XVIIFATHER AND DAUGHTER
Jean passed out silently into the night, and pausing a moment, looked up to the silent stars, and whispered: “‘The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth His handywork.’”
How long she stood meditating she never realized. The tethered cow lowed again,—a plaintive, beseeching wail, that seemed almost human. She was mourning for her slain calf, poor thing,—a calf left by the roadside at its birth. It had been mercifully killed by Captain Ranger’s order, that it might escape the hardships of a sure but lingering death in following its ill-fated mother.
The cow’s udder was distended and feverish. Jean, as mindful of the practical affairs of life as of its mysteries, knelt upon the ground, and, with the skill of much practice in the art of milking, relieved the poor bereft mother of her pain.
“Poor Flossie!” she said, as the patient animal drew a sigh of relief. “Poor Flossie! It seemed cruel to deprive you of your baby. And they did it, too, before your very eyes! You must be thirsty, Flossie; you’re so feverish,” she said, as she brought the grateful animal a pail of clear, cold water.
Jean crept shivering into bed between her sleeping sisters, where she tried in vain to lie awake, to live over again the vivid experiences of her dream.
“Was it a dream?” she asked herself as she cuddled close among the blankets. “Who knows what dreams are, anyhow? And is there anybody on the earth who can understand, define, or fathom the mystery of sleep?” In a few minutes she was fast asleep, and when she awoke it was morning.
“There are, there must be, other senses finer and more acute than our five physical ones,” she thought, as she crept from her bed, refreshed and wide awake.
The stars had paled, and the clear gray of the early dawn lit up the crests of the abounding hills.
The simple preparations for the funeral rites were made in silence. Men and women moved mechanically about the camp. The very cattle seemed to understand.
No casket was procurable, but every man in camp was ready to do all in his power to supply the need. Junipers of goodly size abounded in the neighboring woods. From two of these, felled for the purpose, thick puncheons were hewn to form a crude but stanch enclosure for the good woman’s final home. A grave was made, with hard labor, in the abounding sandstone, and the women lined its vault and edges with flattened boughs of evergreen, thus making an ideal resting-place for the still, white form, as beautiful in death as it had been in youth.
There was no prayer or sermon. The simple rites were about to close when Mary whispered to her father: “I have heard mother say she wanted us all to sing when they should be laying her away.” And the three eldest daughters of the peaceful dead and the storm-rent living sang with tremulous but not unmusical tones:—
“Oh, heaven is nearer than mortals think,When they look with trembling dreadAt the misty future that stretches onFrom the silent home of the dead.“’Tis no lone isle in a boundless main;No brilliant but distant shore,Where the loving ones who are called awayMust go to return no more.“No, heaven is near us; the mighty veilOf mortality blinds the eye,That we see not the glorious angel bands,On the shores of eternity.“I know, when the silver cord is loosed,When the veil is rent away,Not long and dark shall the passage beTo the realms of endless day.”
“Oh, heaven is nearer than mortals think,When they look with trembling dreadAt the misty future that stretches onFrom the silent home of the dead.“’Tis no lone isle in a boundless main;No brilliant but distant shore,Where the loving ones who are called awayMust go to return no more.“No, heaven is near us; the mighty veilOf mortality blinds the eye,That we see not the glorious angel bands,On the shores of eternity.“I know, when the silver cord is loosed,When the veil is rent away,Not long and dark shall the passage beTo the realms of endless day.”
“Oh, heaven is nearer than mortals think,When they look with trembling dreadAt the misty future that stretches onFrom the silent home of the dead.
“Oh, heaven is nearer than mortals think,
When they look with trembling dread
At the misty future that stretches on
From the silent home of the dead.
“’Tis no lone isle in a boundless main;No brilliant but distant shore,Where the loving ones who are called awayMust go to return no more.
“’Tis no lone isle in a boundless main;
No brilliant but distant shore,
Where the loving ones who are called away
Must go to return no more.
“No, heaven is near us; the mighty veilOf mortality blinds the eye,That we see not the glorious angel bands,On the shores of eternity.
“No, heaven is near us; the mighty veil
Of mortality blinds the eye,
That we see not the glorious angel bands,
On the shores of eternity.
“I know, when the silver cord is loosed,When the veil is rent away,Not long and dark shall the passage beTo the realms of endless day.”
“I know, when the silver cord is loosed,
When the veil is rent away,
Not long and dark shall the passage be
To the realms of endless day.”
John Ranger looked upward with bared brow and streaming eyes, and in his heart a flickering hope was born.
The Reverend Thomas Rogers, with all his fervent eloquence and well grounded belief in the very orthodox scheme of salvation which he had so constantly preached, had never shaken his doubts as did the plaintive promises of that simple, impressive hymn.
His devoted wife, strong in her faith in the efficacy of prayer, had long ceased to speak to him of her religious convictions, for which his ready logic and quaint ridicule suggested no answer. At such times, consoling herself with the command of her Master, she would enter into her closet, shut the door, and pray for him and their children in secret, with never a doubt that sometime, someway, her prayers would be answered openly. And who shall say that her faith was not at last rewarded, in a way she least expected, through that plaintive song, through which, being dead, she had yet spoken?
After the burial, the remainder of the day was spent in the silent performance of the many accumulated duties of the camp. There was no time for the luxury of grief. The women and girls washed, ironed, cooked, did the dishes, mended wearing apparel, sewed up rents in wagon-covers and tents, and gathered heaps of wild flowers, with which they adorned the fresh mound of earth that none of them expected ever to see again.
The men were not idle. A broken ox-yoke needed mending. Wagon-tires were reset. Such heavy articles as could be dispensed with were discarded.
Jamie’s cradle, for which Mrs. Ranger had begged aplace in their effects, and her grandmother’s spinning-wheel, which she had stored in one of the wagons, were among the articles ordered to be thrown away.
“Your mother will not miss them now,” said Captain Ranger, huskily.
“It is a shame to disregard our dear mother’s wishes, now that she cannot speak for herself,” said Mary, in a whisper, aside to Jean.
“I know it; and I’ve already made a bargain with Mrs. McAlpin to store them in one of her wagons. Daddie will thank us for it sometime.”
Sadly and silently the work went on; for the living had to be cared for, and nothing more could be done for the dead.
When evening came Jean sought her journal, climbed to the rim of the little natural amphitheatre overlooking the sparkling spring of icy water near her mother’s last resting-place, and read in the last space she had left blank, in her father’s bold chirography, some lines of a poem which he had quoted from memory:—
“’Twas midnight, and he sat alone,The husband of the dead.That day the dark dust had been thrownAbove her buried head.“Her orphaned children round him slept,But in their sleep would moan;In bitterness of soul he wept.He was alone—alone.“The world is full of life and light,But, ah, no light for me!My little world, once warm and bright,Is cheerless as the sea.“Where is her sweet and kindly face?Where is her cordial tone?I gaze upon her resting-placeAnd feel that I’m alone.“The lovely wife, maternal care,The self-denying zeal,The smile of hope that chased despair,And promised future weal;“The clean, bright hearth, nice table spread,The charm o’er all things thrown,The sweetness in whate’er she said,—All gone! I am alone.“I slept last night, and then I dreamed;Perchance her spirit woke;A soft light o’er my pillow gleamed,A voice in music spoke:“‘Forgot, forgiven, all neglect,Thy love recalled, alone;The babes I loved, O love, protect,I still am all thine own.’”
“’Twas midnight, and he sat alone,The husband of the dead.That day the dark dust had been thrownAbove her buried head.“Her orphaned children round him slept,But in their sleep would moan;In bitterness of soul he wept.He was alone—alone.“The world is full of life and light,But, ah, no light for me!My little world, once warm and bright,Is cheerless as the sea.“Where is her sweet and kindly face?Where is her cordial tone?I gaze upon her resting-placeAnd feel that I’m alone.“The lovely wife, maternal care,The self-denying zeal,The smile of hope that chased despair,And promised future weal;“The clean, bright hearth, nice table spread,The charm o’er all things thrown,The sweetness in whate’er she said,—All gone! I am alone.“I slept last night, and then I dreamed;Perchance her spirit woke;A soft light o’er my pillow gleamed,A voice in music spoke:“‘Forgot, forgiven, all neglect,Thy love recalled, alone;The babes I loved, O love, protect,I still am all thine own.’”
“’Twas midnight, and he sat alone,The husband of the dead.That day the dark dust had been thrownAbove her buried head.
“’Twas midnight, and he sat alone,
The husband of the dead.
That day the dark dust had been thrown
Above her buried head.
“Her orphaned children round him slept,But in their sleep would moan;In bitterness of soul he wept.He was alone—alone.
“Her orphaned children round him slept,
But in their sleep would moan;
In bitterness of soul he wept.
He was alone—alone.
“The world is full of life and light,But, ah, no light for me!My little world, once warm and bright,Is cheerless as the sea.
“The world is full of life and light,
But, ah, no light for me!
My little world, once warm and bright,
Is cheerless as the sea.
“Where is her sweet and kindly face?Where is her cordial tone?I gaze upon her resting-placeAnd feel that I’m alone.
“Where is her sweet and kindly face?
Where is her cordial tone?
I gaze upon her resting-place
And feel that I’m alone.
“The lovely wife, maternal care,The self-denying zeal,The smile of hope that chased despair,And promised future weal;
“The lovely wife, maternal care,
The self-denying zeal,
The smile of hope that chased despair,
And promised future weal;
“The clean, bright hearth, nice table spread,The charm o’er all things thrown,The sweetness in whate’er she said,—All gone! I am alone.
“The clean, bright hearth, nice table spread,
The charm o’er all things thrown,
The sweetness in whate’er she said,—
All gone! I am alone.
“I slept last night, and then I dreamed;Perchance her spirit woke;A soft light o’er my pillow gleamed,A voice in music spoke:
“I slept last night, and then I dreamed;
Perchance her spirit woke;
A soft light o’er my pillow gleamed,
A voice in music spoke:
“‘Forgot, forgiven, all neglect,Thy love recalled, alone;The babes I loved, O love, protect,I still am all thine own.’”
“‘Forgot, forgiven, all neglect,
Thy love recalled, alone;
The babes I loved, O love, protect,
I still am all thine own.’”
“Dear bereaved and sorrowing daddie!” sighed Jean, as she closed the book. “I cannot write a word to-night. Sacred to him and his be the page on which he has inscribed these echoes of his heart. But let nobody say, after this, that daddie has no sentiment in his make-up. The trouble is that he is too busy a man to give rein to his feelings, except under extraordinary pressure. I wish he hadn’t tried to throw away those heirlooms of mother’s, though. The oxen wouldn’t have felt the difference in the load. It was an act that he’ll be ashamed of some day.”
Weeks after, when the memory-hallowed relics came to light, Captain Ranger bowed his head upon his hands and gave way to such a convulsion of grief as had not shaken him, even at the time of her transition. Jean had good cause to recall the stanzas he had inscribed to her mother’s memory in her battered journal, as she said to herself: “I knew all the time that daddie’s heart was right. It is only necessary to touch it in the proper place to show that it is tender.” Once more she closed the book without having written a word.
But we must not anticipate.
On the 22d of June another entry is recorded,—Jean’s last memorandum of their journey in the Black Hills: “The prickly pears still give us much annoyance. The roads are heavy with sand, and the rocks over which our wagons must bump and bound are terribly rough and jagged.
“Across the Platte, and away to the southward many miles, though they seem much nearer, owing to the rarity of the air, are quaint and curious formations in the rocky cliffs, worn by the winds of ages into rude images of men and animals that stare at us with sunken eyes, their broken noses, grinning skulls, and disfigured bodies reminding us of unhappy phantoms risen from the under world.
“Sometimes the semblance of a great mosque or cathedral rears its domes and minarets in the clear blue of the heavens; and sometimes what seems a great embattled fortification is seen rising with realistic majesty from a vast sage plain that looks, with a little aid of the imagination, like the dried-up bed of a big moat. Of course, ‘’tis distance lends enchantment to the view,’ as no doubt the images we see so distinctly would resolve themselves into shapeless masses if we could see them at close range.
“The grass we so much need for the stock has again disappeared, and daddie says we shall return to-morrow to the main travelled road. Wild flowers are blooming in profusion all around our camp, smiling at us as if in mockery of the prevailing desolation. Wood is scarce again, and we find few buffalo chips.
“We seldom see any more deer or antelope, and the buffalo have all escaped to the distant hills; that is, all but the hapless multitudes that have been cruelly and needlessly slaughtered by the unthinking and greedy hunters of the plains.
“We passed half-a-dozen newly made graves again to-day, and it is evident that we are getting back into the dreaded cholera belt. The day has been extremely hot, but the evening is chilly and blustering. Daddiesays the most of the victims of the epidemic are women. I wonder if such sorrow as ours pervades every family into whose ranks the Silent Messenger comes unbidden and steals away its hope.
“The Indians seem to have all been scared away by the cholera. What must they think of us, who claim to be civilized and even enlightened, who have come to bring them our religion, and with it starvation, pestilence, and death?
“Our world isn’t yet fit for the abode of anything but beasts of prey, of which poorly civilized man is chief. No wonder the Indians fear and hate us. We destroy their range, we scare away their game, we scatter disease and death among them; and as rapidly as possible we seize and possess their lands. ‘No quarter for man or beast’ should be written upon our foreheads in letters of fire. But maybe we are merely fulfilling our destiny. I cannot tell; it’s all a mystery.” She closed the book with a sigh.