a display of their wealth, would pre 
 sent them with buffalo robes and dressed deer-skins, 
 that might exceed in real value all the presents the In 
 dians received from the company. 
 
 What the Indians most wanted was guns and ammuni 
 tion, but that request could not be acceded to by the 
 company. They would receive blankets, coffee, sugar, 
 flour, tobacco. It was, therefore, arranged between 
 Captain Wambaugh, and some of the lieutenants of the 
 company, and the Indian chiefs, that the company 
 should meet the Indians the next day, hold the pow 
 wow, and exchange the presents. Some of the horse 
 men of the company had ridden to the camp of the 
 Indians, and finding that the Indian women and chil 
 dren were there, reported there was no danger, as In 
 dians never go to war with their women and chil 
 dren. 
 
 Next day, everything being in readiness, the compa 
 ny drawn up in line, the wagons arranged to make as 
 good a display as possible, the pale-faces with their 
 best appearance stood in line, men shoulder to shoul 
 der, their wives and children just back of them. The 
 Indians were also arranged in the same order. There 
 were three thousand of these Indians, who, if they had 
 chosen, could have wiped the company of whites off the 
 face of the earth in a moment, but they said they 
 knew that the pale-faced nation was like the sand of the 
 river bank, and to destroy this company would be to 
 invite their own destruction; that they were friendly. 
 
CROSSING THE PLAINS. 83 
 
 The pipe of peace was then passed from the Indian to 
 the pale-face, back and forth along the line. 
 
 This ceremony ended, they all sat down upon the 
 grass. Then the presents were brought and the ex 
 changes made, and to the great relief of the company, 
 they were allowed to move on to camp; and were glad 
 to learn that they would meet no more Indians on the 
 route until they had crossed the Rocky Mountains, as 
 all their tribe had gone or were going south to lay in 
 supplies for winter. 
 
 This tribe of Indians were stalwart men, straight as 
 arrows; all dressed in their holiday attire of white 
 buckskin, with long fringes, and deep-beaded embroi 
 dery wrought in a variety of colors and designs. The 
 women were round and plump, some with oval faces 
 and bright, sparkling eyes that were beautiful indeed. 
 Their children were strong-limbed, fleet of foot and 
 healthy as deer, and in point of physique would put to 
 shame our proudest civilization. 
 
 Their children, under ten years of age, both boys 
 and girls, wore no clothing, buckskin or any other kind 
 of covering, but the skin that grew upon their bodies. 
 There was not a sign of deformity or feebleness of 
 mind or body. I fear not so much could have been 
 said of the children of the company, who were more or 
 less comfortably clad, but if they could have stood out, 
 naked before scrutinizing eyes, as the little savages did, 
 there would have been many a sunken chest, humped 
 back and crooked limb, and traces of tears would have 
 been found upon their countenances, .As childhood 
 should not be the weeping age, it would have looked 
 bad for our civilization as we stood under the clear sky 
 of that bright June day. A wild savage was never 
 known to cut a stick and deliberately whip a child, 
 hence they grow up without fear and without disease. 
 Horned cattle never hook, nor kick nor hoof their 
 young. The bible saying, " Spoil the rod and spare the 
 child," if acted upon, would be the greatest boon that 
 could be conferred upon humanity. 
 
 One of the leading savages, among the mighty chiefs 
 
84 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 at the pow-wow, criticised the code of ethics of the 
 company. The white children standing alongside their 
 parents, peeped through the ranks across at the red 
 skins who were standing about three rods away. The 
 old chief s reprimand for this act of discourtesy was 
 the chagrin of the proud American parent for many a 
 day. After this grand pow-wow was over, the company 
 passed a few straggling bands of Indians. Nothing 
 compared to this grand Sioux nation, however, was 
 again seen on the journey. 
 
 One bright day in June, just after the pow-wow with 
 the Sioux Indians, there rode into camp six horsemen, 
 armed and equipped for the journey with ample ammu 
 nition, guns, Colt s revolvers, bowie knives, and pack 
 animals loaded with provisions. The train appeared 
 something like the Queen of Sheba must have looked 
 to Solomon, only there was no queen, and the camels 
 were not bearing spices and jewels, but beans and bacon. 
 
 There was a king, however, but the boys called him 
 Lord Cornwall. He was a young man, a little below 
 the medium, with steel-blue eyes that went searching 
 right through men, Indians, problems, anything. * * A 
 masterful man," one would say, as he stood by his horse 
 that day, with his gun resting its stock on the ground, 
 one hand firmly grasping the barrel, the other care 
 lessly resting on the rein, together with a lock of the 
 proud steed s mane; but ready, quick as thought, to 
 mount, if occasion required. There was an alertness 
 and bravery that shone from every movement and look, 
 born of the necessity of looking out for danger. He 
 and his men were twice taken prisoners by the Indians, 
 and twice escaped, while crossing the plains on horse 
 back, with pack animals, during the summer of 48. 
 
 Those who know him well, may recognize him as the 
 president of the Mechanics Fair; a man whose influence 
 has been wide-felt in the marts of trade and commerce, 
 and in helping to mold the country to its present 
 greatness. 
 
 It had been a hot, long, dusty drive; man and beast 
 were alike tired and glad of a rest in the cool evening 
 
CROSSING THE PLAINS. 85 
 
 on the banks of the bright, clear waters of North Bear 
 river. The cattle had stood in the shallow stream, 
 cooled their swollen, tired limbs, drank their fill of 
 the pure mountain water, and now had to be driven out 
 to get their feed of grass before dark. The grass was 
 green on the banks of the river, and very tempting to 
 the cattle, but the journey was telling on their tired 
 and stiffened limbs, poor, dumb, brutes; many of them 
 left their bones to bleach on the plains. They could 
 not ask for liniment as the men did, but they could 
 bathe their legs in the cool water, and did until they 
 were driven out of the river. 
 
 It happened to be Mr. Murdstone s evening, with 
 five other men, to drive the cattle to the best patches of 
 grass; then as dark set in, to surround the whole herd 
 and drive them all into the corral that was formed out 
 of the wagons, for security against the surrounding 
 savages. Mr. Murdstone had cut along, thrifty, young 
 willow to drive the cattle, at least so it seemed to Will 
 Ames, a boy of eleven, whose duty it was to help drive 
 the loose cattle behind the wagons during the day. 
 Now the cattle were often tempted to run out of the 
 road on either side to eat grass. It was an impossible 
 thing to keep them in the road all day, especially as the 
 train moved very slowly, often being interrupted and 
 sometimes stopping for hours. The cattle had been 
 restless with the heat of the day and roamed more than 
 usual. The evening sun was setting, flinging a wealth 
 of golden glory over mountain, sky and valley; the 
 camp fires were smoldering. The young couples were 
 wandering on the banks of the stream; children play 
 ing by the water s edge, throwing pebbles and wading. 
 The old folks were lounging about the camp or sitting 
 on the wagon tongues. All was peace and quiet. 
 
 Will Ames, fatigued with driving the cattle, was 
 lying on the ground with his face to the sky, watching 
 the clouds sailing along in the blue ether, tinted with 
 that wondrous sunset glow, when his step-father came 
 walking into camp with that long stick beside him, 
 caught "Will by the arm, saying: 
 
86 THE HEROINE OF 40. 
 
 Sir, get up, and I ll settle with you for not keeping 
 the cattle in the road, as I told you to do this morn 
 ing." 
 
 Much frightened, the boy sprang to his feet, saying : 
 
 "I did, sir, try very hard, but the cattle would run 
 out for grass." 
 
 "Ill teach you to obey me, "and the long whip com 
 menced to fall on the boy s shoulders. 
 
 Captain Warnbaugh at that moment ridiog into camp, 
 sprang from his horse, saying: 
 
 " Murdstone, hold, what are you doing?" 
 
 The two men glared into each other s eyes like mad 
 men. The captain s hand was on his revolver in a 
 moment. 
 
 Murdstone hissed : 
 
 " He must obey me ! " 
 
 The captain " You sir, must obey me ! " 
 
 Murdstone, seeing the revolver, cooled rapidly, say 
 ing querulously: 
 
 "Am I to have no authority over my own house 
 hold?" 
 
 " Authority? yes," answered the captain, " but while 
 I am commander, an unborn babe s person shall be 
 protected, or the person of a child but three days old 
 shall be sacred. Don t I take every precaution to pro 
 tect your person from the wild savages? And you, 
 with your great strength, can strike a little child!" 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ARRIVING IN THE VALLEY. 
 
 It would be utterly impossible to give the details of 
 the whole seven months trip, as it would take the read 
 er seven months to go over the ground with me, and I 
 fear he would find it wearisome. 
 
 This company came tumbling down the Cascade 
 Mountains into the Willamette Valley in the last days 
 of October. The first thing they espied that gave token 
 of civilization was an old worm fence, which was built 
 pretty snug up against the foot of the mountain. The 
 next "thing that attracted their attention was curling 
 smoke, which looked as if it issued from a chimney in 
 stead of from a camp-fire, flat on the ground. They 
 turned a sharp corner of the road, and there was an old 
 hen and her chickens some dogs commenced to bark, 
 and they were very near a log cabin by the side of the 
 road. The company was rejoiced. People who have 
 never taken so long a journey through an uninhab 
 ited region can never imagine the joy of these weary 
 emigrants at the sight of the rudely-constructed human 
 habitation. They bought some eggs, milk and vegeta 
 bles, camped and were happy, notwithstanding they 
 had still a long journey to make after touching this 
 little hint of civilization. But they could buy grain for 
 the cattle and vegetables for the camp. The company 
 dispersed at this point, different families going in dif 
 ferent directions, all vowing that they would soon meet 
 again. They had spent many a pleasant hour planning 
 how they would take up their land claims joining each 
 other; how they would mark put desirable town-sites; 
 how they would lay out these sites for prosperous cities. 
 Some of the more ambitious ones declared they would 
 
88 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 send runners out to meet the emigrants the next year, 
 and so get ahead of the neighbors in gathering a dense 
 population about them; whereas, the truth is, that not 
 a dozen of these families ever met again, and the real 
 ization of their dreams passed away like the smoke of 
 the camp-fire, and most likely were never thought of 
 again in the busy toil and stern necessity of the imme 
 diate labor of building homes for themselves and fami 
 lies. The moment these families were in the Cascade 
 Eange of mountains, and out of the range of the arrows 
 of the redskins, they no longer remained together, but 
 traveled just as they pleased, without any law or order. 
 A few families that had formed friendships staid to 
 gether, and assisted each other over the almost impas 
 sable roads. A few wagons had made the trip the year 
 before and traced out a kind of road. 
 
 The storms, that winter, had felled many a giant fir 
 across the almost obliterated track. The horsemen no 
 longer remained to enliven the journey by their dash 
 into camp with the fine, fat venison thrown astride 
 their saddle in front of them; and all this made the last 
 days of the journey toilsome and lonely enough. It is 
 impossible to imagine how relieved those weary pilgrims 
 were when the broad vista of the beautiful Willamette 
 Valley first met their gaze; when they saw occasionally 
 a little log hut, standing like a sentinel, giving prom 
 ise of the future civilization of the Pacific Coast. 
 
 Mr. Barlow, an enterprising gentleman, one of the 
 Hudson Bay Company s men, had pushed out to the 
 uttermost confines of the new world; had built a log 
 cabin and a few bridges across small streams as you 
 come down from the western slope of the Cascade 
 Mountains. At the last one he erected a gate through 
 which everyone had to pass. This he called a toll-gate, 
 which it proved to be, as everybody had to pay one 
 dollar and a half per wagon to pass through, and in 
 this way we knew the number of people who passed 
 this gate, and Mr. Barlow reported that the whole six 
 hundred wagons went through safe if not altogether 
 sound. This report of itself was worth the expense, as 
 
ARRIVING IN THE VALLEY. 89 
 
 it made everybody happy, and in after years they spoke 
 with pride of the good management of Captain Warn- 
 baugh, and of the splendid health they enjoyed all the 
 way, and with grateful hearts remembered how many 
 dangers they had escaped. There were only three 
 deaths reported in the whole company, but many poor 
 cattle left their bones to bleach on the great sand desert. 
 
 The Murdstone family, in which I hope the reader 
 has not lost interest, settled in the Willamette Valley, 
 not far from where the capital of Oregon now stands. 
 The Methodist missionaries, of whom there were about 
 six or eight families, had settled at this point a few years 
 before, and built a school for Indians on the site where 
 the Willamette University now stands. They also put 
 up a little saw-mill which had not sufficient water-power 
 to run it except in the winter season. This place was 
 called the Mission. 
 
 The Murdstones found a cabin shelter on a land 
 claim, three miles outside of the Mission, where they 
 wintered, as it was now in November, and too late to 
 build a house; and strange as it may seem to the un 
 initiated, it was very difficult to find a desirable piece 
 of land for a homestead; not but what there were thous 
 ands and thousands of acres of the best land that " ever 
 crow flew over," as Mike Flannigau expressed it, that 
 was well-watered and well-timbered. But this handful 
 of emigrants, and a few of the Hudson Bay Company, 
 together with the missionaries, had spread themselves 
 over just as much territory as they could possibly take, 
 so it required some time for Mr. Murdstone to look 
 about and decide where he could wedge himself in, 
 and Mrs. Murdstone said she really believed she had 
 more comfort in the spacious old family carriage that 
 the horses brought safely through. The children 
 declared they did not want to live in a house; they very 
 much preferred living out-doors, but when the rains 
 came, with their patter on the roof, they were glad of a 
 shelter, if only under the bare rafters. Around that 
 kitchen table, lighted only by a tallow candle, many a 
 well-thumbed book was read, many a hard sum ciphered, 
 
90 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 many a lescon conquered, that winter in that unpreten 
 tious cabin home. Mr. Murdstone took charge of the 
 class in arithmetic and writing, for he was a suberb 
 penman; Mrs. Murdstone of reading, history and ge 
 ography. The older children attended the Mission 
 School ; the younger children had only the advantage 
 of the evening school, as it was termed by the house 
 hold. Evening prayers were said after the one tallow 
 candle had been extinguished, for economy s sake, 
 leaving only the bright blaze from the burning fir logs 
 that were heaped up in a huge pile on the big stones 
 that were laid on the hearth in place of andirons, and 
 served the purpose well. 
 
 On the night of the twenty-ninth of November, when 
 the rain had been falling in a soft mist all day, when 
 one of the logs on the fire had burned down and fallen in 
 two, making the hearthstone rather untidy, Mrs. Murd 
 stone, broom in hand, remarked to the girls that it was 
 one of the fundamental principles of good house-keep 
 ing to keep a bright hearthstone; that a slovenly-kept 
 hearth had sent many a man to a well-kept saloon, and 
 the wife, left weeping by the dirty hearth, never guessed 
 the reason why. 
 
 " But, mother, there is not a saloon on the Pacific 
 Coast. How could we go to one, even if the dirt were 
 knee-high about our hearth?" inquired the future 
 statesman, Thomas Ames. 
 
 Mrs. Murdstone, who like her son, had a logical 
 mind, answered: " My dear boy, if the rumors we hear 
 of the gold mines in California, are true, not one year 
 will elapse until our primitive exemption from that 
 evil will be but a thing of the past, and we shall not 
 even remember that there was a time in the early his 
 tory of Oregon when we were a strictly temperance 
 people, because we had not a drop of whisky in the 
 whole territory, unless a small quantity in some private 
 medicine chest." 
 
 Thomas had been presented by his friend with a 
 beautiful broadcloth cloak, reaching nearly to the 
 ground, its chief attraction consisting of a deep circu- 
 
ARRIVING IN THE VALLEY. 91 
 
 lar cape, lined with satin. He used to toss this mantle 
 over his shoulder, in a truly Caesarian style, when he 
 wished to enforce an argument upon Jean and his 
 mother. Standing in the middle of that puncheon 
 floor, manly as ever Caesar did when on that summer s 
 night in his tent he first put his mantle on, Thomas 
 tossed back his mantle till the soft folds of cloth and 
 satin glistened in the fire-light s glow, as he said: "I 
 believe those stories are true, and more than ever has 
 been told us, of the gold nuggets of California, and I m 
 not going to stay around here and plow a field in the 
 day-time and sit droning over a book at night, dear 
 mother, and let the other fellows walk off with bags of 
 gold, if your hearthstone is the dearest and cleanest that 
 ever a fire blazed upon. That s why I m going to visit 
 the Mission to-night, to see Mr. Marshall, who says he 
 will help three of us boys to go on the return trip of the 
 sailing vessel that goes out next week." And picking 
 up a broom splinter he carelessly tossed it with his 
 thumb into the fire, then walking to the door, he said, 
 "I shall not be gone more than two hours to-night, but 
 I hope, to make all the arrangements for my final de 
 parture," and he was on his pony and gone before his 
 mother could say a word. She rather fell than sat into 
 the nearest chair. " He is so young, not yet seventeen 
 years old; so delicate; so handsome; can I, oh, Jean, 
 can I part with him !" the poor mother moaned. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE CALIFORNIA GOLD-DIGGER. 
 
 The Hudson Bay Company s traders had a post at 
 Vancouver, situated on the banks of the Columbia Riv 
 er, at the point where the Willamette River s bright 
 water meets the majestic Columbia and flows on peace 
 fully to the sea. The small sailing vessels belonging 
 to this company ventured across the Columbia bar and 
 sailed up the broad waters, scaring the wild geese, duck, 
 and deer, and making the savages scud over the water 
 in their swift, darting canoes, to seek shelter in the 
 dense forests that cover the banks and stretch away for 
 hundreds of miles into the interior. Even these little 
 vessels came only twice a year, bringing supplies to the 
 company, which were meager enough in variety, but 
 excellent in quality. These vessels, on their return to 
 New York, were laden with furs that the traders had 
 bought from the Indians. They were furs of the otter, 
 mink, beaver and bear, elk, deer, and sometimes a buf 
 falo robe. It was on one of these outgoing sail-vessels 
 that Thomas Ames, with a company of about twenty 
 others, went to seek his fortune in the gold mines. 
 
 Our pioneers found the winters of 48 and 49 very 
 mild, warm and rainy. Nearly every day a slight mist 
 fell, and nearly every day the sun shone out brightly, 
 making the little birds twitter, the wild flowers bloom, 
 and the grass spring up green and fresh, very much like 
 spring in the East. The stately fir trees proudly wore 
 their green boughs the year round; the only change 
 they deigned to make was that each year, after the pro 
 pitious rains had washed their dark evergreen boughs 
 bright, they fringed the tips of each waving bough with 
 ,a new growth two inches deep of a light pea-green color. 
 
THE CALIFORNIA GOLD-DIGGER. 93 
 
 This is the dignity they maintain for a hundred years 
 or more, as long as they live standing in those mighty 
 forests, throwing off no leaf nor bark on and on the 
 steady growth. Thousands, if not millions, of acres 
 of these giant trees standing so close, they are locked in 
 each other s arms, beneath whose shade it is dark as 
 night the sun never penetrating no bud, bush nor 
 blossom can grow beneath them. The rich, loamy 
 earth is soft, like a carpet to the tread, but bare as a 
 floor of all other growth. Every valley of Oregon is 
 dotted with these stately sentinel evergreen fir trees; 
 every river has its banks lined with these trees. In the 
 mountains are the hemlock and cedar, and along the 
 water-courses the alder, ash, maple and beautiful oak 
 quarreling for the mastery, but the fir tree stands its 
 ground like a thing of power and exceeds them all; while 
 the curly maple, as though angry at the wrongs done it, 
 has curled and gnarled and knitted itself into so many 
 beautiful lines while growing, that it is the handsomest 
 wood in the world. Fine-grained, and, like some people, 
 susceptible of high polish, it should take rank among 
 the finest woods. Even so early as 48, the missionaries 
 had a turning-lathe, and constructed furniture out of this 
 beautiful curly maple, and Mr. Murdstone secured some 
 before the prices leaped up, as everything did in 49 
 after the discovery of gold. Who can tell how these fir 
 trees obtained their mastery, or for how many thous 
 ands of years they have held sway over valley, hill-top 
 and mountain, lined the deepest canyon s side, and 
 stood on the highest mountain range, or what element 
 in the soil produces this masterful tree ? Their roots 
 spread into the soft earth just as far as their boughs 
 spread into the air, and they penetrate the earth very 
 deeply, the giant stems shooting up into the air to a 
 height of from two to three hundred feet. They are 
 wonderful trees, these monopolists of the great North 
 west! If the prairies of Illinois and Missouri are awe^ 
 inspiring, what must be the feeling that takes possession 
 of a soul contemplating the width, the length, the depth 
 of these endless forests ? 
 
94 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 Jean Ames, though a child as she was, stood wrapped 
 in a dream, thinking of the great plains, the vast for 
 ests, and the mighty sea, on whose bosom you may ride 
 forever, and it is still the great, mysterious, wonderful 
 sea. Jean was looking in the direction of the sea, that 
 lay a hundred miles to the west, wondering if her 
 brother Thomas would not return, bringing his bags of 
 shining gold. She thought that he had only to go to 
 the mines and pick up gold as one would pick up ker 
 nels of corn that were scattered on the ground, and 
 some of the nuggets were as big as her thumb, she had 
 been told. If this could be so, the deepest longing of 
 her heart would be realized, and she would go to the 
 Mission boarding-school. No girl should outrank her 
 in learning. Jean had shed many bitter tears when 
 her father s library was sold. How she longed to be 
 in the society of scholars; and if Tom should come, 
 he and she would go to school together. How promis 
 ing and bright life was to her that day. 
 
 This bright cup of bliss, that Jean vainly hoped for, 
 was not the one that was offered her that day, but in 
 stead, the bitterest dregs that a woman s lips could 
 taste. While she still stood looking, a man appeared 
 coming over the hill leading a horse. It was not her 
 brother; it was too tall a figure. The man had a loose, 
 shambling gait, and in every way was ungainly. He 
 could not be her brother, who was a young man, 
 straight as an arrow, nimble as a deer, and graceful in 
 every movement as a young fawn. The man gave his 
 hat a twitch every few moments as he walked along, 
 turned to glance at his horse, and made a quick, eager 
 survey of the country about him. All this attracted 
 Jean s attention, and she called her mother, and they 
 together stood watching him till he made his way 
 straight to the house. He still held his horse, and 
 walking up to the gate, asked Mrs. Murdstone for per 
 mission to stop a day or two at her house. 
 
 " My name is Cursica Miser, and I own the adjoining 
 land claim," he said, pointing awkwardly in the direc 
 tion of the neighboring hills. 
 
THE CALIFORNIA GOLD-DIGGER. 95 
 
 Mrs. Murdstone and Jean exchanged quick glances, 
 thinking it might be possible that they would hear from 
 Tom; they would at least hear much that would interest 
 them in regard to the mines, and would gladly have 
 given him a warm welcome, but he declined, saying he 
 would hold his horse until Mr. Murdstone came, and 
 so remained at the gate. Mr. Murdstone coming soon, 
 a long conference was held between the two gentlemen 
 at the gate. 
 
 It ended in the stranger s uncinching his saddle- 
 girth, and unfastening heavy loads, that were firmly 
 tied to the pummel of his saddle on either side. One, 
 he gave to Mr. Murdstone, laying another on the 
 ground, while he disengaged the third. Then they 
 cautiously removed the saddle, which proved to be a 
 perfect arsenal of Colts revolvers and bowie knives, 
 and brought them to the house, and the horse with its 
 bridle was sent by Dan Murdstone to the stable. 
 
 Mr. Murdstone brought the stranger into the house 
 with his loads. There was a heavy solid oak chest 
 stowed away under the rafters in this cabin chamber. 
 It had a strong lock. Mr. Murdstone conducted the 
 stranger to this room, and deposited the heavy bags of 
 gold nuggets in the chest. The two gentlemen had to 
 climb to the loft by the rounds of a ladder the same 
 primitive construction for ascending and descending 
 that a hod-carrier uses. Without any preliminary 
 arrangements with Mrs. Murdstone, the strange gentle 
 man was installed in the house as a boarder for an 
 indefinite period of time. 
 
 On being introduced to Mrs. Murdstone, he confided 
 to her that, on account of the excitement of the gold- 
 digging, his health had been very much * shottered, " 
 and he required a quiet country place and simple food 
 to regain his usual composure. Mrs. Murdstone and 
 Jean were very eager to know something of the hard 
 ships the miners endured, and something of the process 
 of gold-digging. Mr. Miser seemed reticent on the 
 subject, so Mrs. Murdstone had very little comfort 
 from his remarks, and as dinner was to be prepared 
 
96 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 the two men were left to converse alone. After dinner 
 the stranger took his horse and rode to his land claim 
 to look over his possessions. He had gone, the sum 
 mer before, with a company of packers overland from 
 Oregon to California. The first $5,000 that he had 
 picked up had been stolen by a company of Mormons, 
 and the next rich vein he struck he decided to get away 
 with, and bring it to a safe and quiet corner in Oregon, 
 where he had already some interests. This he had told 
 Mr. Murdstone in their confidence at the fence. Jean 
 and her mother, being left alone in the house, after 
 sitting thoughtfully for a moment Mrs. Murdstone 
 remarked : 
 
 "I wish we were not such near neighbors to the 
 California gold mines. Think of this strong man, after 
 being gone only a few months, coining back and saying 
 his nerves were all shottered ; think of poor Tom 
 sleeping on the ground and having nothing to eat but 
 beans and a little bacon, and he is such a child, and 
 can t stand hardships like a man!" And Jean cried: 
 
 "Oh, mother, why couldn t it have been Tom come 
 home with all that gold?" and the tears sprung to her 
 eyes. 
 
 Mrs. Murdstone then thought of the gold with a re 
 pulsive shock, and said : 
 
 "Jean, I m afraid to stay in the house. Our home 
 is just spoiled. That stranger to be here at every meal, 
 and we afraid of being murdered for his gold, while 
 the men are away plowing in the field. But it is just 
 as he says, there are no banks to put money into in 
 this country." 
 
 "Well," answered Jean, "I m not afraid. There 
 are no robbers here. Were not the people who came 
 with us across the plains some of the best people in 
 the world ? And there were no people here but a few 
 Catholic and Methodist missionaries before we came, 
 and they are not going to turn robbers, are they ? " 
 
CHAPTER XVL 
 
 THE LAND LAW. 
 
 Mrs. Murdstone and Jean were sitting in a large 
 airy room that was used for a bedroom, as well as a 
 private sitting-room for herself and daughters. The 
 house was constructed of logs of theyoung fir trees,which 
 were well adapted for building log houses, as they 
 shoot up tall, straight and slender. It was termed a 
 double log house, having two rooms. Nearly all the 
 early settlers confined themselves to a one roomed 
 house. This was eighteen by twenty feet, with cham 
 bers above each, used for sleeping apartments. The 
 house was made more attractive, as well as more com 
 fortable, by a board veranda running the full length of 
 the front of it. The back of the house also had a ve 
 randa, which was made very convenient by being clap- 
 boarded up one side, and used for a kitchen. The 
 doors were made of clapboards, and windows it had 
 none, and yet the daylight was never entirely excluded. 
 The many cracks between the logs admitted the day 
 light, and often the sunlight. There were puncheon 
 floors that were mado from boards that were split in 
 stead of sawed; they were generally about a foot wide, 
 ten feet long, and two inches thick, but, like some 
 people s word, there was very little accuracy about 
 them. The clapboards were made of trees that split 
 nicely; they were usually four feet long, from eight to 
 ten inches wide, and intended to be half an inch thick. 
 These were laid on the roof, in the same manner as 
 shingles, but as there were no nails in the country, 
 they had to be fastened to the roof with long poles, 
 which gave the bouse a somewhat rude and picturesque 
 
98 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 appearance. This abode was situated near the center 
 of their section of land, which had a southern exposure 
 on a gently sloping side-hill. Just back of the house 
 was a beautiful grove of fir, pine and maple trees, with 
 a sprinkling of alders; just enough to show that there 
 was a spring of water flowing from the ground, which 
 made quite a little brook, that ran along about a mile, 
 and lost itself in the rich loam of the soft, black earth. 
 Here the Murdstones made a garden, and on the 
 banks of this little rivulet they planted an orchard of 
 apples; and higher on the ground, where the hill was 
 more sandy, they planted peach trees. But all this 
 planting happened after the time of which we write, 
 when Jean and her mother sat in the privacy of 
 their own room, deploring the intrusion of a stranger 
 into their family. Mrs. Murdstone, smiling at Jean s 
 simple faith in the honor of the early settlers, said: 
 
 " Oh, well, the Bible teaches us to be good to stran 
 gers, as we may entertain angels unawares." 
 
 " Does it caution us against entertaining strangers, 
 lest we entertain devils unawares?" queried Jean. 
 Could they have known the truth about the stranger, 
 they would have been more loth to entertain him than 
 they were. 
 
 "Well, Jean, I must go and prepare the evening 
 meal, as it is now half past four." 
 
 And Jean answered pettishly: "I wish our land 
 claim was ten miles wide, so that the neighbors could 
 not come and impose upon us by asking to be boarded." 
 Now the homestead that Mr. Murdstone had selected 
 from out the vast domain of Uncle Sam s territory 
 seemed small, when compared to the miles and miles 
 of unoccupied land that lay adjacent thereto. But it 
 had been agreed upon by the early settlers that they 
 would each claim a mile square of the public laud, and 
 that their first representative to Congress would be 
 loaded up and shipped around the Horn with that one 
 idea, that one message from his constituents to Con- 
 gross asking to give them a title to their laud. This 
 
THE LAND LAW. 9P 
 
 was no small undertaking, when one considers that 
 those old statesmen from Rhode Island, Delaware and 
 New Hampshire, could not entertain the idea for a 
 moment that a man could ask for a piece of land for a 
 farm that was almost as large as their State. But 
 Samuel K. Thurston found broader men who repre 
 sented Texas and Missouri, and the broad prairies of 
 the west, and succeeded in securing the passage of the 
 bill that gave to each early settler his six hundred and 
 forty acres of land. It was upon Samuel R. Thurston s 
 shoulders that the mantle of congressional honors first 
 fell, placed there by that spartan band of heroes, the 
 pioneer men who laid the foundation of the proud State 
 of Oregon. No statesman ever filled his honored post 
 with greater zeal; no one s return was looked forward 
 to with more eager anticipation, nor warmer welcome 
 ever awaited a man returning to the people he had 
 served. But he did not live to receive this welcome, 
 as on his return he was smitten with the Panama fever 
 which proved fatal. His remains were brought back, 
 and every honor conferred that affection could give to 
 the noblest man that ever served the state, or perhaps 
 ever will. 
 
 One of the noblest features of the land law was that 
 one-half of each grant was given to the women. No 
 single man could hold more than three hundred and 
 twenty acres of land, which placed all the marriageable 
 women in the territory at par value immediately. 
 Many an old bachelor brushed up his best suit of 
 clothes, and hied him to see the fairest lady in the land. 
 Like many other good laws, it could be turned to bad 
 account. If a man was unmarried, he could hold only 
 one-half of the six hundred and forty acres of land. 
 This law extended over a term of years. Men, in order 
 to hold the land claim they had staked out for them 
 selves, would hunt for a wife pretty lively, or some 
 other old bachelor could settle on one-half of his land 
 claim. Girls of twelve and fourteen, and in some 
 cases, only eleven years of age, were married in the 
 
100 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 years of 49 and 50, to men twice, and sometimes 
 three times their own age. Now, to the great credit 
 of the parents, and the men who contracted with these 
 parents for these young girls for their wives, sometimes 
 only the ceremony of marriage was enacted. By this 
 arrangement, the girls secured the land, and then they 
 were allowed to remain at home with their parents, 
 sent to school, and grew to womanhood before the 
 marriage rites were consummated. 
 
 Hazardous as this must have been to the future hap 
 piness of these fair young girls so entrapped, it was an 
 infinitely better condition of affairs than the fate of 
 those young girls who were taken by the marriage 
 rites by these selfish men, claimed as wives, just as the 
 land was claimed by them simply as a convenience. 
 What man, building a home on such broad acres, did 
 not need a slave to do his cooking, washing, general 
 housekeeping, as also a wife, all in one and the same 
 person ? How convenient ! What an excuse, when 
 Congress, the government of the United States, the 
 solons of the country, the picked men of the nation, 
 selected for their wisdom, learning and far-reaching in 
 sight into the well-being of the people in whose inter 
 est they were called upon to legislate, had given them 
 such a bribe ! Three hundred and twenty acres of land 
 with a wife, were not found every day. The land and 
 wife were theirs to all intents and purposes, so they 
 thought, for in those days men thought a woman only 
 a toy or a slave for him. The idea had not permeated 
 the brain of the average man yet that woman was an 
 independent, sentient being, apart from him. She was 
 his, to be, to do, to suffer, whatever he dictated. We 
 shall see, notwithstanding the sanction of the accumu 
 lated wisdom then in Congress assembled, what the 
 results were, at least in some cases, of this wise land 
 law. 
 
 Mr. Cursica Miser was one of those gentlemen who 
 had a broad land-claim and no wife. He could not 
 endure the idea of seeing his noble section of land 
 
THE LAND LAW. 101 
 
 split in two. It was not half large enough as it now 
 lay. To cut it in two would spoil his future pastures, 
 his grain-fields, his orchards and building site. He 
 could not see another man taking half his possessions 
 not he. " Congress was full of old cranks that did not 
 know a thing about a new country. They ought to 
 know that a man without a wife made just as good a 
 citizen as a man with a wife, and what idiots to pass a 
 law that a man should marry, when there are no wo 
 men in the country, or be robbed of half his posses 
 sions. But law is law, if there isn t an atom of sense 
 in it." Thus debated Mr. Cursica Miser. "And now, 
 Rainbow, we must scour the hills and hunt for 
 heifers. No cattle to be driven to-day, old Bainbow," 
 and he mounted his sway back steed, whose peculiar 
 anatomical formation had earned him this soubriquet, 
 and awaj 7 they swept, over hill and down dale, until 
 they came to the nearest cabin, where lived a very 
 poor man who had three marriageable daughters, to 
 gether with his wife and three small girls and a boy 
 baby. The mystery was, how the family ever got 
 across the plains. The secret was, a rich relation had 
 helped them start, and the company had helped them 
 on, and lo! the wheel of fortune had brought luck to 
 their very door, and what glorious luck when Mr. 
 Miser passed by their cabin door. Seeing the ponies 
 tied near by, he said to himself, " This is not the time 
 to call there. I will just go down this hill, across the 
 creek, and see if old Shrum s girls are at home, or if they 
 are besieged by land-claim hunters, too, as Olinger s 
 daughters are. He is in luck, at least; those three 
 girls will every one hold some fellow s land-claim 
 for him. They are not bad-looking girls, either, 
 are they, old Bow? * And he leaned forward 
 and stroked his horse s mane. The horse shot 
 forward, hearing a gallop behind him, and the rider 
 was soon by Miser s side. The two men bowed and 
 both reined their steeds at Mr. Shrum s gate. Mr. 
 Chas. Gibson was the man that the fair Eufamie was 
 
102 THE HEROINE OF 40. 
 
 awaiting on her father s broad porch. Thus it was 
 that Mr. Cursica Miser found himself vanquished on 
 every side. He twitched his hat to Miss Eufame, 
 bowed to her mother, asked for a drink of water, 
 twiched his hat again to the company, was on his horse 
 and gone out of sight and out of mind sooner than it 
 takes to tell it. 
 
 The next morning Mr. Cursica Miser and Mr. Murd- 
 stone held another long discussion at the gate. Mrs. 
 Murdstone said to Jean, "What can those men be 
 plotting about ? No good, I ll warrant. I feel there s 
 something wrong. I wonder if the steamer has 
 brought news of Thomas. It s something they re ar 
 ranging before they tell us. What can it be, Jean? I 
 am ^overwhelmed with apprehension. I fancied last 
 night, that Mr. Miser kept looking at you out from un 
 der; his broad-brimmed hat. I don t like that peculiari 
 ty in the man of looking out from under his eyebrows. 
 
 "I don t like any of his looks," returned Jean. 
 " But I don t know what he is to us that we need care 
 for his tricks and his manners, and I don t see why 
 you need care, mother, if two men stood and talked at 
 the gate till doomsday. Like St. Paul : I thank God 
 I am not like other men, and that I was not born a 
 coward. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, " 
 and she put her arm around her mother and kissed a 
 tear^way. "There, the conference is finished, and 
 eaclrman is going his own way. Dry your tears, dear 
 mother." 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 " THE MAN LET THE NUGGETS FALL SOFTLY BACK. " 
 
 If the reader will go back to Mr. Shrum s porch, and 
 listen to the lovers talk, this is what they will hear 
 them say. " I hope that man, Mr. Miser, doesn t visit 
 here?" 
 
 "No, Charles, not often; Mr. Miser has just re 
 turned from the gold mines; did you meet him there?" 
 
 "Well, no, not exactly. I did not meet him, but he 
 met my revolver. No man was ever truer named, and 
 yet mothers are so anxious to have their daughters 
 married to rich men, that some poor girl will get woful- 
 ly taken in by that wretch yet. Why he was too mean 
 to eat beans up on Feather River last fall, and the boys 
 all got down on me because the cuss came from the same 
 territory. Why every man on the bar despised Oregon 
 because he was so mean, suspicious and stingy. He was 
 glad enough to leave Feather River and go to Mormon 
 Island. They would have hanged him if he hadn t left 
 the very day he did, and I would have been glad to 
 help pull the rope, and twice glad if I ever thought he 
 would come between you and me, Eufamie. He would 
 starve his wife and strangle his children because they 
 had to eat." 
 
 "Charles Gibson, are you sure what you say is 
 true ? " asked Eufamie, looking grave for a moment, 
 as with a shudder she thought of the time she had 
 seriously contemplated becoming Mrs. Miser herself. 
 
 * Yes, I am sure. Mining life brings out a fellow s 
 real character as nothing else ever can. You remem 
 ber, Eufamie, that I wrote you a letter telling of the 
 death of poor Martin Farnsworth. Everybody tried to 
 
104 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 keep that poor fellow alive. You see he had been out 
 prospecting; he was lithe as a cat, with a hand fair as 
 a woman s." Here Charles took Eufamie s little, plump 
 hand, patted it, and stooping gracefully as a courtier, 
 carried it to his lips, and so absorbed was he, thinking 
 of the fate of poor Martin, that a tear fell on Eufamie s 
 hand. It was that tear that won the hesitating girl to 
 his side. Without seeming to notice the tear that 
 silently fell, a tribute to the memory of Martin Farns- 
 worth, the boy geologist, who kissed his widowed 
 mother a last farewell in New York six short months 
 before, Charles went on: " Martin knew the rocks, the 
 names of everything about them; he knew the gold- 
 bearing quartz, the placer mining, the gulch digging, 
 and everything, for he had studied what other men had 
 found out about mining in other countries, and had put 
 into books; he located our diggings where we struck it 
 rich. One morning, Mart said to me : Charles, I am 
 going to find out how far up these gulches a fellow can 
 find gold; I m going to the head of this, and prospect 
 every inch of ground. I said: Mart, you ve got a 
 good pile now. If I were you I d be getting out of 
 these mountains back to my poor old mother. But 
 Mart said : c Charley, that s my mother s address, hand 
 ing me a scrap of paper, you see that she has my pile, 
 if any thing should turn up,* and he looked down soberly 
 at his feet for a minute. He was a handsome fellow, 
 tall and shapely as you would see among a thousand 
 men. The clouds were sailing along half way up the 
 mountain side. Mart looked up and said : Charley, 
 look for me above the clouds in two hours from now. 
 Yes, said I, and if a grizzly prospects you, let s hear 
 your gun talk, and I will be with you, Mart. I could 
 hear his merry whistle, Eufamie, and I can hear that 
 whistle yet whenever I shut my eyes. Poor Mart 
 walked straight to his death. He got lost and was out 
 all night. There came a deep snow. He had found a 
 grizzly, shot at it, only wounding it, and then followed a 
 fierce contest with the wounded beast, and at last he 
 succeeded in getting his revolver into the enraged 
 
THE MAN LET THE NUGGETS FALL. 105 
 
 brute s mouth, and shooting twice into his throat killed 
 the terrific monster. We tracked the grizzly and found 
 Martin, torn, mangled. God! what a sight. He was 
 lying there by the bear, having drunk its warm blood, 
 and so kept alive. We brought him, laid as carefully 
 as we could in a blanket, down that awful mountain side. 
 It was a three miles walk around the side of the 
 mountain, and I never let go my end of the blanket. 
 Poor fellow, it hurt him so if we stumbled over a 
 stick or stone, or jostled him in the least, or didn t 
 hold him on a level, which was a very difficult thing to 
 do on a steep mountain side. The bear lay there with 
 one half of the skin torn from its body. Mart said he 
 pulled the hide of the beast over him to keep from 
 freezing to death. * His old carcass, boys, he said, * kept 
 warm until most morning. I was afraid the wolves 
 would come, boys, before you found me, or I should 
 have shot every ball from the revolver, only for the 
 horror of being eaten alive by these cannibal wolves. 
 It was dark when the bear came at me; do you see that 
 leg? He tore that first, then let his paws sink into 
 the flesh, and stripped it from the bone. I shot him 
 in the shoulder; then he let that paw sink into my back, 
 that made me sick for a minute. He reared back and 
 let his paws fall here. And we could see the bone of 
 his arm from the shoulder to the elbow, all bare, Eu- 
 famie it was sickening." 
 
 Eufamie had her apron to her eyes. 
 
 "There were twenty men gathered about him in a 
 minute, and twenty guns were fired as soon as we heard 
 him speak, and knew he wasn t dead. We had agreed 
 on the morning before we left camp, to fire twenty guns 
 if we found him alive, ten if dead. Our guns spoke of 
 Mart s being alive to a thousand anxious men who had 
 dropped pick-axe and shovel to scour hill-side and 
 mountain for the brave man who had been the most 
 successful prospector in camp. Mart had torn up his 
 shirt and tied up his leg very well, better than we 
 thought he could, with his wounded arm, but he had 
 only crowded the wound together on his back as well 
 
106 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 as he could, and lay there on his face with the bearskin 
 drawn tightly over him; the snow was covered with 
 blood all round. When we took the poor fellow up 
 there wasn t a dry eye among us. Mart said : Boys, I 
 knew you would come. Don t ever let mother know 
 this. It will soon be all over with me. He lived three 
 days. We buried him under the pine close by camp. 
 The wolves couldn t get him there, and in the spring 
 just when I left, we put him in a rough box, sent it 
 down to Frisco, and shipped it home to his mother. 
 
 "The second day we brought him into camp, it was 
 plain to everyone he couldn t live. He got restless, 
 the fever grew high, he kept saying, Mother, mother! 
 and we knew he was getting delirious. Mart had 
 helped to locate the diggings, you see, so we took up a 
 collection. His pile amounted to $7,000, and we added 
 three, making $10,000. I weighed it, poured it into a 
 big gold-quartz pan, and, showing it to him, told him 
 what we had done. The tears came into his eyes, he 
 choked up, and tried to say mother. He lay still a 
 long time, then, with a great effort, tried to speak, and 
 we gathered this, God save you boys, from death in 
 
 the mountains hard to die among one s friends 
 
 but this is harder. You have blunted my agony by 
 your generosity to my mother. He soon fell into a 
 stupor and never spoke again." Here Charles broke 
 down utterly, and let the tears stand on his eyelids, 
 but seeing Eufamie couldn t speak for fear her voice 
 would betray the emotion the story had awakened, 
 roused himself, and pursued: "When we were taking 
 up the collection for Martin s mother, I went to Miser 
 myself. I was sure he wouldn t give anything, and ho 
 didn t. He whined out an excuse that he didn t pan 
 out anything that day. In the evening, just at sun 
 down, when the remains of poor Martin were already 
 in the rough box where we had laid him, and the men 
 had come to take a last look at their dead comrade, Jim 
 Gregory said, Pals, we ve no flowers to place about 
 him, but let us cover his coffin with evergreen boughs, 
 to show that our memory for the noble hero who has 
 
THE MAN LET THE NUGGETS FALL. 107 
 
 lost his life in our common cause hunting for 
 gold will ever be green, and to show that his 
 efforts were not in vain, place the pan of gold on the 
 coffin, letting every man in camp take heart that though 
 death meet him, his labors will not be lost to the 
 friends he loves ! We did as Gregory had suggested, 
 covered the coffin with evergreen boughs, and set the 
 pan of gold in the center to remain all night. We put 
 six picked men at the foot of the coffin near the 
 camp-fire, as watchers. We, that had been his most inti 
 mate friends, rolled ourselves in our blankets and lay 
 down to rest for the night. We were worn out with watch 
 ing. That morning at about four o clock I saw a man 
 crawl along on all fours stealthily like a cat, and, reach 
 ing out his long fingers, almost touch the pan that held 
 the nuggets. I held my breath, everything was still as 
 death, the fire had burned to embers. There was a 
 faint star-light, I could hear the men breathing heavily, 
 I thought God forgive me that it was Jim Gregory. 
 But at that moment one of the watchers stretched his 
 legs, yawned, wrapped his blankets about him, and 
 soon snored again. At the moment he did so, the man 
 let the nuggets fall softly back, flattened himself on the 
 ground, and turned his face full to mine. I saw him 
 plain as I see you this minute, Eufamie. I was in the 
 corner of the cabin where it was dark, and it was evi 
 dent that he did not see me. It was Miser. I yawned 
 to make believe I had just waked up, turned over and 
 called to Jake Foley, who sat on a stool in the corner 
 near me, to stir the fire. Then Jake and I talked now 
 and again till morning." 
 
 Eufamie turned her tear-stained eyes full upon 
 Charles Gibson, saying, "Why didn t you call the camp 
 and have him hang"ed?" 
 
 * Why, Eufamie, what could I do ? There we were, 
 all rolled in our blankets on the ground. A dozen men 
 might have reached out their hands the same as he 
 did. I knew no one saw him but me. The act could 
 not be reproduced if I had called the camp, and there 
 was no proof. If I had not happened here just as J 
 
108 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 did, in half an hour he would have asked you to be his 
 wife, the villain ! " 
 
 " He would never have asked me to be his wife, for 
 I should not have given him the opportunity," was the 
 spirited reply of Eufamie. 
 
 No words could have passed the proud girl s 
 lips that could have given her lover more delight, 
 and yet he seemed all unconscious, and went on to 
 say: "We sent the gold to his mother, but what 
 recompense could that be in her old age, compared 
 with the companionship and care of such a son. Miser 
 was the only man in camp who did not put an ounce of 
 gold in the pan to make up the sum," and Charles Gib 
 son s wrath increased like an avalanche as he con 
 tinued: "That villainous Miser is rightly named; he 
 will go and ask some woman to marry him, just to save 
 his land claim. It may be a young girl; or, if he can t 
 get a white woman he will marry a squaw, and I pity 
 the squaw, for there is not one on the Pacific coast but 
 is infinitely his superior. Such a base villain as that 
 ask a woman to marry him, to secure his land claim ! 
 There is no baseness on earth that he would not stoop 
 to for gain." 
 
 " I am afraid you are not inclined to be charitable to 
 wards Mr. Miser," smilingly returned Eufamie, looking 
 intently at an old hen and chickens that were scratch 
 ing gravel a few feet away. 
 
 * Charity ! I hope not. If I had, I should hate myself 
 as 1 hate him now. The sight of the man has spoiled my 
 afternoon with you. I came here intending to tell you 
 tHe deepest desire of my heart, but now I think I shall 
 wait three years, until this land law is extinct. I would 
 not be such a craven for worlds as to ask a woman to 
 marry me simply to secure a piece of government 
 land." 
 
 Eufamie, without stopping to think what the import 
 of her words might be, said, "No one would ever ac 
 cuse you of such a thing." 
 
 Charles Gibson passionately took her hand in his and 
 asked, "My dear girl, would you not in three days 
 
THE MAN LET THE NUGGETS FALL. 
 
 time be looking questioningly into my eyes to know 
 whether I had asked you to be my wife for love or 
 land?" 
 
 And Eufamie, answering, said, Never, Charles, could 
 I impute a dishonorable motive to you." 
 
 "My dear girl, if that be really true, will you be my 
 wife?" 
 
 "Gladly, Charles," she answered, "if there were 
 not a foot of land in the whole world." 
 
 "We ll be happy, Eufamie, and never think of old 
 Miser again while we live. Such words, Eufamie, from 
 the lips of a woman that a man loves ought to make him 
 feel prouder than a king, when amidst deceit, falsehood 
 and the basest fraud, a man may so conduct himself that 
 no one can impute a wrong motive to his acts. Surely, 
 Eufamie, you are my better self that holds the mirror 
 of my inmost soul, reflecting the noblest instincts of 
 my being. Sweet girl, will the rest of your family and 
 our neighbors read my heart and acts as royally as you 
 do ? You are all the world to me, and they shall read 
 my acts by your interpretation; and since you will it 
 so, government lands shall not hasten or hinder our mar 
 riage vows, my love." And Charles Gibson clasped the 
 fair form of Eufamie to his manly heart, to be sheltered 
 there forever. 
 
 And thus we leave the honest, happy pair, to see 
 what discoveries we can make by observing the myste 
 rious maneuvers of Mr. Cursica Miser, some days hav 
 ing elapsed since we saw him so abruptly leave the fair 
 Eufamie to the tender care of Mr. Charles Gibson. 
 Long conferences had been held at the gate by Miser 
 and Murdstone. Mrs. Murdstone s anxiety was daily 
 increasing. Not a syllable had been spoken to her by 
 her husband of what was the subject of these long talks. 
 Oh, how she appreciated her far-away friend, Doctor 
 Knight. What would she not give for an hour s advice 
 from him ! She was sure there was some evil hatching, 
 and yet she was ashamed to suspect her husband. If 
 there was not some mischief brewing, then why so much 
 mystery? Jean was quick to lay bare her step-father s 
 
110 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 acts with scathing criticism. This made Mrs. Murd- 
 stone bear more patiently the torture she was undergo 
 ing than she otherwise would. If Jean understood that 
 these long talks between Miser and Murdstone caused 
 her mother anxiety, she would fearlessly speak to them, 
 which would put the gentlemen on their guard, and 
 Mrs. Murdstone would thereby lose any possibility of 
 gaining a clue to their mysterious plotting, and thus be 
 deprived of the opportunity of defending herself. And 
 so Mrs. Murdstone passed her days in watching and her 
 nights in sleepless vigil. 
 
 After this plotting had been going on for a week or 
 two, one morning Mrs. Murdstone arose with eyes so 
 swollen and red with weeping that she could not appear 
 at the breakfast table. Jean had to take her mother s 
 place. She was wrathful. She had begun to surmise 
 that those two men who sat opposite her were the cause 
 of her mother s grief, and she poured out vengeance 
 along with the coffee, which was not wholly unobserved 
 by the two gentlemen. She saw some telegraphic 
 dispatching to each other from the eyes of the gentle 
 men. When her duty was over she excused herself 
 without tasting a morsel, and went in search of her 
 mother. She found her in her bed-room and on her 
 knees, her bible open beside her, pouring out her soul 
 in supplication to God to spare her from this great 
 trial, to spare Jean to her for years to come. "As I 
 am merciful and tender to the little orphan girls in 
 trusted to my care, be Thou tender, oh, Father in 
 heaven, to my little one. She is dearer to me than my 
 own life. Spare her; oh, Father, spare me!" There 
 she broke into such loud sobbing her whole frame 
 trembled, and she could no longer speak. Jean, who 
 had crept softly in, heard these last few words of 
 pleading. She could not endure this, and knelt beside 
 her mother, saying, " I am with you, mother; what is the 
 matter? Nothing shall hurt me. See, I am here, and 
 will be always." Then the sobbing broke out again 
 like a storm that would not be stayed. Her tears fell 
 on Jean s hair and neck, and trickled down her back. 
 
THE MAN LET THE NUGGETS FALL. Ill 
 
 This made Jean wrathful again, and she sprang to 
 her feet like a young lioness, exclaiming, "Mother, 
 mother, get up and stop crying ! This will never do ! 
 You will be sick and die, and I shall be the one that is 
 left alone. This would kill anybody. I would not cry 
 like that for all the men that ever lived." 
 
 " Nor I, my child, but for you, and your poor dead 
 father, how he would have protected you; your brothers, 
 so far away, and all my kith and kin, all our dear friends. 
 In one deluge of tears I weep for all these woes; hav 
 ing suffered, I dread the tortures that are to come, and 
 so 1 weep. Poor, poor child, you are so young." 
 
 "I was younger yesterday, and you did not weep. 
 There must be some other cause. Has my noble step 
 father at last consented that I shall attend the Mission 
 boarding-school ? " 
 
 "No, child, it is not that; how gladly would I have 
 you attend that school. " 
 
 "Why don t you be strong, mother, as I am; don t 
 ask God to make you strong, but be strong, say; * Jean 
 goes to school, and that would end all the trouble. 
 When I am a woman, mother, I ll not deluge my grief 
 with tears, and if anybody makes me cry what do you 
 think they ll be doing ? " 
 
 Here a faint smile lighted Mrs. Murdstone s face, as 
 she said: "Oh, Jean; I hope God will not send such 
 trials to you, but * whom God loves he also chasteneth. 
 Let us kiss the rod." 
 
 "Oh, no, mother; I m not the kissing-rod kind." 
 
 Then Jean persuaded her mother to bathe her face in 
 cold water, and gave her some coffee and tucked her 
 up in bed, saying half to herself, "When you awake 
 we ll see what can be done to rid the house of its 
 pest." 
 
 Next morning the usual conference was not held at the 
 gate, but at the farthest end of the field, a half a mile 
 away. The old horse stood in the furrow for two long 
 hours, while the two gentlemen sat on the top rail 01 
 the fence and talked. 
 
 Mr. Cursica Miser had decided to go on a fishing 
 
112 
 
 THE HEROINE OF 49 
 
 and hunting excursion to the mountains for a couple 
 of months. He had told Mr. Murdstone to cautiously 
 ascertain from his wife what the chances would be fol 
 him to secure the hand of Jean in marriage. 
 
CHAPTEli XVIII. 
 
 Jean s manner at the breakfast table, and Mrs. 
 Murdatone s non-appearance on the preceding morn 
 ing, caused Mr. Miser to decide in his own mind that 
 he would abandon the idea of asking that proud little 
 minx to share his lordly wealth. He said to himself, 
 " I would rather marry a squaw; I could beat her every 
 day, and there would be no resistance." But he did 
 not say so to Mr. Murdstone. He simply told him to 
 explain to his wife that he had gone away, and when 
 he did return he would most likely be a married man. 
 Jean s mother had to keep her bed for several days, and 
 most of the work for the large family devolved upon 
 Jean. Her moments for reading, recreation or rest 
 were few, but she did try each day to snatch a half 
 hour to kneel in prayer in her leafy bower that she 
 had made for herself, in a grove of trees that sheltered 
 the spring, with its bubbling fountain of pure, sparkling 
 water. Just before you came to the spring, the path 
 that led to the house had been cut through the tangled 
 wild vine-maple that grows about three inches in di 
 ameter. It runs on the ground, twists and turns, and 
 locks itself back and forth, and finally ends in a tangled 
 mass of leaf and bough, ten or fifteen feet high. No 
 wild beast can make a path through a grove of vine- 
 maple. But Jean, by bending some of the less refrac 
 tory boughs, had penetrated a rod or two from the 
 path into this deep seclusion, where she had constructed 
 a rude altar and covered it with long silky mosses that 
 grow on the fir-trees of that region. No sunlight could 
 enter, and the little daylight that came flickering in 
 
114 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 through the leaves made the place as solemn as a sanc 
 tuary in some dim old cathedral. 
 
 The girl had just room to kneel. If she moved, 
 after getting into , the quiet nook, the leaves would 
 brush her hair and almost startle her as though they 
 were living things that knew she came to worship 
 there. They would taunt her with her ignorance and 
 unworthiness. She, a little orphan child, dare to bend 
 in the presence of Almighty God, the liuler of the 
 universe, the mighty Potentate of all power; who 
 made the earth, set the stars in the heavens, lighted 
 all with sun and moon, and these mighty orbs were the 
 same that lighted all the land in the East, as well as in 
 the far West. Jean could not utter a word aloud, but 
 was every day surprised to find how her thoughts 
 would flow in her silent prayer to God. Every day she 
 asked for wisdom, even as Solomon had asked to be 
 endowed with wisdom above his fellows. 
 
 "Oh, God, grant me wisdom above the women of 
 ray day; teach me what is right, and when I know the 
 right, help me to be strong to do right always." 
 
 Just as Jean had finished these words, she heard 
 footsteps, and in a moment Mr. Miser was saying to 
 Mr. Murdstone, "I ll loan you all the money you want 
 to improve your place for the next two years, and 
 charge you no interest, but we must, in some way, 
 keep Mrs. Murdstone in ignorance of this land law, or 
 she will suspect our motives." Mr. Murdstone 
 answered, " You can rely on me. I will do all in my 
 power to make my wife look favorably upon your 
 suit. But there I Don t say another word. I see the 
 water-bucket at the spring, and Jean is somewhere 
 near." The two men turned and walked back to the 
 house, and Jean heard no more. She stepped cautiously 
 out of the bower, then stooped and dipped her bucket 
 into the water that was nearly as deep as a well, and 
 mirrored back her features as clearly as any looking- 
 glass. She often lingered over the curb to catch the 
 outlines of her face that were as fine as chiseled marble. 
 
l f HE MAIDEN S SACRED BOWER. 1 15 
 
 But this time she hastened with her bucket, brimful 
 of the sparkling water, to her mother, and told her 
 what she had heard. The words meant nothing to Jean, 
 but to her mother they were clear as crystal, and gave 
 her an insight into the premeditated arrangements of 
 the two men, as perhaps no other words could have 
 done. 
 
 The next day Mr. Miser started off on his fishing 
 and hunting excursion. The restful quiet that came 
 to that house proved a blessing indeed to Mrs. Murd- 
 stone, who, having the tension taken off her nerves, 
 was soon restored to her usual health. The Murd- 
 stones were happy for the next two months, laying 
 plans for improving their large tract of land, dividing 
 it into fields for wheat, oats, gardens, orchards, pastures 
 for the calves, pastures for the milk-cows, oxen and 
 work-horses. The potato-patch and bean-field all had 
 to be considered, and the right place to be selected for 
 each. The pasture must have running water, and, as 
 there was a creek running through the entire length of 
 the east and south sides, this question settled itself. 
 But, not understanding the exact quality of land, or the 
 conditions of climate that the grain-fields and orchards 
 required, it took many a talk and many a walk before 
 the best location could be decided upon. But there 
 was still the more important question crowding itself 
 upon that little community that of building a school- 
 house that would answer for a church as well. As the 
 large front-room at the Murdstone s was always neat, 
 commodious and cheerful, the neighbors had already 
 met there several times to hold a kind of church 
 service. Mr. Murdstone read the scriptures in a clear, 
 strong voice, and Mrs. Murdstone was gifted in 
 prayer, as also that rarest of womanly charms, a 
 fine contralto voice, that could sing "Nearer, My 
 God to Thee," or " Jesus Lover of My Soul," 
 in tones that would melt a heart of stone, and draw 
 sinners to worship her, if they did not their Father 
 in heaven. So here they gathered to discuss the ques- 
 
116 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 tion of where they would build, how and when. Mr. 
 Waldovere was the richest, and far the most learned 
 man in the hills. He had been there the greatest 
 length of time, but alas! he was a strong character, and 
 would allow no man to dictate terms to him, certainly 
 no preacher. He knew just as much about heaven and 
 hell as they did, and he could consign his neighbors to 
 one or the other place with equal facility. He said 
 hell was invented by priests and kings to enslave their 
 fellow-men. Waldovere and Murdstone would lock 
 horns, and talk bible and history until the dinner was 
 announced, when all differences were drowned in a 
 fragrant cup of coffee, biscuit that would melt in your 
 mouth, with butter that had the cream taste all left in; 
 baked potatoes that were as mealy and light as flour; 
 often, delicious wild venison; sometimes grouse, cooked 
 with cream gravy; now and again, mountain trout, 
 with their silver sides lightly browned; and to-day 
 their dinner was finished with wild blackberry pie. If 
 you have never eaten the wild blackberry of Oregon, 
 dear reader, you must know that it is the best fruit 
 that has ever been invented in nature s great chemical 
 laboratory for making pies. Mr. Waldovere remarked 
 to Mr. Murdstone, who sat next to him: " Your wife is 
 
 a good cook, and there s not a d bit of step-mother 
 
 about her. I don t believe she uor the children can 
 tell which is which," and the happy children looked up 
 with their mouths full, wondering what he meant. But 
 the curly-headed baby Murdstone stuck itself under the 
 tenderly caressing arm of Mrs. Murdstone, pouting out 
 her lips defiantly, saying: 
 
 "You is my mamma," and the mother snuggling 
 her up closer, says: 
 
 " Yes, Tot, you are my very own." Here they all 
 laughed heartily, Waldovere saying: "No artist ever 
 had so good a subject for a telling picture." 
 
 Before the gentlemen arose from the table, Mrs. 
 Murdstone said she would like to be put on the build 
 ing committee, and as men couldn t work without eat- 
 
THE MAIDEN S SACRED BOWER. 117 
 
 ing, she would do the cooking for them if Mr. Wal- 
 dovere would promise to buy the lumber for the school- 
 house, which would be used for church services on 
 Sundays: 
 
 " Father has about decided to give a five-acre lot 
 where the broad-spreading oak trees make the place 
 like a garden, and a part of the ground could be laid 
 out for a cemetery." 
 
 Mr. Murdstone said, to himself: "It seems like sac 
 rilege to use the same building for church and school." 
 
 And Mr. Waldovere, with a merry twinkle in his 
 eye, remarked: " There are two of us against one, and 
 if your scruples are so nice, you need not preach in the 
 school-house; then it will not be desecrated," and with 
 a hearty laugh, he won his point. 
 
 They walked to the building site, and decided be 
 tween themselves where the lumber should be unloaded. 
 Within less than six weeks a very substantial, commo 
 dious building was completed. The enterprise of the 
 California gold mines had spread to the Territory of 
 Oregon, and made it possible to put up a building made 
 of lumber, with doors and windows, as early as the fall 
 of 49. 
 
 It was the middle of October, and no teacher had 
 yet been found. An Oregon mist was settling over 
 the land, something like a London fog, but the peo 
 ple were paying no more attention to it than the Lon 
 doners do to their togs; indeed, every avocation was 
 being pushed with greater vigor, for these rains, or fine 
 mists, were only a precursor of the long winter season 
 that would soon set in "in dead earnest," as those 
 pioneers used to say. 
 
 This bustle and increased activity made things seem 
 very prosperous, and gave a cheerful, instead of a de 
 pressing influence, as one, far away, reading an ac 
 count of those Oregon mists, might imagine. 
 
 Mrs. Murdstone was deep in the mysteries of the 
 finishing touches of the rinsing, and wringing, rubbing 
 and starching of the Monday s wash. No French 
 
118 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 laundry ever did better work, and this laundry work 
 was done every week in the family, rain or shine. 
 Mrs. Murdstone told her sons that, as manners made 
 the difference between a gentleman and clown, so 
 starch marks the well-bred from the common herd. 
 But here we have no common herd, but starch, just 
 the same, is very refining, and since it is so cheap, and 
 life would be so drear without it, we will just use it 
 freely, Jean." Another one of her practical home 
 sayings was : " While we are about it, we will cook 
 dinner enough for anyone who may happen in," and it 
 seemed that the people sixty miles away would scent 
 her dinners, for how they did "happen" along just 
 before or just after dinner ! To-day, the spare-rib and 
 backbone of a fat pig had been served for dinner, the 
 great heaping platter full had been set away, while a 
 pile of nicely browned loaves from the Saturday s bak 
 ing lay on the same shelf; near it, stood a roll of 
 creamy butter. The dishes were piled in a big pan on 
 the table, waiting to be washed, when a young man 
 flung a long shadow on tne floor, for the sun had shone 
 out "brightly that afternoon. Mrs. Murdstone wiped 
 her hands from the white foam, stepped in to meet the 
 shadow, bowed gracefully, and asked the young man to 
 be seated. He was an intelligent looking young fellow of 
 about twenty, with the tenderest down on his chin and 
 upper lip, the mildest blue eyes, his teeth protruding 
 when he smiled. He did not sit, but gave his hand to 
 the matronly woman before him. Her warm grasp 
 given him made them friends. In a clear, manly voice, 
 he said : " I am too hungry to sit, Mrs. Murdstone. I 
 have heard your name so often since I came into the 
 neighborhood, that you seem like an acquaintance." 
 
 " I shall be glad to know you, I am sure, and since 
 you are so hungry, you will not be dainty. The best 
 man to feed is the man with an appetite, and as you 
 cannot sit, just stand in front of my commissary stores 
 and help yourself without ceremony, for my time is in 
 great demand for the next hour, after which I shall be 
 
MAIDEN S SACRED BOWER. 119 
 
 at leisure arid happy to entertain you. And she opened 
 wide her cupboard doors, stepped out on the open 
 porch where her suds were awaiting her, and soon had 
 the whole back yard, clear to the spring, lined with 
 snowy linen. 
 
 The young man had done justice to the eatables he 
 found in such generous quantity. He said he drank 
 out of the five-quart milk-pan, cream and all. Poor 
 fellow, young as he was, he had graduated from a law 
 school in Iowa, and came out here to make a start in 
 the world. Had crossed the plains with mule teams, 
 arriving in the valley the last of August. He had 
 intended to push right on to the gold diggings, but had 
 plunged into the deep snow in the Rogue River moun 
 tain ranges, lying between Oregon and California; had 
 subsisted on mule-meat for six days ; had retraced his 
 steps, and we find him in Mrs. Murdstone s larder, 
 surrounding himself with plenty. His gold fever, he 
 thought, had somewhat subsided, and he would be glad 
 to teach the children in the new school-house for his 
 board during the winter. But the old pioneers gave 
 him a fair salary the first winter, and increased it and 
 the number of children every year for five years. Then 
 he married one of the noblest girls in the hills, not 
 especially noted for her great beauty, but for her good 
 ness. He won prominence as a lawyer in the State, 
 and was sent as a representative to Congress for two 
 consecutive terms, and was the father of a large and 
 prosperous family of sons, his own fac-similes, with the 
 same prominent teeth and generous smile. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 MARRYING FOR LAND. 
 
 With the virgin earth about them, with brave hearts 
 and strong hands to carve out their fortunes in a new 
 world, was it possible for these families to be other 
 than hopeful and happy ? And yet the worm will eat 
 into the heart of the fairest rosebud, the brightest 
 hopes vanish. 
 
 Mr. Miser returned, made an offer to Mrs. Murd- 
 stone for her daughter s hand in marriage, pressed his 
 suit so fair and earnestly that Mrs. Murdstone won 
 dered how she could have had a suspicion that he was 
 not the soul of honor. She told Mr. Miser that if he 
 could gain her daughter s consent, and wait two years 
 for Jean, she would give him her consent. Mr. Miser 
 was as timid and modest an accepted lover as a mother 
 could desire, and at that interview, coincided with 
 every wish the anxious mother could express; he 
 showed wisdom in requiring Mrs. Murdstone to allow 
 him sufficient time to make some impression on Jean s 
 good-will, before she became aware of his intention of 
 making her his wife, and with the utmost skill removed 
 every trace of doubt from the mind of Mrs. Murd 
 stone of his base motive of marrying Jean for the sake 
 of securing his land, by assuring Mrs. Murdstone that 
 he had been possessed of a deep and undying passion 
 for her lovely daughter since the first day he saw her 
 she was so unlike any other girl. He had gone to 
 the mountains to try to master this all-absorbing 
 passion, but it had mastered him. He came again, 
 and in his manly, frank way had determined to seek 
 Mrs. Murdstone, and gain her consent to win the fair 
 girl if possible. Oh, yes, he could wait five years, or 
 
MARRYING FOR LAND. 121 
 
 ten, if at the end he was sure to win his prize. Mrs. 
 Murdstone admired the ardent style of the man s 
 pleading, but could not reconcile her conscience to 
 acquiescing in Jean s marriage at this tender age; she 
 soothed her troubled fears, nevertheless, by thinking 
 " two years is some time. Jean will be sixteen, and 
 she may refuse the man. Why should I feel so badly. 
 After all, something may occur to interfere." And thus 
 she allowed herself to be deluded, and so drifted down 
 the smooth stream of time. 
 
 Now that the adroit Mr. Miser had removed all 
 resistance, with his strong will, coupled with Mr. 
 Murdstone s, they had swept away every objection, and 
 instead of waiting two years, in less than two months, 
 Jean Ames was Mrs. Miser. 
 
 Now, any girl of fourteen years, who was told to take 
 her books, tie on her bonnet and go to school, would 
 be most likely to do as she was bid; and so, when they 
 bade Jean to be measured for her wedding gown, she 
 said, "A new dress in this country is indeed a rare and 
 lovely thing, but as for marrying that fellow, I don t 
 think I ever will. I want to go to school. I don t 
 want to be married so young. Other girls do not, and 
 I shan t!" she protested poutingly. 
 
 Cursica Miser bought a little chestmit pony, and 
 called it Jean s pony. He asked her to ride out with 
 him. Jean took a brisk canter, and skimmed over the 
 ground with as much ease as a bird sails through the 
 air, and was home with her mother in half an hour. 
 Mr. Miser beamed graciously upon her as he lifted her 
 from the saddle, but not a word of love or marriage 
 passed his lips. If there had, Jean would never have 
 gone to ride again. Mr. Murdstone eagerly pointed out 
 the advantages of such a marriage. She was the most 
 fortunate girl in the whole country to be sought by a 
 man of such wealth. " He is some years your senior, 
 to bo sure, but the wife grows older so much faster than 
 the husband, that in point of fact your ages will be 
 equal ten years hence." This cunning reasoning almost 
 prevented the prospective marriage, for Jean argued, 
 
122 THE HEROINE OF 40. 
 
 " Why should I enter upon an arrangement of affairs 
 whereby I shall grow old so fast ?" and saying pettishly, 
 " I shall not do it!" walked oat of the room with a step 
 light and free as the bounding deer on the mountain 
 side, but with eye alert and head ereot, very much as 
 the deer that has heard the hunter s tramp or the 
 hounds yelp. What to do she did not know. Since 
 her earliest recollection, every member of her family, 
 when perplexed, sought refuge in prayer. Jean spent 
 hours in her leafy bower, on her knees, asking God to 
 direct her, and above all to give her wisdom to do right. 
 " I am such a helpless child," she pleaded; " no father, 
 no brother near, and my poor mother seems dazed and 
 bewildered. Oh, God, spare me this fate ! I want to 
 go to school. I want an education like other girls. 
 My soul is in rebellion. Oh, God, give me peace, and 
 spare me this step in the dark ! I know not what I fear. 
 I know not why I so abhor this whole hateful affair 
 from beginning to end." 
 
 If Jean had opened her heart to her mother, as she 
 did silently to God in her prayer, it would have aroused 
 her to action, and the poor child would have been saved. 
 Jean thought she could not add trouble to her mother s 
 already overflowing cup of bitterness, and silently, and 
 somewhat heedlessly, glided on until the evil day set 
 for the marriage arrived. 
 
 What could a child of fourteen know of the horrors 
 of an unhappy mariage? The few guests, as they arrived, 
 kissed her a merry good morning, saying she was a lucky 
 girl, but her mother s pale face bore traces of tears7 and 
 the dear old minister, gray-haired, tender-hearted and 
 good, wiped a tear from his eyes as he warmly pressed 
 her hand. This alarmed Jean. She knew he loved 
 her. She knew he was good and had more knowledge 
 of what she was doing than she had. She was ap 
 prehensive, and asked Mrs. Morton, one of the elder 
 ly ladies, to walk with her to pick some flowers. 
 They passed down the spring path that led to Jean s 
 bower. Jean told her of the secluded spot, and said 
 she had an intense longing to hide there until the day 
 
MARRYING FOR LAND. 123 
 
 was passed. The woman looked surprised and grieved, 
 but said : " My poor child, does your mother know how 
 you feel?" Jean, pressing the grass with her dainty 
 slipper, said: "No one knows but God." 
 
 * My child, your friends are older than you. "We all 
 have to trust our friends and family for our happi 
 ness. If I were you I would go on with the affair 
 now as everything is in readiness. Every woman feels 
 something as you do, at the last moment." 
 
 Jean s eyes dilated with rage, as she grew indignant 
 at her hemmed-in condition. 
 
 " If I were a woman I would know my own mind 
 and act it," and two great tears slid out from under 
 her silken lashes, and trickled down her velvet cheek, 
 in sympathy as much for all womankind who go trem 
 bling to their marriage vows, as in pity for herself. 
 "Why should there be a chance for my being un 
 happy in married life, if all they have told me be true ?" 
 she queried. "Now, there is the minister, and my 
 mother, the only people here who care for me at all, 
 and they are both crying. I have a mind to run for 
 my freedom, as the negroes do down south." 
 
 "My child," said Mrs. Morton, "you must trust 
 your friends as older girls do; your mother, the minis 
 ter, and all the people assembled at the house, have 
 talked the matter over and over again. It is their 
 opinion, evidently, that you are doing the best possi 
 ble thing for yourself." 
 
 "Why is my mother so reluctant in giving her con 
 sent? Mr. Murdstone and Mr. Miser are the only 
 ones eager for the union. If I should speak the truth 
 to you I should say that neither of them ever intend 
 to fulfill the contract they have made with my mother 
 to gain her consent to this marriage. It is this, that 
 I shall remain with her until I am seventeen; that 
 she shall have a hired girl to do the work in my place, 
 and Mr. Miser will pay the girl s wages; but when 
 we do go to housekeeping, I shall always be provided 
 with hired help, and that I shall not be subject to 
 child-bearing until I m twenty -five years of age. That, 
 
124 
 
 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 as Mr. Miser is abundantly able, he will always pro 
 vide me with every comfort of life, and every wish, 
 even for luxuries, shall be gratified. That sounds fine 
 on paper, does it not? Let me tell you, when Mr. 
 Miser first asked my mother to consent to our engage 
 ment he promised her faithfully that he would not 
 ask that we be married before two years, because I 
 am so young; and here he comes with an excuse that 
 the government has made a land law that he did not 
 know anything about at the time he asked for my 
 hand; that every man shall be married or lose his 
 half-section. Now, I want to remain a girl until I 
 am a woman, and then marry a man, and not land, 
 I have told them all this." 
 
 "But my dear, what a scandal you would creatn! 
 Come, they are calling us now." Jean turned and 
 walked slowly back to find the guests awaiting her. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE MARRIAGE OF THE GIEL-CHILD. 
 
 Mr. Miser was an odd-looking man in his every day 
 suit. But if anyone could have seen him in his wed 
 ding gear without smiling, they could do better than 
 Jean did. There could be nothing wrong in the bride s 
 smiling on the bridegroom, so the company thought, 
 and the groom himself was pleased to see Jean looking 
 so charmingly sweet. 
 
 Now, Jean herself was dressed like a matron of 
 thirty, but this only enhanced her girlish appearance. 
 It was the first time she had ever worn a long dress, 
 which made her look taller and more womanly. But 
 she could not walk with that ease and grace that she 
 did in her short dresses. It was a brown alpaca, 
 and the only piece of dress-goods to be found in the 
 only dry-goods store in town. 
 
 There was absolutely no cloth in the store to 
 make a suit for Mr. Cursica Miser, but after much 
 perplexity, one of his bachelor friends sold him a 
 
 Eiece of fine broadcloth that he had brought with 
 im from the states. There was just enough in the 
 piece to make himself a pair of pants. He was a very 
 small man, and Mr. Miser much taller. But the tailor, 
 hearing of the trials of the would-be bridegroom, 
 promised to try to piece the cloth at both ends, and so, 
 by dint of stretching, piecing, and Mr. Miser s 
 " sorootching " a little, he thought it might be made 
 to do duty as a pair of pants for a wedding suit. As 
 Jean entered, Mr. Miser was standing in the middle of 
 the floor talking to the minister, his lower limbs en 
 cased in the shiny broad-cloth. He was " scrootching" 
 a little, as the man of art in constructing clothes had 
 
126 THE HEROINE OP 49. 
 
 directed him to do. But, alas ! for all the contracting 
 he could do, the pants were determined to creep up 
 above his shoe tops, and drop a little below his vest at 
 the waist, so the white shirt looked like a sash peeping 
 out between his upper and lower garments. If the 
 coat had been big enough, Mr. Miser could have con 
 cealed this defect by buttoning one or two buttons at 
 the waist. 
 
 Alas ! for obstacles over which helpless man cannot tri 
 umphantly climb. The coat and vest in which Mr. Miser 
 had decided to appear on his wedding day, had 
 lain in his trunk since he was a young man of nineteen. 
 He was now a man, with heavy beard, a sharp sprink 
 ling of gray creeping into his side-whiskers. A man s 
 form changes somewhat in all those years, though he 
 may not have grown much stouter, and the coat that 
 might have looked trim at nineteen, now utterly re 
 fused to make anything else of the man than a carica 
 ture. His shoulders being thicker, required more 
 cloth to cover them, and this brought the seams of 
 the waist high up under the shoulders, which made 
 the coat-tail slightly elevated at the back. The front 
 skirts tilted back to the side pockets of the pants, 
 and left the expose of the quarrel between his pants 
 and vest very prominent indeed, and as there was not 
 a mirror large enough at that time in all Oregon, in 
 which to see himself at full length, it was not at all 
 probable that Mr. Miser could know what a grotesque 
 figure he presented. Being a vain man, he would not 
 have appeared before that company in that outfit for 
 all the land in Oregon had he known just how he 
 looked. He was, however, conscious of some defects 
 in h^s attire, but when Jean appeared, and smilingly 
 endured the sacrifice made for her by this ignorant 
 and misguided people, he was seemingly complacent. 
 How was it possible for a bible-reading, God-fear 
 ing, Christian, civilized people to induce a child to 
 enter the mystic horrors of marriage rites, that were 
 so atrocious ? It was possible at the time of which 
 we write. If an unprotected family, on the extreme 
 
But if anyone could have seen him in his wedding gear, without 
 smiling, they could do better than Jean did. 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF THE GIRL-CHILD. 127 
 
 frontier, were shot and tomahawked, little children s 
 brains dashed out against the stones, as, alas! some 
 times happened in those days, everybody could pale 
 with horror at the savage deed, but they could see 
 this innocent, unsuspecting child bound by the most 
 galling chains of a sacred contract to a life instinct 
 with torture, every day equal to any ever perpe 
 trated by the savages; not a death, with its quick 
 still peace, but life, quivering with new horror 
 and increasing torture each day. This is not the sav 
 age blow of revenge, but our highest, grandest, noblest 
 Christian civilization, dealing with the key-note to the 
 bulwark of all there is in life, the holy of all holies, 
 the family tie. The pure girl of fourteen, bound to 
 the sensualist of forty-five, in that closest earthly tie, 
 a marriage. Honest, cultured, thinking human beings 
 could make laws to enable designing men to entrap a 
 child into such a snare. Laws that intelligent people 
 are asked to obey should be the culmination of per 
 fection when worked out in the great sum of life, in 
 stead of developing all the damning evil that fiends in 
 hell would pale to enforce. We are convinced, and 
 think you will be, who follow us, that there were few 
 girls ever born who could stem the current of adverse 
 fate, beat back the scum of crime, stay the fiery ordeal, 
 as did our brave and dauntless Jean, and, like the 
 Hebrew children, come out without the smell of fire 
 upon her garments. Let humanity forever blush 
 that could formulate circumstances that would make 
 life, like the one our pen tries, but will forever 
 fail to portray. If a murder is committed before 
 our eyes and we only smile, we give aid and sanc 
 tion to the murderer, we abet the crime. There 
 are thousands of crimes perpetrated every day upon 
 our fellows that are worse than taking their lives, 
 and yet, we are so stupid of the results of the many 
 ultimate ramifications of these crimes, that we lend no 
 voice nor force against them. How long, oh, Lord, will 
 poor humanity endure its wrongs, and not even cry out 
 for redress? see its fellows fall daily, mowed down 
 
 9 * 
 
128 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 like the tender grass, and still remain dumb as 
 the beasts of the field? not knowing every wrong 
 they see committed, and lend no hand to relieve, 
 raise no voice of protest, makes them aiders and ac 
 cessories to the crimes; not even comprehending 
 that the passive criminal is almost equal to the active 
 one ? Our pen should be sharp to prick the consciences 
 of our fellows, so that other generations may have 
 better conditions for the coming race than those that 
 former days made for our heroine. It is time we had 
 heroes and heroines in the strife, and not the patient 
 dull-eyed cattle of the past that stolidly endured. 
 
 When Mrs. Murdstone found that she had made so 
 irretrievable a mistake in assenting to this ill-assorted 
 union and every day made it more apparent she was 
 utterly prostrated with grief, and lay upon her bed for 
 months, racked with the terrible pain of remorse. It 
 came at the most critical period of a woman s life, when 
 she hesitates, starts, fears and has no strength of resist 
 ance, as she had only a few years before. She often 
 found herself sitting up in bed crying and wringing her 
 hands in pitiable agony, trying in her sleep to bring 
 Jean back to her again. It was the climacteric period 
 with her. If she, or anybody about her, had under 
 stood her physical condition, all this frightful sickness 
 and lamentable anguish could have been avoided. She 
 would have said, "I require my daughter s compan 
 ionship and she mine, until she is a woman grown. 
 She shall marry no one until she is a fully matured 
 woman, when she herself shall select her choice. I 
 shall have nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with it." 
 Murdstone and Miser would have looked elsewhere for 
 a victim. If our laws were not weak, and not con 
 structed by wholly incapable men, whose sensual lives 
 have long since denuded their brains of the acumen that 
 they otherwise would have possessed, our laws, would, 
 of a surety, have strength enough in them to protect 
 our girl-children from the sensual rapacity of men. 
 The laws made for us by our wise brothers, that 
 thrust marriage upon our child-girls, have worked a great- 
 
THE MARRIAGE OF THE GIRL-CHILD. 129 
 
 er evil to the race than all the other crimes the world has 
 ever committed. Our law-makers and physicians are 
 the greatest criminals in making and sanctioning these 
 laws. Then come the long-robed priests; but they 
 are so well versed in the needs of the soul, and so little 
 conversant with the requirements of the body, that 
 they are to be excused somewhat. Our writers, brain 
 less, superficial thinkers the parents and stupid teach 
 ers of the race such idiots ! But the march of time 
 will sweep them all out of our way like the flood-tide of 
 a mighty river that carries forth the debris and dashes 
 it to one side, here and there along its banks, covered 
 with mud and scum and old dead leaves, rubbish of the 
 past. . Why do we punish evil-doers ? Because they 
 are doing harm to persons or property, which it is our 
 business to protect. But we are always doing our pun 
 ishing and protecting at the wrong end of society. We 
 go among the lower classes, when we should go to the 
 highest, where the power to do evil is the strongest. 
 
 What is the burning of an old barn, compared with 
 spoiling the chances of a woman s life, and making it 
 possible for her to produce a dozen or fifteen children, 
 immature, half made up, imbecile, deformed, diseased, 
 in every way robbed of what they have a right to of 
 health and strength and vigorous life? We all know 
 that a child subject to the perils of maternity is not 
 only destroying her own life, but making it utterly 
 impossible for her to do else than produce feeble issue. 
 If it is a crime to rob a child of half its existence, and 
 make the half you do impart to it a weak, feeble 
 one, then how much more a crime is it to rob a whole 
 family ? And as families produce nations, then what 
 is it to rob a nation of its right to all of life ? 
 
 It is a million times worse crime to give a puny ex 
 istence to a human being than to take a life. People 
 who are born have a right to a strong, robust, full life 
 of healthful vigor, that every breath may make exist 
 ence an ecstacy. If a man who kills another deserves 
 punishment by death, what dp these people deserve 
 
130 THE HEROINE OF 40. 
 
 who rob the nation of its life ? these perpetrators, the 
 law-makers, and we, their aiders and abettors in the 
 crime, who look on complacently and smile? Virtue 
 has its own reward. It is a pity this crime could not 
 recoil upon the heads of the offenders with a thousand 
 times greater rigor than it does on the innocent victims, 
 our young girls. It is useless to tell an unthinking 
 boy of ten years, that to take nothing from nothing, 
 nothing remains. A child-girl, herself not matured, 
 cannot produce mature offspring. Then why allow a 
 marriage contract to cover this premature period of a 
 girl s life, that she may be married at twelve ? All 
 laws constructed to govern and control the interests of 
 women, and especially of girls, prove that their con 
 structors are uneducated simpletons, devoid of an 
 atom of honor, and ought to be called upon to step 
 down and out, and let somebody wise enough, unaided 
 by a suggestion from women, to legislate for us, and 
 tell us what other element is more essential for the 
 well-being of the nation than our motherhood; but let 
 them be honest enough to fix the adult age of the girl 
 and boy at exactly the same period, and not pretend to 
 intelligent physiologists that girls mature sooner than 
 boys. If this were true, women would die sooner, and 
 every one knows there are more centenarians among 
 women than men. There is no difference in the cutting 
 and shedding of the teeth of boy-babies and girl-babies. 
 If girls grew faster than boys they would not require 
 so many months of gestation. 
 
 Out of what false reasoning did this absurd lie fasten 
 its fangs upon poor humanity ? It came from out the 
 lowest, basest passions of man s nature, and that and 
 that alone keeps it still a dominant power. It is the 
 hot blast of beastliness that makes men legislate in 
 this unjust manner for women. Beastliness, inasmuch 
 as it is without reason. In any other sense it is a 
 libel on the beast, since their animalism is a clean 
 record when compared with that of man. Do women 
 know that to endure all this wrong in silence makes 
 them vile inde- - *>*.j.tely baser than the men who 
 
THE MAR1TAGB OF THE GIRL-CHILD. 131 
 
 impose these crimes upon them, since they are the 
 chosen handmaids of God to the highest and holiest 
 mission on earth, that of propagating the species, the 
 architects and builders of His people, of the world, 
 a responsible position too holy to be injured ? 
 Women should not submit to wrong themselves and 
 their children yet unborn. But the dawn when women 
 will awaken to action is glowing with roseate hue. The 
 cold, gray dull clouds are passed. Our public schools, 
 with their millions of growing girls, equally educated 
 with our boys, will do the work in a few years of en 
 lightening our women to their true status in life. 
 Education will make them grand, true, brave women. 
 They will not ask for their rights; why should they ? 
 They will take up their duties and act their rights. 
 They will make their own laws to govern their own per 
 sons and property. Then the nation will begin to grow, 
 and drop its shackles. We shall be a strong, healthy, 
 noble race, not cursed by disease, nor poverty, nor 
 premature death. We shall be so full of happiness that 
 there will be no room for disease in or about us. Glori 
 ous, is it not to contemplate ? The grand time coming 
 for us all all happy, and prosperous I 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 SAVING HER MOTHER S LIFE. 
 
 Jean s mother had been sick two weeks. Mr. Cor 
 sica Miser had been relegated to the loft with the boys, 
 to spend his honeymoon in his same old-bachelor bed, 
 all alone. The house had from three to four neighbor 
 women in it, day and night. It was the first case of 
 serious illness that had occurred in the neighborhood, 
 and caused general alarm. There came at this time a 
 terrible rain-storm. All the streams, rivers, creeks and 
 sloughs were flooded. It was impossible for the Mission 
 doctor to get to Mrs. Murdstone, or for anyone to reach 
 him for advice. Roads and bridges had not material 
 ized; they were as yet the dreams of the future. There 
 was, however, a simple-minded old nurse, that gave 
 herb teas to the sick, who came with a long bag filled 
 with packages of dry herbs hanging on her arm. Jean 
 hated her the moment she saw her, and was watchful 
 of her movements about her mother. She was a 
 patient, meek-faced woman, who looked as though to 
 be meek, enduring and long-suffering was all there was 
 to do in the world. But out of this lack of resistance 
 grew Jean s strong advantage, as she set the old lady 
 aside and filled the position of doctor and nurse at her 
 mother s bedside. 
 
 Jean, though a child, was a student of nature. On 
 the plains, the year before, she had, in her method, 
 dissected every animal that came into camp, though 
 not very scientifically, it is true. She had taken fibers 
 from the great bundle of sheaths that form the muscles 
 of the buffalo bull s neck, and the fine fibers of the 
 antelope s ham, and called her mother s attention to 
 
SAVING HER MOTHER S LIFE. 133 
 
 the fact that there were people in the company who 
 were made of fine fiber like that of the antelope, and 
 those composed of coarser structure like the buffalo s 
 neck. The mother had said: 
 
 " My child, how wonderful your turn of mind is. j 
 should never have thought of such a thing, and yet it 
 seems true enough, and this is quite a demonstration." 
 
 If she had known that the knowledge the girl was 
 gaining in her studies would have enabled her to set 
 aside ignorant authority and save her life, it would 
 have seemed to Mrs. Murdstone still more astonishing. 
 Sometimes, Jean had hours to give to these critical 
 examinations of the structure of animals, sometimes 
 only moments. She would take the hunter s knife and 
 open the intestines, closely scanning the difference be 
 tween the great and the small, the strong and the 
 weak. Sometimes, she was alone with the animal in 
 the tall grass, searching for knowledge as for hidden 
 treasure, but oftener had a gaping crowd about her. 
 Nothing hindered her, however, from knowing what 
 she wished to learn. The strong fibers she found in 
 the wings of the birds that fly long distances gave her 
 much food for thought. 
 
 It was evening when the great crisis came. The 
 tallow candles were lighted, and gave to the room such 
 a dim weird glow that the nurse seemed to Jean like 
 something supernatural, and drove her almost to des 
 peration. There were four or five tin cups of different 
 kinds of herb tea sitting in a row on the hearth, that 
 gleamed like evil spirits before the fire, and Jean felt 
 that they were doinjy her mother harm. The fire-light 
 would blaze up and disclose everything distinctly in 
 the room, then almost die out again, seeming to Jean 
 to say, "Your mother s life is fast flitting away." 
 
 Mrs. Murdstone was lying, white as a sheet, not a 
 particle of color in her lips. She had had metrorrhagy 
 for days. She called the nurse to see what was press 
 ing on the pelvic muscles. The nurse had told Jean 
 she was too young for her to be about her mother it 
 
134 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 was immodest; and Jean had answered, wrathfully: 
 "I shall leave my mother to no one." Jean became 
 aware of the intention of the nurse to remove the ob 
 struction. It was inversion of the uterus, and she took 
 the nurse by the shoulders and whirled her half across 
 the room, saying: "Oh, mother, it is a part of your 
 own person, and must not be removed, but replaced." 
 "Whereupon Mrs. Murdstone fainted, and Jean per 
 formed the work, and saved her mother s life, and of 
 course was greatly excited. As soon as she could leave 
 her mother, going into the kitchen, she bolted the door, 
 and knelt down with her head between the pots and 
 kettles on a bench, and in that humiliating attitude 
 took a vow that if God would only save her mother s 
 life, before any gray hairs should gather on her head 
 she would know how to take care of women and not be 
 as ignorant as those she saw about her. When she rose 
 to her feet she knew her mother would get well. What 
 a long, long time it did take, she being like an infant, 
 having to be fed like one. Jean was her nurse for 
 months. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 THE INDIAN HUT. 
 
 Mr. Miser was becoming restive. His marriage se 
 cured to him his land claim. This bauble sufficed to 
 divert his mind for a time, but like the average man, 
 he soon forgot his promises made before marriage. 
 
 One morning in midwinter, the Oregon mists, all 
 swept away, left a cloudless sky; the sun, warm and 
 clear, shining overhead, but mud and slush and water 
 under foot. Messrs. Murdstone and Miser, leaning 
 against the fence, were basking in the sunshine. Jean 
 noted the two men. She had held them well in hand 
 during her mother s protracted and dangerous illness, 
 but was sure some mischief was being planned, yet did 
 not dare to say so to her mother, who continued to be 
 in so weak a condition that not an unpleasant breath of 
 anything must disturb her quiet. There she lay, so 
 feeble, behind the white curtains that surrounded her 
 bed. A faint tinge of color was creeping back into her 
 face. Jean sat combing and dallying with her mother s 
 long flowing hair, and was saying, "It s so soft and 
 shiny, and hasn t a gray hair in it, mother mine, " when 
 the door opened and Mr. Miser entered. He had rare 
 ly been in the sick-room. Did he know it was his false 
 hood and intrigue that had caused her this attack of 
 long illness ? 
 
 He looked quizzical, remarking, "Oh, you will soon 
 be well and about. " 
 
 " I hope so," came in a thin, faint whisper from the 
 pillows. 
 
136 THE HEROINE 0$ 40. 
 
 Mr. Miser had trouble with a tuft of hair growing on 
 top of his head. He would run his fingers through it 
 as if they were a comb, lifting it up and spreading it 
 carefully on top of his head like a plaster. His vanity 
 caused him to think that Jean s smile was a sure indica 
 tion that she was pleased with his personal appearance, 
 and dubiously returning her smile, asked, If your 
 mother can spare you, Jean, will you go to ride ? Your 
 pony is at the door." 
 
 "Oh, yes, mamma can spare me." 
 
 And as they moved out of the room, Mrs. Murdstone 
 drew the curtain aside with her white hand and fol 
 lowed them with her eyes. Jean never forgot that 
 look. They rode over the Murdstone place, and half 
 the Miser estate, and halted in front of the cabin door, 
 where Mr. Miser told Jean they were going to live. 
 That he would put a puncheon floor over half the cabin, 
 for a bed-room, and a dirt floor would suffice for the 
 remainder of the cabin. He would pile up some stones 
 against the wall, make a hole in the clapboard roof for 
 the smoke to escape, which would take the place of a 
 chimney. He opened a rudely constructed door made 
 of clapboards, and together they entered the hut. 
 Jean s heart was almost standing still, while the hand 
 somest eyes that ever lighted a handsome face, scanned 
 the man who had the power and right to bring her to 
 such a place to live, and she decided that blanched 
 cheeks or moist eyes could have no more effect upon 
 him than they did the dirt she was standing upon. 
 Therefore, she laughed a little pluckily, saying : 
 
 " What wonderful plans for improvement, Mr. Miser. 
 You would make this hut a little palace." 
 
 " You must call this a cabin," he answered, in severe 
 tones, putting his fingers through his hair, and plaster 
 ing it solidly on top of his head, adding : 
 
 " I should not like the neighbors to say that we live 
 in a hut. Such things are picked up very quickly in 
 this new country." 
 
 And Jean with a little laugh, spiritedly replied : 
 
 The way to prevent that is not to live in a hut," 
 
THE INDIAN HUT. 18t 
 
 and she patted the mane of the chestnut sorrel that 
 stood close to the cabin door. 
 
 They mounted again, and, riding home, Mr. Miser 
 explained that he wished to set three or four men to 
 work, and they must commence housekeeping at once. 
 Jean ventured to query, * * I thought you were going to 
 build a new house, and leave me at mother s while you 
 were getting things ready?" 
 
 "My, what a erand lady. We get things ready for 
 you ! Why, don t you know you are only a poor girl ?" 
 sneered Miser with the trickiest smile that ever dis 
 closed villainy in a man s lace. 
 
 Jean, with scorn wreathing her lips, asked: "Did 
 you not tell my mother so? 
 
 With the sinister smile deepening : " What would not 
 a man tell to get a girl these hard times, when the United 
 States government allows him the alternative to marry 
 or be robbed of his land ?" 
 
 Jean s mother was asleep when she entered. From 
 this she knew that Mr. Murdstone had not told her 
 anything to disturb her. This gave Jean time to bathe 
 her face, and put back the tears that would come. She 
 hoped it would take some weeks for Mr. Miser to make 
 these extensive improvements. If her mother could be 
 well again ! She would do anything in her power to 
 coax her back to health and strength. She would 
 bend every energy while she was with her to hasten her 
 recovery. She requested Murdstone and Miser to al 
 low her to disclose the fact to her mother tbat she was 
 going to housekeeping. She thought if she could 
 make her mother believe that it was her desire to make 
 the change, it would rob this parting of half its sting, 
 and so prevent Mrs. Murdstone from being thrown into 
 a relapse, which she much feared might occur. 
 
 On the last evening, as they sat by the fire, Jean s 
 brother, Will Ames, hearing Mr. Miser remark that the 
 cabin was fixed up good enough for a poor girl to live 
 in, and being indignant at the idea of Mr. Miser s 
 speaking thus of his sister, turned full upon him and 
 said: 
 
138 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 " You cut and hewed those logs when you first came 
 home from California, to build a house for Eufamie 
 Shrum, and you let the logs rot in the woods, when she 
 would not have you. Now, because, as you just said, 
 my sister is a poor girl, that old Indian hut is good 
 enough for her to live in. I would not go one step, 
 Jean, until he hauls those logs in and puts up as good 
 a house as this, or as the other settlers in the neighbor 
 hood have. Everybody will laugh at you if you live in 
 such a hut. Besides, mother s too sick for you to leave 
 her now." 
 
 Will stood up straight as an arrow. He looked 
 manly as these words flowed freely from his lips. Jean 
 was proud of him. Mr. Miser twitched his sombrero a 
 little more over his eyes, saying: 
 
 "What a champion you have in your big brother!" 
 (he was only twelve years of age). " I shall have to be 
 careful what I say." 
 
 Ridicule was his ever ready weapon to ward off 
 criticism from himself. 
 
 This cabin had been built five years before by some 
 half-breed Indians, belonging to the Hudson Bay Com 
 pany, who lived in the French prairie. All Indians 
 are clannish to a degree that will not admit of isolation, 
 and they abandoned the cabin after it was built. They 
 had a large herd of horses that liked the hills for their 
 range, and they could drive them out of the hills to the 
 valley, and often lasso three or four of the band 
 for riding horses, turn the others loose, and immedi 
 ately they took to the hills away. 
 
 The Indians seemed to know where to build their 
 houses as instinctively as the birds do. This cabin 
 was located in quite a romantic spot, on a little rise of 
 ground, covered here and there with wide-spreading 
 oaks, with now and then a stately fir. Near by, ran a 
 babbling brook, with maple, ash, alder, pine, willow 
 and hazel trees lining its banks. Back of the cabin 
 sloped a gradually rising hill, farther and farther, 
 higher and higher, until, when the sun was setting, it 
 looked like a mountain piercing the cloudless sky. Oil 
 
THE INDIAN HUT. 139 
 
 the other side of the creek, stretched a gradually un 
 dulating plain for miles away, in about the center of 
 which stood the Murdstone dwelling and grounds, and 
 Jean could easily see her mother s house from the 
 cabin. 
 
 The last night that Jean was at home with her 
 mother she sat in front of the bright blazing fire. A 
 pile of oak logs were burning and dropping their great 
 solid coals on the hearth, and were soon consumed 
 into light gray ashes. How like the old home in Illi 
 nois, before Mr. Murdstone came. Oh, for those days 
 back again. She at school, her mother sewing in her 
 neat dress, her face glowing with perfect health, the 
 children playing in the corner just as they were now; 
 and if she must be married, why could it not have 
 been to any one of the dozen schoolboys who used to 
 be so delighted when it rained or snowed, and she 
 allowed them to carry her umbrella they thought her 
 somebody instead of that old man in the corner, with 
 the slouched hat over his eyes, who thought her 
 nobody because she was poor, and who no longer 
 attempted to disguise his age by putting shoe blacking 
 on his beard. 
 
 "Are not all children born poor?" she queried; "all 
 born alike? Of course some have more things given to 
 them by their families. Had he any right to twit her 
 about what she could not help, and degrade her by 
 taking her into an Indian hut? If I were half as smart 
 as my brother Will, I would not go one step until the 
 new house is built. Riches do not make a man nice, 
 nor does it make girls nasty to be poor." Thus her 
 thoughts smouldered like the ashes on the hearth, but 
 at length she forgot her grief as all children do, and 
 took part in the fun and laughter that was growing 
 quite boisterous, as the mother was well enough to 
 endure the noise, and the father was spending the even 
 ing at a neighbor s, for there was never a sound of laugh 
 ter or merriment in the house when Murdstone was in 
 it, and thus the fun ran riot when he was out of it. 
 Next morning, when Jean was muffled in her warm 
 
140 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 wraps, her sweet little face clasped between her moth 
 er s white hands for the good-by kiss, her countenance 
 glowing with intelligence, her mother thought: " Whj 
 she looks almost a woman. My poor child, this is suo 
 a cold, raw day. Do be careful not to take cold." 
 
 " Why, how can I, when there is a blazing fire on 
 the hear ,orfirepla ; well, anyhow, afire against the 
 wall of the cabin? So don t fret about me. Intelligent 
 people make themselves comfortable in any part of the 
 globe, under any sky." 
 
 " But, my child, you have never lived on a dirt floor. 
 
 " Oh, you forget, in crossing the plains." 
 
 "Yes, there, too, we had the clean grass and the 
 bright, fresh turf for a carpet." 
 
 " Yes, but, mother, I have a buffalo robe, and a long 
 shaggy-haired bear skin, two wolf-skins, and brother 
 Will has given me his otter skin that is too nice for a 
 rug, and I am going to make a hair seat for you, and 
 you must get well and come soon to see how nice it is. 
 We have not a chair in the cabin." Here she turned 
 and ran out of the house in a great hurry. The children 
 were all at the gate, and clambering into the old cov 
 ered wagon, hugged and kissed Jean good-bye. Miser 
 took them all out again. 
 
 Jean thought her heart would burst. She was alone 
 in the old wagon in which they had crossed the 
 plains. But there, there was enjoyment, merriment, 
 every day exciting scenes, and amusing incidents. 
 Now some great all-absorbing terror seized her, 
 and seemed, like midnight darkness, to envelop her 
 as she sat there all alone. Was it a presentiment 
 of the life she was to endure? She never could look 
 back upon that comfortless hour s ride, with its soul 
 torture, but a tremor would seize her. She had been 
 busy thinking of others, but now she was alone with 
 her own soul and her pitiable plight. She felt like one 
 about to undergo a surgical operation where great suf 
 fering is to be endured, and life itself endangered; like 
 one man going to battle without drum, fife, flag, or 
 comrade, not even a canteen of cold water. She longecj 
 
THE INDIAN HUT. 141 
 
 to hear the sound of voices; she wished her husband 
 to speak to her. He walked silently beside the dumb 
 cattle; only the death-like stillness reigned. She tried 
 to think how she would arrange her household. She 
 could think of nothing but this nameless horror. What 
 was it ? Was her mother dying, she soliloquized ? If 
 all the friends she had ever known were already dead, 
 she could not feel worse. 
 
 They are at the cabin. Mr. Miser pulls a "Buckskin 
 string, and the clapboard door swings back with an 
 ominous creaking on its wooden hinges; and the old 
 wood rat that had made its nest in the corner, the 
 squirrels that are frisking over the roof, the blue-jay 
 that is digging out some of the acorns that he laid away 
 for his winter use, all scamper and fly the invasion. 
 An old crow sits on a long pole that projects from the 
 roof, caw, caw, cawing. Jean calls it the bird of ill- 
 omen, throws a stone at him, and away he flies. The 
 bugs and worms, and the old hanging bark that had 
 broken loose from the logs, and hangs in shreds all 
 over the cabin, a hiding-place for the bugs and worms 
 these and the dust, the bloom of time, remain. 
 Jean had already determined in her own mind to enter 
 tain no friendly relations with the present occupants of 
 the cabin. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THEY WERE NOT THE BUGS OP CIVILIZATION. 
 
 Jean s mother, with the consent of Mr. Murdstone, 
 had loaned her one of the wagon covers to make a 
 house lining in the corner of the cabin where the bed 
 was to stand. This would serve as a protection to the 
 sleepers from the strongest draft of wind, and also pre 
 vent the keen-eyed savages from peering in; but more 
 than all, prevent the easy access to the bed, of the bugs, 
 worms and spiders whose hiding place was behind the 
 dead bark of the logs that composed the cabin. She 
 fastened a tester sheet to this lining at the back and 
 head of the bed. In front, and at the foot of the bed, 
 she fastened drapery of well-ironed sheets, whose 
 snowy folds fell nearly to the floor. Around the bot 
 tom of the bedstead she placed a valance of blue and 
 white broad- checked gingham, which was a shiny ac 
 cessory to the bed, and looked almost as much out of 
 place in the cabin as she herself. When she had made 
 the bed, with its snowy sheets and plump pillows, 
 it looked good enough for a palace. The bedstead 
 was made of Oregon curly maple, by a cabinet-maker, 
 and given her by her mother the only real piece of 
 furniture in the hut. 
 
 Mr. Miser said, u It looks charming now, but after a 
 few gusts of smoke from iny patent fire-place it will 
 present a very different appearance." 
 
 Jean replied, " The curtains will protect the bed, and 
 they can be washed semi-occasionally." 
 
 Mr. Miser had utilized some of the puncheon boards to 
 construct a table, by putting the ends of the boards through 
 the orack between the logs of the cabin, and two legs aud 
 
NOT THE BUGS OF CIVILIZATION. 143 
 
 a cross-piece to hold up the front of the table. Jean cov 
 ered it with a .snowy tablecloth, and set a very com 
 fortable meal that she had brought cooked, from her 
 mothers . The table was solid, but rougher than a storm 
 at sea. The fire was burning cheerfully, and the smoke 
 curling out of the hole in the roof, to her great surprise; 
 but she thought to herself, "As God tempers the wind 
 to the shorn lamb, so he is adapting the wind to the 
 chimney." How she missed that quiet composure that 
 pervaded her home when they all sat around the table, 
 waiting for the blessing to be asked. The meal being 
 over, she busied herself clearing away the dishes, 
 arranging them on their little clapboard shelves, that 
 Mr. Miser had fastened to the wall, and called a cupboard. 
 She took a kitchen apron which she fastened to the 
 back of the shelves, and at the front of these rough 
 boards she tacked some narrow ruffling, then she set 
 away the few pieces of crockery, tin cups and plates; 
 the knives, forks and spoons she put in a covered box, 
 and all the food in the iron bake-kettle for security. 
 By deft and shrewd management, constant and eternal 
 vigilance, she kept herself from being eaten or eating 
 any of the bugs, worms or spiders that inhabited the 
 hut along with herself and husband. 
 
 These were not, dear reader, the bugs of civilization, 
 known as the bed-bug, nor the festive flea, nor the 
 musical mosquito. They were bugs indigenous to that 
 particular climate and hut. They belonged to the 
 half-decayed fir log. They were a species that did not 
 take long ranges from their native habitat. The little 
 housekeeper, however, not understanding their pecu 
 liar traits of character, and being shocked at the 
 thought of any closer companionship with them, bar 
 ricaded against them with might and main. Miser 
 had made two rude benches from logs split in two. 
 One, about five feet long, served him as a lounge; the 
 other was Jean s chair, not very restful to be sure. 
 "When the life is taken out of one s soul, the body tires 
 quickly. Next morning, after a simple breakfast, Mr. 
 
144 THE HEROINE OF 40. 
 
 Miser said to Jean. " I am going to Mill Creek to 
 drive up some cattle to slaughter a beef." 
 
 Jean looked beseechingly at him, asking : 
 
 "Will you be gone all day? Then I will go to 
 mother s, because I can t stay in this place all day 
 alone, I am afraid/ and her lip began to quiver. 
 
 " There s going to be no tagging between you and 
 the Murdstone brats," said he, glowering upon her. 
 " You stay right here, and bake some bread; nothing 
 will hurt you. There will be four men here to-night 
 for supper. They are going to work on the ranch. 
 Two will go to plowing, and two will go into the 
 woods to chop down trees, and hew logs to build your 
 ladyship a house to live in. You d fool, do you 
 think (with more oaths), that the trees will chop 
 themselves down and walk out of the woods on to this 
 lovely ground, and make themselves into a beautiful 
 residence for you, because you are a mighty lady?" 
 
 At the first volley of oaths Jean put her apron up 
 to her face, her slight frame trembling with fear and 
 horror, the tears falling like rain. She stopped cry 
 ing, saying : 
 
 " I must go to see my mother to-day." 
 
 "You ll not go one step; but stay at home and 
 make bread, and, while it is baking, you can read 
 in your Bible that nice little story about Lot and his 
 daughters, and how David, the man after God s own 
 heart, took Uriah s wife to himself to wife." 
 
 Then he mounted his pony with a great flourish, half 
 singing: 
 
 " Hey, ho, here we go, riding on a rainbow, under 
 a cloud, leaving a rain-storm behind." 
 
 No Indian could have looked wilder, with his 
 slouched hat flying in the wind, then he did, as Jean 
 heard his horse s clattering hoofs, and saw him, 
 through her tears, galloping away. 
 
 Jean did not believe there were any such stories in 
 the Bible. She put her head on the table and cried 
 until she could scarcely see. She bolted the cabin- 
 
NOT THE BUGS OF CIVILIZATION. 145 
 
 door, as they had done the previous evening, then 
 crawled behind the curtains into her bed, more dejected 
 and miserable than any worm behind the old dead 
 bark in the logs that made her wretched prison cell 
 and theirs. 
 
 Jean had heard men swear on the plains when they 
 were very angry, but she thought them the offscour 
 ings of the earth; they were not people with whom her 
 family would associate, any member of which would 
 have been guilty of any crime as soon as swearing or 
 lying. She learned, alas! so soon that Mr. Miser cared 
 no more whether his word fell on the side of truth or 
 falsehood, than the wind cares whether it blows to the 
 north or the south. If her mother had been well she 
 would have flown home to her. But as she was too 
 sick to hear a wail from her, she would obey her hus 
 band, bake the bread, and try so hard to be a woman. 
 She had thought, before her marriage, that she would 
 love her husband like other women; when she grew 
 to be a woman, she would be a model wife. Al 
 though her head was aching ready to burst, she 
 thought she would get up and bake the bread and 
 have the evening meal prepared for the hired men 
 when they came, and trying to stand on her feet she 
 grew so sick she thought she was dying, and fell back 
 on the bed. Life s voyage was making her sea-sick as 
 a storm at sea ; and she lay all day so limp and lifeless, 
 not caring if the ship with its living freight sunk to the 
 bottom of the sea, just as you and I, dear reader, have 
 felt a thousand times when very sick at sea. .About 
 three o clock in the afternoon, she heard a noise like 
 the surging sound of mighty waters, then the tread of 
 horses hoofs, then the lowing of cattle, and the halloo 
 ing of men, and raising her head from the pillow, the 
 excitement together with the exertion of rising made 
 the rebellious contents of her stomach eject themselves 
 upon the puncheon floor. Just at this moment Mr. Mis 
 er opened the cabin door. She looked so white he thought 
 10 
 
146 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 for a moment she might be dying, and with some show 
 of alarm, brought her a tin cup of cold water. She could 
 not drink it. It was not fresh from the spring. He 
 
 coolly remarked: " That d crying made you sink," 
 
 and left her, to give directions about killing the beef. 
 
 They gave the herd salt to eat on the ground, and as 
 they were licking away at the salt, all unmindful of 
 the deadly bullet that the man let fly with well-directed 
 aim, one animal fell to rise no more, and now the loud 
 bellowing of the herd as they smelled the fresh blood 
 flowing from their comrade s wound was enough to 
 make a heart of stone ache, yet Jean had to hear it all, 
 so near. She lay in her bed so sick, so thankful for 
 the screen of curtains that hid her from the view of 
 those rough men. Miser brought a hired man of nine 
 teen into the cabin, who, after he had shown him the 
 cooking utensils, rolled up his sleeves, and very soon 
 announced to the slaughterers that he was ready for 
 the beefsteak. They yelled back: " You are a daisy; 
 got supper in a jiffy." 
 
 They brought some huge slices of the meat that was 
 still warm, put it into the frying pan, where it fried 
 up quickly, then sat down to partake of a meal of this 
 delicious steak, with hot biscuit, and hot potatoes, 
 boiled with their jackets on. They drank their coffee 
 out of the bright tin cups, and were awed into silence 
 by the neatness of their surroundings. They knew the 
 sick woman, hid from their view, was one of refine 
 ment and delicacy. Their respectful consideration 
 was very soothing to the sufferer. The tension of fear 
 taken off her nerves was fast relieving her head of its 
 acute pain. Her brother Will came at sundown, and 
 rode his horse s nose right into the cabin door. The 
 horse, thinking it a shabby stable, was about to walk 
 in. This brought a laugh both within and without the 
 cabin. Jean, hearing the clatter, pulled the curtain 
 aside, and Will, getting a glimpse of Jean lying there, 
 slid from the horse, and in an instant clasped her to hia 
 breast, saying: 
 
NOT THE BUGS OF CIVILIZATION. 147 
 
 " My poor sister, are you sick?" and their tears min 
 gled together. 
 
 " Oh, Will, why did you not come sooner?" wailed 
 Jean, her slight frame trembling in her brother s arms. 
 
 That morning, when Will was driving up the milk 
 cows from the pasture, he espied, down by the low, 
 murmuring brook, first by the fragrance and then by 
 the bloom, a little full-blown primrose on a bush 
 glistening with dew, like diamond drops, all studded 
 with buds half bursting. " This was a beauty," he 
 said to Jean as he took it out of his pocket, all crushed 
 and bruised, " my dear sis, the sweet little thing was 
 just like you when I picked it this morning, all shining 
 with dew;" and Jean took it smiling. " It is more 
 like me now, all crushed with this headache," and she 
 took a deep breath, inhaling the delicious fragrance. 
 "A smell, brother, will kill or cure me sooner than 
 anything." Then she told him how the old wood-rat 
 had been walking about all day, with such a stinking 
 nasty smell. It had been investigating things, and had 
 poked its nose against the bake-oven lid a dozen times. 
 Once it frightened her almost to death by trying to 
 run up the curtain. She threw her shoe at it, and it 
 scampered away. But the blue jays came and twittered 
 and pecked, and pecked and twittered again, eating 
 the acorns out of the logs on the cabin roof where 
 they had hidden them for their winter s use. And the 
 old crow, that she threw a stone at yesterday was it 
 only yesterday? and the tears glistened in her eyes as 
 she said it came back with a dozen others. " They 
 must have been talking about our coming in here, I 
 think, by the dignified way they walked back and 
 forth over the shingles, caw, caw, cawing and making 
 remarks, some of them not very flattering, I should 
 think from the sound, to the people who would take 
 an old crow s rookery like this to live in." The two 
 children continued talking until the men had gone out 
 to work, when Will brought his sister some coffee 
 with some sweet cream, that he had carried in a bottle 
 
148 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 from his mother s. She drank it, and ate a mouthful 
 of bread, feeling very much revived. Next morning, 
 Will came again, asking for Jean to return to her 
 mother s for a few days. Miser consented, saying: 
 
 " She is only an expense here and not worth a d ." 
 
 So the children went rejoicing on their homeward way. 
 
 Jean spent one blessed week in the old home; then 
 back again to her prison pen and slavery for six 
 months in the hut. Just imagine the horror of sitting 
 on that old bench on the dirt floor, afraid the bugs 
 would crawl from the ground to her feet and dress, or 
 that they might at any moment drop into her hair from 
 the rough roof, and then the eternal vigilance, that for 
 ever listening attitude, born of fear, that the murder 
 ous savages might surprise her by slipping up in their 
 moccasined feet, over the soft turf, still as death, and 
 tomahawking her without an instant s warning. 
 
 Was ever the felon s cell equal to this? Talk of the 
 Bastile; criticise foreign countries for their tyrannies to 
 the people; the Czar of Russia for his cruelties to the 
 exiles; and deluge the nation in blood to free a hand 
 ful of negro slaves, when an hour s cool-headed legisla 
 tion would have freed them and did free them at last, 
 and without which they would not have been freed 
 had they fought till now, and then take your brightest 
 and best American girl-children, and make their lives 
 like this. Flaunt your flags, and shoot your guns, and 
 talk of Fourth of July. The great American nation, 
 free under the American flag. 
 
 This child had a right under the constitution of our 
 beloved country, to the pursuit of happiness. Do not 
 forget that it was the laws of our beloved country that 
 exiled this girl-child from her home, and forged the 
 chains that held her in that prison pen, and do not for 
 get also, my brainy reader, that it was the acumen of 
 me greatest minds that our boasted civilization has 
 yet produced that formulated these laws. Let us help 
 you further to remember that this condition of things 
 did not grow out of the scum, the festering ulcer, the 
 
NOT THE BUGS OF CIVILIZATION. 149 
 
 hot-bed of our evil-doers, the poor and uneducated, 
 the lower classes, but from the highest element; the 
 wise, the learned, the god-like, the good; they that 
 feel proud of the intellectual heights they have at 
 tained. We wish to inflate them still more by show 
 ing them how their edicts in law, work out a problem 
 in human life, by showing them this one. Give us an 
 extra strut, gentlemen, when you walk the earth, god 
 like mortals; and lift your hats a little higher, never 
 catching a glimpse of the contempt, the lip wreathed 
 in scorn, of the beautiful woman you have passed. 
 And get an idea, you quick-witted readers that the 
 life of the one little child we are trying to give you a 
 glimpse of, is only one of thousands who are impris 
 oned just the same, whose lives may be, in some re 
 spects better, in many, infinitely worse. We have very 
 tender consideration for .your lack of comprehension, 
 brother man, your muddled brain, your supreme igno 
 rance of everything that is essential for you to know 
 before you legislate for girl-children; and therefore we 
 make the question simple, so that even you, oh man, 
 may comprehend it. If it requires twenty-one years 
 for a man to mature sufficiently to cast a vote Intelli 
 gently for the purpose of securing office for some sim 
 pleton, would it not require an equal amount of intel 
 lectual maturity to select a helpmeet for life ? As 
 men and women are equal *then should not both arrive 
 at the age of twenty-one years, before they be allowed 
 by the laws of the land to be united in marriage ? 
 
CHAPTEE XXIV. 
 
 JEAN S HOME SOLD WITHOUT HER CONSENT. 
 
 At last the new house was completed, with its shingle 
 roof, sawed lumber, roughly planed for a floor, two 
 doors, and an old-fashioned window with panes of glass 
 ten by twelve inches, a broad porch stretching away on 
 either side of the front door. A broad fire-place, built 
 of rough stone and clay, with its wide hearth of flat 
 stone, with many a crack here and there, that taxed 
 Jean s energy to the utmost to keep free from dirt and 
 ashes. Mr. Miser s peeuliar disposition to hoard his 
 gold had now become so apparent to Jean that she 
 knew that he was in every way a Miser both in name 
 and nature. To her astonishment, he told her that the 
 things that were in the old house would do for the new, 
 and did not add even a chair. But the house was so 
 clean and so secure that she felt like one of the spirits 
 of the damned that had been confined in Hades, and 
 was now lifted to Heaven, the change from dirt to clean 
 liness was so great. Jean lived in this broad, spacious, 
 one-roomed house in comparative comfort for a year 
 and a half. She had become accustomed to Miser s 
 one peculiar phrase that she had not as much sense as 
 a yaller dog. " He was so constantly planning villainy 
 against his neighbors, that he did not dare to speak 
 before Jean for fear of disclosing his plans. When he 
 entered the house, it was his habitual custom to hang 
 his hat on a peg, put his fingers through his hair, 
 and, with the remark that his " nerves were shottered," 
 lie down on the bench, one hand under his head for a 
 pillow, the other shading his eyes. This was his atti 
 tude during every moment spent in the house. Any 
 woman who has passed through the perils of maternity 
 
JEAN S HOME SOLD. 151 
 
 must know how Jean longed for a little sympathy as her 
 time of trial drew near a little tenderness. It never 
 came in word or look. After three days of agony, at 
 the very verge of death, after praying that she might 
 never breathe again, and thus be relieved of this terri 
 ble torture, she lay for weeks before she was conscious 
 that a little puny life a feeble, wailing thing was by 
 her side, and that her mother was hovering over her 
 with the tears falling like rain in the blessed joy that 
 Jean knew her again. All the bitter protests of Mr. 
 Murdstone, and all the oaths of Mr. Miser, could not 
 wrench Jean s mother from her side. She said she re 
 quired her care to bring her back to life, and she and 
 the little one received her watchful solicitude for three 
 months. And when Mr. Miser said he wished Jean and 
 the baby were both dead and out of the way, some 
 words escaped Mrs. Murdstone s lips that she thought 
 afterwards she should not have spoken. They were the 
 dawning of truth and justice in her mind. She did not 
 recognize them as such. They were these: "If Jean 
 were at home again, she should remain there until she 
 was a woman." Will Ames, with rebellion in his heart, 
 said, "It s a shame! They are two babies together. 
 And Jean s soul was riveted to his, though she lay there 
 so helpless. Her first conscious grief, after returning 
 to life, was that Mr. Miser never came near nor looked 
 at the baby, and her next great disappointment was 
 that a pleasant morning caller apprized her of the fact 
 that her home was sold and she was to move one hun 
 dred and fifty miles from her mother and her present 
 home no family living within fifty miles of the new 
 habitation. Jean hated the woman for the news, and 
 quoted to her mother, " How beautiful upon the 
 mountain top are the feet of him that bringeth glad 
 tidings." And when she questioned Mr. Miser about 
 it, he answered, with one of his foxy smiles, that he 
 knew nothing about it, and if it were true, she would 
 find it out soon enough. And Jean answered, * You can 
 sell your land, but I ll not sell mine. We have gone 
 through too many hardships to secure the land." 
 
152 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 It was the Methodist missionary, the Kev. Mr. "Wil 
 liam Roberts, a gentleman much more noted for his 
 suavity of manner and duplicity of character than for 
 his religious teachings, who contrived with Mr. Cursica 
 Miser to rob Jean of her land, her home near her 
 mother that she had paid dearly for. Old Shylock s 
 pound of flesh wasn t a flea-bite compared with what 
 Jean was paying. The reverend gentleman and the 
 defrauding husband had written to the Land Depart 
 ment at Washington to have the title of the land made 
 out in the name of Mr. Roberts and his wife. 
 
 As Jean signed the deed, which she blotted with her 
 tears, and the glittering gold was counted out, and laid 
 upon the table by the reverend gentleman, she said, 
 sorrowfully, " The cursed gold that cost me this!" 
 
 If she had been a woman, instead of wiping the tears 
 from her eyes, she would have wiped the reverend gen 
 tleman out of the house, and never signed the paper. 
 But as it was, Mr. Miser damned her fluently for cry 
 ing and setting the neighbors to jibing him, and saying, 
 as he termed it, that he had " swindled her out of her 
 land." 
 
 And Jean asked, half smiling, " Is it my tears and 
 not your acts that cause the neighbors to say this? I 
 thinK they say the truth." 
 
 " We will go where we have no neighbors," snapped 
 the enterprising Mr. Miser, adding his usual number 
 of adjectives. And they did. 
 
 Jean s baby boy, who was now a year and a half old, 
 was the joy of her existence. She and her mother had 
 begged Mr. Miser to go on horseback to select his gov 
 ernment land, but he insisted upon Jean s going in the 
 ox-wagon and coming back agjain. It took them six 
 weeks to make the trip. Theirs were the first wagon- 
 wheels that passed over the government road that 
 fighting Joe Hooker, in the summer of 1851, had 
 surveyed for the government through Oregon to Cali 
 fornia, and had marked the road by a furrow plowed 
 to indicate the line of the survey all the way 
 through the Willamette Valley until he reached the 
 
JEAN S HOME SOLD. 
 
 Umpqua mountains, where he chipped the trees to mark 
 the route. In all this vast expanse of country, the 
 broad valleys, rolling hills, towering mountains and 
 rough woodland, there were located but two families, 
 one at Spalding s Ferry, where Eugene City sits like a 
 fair diadem crowning the valley, and the other the Ap- 
 plegate family, where Yoncolla now nestles between the 
 thickly studded hills. Mr. Miser called a halt on the 
 North Umpqua river, fifteen miles above where Hose- 
 burg is now located. 
 
 Three white men had preceded the Misers, with a 
 small band of Indian ponies, that rumor said they had 
 driven away from the California ranches without the 
 ceremony of a permit from their former owners. The 
 Indians, who had never seen a white woman before, ap 
 peared to be very friendly. Jean was almost as terror 
 ized by their friendly attentions as she would have been 
 at their hostility. They crowded around her, every 
 one of the band touching her dress, some of the matron 
 ly old savages even patted her shoulders and smoothed 
 down her soft dark tresses. They took the comb out of 
 her brown hair, letting it fall down in heavy ripples, 
 and as it fell their tongues began to clatter with the 
 greatest enthusiasm. Jean wondered if they were plan 
 ning to take her beautiful scalp as a trophy. " Hyou 
 typso," went from mouth to mouth, which she after 
 wards learned meant great quantity of hair. 
 
 The soft liquid sounds "sappalilli, sappalilli, " f ell 
 on her ears in a chorus of voices. This meant to con 
 vey the idea that they were rejoiced at the coming of 
 the whites, as now they would have bread. Though 
 the white men said there was no danger of an attack 
 from the Indians, yet they took the precaution 
 to build a little log pen inside their cabin, where 
 in they could securely sleep at Anight, and where 
 Indian arrows could not reach them. Cursica 
 Miser located a claim of six hundred and forty 
 acres of land on the banks of the Umpqua, where the 
 wild grasses grew luxuriantly on the river bottom, shoot 
 ing their tasselated spears above a man s hat when 
 
154 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 on horseback. After a few days they wended their 
 slow way back through the Williamette Yalley to the 
 place where the capital of the great state of Oregon 
 now flourishes. Here Jean was with her mother again 
 for a few short weeks. It was apparent to herself and 
 her mother that Jean s young life was again to be 
 taxed by the perils of maternity. Her experiences had 
 not been such, when alone with her husband, so far 
 from any vestige of civilization, that she was eagerly 
 desirous of having them repeated. Once during this 
 journey they had lost their way from the main track, 
 and were compelled to go through a heavy forest, a 
 gloomy and melancholy place, when Jean asked Mr. 
 Miser, " Why did you take this way instead of the way 
 we came?" He answered, with a look of stealthy ex 
 ultation, " I came this way to kill you and throw you 
 under a tree. I would not have dragged this wagon all 
 this long distance and back again, only for revenge for 
 your making the row about signing the deed to the 
 land." 
 
 Very indiscreetly Jean retorted. <f Had I known you 
 then as I know you now, I would never have signed 
 the paper;" and her tears mingled with those of the 
 baby whose little life was being made a torture by the 
 dust and heat, the fatigue and thirst. The more they 
 cried, the more the malicious grin expanded on the 
 countenance of Cursica Miser, who repeatedly an- 
 nouned to Jean on this trip that he wished that she 
 and her brat were both dead and in hell, from 
 which language one might easily infer that the gentle 
 man was not enjoying his revenge as much as he might 
 have anticipated. Sitting humped up on the front seat 
 of the wagon, his slouched hat pulled over his face, or 
 trudging slowly along beside the dumb brutes 
 that could scarcely crawl, over three hundred miles 
 of rough road, under a scorching sun, could not have 
 proved a very sweet morsel of revenge, even to one of 
 so vindictive a nature as Mr. Cursica Miser. 
 
 Mrs. Murdstone implored Mr. Miser to leave Jean 
 with her, assuring him that one so young and in so del- 
 
JEAN S HOME SOLD. 155 
 
 ioate a condition might be a source of great expense as 
 well as inconvenience, and he, with his habitual malic 
 ious grin, acquiesced in Mrs. Murdstone s request; but 
 in a few weeks, when the teams were all ready to start, 
 a band of horses and cattle already moving out on the 
 trail, Mr. Miser ordered Jean very unceremoniously to 
 come right along with him. What could she do, but 
 with fear and trembling obey her kind-hearted and con 
 siderate lord and master? 
 
 The writer would be glad if one of the wise persons 
 who think that girl-children mature faster than boys, 
 could have stood in Jean s shoes that day. Her mother 
 stood like a stone, without tears on her face, as she 
 clasped Jean to her breast, and thought her heart 
 would burst. 
 
 Miser on this journey was in a measure deprived of 
 his opportunities of perpetrating his cruel speeches 
 upon his defenseless wife, since two hired men bore 
 them company, one of them driving the team in which 
 Jean and the baby rode. On account of some delays, 
 they were fifteen days on the journey before thev 
 reached the banks of the Umpqua, where their land 
 claim and the wide world lay spread out before them. 
 
 They soon erected an impromptu shelter of "such 
 material as around the workman s hand most read 
 ily found." It was a lodge of ample size, eighteen 
 by twenty feet, of a rough and rude construction, 
 having one door for entrance, no floor, no window, no 
 fire-place. They brought with them a cook-stove 
 and a few chairs, and Jean her Bible and hymn-book, 
 and a little old-fashioned dictionary. After they were 
 settled here three or four days, Mr. Miser returning 
 in the evening after a long tramp over the mountains 
 and hills, investigating the amount and quality of the 
 range they would afford for his stock, he brought with 
 him a boy, a veritable little ruffian, Jean thought, who, 
 Mr. Miser informed her, would remain with her and the 
 baby in the cabin while he and the men returned to 
 the Willamette Valley to drive back a drove of cattle 
 that he intended to buy with the money they had 
 
156 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 realized from the sale of their home. Jean fell on her 
 knees with an entreaty to be taken to the Applegates 
 to remain until his return, imploring not to be left 
 alone with the wild savages about her, who had come 
 every day since their arrival to look at her and beg for 
 bread. He was no more moved by her pleading than 
 was the ground on which she knelt, but looked down 
 upon her with the same treacherous grin, putting his 
 fingers through his hair, and saying : 
 
 " If the Indians kill you I will gain two points; I will 
 be rid of you, and, as the Indians will then be killed 
 by the whites, I will be freed from their disturbing my 
 cattle, which they will kill more or less, until they are 
 all exterminated by us whites. I like to see you weep; 
 you look Madonna-like with your prayers and tears." 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 INDIANS TAKING POSSESSION. 
 
 Thus Jean was left to the mercy of the savages for 
 six long weeks, alone with the twelve-year-old boy, 
 nearly as wild as the Indians themselves, who roamed 
 at their own sweet will through her cabin and out 
 again. Sometimes the old squaws told her, as 
 best they could, that they were sorry for her. On 
 one occasion, when the valley tribes had been visit 
 ing with their mountain friends, hunting and fish 
 ing, their visit had terminated in a fight, which often 
 happens in more civilized communities when people go 
 for summer outings. The valley tribe, on their home 
 ward march, stopped at Jean s unprotected cabin to 
 have their wounds dressed, recruit a bit, and tie 
 up the rents in their garments with strings. One of 
 the squaws told Jean to give her a needle and thread, 
 and she would sew her torn calico dress as the white 
 squaws did theirs. They rode their ponies noses into 
 the cabin door. There were about thirty in all, who 
 dismounted and walked in themselves. They were 
 greatly excited, and talked violently to each other. 
 Jean thought her time had come; she knew she was to 
 be killed. The fact was certain as though the toma 
 hawk was already buried in her brain. She knelt down 
 in the farthest corner of the cabin, and put her apron 
 over the child, thinking the savages might not see it if 
 thus concealed. 
 
 The old chief, Nezic, struck with her prayerful atti 
 tude and her pale face, pounded on the door with his 
 clenched hand to attract her attention. If he had 
 moved toward her, she would have died with fright, 
 but she looked up and saw the tears were streaming 
 
158 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 down hi bronzed face. And putting his hand over 
 the region of his heart, he said, "No bad turn turn" 
 (meaning heart), and explained that he was the same 
 as a white man, and lived in a house at the Applegates . 
 Jean, hearing the name of Applegate, felt safe, and 
 rousing herself rose to her feet, to show that she under 
 stood the chief, who could speak a few words of Eng 
 lish, having lived at the Applegates a number of years. 
 He told Jean he would protect her from the rest of the 
 Indians, who had taken advantage of her being alone 
 and swarmed into her house ; and at his command they 
 all filed out, giving a grunt of dissatisfaction and a sneer 
 of contempt, as an Indian knows well how to do. Jean 
 immediately sent the boy on the fast steed that she kept 
 tied at her camp, to cross the river at a very dangerous 
 ford a mile and a half away, to tell the three men who 
 live d on the other side of the river to come to her as 
 sistance. 
 
 The last faint sound of the flying hoofs of the mes 
 senger had scarcely been lost, when her strained ear 
 caught the sound of the hurrying squadron of the four 
 horsemen returning. As soon as they flung themselves 
 from their panting steeds, and listened to Jean s story, 
 they assured her there was no danger. Jack Smith, a 
 man of some learning and refinement, observing her 
 condition, soothed and attended her like a brother. 
 He told her to go and lie down, and he would hold the 
 Indians in check, apprehending that the fright might 
 bring on some disastrous results tha.t would be a little 
 more difficult for him to control than even these wild , 
 hostile savages. He requested the Indians to remove 
 their camp a little farther from the cabin. They had 
 built a fire of stove-wood not six feet from the door, 
 and laughed at him, saying they would build their 
 fires in their own country, of their own wood, just 
 where they pleased, and jeeringly remarked that the 
 pale-faced squaw should have more " tillicums," which 
 meant "friends," and that there never was a tribe of 
 Indians that would leave one of their squaws among 
 *the whites as this white woman was left among them. 
 
Putting his hand over the region of his heart, he said, " No bad turn turn. 
 
INDIANS TAKING POSSESSION. 159 
 
 That Mr. Miser had. gone to bring cattle to eat their 
 grass, and when he returned they would eat beef, just 
 as they were using his wood now; saying which, one of 
 them picked up a load of wood and piled it on a blaz 
 ing fire near the cabin, to show Mr. Jack Smith that 
 they would do what they chose with their own. Mr. 
 Jack Smith was somewnat stung by the taunt of this 
 imperious squaw, Alillo, whose eyes were like an eagle s, 
 and her hair like the raven s wing, an olive-brown 
 skin, and teeth of pearl that gleamed as she thus truth 
 fully said that no tribe of Indians would treat one of 
 their women as the whites did Jean. It rankled in his 
 breast, and on Mr. Miser s return he supposed he 
 would bring at least a companion and nurse for his 
 wife; but as there was nothing of the kind, nor could 
 one be obtained within a hundred miles, and, thinking 
 he himself would be brought into requisition, as he had 
 been before, to protect her from the savages, he rode 
 over to Miser s camp one day, and attacked that gentle 
 man with these questions : 
 
 I called to see in what way you expected to obtain 
 medical aid or assistance for your wife, Mr. Miser? 
 You may think it is an impertinent question, but as 
 you left her here alone this summer, and as we three 
 white men were the first to make this settlement, we 
 feel called upon to maintain law and order." And, with 
 his hand on his revolver: " We have decided that if 
 you neglect your wife in this shameful way, and any 
 thing happens to her, we will hang you to that 
 oak tree," pointing to a broad-spreading oak with low 
 limbs, ten feet away. " I would suggest the propriety 
 of your taking her back to her mother before the rains 
 set in." 
 
 And Cursica Miser, who was a miserable coward, 
 when cornered, assured Mr. Smith, with all the suavity 
 at his command, that he would; and that afternoon 
 when he came into the cabin, he made the air blue 
 with his oaths, and Jean never divined the cause, as 
 she did not understand his profane language. Ha 
 the next time he moved lie would go a hundred 
 
160 THE HEROINE OF 49. . / . 
 
 miles, but he would get away from meddlesome neigh 
 bors. And in a few days Miser informed Jean that he 
 was going to the Willamette Valley to procure a few 
 varieties of fruit trees and some choice seeds, and that 
 she could accompany him to her mother s and remain 
 there during the winter. She had been dragged back 
 and forth so often that the trip had lost its charm, 
 if it ever had any; and when he told her that 
 she would ride the old bay that stood fifteen hands 
 high, and had great swaying pendulum strides like a 
 oamel on the desert, she was sure she had not the 
 strength to take the trip, and told him so, saying: 
 
 " How will the baby go ?" 
 
 "Why," said Miser, "we ll carry him as the squaws 
 do their papooses. They travel everywhere with their 
 children on horseback." 
 
 " Oh, it will kill him to go one hundred and fifty 
 miles. The rains are coming, and it is so cold. Oh, 
 why did you bring me here?" 
 
 " I brought you here for revenge for not wanting to 
 sign that deed, and every trip you have taken this 
 summer has been for revenge. I ll teach your ladyship 
 not to oppose me in anything I want to do. I marry a 
 poor girl like you, and you set yourself to rule !" And 
 with one of the most malicious grins ever seen on his 
 face, he concluded this tirade with, " You would not at 
 least have been in your present helpless condition only 
 for my revenge." 
 
 An idea was just dawning upon the soul of Jean of 
 the evil, designing nature of her husband, and with ap 
 parently renewed strength, she answered him, bravely : 
 
 "Squaws don t have physicians, and white women 
 have borne children in the mountains, and what oth 
 ers have endured, I can, and I don t want to undertake 
 this long journey in this inclement season." 
 
 "Just because you don t want to take the journey is 
 the very reason you shall. What do you know about 
 it. You haven t half as much sense as a yaller dog!" 
 
 This convinced Jean that her words were useless, 
 and her tears unavailing. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 THE BRAVERY OF ALILLO, THE SQUAW. 
 
 On the afternoon of November 4th, 1852, they started 
 on their long ride. Jack Smith came to see them off, 
 and, helping Jean on to her horse, said, " We are only 
 a lot of coarse, rough men, no better than the heathen, 
 and don t know how to take care of you, so the 
 best place for you is with your mother." He rode 
 with them for a short distance, carrying the baby, 
 which was now twenty months old, and grew very tired, 
 even in that short ride, and, turning back, with a few 
 cheering words, bade them good-by. Kindly instructing 
 Jean not to carry him a foot of the way, he handed the 
 baby back to Miser, saying she would have enough to 
 to do to care for herself. They traveled a few miles 
 down the east side of the Umpqua River, when they 
 came to the roughest country that ever the eye of man 
 rested upon. High mountain gorges and deep ravines; 
 crag after crag reached to frowning battlements, and 
 one precipice after another yawned on either side; 
 towering mountains loomed to the right of them ; the 
 river went surging and foaming and dashing over the 
 rocks below them. After they had gone only a few 
 miles, Jean was gazing in awe at this wild grandeur, 
 when suddenly her horse stopped, his form trembling 
 beneath her, his nostrils distended, showing in every 
 movement a protest and a determination to go no far 
 ther over the trail; and no wonder, for there was a 
 rooky point, jutting out over the boiling abyss that lay 
 
THE HEROINE OlT 49. 
 
 a thousand feet below them. There was no path worn 
 around this solid rock. It reared its towering front 
 almost to the sky. Little Indian ponies had gone 
 around for ages possibly, until they had worn their 
 footprints, little cup-places, in the solid rock ; but this 
 great, tall animal on which Jean sat could not adapt 
 its footsteps to the worn tracks of the Indian ponies. 
 Miser had alighted, sent his horse and the pack-animal 
 ahead, and stood there holding the baby in his arms 
 and Jean s horse by the bridle, encouraging it to walk 
 on. The horse had mildly but firmly protested. Jean 
 begged to be lifted down and allowed to walk over 
 the dangerous trail. Miser, still holding the bridle, 
 said with an oath, "You stay where you are!" 
 She could not slide down from the horse, as her 
 feet hung over the precipice. The boiling torrent 
 lay so far beneath her, she could hardly see its seeth 
 ing, only hear its terrible roar. Miser pulled the bridle, 
 the animal moved a few steps, trembling more and more. 
 Jean called, "Help me, I am fainting!" In a little 
 crevice of the rock a chapparal bush grew. She caught 
 at it and fell senseless on the upper side of the horse, 
 and was thus wedged in between the horse and the side 
 of the stone precipice. Miser, watching his own foot 
 steps, and not knowing that Jean had fallen, continued 
 moving on. Jean, being unconscious, had fallen six 
 feet below, and caught on a dwarfed pine tree that 
 had struggled into existence, to all appearances, out of 
 the rock, wherein its roots must have penetrated and 
 found soil to nourish it. The horse being now over 
 this perilous place, Miser glanced around, and to his 
 horror, discovered Jean lying against the tree. He did 
 not dare to go to her assistance. He was a coward, and 
 could almost feel Jack Smith s rope around his neck 
 that moment. He hastily seized a rope, and tied the 
 baby to a bush to save it from falling over the preci 
 pice. He tore off his hat and coat to lighten his load, 
 mounted his horse and dashed down the mountains to 
 an old Indian camp, a half a mile away. He screamed 
 in stentorian tones for assistance. The same squaw, 
 
BRAVERY OF ALILLO. 163 
 
 Alillo, that had taunted Jack Smith, was there. She 
 could understand a little of the English language. She 
 mounted her pony, told the Indians to follow, and in 
 ten minutes was bending over Jean, afraid that the 
 slender tree would give way and let them both down. 
 She tore off her buckskin belt and fastened it around 
 the tree. By this time an Indian was on the rock above 
 her, who threw her a lariat which she tied securely to 
 the belt on the tree, three Indians holding it tightly 
 at the upper end. Supported by this rope, she lifted 
 Jean s still unconscious form and pushed it up 
 against the almost perpendicular rock, until the Indian 
 men could reach her dress. They carried her around 
 the precipice, and laid her down beside the baby, 
 whose screams ought to have waked the dead. They 
 thought Jean dead. Alillo chafed her hands, and blew 
 into her face; she sighed, and her eyes opened upon 
 the same brave Alillo, her face lit up with so much 
 benevolence, bending over her with as much solicitude 
 as her own mother could have done. She carried Jean 
 down to the Indian camp, and nursed her tenderly for 
 days. Next day Jean lay so still on her fern couch 
 that Alillo had picked fresh for her, and which smelled 
 so sweet and fragrant it seemed like a couch of down 
 to her. She was compelled to lie so still, as she was 
 threatened with premonitory symptoms of a very serious 
 character. Alillo was by her side, bringing little dainty 
 morsels to eat, or a slice of salmon trout, which grow 
 about a foot long, and are the finest fish that ever swam 
 in water; this she would split in two, and put on a 
 forked stick placed before a blazing wood fire, where 
 soon it would be a delicious brown. Then she would 
 bring it to Jean, with a loaf of snowy bread, that Jeau 
 had baked before leaving home, and the two squaws, 
 the white and the dusky brown, sat and ate and chatted, 
 and became well acquainted with each other s different 
 countries, and people, and their methods of living. It 
 was remarkable how, through a bond of sympathy, 
 these two women could understand each other s most 
 profound philosophies, religions, and customs, when 
 
164 THE HEROINE OF 49 
 
 neither of them could comprehend but a few words of 
 the other s language. 
 
 Alillo asked, " What was your first thought when you 
 opened your eyes and saw me bending over you when 
 you had fainted ? " 
 
 I knew nothing of the great danger I had passed 
 through," replied Jean. "I knew nothing of your 
 risking your fife to deliver me from that most perilous 
 
 Eosition. I knew the Great Spirit had saved me. I 
 sit my head resting on a stone. The sun was setting. 
 It seemed a great way below us so beautiful the 
 whole sky bathed in a soft roseate glow. It seemed 
 like heaven, and so near we could almost drop into it, 
 and the words of the poet seemed a part of my being: 
 Though like a wanderer, my rest a stone. Nearer, 
 my God to Thee, nearer to Thee." 
 
 An Indian messenger was sent to Jack Smith, who 
 came riding into camp. The Indians, who, strange to 
 say, send their messages over hill and valley, moun 
 tain and dale, almost as quickly as we send our tele 
 graphic communications, brought the tidings to Jack 
 Smith, the night that this accident occurred, and he was 
 in the camp early the next morning, and helped them 
 over to the Applegate settlement, accompanied by Alillo 
 and several other Indians. When Smith asked Miser 
 why he allowed his wife to ride over that dangerous 
 place, Miser whined that he tried to persuade her to alight 
 from her horse, but she refused to obey, and Jean was 
 too much afraid to tell him the truth. If she had, Jack 
 Smith would never have left her till he had seen her 
 safe in her mother s house, in her mother s arms. 
 Nothing could have been more tender, solicitous or 
 kind than the Applegate women were to Jean, and yet 
 she was almost ashamed to acknowledge to herself that 
 she did not feel that warm glow of friendship between 
 herself and the Applegate women that she did for this 
 wild, untutored, savage Alillo. She doubted if one of 
 these white women, if put to the test, would have risked 
 her life for her as Alillo had. She told Alillo so, 
 and also that her people should be befriended by the 
 
THE BRAVERY Otf ALILLO. 
 
 165 
 
 whites when it was in her power to influence them. 
 Alillo returned Jean the graceful compliment, that she 
 knew Jean must be ve^y influential with the great men 
 of her nation. 
 
 Jean, being unconscious, had fallen. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THREE DAYS RAINY BIDE. 
 
 After parting with Alillo and Jack Smith, and the 
 Indians that had followed in their wake as compan 
 ions, Mr. Miser, Jean and the baby commenced the 
 ascent of the Calaypooa Mountains, reaching the sum 
 mit about sundown on the same day. Halting, they 
 made a blazing camp-fire beside an old dead log. 
 The air was cold and piercing, as there had been a 
 light flurry of snow, covering the bushes and boughs 
 of the trees; but, as the ground was warm, the snow 
 melted as soon as it fell, making it very wet and 
 sloppy. Jean s horse very often slipped, and once or 
 twice fell to its knees, jarring her very seriously, 
 making her tired and lame in every joint. She could 
 neither sit nor stand after alighting from the horse and 
 pillowing her head on the friendly root of an old fir 
 tree, where she rested till Mr. Miser brought her 
 coffee, which, with a few mouthfuls of bread, revived 
 her, and she sat gazing on the wild, weird place, too 
 tired to care if the wolves and bears came and de 
 voured them all. That night she slept on the hard, 
 cold ground, with only the blankets between her and 
 cold mother earth. The marvelous beauty of the bed 
 chamber was enchanting, but she lay there too ex 
 hausted scarcely to note its beauty. The snow glis 
 tening on the broad leaves of the underbrush, the lace- 
 like fringe that the fir-tree boughs made with their 
 white cover; the stars that shone where she could 
 peep through and see a bit of the heavens ; the tall 
 spires of the dark trees piercing the dome above her, 
 
THREE DAYS RAINY RIDE. 
 
 gave a charm and grandeur to the wild scene that 
 could not well be surpassed. 
 
 When she awoka next morning the sun shone 
 brightly here and mere in patches where it could 
 reach through, the timber. She found the ascent 
 much more gradual and less fatiguing. At last they 
 reached the head of the Willamette Valley, and traveled 
 several miles over it, before striking camp that night. 
 Jean took heart, feeling that the worst of the journey 
 was past, and they went to bed under the open sky, on 
 the soft grass. In the night she felt the rain-drops 
 falling on her face, and knew it was raining. She cov 
 ered her face with her blanket, nestled her baby more 
 closely to her form, and went on sleeping soundly. 
 When she awoke in the morning she found it pouring 
 rain, and her blanket floating in a pool of water. Mr. 
 Miser was up, and wading through a slough to get to 
 his horses, that were tethered on the bank of a creek, 
 where the grass was growing luxuriantly. She won 
 dered if Mr. Miser was getting any benefit from his re 
 venge. For her part she thought it looked a little se 
 rious, when he said he wished there was not a wo 
 man or child in the world. " And it s still raining, 
 exclaimed he. 
 
 " We are already as wet as we can be, so what s the 
 difference if it does rain ?" remarked Jean. 
 
 " Wouldn t we get dry if it stopped raining ?" 
 furiously queried Miser with another oath. " If you 
 want anything to drink, just help yourself; there s 
 plenty of water. We can t make coffee. 
 
 And they took a chunk of bread, and some dried 
 venison that Allilo had prepared for them, when they 
 were at her camp. She had sent her hunters out, and 
 they had brought in a fine fat deer, the hams of which 
 she had taken and cut into strips, and dried them 
 quickly before the fire, and Jean thought it was the 
 most delicious meat she had ever tasted, as she sat on 
 the horse eating her frugal breakfast. 
 
 The baby protested against riding with his father in 
 
168 *HE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 the rain, and Jean carried him, though she was chilled 
 and numb and wet. It continued pouring all day long, 
 and all day long they rode, with many a slough to 
 cross, where the horses waded through the water up to 
 their knees. That night they were trying to find a 
 sheltering tree or a rise of ground, but they could find 
 neither. They had taken the west side of the river, 
 and were going down Long Tom. No other alterna 
 tive remained but to lie down in their wet blankets. 
 It rained for two days. Jean lost all anxiety for her 
 self, and was only thoughtful for her child, who was 
 growing very restless, and showed symptoms of having 
 taken a severe cold. They were still about forty-five 
 miles away from home. Next morning it showed some 
 signs of clearing off. The clouds were shifting, and a 
 strong south wind blowing. The sun shone brightly 
 for one hour. Then the dark clouds began gathering 
 overhead, and it began to pour. They were miles 
 away from any human habitation, and had had no fire for 
 three days by which to warm their freezing limbs, or 
 dry their clothes. Jean s hands were so numb she 
 could scarcely hold the reins. Although she was perched 
 up on the tall horse with a pillow on her lap, the baby 
 resting on the pillow with a blanket about him, her 
 feet often dragged in the water, the sloughs had grown 
 so full and deep. It required some horsemanship to 
 sit there under such conditions. Her horse often 
 plunged into gopher holes, and unless she clung to his 
 back like glue she must topple oft . At this juncture, 
 when the water was mid-sides to her horse, Mr. Miser, 
 who had ridden about three rods ahead, of her all the 
 journey, making her feel that she had a tender, watchful 
 companion by her side one that, should an accident 
 befall her, would spring to her aid in a moment, as he 
 did when she had slid down the precipice, and Alillo 
 came to her rescue he paused a moment, reining up 
 his horse, looked back over his shoulder, and screamed 
 to her that "if she wasn t a cussed fool, and would ride 
 a little faster they might reach the farm-house that 
 
THREE DAYS RAINY RIDE. 169 
 
 stood on the west side of the Willamette river," where 
 Corvallis now stands. Jean said if he would carry the 
 baby, that she would endeavor to keep pace with him. 
 He took the child up like a bag of meal, and tossed him 
 about until he cried so lustily that Jean was compelled 
 to take him. It was now dark. They had ridden up 
 to an empty old cabin, instead of an inhabited farm 
 house. Here they found two men who had arrived an 
 hour before them, and were warming themselves at a 
 bright fire. One of the men helped Jean from her 
 horse. Miser took the baby. Jean was so benumbed 
 with the cold she could not stand. The strange men 
 helped her into the house, and set her on a stool in 
 front of the fire. They were not aware of her exhaus 
 tion, and she herself was unconscious of it as she fell 
 fainting to the floor. They caught her and laid her on 
 their blankets, already spread for the night, and one of 
 them flew to the river for water which he dashed into 
 her face. When she became conscious, she saw the 
 two men standing by her side, their faces sad with 
 sympathy, and the first sounds. that fell upon her ear 
 were the words of Miser assuring the men that she was 
 such a fool that he supposed she fainted at the sight of 
 the fire, not having seen one for so long; that she 
 fainted at a big rock they were coming round, and they 
 were obliged to stay a week at an Indian camp waiting 
 for her recovery. "I ll not stay here a week waiting 
 for her recovery," he told the strangers. 
 
 The men inquired how far they had traveled and 
 how far they were to go. Mr. Miser informed them. 
 
CHAPTEE XXVIII. 
 
 THE DEATH OF JEAN S BABY. 
 
 There was a bright sunshine when they rose next 
 morning. Jean s spirits were greatly revived at the 
 thought of being so near home. And yet it was with 
 the utmost difficulty that she sat on the horse and 
 rode over the road that was comparatively dry land. 
 They had crossed the Willamette Kiver in a ferry-boat, 
 and found the road beaten hard by the heavy rains, so 
 that the horses traveled much faster, and at four o clock 
 the next day this journey, ever memorable to poor 
 Jean, was ended. Mr. Miser remained a few days. 
 The baby seemed not absolutely ill, and yet not well. 
 Jean and her mother felt alarmed about it, and cau 
 tioned Mr. Miser to remain a few days before returning 
 to his ranch. But he said it was only a woman s whim. 
 He could not see but the baby was as well as ever. So 
 without taking the baby in his arms in a last tender 
 embrace, or kissing Jean good-by, he nodded a fare 
 well and rode away. 
 
 He had not been gone a week when they buried the 
 baby in the new churchyard. It had gradually grown 
 worse, and being much alarmed, they sent for a physi 
 cian, who administered a lobelia emetic, which of itself 
 would have killed the child; but the symptoms now 
 being greatly aggravated, they sent for another physi 
 cian, a young man, very talented, but who at times 
 imbibed too much whisky to command a clear intel 
 lect. He gave the baby a whole teaspoonful of calomel. 
 Jean asked if it was calomel, but was assured it was 
 only a harmless chalk. She once reached for the spoon 
 in an agony of despair, knowing that such a dose would 
 kill her child. There was no human pity* This was 
 
THE DEATH OF JEAN S BABY. 
 
 the most terrible experience of her young life. She 
 must bury her baby! Can you imagine, dear reader, 
 what life seemed to her then, a child in her seventeenth 
 year ? She was dazed with grief, stunned with the cold 
 and exposure she had met with. She could not shed a 
 tear. Her heart was like stone when she thought of the 
 ignorant brutality of those doctors that had killed her 
 child, who had been her sole comforter through all 
 those terrible scenes. She was not allowed the poor 
 comfort to sit and moan. They sent for another physi 
 cian. After hours of excruciating agony, and going 
 down through the valley of the shadow of death, two 
 little infant girls, so helpless they could not cry and so 
 weak they scarcely seemed to breathe, were born and 
 laid in the cradle beside her. Their grandmother said 
 she did not know how, but they went on breathing and 
 living. Afterward, when she could sit up and nurse 
 them tenderly as she could, they could never fill the 
 place of the noble boy that she had laid in the tomb. 
 She could look backward or forward, and life held no 
 bright spot for her. The dreary winter dragged its 
 slow length along. Jean having related some of the 
 horrors of her frontier experience, her mother resolved 
 that when she returned, her brother Will, a boy now 
 sixteen years old, should accompany her back to her 
 home in the mountains. 
 
 When the babies were three months old, Mr. Miser 
 came for them in a horse team. This time the parting 
 was wrenching, because the mother and daughter knew 
 they would not meet again for years. 
 
 In the fall of 52 a heavy immigration entered the 
 valley, and had scattered themselves pretty thoroughly 
 over it. It was like an oasis in the desert for Jean to 
 meet a human being along this hitherto desolate, un 
 settled country, and the journey proved to be more 
 enjoyable than any previous one. On their return 
 to the ranch they found that about twenty land 
 claims had been located during the winter by the 
 emigrants of 52, among them one family consist 
 ing of man and wife, and a daughter thirteen years 
 
172 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 of age. Their claim lay just opposite Mr. Miser s. 
 Jean and Mrs. Trent formed a friendship that was close 
 and long-abiding. Jean was now only eighteen, and 
 Hattie Trent fourteen; and they were like two sisters. 
 They could not meet very often, as this dangerous river 
 had to be crossed, and they were a mile and a half 
 apart. On Jean s side of the river there was no family 
 for thirty miles, and many a day she spent alone in her 
 cabin from early morning till dark with no companions 
 but the babies. In the summer, her brother Will arose 
 before daylight, which in Oregon, comes before four 
 o clock, to drive up the work-cattle. Jean would see 
 him a moment at the breakfast table with the other 
 workmen, then all day long he staid in the mountains 
 splitting rails. Mr. Miser paid his workmen two dol 
 lars a day, but made a different bargain with Will 
 Ames, telling him he would pay him one dollar and a 
 half for a hundred rails, put him into a grove where the 
 timber was almost impossible to split, and warned him 
 that if the rails were not of a certain size he would not 
 accept them, Will did not succeed in splitting ten rails 
 a day. When he commenced Jean would often cry over 
 his blistered hands, and make liniment for them. Of 
 ten the tears of the two children mingled together in 
 sympathy for each other, but Will was the pluckier of 
 the two. 
 
 "When I get too disgusted I can get on my horse 
 and ride away, Jean. I would not stay a day only to 
 be with you," he said. 
 
 He slept in the barn, after working an hour 
 and a half later than the other men, doing 
 the chores, milking the cows, turning out the oxen, 
 bringing in the wood^. All this told on his health. He 
 complained of pain in his lungs, having contracted a 
 severe cold. Jean grew alarmed, and tried to send a 
 letter to her mother through some stranger, who could 
 pass it from one to another, but found no one to under 
 take the task. She would write one, however, every 
 few weeks, and as no opportunity offered to send it 
 away, she would write another. After months had 
 
THE DEATH OF JEAN S BABY. 178 
 
 elapsed she succeeded in sending one, and it was full 
 six months before she received an answer. The pony 
 express, that ran from the eastern states to California, 
 had no branch in this country, and the telegraph poles 
 were still growing in the woods. 
 
 Miser grew more and more tyrannical and abusive. 
 Having no critical neighbors near by, no check-reins of 
 any kind, he was ruled alone by his masterly qualities 
 of cruelty, miserliness, and treachery. He must buy 
 supplies for the workmen, but he also built a secure 
 outhouse in which to store them, and doled them out 
 as he saw fit. When there were no workmen about, he 
 starved Jean and Will almost to death, and put on his 
 own plate and devoured like a wild animal what he re 
 quired for his own sustenance, telling Jean that as she 
 was not earning anything, she could live on limited 
 rations. Sometimes his meanness grew so tight that 
 even the workmen were scantily supplied, and Jean s 
 fine cooking, and splendid genius for piecing out a meal, 
 could not overcome it. One day, in the middle of 
 June, when the workmen were much rushed, six stalwart 
 fellows filed into the cabin, and sat down to the table, 
 glistening with polished tin cups, bright as silver, filled 
 with clear, cool fresh water. Two plates filled with snowy 
 white light bread, baked to a delicious brown, were on the 
 table. Jean sat down in her accustomed place with her 
 fresh laundried dress on, her heavy brown hair in smooth 
 coils at the back of her head, gracefully awaiting re 
 sults. The men took up the cups of water and drank 
 them down in concert. Mr. Miser passed the bread 
 from the head of the table. One or two hungry fellows 
 took a big bite before looking on their plates. The 
 aroma from it was appetizing. A bevy of eyes were 
 leveled upon Jean, expecting her to get up and bring 
 in the dinner from the kitchen, when she simply said: 
 "There is nothing else in the house to cook, and Mr. 
 Miser knew it this morning as well as I." Mr. Miser, 
 in no wise disconcerted, glanced toward Jack Warner, 
 a boyish young fellow, easily imposed upon, and said. 
 
 " You go and drive the band* of cattle up that are 
 
174 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 feeding on the river bottom. There are some fine two- 
 year-old steers." Obeying Mr. Miser s request, they 
 were driven up, one of them shot, and the meat served 
 for a two o clock dinner. Miser did not swear, as was 
 his cust )m, at Jean s delaying dinner for ten minutes, 
 as he reckoned this would take sixty minutes off the 
 day s labor, and for punishment he would slide stealth 
 ily by Jean, and, unobserved by the workmen, pincb 
 her arm until it was black and blue for days. Tender 
 hearted readers, that have the false idea ingrained 
 into your souls that women mature so much faster than 
 men, if you could have your flesh twisted on your bones as 
 Jean did every day for four years, it might mature your 
 brains, if you are cursed with that commodity, as it re 
 sulted in maturing her intellect in time, but not as 
 soon as it would a man s, who had enjoyed this sort of 
 playful domestic felicity. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 WHAT IS HONOR? 
 
 "It is the hardest luck," remarked Mr. Cursica 
 Miser, with his favorite oath, " that I should be tied to 
 an idiot that is always prating about honor. Now, 
 what is honor? One would think, by the way you 
 talk, it was something to eat, to wear, to hold or handle, 
 or make money with. If you were cold would it warm 
 you? If you were hungry would it feed you? If you 
 had all the honor in the world, do you think people 
 would run to you and pour money into your Jap?" 
 This query was rounded by another voluminous oath. 
 "You must have money to live in this world." 
 
 " Money can be obtained by honorable means, can it 
 not?" queried Jean with her accustomed far-off look, 
 as she took her baby boy from his rude cot and pressed 
 him closely to her breast with that intensity born of 
 the deep desire of her heart that he might inherit the 
 type of soul that could recognize honor, which she felt 
 the man before her could not do, any more than he 
 could make wings for himself and fly, and the silent 
 cry of her heart went up to the Almighty to save her 
 infant from such deformity of soul and Jean s mind 
 went wandering off into the boundless fields of meta 
 physics, trying to feel there was a power in nature that 
 could impart character from the mother and leave the 
 paternal partner ever impotent to harm. 
 
 The torture to this child-wife of only twenty waa 
 that she could look down into the depths of Cursica 
 Miser s villainies with a magnified keenness of vision, 
 while he could no more comprehend the motives gov- 
 
176 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 eniing her acts in life than a blind man can see the 
 stone that he stumbles over. When they were first 
 married he had tried to conceal his acts from her by 
 keeping silent, but at last, he said, that was useless, for 
 the more secretive he was, the more she read his con 
 duct. 
 
 " It would be better if you did not know everything 
 I do," he said, " besides hindering rne you are always 
 getting me into scrapes." 
 
 " Why, how, what do you mean? " asked Jean, with 
 her great brown eyes gazing wonderingly into his. 
 "What do I do to get you into scrapes, as you call it? " 
 
 " Children and fools always tell the truth," respond 
 ed Mr. Miser. 
 
 " Well, does the truth hurt anybody? " innocently 
 inquired Jean. 
 
 " Well, don t it? " wrathfully continued Miser, as he 
 swaggered across the puncheon floor with one hand 
 holding his hat a foot above his head, while the other, 
 with the fingers spread wide apart, combed back the 
 offending tuft of hair that always seemed in the way 
 and to require immediate smoothing down, on the top 
 of his head, when his temper was ruffled. His hat be 
 ing firmly replaced, he seated himself like one resigned 
 to the most galling fate, and summing up his grievance 
 thus, with the most frightfully disgusting sneer on his 
 face, drawled out: "Does the truth hurt anybody? 
 Did it hurt me when you told that it was me that shot 
 into that Indian camp last fall, when the old blind 
 squaws ran out into the hills, too scared to come back, 
 and froze to death before morning? The bucks com 
 ing back from their hunt, got up a war that cost the 
 settlement a pile, and the government too. I would 
 have lost my scalp if your innocent truth had reached 
 the Indians two days sooner, before the soldiers cap 
 tured them. I met some bucks out in the hills and told 
 them it was Bill Trask that shot into their camp, and 
 Bill came within an ace of getting his scalp raised, and 
 now he s mad at me. There were six old blind squaws 
 
WHAT IS HONOR? 177 
 
 lying stark, stiff and cold on the side-hill next morning 
 when I rode by. How clear and bright the sun shone 
 out; the weather beamed down as innocently as your 
 truths, on them, all huddled in a heap, just as though 
 it could not be cold and kill. It was a blessing to the 
 camp and to the squaws too, that they were dead and 
 out of their misery. I ll venture that not one of them 
 was less than a hundred and twenty years old, and yet, 
 when the Indian camp got back and found them dead, 
 gods! what a howl they raised! You could hear them 
 ten miles away, up and down this valley, with that in 
 fernal chant of theirs. If I live here forever, do you 
 think the neighbors will ever forgive me? 
 
 " No, I guess not, unless that deed is wiped out of 
 their memories by some darker one," Jean answered 
 with a shudder. 
 
 " Then you say does the truth hurt anybody? 
 drawled out Miser, " and yesterday when Kate Mills 
 was here to see Dan Dorrell, you had to up and tell 
 that I was driving one of her father s steers across the 
 river, and I ll bet anything you told her it was the big 
 brown spotted steer with the lopped horn." 
 
 "Why, yes, what harm could that do?" with her big 
 brown eyes set wondering again. 
 
 " Why, you fool, I beat the steer till its flesh is a 
 mass of steak made tender for the crows. The steer 
 will go straight home and lie down but never get up 
 again. I will have to pay for it, and what will the 
 Mills family think of me? Miss Kate will never visit 
 you again if she is dead in love with Dorrell," and 
 Cursica Miser got up and scuffed his heels and strode 
 the floor, continuing: 
 
 "When the old Indian chief came and swore ven- 
 gance and said if I did not take back these boards that 
 I stole off his ancestors graves to make a floor for your 
 ladyship, that he would hew the whole Americaa 
 nation into little strips and make graves without any 
 covering of boards, you cried and brought him bread, 
 12 
 
178 THE HEROINE] OF 49. 
 
 and, by some necromancy, made him think you were 
 a saint and I a bad man. 7 
 
 "There will come a day, maybe/ retorted Jean, 
 "when I will not cry so much, but act more." 
 
 " It would take one of the best nugget mines ever 
 found in California," Miser went on, not seeming to 
 heed her words, " to improve this ranch as it ought to 
 be. There are miles and miles of fencing to be done, 
 and whenever I get a young fellow to work and can 
 make a good bargain with him, then you take his part 
 and cry and say: It s too bad for you not to pay the 
 boys all you owe them; such young fellows out in the 
 world with no mothers to care for them. There s Bob 
 Jones and Bill Williams that I have paid, and here 
 they come again for pay that I deducted for rainy 
 days and Sundays. Who ever heard of a man s getting 
 wages for work on Sundays or a rainy day? How can 
 a man ever expect to get rich with a woman like you? 
 Those two fellows I got to take up government land 
 for me of course they spent two years on it, but what s 
 that? they had a good time hunting and fishing; they 
 were good-natured chaps. I did not pay them any 
 money I gave them those two old Indian ponies, the 
 old flint-lock gun and a pretty good shot-gun. They 
 are not the kind of men whose time is worth anything. 
 They made a big fuss, and got the neighbors to howling 
 about my swindling them out of the land. There was 
 no swindling about it," he continued, pulling his hat 
 down over his eyes, " it was a regular bargain. You 
 thought they ought to be paid, and so I paid each one 
 fifty dollars, and even then the neighbors said I wheedled 
 them out of the land." 
 
 " You would not take $5,000 for either of the places 
 now that you have your deed to them," said Jean. 
 
 " An old clutchman* told me, confidentially, the other 
 day," said Miser, "that you ad vised old Chief Nezic, that 
 day he got so mad about my denuding his ancestral 
 tombs, to kill cattle and get his pay; and to console him 
 
 *Meaning " Indian." 
 
WHAT IS HONOR? 179 
 
 still further, you asked him if he did not think the spirits 
 of his departed friends would spurn the boards being 
 brought back and replaced on their graves, after the 
 pale faces had stolen them and walked on them, and 
 all the fine sentiments about desecrating the graves of 
 his beloved dead vanished from the mind of the old 
 savage like the base fabric of a dream as soon as you 
 told Vim he could exchange the boards for beef. You 
 cautioned him to burn the horns and hoofs to prevent 
 being caught stealing cattle. * 
 
 "Yes," answered Jean, "I told him all that and 
 more. If I had not, my own life would have been the 
 only one left to tell how the war began. That tuft of 
 hair that you comb up with your fingers so much would 
 have been dangling at the belt of the old chief long ago, 
 along with the scalps of all the other whites along the 
 river." And Mr. Miser, with more serious candor on 
 his countenance than it usually wore, taunted her with 
 "You would have been spared, no doubt You have a 
 charmed life that the Indians all respect. 7 
 
 " Not that at all," answered Jean, " but my first act 
 after landing here was to dress the poor little idiot 
 boy s feet, who had kicked over a pot of boiling water 
 on them while asleep, scalding the flesh horribly. I 
 washed them and dressed them with clean cloths every 
 day until Alillo came, from her trip in the mountains 
 after berries, and she took the task off my hands." 
 
 "And he s your servant to-day? " 
 
 "Yes, my faithful, willing servant, and rather a 
 bright boy, too, considering the Indians called him a 
 pilton * before I took him in hand." 
 
 "And so you confess you told the old buck to kill 
 cattle?" 
 
 " Yes. Why not be honorable with the Indians ? 
 Had I not come into their country, bringing droves of 
 cattle, thousands of head, to feed on their grass? Do 
 not I eat their deer, killed by the whites? If we kill 
 their deer, why should they not kill our cattle? Can 
 
 * Pilton, meaning fooL 
 
180 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 we, the superior race, come in here, taking their land, 
 game, fish, berries, everything, and ask them to stand 
 still and starve to death? I cannot and will not do it. 
 There is no honor nor justice in it. 7 
 
 " There you go again honor! " 
 
 " Yes, honor. The wildest Indian I ever met will 
 not let me do him a kindness without almost immedi 
 ately returning it fourfold. If I tell one to sit by my 
 fire to warm on a cold day, or give him a good dinner, 
 as I do lots of times, or even a piece of bread, he will 
 come soon with a great fat venison ham, or a basket of 
 delicious wild berries, nestling in forest leaves, to cater 
 to my delicate taste; or perhaps a string of those glori 
 ous mountain trout, or a buckskin, beautitul and soft 
 as velvet, all of which put my little acts to shame. 
 And Alillo has brought me so many new baskets, that 
 are so useful I could not keep house without them. 
 What would life be without my otter, beaver, bear, 
 wolf, and skunk skins to cover this old puncheon floor? 
 I tell you, the Indian character in its native wildness is 
 grand, until stung to revenge by the villainies of the 
 whites." 
 
 " And Alillo is your sister. 19 
 
 " Yes, my sweet, wildwood sister, that I can trust 
 my babies with." 
 
 " Oh, you can trust any Indian." 
 
 " That is so; I have not met with one act of treachery 
 yet from an Indian. I cannot conjure up a shadow of 
 fear, now that I have lived with them so long; that is, 
 a near neighbor, with very amicable and friendly rela 
 tions. I, a marauder and foreigner in their country! 
 If a war should break out to-day I should be safe from 
 the savages tomahawk." 
 
 " Because you feed them on beef? " queried Miser, 
 with one of his most quizzical smiles. 
 
 "Yes, because I try to act honorably with them, 
 and they know it." 
 
 " Still prating about honor. I should like to know 
 what it is. It s some d necromancy that s past 
 
"Oh, oh, Mimiloose, Mimiloose, 
 
WHAT is HOKOR? 181 
 
 my comprehension. It is a very convenient, adapt 
 able kind of arrangement. Everything I do by the 
 Indians is thieving, and everything you do is honor 
 able. When I found where the Indians had < cached 
 their winter s wheat, on the banks of the river, in the 
 dry land, intending to have a good time eating sapa- 
 lilli when they returned from their hunt, I took 
 Mike Blley, the wagon, old Towser and the shot-gun, 
 and raised their cache and hauled it into camp and 
 stored it in my granary fifty bushels of the finest 
 white wheat I ever saw. Those old squaws had win 
 nowed out every bit of dust and chaff. There wasn t 
 a ahriveled-up kernel of wheat in the whole lot." 
 
 "And you can t see that it was a mean act? You 
 hired those old squaws to work in the harvest field and 
 you didn t pay them a cent, only allowing them to 
 glean the scattered heads of wheat in the stubble 
 fields, and when they had picked up the heads one by 
 one and thrashed them in their baskets, and winnowed 
 them by blowing out the chaff and dust, then you went 
 in the night in their absence and hauled it in and locked 
 it up in your granary, and don t know it s an act that 
 ought to bring on a war of extermination of at least 
 yourself." 
 
 Jean had scarcely uttered these words, when Allilo 
 came flying into her cabin, her long hair unbraided and 
 fljing, her whole dress in the wildest confusion. She 
 flung herself on the floor and rocked herself to and fro, 
 and as soon as she could speak said, in her own lan 
 guage: 
 
 "The Eogue Rivers are fighting on Cow Creek, and 
 my father and twenty braves have gone to join them 
 Oh, oh, Mimiloose, Mimiloose!" (meaning, they will be 
 killed.) In an instant, old Chief Nezic came rushing 
 in, and with excited gestures and wild pantomime, 
 showed how the battle was on the Indians shooting, 
 and pale faces falling everywhere, their houses burned, 
 their cattle killed for vengeance. 
 
 In a moment more, two horsemen galloped up at full 
 
182 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 speed, and confirmed the news that was too true. The 
 whole country was in arms. The next day it was 
 learned that eight or ten families along the road had 
 been taken by surprise, all murdered, and their cabins 
 burned; but the settlers, volunteer soldiers, flew to 
 arms, and drove the savages back to their stronghold 
 in the mountains. 
 
 The war lasted two years. But the Indians were held 
 in check first by the volunteer soldiers and then by 
 the regular troops. At last a treaty of peace was made 
 and the Indians taken to their reservations, and a pre 
 tension by the government to pay the Indians for this 
 land,^and another pretension to pay the settlers for their 
 lost property and time and, money spent in the Indian 
 wars. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 A NIGHT OF HORROR. 
 
 The bravery of a woman, a Mrs. Harris, really held 
 the Indians at bay and checked the massacre on that 
 terrible night, June , 54. Her husband, standing 
 in the doorway of their cabin at dusk, was shot. His 
 undaunted wife dragged his mutilated and dying body 
 into the house, while the bullets from the savages whis 
 tled by her head. As quick as thought she shut and 
 fastened the door, and learning from the lips of her 
 dying husband how to load and fire the rifle, she de 
 fended her little castle like a heroine. A bullet from 
 an Indian hit her little boy, a lad of twelve, in the arm, 
 and before the echo from his gun had died away, she 
 sprang to the window and taking an unerring aim, 
 poured the contents of her rifle into the Indian s body, 
 who with a yell fell dead to the ground. The Indians 
 then fell back to some bushes near by, where they kept 
 up a deadly fire through the window at any object that 
 might be seen moving in the house. For twelve 
 hours this brave woman stood there with her tried and 
 trusty rifle, loading and firing, while her dead husband 
 lay at her feet, her only child, wounded and pale as the 
 clay-cold corpse of his father, molding the bullets. All 
 that fearful night the savages rent the air with their 
 war-whoops, and danced around with their threatening 
 torches. The day at length broke and found her am 
 munition well-nigh spent, with no hope of assistance, 
 and the awful fate staring her in the face of being burnt 
 alive, with her boy, in her house, when lo! upon the 
 hills she heard the tramp of horses and beheld a troop 
 of mounted men dashing towards her house. On, on 
 they came like the wind, finding for miles and miles on 
 
184 THE HEROINE OF 40. 
 
 their route waste, desolation, smouldering ruins and 
 charred and mutilated bodies, till here, at daybreak, 
 they found this heroic woman and brave boy and res 
 cued them from the torch, bullet, bayonet and scalping- 
 knife of those murderous savages. 
 
 And though these things were going on all around her, 
 yet Jean feared not for the safety of herself and babes. 
 
 Indians have a quick perception ; they knew she was 
 their friend and they pitied her. She felt they would 
 not murder her. The settlers in her neighborhood 
 said she was foolhardy, because she chose to stay in 
 her cabin rather than go into the block-house, and en 
 dure the hardships and dangers of a frontier fort life. 
 The secret was, she had to stay. Mr. Miser actually 
 refused to take her and her three little babies to the 
 fort, but left her all the days alone, while he hid in the 
 bushes for safety, and when the night came on, this 
 gallant, pale-faced chieftain, this brave husband and 
 father, would leave them in the house while he crawled 
 into a hollow log or under the hay-mow, so as to be 
 free, in case of an attack, to make his escape. 
 
 There was not a family left in all that broad country 
 but was compelled to go into forts for protection, ex 
 cepting Jean and her babes. And she, with the protec 
 tion of one negro servant, a watch-dog, and half a dozen 
 guns, remained alone in her cabin day and night, 
 through all the horror of this Indian war. 
 
 During the Rogue River war the citizens between 
 North and South Umpqua were f orted-up from ten days 
 to six weeks; the braver ones getting out and risking 
 their lives to defend their homes and their property. 
 The more timid ones remained in the fort, which was 
 built by digging trenches around a half acre of ground. 
 Trees, a foot in diameter, were chopped and set down 
 in the trenches to form a wall twenty feet high. For 
 greater security, inside the wall, huts made of split logs 
 were built. 
 
 We will leave it to the imagination of the reader 
 what the horror of this f orting-up meant to the pioneer 
 settlers. 
 
A NIGHT OF HORROR. 185 
 
 From a hundred to a hundred and fifty people 
 found security within those walls. 
 
 It was exceedingly provoking and somewhat ludi 
 crous to the average citizen on the North Umpqua to 
 discover, after enduring the horror of the fort life, that 
 the Indians were more afraid of the whites than the 
 whites were of the Indians, who fled to the mountain 
 fastnesses where they had plenty of room, bright, 
 sparkling waterfalls, splendid trout and the grandest 
 scenery in the world. They feasted on elk, bear, deer 
 and berries, returning to the valley fat and sleek, with 
 loads of supplies for the winter. 
 
 Weeks passed without any communication between 
 the whites and this North Unipqua tribe of In 
 dians. 
 
 A rumor had gone forth that this tribe had gone to 
 the head .waters of the Umpqua, to be reinforced by 
 the Shastas, a very numerous and warlike tribe of 
 Indians that never condescended to come down to the 
 valley. They were large, stalwart men, of much greater 
 intelligence than the average Indian, and were a race 
 of undaunted courage and bravery, and greatly to be 
 feared. 
 
 The volunteer soldiers becoming restless, our delib 
 erate government having at length sent instructions to 
 them to make a treaty of peace, they sent scouts in 
 every direction to try to communicate with the Indians, 
 but it was useless. The soldiers had been camped for 
 six days on Mr. Miser s broad pastures. The horses 
 were foraging off two well-stored barns. One fat steer 
 after another had been slaughtered; the stores of vege 
 tables were being hopelessly reduced, and Miser said 
 he thought Jean was quite as well protected as though 
 she had gone to the fort, and if he had known the United 
 States troops were to entertain such friendly and pro 
 tecting relations to him, he would have preferred being 
 forted. Miser held a long confidential talk with the 
 captain, and told him he would like to have this farce 
 end." The captain informed Jean that Miser had just 
 given him some very important news that the Indians 
 
186 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 had so much confidence in her that they would believe 
 every word she said. 
 
 " Yes, but how can my voice reach them," answered 
 Jean. "It is not so stentorian that it can be heard 
 twenty miles away." 
 
 " There was a camp-fire found this morning where 
 two Indians and a squaw must have slept last night, 
 about ten miles away, so if you will consent to ride 
 at the head of our column this morning, we will try, 
 with your presence and a white flag, to gain their at 
 tention. These must be Indian spies sent back to re 
 connoitre, and no doubt intend, from Mr. Miser s re 
 marks, to confer with you." 
 
 In an hour, Jean was on her saddle-horse and in com 
 pany with the captain and two lieutenants, was gallop 
 ing in the direction of the camp-fire. They were clam 
 bering over a frightful gorge through a narrow foot 
 path, when a ball of twisted grass and dried leaves was 
 tossed into Jean s lap. It seemed to fall straight 
 from the sky, but on the steep mountain side above, 
 they saw the bushes moving, and Jean s clear voice 
 floated out in the morning air, "Alillo!" and the sil 
 very, liquid tones came ringing down the mountain 
 side " Tillicum, tillicum!" (meaning friend). And the 
 war was ended and peace commenced in the mingling 
 of these voices. After holding a long conference with 
 the Indians, Jean went back home proud, triumphant, 
 and happy, with Alillo as a prisoner of war. 
 
 Within two days, every Indian on the river was 
 brought in, and camped at the head of the valley, but 
 they utterly refused to hold a treaty with the soldiers, 
 and again the captain was puzzled, and held a "pow 
 wow " with Miser, and soon an invitation was sent to 
 Jean and Alillo to join them, and at last it was decided 
 that if Jean would go to the camp, and make a speech 
 to the Indians, telling them that the government would 
 do thus and so, they would listen. Accordingly, next 
 morning, Jean, with the captain, at the head of the col 
 umn of soldiers, confronted an army of braves who 
 stood with their arms folded on their breasts, without 
 
Jean s deep sympathy for them moved her to tears, and she knelt under 
 the white flag. 
 
A NIGHT OF HORKOK 187 
 
 moving a muscle or giving a grunt of recognition, as 
 stolid as iron posts. Jean s deep sympathy for them 
 moved her to tears, and she knelt under the white flag, 
 the cool morning air fanning the brows of that column 
 of stalwart red men, facing their pale-faced brothers, 
 listening to the words of the one white person of the 
 white race, who would, they believed, speak the truth. 
 But her prayer to Almighty God, pronounced in their 
 presence, proved how utterly void of truth she believed 
 her words to be. 
 
 " Oh, Almighty God, Father alike of the red and the 
 white man, thou hast the power to compel the men of 
 our mighty nation to keep the treaty now about to be 
 signed between these two nations of red and white 
 men. Grant, oh, God, that my words may be kept 
 in letter and in deed, truthfully kept." And a clear, 
 distinct "Amen!" as of one voice, was pronounced by 
 the column of men. The Indians bowed their heads. 
 
 Jean, rising, went on with her speech. She told the 
 Indians that the government had promised to buy their 
 land, paying them so much annuity. But the Indians 
 were to leave their homes, and go to Grand Bound 
 Valley, in Yam Hill county, where there was already a 
 reservation. 
 
 The treaty was signed by all except old Chief Nezic, 
 who buried his face in the sand, telling the young men 
 that they could sign it, but he could not sell the graves 
 of his fathers for money, nor blankets, nor horses, nor 
 food; he wanted to be buried there with his fathers. 
 The young bucks said they had no notion of being 
 buried; that the whites traveled, and they could. 
 
 The government then sent teams, and removed the 
 Indians, with all their household accouterments, to the 
 reservation dogs, ponies, guns, everything one hun 
 dred and fifty miles away. When they started, they 
 made the valleys ring with the same funeral chant that 
 they make over the dead. It was something terrific, 
 that last howl that the Indians ever made in that 
 Umpqua Valley. It rang out in the crisp morning air, 
 
188 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 that sad November day. The march was terrible to 
 them, leaving the homes that had been theirs through 
 all time that their stories or memories could retain. 
 Another, stronger a white race had dispossessed 
 them. 
 
 Jean s brothers, Will Ames and Dan Murdstone, were 
 in the Cayoose and Bannock Indian wars, fighting 
 every year, from the first settlement of the country until 
 peace reigned in every hamlet, hill-top, valley and vil 
 lage, from end to end of the Pacific Coast faithful, 
 valiant, volunteers, soldiers, cavalrymen riding their 
 own horses, wearing clothing earned by the hard toil 
 of frontier life, buying their own supplies, using their 
 own guns, and supplying their own ammunition. And 
 our much-loved Uncle Sam is to-day in the peaceful 
 possession of all this vast domain, wrested by the 
 bravery of her brothers and other early pioneers who 
 risked their lives and fortunes, and to-day lie in peace 
 ful, unmarked, unhonored graves, dying in the prime 
 of their early manhood while protecting the frontier 
 settlements from the Indians. Has the government 
 ever paid one dollar of its debt? We hope some day 
 it may, for the memory of those brave boys who 
 kept their war-scrip so sacredly. It was high treason, 
 in their opinion, to think that the government would 
 not faithfully pay its Indian war debts. 
 
 Jean heard this reiterated a thousand times, and 
 her blood boiled with the memory that her broth 
 ers were lying in their peaceful graves, having spent 
 their lives in the sacred cause of peace and the secu 
 rity of their homes; and dying, God intrusted their 
 orphan children to Jean to rear and educate. 
 
 The government cannot lay claim to any territory 
 over which war was ever waged under the broad canopy 
 of heaven, that is equal in value to the Pacific Coast, and 
 this being true, so honorable a debt should have been 
 liquidated long ago by our honorable government. 
 This is history. 
 
 The volunteer soldiers should be paid for their time, 
 
A NIGHT OF HORROR. 189 
 
 for the defense of their homes, and for the wresting of 
 these vast landed estates from their original owners, the 
 Indians, and securing them peaceably to the govern 
 ment. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 " I WILL STILL BE MYSELF." 
 
 Now that the Indians had gone, Mr. Cursica Miser 
 immediately gave his whole war ability to his family 
 not that he had ever at any time distinguished himself 
 in any open warfare with the Indians; but Jean soon 
 discovered that the presence of the Indians had been a 
 great check to Mr. Miser s indulging his propensity to 
 cruelty to his family. His cruelties and constant ill- 
 usage at length resulted in an overwhelming disaster, 
 not to the family peace, for it never had any, but to the 
 family union. 
 
 The Indian boy servant, Caweecha, who would not 
 consent to leave his mistress, when the Indians went 
 to the reservation, was out milking the cows. The 
 family were seated at the breakfast table, which was 
 set in the middle of the cabin floor, that was orna 
 mented with a variety of handsome skins. A bank of 
 wild roses, fragrant and blooming, with hanging vines, 
 wild grasses, and pine cones, stood at the left on a rude 
 bench. A small mirror ornamented the mantel, be 
 neath which burned a cheerful fire in the wide-mouthed 
 fire-place. A few draperies hung here and there about 
 the room, and a rude book-shelf that Jean herself had 
 constructed contained a few well-thumbed books of 
 standard authors, most of which were borrowed from 
 a neighboring library Mr. Dan. Stewart s. The little 
 twin girls sat opposite Jean and her baby boy. Mr. 
 Miser, at the head of the table, was swallowing his 
 breakfast like a ravenous wolf, when his son and heir 
 to his vast estates espied the breakfast disappearing so 
 rapidly, and not being old enough to express himself, 
 made desperate efforts to make himself understood by 
 
I WILL STILL BE MYSELF. 191 
 
 >. | -V . - I 
 
 violent kicks and gestures, signifying that he wanted 
 an equal amount of food, whereupon Jean gave him an 
 egg. But he wanted more, and she gave him another. 
 It was clear that the ambition of the young man knew 
 no bounds. He wanted everything oa the table put on 
 his plate. His mother, Jean, was trying with firm 
 though gentle tones to quell the disturbance. 
 
 Mr. Miser arose unceremoniously, put on his hat, and 
 left the room. Jean supposed he had gone to his 
 business. The baby boy was now quietly finishing his 
 breakfast. Mr. Miser returned looking like a demon, 
 with a tough, thrifty haael three-quarters of an inch 
 thiok and five feet long. He walked hastily to the 
 baby, snatching him from his chair and holding him by 
 one arm a foot or two from the floor, and after a few 
 withes on the back of the baby, Jean, not being able to 
 stop him, and knowing the child would die in Miser s 
 hands, she bent over it to protect it from the blows, 
 and the fierce strokes that fell on her neck and should 
 ers made her thankful in her heart that she could shield 
 her child from such agony. Each blow from the infu 
 riated monster was like a knife thrust. When the 
 stick had been beaten to splinters, he stopped and not 
 till then; and when Jean could recover her breath to 
 speak, she said: " Your blows have divorced ns! " And 
 no truer words did her lips ever utter. 
 
 For awhile she forgot her own misery in her pity for 
 her child writhing in pain. Miser left the house, and 
 Jean had no time for tears that day. She had suffering 
 to relieve that is not often witnessed. She did not re 
 alize the severity of her own wounds until she had tried 
 to lie down at night, and found it impossible. The 
 child s life was despaired of for davs. 
 
 Caweecha came in with the pails brimful of milk, 
 and glancing at the baby who was writhing in excru 
 ciating pain, sprang quickly to Jean s side, asking in 
 deepest tones of alarm and sympathy: "Burned? 
 
 "Gods, yes, Caweecha, burned!" she answered. 
 
 Miser had thrown the club into the fire and jumped 
 on his horse and rode away. He told Caweecha he was 
 
192 THE HEROINE OF 40. 
 
 going to Eoseburg, and Jean very indiscreetly said, "I 
 
 wish he would never return." 
 
 In an instant Caweecha, with the quick perception 
 
 an Indian, said, "Miser did it. Me kill him! Me 
 
 heap kill!" 
 Jean s soul was wild with passion, and while she 
 
 would have been glad to see the man dead, yet she was 
 
 horrified at the thought of stirring her faithful servant 
 
 to kill him. While smarting under his stinging lash, 
 
 she could lie to screen his life. She knew if her servant 
 
 got an inkling of the blood trickling through her dress 
 
 that nothing would save Miser s life from his revenge. 
 
 Caweecha brought her water and asked to go for her 
 
 neighbor, Mrs. Trent. 
 
 No; no neighbor to see her bleeding back! She 
 
 could not bear that humility. And Caweecha again 
 
 looking searchingly into her eyes, said : 
 
 " Miser did it. Me know. He heap look mesacha.* 
 
 Me cumtux."t 
 This was in 56. The blood of the nation was not 
 
 yet flowing to free negro slaves. 
 
 Under some pretense the faithful Caweecha must be 
 sent away while Jean could dress the wounds of herself 
 and child. She told him to go and saddle his horse, as 
 she might need to send him for the doctor. Indeed, it 
 seemed quite probable. She then cut the child s 
 clothes from his arms, and hastily dressed his wounds. 
 She as quickly tore off her own blood-stained clothes 
 and hid them away, as though she were the murderer 
 and had done this brutal deed. Her pride was work 
 ing her a great wrong by covering up the crime, but 
 she was a child and did not know it. Besides, she 
 thought the taunts and jeers of the world would be more 
 than her lacerated flesh and wounded heart could en 
 dure. She could bear this quietly, and she would. 
 She was the metal they make heroines of. She said St. 
 Paul had endured stripes without a murmur, and she 
 could. 
 
 She told Miser, on his return, to occupy another 
 
 *Mesacha, meaning "bad." tCumtux, " to understand." 
 
I WILL STILL BE MYSELF. 193 
 
 room, away from her and the children, which he did 
 without one word ever passing between them on the 
 subject. They were divorced. She still lived under 
 the same roof, but found life much more endurable 
 since the beating than it had ever been while she was 
 the monster s wife. 
 
 She remained in the cabin a year and a half in daily 
 fear of her life, thanking God for the privilege of caring 
 for her children. She trembled as one standing over 
 an earthquake, knowing full well there must come an 
 end to her present life. Miser rarely spoke to her, or 
 took any notice of the children. She was only too con 
 tent to be spared the attention of the brute. 
 
 Jean did not let her lips pronounce a word of his un- 
 kindness to her. She knew how, like a blighting mildew, 
 it had withered every bright hope of her young, buoyant 
 heart. And how could her mother, who had passed 
 through so many bitter trials, bear to know that she 
 was not happy. No ! she would let this aching grief, 
 like corroding rust, eat out her heart s core before she 
 would add another woe to those already there, and with 
 more bravery than it ever took to face a cannon-ball, 
 she said mentally, "I will be brave and stand face to 
 face with stubborn fate." She made a desperate strug 
 gle to conceal her real feelings from every one, and 
 tried hard to do each task assigned her as cheerfully 
 as possible. Jean had friends, with hearts deep and 
 true as ever throbbed in human breast, and though her 
 lips spoke never a syllable of his cruelties to her, yet 
 every one knew she was a slave. 
 
 Though she tried hard to conceal her real life, and to 
 be to the world a living lie, yet she could not; for 
 looks speak the truth louder than tongues ever do. 
 And when in 1857, she rose in her puny might and 
 vowed she would be free, and be no longer Miser s 
 legalized slave, do you think she had not counted the 
 cost? ay, the cost of having her innocent babes torn 
 from her crushed and bleeding heart and given into 
 the custody of the monster who had nearly killed her 
 13 
 
194 THE HEKOINE OF 49. 
 
 and her child? Strong men, gray-haired men, came to 
 her convulsed with grief, tears falling like rain, warn 
 ing her against such a step, saying the law would show 
 her no mercy, that her children would be taken from 
 her, her character destroyed, and she, with a broken 
 heart, blighted health, and defamed reputation, turned 
 out into the cold charities of a selfish world to die, or 
 perhaps end her days in a house of prostitution. She 
 thanked them for that last word, and said : 
 
 "I end my days in such a place! God never made 
 me to fill such a position. All the laws and law-makers 
 on earth can t ruin me. I will still be myself. " 
 
 Yes, but your husband has all the money, and he 
 will use it against you," they said. 
 
 "He will not try to injure the character of the 
 mother of his innocent babes, will he ? " 
 
 " Yes, he will, and mark the words, he will succeed." 
 
 "And this is the fiend you would have me live with, 
 and bear children for a liie-tiine." 
 
 "Yes, tis better than to try to escape. Society will 
 thrust you out; you will be a doomed woman; your 
 life won t be long, and tis better to bear it all quietly 
 and sink into an early grave; there you will find peace. 
 
 " I do not fear to die," she said. " I have longed for 
 death, but now I will live; the world needs me. I will 
 first free myself, then I will espouse the cause of my 
 oppressed sisters. I will be an abolitionist, and work 
 for the abolition of white woman slavery. I should 
 despise myself if I should sit down here to die, a stupid 
 slave, an ignominious death. No, I will live, and you 
 mark my ivords, if the laws of my country treat me as 
 you say they will, I will bear it; but the world shall 
 know it! If I am to be a martyr, I will be a heroine 
 also. What! shall I live on the life I ve been living, 
 continue to wear out my life in bondage, and leave the 
 same fate to my daughters ? " 
 
CHAPTEE XXXII. 
 
 A YISITOB. 
 
 Jean had scarcely recovered from the effects of the 
 conflict with Miser, when one day. Mr. Dan Stewart 
 called, accompanied by a friend, a gentleman of leisure, 
 who had come to while away the summer months with 
 him at his camp, ten miles away, on the river. Mrs. 
 Stewart would join them in a month, when the pleasure 
 party would be complete. Mrs. Stewart s niece and an 
 unmarried sister would accompany her, riding, boating, 
 fishing, and the general fun of summer camp-life in 
 the mountains, to be enjoyed by the party. Mr. Stewart 
 was a gentleman of rare ability. He enjoyed a good 
 book as he did a fine landscape. Sitting in his tent 
 door, like Jacob of old, with his cattle on a thousand 
 hills, the sun s low beams gilding hill-top and mountain 
 with radiant splendor; the dark waters of the North 
 TJmpqua rolling over its rocky bed, or winding in and 
 out of some steep wall that pent it in so narrow a chan 
 nel that it looked like a silvery thread, wound in and 
 out from valley, hill and mountain; for within the scope 
 of the eye, there was diversified country with beauty 
 and grandeur rarely to be met with even in nature s 
 grand panorama, whose wealth of wondrous beauty had 
 been flung with the prodigal hand of the Almighty 
 Stewart would almost shed tears, in his rapture over 
 this landscape, that he had not studied painting in his 
 younger days, so that he might catch the marvelous 
 beauty on canvas; but alas, for the golden opportuni 
 ties squandered in youth! The gentleman who called 
 with Mr. Stewart was of medium stature, light brown 
 hair, deep blue eyes, a Grecian nose, broad chin, full 
 round lips, chiseled to perfection. You knew the mo- 
 
196 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 ment you saw the man that candor, purity of sentiment, 
 and honest purpose, were the ruling powers of his mind. 
 Mr. Stewart s leading in the brilliant conversation that 
 he and Jean indulged in, for the next half hour, gave 
 his friend, a man of more depth and reserve force, 
 little opportunity for showing Jean what kind of man 
 he was. But for all that, from the first moment their 
 eyes met, a subtle power had taken possession of her; 
 she longed to know the man, as she had never longed 
 to know a human being before in her life. She felt if she 
 could know that man, she could tell him her hidden 
 griefs. She was sure the tear-stain on her face, hidden by 
 smiles and gay words from Mr. Stewart, were observed 
 by the stranger. 
 
 An hour after, when they rose to go, it was like 
 parting with a friend she had known and loved, and 
 she would never see him again ! Was fate so cruel? 
 As they were about to go, the stranger pulled a novel 
 from his coat-pocket, saying: 
 
 "Your friend, Mr. Stewart, would like to read this 
 book, perhaps?" adding to Jean: " We have just 
 finished it; we shall enjoy talking it over when we meet 
 again." 
 
 It was " The Tower of London," by Dumas. 
 
 Her heart gave a great bound for joy that he wished 
 to see her again. This was rapture. Jean, wholly un 
 accustomed to joy of any kind, was about to despair 
 of the world holding that commodity for her. As the 
 man held out the book, a thrill of pain, joy, pleasure 
 what was it? pervaded her whole being. It was 
 bliss to her to know there was love in the world. She 
 took the book; her eyes met the stranger s; the gentle 
 men bowed, were on their horses, and gone in a 
 moment. 
 
 She stood holding the book, riveted to the spot. It 
 was transformed to the holy of all holies, the place 
 she had met the stranger, flow long she stood, trans 
 figured, glorified by God s law of holy love, she never 
 knew. From that time she was a woman, thrilled 
 with the power of love. She thought of nothing for 
 
A VISITOR. 19? 
 
 days, only that she was in ecstasy, that she existed. 
 Some day she might be a widow; then if she should 
 meet the handsome stranger, who called that day, the 
 horror of all she had passed through would only en 
 hance her pleasure when she had some one to love, 
 to speak words of sympathy and tenderness to her. 
 
 Love ! oh, life ! oh bliss ! Would such a day ever come, 
 hemmed in with every obstacle to such a possible end 
 ing. Then her thoughts would turn back to the dull, 
 sober truth, the hateful reality, and sighing, she would 
 say to herself; " Bright thoughts are better for me, and 
 as God has given them me and a brain to think with 
 that nobody can control, I will do as I please with my 
 thoughts. If tis wicked to wish to be happy, then I am 
 going to be wicked. I am going to think of love and 
 what the bliss might be if I had a husband to love me. 
 If when a girl at my mother s the stranger had called, 
 what would life have been, when only to think of it 
 now is such joy." How glorious to be relieved of the 
 companionship of Mr. Miser. He no longer takes the 
 trouble to inform her, every few days, that she has not 
 as much sense as a "yaller dog," no longer tells her he 
 will tie a stone about her neck and drown her in the 
 river, no longer slides stealthily by her side and 
 familiarly pinches the flesh on her arm till tis black as 
 a coal for days. All these little attentions are dis 
 pensed with, to her great joy. A dignified silence 
 reigns between them, except when someone is by, and 
 then, only to ward off suspicion, a few words pass be 
 tween them. She is in delight to be a child with her 
 children. She weaves fancies that she and they will 
 grow up together, possibly go to school together. She 
 will be as good as gold looking after every interest on the 
 great ranch; money is pouring in, like golden streams. 
 They must be immensely wealthy if this continues, 
 and in time she will be a woman, with a woman s sense. 
 She has read somewhere that intellect rules, and she is 
 beginning to find that she has rather a bright mind. 
 And if all this be true, she says, "There must be hope 
 ahead for me." 
 
198 THE HEROINE! OF 49. 
 
 One day, however, Miser asked her to go boat-riding. 
 She looked up in astonishment. His eyes fell, showing 
 plainly some evil intention, and he walked quickly away as 
 if he had suddenly changed his mind. They did not go 
 that day. Jean thought nothing of this the first day, 
 and would have gone had he persisted. The next day, 
 when he asked again, she declined with some trivial ex 
 cuse, but her suspicions were aroused. When he came 
 the third day with the old-time sinister smile, she re 
 fused. He insisted, and was about to use force to take 
 her into the boat, together with the three children. Her 
 loud screams brought a man who was chopping timber 
 across the river, to her assistance, and the would-be 
 murderer slunk away. 
 
 Jean now knew it was impossible for her to remain 
 there any longer. She took her babe in her arms, and 
 moving toward the glass to see if her countenance be 
 trayed the tc rrible agony of soul that stirred within her 
 at the thought of being separated an hour from her darl 
 ing children; her attention was drawn toward her sweet 
 little five-year-old Ella, almost her second self, who, 
 fearful of some impending crisis, had climbed upon 
 a stool near the glass, and seemed the picture of 
 despair, as she said in accents of the deepest sadness, 
 "O, mother, take me, too!" Jean saw only her f^e, 
 and could never forget her looks. It seemed to Jean 
 her words would kill her. Her looks, so deep, so full 
 of terrible meaning, as though she "knew it all;" the 
 tone so tenderly beseeching, " O, mother, take me, too !" 
 The sound died away with the moment, but the im 
 pression in her heart could never die. Had she wavered 
 now in her resolution and stayed a few days longer, she 
 must have sunk down to a watery grave. She was con 
 vinced now that Miser s thought, given at first only as 
 a threat to make her fear him, had crystalized into a 
 determination to act upon it, and not only tie a stone 
 about her neck, but to drown her children with her, as 
 he had threatened to do a thousand times during the 
 four years they had lived on the banks of the dark, flow 
 ing waters of the Umpqua river. But she must live 
 
A VISITOR. 
 
 live for her children. Life seemed worth all it would 
 cost her. In the family of a friend she found shelter 
 for a short time, until Thomas Ames came to take her 
 and her children to her mother s. 
 
 Miser compelled Jean to see a lawyer with him about 
 getting a divorce before he would allow her to take the 
 children and go to her mother s. So they went. 
 
CHAPTEE XXXIII. 
 
 LAWYER GOBBS. 
 
 The lawyer s office was in the back room of an old 
 wooden building used as a hotel. The great man, 
 lawyer Gobbs of Roseburg, since governor of Oregon, 
 sat with his legs crossed, as if to assist in holding up 
 the ponderous proportions above. He had a large 
 frame, but it looked diminutive when compared with 
 his mammoth stomach, which seemed to swell out like 
 a gigantic protuberance on the side of a gnarled oak- 
 tree. His eyebrows were dense, coarse, brown and 
 shaggy, and he looked to Jean as though he might 
 have been at least half brother to the grizzly bear 
 that roams the Sierras and had just gorged himself 
 on an unprotected ranch of Digger Indian children. 
 He seemed to understand their errand, and address 
 ing his conversation to Miser, at length asked, " What 
 is the trouble between you?" Miser replied, "Ask 
 her, she is the one; I am not dissatisfied, she is the 
 one." The lawyer took no notice of Jean. She didn t 
 carry the purse. But annoyed at Miser s answer, and 
 knitting his shaggy brow, queried again, "Is there 
 not some cause for jealousy? I see there is a great 
 disparity in your years." Miser, not understanding how 
 necessary a plea of adultery is in an action for a suc 
 cessful divorce, for once told the truth, and growing 
 incoherent, he swore there was no cause for jealousy, 
 and the man that would accuse him of such a thing 
 was a liar. At this, the lawyer grew more perplexed, 
 and taking rapid strides across the room, that shook 
 the whole house, while a new thought lighted up his 
 dull, phlegmatic face, he said, motioning his finger to 
 Miser, "Come with me;" and they withdrew to another 
 
LAWYER GOBBS. 201 
 
 apartment for a private interview. In a few minutes 
 they returned. Jean left the office, and Miser fol 
 lowed her, saying he wanted to talk with her a little 
 privately, and proceeding, he said: " The lawyer tells 
 me that neither of us can get a divorce unless I can 
 prove that you have been false to your marriage vows." 
 W ith the blood standing still in her veins, Jean replied, 
 " You can never do that." 
 
 " I know it, and I told the lawyer so, that you are as 
 pure as an angel, and that your name is untarnished. 
 I will arrange that matter, the lawyer said. If we 
 oan t prove any actual guilt, tis easy to hunt up slan 
 derous stories to blacken women s characters; we al 
 ways do in such cases; tis nothing. You get some of 
 your hired men, or your neighbors, anybody, to start 
 the reports, and I will see that they are circulated. I 
 keep a hotel, and I will make them the table-talk among 
 my boarders. You know how ready men are to believe 
 anything that is said against the character of any 
 woman. If we can make it appear that your wife has 
 been in the least indiscreet, we ll have no trouble in 
 getting you a divorce, and giving the children to you. 
 This is the cheapest. Twill save all your money for 
 you, and in fact is the only practical course to pursue.* 
 
 This was the plot of the lawyer, as near as Miser 
 could tell it, and then he said to Jean, placing his 
 thumb firmly over his finger: " I ve got you right under 
 my thumb, and I will do with you as I please, unless 
 you drop this thing, and go home and live with me as 
 my wife." 
 
 No language can express the utter contempt she felt 
 for him then. If she hated him before, she despised 
 herself for ever having seen such an unprincipled 
 wretch, and with indignation flashing in her eyes, she 
 said, "You can t do so damning a deed, and if there 
 are such foul fiends on earth I want to know it." To 
 live with such an inhuman monster would be like 
 throwing innocent babes into the jaws of a crocodile to 
 appease his wrath. Her first impulse was to fly from 
 his presence. Then came those piteous, beseeching 
 
202 THE HEROINE OP 49. 
 
 tones "0, mother, take me, too!" and the lit 
 tle arms, " all white and dimpled," stretched out 
 so imploringly to her for help and she thought 
 of the terrible desolation of their lives without a 
 mother s care. They might be fed and clothed by 
 other hands. But oh, who could supply them with 
 their God-given heritage a mother s love? "It is 
 not all of life to live." 
 
 It was in that hour that she found she could talk; 
 and there, on her horse, she plead with him, the 
 father of her children; earnestly and well she told him 
 that the lawyer was a demon in human form, and if he 
 gave heed to such plottings, he, and not she, would be 
 the ruined one, that he would take his money and give 
 him nothing for it. 
 
 "Any man that will talk," said Jean, " as you say 
 that lawyer did to you, will do anything for money. I 
 wonder that you can trust him." 
 
 Then Jean tried to make him understand how eager 
 and hungry the poor fellow Gobbs was for the case; 
 that he cared for nothing but his gold. She knew she 
 could touch his heart only through his pocket; so she 
 showed him how much less expense twould be for her 
 to take the children to her mother s than for him to 
 have them taken care of. He consented, and she took 
 her children and came out of the wilderness a hundred 
 and fifty miles to her mother s. But the little leaven 
 started there in that law office had leavened the whole 
 lump. From that bear s den, in every direction, the 
 very air was filled with the vilest, blackest tales of 
 slander, which had even reached her poor old mother 
 before her. It was midnight when she reached home. 
 Her mother came out to meet her in her night-clothes. 
 For a moment she held her at arm s length, as if by 
 her searching glances, even in the moonbeams pale 
 light, she would read the secrets of her soul. The 
 doomed woman that her gray-haired friends had warned 
 her that she would become, flashed through her mind 
 as a sickening certainty, as she said: "Oh God! mother, 
 
LAWYER GOBBS. 203 
 
 I am as pure as when you received me from His hands," 
 And they both fell to the ground and thanked God that 
 it was so. 
 
 Jean was now safe at home in the society of her family, 
 with her precious children by her side. They were 
 doubly dear to her now, as every day the horror 
 was hanging over her that they might be taken from 
 her. At last, her worst fears were realized, as 
 Miser soon came, like a heathen monster, and tore 
 her little children from the arms of their wretched 
 mother, in spite of their piteous cries to stay, and 
 dragged them back to his home in the mountains. He 
 wrote to the Atlantic States in succession for his mother, 
 aunt, cousins, sister, and niece, who, each in turn, 
 tried to live with him, but soon found they could not, 
 and left him alone in his meanness. He then sent for 
 a discarded brother-in-law, who was already in a de 
 cline, and needed constant care himself. There, in 
 that old log-cabin, without one comfort in life, with 
 none but this feeble old man to care for them, did the 
 court decide that the children should stay, and after 
 that old man, just tottering on the brink of the grave, 
 had sworn falsely in court, had acted as agent in dis 
 tributing bribes among other hired witnesses, and 
 done the house work for Miser and his children, deed 
 ed his three hundred and twenty acre land claim, and 
 given him all his personal property; yet, when he was 
 of no further service to him, he was driven out, not 
 withstanding he had a writtten agreement for shelter, 
 care and nursing in Miser s house, for his few declining 
 years. 
 
 The poor old victim begged his way to Mrs. Murd- 
 stone, saying he could not die in peace until he had 
 sworn to a confession of what he and others had done 
 to effect her daughter s ruin. Mrs. Murdstone took 
 him in, and cared for him in his last hours, like a sis 
 ter. He died, and the Odd Fellows gave his body a 
 brotherly burial, but the affidavit from his dying lips, 
 sworn to before a justice of the peace, still lives. 
 
 After her children were torn from her and taken 
 
204 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 back to the hut, Jean soon followed, and when their 
 father told her that his lawyer had advised him not to 
 allow her to see them, Jean could not believe such 
 baseness could find a place in a human breast; but 
 the next day she was forced to, when this shaggy- 
 browed monster, the lawyer himself, rushed into the 
 room where she was locked in the embrace of her chil 
 dren, having just clasped them to her bosom for the 
 first time in four months, and dragged them screaming 
 from the room, and hurried them away, she knew not 
 where. 
 
 This lawyer was the same man who, years after, was 
 Governor of Oregon, and later, was candidate for the 
 United States Senate on the Republican ticket, and 
 lost by only one vote. The man who would have cast 
 the one vote required was missing from the legislative 
 hall at the time the final vote was taken. The speaker 
 of the Senate brought down his gavel with great force, 
 but to no purpose, as he sent the eergeant-at-arms to 
 find the missing man. Now, it happened that Thomas 
 Ames, as Dr. Knight had predicted years and years 
 before, was a stalwart among his confreres in the legis 
 lative hall that session. He forced measures, and said 
 to Jean: 
 
 " I ll die on that floor, Sis, before a man vile as I 
 know that lawyer to be, shall represent Oregon in the 
 Senate of the United States. Never, while I m alive, 
 shall that man go/ 
 
 And when the gentleman could not be found, 
 Thomas Ames was the only man on the floor who 
 could guess where he was, and he did not know his 
 exact location. 
 
 Thomas Ames, who had driven furiously into town, 
 and was the first man in the Senate-chamber that 
 afternoon, leaning toward his confrere in the next 
 seat, quietly, though with something of tragedy in his 
 manner, exclaimed: "I have him now upon the hip, 
 and I ll feed fat upon the ancient grudge I bear him." 
 
 It is more than likely that there were more tears shed 
 
LAWYER GOBBS. 205 
 
 and taller oaths indulged in, at the disappointment of 
 this candidate, than any other since Oregon has been 
 a state. 
 
 Baby Murdstone was now a girl of nineteen, a 
 strong, resolute, handsome girl. The man who was 
 missing when so much needed, had often, of late, been 
 invited by Thomas Ames to dine with him at the 
 Murdstone farm-house, six miles in the country. Miss 
 Murdstone was charming in fact, she was fascinating 
 to the gentleman who was so stanch a political friend 
 of the aspirant for senatorial honors. 
 
 On the day that the final vote was to be cast, Thomas 
 Ames met the friend, and taking out his watch, said : 
 
 " My friend, it is eleven o clock. We ve just time to 
 drive to the Murdstones and lunch on fried chicken 
 with peaches and cream." 
 
 "Only too happy to join you," said the fly. 
 
 Miss Murdstone met the m at the gate and assured 
 them that dinner had been waiting five minutes. The 
 gentleman thought he never had seen Miss Murdstone 
 more charming than to-day. Dinner was soon dis 
 patched, Thomas declaring that the affairs of state 
 were hanging heavy upon their massive brows that 
 day. 
 
 " I don t like statesmen, I like gentlemen of leisure," 
 
 Eoutingly rejoined Miss Murdstone, adding with most 
 ewitching grace that she wanted to drive to town with 
 her brother to buy a ribbon for her new hat. 
 
 The noble politician deplored her entertaining such 
 an opinion, and assured her if she would consent to 
 ride with him that the affairs of state should not 
 prevent her from obtaining the ribbon for her bonnet. 
 It is useless to say she consented. After they had 
 ridden a few miles, she assured the gentleman there 
 was a pasture through which they could drive, which 
 would shorten the road very materially. And the 
 gentleman being very eager to get to the legislative 
 hall, consented to open the gate and drive through, 
 and after driving round and round and gaining no 
 special headway, he at last began to show signs of 
 
206 
 
 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 impatience But the young lady placidly declared 
 with her sweetest smiles that they would be at the 
 gate in due time, mentally adding: 
 
 "At least, as soon as the voting is over in the legis 
 lature, and I shall be as glad to be done with my 
 affairs of state as thfrgentleman will be to begin his 
 wheii he reaches the legislative hail this afternoon." 
 
 " O, mother, take me, too ! 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE EIGHT-THOUSAND-DOLLAB BRIBE. 
 
 Then Jean thought it time to have a lawyer of her 
 own, and see if there could not be wrung out some 
 justice from the law. She borrowed fifty dollars, 
 which she paid to lawyer Strayton, as a retainer, to 
 secure him against the bribes of her enemies. What 
 a fool ! How little she knew of the workings of the 
 law, to think that justice could be bought with _ so 
 paltry a sum. Only fifty pieces on one side, against 
 fifty thousand on the other. Her lawyer could not 
 have been so easily bought in this case had he not 
 been so poor, and had not his wife sent up such pit 
 eous wails that summer, for silk dresses. He was a 
 man of rather fine sympathies, but when he would do 
 good, evil was present with him. He would a little 
 rather do right than wrong when the temptation was 
 not absolutely overpowering. And when Miser and 
 his shaggy-browed counsel offered him three thousand 
 lollars to betray Jean, he at first indignantly spurned 
 them and their gold. Again and again they held up 
 the glittering bait before his hungry eyes, which he 
 as often resolutely resisted; but poverty pressed him 
 on every side; he longed to exchange his humble, un- 
 painted cottage for a grand mansion, with graveled 
 walks. The trial had been put off from time to time 
 in order to let the scandalous stories get well circu 
 lated; but at length the time was set again. It was to 
 be a little special court for this case alone, and just 
 three days before the time, Jean s lawyer found he had 
 pressing business at a distance, but called to tell her 
 to be of good cheer; that she would soon have her 
 
208 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 children; that the case was bound to be decided in 
 her favor, and then she would be rich, as she would 
 certainly get fifteen or twenty thousand dollars with 
 the children for their support. The judge, too, had 
 great respect for him, and anything he might say in 
 her behalf must have its weight, and he would tell 
 a tale of horror that would chill their very heart s 
 blood, and she should go to the court-room and hear 
 the plea. She had not been allowed to know aught 
 of the proceedings, because she was a woman, and her 
 presence in the court-room would be sure to be taken 
 as evidence of her being a coarse, vulgar woman, and 
 so work against her. Her lawyer had insisted all 
 summer, too, that it was so much more modest to have 
 depositions taken, and not bring her witnesses into 
 open court, especially her lady friends. And she after 
 ward found in looking over the records of the case 
 on file in the clerk s office -for that county, that her 
 very honest and proper attorney must have considered 
 it indelicate to have even the depositions read in court, 
 for she found no record kept of many of the most im 
 portant ones. 
 
 The made-up tales of slander went from mouth to 
 mouth until Jean was in danger of being insulted, and 
 had to keep herself secluded from the lecherous gaze of 
 the idle, pork-and-tobacco-eating, whisky-soaked sen 
 sualists that laid around that town. 
 
 They could find no one yet base enough to make oath 
 to any of the stories, though they had a rumor of a 
 man living two hundred miles away, who, it was thought, 
 would swear to anything. A desperate struggle must 
 be made by Miser and his counsel to keep the children, 
 as whoever got the children must get the money. So 
 the case was put off again. This new witness was their 
 last refuge; a deputy sheriff was sent in search of him, 
 but when he was found he was too drunk to give his 
 deposition, and when sober he refused to give it. 
 
 Jean had grown almost desperate at having the 
 decision put off and put off, and now that they must 
 have a little private court, she could bear it no longer, 
 
THE EIGHl^THOUSAJtfD-t)OLLA& BRIBE. 209 
 
 and told her counsel that immodest or not, she would 
 have some witnesses summoned, gave him the names, 
 and the sheriff, the only man in the lot, summoned 
 them to appear on the 29th of November. Some of 
 them lived miles away; still they came early in the 
 morning, but the Court and his friends, not to be 
 thwarted by a little woman, reached the court-house, 
 closed the doors, and proceeded at once to give his 
 decision, so that when her witnesses reached the hall, 
 the judge said he would hear no more testimony, that 
 his mind was already made up. 
 
 Yes, Jean feared as much when, on the day before, 
 she saw Miser step into a store opposite her boarding- 
 place, where she knew he had his money on deposit, 
 and come out soon with a portmanteau on his arm, and 
 she knew from the small bulk and great weight hanging 
 down that it was his gold. She watched, with eager 
 eyes; and imagine, if you can, how her heart sank 
 within her, when she saw him walk across the street, 
 and enter the judge s room. She flew into the store to 
 ask the merchant if Miser had taken out his money. 
 He said he had, just that moment. Jean s suspicions 
 were correct. All was lost. She staggered back to her 
 room to find a letter from her lawyer, saying that he 
 could not possibly be present at the trial, as he had 
 bought a lot of hogs on credit, which must be killed 
 immediately and his creditors paid, or he would lose 
 his reputation as an honest man. The court-room was 
 crowded with men who had come there mostly to sat 
 isfy a morbid curiosity, and though the judge s mind 
 was already "made up," yet that shaggy-browed fiend, 
 Miser s lawyer, Gobbs, stood up in their midst and reiter 
 ated all the base slanders that he himself had coined and 
 been the most active in circulating, and abused and de 
 famed Jean, a sick woman, at that time, unable to get off 
 her bed, in the most shameless manner that even a coarse- 
 haired thing in human form could possibly do. The 
 decree of course, was all in favor of the one that carried 
 the purse. No notice was taken of Jean. She had no 
 
210 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 rights that a man was bound to respect. A divorce was 
 granted Miser, who was to have the children, one a 
 babe, and pay all the costs of court. The Judge, 
 Michael P. Didit, who by the way has since been 
 United States District Judge, a position that the law 
 declares a man shall hold during his life or good be 
 havior, was "dispensing with justice" that year in the 
 Superior Court of Douglas County. He was a coarse, 
 red-haired man, with small eyes, bloated flesh and dis 
 tended abdomen. He said that Jean had no cause of 
 complaint; that though taken when a mere child and 
 compelled to bear children until broken down in health; 
 though compelled to work hard, and live on a coarse 
 and scanty fare, deprived of the society of civilized 
 people, yet it was within the law; that according to 
 the law a man had a right to marry a child, even at the 
 age of twelve ; that the property belongs to the hus 
 band, even to the wife s wardrobe, and the money which 
 he got of the missionary for her land was given to him; 
 even her calico dresses, and the bed and fixtures that her 
 mother gave her were to be his ; and as for whipping, the 
 law gives the husband reasonable restraint over the wife, 
 in fact he may whip her to death, provided the death 
 don t take place within four days from the whipping. 
 The world is still grieving because Socrates had to 
 drink the poisonous draught, but we think twas right 
 for him to bow his head to the decree; for he helped 
 to make the laws of his country, and the law he had 
 helped to enforce against the meanest serf in the 
 country was good enough for him. Eat God only 
 knows how hard it was for Jean to be a law-abiding 
 citizen, and she protested against bending in meek 
 submission to laws she never helped to make. And espe 
 cially was it hard, after lying upon a bed of sickness 
 for months and months, occasioned by her ill-treat 
 ment, that took her down to the door of the grave 
 when pale and trembling she went to see her poor 
 children, and found them in dirt and filth and rags, 
 covered with vermin, their hair matted to their heads 
 
THE EIGHT-THOUSAND-DOLLAR BRIBE. 211 
 
 by ulcerated sores, to hear their piteous moans for their 
 mother. O, how she wished for power to crush the 
 unequal, man-made laws that thus cruelly trampled on 
 the necks of the innocent and helpless! From time to 
 time she had been to see them since, but could talk 
 with them only as a friend speaks with a friend in 
 prison, under the vigilant eye of a guard. Once she 
 went to see them and found them at a wretched hovel 
 in the midst of squalor and ignorance. The people 
 had instructions not to let her see them at all, and at 
 her approach had secreted them in a dark loft. The 
 coarse, ignorant women were determined that she 
 shouldn t see her children, but she appealed to the 
 man who was working near by, and succeeded not 
 only in gaining his consent, but melted him to tears at 
 the recital of her griefs. 
 
 The children were allowed to come out of their 
 gloomy hiding-place. They were overjoyel to meet 
 her, but were compelled to suppress their feelings for 
 fear of being punished. It was a cold, windy, November 
 day, and they were all only half -clad. Her little five- 
 year-old boy had on thin cotton clothes, with great 
 holes worn through at the knees and elbows, his 
 extremities were cold and his frail body chilled 
 through. Jean took him up to her bosom where he 
 nestled as in days of yore, and wept and sobbed as 
 though his little heart would break. Terrified, he told 
 her in whispers how they had taught him that she was 
 a bad woman, that she would steal him, and take him 
 away off and abuse and whip him. 
 
 "You wouldn t, mother, would you?" said the 
 child. 
 
 " No, my little darling, but they won t let you go 
 with me," said Jean. 
 
 Then they both wept together. O, how like break 
 ing her heart-strings it was to go away and leave her 
 children in such a place, and in such a condition as the 
 little boy was, covered from head to foot with the most 
 offensive cutaneous eruptions. "When she reached 
 
212 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 home she sat down and wrote their father a long, touch 
 ing letter, appealing to his better nature, begging him 
 to use some of his abundant means in the better care 
 of his children, and though they were still kept in 
 ignorance, and poorly clothed and fed, yet she never 
 found them in such destitution and filth as formerly; 
 though she was still prohibited to talk with them, as 
 will be seen by the following card, which appeared in 
 a paper over their father s signature: 
 
 " NOTICE. 
 
 "Mrs. , you are hereby notified to let my 
 
 children entirely alone. I warn you not to molest or 
 talk to them, or influence them through any other 
 person. The court gave me the exclusive control of 
 said children, and a bill from you. And I further give 
 notice to you to keep off my place and premises at your 
 paril. 0. MISER." 
 
OHAPTEE XXXV. 
 
 UNDER THE APPLE-TKEE BOUGH. 
 
 Four jears have passed quickly by. Jean has spent 
 them at the Willamette University; the vacations at 
 home with her family, friends and neighbors, with all 
 of whom she is a favorite. At school she has led in 
 every study that she has undertaken. She is a woman 
 at last. 
 
 Great God! was there ever such a childhood? The 
 wealth of love and admiration that she meets with 
 everywhere, she drinks in as eagerly as the parched 
 earth drinks up the refreshing shower. 
 
 It is vacation now, in August. The summer has 
 been finer than any Italy. To-day has been more than 
 glorious. Jean has been busy helping make pretty 
 linen lawns for her step-sisters, the handsomest girls 
 in the valley, Jean thinks, with their sunny curls, blue 
 eyes and pink-and-white complexions. They are 
 fifteen, eighteen and twenty years of age, now. 
 
 The house stands on the same site where their first 
 log-cabin was built. A commodious country frame, 
 with every modern improvement. The whole family 
 have been to supper in the spacious dining-room; the 
 windows are open, and the cool, refreshing sea-breeze 
 is gently toying with the mission rose-bush that stands 
 just outside the window, laden with its wealth of 
 bloom, wafting the delicious fragrance all through the 
 room. The early peaches are ripe, and peaches and 
 cream, with tea, is the charm that induces the family 
 to linger long at the table, until Alfred the adorable 
 Alfred, a young man now, just nineteen, who can hit 
 the mark every time says : 
 
 " Sis, if we re to bag our game to-night we must 
 
214 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 mount and be off; you look so lovely in your new rid 
 ing habit, I almost wish you were some other fellow s 
 sister." 
 
 "Ah, well, Alf," Jean replies with one of her be 
 witching smiles, as she pokes a long pin through her 
 hat to hold it securely, "I am well satisfied to be 
 yours, for you are tlie dearest brother a girl ever had." 
 
 They galloped along down the lane, over the hills 
 and through the heavy timber. They were a fine 
 couple; Jean on her spirited dapple-gray, and Alfred 
 on his fiery black steed, that took a masterful hand to 
 control. He was eagerly telling her how to take aim, 
 if they spied a deer. 
 
 " The deer come out to feed about this time of day," 
 said Alfred. 
 
 " It s nearly sundown," Jean said, "I should think; 
 it s getting dark. " 
 
 " Oh, no, Jean, its only the dense foliage of this tall 
 timber; at noon, some days, it s nearly as dark as 
 night." 
 
 " Hark! there are voices," said Jean. 
 
 " Yes," answered Alfred, softly, " it is Sis Waldovere 
 and her gentleman friend from San Francisco." 
 
 There was a sharp turn in the road, and while he was 
 yet speaking, two people bowed and rode on a few 
 
 Eaces. Sis Waldovere drew rein. " Oh, it s you, Al- 
 :ed, and your "sister Jean. It is really getting so 
 dark, and I was so busy talking, I did not recognize you. 
 I w^as going to send you word that we re all coming 
 over to see you to-morrow. " 
 
 " At what time?" asked Jean in her flute-like notes. 
 
 "Oh, sometime in the forenoon, about eleven o clock. 
 There are fifteen or twenty of us; look out for danger 
 ahead, Jean," and a little musical laugh went ringing 
 out and echoed back through the woods. 
 
 " A magnificent escort Sis Waldovere has to-night. 
 Strange, the best of them can t capture the enchanting 
 Sis." 
 
 " He was charming to look at through the bending 
 boughs of that old fir tree that nearly hid him from 
 
UNDER THE APPLE-TREE BOUGH. 215 
 
 my view," cried Jean in tones of something like rapt 
 ure, yet with a little touch of disappointment in them; 
 then with a hum: "The dim old forest, it s quite pro 
 voking. It was so near dark I could not see the man. 
 Sis was very much absorbed herself, I think, or she 
 would have seen us sooner." 
 
 "Never mind, my dear sister," said Alfred in most 
 pathetic tones, <c he will be with the horseback party 
 to-morrow." 
 
 They were cantering along and had come out into 
 the open field, where the sun, sure enough, was still 
 shining brightly. 
 
 Alfred, glancing at his sister, exclaimed: 
 
 * Why, Jean, I never saw you look so lovely. Tour 
 eyes are radiant and your lips are cherry red, and a 
 slight flush on cheek and brow that graceful pose 
 of your lovely neck is like a young fawn s. If I were 
 your lover, I would glide to the ground and swear it 
 was holy, and kneel there forever if you did not bid me 
 rise." 
 
 * Why, what a charming lover you would make. I 
 should never believe anyone else as I do you. I think 
 you half in earnest, but a most consummate flatterer. I 
 shall not listen. You will make me silly. No more non 
 sense; Alf, we must hurry home. You remember Sis s ring 
 ing laugh as she started? Well, that was a telegraphic 
 message understood by us girls. It means I must have 
 the house and the girls and everything in "apple-pie" 
 order to-morrow. I must have banks of roses and 
 bloom in every corner of the house, for people take 
 such liberties in an old country house, and they ll wan 
 der from garret to cellar. But we ll be ready for them. 
 You ll help me cut flowers in the morning while the 
 dew is on. Those lovely lawn gowns are nearly finished. 
 How glorious for the girls ! " 
 
 "Aha, Jean, Sis said to you, Look out, there is 
 danger ahead ! " 
 
 Next morning Jean and the Murdstone girls were up 
 with the larks. The plain, old farm-house was a para 
 dise of bloom; flowers, trailing vines, wild grasses, to- 
 
216 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 gether with the dark evergreens, made the place 
 enchanting, lovely as a bower, grand as some old 
 cathedral. Jean, in her simple way, had been culti 
 vating her decorative genius all those years in her 
 Umpqua home, and now she had given it free scope, 
 and it was easy for her to take a little insignificant 
 wild flower, and so arrange it with clustering vines and 
 waving grasses that it looked a thing of marvelous 
 beauty. At half past ten the girls were in their pretty 
 lawn gowns, looking from the chamber window for the 
 coming cavalcade of visitors. It was a pretty sight to 
 see so many young men and maidens riding horseback 
 down the long lane. At last, the girls, with rapture, 
 caught sight of them a half a mile away, galloping at 
 full speed. They had just time to clamber hastily 
 down the short flight of stairs, and, with one graceful 
 bound, meet the visitors at the gate a very pretty, 
 hospitable and comfortable custom in Oregon in those 
 days, and one that ought, by the way, to be preserved 
 by all coming generations in their country homes. The 
 reader will remember that Diogenes demanded this 
 hospitality of his friends, to be met half way. A few 
 of the party went cantering by, the ride being too ex 
 hilarating to dismount so soon, but a goodly number, 
 Sis Waldovere among them, were already in the house. 
 Some of the party rambled over the grounds and or 
 chard before entering the house. The introductions 
 took place at the gate. Sis Waldovere never forgot to 
 make everybody acquainted, and set the ball rolling 
 for merriment and laughter. There was always a good 
 time assured when Sis was of the party. 
 
 Jean was quite surprised to find that the gentleman 
 she had met riding with Sis Waldovere on the previous 
 evening, was Mr. Reming, the same gentleman who 
 had called at her home in the Umpqua, four years be 
 fore, with his frjend Mr. Stewart. The first words he 
 said to her now were: 
 
 " How like your home in the Umpqua! Your indi 
 vidualism expresses itself everywhere alike." 
 
Fean and Mr. Reminghad found their way to the old bellflower tree. 
 
UNDER THE APPLE-TREE BOUGH. 217 
 
 And Jean, with a Madonna-like sadness, repliedi 
 " How unlike my home in the Umpqua it all is to me." 
 
 " That I saw you there, surrounded with bloom and 
 wild vines, something like this, is all I remember/ 
 persisted Mr. Reming. 
 
 " That day will be ever bright in the constellation of 
 memories, Mr. Reming. How I have longed to see 
 you, and tell you what that day has been to me," quiet 
 ly responded Jean. 
 
 Mr. Reming and Sis Waldovere were Bta^nding near 
 a pot of wild roses, talking of the beauty of Its bloom, 
 when Jean entered, who had been detained telling 
 some of the party where they could find the blackbird s 
 nest, hid in a willow tree that grew on the banks of the 
 Spring branch, just below the orchard. The young 
 birds had abandoned it in the early spring, but the nest 
 remained with some blue-jay s eggs that Alfred had 
 deposited in it to fool the girls, who had gone every 
 day for a week now, to see if the old bird had com 
 menced to hatch her brood. 
 
 Jean and Mr. Reming had found their way to the 
 old bellflower tree, whose boughs bent so low under 
 their heavy load of mellow apples that they had to be 
 propped to support the great weight of the golden fruit. 
 Taking one from the bough, Jean handed it to Mr. 
 Reming. 
 
 He took it, saying: "I will eat this apple, since it s 
 been held in your fair hand. * He pared oft its golden 
 coat, letting it fall at his feet, and splitting the apple in 
 two, asked Jean to share it with him. 
 
 "Yes, gladly," answered Jean, "this is my favorite 
 apple." 
 
 " Do you know if I should ask a woman to share my 
 life with me, I should want her to answer me just as 
 you have now, about the apple. I should want her to 
 say, Yes, gladly!" 
 
 Jean, looking down at her pretty shoe plowing ita 
 way into the mellow earth, answering, said; 
 
218 * THE HEROINE 
 
 "No doubt she would, if she loved you as I love," 
 hesitating a moment, "this apple." 
 
 Reining was bending lower to catch the sound of her 
 last word, and looking disappointed, replied: 
 
 " My soul was breathlessly waiting to hear * you 
 instead of apple, but to-morrow we will probe thia 
 question of lave and apples still deeper, and you will 
 not say apples then? " 
 
 "No," slid from her lips, as easily and naturally aa 
 breathing. 
 
 Here Sis Waldovere joined them, and they were all 
 moving toward the gate. 
 
 Bright glances and sparkling wit had simmered down 
 into cool reasoning over what the entertainment for to 
 morrow should be, when Sis Waldovere, the adjuster of 
 all differences, proposed they all drive to the Silver 
 Creek Falls. The road was over a delightful country. 
 Everyone was pleased, and Mr. Reming asked Jean to 
 accompany him. The fishing at the Falls for silver 
 trout was enticing, and sure to make the day one of 
 pleasure to them all. The party having enjoyed the 
 ripe, golden apples, picked by fair hands from the 
 heavily laden boughs, and played games of ball with 
 the big red apples, they all assured Jean and the 
 Murdstone girls, they had enjoyed the morning to the 
 full, and mounting their horses, cantered back to the 
 Waldoveres to partake of dinner. 
 
 Mr. Waldovere often entertained twenty or thirty 
 guests at dinner. His house was the center of attrac 
 tion for years in Oregon, and right royally he could en 
 tertain. 
 
 When the merry party thronged in, he melted all 
 over in a beaming smile, and with a few cheerful re 
 marks showed them the way to the broad dining-room. 
 The dinner-table was a blaze of beauty. The exquisite 
 perfume of the flowers that ornamented the table so 
 profusely, mingled with the aroma of the fine baked 
 chicken nestling in a fringe of parsley. A finely-baked 
 silver trout floated in a platter of melted, creamy but- 
 
UNDER THE APPLE-TREE BOUGH. 219 
 
 ter ; snowy bread and delicious cake threw their incense 
 over the heads of the joyous company, and big rosy 
 apples beamed on the guests as they beamed on each 
 other. The sparkling conversation and brilliant sallies 
 made the occasion ever memorable to the young people, 
 and old Mr. Waldovere even in after years spoke of 
 it with a merry twinkle in his benevolent eye, and with 
 gentle caresses would say to his daughter : 
 
 "Well, Sis, it makes me think I m a boy again to 
 think of that day when Reming came, and you had all 
 been over to see our Jean." 
 
 As soon as the guests had all gone, Jean threw her 
 self into a big arm-chair and dreamed the delicious 
 dream of love, and at night when she sought her couch 
 the dream only grew sweeter. The morning dawned 
 upon Jean with bewitching beauty, and so did Mr. 
 Reming with a lovely span of dapple grays. Jean met 
 him at the gate, ready for the ride. She stepped into the 
 buggy and was clasped in the arms that were to enfold 
 her forever. They enjoyed the day as few days were 
 ever enjoyed by mortals on earth. Reming told Jean 
 how he had been detained by his mining interests in 
 California for the last two years; that he had heard from 
 her through his friend Mr. Stewart, and knew she was 
 awaiting his coming. 
 
 She told him that the dream of his possible coming 
 had made a twilight for her during the midnight dark 
 ness of her deep affliction. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 JEAN STUDYING MEDICINE. 
 
 Jean was a woman now, fully equipped for the high 
 est enjoyments of conjugal love. Their engagement 
 was announced to the party as soon as they all assem 
 bled at the falls, and the hearty congratulations they 
 received from their merry companions all enhanced 
 the pleasure of the hour. Joy seemed to pervade the 
 whole atmosphere, as the white spray did the air about 
 the falls. 
 
 Jean and Mr. Reming were happily married in the 
 fall, and the wedding present that she prized more 
 perhaps than any other was a library containing most 
 of the standard authors, from her husband. The ten 
 der companionship of the man she loved, the refined 
 and polished gentleman that ever anticipated her wants, 
 made life so much more to her than it could have been 
 if her soul had not been made so tender and acutely 
 sensitive by the crushing experiences of the past. 
 Though a baby boy, so promising and bright, was fol 
 lowed in seasonable time, by a little girl, the fair-haired 
 Dot, that the reader will remember having been men 
 tioned in the opening chapter yet the deep, longing 
 mother love for her babies in the woods drove the 
 mother-heart to some deeds of daring that were rather 
 unusual for a woman. She determined to write a story, 
 and this required some preparation to fit herself for so 
 arduous an undertaking ; she must, at least, master 
 some of the sciences, especially that of medicine. 
 
 At that date, in 68, a woman had never been per 
 mitted to enter the sacred precincts of a medical col 
 lege on the Pacific Coast, and it was possible that they 
 
JEAN STUDYING MEDICINE. 221 
 
 would not be admitted for many years to come. Here 
 was an obstacle that must be met and overcome. Jean 
 and Mr. Reming had many friends in the Willamette 
 University, and as that institution had just added a de 
 partment of medicine to its curriculum, Jean and her 
 husband interviewed a few of the trustees and pro 
 fessors noble-souled men, who said she should enter 
 as a student if she so desired. They, with their big, 
 common-sense, Pacific Coast brains, said they did not 
 know why women should not learn medicine as well as 
 their a b c s. 
 
 Everything being arranged, it was announced by 
 one of the professors in a daily paper that a woman 
 had applied for admittance into the medical college 
 and been admitted. Everybody was on the tiptoe of 
 curiosity as to who she could be and where she was to 
 come from. At the opening of the term, everybody 
 was charmed and delighted, and thought it the most 
 appropriate thing in the world, when the door was 
 opened and our dauntless Jean passed in and took the 
 place of preference that had been assigned her, just in 
 front of the professor, who was already discoursing 
 upon anatomy ; and the young students, half shame 
 faced and apologetical, took the earliest opportunity to 
 assure her that they had not the remotest idea that it 
 could be she, or they never should have passed a reso 
 lution attempting to exclude her from their class. 
 Jean passed the entire term in the society of the pro 
 fessors and young gentlemen students, no other woman 
 entering the hall the whole term, so much prejudice 
 existed in the outside circles against women studying 
 medicine. Jean, however, was too much absorbed in 
 her studies to observe this, or even miss them. She 
 never lost a day, and scarcely an hour, and the profes 
 sors remarked that she was more punctual in attend 
 ance than any man among them. There was never a 
 word uttered, either, by professor or student, during 
 the whole term, that might not with perfect propriety 
 have been spoken in any parlor in Christendom, and 
 
222 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 the students declared that they had made more rapid 
 progress with their studies this year than ever before, 
 because they had wasted no time in the usual larks and 
 story-telling common to medical students. They seemed 
 supremely satisfied with themselves, and never wanted 
 to be in a medical college again without a woman 
 student in it; and their wish has been gratified, as 
 women have been in attendance every term since. No 
 band of brothers could have been more courteous, 
 considerate or helpful, than this band of students were 
 during the three years that Jean was in attendance at 
 the college. After spending three years in the Willa 
 mette University, Jean went to New York and had the 
 benefit of attending the hospitals and lectures, and was 
 graduated with honors in 72 from the Women s Med 
 ical College. 
 
 Jean, having spent many years on the Pacific Coast, 
 and traveled over thousands of miles of the richest and 
 most productive soil, that only needed the magic touch 
 of the husbandman to make it yield everything neces 
 sary to the growth and sustenance of a densely popu 
 lated country, and seeing it wholly uninhabited save 
 by wild Indians and herds of buffalo, it only required 
 a visit to the overcrowded cities of the East to see at 
 once the necessity of making the people understand 
 that they could make homes in the far West, and be 
 infinitely happier and better surrounded than they 
 could ever hope to be in the eastern states. 
 
 It is the legitimate business of a true physician to 
 feel the needs of the people and seek to benefit them. 
 In spending the winter of 1872 in New York City 
 completing her medical studies, Jean was brought into 
 immediate contact with many of the poor, living in 
 tenement houses, as well as in the hospitals; and it did 
 not take a very comprehensive mind to see how much 
 better off those people would be were they scattered 
 over the broad country of the Pacific Coast. Jean had 
 a millionaire brother-in-law, Mr. Barron, in whose 
 home she was surrounded with all the privileges and 
 
JEAN STUDYING MEDICINE. 223 
 
 advantages of wealth, and from this home and social 
 standpoint she saw much of the elegance and culture, 
 refinement and splendor of jtfew York s wealth. 
 
 Poor old Horace Greeley s " Go West, young man, 
 go West," was ringing out upon the ears of an awak 
 ening people, who are just now beginning to put his 
 idea into practice. Grant was at the zenith of his 
 glory; Sumner was the great statesman in the United 
 States Senate; Roscoe Conkling, the leading politician 
 of the Republican party; Wm. H. Yanderbilt, the 
 towering millionaire and railroad king, was just then 
 beginning to grasp the control of his lather s colossal 
 fortune, young, strong, manly, clear-headed, with 
 honest purpose to do right. 
 
 It was Jean s extreme good fortune to meet those 
 gentlemen quite often during her stay in New York, 
 and at the capitol. One Sunday morning, when Henry 
 Ward Beecher was addressing a large concourse of 
 people in the Academy of Music in New York city, 
 there being no space in the vast auditorium, Jean 
 was, along with others, compelled to stand on 
 the platform and listen to the smooth, flowing 
 eloquence of the speaker, charmed with the 
 voice and gesture of the great man, but woefully 
 disappointed in the matter of his discourse. He was 
 graphically portraying the homes of the American peo 
 ple. Perhaps no person upon whose ear the voice of 
 the great man fell that day, was more strongly moved 
 to act upon what he had left unsaid, than the little wo 
 man from far beyond the Rockies. He did not speak 
 of the Pacific Coast, nor the grand possibilities of this 
 vast and then almost unknown territory. Afterward, 
 Jean had occasion to speak to him about this sermon 
 delivered at the Academy of Music in New York, to 
 more people, it seemed to her, than lived on the Pacific 
 Coast at that time. She told him the music of his 
 voice, the poetry of his gestures, the magnetism of his 
 mighty genius were all lost on her because he left out 
 our whole country that portion, she told him, that 
 
224 THE HEROINE OF 40. 
 
 was to be the balance of power of the civilized world, 
 and ho did not mention it. 
 
 "I know it is great; I feel its coming power, but," 
 said he, " that is your province; tell the people of 
 it. I cannot, I never saw it; but in God s good time, I 
 will. I can feel the beauty, the vastness of its plains, 
 the grandeur of its mountains, the goodness of its soil, 
 just by looking at you. Come to my house and tell me 
 all about it." 
 
 " Ah! if 1 had your oratory, your audience," she 
 eaid. 
 
 " I am like a canary bird, caged," said Mr. Beecher. 
 
 "You look to me more like a lion," was Jean s 
 laughing rejoinder. 
 
 "Use a pen and the press, madame, said he, "and 
 your audience will be millions, where mine are only 
 thousands." 
 
 Imbued with a strong purpose, bowing low, she said, 
 "I will write for the people." That afternoon, before 
 her indignation had cooled, she wrote a paper on the 
 chances for home-building on the Pacific coast. And 
 one of the first lines was, "What a pity our forefathers 
 had not planted their feet on Pacific soil instead of on 
 Plymouth Rock." She contrasted our climate with 
 theirs on the bleak Atlantic side, and told them they 
 would never have to put earth on the sunny side of a 
 rock to grow a hill of corn, as they do in New Hamp 
 shire and Vermont, if they lived in California. As the 
 paper was quite lengthy, she rolled it up and tied it 
 about with a blue ribbon, 45 " and walked from 227 Lex 
 ington avenue to the new railroad depot, and was ush 
 ered into the presence of the great railroad king, Wm. 
 H.Vanderbilt. At eleven o clock on Sunday, Jean was 
 listening to the discourse on homes; before eleven 
 o clock on Monday morning she was reading an argu 
 ment to Wm. II. Yanderbilt that clinched his convic 
 tions that the fare on the one line of cars then crossing 
 the continent was much too high, and must be reduced. 
 
 * The great temperance cause had not then made it an emblem. 
 
JEAN STUDYING MEDICINE 225 
 
 " If one hundred people pay two hundred and fifty 
 dollars apiece, the income into the company s treasury 
 will not be so large a sum as one thousand people car 
 ried for one hundred dollars apiece. Also, the increase 
 of freight is an immense item, when the increase of 
 travel is considered. The railroad company must see 
 the great advantage if the question is fairly brought 
 before them, Mr. Vanderbilt." 
 
 " I will see to that," said he. " Will you take this 
 article to Mr. Greeley, tell him you read it to me, and 
 that I want it published in the Ne.w York Tribune? 
 It is the best article ever written for our railroads, 
 Madam. Where have you lived all this time, that I 
 never heard of you before ? " 
 
 " I was born in this state, sir, but have lived nearly 
 all my life on the Pacific Coast, and am thoroughly 
 conversant with the country, its immense possibilities, 
 its pressing needs. What we want is people. It takes 
 people to build cities, towns, and develop new 
 countries." 
 
 "I know it," said he, "and I have been trying to 
 get railroad men to reduce the fare to the Pacific Coast, 
 but heretofore they would not listen. I will give you 
 the names of four leading railroad men. You see them 
 and talk to them as you have to me. They will read 
 this in the Tribune, and at our next meeting of the 
 directors in two weeks, I will do all I can to have the 
 fare reduced one half to the Pacific Coast, and," added 
 he, with a complacent smile, "I think I have some 
 influence with railroad men." 
 
 The great railroad magnate, evidently not being 
 willing to ask favors without conferring greater, took 
 a small card a pass to the Pacific Coast and writing 
 her name and his own upon it, handed it to her, 
 saying: 
 
 " Madam, as long as you wish it, you shall travel 
 free on any railroad or steamer line while you write 
 such articles as that." 
 
226 THE HEROINE OF 40. 
 
 Jean being unsophisticated in railroad passes, and 
 thinking she was not ready to go, handed the card 
 back. By the pleased and puzzled smile upon his 
 countenance, it must have been a new experience, and 
 he returned the card to her, remarking: 
 
 " You had better keep it." 
 
 Jean glanced at it with new interest, and found it to 
 be good for a year. 
 
 Jean saw Mr. Greeley; he looked at the paper and 
 said: " Madam, you re a writer; this shall be published, 
 and we should be pleased to secure you as a correspond 
 ent from the Pacific Coast for the Tribune. 1 The fare 
 was reduced at the next directors meeting, one-third, 
 not one-half, as the mighty railroad magnate said it 
 should be. However, they were greatly rejoiced at 
 that reduction, as people soon began to come in much 
 larger numbers, and the increase in travel was great in 
 proportion; being now, according to railroad statistics, 
 not less than 150,000 yearly. 
 
 There never was a time in the history of a nation 
 when the permanent prosperity of a people seeking 
 new homes was so secure as on the Pacific Coast at the 
 present time. The railroad facilities are something 
 prodigious, there being at present networks of railroads 
 spanning the country, hither and thither, every promi 
 nent point boasting of its railroad center. 
 
 This gives the home-seeker a chance to see the ad 
 vantage of all points. He can build him a home by 
 the sea, or perch on a mountain-top, nestle in a valley 
 or spread himself all over a vast plain if he has money 
 enough. He can find a snug little spot shut in and sur 
 rounded by lofty mountains, or buy a ranch and stake 
 out a town, sell lots and build himself a city according 
 to his own liking. This has been done inside of a year; 
 but if one cares only for building himself a home, he 
 can see the whole country * thousands of miles, in a 
 month s time, of the choicest land under the sun, with 
 the best climate in the world, and in another mouth s 
 time he can build him a residence in the latest style, 
 
JEAN STUDYING MEDICINE. 221 
 
 with every modern improvement. He can find in this 
 country some of the best architectural designs to choose 
 from that his purse or good taste may dictate, and in 
 six months, green lawns, and flowers that bloom the 
 year round, with rare tropical plants, will beautify the 
 grounds; and in a short time his happiness and suc 
 cess will permeate every letter he writes home until 
 not a long time will elapse when he will have all his 
 best friends and neighbors around him, enjoying the 
 delightful sensation of living in a new world of his own 
 making. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 INTERVIEWING MR. GREELEY. 
 
 When Jean called at the Union Square League 
 Rooms, she sent her card in to the editor of the 
 New York Tribune. On it was written: "Jean Kern 
 ing, Salem, Oregon," with "Pacific Coast" in the 
 corner, to insure her being properly placed in the 
 world. 
 
 The great man, who was a few days after nominated 
 for the presidency on the Democratic ticket, soon strode 
 into the gorgeous apartment that Jean had been 
 ushered into when the young man assured her Mr. 
 Greeley was in, and would see her soon. Jean was 
 reveling in the beauty of the building; the wealth and 
 grandeur of its furniture, carpets, draperies, pictures, 
 statuary, everything was engrossing her attention, when 
 the great man entered, walking like one absorbed in 
 thought. His manner was refined, graceful, self- 
 possessed, with an air of amiable serenity, characteris 
 tic of great men ; but there was a pink fiush upon his 
 face that spoke to the little woman of science, too much 
 nervous excitement for healthy conditions; otherwise, 
 a remarkably well-preserved man of ripe years. He 
 was well dressed, but plain, quiet, and scrupulously 
 neat, there being nothing conspicuous about his dress, 
 excepting that his huge feet were incased in a rather 
 coarse, broad shoe that looked out of place in such a 
 place as the Union Square League Rooms, but would, 
 our Jean thought, be a perfection of comfort and appro 
 priateness in a corn-field. He bowed, looking at Jean s 
 card, and pointed to a seat near him while seating 
 himself. Then the questions opened fire and the sparks 
 
INTERVIEWING MR. GREELEY. 229 
 
 flew on both sides. Jean had no favors to ask, no fears 
 to control. Two freer or more untrammeled brains 
 never met to discuss the living issues of the day. The 
 great philosopher said he was pleased to meet a woman 
 so well versed on the questions of such interest to the 
 people and so conversant with the Pacific Coast. But 
 when she said, "what a pity, Mr. Greeley, our fore 
 fathers had not planted their feet on Pacific soil instead 
 of on Plymouth Rock;" then a battle of words ensued, 
 and Mr. Greeley rose and walked the floor and put his 
 fingers through his thin locks. " Warm climates 
 make people lazy and indolent, like the people down 
 South," said he. " Is the South anything compared 
 to the North? This country would never have been 
 anything had it not been for the severe climate that 
 drove men to work like heroes to save them from us 
 inclemency. It is the making of the world that it is 
 compelled to struggle." 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Greeley, you can tell that to these people, 
 but not to me, who have lived on the Pacific Coast, 
 and know where a people can work the whole year 
 round, never stopping for frost or snow, or blizzards, 
 and where the trees and grain and vegetables grow 
 the whole year round, that the opportunities are bet 
 ter for the welfare of the people and for growing 
 rich than where they are interrupted so often. Was 
 there ever another spot on the earth where people 
 have progressed as rapidly as on the Pacific Coast? 
 Was there ever a city built so thoroughly, rapidly and 
 magnificently as San Francisco ? The climate evi 
 dently is not warm enough to make the people indolent 
 there, Mr. Greeley." 
 
 "Yes, but it was the gold mines that built San 
 Francisco." 
 
 " No matter what helped to build it, Mr. Greeley, 
 it stands as a monument of Pacific Coast pluck, en 
 ergy and ability, and didn t it take pluck and ener 
 gy to dig the gold from the mines, Mr. Greeley? 
 They grow from fifty to sixty bushels of wheat to 
 
230 THE HEROINE OF 40. 
 
 the acre. Doesn t that require some energy? I see 
 that our white wheat brings the highest market price 
 in London and New York. Doesn t it take some 
 ability to do that? 
 
 "Are you sure," asked Mr. Greeley, "that your 
 figures are correct about growing fifty or sixty bushels 
 of wheat to the acre?" 
 
 "Yes," answered Jean, "I have measured it with 
 my own hands, and sold it for five dollars a bushel in 
 51 and 52, and under such circumstances, I would be 
 likely to know." 
 
 Mr. Greeley remarked: "You re a writer, madam; 
 we want you as correspondent from the Pacific Coast, 
 giving us accounts of its products, climate, soil and 
 its possibilities for home-making." 
 
 Jean accepted the proposition, and was duly installed 
 as correspondent from the Pacific Coast to the New 
 York Tribune. 
 
 Jean then told him about her interview with Wm. 
 H. Vanderbilt, and that he had promised to reduce 
 the fare from New York to San Francisco. Greely 
 replied that he was glad, as the fare had been abso 
 lutely exorbitant from the first. 
 
 "I should think that if you had used your influence 
 toward getting the rates reduced, it would have been 
 a greater inducement for the people to go West than 
 your advice to go West." 
 
 Mr. Greely, with a quizzical smile, asked: " Why 
 don t 3 7 ou aak me if I m in favor of woman s suffrage? 
 All the other women do. You are working like a 
 man, and accomplishing your work. You are getting 
 enough support from us men to carry your points, and 
 you haven t said anything about woman s rights, 
 either. You have brought the biggest questions 
 that ever a women asked me to aid her in, and I have 
 promised the support of the Tribune, before you ask 
 for it, and will not go back on my word." 
 
 "Yes, but, Mr. Greeley, I have asked the support 
 of Mr. W. H. Vanderbilt, and ask yours now, in get- 
 
INTERVIEWING MR. GREELEY. "231 
 
 ting a land law passed, giving women a right to take 
 up government land for homesteads the same as men, 
 and I want the Tribune to give the question the strong 
 est support that it can." 
 
 " Have you read the Almanac ? " inquired Mr. 
 Greeley. 
 
 "Read the Almanac?" queried Jean. "What 
 could the Almanac do toward inducing the govern 
 ment to pass a land law for women ? " and she looked 
 with her scientific eye into the face of the philosopher, 
 thinking his political aspirations had turned his head 
 a little. Then in a high key almost akin to a whine, 
 he said: 
 
 " My Almanac; I have published the land laws in it, 
 and if you have not read it, you get one and read it." 
 
 " Oh, yes, since you ve mentioned it, I remember to 
 have read it thoroughly, and it stirred my temper to 
 think the government would give all the land to its 
 men and none to its women." 
 
 And Mr. Greeley said: 
 
 " Of course, it s a great injustice." 
 
 Jean Reming said she thought she had influence 
 enough to go to Washington and get the bill passed. 
 That Mr. Vanderbilt had promised to write to Senator 
 Conkling, who was at that time perhaps the most in 
 fluential man in the Senate. 
 
 Mr. Greely then said he had been invited to talk to 
 the State Agricultural Society, in Cooper Institute, 
 two weeks from that time, and if she would prepare 
 a paper on the Pacific Coast, and consent to come and 
 read it, he would be glad to introduce her. Jean could 
 not promise until she had consulted some of her friends. 
 Her ambitious friends decided, however, that it was an 
 opportunity she could not afford to decline, and she 
 wrote Mr. Greeley she would be prepared. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 INTRODUCED BY MR. GREELEY TO THE AGRICULTURAL 
 SOCIETY, COOPER INSTITUTE, NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 At the appointed time, after listening to the thrilling 
 eloquence and stirring truths of what Mr. Greeley knew 
 about agriculture and the welfare of the people, Jean 
 Kerning, with her paper in hand, was introduced to the 
 audience. 
 
 Mr. Greeley had made the remark, in his speech, that 
 if any man told them that they could go to the Pacific 
 Coast and raise stock during winter, without food or 
 shelter, that they could say to the man " You lie." 
 
 The first words that Jean uttered were: 
 
 " I am glad that Mr. Greeley has left a chance for a 
 woman to say that she has lived on the Pacific Coast 
 for twenty years, her family having been stock raisers, 
 and that the cattle had been fat and sleek all winter 
 with no other shelter than the broad-spreading forests 
 afford, and no other food than the wild luxuriant 
 grasses." 
 
 The audience here applauded to the echo, proving 
 that they believed what was being told them. 
 
 Jean had clipped a few items from the army reports 
 of the old Indian fighter, General Harney, where he 
 said they had gone into camp late in November, with 
 their horses thin and tired out, and turned them all 
 out on the wild grasses, and they were rolling-fat in the 
 spring, ready for marching. Then she read quite a 
 lengthy paper about crossing the plains and the gran 
 deur of the Pacific coast. This is the paper : 
 
 " Having come east this fall to complete my medical 
 studies, while in attendance at the colleges and hos- 
 
INTRODUCED BY MR. GREELEY. 233 
 
 pitals, mingling with the people, I necessarily come 
 in contact with the two extremes of labor and cap 
 ital, poverty and wealth. The ignorance of the 
 people in reference to our glorious country, and their 
 eagerness to become acquainted with it, are equally 
 remarkable. They know something of California, but 
 Oregon and "Washington are mythlands they never 
 heard of though when it comes to Pugget Sound, 
 as they call it, they can enlighten me, especially the 
 railroad men. I find the people eager, anxious and 
 hungry for information, and am importuned on all 
 sides, particularly by women. After living so long 
 in the Pacific wilds, I am alike anxious to get a peep 
 into the mysteries of your great city and feel its throb 
 bing pulse. I have visited the factories and workshops 
 where thousands of unmarried women are employed. 
 I must wear about me a Pacific Coast air, for wher 
 ever I go women seem to instinctively recognize me 
 as coming from the Pacific Coast. Their questions 
 are so many and varied, that in private conversation to 
 answer them all, would be a greater task than I care 
 to undertake, even for the sake of my much-loved sec 
 tion and the enlightenment of my fellow- women, for 
 whom I feel willing to make any reasonable sacrifice. 
 So I consented to accept an invitation from the Hon. 
 Horace Greeley, who is a candidate for the Presidency, 
 to meet Mm and you in Cooper Institute, and in a brief 
 address give you a few facts in regard to our country 
 and some of its capabilities, the hardships that the 
 pioneers endured, with the present easy facilities for 
 making the trip across the plains. Now we can ride 
 in palace cars, on cushioned seats, and be whirled 
 across the continent in the incredibly short space of 
 seven days. 
 
 " Years ago, before the Union Pacific was thought of, 
 the stalwart, sturdy men of the West the bravest, 
 grandest men that ever did a noble act huddled their 
 women and children into ox-wagons, taking with them 
 bread, beans and bacon for a six months trip. The 
 
234 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 starting-point for these pioneers was on the banks of 
 the Missouri river, opposite St. Joseph. Here they 
 organized into companies of two or three hundred, for 
 mutual protection against the hostilities of the Indians 
 through whose almost unexplored territories they had 
 to pass. At this point of the Missouri river they bade 
 farewell to their homes, government, friends and civi 
 lization, and moved on with slow and steady march to 
 the goal of their destination the glorious sunset land 
 bordering on the Pacific Coast. The land of towering 
 mountains, big trees and delightful valleys, where the 
 flowers bloom every month in the year; where the 
 sleek cattle feed all the year round, without thought 
 of shelter other than the broad-spreading forests af 
 ford. Here they came and took possession of the 
 virgin soil and inherited it; they and their sons and 
 their daughters, under the flag, forever. They were 
 as dead to the friends left behind, who had scarce a 
 faint hope of ever hearing of them again alive. And 
 should they be murdered by the Indians it would be 
 only by the merest chance they would ever hear of it. 
 Mothers folded their little ones to their breasts and 
 silently offered a prayer to that God who led Moses 
 through the wilderness to the promised land. Men, 
 with a sharp crack of their bull-whips, cried in a loud, 
 clear tone: Whoah, haw ! whoah, haw ! to the mute 
 brutes by their sides, to prove to each other, and their 
 own hearts, too, that they were as unfaltering as their 
 voices. 
 
 " These journeys were usually commenced about the 
 first of April, and if no serious delay occurred, ended 
 about the last of October or late in November; but 
 now and then a belated party was overtaken by the 
 deep snows in the mountains, and of course, all per 
 ished. 
 
 " These were trips to try men s souls, and, under the 
 most favorable circumstances, glorious for developing 
 pluck in a fellow. Woe! to the poor craven who 
 started without a good supply. He might as well 
 
INTRODUCED BY MR. GREELEY. 285 
 
 have forgotten his bacon and beans or his bowie-knife. 
 There were mountains to climb where team after team 
 of oxen must be doubled to pull up one wagon. There 
 were huge points of rock to be clambered round, over 
 which men joined hands and literally carried the 
 wagons. There were steep mountain sides to go down, 
 where the wagons were lowered by ropes; there were 
 wild, roaring, rapid rivers to be crossed, with wagon 
 beds corked tight for boats. There were bridges to 
 build, forests to fell to make passes through mountain 
 gorges. There were midnight vigils to keep, standing 
 guard, for the Indiana to shoot or scalp you just as they 
 chose. Vast herds of wild buffalo came thundering 
 over the plains with their thick short horns and shaggy 
 manes, and their tails raised high in air just as you 
 have seen them in the pictures. They must be warded 
 off from making a charge right through their ranks 
 and stampeding the cattle. There were matinees and 
 evening concerts given free of charge by prowling 
 wolves, whose faintest howl would send the soul of a 
 coward shivering to his boots. There were marches 
 to be made, over sands too hot for man or beast under 
 the scorching rays of a noon-day sun, and so must be 
 made in the cool of the evening and through the long 
 night. 
 
 " I well remember one of these long marches. Some 
 times they lasted for days without water, except that 
 we carried with us in casks. My father crossed the 
 plains twenty years in advance of the Union Pacific 
 Railroad, and he vowed that for the accommodation of 
 his wife and little ones, he would stick to the family 
 carriage and his tried and trusty horses until the 
 Indians stole them. On this occasion, when the men 
 were worn out with fatigue and loss of sleep, several 
 of them sickened and could hold out no longer, and 
 here the women came to the rescue. I was, at that 
 time, a mere child. The reins of the old family car 
 riage were, with its precious freight, intrusted to my 
 care. I had held the reins and guided them with 
 
236 * THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 safety over difficult places, in the day-time, but to take 
 charge of them at night, lighted save by a dim star 
 light over a trackless road, all untried for a year, re 
 quired a piece of masterly skill that I would have 
 gladly resigned to some masculine hand. Father said: 
 Courage, my child, as he handed me the reins, the 
 horses know your voice, and will obey your lightest 
 touch. They ll keep the road. Hold a tight rein 
 when you go down a steep place that s all. The men 
 are awfully sick, and I am afraid one poor fellow will 
 die before morning. 
 
 "I did hold a tight rein and trusted in God and the 
 horses, and must have had a little faith in my own 
 puny strength, by the way I braced my feet and pulled 
 back as we went down the steep places. 
 
 "I remember, too, how the encouraging words of our 
 brave captain cheered us as he rode back and forth 
 along the lines, and how eagerly the almost famished 
 cattle would have rushed headlong down the mountain 
 side, when they came in sight of the winding river that 
 lay in the dim distance below. Thus we traveled on, 
 constantly meeting new dangers and surmounting new 
 difficulties, though on the way we crossed rolling 
 prairies where the sweet grasses grew luxuriantly. I 
 gathered the pretty wild Sowers and twined them in 
 wreaths for my hair as I saw the Indian maidens do. 
 We were beguiled by the song of birds, fragrance of 
 fair flowers, the balmy air, and the clear, cool waters 
 of the pebbly brooks; and such a sky ! with its many- . 
 tinted fleecy clouds. We were many times compelled 
 to acknowledge that this was more like paradise than 
 anything we had hoped to find on earth, and yet we 
 could not tarry long to enjoy these scenes, for this was 
 the hunting-ground of many valiant Indian tribes who 
 were at that time untainted by civilization, or we could 
 never have passed through their country unmolested, 
 killing their game; and leaving destruction in our wake. 
 For our hunters, with unerring aim, took pride in bring 
 ing down their game: the buffalo, the monarch of the 
 
INTRODUCED BY MR. GREELEY. 237 
 
 plain; the fleet-footed deer, the bright-eyed antelope, 
 sage hen and squirrel, nor sometimes, I fear, left un 
 harmed the sociable and amiable little prairie-dog. 
 
 "My mother, a woman of forty, and I, a mere child, 
 would often sit down to rest, philosophize and feast on 
 the beauties around us. We would select building 
 sites just where we would like to live all our days if 
 there were only people enough to take possession and 
 hold it. People enough to take possession and hold it 
 Ay! there s the rub/ JSTow, Mr. Greeley says, the 
 people won t go and live in isolated homes. He has 
 been telling them to go West all along, but they won t 
 do it. They want to be pent up and crowded in these 
 great cities. A finer truth he never spoke. People do 
 want to be crowded. I own I want to be crowded a 
 little myself. I have had too much elbow-room all my 
 life on the Pacific Coast. What we need is people to 
 come in crowds, in flocks, like birds migrating. What 
 could one man do all alone on a sand-bar in the middle 
 of the Pacific Ocean? What success would Mr. 
 Greeley have with his printing-press out West a hun 
 dred miles from everybody else. What could he have 
 done right here on Manhattan Island two hundred 
 years ago. It takes people to build cities and develop 
 the resources of a country. I am a native of New 
 York State, but the Pacific Coast is the land of my 
 adoption. I love it for its just and equal laws, for its 
 recognition of the claims of women. Men cannot help 
 but be brave and gallant and just, who breathe such 
 pure air and look upon such grand and sublime scenery! 
 I know what a fine thing it is for women to own land in 
 their own right. I was one of those fortunate women 
 who held three hundred and twenty acres of land under 
 the donation act of 1851. I have seen the good effects of 
 that law among my countrywomen. I have seen reck 
 less husbands squandering in bad speculations all their 
 acres, broken and disheartened with their misfortunes, 
 move right over to the wife s half section, which was 
 sacred from the rude touch of the sheriff, and com- 
 
238 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 mence life anew in the cultivation of the soil, feeling 
 that-somehow it was right after all that the old bird 
 should be mistress of her own nest. 
 
 ^ " One of the faults of the donation act was that it 
 did not extend over a long-enough term of years. Such 
 a law in all the territories to-day would open up the 
 millions of wild acres faster than railroads, and the land 
 wouldn t all fall into the hands of greedy corporations. 
 The act expired, I think, in 1858, just about the time 
 people began to find out there was such a law. If 
 there is anything really obscure on earth, that does 
 not shed one ray of light on the people, it is some of 
 the enactments of Congress. I believe we were more 
 hopeful then of the country s rapid settlement than we 
 are to-day. And again, by the telegraph wire we 
 heard the sound of the last stroke that connected the 
 East, with its toiling millions, with the mighty West. 
 Our heart-beats quickened as we thought of the beau 
 tiful homes, thriving villages and growing cities that 
 would spring up, before the smoke of the wigwam 
 scarcely died; and after waiting and wondering why 
 the people did not come, we consoled ourselves by 
 thinking our land was so delightful it was like that 
 other * bourne from whence no traveler returns a 
 land of gold, sunshine and showers; where the brave 
 free spirits are; where the green sward of the fields 
 and the groves afford a soft carpet for our feet; where 
 flowers spring up as thick as the stars of heaven, all 
 bespangled with the heavy dews of evening; where 
 the big red apples grow; where the rich, mellow 
 earth yields its sixty or seventy-five bushels of wheat 
 to the acre, and where, if our eastern farmers 
 could be transplanted, they would think they 
 were in the Garden of Eden; where the moun 
 tains climb higher, with their eternal snow eaks 
 nearer the throne of Him who spoke them into 
 being. Our rivers are deeper, swifter and clearer, 
 and afford us purer and colder water to drink, fresh 
 from the snowy mountains, than any in the world, to 
 
INTRODUCED BY MR. GREELEY. 239 
 
 say nothing of the innumerable springs that bubble up 
 at intervals all over the land. Were there ever finer 
 facilities offered for farms? There is room enough in 
 the valleys of the Willamette, Sacramento and San 
 Joaquin to supply a million people with better facilities 
 for living than the same space east of the Rocky Moun 
 tains. Our rivers afford such excellent mill privileges; 
 and then our inexhaustible forests of fir, pine and 
 cedar, oak, ash and maple. Why, the staunchest ships 
 that sail the seas will yet be built from the timber of 
 these forests. Ships that will sail in and out of our 
 peaceful harbors laden with the wealth of the world. 
 And such a climate ! with the rolling hills, the undu 
 lating valleys, the cool nights, the bracing air, and pure 
 water, the very sanitarium of the nation. It can never 
 be unhealthful there! And only to think how the poor 
 farmers down-east have to work enriching and recu 
 perating their exhausted soil with gypsum, and bring 
 ing whole ship-loads of guano from the islands of the 
 Pacific, and building stone fencing round stony farms, 
 making room on the little patches here and there to 
 grow a meager subsistence. Why, I have heard them 
 tell of putting earth on the sunny side of a rock to grow 
 a hill of corn! In our county they would have notbing 
 to do but to plow the ground, sow the seed, and reap 
 the golden harvest. I have taken up the dear earth in 
 my hand and examined it, to see if it was really just 
 such soil as grew the brightest flowers at home in my 
 corner of the garden. 
 
 "I have laid my heart on the bosom of old mother 
 earth and wept like a tired child on its mother s breast; 
 not because I had conquered it, and there were no 
 more conquests to make, as Alexander did; but because 
 the ground was lying idle there that should yield such 
 harvests to the people, and they crowded here in the 
 great cities, starving to death, slowly starving, yet none 
 the less surely, while hundreds of thousands of acres of 
 arable land are only waiting to be tilled by the hus 
 bandman, to yield the richest reward. 
 
240 THE HEROINE OF 49. 
 
 "In the name of humanity why don t Congress donate 
 these lands to the half- fed millions toiling in the great 
 cities for barely bread enough to keep their souls in 
 their bodies, and make an appropriation, if necessary, 
 to assist these miserable poor in getting on to these 
 lands ! As a question of economy, is it not cheaper to 
 place men and women on a firm basis where they can 
 make their own living, than to keep them crowded 
 together, overworked and half-starved until out of 
 sheer desperation they commit some crime and then 
 shut them up to punish them. 
 
 " Some one has said : It costs more to catch one 
 thief, convict and thoroughly punish him than to feed 
 twenty honest men. 1 
 
 " Society and the churches are doing a noble work in 
 gathering up the poor little unfortunates, building 
 immense charity-homes, educating and trying to save 
 them from the evil influences that are forever contami 
 nating the good there is in the innocence of childhood, 
 saving them out of the miry cesspools of our great 
 cities; and yet this loving charity is not deep enough 
 to quite reach the case as our innumerable prison-pens 
 do testify. The wise Channing has said : 
 
 There is a duty higher than to build alms-houses 
 for the poor, and that is to save men from being de 
 graded te the blighting influence of an alms-house. 
 And the way to save men is to give them plenty of room 
 on God s broad earth. If a hundred and sixty acres 
 won t allure them, give them three hundred and twenty. 
 That will redeem, elevate, ennoble and save them from 
 gaunt misery and disease, from moral turpitude, and 
 crimes more horrible to endure than death itself. Why 
 should human beings be pent up in these large cities, 
 like cattle in a pen, fed on husks, when there is plenty 
 in their father s household and they know it? "We 
 boast of our charities while we are stealing all the rose 
 ate glow of health from the cheeks of youth and 
 beauty, crushing out all the energies of ambitious youth 
 and prostrating the towering strength of manhood. 
 
INTRODUCED BY MR. GR1ELE1T. 
 
 Many a brave and noble fellow has escaped this fate 
 by going West; but alas ! he has had to bear the heart 
 ache of a life all alone. Many a sweet, pure girl, with 
 the silvery threads creeping into her once golden-brown 
 curls, is sighing and saying, Ah me! he is gone. And 
 if ever those waiting, longing, loving souls should meet 
 the brave fellows beyond the Bocky Mountains, will not 
 the hill-tops and valleys resound to the heart-throbbing 
 raptures of love ? I do not believe that God ever in 
 tended that so many men should live on the Pacific 
 Coast without wives, and so many women here without 
 husbands. The men want wives to share with them 
 the wealth and grandeur and happiness that is in store 
 there for all who work for it." 
 
 Thus Jean closed her speech, and if the sea of up 
 turned faces were eager before, they were clamorous 
 now. Where they asked one question before, they 
 asked a hundred now, and for one invitation to lecture 
 she now received fifty. Their attention was awakened 
 and their inquisitiveness aroused; and letters came pour 
 ing in by the hundreds. Jean sent the letters all off to 
 the Oregon Legislature then in session. The question 
 of immigration came up after her return, and a bill was 
 introduced to encourage it. By a unanimous vote, Jean 
 Eeming was elected Immigration Commissioner, with a 
 small salary. These letters attracted the attention of 
 the business men, who saw the necessity of organizing 
 immigration bureaus. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 
 
 Before Jean s return to California, she went to Wash 
 ington, interviewed President Grant, Senators Conk- 
 ling, Sunmer, and a perfect constellation of brilliant 
 minds that were assembled at that time in the Senate 
 of the United States. And in five days time she had 
 the following land bill for women, before it was 
 revised or amended, drawn up and introduced by 
 Senator Kelly of Oregon, and had been invited 
 by the Senate Committee on Public Lands to come 
 before it and make her claim. She afterward learned 
 that she was the first woman ever invited to speak 
 before one of the congressional committees. The 
 speech must have been somewhat thrilling and pathetic, 
 as when she had finished there was not a dry eye among 
 the senators, and a tear glistened on her own lids. 
 However, she was successful, and the bill was reported 
 favorably to the Senate. 
 
 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, MAT 4, 1872. 
 
 Mr. Pomeroy, from the committee on Public Lands, 
 reported the following bill which was read the first and 
 second times and recommitted to the committee on 
 Public Lands. 
 
 A bill, supplementary to an act entitled "An act to 
 secure homesteads to actual settlers on the public domain." 
 
 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Represent 
 atives of the United States of America in Congress as 
 sembled, that every woman, whether married or single, 
 now residing in the State of Oregon, or in any one of 
 the territories of the United States, or who shall, here 
 after become such resident and who is and shall be- 
 
JfN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 243 
 
 come a citizeu of the United States, shall, upon 
 complying with the provisions of this act, or the act to 
 which it is supplementary, be entitled to a tract of 
 land, not exceeding one quarter-section, of one hun 
 dred and sixty acres of the public lands, subject to pre 
 emption or private entry in such state or territory in 
 which she may reside. 
 
 SEC. 2. That in order to entitle any woman mentioned 
 in the preceding section to such tract of land, she shall 
 reside upon and cultivate the same for four consecu 
 tive years, or, in lieu of such residence and cultivation, 
 she shall reside two years in the state or territory in 
 which the land is situate, and make, or cause to be 
 made, improvements on such tract of the value of two 
 hundred dollars, by erecting buildings and fences, or 
 by clearing and cultivating the same. Instead of ac 
 quiring title to such land in either of the modes herein 
 before prescribed, she may do so by paying to the re 
 ceiver of the proper land-office the sum of one dollar 
 for each acre of such tract of land, after becoming a 
 resident of said state or territory in which the land is 
 situate. 
 
 SEC. 3. That any woman, desirous of acquiring a title 
 to land, under the provisions of this act, may, at any 
 time after she becomes a resident of said state, or of 
 either of said territories, make application in writing to 
 the register of the land-office in the district where the 
 lands are situate, setting forth the manner in which she 
 proposes to acquire title to the same, and specifying the 
 particular legal subdivision of land which she claims; 
 and she shall also state in her application that the said 
 land is for her exclusive use and benefit, and not, either 
 directly or indirectly, for the benefit of any other per 
 son or persons whomsoever, and such application shall 
 be verified by her oath or affirmation. Upon proving to 
 the satisfaction of the register and the receiver of the 
 .proper land-office, by two credible and disinterested wit 
 nesses, and also by the affidavit of the claimant, that 
 she has complied with the requirements of this act, so 
 far as residence and cultivation, or residence and im- 
 
214 THE HEROINE OP 49. 
 
 provements, are concerned, or upon the payment to 
 the receiver of one dollar per acre for such land, she 
 shall be entitled to a patent certificate from the register 
 and the receiver for the tract of land specified in her 
 application; and if the same shall be approved by the 
 Commissioner of the General Land Office, she shall be 
 entitled to a patent, in her own right, for such tract of 
 land. And if she be a married woman such land shall 
 not be liable to be sold upon execution, or in any way 
 disposed of to pay the debts or liabilities of her 
 husband. 
 
 SEC. 4. That in case of the death of any woman who 
 shall have filed her application, and commenced pro 
 ceedings to obtain a title to a tract of land as herein 
 before provided, before she shall have complied with 
 the requirements of this act, all her rights shall descend 
 to her heirs at law, unless she shall otherwise dispose 
 of the same by will, executed according to the laws of 
 the state or territory where she resided; and proof of 
 residence and cultivation upon the land, up to the time 
 of her death, shall be sufficient to entitle them to a 
 patent for the same. But if the decedent shall not 
 have made, or caused to be made, the improvements, 
 or paid the money herein required, it shall be lawful 
 for such heirs or devisees, or the executor or adminis 
 trator of the estate of such decedent, to make the 
 improvements or pay the money to the receiver as 
 specified in this act; and thereupon such heirs or 
 devisees shall be entitled to a patent certificate for the 
 tract of land. 
 
 SEC. 5. That if, at any time after filing her applica 
 tion as required by this act, any woman entitled to the 
 benefits of this law shall cease to reside upon and 
 cultivate the land claimed by her for the period of six 
 months at any one time, she shall forfeit all her right 
 to the same, and such land shall revert to the United 
 States; or if any such woman shall fail to make the 
 improvements herein required upon the land claimed in 
 her application, or pay the money for such land for 
 the period of one year after filing the same, then all 
 
IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 245 
 
 her rights to the same shall become forfeited and the 
 land revert to the United States. 
 
 SEC. 6. That no woman shall be permitted to acquire 
 title to more than one quarter-section of land under 
 the provisions of this act; and the commissioner of the 
 General Land Office is hereby required to prepare 
 and issue such rules and regulations, consistent with 
 this act, as shall be necessary and proper to carry its 
 provisions into effect; and where not otherwise pro 
 vided in this act, he shall be governed by the provisions 
 of the act to which this is supplementary, so far as the 
 same are applicable. 
 
 While Jean was at the capitol, a funny little incident, 
 that has never yet been in print, occurred in consequence 
 of Jean s not understanding the full force of our demo 
 cratic-republicanism. She supposed that greatness 
 would demand some pomp and ceremony, even in free 
 America. Something of hero-worship, or servitude of 
 kingcraft, or something of that kind, must have taken 
 possession of her mind, as she was fully imbued with the 
 idea that to insure an introduction to the president some 
 senator must introduce her. She accordingly selected 
 Senator Gonkling as the most fitting person perhaps in 
 the whole senate for so arduous an undertaking, since 
 she had had a letter of introduction to Senator Conkling 
 that Mr. Vanderbilt had promised to send her, and 
 had already had a moment s conference with the great 
 senator. It happened that day that Jean had prepared 
 her toilet with extraordinary care. It was the morning 
 when Conkling was fighting the meanness of some small 
 men who were opposed to giving government land to 
 maimed soldiers. His words were hurled like an ava 
 lanche, burying his opponents under the debris of his 
 contempt, forever out of sight, or any fear that their 
 little vote would damage anybody ever again; certainly 
 not the brave defenders of our glorious country who 
 had lost an arm or a leg in defense of our homes. 
 
 Jean was carried away with his eloquence, and when 
 his speech was ended, she sent him her card by the 
 page, not knowing that he had to give his entire at- 
 
246 THE HEROIISfE OF 49. 
 
 tention to the intrigue of his opponents; supposing 
 when his speech was ended there was nothing else to 
 do, and he could now turn his whole ability to intro 
 ducing her to the President of the United States. It 
 was the greatest occasion of her life; she was over 
 whelmed with enthusiasm, listening to the glowing 
 words of the man fighting for the rights of his fellow- 
 men; she would espouse the cause of her sisters, and 
 fight as courageously and well. 
 
 When Jean sent her card, the page entered a mild 
 protest, saying the senator was very much engaged. 
 Jean insisted, and the page very quietly laid the card 
 on the senator s desk. Conkling took no notice; he 
 was looking a thunderbolt across at a senator who was 
 inquiring how a man with only one arm or leg could 
 cultivate the soil? Jean was disheartened; she won 
 dered if such creatures would pop up in the Senate- 
 chamber and ask if it was possible for women to chop 
 down trees or plow a field? She was becoming restless, 
 and wanted to see the noble Grant. She was sure he 
 would indorse the land law for women. She sent on 
 another card and another; it fluttered to the floor. 
 Conkling caught the name as the page replaced it on 
 the desk; he listened to the boy, who told him where 
 the lady sat waiting. She had a position behind a cur 
 tain where, unobserved, she could survey the whole 
 floor of the Senate-chamber, and hear every word that 
 was said. The senator came furiously across the floor, 
 saving: "Madam, don t you see I am fighting this 
 bill through? I will work for you when the time 
 comes." 
 
 " Yes, senator," said Jean, as frightened as she had 
 ever been at a wild Indian on the Umpqua; adding, " I 
 wish you would write your name on my card introduc 
 ing me to the president." 
 
 "Md introduce you to the president!" he said, with 
 fire flashing from his eyes, "lam ten times as big a 
 man as the president ever was." 
 
 This electrified Jean; she had no more toadyism to 
 greatness. In an hour s time she was chatting away 
 
IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE. 247 
 
 with the president as familiarly as any old farmer. 
 She told him what Conkling had said. 
 
 He laughed heartily, saying: "Did he say that?" 
 He was not stung by it a particle, only good-naturedly 
 amused. 
 
 This is history. Grant told Jean to say to any 
 senator that required that much encouragement that he 
 would not veto the bill, granting women land. He called 
 his editor, introducing Jean; requested him to see that 
 every courtesy was extended to Mrs. Reming personally, 
 and the land law especially. " I am in favor of the 
 land law and also in favor of better wages for women," 
 he said, and to confirm it, he told a little incident that 
 happened to him. " When I was a young man in the 
 army, stationed at Vancouver, Oregon, with a hundred 
 dollars a month salary from the government, one day, 
 our servant, Kitty Ma honey, came to me asking to have 
 her wages raised. Yes, how much more wages do you 
 want Kitty, said I. Hesitating a moment, she said, 
 Well, sure, Patrick O Finnigan, that made so much 
 money in the mines, told me he would give me fifty 
 dollars a month, as I am a good cook, you know, but 
 I d rather stay with you I don t like to leave Mrs. 
 Grant and the childer. Oh, well, Kitty, that ismoro 
 than I can pay you, you go right to Mr. Finnigan, and 
 I ll help Mrs. Grant do the work myself. The girl 
 went, and we were without a servant during the rest of 
 our stay at Vancouver. 1 Then President Grant took a 
 piece of paper, saying: "The greatest objection to 
 women s taking up public lands, is the isolation that it 
 will subject them to, but that can be overcome . . 
 
 in this way," marking out a section thus, 
 
 the dots indicating where the cabins might stand for 
 mutual protection and society. "Show this to any 
 objecting senator, and say that I drew the diagram for 
 you," he said. " I will do anything in my power to as 
 sist you in securing the land law for women;" adding: 
 " As this is your first visit to the capitol, perhaps you 
 would like to see the conservatory, where there are 
 several new plants," and calling a man, he requested 
 
248 THE HEKOiNE OF 49, 
 
 him to show Jean through the grounds. The plants 
 looked meager, and somewhat dwarfed, compared with 
 the wild grandeur of the trees and flowers of the Pacific 
 Coast, though they were the pride of the capital, and 
 thousands of dollars had been spent on their culti 
 vation. 
 
 After spending a few weeks at the capital, Jean 
 returned home to the bosom of her family, who were 
 as rejoiced to meet her as though she had been a man, 
 away improving her mind in research and travel, and 
 working for the public good. The Miser children 
 declare no law ever divorced them from their mother. 
 Time obliterates grief as well as joy, and thus we leave 
 Jean and Mr. Kerning as happy a pair as ever were 
 mated, surrounded by their merry, promising children, 
 enjoying the blessings of their California home. 
 
 Our next volume will give a full account of the chief 
 characters in the story, excepting those who have gone 
 to the other side and left us no direction. 
 
 THE END. 
 
14 DAY USE 
 
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 is due on me !< *- - , 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 
 ontneaaieiu w 
 Renewed books are subject toimmediaterecall. 
 
 REC D LD 
 
 SI? 2 01957 
 
 LD 21-100m-6, 56 
 (B9311slO)476 
 
 General Library . 
 University of California 
 Berkeley 
 
M294158 
 
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