Log School-House on the Columbia

Hezekiah Butterworth

Description

A year or more ago one of the librarians in charge of the young people's books in the Boston Public Library called my attention to the fact that there were few books of popular information in regard to the pioneers of the great Northwest. The librarian suggested that I should write a story that would give a view of the heroic lives of the pioneers of Oregon and Washington.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 23 octobre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819901143
• Langue: English

Extrait

PREFACE.
A year or more ago one of the librarians in chargeof the young people's books in the Boston Public Library called myattention to the fact that there were few books of popularinformation in regard to the pioneers of the great Northwest. Thelibrarian suggested that I should write a story that would give aview of the heroic lives of the pioneers of Oregon andWashington.
Soon after this interview I met a distinguishededucator who had lately returned from the Columbia River, who toldme the legend of the old chief who died of grief in the grave ofhis son, somewhat in the manner described in this volume. Thelegend had those incidental qualities that haunt a susceptibleimagination, and it was told to me in such a dramatic way that Icould not put it out of my mind.
A few weeks after hearing this haunting legend Iwent over the Rocky Mountains by the Canadian Pacific Railway, andvisited the Columbia River and the scenes associated with theIndian story. I met in Washington, Yesler, Denney, and Hon. ElwoodEvans, the historian; visited the daughter of Seattle, the chief,"Old Angeline"; and gathered original stories in regard to thepioneers of the Puget Sound country from many sources. In thisatmosphere the legend grew upon me, and the outgrowth of it is thisvolume, which, amid a busy life of editorial and other work, hasforced itself upon my experience. H.B. 28 WORCESTER STREET, BOSTON,July 4, 1890
CHAPTER I.
GRETCHEN'S VIOLIN.
An elderly woman and a German girl were walkingalong the old Indian trail that led from the northern mountains tothe Columbia River. The river was at this time commonly called theOregon, as in Bryant's poem: "Where rolls the Oregon, And no soundis heard save its own dashings."
The girl had a light figure, a fair, open face, anda high forehead with width in the region of ideality, and shecarried under her arm a long black case in which was a violin. Thewoman had lived in one of the valleys of the Oregon for severalyears, but the German girl had recently arrived in one of thecolonies that had lately come to the territory under the missionaryagency of the Rev. Jason Lee.
There came a break in the tall, cool pines thatlined the trail and that covered the path with glimmering shadows.Through the opening the high summits of Mount St. Helens glitteredlike a city of pearl, far, far away in the clear, bright air. Thegirl's blue eyes opened wide, and her feet stumbled. "There, thereyou go again down in the hollow! Haven't you any eyes? I wouldthink you had by the looks of them. Well, Gretchen, they wereplaced right in the front of your head so as to look forward; theywould have been put in the top of your head if it had been meantthat you should look up to the sky in that way. What is it yousee?" "Oh, mother, I wish I was – an author." "An author! What putthat into your simple head? You meant to say you would like to be apoet, but you didn't dare to, because you know I don't approve ofsuch things. People who get such flighty ideas into their looseminds always find the world full of hollows. No, Gretchen, I amwilling you should play on the violin, though some of the Methodydo not approve of that; and that you should finger the musicalglasses in the evening – they have a religious sound and soothe me,like; but the reading of poetry and novels I never did countenance,except Methody hymns and the 'Fool of Quality,' and as for thewriting of poetry, it is a Boston notion and an ornary habit.Nature is all full of poetry out here, and what this country needsis pioneers, not poets."
There came into view another opening among the pinesas the two went on. The sun was ascending a cloudless sky, and faraway in the cerulean arch of glimmering splendors the crystal peaksand domes of St. Helens appeared again.
The girl stopped. "What now?" said the woman,testily. "Look – yonder!" "Look yonder – what for? That's nothingbut a mountain, a great waste of land all piled up to the sky, andcovered with a lot of ice and snow. I don't see what they were madefor, any way – just to make people go round, I suppose, so that theworld will not be too easy for them." "Oh, mother, I do not see howyou can feel so out here! I never dreamed of anything sobeautiful!" "Feel so out here! What do you mean? Haven't I alwaysbeen good to you? Didn't I give you a good home in Lynn after yourfather and mother died? Wasn't I a mother to you? Didn't I nurseyou through the fever? Didn't I send for you to come way out herewith the immigrants, and did you ever find a better friend in theworld than I have been to you?" "Yes, mother, but – " "And don't Ilet you play the violin, which the Methody elder didn't muchapprove of?" "Yes, mother, you have always been good to me, and Ilove you more than anybody else on earth."
There swept into view a wild valley of giant trees,and rose clear above it, a scene of overwhelming magnificence. "Oh,mother, I can hardly look at it – isn't it splendid? It makes mefeel like crying."
The practical, resolute woman was about to say,"Well, look the other way then," but she checked the rude words.The girl had told her that she loved her more than any one else inthe world, and the confession had touched her heart. "Well,Gretchen, that mountain used to make me feel so sometimes when Ifirst came out here. I always thought that the mountains would look peakeder than they do. I didn't think that they would takeup so much of the land. I suppose that they are all well enough intheir way, but a pioneer woman has no time for sentiments, excepthymns. I don't feel like you now, and I don't think that I everdid. I couldn't learn to play the violin and the musical glasses ifI were to try, and I am sure that I should never go out into thewoodshed to try to rhyme sun with fun ; no, Gretchen,all such follies as these I should shun . What differencedoes it make whether a word rhymes with one word or another?"
To the eye of the poetic and musical German girl thedead volcano, with its green base and frozen rivers and dark,glimmering lines of carbon, seemed like a fairy tale, a celestialvision, an ascent to some city of crystal and pearl in the sky. Toher foster mother the stupendous scene was merely a worthlesswaste, as to Wordsworth's unspiritual wanderer: "A primrose by theriver's brim, A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothingmore."
She was secretly pleased at Gretchen's wonder andsurprise at the new country, but somehow she felt it her duty totalk querulously, and to check the flow of the girl's emotions,which she did much to excite. Her own life had been socircumscribed and hard that the day seemed to be too bright to bespeaking the truth. She peered into the sky for a cloud, but therewas none, on this dazzling Oregon morning. The trail now opened fora long way before the eyes of the travelers. Far ahead gleamed thepellucid waters of the Columbia, or Oregon. Half-way between themand the broad, rolling river a dark, tall figure appeared."Gretchen?" "What, mother?" "Gretchen, look! There goes the Yankeeschoolmaster. Came way out here over the mountains to teach thepeople of the wilderness, and all for nothing, too. That shows thatpeople have souls – some people have. Walk right along beside me,proper-like. You needn't ever tell any one that I ain't your truemother. If I ain't ashamed of you, you needn't be ashamed of me. Iwish that you were my own girl, now that you have said that youlove me more than anybody else in the world. That remark kind o'touched me. I know that I sometimes talk hard, but I mean well, andI have to tell you the plain truth so as to do my duty by you, andthen I won't have anything to reflect upon. "Just look at him!Straight as an arrow! They say that his folks are rich. Come outhere way over the mountains, and is just going to teach school in alog school-house – all made of logs and sods and mud-plaster, adobethey call it – a graduate of Harvard College, too."
A long, dark object appeared in the trees coveredwith bark and moss. Behind these trees was a waterfall, over whichhung the crowns of pines. The sunlight sifted through the odorouscanopy, and fell upon the strange, dark object that lay across thebranching limbs of two ancient trees.
Gretchen stopped again. "Mother, what is that?" "Agrave – an Indian grave."
The Indians bury their dead in the trees out here,or used to do so. A brown hawk arose from the mossy coffin andwinged its way wildly into the sunny heights of the air. It hadmade its nest on the covering of the body. These new scenes wereall very strange to the young German girl.
The trail was bordered with young ferns; wildviolets lay in beds of purple along the running streams, and themountain phlox with its kindling buds carpeted the shelving waysunder the murmuring pines. The woman and girl came at last to awild, open space; before them rolled the Oregon, beyond itstretched a great treeless plain, and over it towered a giganticmountain, in whose crown, like a jewel, shone a resplendentglacier.
Just before them, on the bluffs of the river, underthree gigantic evergreens, each of which was more than two hundredfeet high, stood an odd structure of logs and sods, which thebuilders called the Sod School-house. It was not a sod school-housein the sense in which the term has been applied to more recentstructures in the treeless prairie districts of certain mid-oceanStates; it was rudely framed of pine, and was furnished with a pinedesk and benches.
Along the river lay a plateau full of flowers,birds, and butterflies, and over the great river and floweringplain the clear air glimmered. Like some sun-god's abode in theshadow of ages, St. Helens still lifted her silver tents in the farsky. Eagles and mountain birds wheeled, shrieking joyously, hereand there. Below the bluffs the silent salmon-fishers awaited theirprey, and down the river with paddles apeak drifted the bark canoesof Cayuses and Umatillas.
A group of children were gathered about the opendoor of the new