The wild cat of this continent is said to be the lineal descendant of "the harmless, necessary cat," which the early emigrants brought over with them from Europe, among their other four-footed friends and companions. Certain depraved and perverse representatives of this domestic creature took to the woods, and, becoming outlaws from society, reverted to their original savage state. Their offspring waxed in size and fierceness beyond their progenitors. They became at last proverbial for their fighting qualities, and to be able to "whip one's weight in wild cats," is a terse expression signifying strength.
The fecundity of this animal, as well as its predatory skill, makes it an extremely frequent and annoying poacher on the poultry-yards of the backwoods settlers, especially in the hill districts of the Southern States, where the climate and the abundance of game appear to have developed them to an uncommon size and fierceness.
Their strength and ferocity was fully tested by a settler's wife, in the upper part of Alabama, some fifty years ago, as will appear from the following account:
Mrs. Julia Page, a widow, with three small children, occupied a house in a broken and well-wooded country, some miles west of the present town of Huntsville, where the only serious annoyance and drawback was the immense number of these animals which prowled through the woods and decimated the poultry. Stumpy tailed, green eyed, they strolled through the clearing and sunned themselves on the limbs of neighboring trees, blinking calmly at the clucking hens which they marked for their prey, and even venturing to throw suspicious glances at the infant sleeping in its cradle. Sociable in their disposition, they appeared to even claim a kind of proprietary interest in the premises and in the appurtenances thereof.
Shooting a dozen and trapping as many more, made little appreciable difference in the numbers of the feline colony. The dame at last constructed with much labor a close shed, within which her poultry were nightly housed. This worked well for a season. But one evening a commotion in the hennery informed her that the depredators were again at work. Hastily seizing an axe in one hand and carrying a lighted pitch pine knot in the other, she hurried to the scene of action, and found Grimalkin feasting sumptuously on her plumpest pullet. The banqueters were evidently a mother and her well-grown son, whom she was instructing in the predatory art and practice.
The younger animal immediately clambered to the hole where it had made its entrance, and was about to make a successful exit, when the matron, sticking the lighted knot in the ground, struck the animal with the axe, breaking its back and bringing it to the ground. Without an instant's warning, the mother cat sprang upon Mrs. Page, and fastening its powerful claws in her breast, tore savagely at her neck with its teeth.
The matron, shrieking with terror, strove with all her might to loosen the animal's hold, but in vain. The maternal instinct had awakened all its fierceness, and as the blood commenced to flow in streams from the deep scratches and bites inflicted by its teeth and claws, its ferocious appetency redoubled. It tore and bit as if nothing would appease it but the luckless victim's death. Mrs. Page would doubtless have fallen a prey to its savage rage, but for a happy thought which flashed across her mind in her desperate straits.
Snatching the pine knot from the earth, she applied it to the hindquarters of the wild cat. The flame instantly singed off the thick fur and scorched its flesh. With a savage screech, it relaxed its hold and fell to the ground, where she succeeded at last in dispatching the creature. It proved to be one of the largest of its species, measuring nearly three feet from its nose to the tip of its tail, and weighing over thirty pounds.
For many years this colony of pioneer wild cats continued to "make things hot" for the settlers in that region, but most of them were finally exterminated, and the remnant emigrated to some more secluded region.
The character of the common black hear is a study for the naturalist, and the hunter. He is fierce or good natured, sullen or playful, lazy or energetic, bold or cowardly, "all by turns and nothing long." He is the clown of the menagerie, the laughing stock rather than the dread of the hunter, and the abhorrence of border house-wives, owing to his intrusive manners, his fondness for overturning beehives, and his playful familiarity with the contents of their larders in the winter season.
Incidents are related where in consequence of these contrarieties of bear-nature, danger and humor are singularly blended.
While the daughter of one of the early settlers of Wisconsin was wandering in "maiden meditation," through the forest by which, her father's home was surrounded, she was suddenly startled from her reverie by a hoarse, deep, cavernous growl, and as she lifted her eyes, they were opened wide with dismay and terror. Not twenty paces from her, rising on his huge iron clawed hind feet, was a wide-mouthed, vicious looking black bear, of unusual size, who had evidently been already "worked up," and was "spoiling for a fight." That the bear meant mischief was plain, but the girl was a pioneer's daughter, and her fright produced no symptoms of anything like fainting.
Bears could climb, she knew that very well; but then if she got out of his way quickly enough he might not take the trouble to follow her.
It was the only chance, and she sprang for the nearest tree. It was of medium size, with a rough bark and easy to climb. All the better for her, if none the worse for the bear, and in an instant she was perched among the lower branches. For two or three minutes the shaggy monster seemed puzzled and as if in doubt what course he had best pursue; then he came slowly up and began smelling and nuzzling round the roots of the tree as if to obtain the necessary information in order to enable him to decide this important question.
The young woman in the tree was no coward, but little as was the hope of being heard in that forest solitude she let her fears have their own way and screamed loudly for help. As if aroused and provoked by the sound of her voice, bruin began to try the bark with his foreclaws while his fierce little eyes looked up carnivorously into the face of the maiden, and his little tongue came twisting spirally from his half opened jaws as if he were gloating over a choice titbit.
A neighboring settler, attracted by the cries of distress, soon reached the scene of action. Though completely unarmed he did not hesitate to come to close quarters with bruin, and seizing a long heavy stick he commenced to vigorously belabor the hind quarters of the brute, who, however, only responded to these attentions by turning his head and winking viciously at his assailant, still pursuing his upward gymnastics in the direction of the girl, who on her part was clambering towards the upper branches of the tree.
The young man redoubled his blows and for a moment bruin seemed disposed to turn and settle matters with the party in his rear, but finally to the dismay of both the maiden and her champion, and evidently deeming his readiest escape from attack would be to continue his ascent he resumed his acrobatic performance and was about to place his forefeet on the lower limbs, when his foe dropping his futile weapon, seized the stumpy tail of the beast with his strong hands, and bracing his feet against the trunk of the tree pulled with all his might. The girl seeing the turn that matters had taken, immediately broke off a large limb and stoutly hammered the bear's snout. This simultaneous attack in front and rear was too much for bruin: with an amusing air of bewilderment he descended in a slow and dignified manner and galloped off into the forest.
There are but few instances on record where female courage has been put to the severe test of a hand to hand combat with grizzly bears. The most remarkable conflict of this description is that which we will endeavor to detail in the following narrative, which brings out in bold relief the traits of courage, hardihood, and devotion, all displayed by woman, in most trying and critical situations, wherein she showed herself the peer of the stoutest and most skillful of that hardy breed of men—the hunters of the far west.
In the summer of 1859 a party of men and women set out from Omaha, on an exploring tour of the Platte valley, for the purpose of fixing upon some favorable location for a settlement, which was to be the head-quarters of an extensive cattle-farm. The leader in the expedition was Col. Ansley, a wealthy Englishman. He was accompanied by Joseph Dagget, his agent, whose business had carried him several times across the Rocky Mountains to California; Mrs. Dagget and a daughter of sixteen, both of whom had crossed the plains before with Mr. D.—two half-breeds also accompanied the party as guides, hunters, muleteers, and men of all work.
As Mrs. Dagget is the heroine of our story, she deserves a description in detail. Her early life had been spent in the wilds of Northern New York, where she became versed in fishing, hunting, and wood-craft. She grew up in that almost unbroken wilderness to more than woman's ordinary stature, and with a masculine firmness of nerve and fiber. We need hardly add that she was an admirableequestrienne.
At the age of seventeen she was married to Joseph Dagget, who possessed those qualities which she was naturally most inclined to admire in a man.
The seventeen years that followed her marriage she spent with her husband in the wilds of the North and West, where she obtained all the further experience necessary to complete her education as a practical Woman of the Border. It is unnecessary to state that such a woman as Mrs. Dagget was an exceedingly useful member of frontier society. Several times she and her husband had been the leading spirits in starting new settlements far in advance of the main stream of immigration: after the courage and experience of Mr. and Mrs. D. had helped on the infant settlement for a season, the restless spirit of adventure would seize them, and selling out, they would push on further west.
Miss Jane Dagget was a girl after her father's and mother's own heart, and was their constant companion in their expeditions and journeys over prairie and mountain.
The party started in June from Omaha, and journeyed along the north bank of the Platte river as far as the North Fork of that stream. They were well-mounted on blooded horses, furnished by Col. Ansley, and were followed by four pack-mules with such baggage as the party needed, under the care of the half-breed guides.
Two weeks sufficed to locate the ranch, after which they pursued their way along the North Platte, as far as Fort Laramie, intending from that post to advance northward to strike the North Fork of the Cheyenne, and following that stream to the Missouri river, there take the steamboat back to Omaha. This diversion in their proposed route was made at the suggestion of Col. Ansley, who was a keen and daring sportsman, and wished to add a fight with grizzlies to hisrépertoireof hunting adventures.
The first day's journey, after leaving Fort Laramie, was barren of incident. Pursuing their route due-north over a rolling and well-grassed country, interspersed with sandy stretches, they reached, on the evening of the second day, some low hills, covered with thickets and small trees, between which ran valleys thickly carpeted with grass. Here they were preparing their camp, when one of the half-breeds cried out, "Voila Greezly!"
The whole party turned their eyes, and saw, sure enough, an enormous mouse-colored grizzly sitting on his haunches beside a tree, regarding them with strong marks of curiosity.
The half-breeds straightway began to prepare for action, after the California fashion, that is to say, they coiled their "lariats," and rode slowly up to the brute, who stood his ground, only edging up until his flank nearly rested against the tree, a stout sapling some four inches in diameter.
The rest of the party stood ready with their rifles, not excepting even the ladies. The horses snorted and trembled, while their hearts beat so loudly that the riders could plainly hear them.
Meanwhile François, one of the half-breeds, had let slip his lasso, which fell squarely over the head of the grizzly; then drawing it "taut," he kept it so while he slowly walked his horse around the tree, binding the grizzly firmly to it.
The whole party now advanced with rifles poised, ready to give thecoup de gráceto his bearship; when, with a thundering growl,another"grizzly" came shambling swiftly out from the bushes, and made directly for François. Before the party recovered from their surprise at this new appearance on the scene, the brute reared up and seized François by the leg, which he crunched and shattered.
Only one of the party dared to fire, for fear of wounding the guide; that one was Mrs. Dagget, who, poising her carbine, would have sent a ball through the monster's heart but for a sudden start of her high-mettled horse. As it was, her shot only wounded the beast, which immediately left François and dashed at our heroine, who drew a navy-revolver from her holsters, gave the infuriated animal two more shots, and then wheeled her horse and galloped away, making a circuit as she rode, so as to reach the other side of the tree from which the first grizzly had now disengaged himself, and attacking Michael, the remaining guide, had broken his horse's leg with a blow of his paw; the horse fell, and Michael's arm was fractured, and the bear then dashing at Col. Ansley and Mr. Dagget, put them to flight, together with Miss Dagget. The Colonel's horse, stumbling, threw his rider, and leaving him with a dislocated shoulder, galloped away across the plain.
Mr. Dagget and his daughter quickly dismounted, and led the Colonel, groaning, to a thicket, where they placed him in concealment, and then returned to the combat. Mrs. Dagget meanwhile, having diverted both the grizzlies by repeated shots from her revolver, also drew them after her, away from the unfortunate half-breeds, who lay with shattered limbs on the ground where they had first fallen. By skillfully manoeuvring her horse, she had been completely successful in drawing her antagonists some forty rods away. But although she had emptied her revolvers, making every shot tell in the bodies of the grizzlies, and the blood was streaming from their huge forms, they showed no abatement in their strength and ferocity, and it was with an indescribable feeling of relief that she saw her husband and daughter now advancing to her own rescue. This feeling was, however, blended with a wife's and mother's fears lest her beloved husband and daughter should take harm from the savage monsters.
Mr. Dagget and his daughter, having carefully reloaded their rifles, had now crept up cautiously behind, and watching their opportunity, had planted a ball squarely in each of the bears, just behind their fore-shoulders. This appeared to be the finishing stroke, and the brutes stretched themselves on the plain—to all appearance lifeless.
François and Michael were then placed in as comfortable a position as possible; the Colonel was brought out of the thicket; the mules and stray horses were brought back to camp; and then a consultation was held between the Daggets as to what should be done for the sufferers. Refreshment was given them; some attempts at rude surgery were made in the way of bandaging and setting the broken limbs and dislocated shoulders. It was sixty miles to Fort Laramie; the night was on them, and the best course seemed to be to rest their jaded steeds and start for a surgeon early in the morning.
This course would have been pursued, but for another disaster, which occurred just as they were preparing to rest for the night. Mr. Dagget, from pure curiosity, was prompted to examine the carcasses of the bears. He noticed that one of them had dragged itself some distance from where it fell towards a thicket, but lay on its side as if dead. With a hunter's curiosity, he lifted one of its forepaws to examine the position of the death-wound, when the brute rose with a terrific growl and struck Mr. Dagget's arm with its paw, breaking it like a pipe-stem, and then, rolling over, groaned away its life, which it had thus far clung to with such fatal tenacity.
This was too much for the equanimity of Mrs. Dagget. The moans of the guides, with broken limbs, which had already swelled to a frightful size, and the pain which Col. Ansley and her husband strove in vain to conceal, were too harrowing to her woman's nature to permit her to rest quietly in camp that night. She was not long in adopting the seemingly desperate resolution of riding to the Fort and bringing back a nurse and surgeon.
Whispering to her daughter, she informed her of her determination, and quickly saddling the swiftest and freshest of the horses, she led him softly out from the camp, and, mounting, set her face southward, and touched the horse lightly with the whip. The generous beast seemed, by instinct, to understand his rider's errand, and bounded over the wild plain with a kind of cheerful alacrity that rendered unnecessary any further urging.
The sky was overcast, so that she had no stars to guide her course, and was obliged to guess the route which the party had followed from the Fort. By-and-by she struck a trail, which she thought she recognized as the one over which they had come after leaving the Platte River. For four hours she rode forward, the horse not flagging in his steady gallop. According to her calculations, she must have made forty miles of her journey, and she was anticipating that by the break of day she would have made the Fort, when, turning her eyes upward to the left, she saw—through the clouds that had rifted for the first time—the great dipper, and knew at once that instead of riding southward, she had been riding eastward, and must be now at least seventy miles from the Fort, instead of being within twenty miles of it, as she had supposed.
Her horse began to show symptoms of fatigue. She slowed him to a walk as she turned his head to the southwest, and pursued her course sluggishly across the plains. Erelong the blackness of night faded into gray, and then came twilight streaks, which showed her the dreary country she was passing through. It was a vast sandy plain, thinly dotted with sage-bush and other stunted shrubs. The sun rose bright and hot, and, until ten o'clock, she pursued her way not faster than two miles an hour. Her horse now gave out, and refused to move a step. She dismounted and sat down on the sand beside a sage-bush, which partially sheltered her from the sun's rays.
We continue our narrative with Mrs. Dagget's own account of her perilous adventure:—
"For nearly two hours I sat on the ground, while my poor horse feebly staggered from bush to bush, and nibbled at the stunted herbage. I then remounted him and pursued my way, at a snail's pace, towards the Fort. The most serious apprehension I entertained at this moment was that of sun-stroke, as my head was only shielded from the rays by a white handkerchief; my hat had blown off in the conflict with the bears, and, in my distress and anxiety to start for assistance, I had not stopped to look for it. I felt no hunger, but a little after noon, when the burning heat of the sun was reflected with double violence from the hot sand, and the distant ridges of the hills, seen through the ascending vapor, seemed to wave and fluctuate like the unsettled sea, I became faint with thirst, and climbed a tree in hopes of seeing distant smoke or other appearance of a human habitation. But in vain; nothing appeared all around but thick underwood and hillocks of white sand.
"My thirst by this time became insufferable; my mouth was parched and inflamed; a sudden dimness would frequently come over my eyes with other symptoms of fainting; and my horse, being barely able to walk, I began seriously to apprehend that I should perish of thirst. To relieve the burning pain in my mouth or throat, I chewed the leaves of different shrubs, but found them all bitter, and of no real service to me.
"A little before sunset, having reached the top of a gentle rising, I climbed a high tree, from the topmost branches of which I cast a melancholy look over the barren wilderness, but without discovering the most distant trace of a human dwelling. The same dismal uniformity of shrubs and sand everywhere presented itself, and the horizon was as level and uninterrupted as that of the sea.
"Descending from the tree, I found my horse devouring the stubble and brushwood with great avidity, and as I was now too faint to attempt walking, and my horse too fatigued to carry me, I thought it but an act of humanity, and perhaps the last I should ever have it in my power to perform, to take off his bridle and let him shift for himself; in doing which I was suddenly affected with sickness and giddiness, and falling upon the sand, I felt as if the hour of death was fast approaching.
"'Here then,' thought I, after a short but ineffectual struggle, 'terminates all my hopes of being useful in my day and generation; here must the short span of my life come to an end!' I cast (as I believed) a last look on the surrounding scene, and whilst I reflected on the awful change that was to take place, this world with its enjoyments seemed to vanish from my recollection. Nature, however, at length resumed its functions; and on recovering my senses, I found myself stretched upon the sand, with the bridle still in my hand, and the sun just sinking behind the trees. I now summoned all my resolution, and determined to make another effort to prolong my existence. And as the evening was somewhat cool, I resolved to travel as far as my limbs would carry me, in hopes of reaching (my only resource) a watering place.
"With this view, I put the bridle on my horse, and driving him before me, went slowly along for about an hour, when I perceived some lightning from the northeast; a most delightful sight; for it promised rain. The darkness and lightning increased rapidly; and in less than an hour I heard the wind roaring among the bushes. I had already opened my mouth to receive the refreshing drops which I expected; but I was instantly covered with a cloud of sand, driven with such force by the wind as to give a very disagreeable sensation to my face and arms; and I was obliged to mount my horse and stop under a bush, to prevent being suffocated. The sand continued to fly in amazing quantities for near an hour; after which I again set forward, and traveled with difficulty, until ten o'clock. About this time, I was agreeably surprised by some very vivid flashes of lightning, followed by a few heavy drops of rain.
"In a little time the sand ceased to fly, and I alighted and spread out all my clean clothes to collect the rain, which at length I saw would certainly fall. For more than an hour it rained plentifully, and I quenched my thirst by wringing and sucking my clothes. A few moments after I fell into a profound slumber, in spite of the rain which now fell in torrents.
"The sky was clear and the sun was well up when I woke: drenched to the skin I rose as soon as my stiffened limbs would permit, and cast a look at the southern horizon. A line of black dots was distinctly visible, slowly moving westward. Mounting my horse, which was now freshened by his rest and the scanty provender which he had gathered in the night, I pushed on and succeeded in overtaking the party which was a detachment of United States cavalry. Before night we reached the Fort, and early next morning I accompanied a surgeon and two attendants, with an ambulance, to the camp where we found all as we had left them, and overjoyed at my return. When the fractures had been reduced, and Col. Ansley's shoulder put into place, the whole party were brought back to the Fort, quite content to wait awhile before engaging again in a 'grizzly-bear hunt.'"
The strength of nerve and fortitude which maternal love will inspire, is brilliantly illustrated by the story of an adventure with an American lion which happened not long since in the remote territory of Wyoming.
A Mrs. Vredenbergh one night, during the absence of her husband, had retired with her three children, to rest, in a chamber, on the first floor of the cabin where she lived, when an enormous mountain-lion leaped into the room through an open window placed at some distance from the ground for purposes of ventilation. The brute after entering the apartment whined and shook itself, and then lay down upon the floor in a watchful attitude with its eyes fixed upon the bed where lay Mrs. V., almost paralyzed with fright at this dangerous visitor. Her children were her first thought. Two of them were in a cot beyond the bed, where she lay; the third, an infant of six months, was reposing in its mother's arms.
Mrs. Vredenbergh remembered in an instant that perfect silence and stillness might prevent the brute from springing upon them; and accordingly she suppressed every breath and motion on her own part, while her children luckily were sleeping so profoundly that their breathing could not be heard. After a few minutes the monster began to relax the steady glare of his great green orbs, and winked lazily, purring loudly as though in good humor. The first powerful impulse to scream and fly to the adjoining apartment having been repressed, the matron's heart became calmer and her mind employed itself in devising a thousand plans for saving herself and her children. Her husband's gun hung loaded above the head of the bed, but it could not be reached without rising; if she woke her children she feared her action in so doing or the noise they would make would bring the monster upon them. She had heard that the mountain-lion could not attack human beings when his hunger had been appeased, and from a noise she had heard in the cow-house just after retiring, she surmised that the brute had made a raid upon the cattle and glutted himself; this conjecture received confirmation from the placidity of the animal's demeanor. Resting upon this theory she finally maintained her original policy of perfect stillness, trusting that her husband would soon return. Her greatest fear now was that the infant might wake and cry, for she was well aware that the ferocity of the mountain-lion is roused by nothing so quickly as the cry of a child.
A full hour passed in this manner. The moon was at its full, and from her position on the couch, Mrs. Vredenbergh could, without turning her head, see every motion of the creature. It lay with its head between its forepaws in the posture assumed by the domestic cat when in a state of semi-watchfulness, approaching to a doze. The senses of the matron were strung to an almost painful acuteness. The moonlight streaming in at the window was to her eyes like the glare of the sun at noonday: the ticking of the clock on the wall fell on her ears, each tick like a sharply pointed hammer seeming to bruise the nerve. A keen thrill ran like a knife through her tense frame when the infant stirred and moaned in his sleep. The lion roused himself in an instant, and fixing his eyes upon the bed came towards it arching his back and yawning. He rubbed himself against the bedstead and stood for a moment so near that Mrs. V. could have touched him with her hand, then turned back and commenced pacing up and down the room. The infant fortunately ceased its moaning and sighing gently fell back into its slumbers; and again the beast, purring and winking, lay down and resumed its former position.
The quick tread of the lady's husband at this moment was heard; as he put his hand upon the latch to enter, Mrs. V. could contain herself no longer, and uttered a series of loud shrieks. The lion, rising, bounded over the head of Mr. Vredenbergh as he entered the cabin, and disappeared in the forest.
The safety of the family consisted partly perhaps in the fact that the intruder before entering the house had satiated his appetite by gorging himself upon a calf, the remains of which were next day discovered in the cow-house; but the preservation of herself and children was also due to the self-control with which Mrs. Vredenbergh maintained herself in that trying situation.
The movement of emigration westward since the early part of the seventeenth century resembles the great ocean billows during a rising tide. Sweeping over the watery waste with a steady roll, dragged by the lunar force, each billow dashes higher and higher on the beach, until the attractive influence has been spent and the final limit reached. The spirit of religious liberty and of adventure carried the European across the Atlantic. This was thefirstwave of emigration. The achievement of our Independence gave the next great impetus to the movement. The acquisition of California and the discovery of gold was the third stimulus that carried our race across the continent. The final impulse was communicated by the completion of the Pacific railroad.
At the close of the Mexican War in 1848, our frontier States were, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin. With the exception of a few forts, trading-posts, missionary stations, and hunters' camps, the territory extending from the line of furthest settlement in those States, westward to the Pacific Ocean, was for the most part an uninhabited waste. This tract, (including the Gadsden purchase,) covering upwards of seventeen hundred thousand square miles and nearly half as large as the whole of Europe, was now to be penetrated, explored, reclaimed, and added to the area of civilization.
The pioneer army of occupation who were to commence this mighty work moved through Missouri and Iowa, and crossing the turbid flood which formed one of the great natural boundaries of that wild empire, saw before them the vast plains of Nebraska and Kansas stretching with scarcely a break for five hundred miles as the crow flies to the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains. The Platte, the Kansas, and the Arkansas, with their tributaries, indicated the general bearings of the march, the sun and moon were unerring guides.
The host divided itself: one part spread over and tilled the rich country which extends for two hundred miles west of the Missouri River; another part grazed its flocks and herds on the pasture ground beyond; another, crossing the belt of desert, settled in the picturesque region between the barrens and the foothills, another penetrated into the mountains and planted itself in the labyrinthian valleys and on the lofty table lands between the Black Hills and the California Sierras, another more boldly marched a thousand miles across a wilderness of mountain ranges and settled on the slope which descends to the shores of the Pacific.
The rivers and streams between the Missouri and the mountains, and latterly the railroads, were theaxesaround which population gathered and turned itself. Here were the dwelling places of the settlers, here woman's work was to be done and her influence to be employed in building up the empire on the plains.
We have stated how, by a series of processes extending through successive generations and the lapse of centuries, she grew more and more capable to fulfill her mission on this continent, and how, as the physical and moral difficulties that beset frontier-life multiplied, she gathered corresponding strength and faculties to meet them. In entering that new field of pioneer enterprise which lay beyond the Missouri River in 1848, there still, among others, remained that one great grief over the separation from her old home.
When the eastern woman bade farewell to her friends and started for the plains it seemed to her, and often proved to be, a final adieu. We say nothing of that large class which, being more scantily endowed with this world's goods, were forced to make the long, wearisome journey with ox teams from the older settlements of the East. We take the weaker case of the well-to-do immigrant wife who, by railroad, and by steamboat on the lakes or rivers, reached, after a journey of two thousand miles, the point upon the Missouri River where she was to enter the "prairie schooner" and move out into that vast expanse; even to her the pangs of separation must have then been felt with renewed and redoubled force. That "turbid flood" was the casting-off place. She was as one who ventures in a small boat into a wide, dark ocean, not knowing whether she would ever return or find within the murky waste a safe abiding place.
There was the uncertainty; the positive dangers of the route; the apprehended dangers which might surround the settlement; the new country, with all its difficulties, privations, labors, and trials; the possibilities of disease, with small means of relief; the utter solitude, with little prospect of solacing companionship.
And yet, with so dreary a picture presented to her mental vision, she did not shrink from the enterprise, nor turn back, until all hope of making a home for her family in that remote region had fled. We recall a few instances in which, after years of toil, sorrow, and suffering—when all had been lost, the heroine of the household has been driven back by a stress of circumstances with which human power was unavailing to cope. Such a case was that of Mrs. N———, of which the following are the substantial facts:
While a squad of United States cavalry were journeying in 1866 from the Great Bend of the Arkansas to Fort Riley, in Kansas, the commanding officer, as he was sweeping with his glass the horizon of the vast level plain over which they were passing, descried a small object moving towards their line of march through the tall grass some two miles to their left. No other living thing was visible throughout their field of vision, and conjecture was rife as to what this single moving object in that lonely waste could be. It moved in a slow and hesitating way, sometimes pausing, as if weary, and then resuming its sluggish course towards the East. They made it out clearly at last. It was a solitary woman. She had a rifle in her hand, and as the squad changed their course and approached her, she could be seen at the distance of half a mile putting herself in the posture of defense and making ready to use her rifle. The horsemen waved their hats and shouted loudly to advise her that they were friends. She kept her rifle at her shoulder and stood like a statue, until, seeming to be reassured, she changed her attitude and with tottering steps approached them.
She was a woman under thirty, who had evidently been tenderly reared; small and fragile, her pale, wasted face bore those lines which mutely tell the tale of long sorrow and suffering. Her appearance awoke all those chivalrous feelings which are the honor of the military profession. She was speechless with emotion. The officer addressed her with kind and respectful inquiries. Those were the first words of her mother tongue she had heard for four weeks. Like the breath of the "sweet south" blowing across the fabled lute, those syllables, speaking of home and friends, relaxed the tension to which her nerves had been so long strung and she wept. Twice she essayed to tell how she happened to be found in such a melancholy situation on that wild plain, and twice she broke down, sobbing with those convulsive sobs that show how the spirit can shake and over-master the frail body.
Weak, weary, and worn as she was, they ceased to question her, and preserved a respectful silence, while they did all that rough soldiers could do to make her comfortable. An army overcoat was wrapped around her, stimulants and food given her, and one of the soldiers, shortening a stirrup, and strapping a folded blanket over his saddle, made a comfortable seat upon his horse; which he surrendered to her. The following day she had acquired sufficient strength to tell her sad story.
Three years before, she, with her husband and four children, had left her childhood's home, in the eastern part of Ohio, and set out for Kansas. Her oldest boy sickened and died while passing through Illinois, and they laid him to rest beneath the waving prairie grass. After crossing the Missouri river, her second child, a lovely little girl of six years, was carried off by the scarlet fever, and they left her sleeping beneath the green meadow sward on the bank of the Kansas.
After a wearisome march of eighty days, they reached their destination on the Smoky Hill Branch of the Kansas River, and lying about three hundred miles west of Fort Leavenworth. Here, in a country suitable for grazing and tillage, they chose their home. Mr. N. devoted himself to the raising of cattle, tilling only land enough to supply the wants of himself and family.
She had toiled day and night to make their home comfortable and happy for her husband and children. Fortune smiled upon them. Their herds multiplied and throve upon the rich pasturage and in the mild air of the region where they grazed. Two more children were added to their flock. Their roof-tree sheltered all from the heats of summer and the bleak winds which sweep those plains in the winter season. Bounteous harvests blessed their store. They were visited by the red man only as a wayfarer and friend.
This bright sky was at last suddenly overclouded. A plague raged among their cattle. A swarm of grasshoppers ravaged their crops. A drought followed, which burned up the herbage. "Terrors," says, the poet, "come not as single spies, but in battalions." Pestilence at last came to complete the ruin of that hapless household. Her husband was first stricken down, and after a week of suffering, died in a delirium, which, while it startled and saddened the little flock, kept him all unapprehensive of the evils which might visit his bereaved family after his departure. The wife dug, with her own hands, a shallow grave on the bluff where their house stood, and bearing, with difficulty, in her slender arms the wasted remains, laid them, coffinless, in the trench, and covering them with earth, returned to the house to find her three oldest children suffering from the same malady. The pestilence made short but sure work with their little frames. One by one they breathed their last in their mother's arms. Kissing their waxen features, she bore them out all alone and laid them tenderly side by side with their father.
The little babe of four months was still the picture of health. All unconscious of its bereavements and of the bitter sorrows of her on whose bosom he lay, he throve upon the maternal bounty which poured for him, though her frail life seemed to be passing away with it.
Like some subtle but potent elixir, which erects the vital spirit, and holds it when about to flee from its tenement, so did that sweet babe keep the mother's heart pulsing with gentle beat during the days which followed those forlorn funeral rites.
A week passed, during which a great terror possessed her, lest she too should have the latent seeds of the pestilence in her frame, and should have imparted the dreadful gift to her babe through the fountain of motherhood.
A racking pain in her forehead, followed by lassitude, told her alas! that all she had shuddered to think of was coming to pass. Weary and suffering, she laid herself upon the couch, which she prayed but for her infant might be her last resting place. Too soon, as she watched with a keenness of vision which only a mother can possess, did she see the first shadow of the destroyer reflected on the face of her little one. It faded like a flower in the hot blast of July,
"So softly worn, so sweetly weak,"
and before two suns had come and gone, it lay like a bruised lily on the fever-burning bosom which gave it life.
Unconsciousness came mercifully to the poor mother. For hours she lay in blessed oblivion. But the vital principle, which often displays its wondrous power in the feeblest frames, asserted its triumph over death, and she awoke again to the remembrance of losses that could never be repaired this side the grave.
Three days passed before the fever left her. She arose from her couch, and, with shaking frame, laid her little withered blossom on its father's grave, and covering it with a mound of dried grass, crowned it with yellow autumn leaves.
The love of life slowly returned; but the means to sustain that life had been destroyed by murrain, the grasshoppers, and the drought. The household stores would suffice but for a few days longer. The only and precarious means of subsistence which would then remain, would be such game as she could shoot. The Indians becoming apprised of the death of Mr. N., had carried off the horses.
Only one avenue of escape was left her; casting many "a longing, lingering look" at the home once so happy, but now so swept and desolate, she took her husband's rifle and struck boldly out into the boundless plain, towards the trail which runs from the Arkansas River to Fort Riley, and after several days of great suffering fell in with friends, as we have already described.
The sad experience of Mrs. N. is fortunately a rare one at the present day. The vast area occupied by the plains of Kansas and Nebraska, is in many respects naturally fitted for those forms of social life in which woman's work may be performed under the most favorable circumstances; a country richly adapted to the various forms of agriculture and to pastoral occupations; a mild and generally equable climate are there well calculated to show the pioneer-housewife at her best.
Another great advantage has been the fact that this region was a kind of graduating school, into which the antecedent schools of pioneer-life could send skilled pupils, who, upon a fair and wide field, and in a virgin soil, could build a civil and social fabric, reflecting past experiences and embodying a multitude of separate results into a large and harmonious whole.
Visiting some years since the States of Kansas and Nebraska, we passed first through that rich and already populous region in the eastern part of the former State, which twenty-five years since was an uninhabited waste. Here were all the appliances of civilization: the school, the church, the town hall; improved agriculture, the mechanic arts, the varied forms of mercantile traffic, and at the base of the fabric the home made and ordered by woman. Here but yesterday was the frontier where woman was performing her oft before repeated task, and laying, according to her methods and habits, and within her appropriate sphere, the foundations of that which is to-day a great, rich, and prosperous social and civil State. Here, too, we saw many of the mothers, not yet old, who through countless trials, labors, and perils have aided in the noble work on which they now are looking with such honest pride and satisfaction.
For many successive afternoons we passed on from city to city, and from village to village. The sun preceded us westward; we steered our course directly towards it, and each day as it sank to the earth, brightly and more brightly glowed the sky as with the purest gold. The settlements became more scattered, the uninhabited spaces grew wider.We were nearing one of the frontiers.
In the spring the mead through which we were passing was a natural parterre, where in the midst of the lively vernal green, bloomed the oxlip, the white and blue violet, the yellow-cup dotted with jet, and many another fragile and aromatic member of the floral sisterhood.
Ascending a knoll crowned by a little wood which lay like a green shrub upon that treeless, grassy plain, we saw from this point the prairie stretching onward its loftily waving extent to the horizon. Here and there amidst the vast stretch arose small log-houses, which resembled little birds' nests floating upon the ocean. Here and there, also, were people harvesting grain.
Among the harvesters were three young women, who were nimbly binding sheaves, with little children around them. The vastness of the prairie made the harvesters themselves look like children playing at games.
Some distance beyond us, in the track we were pursuing, we saw what at first glance appeared to be a white dahlia. As we neared it, this huge white flower seemed to be moving; it was the snowy sun-bonnet of a young school-teacher, who was convoying a troop of children to the school-house, whose brown roof showed above the luxuriant herbage. She seemed to be beloved by her scholars, for they surrounded her and clung to her. She had been giving them, it appeared, a lesson in practical botany; their hats were adorned with scarlet and yellow blossoms, and they carried bunches of oxlips and violets. The school-mistress had a face like a sister of charity; the contour and lines showed resolution and patience; the whole expression blended with intelligence, a strong and lovely character. She entered the door of the log school-house, and gently drew within it the youngest of her charges. Around the school-house we saw other groups of sturdy boys and chubby girls, frisking and shouting gaily as we drove by.
It is under the tuition of the women especially that a vigorous, intelligent, and laborious race grows up in these border settlements on the plains. The children are taught the rudiments, and afterwards endeavor to improve their condition in life. The boys often enter upon political and public careers. The girls marry early, and contribute to make new societies in the wilderness. These farms are the nurseries from which the State will soon obtain its officials and its teachers, both male and female.
The gardens, the cottages, and cabins nearly all showed some external signs of the embellishing hand of woman. Entering one of these houses, we found the men and young women out gathering the harvest. An elderly woman acted as our hostess. She was maid of all-work, a chamber-maid, cook, dairy-woman, laundress, and children's nurse; and yet she found time to make us a cordial welcome. The house was only one year old, and rather open to the weather, but bore the marks of womanly thrift and even of refinement.
The matron who entertained us displayed piety, restless activity, humanity, intelligence, and a youthfully warm heart, all of which marked her as a type of that large class of elderly housewives who are using the education which they acquired in their girlhood in the East to form new and model communities on these wide and rich plains.
We asked her about her life and thus came to hear, without the least complaint on her part, of its many difficulties. And yet when her husband and sons and daughters returned home from the field, we could see that it was a joyous and happy home.
The eldest daughter, Mrs. B———, then a widow of twenty-five or six, told us the story of her experience in border-life. She was born in Wisconsin, when as a territory it had a population of only three thousand. Soon after the removal of her father and mother to Kansas, and at the age of sixteen she had married one of the most adventurous of the race of young pioneers which drew their first breath upon the then frontier in Illinois.
Their wedding tour was in a prairie schooner from Atchison to the semi-fertile region which borders on the desert belt which stretches through western Nebraska and Kansas to New Mexico. Here they made their first home. Life in that particular section must be a pastoral rather than an agricultural one: her husband accordingly devoted himself almost entirely to the raising of cattle.
We hardly need say, that next to the hunter, the cattle-herder approximates most nearly to savage life; his wife must accordingly find her position under such circumstances, a peculiarly trying one. The house in which Mrs. B——— and her husband lived was a simple hut constructed by digging away the side of a hill which formed the earthen rear and side walls of their dwelling, the top and front being of logs also covered with earth. Their kitchen, sleeping-room, dining-room, and parlor were represented by a single apartment Three men with their wives were their companions in the enterprise, and all lived in similar houses.
As most of the men's time was occupied in looking after their herds and preventing them from wandering too far or from being stamped and stolen by thievish savages, a large share of the other out-door labors fell upon the women. Cheerfully accepting these burdens Mrs. B——— and her three female companions tilled the small patches of corn and potatoes which with pickled beef formed their only food. Much of the time they were left entirely alone and were alarmed as well as annoyed by frequent visits from Indians, who, however, abstained from violence, contenting themselves with eating what was given them and pilfering whatever stray articles they could find.
Three years were passed by the little colony in this wild pastoral life. Though the heats of summer and the sudden storms of wind in winter, were severe, disease was never added to their list of ordinary discomforts and privations. Two of the men twice a year drove their cattle two hundred and fifty miles to the nearest railway station, but none of the women accompanied them on these trips, which were always looked forward to by their husbands as a relief from the monotony of their life as herders.
The third summer after their arrival was extremely sultry, and the drought so common in that region, promised to be more than usually severe. The crops were rapidly being consumed by four weeks of continuous hot, dry weather, when one day late in July, the four housewives, who were sitting together in the cabin of Mrs. B———, observed a sudden darkening of the western sky, and felt sharp eddying gusts of wind which blew fitfully from the southwest. A succession of small whirlwinds carried aloft the sand in front of their houses, which were ranged not far apart on the hillside.
These phenomena, accompanied with various other atmospheric commotions, lasted for half an hour, and ceased to attract their attention. The wind, however, continued to increase, and the ears of the four matrons anon caught the sound of a dull, steady roar, which rose above the fitful howling of the blast. They ran to the door and saw a dark cloud shaped like a monstrous funnel moving swiftly towards them from the west. The point of this funnel was scarcely more than one hundred feet from the earth, and swayed like the car of a balloon descending from a great height.
Dismayed by this extraordinary spectacle they hastened in doors. Scarcely had they gained shelter when their ears were saluted by a sound louder than the broadside of a double decker, and the next moment the roof of the house was torn away with tremendous force and almost at the same instant a flood of water twenty feet deep swept the four women with thedébrisof the house down the hillside and whirled them away over the plain.
Three of the women, including Mrs. B———, severely bruised and half drowned, emerged from the torrent when it spread out and spent itself upon the level; the fourth stunned by a blow from one of the house-logs, and suffocated by the rush of the waters, could not be resuscitated. The water-spout, for such was the agent of the destruction which had been wrought, had fallen on the hillside and swept away two of the other houses besides that of Mrs. B———, and for ten days, while new dwellings could be constructed and the furniture and other articles carried away could be recovered, the three houseless families were quartered partly in the remaining house, and the rest encamped under the open sky, where they suffered additional discomfort from the thunder storms in the night, which followed the water-spout.
The next summer they were visited by another disaster in the shape of grasshoppers. Often had these terrible pests of the settlers in that and the adjacent regions, flown in immense clouds over their heads during former seasons, winging their way to the richer country which lay to the east, but never before had they been attracted to the scanty patches of corn and potatoes which skirted the hovels where the herders dwelt. But early in July of that year a swarm settled down almost ancle deep on the little strip of ploughed land, and within the space between the rising and the setting of the sun, every vestige of greenness had disappeared as if burned with fire.
After a short consultation that evening, the whole party determined to take time by the forelock, and abandoning their cabins remove with their household goods and herds of cattle before the insect plunderers had prepared the way for a famine which they were certain to do before many days. Hastily loading their carts with their household goods and stores, and collecting their cattle, five hundred in number, they set out for the Missouri River, three hundred miles distant.
Having reached their destination they sold all their cattle, and after resting a few days joined a company of five pioneers who were traveling over the military road, via Fort Kearney and through the Platte valley, with the intention of settling in the picturesque and well watered region east of the foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains, and slaughtering buffaloes for their skins.
Mrs. B———, and her two female companions, with a shrewd eye to profit, concluded an arrangement with the hunters by which they were to board and make the whole party comfortable, in their capacity as housewives, for a certain share in the profits of the buffalo skins, their husbands joining the party as hunters.
All the necessary preparations having been made, they set out on horse-back with ten pack-mules, and made rapid progress, reaching the buffalo country without accident in twenty-two days.
Here the women occasionally joined in the hunt, and being fearless riders as well as good shots added a few buffalo robes to their own account. On one of these hunts, Mrs. B———, becoming separated from the party while following a stray bison with too much ardor, reached a small valley which looked as if it might be a favorite grazing ground for the brutes. The wind blew in her face as she rode, and owing to this circumstance, the bison being a quick scented animal, she was enabled to approach a solitary bull feeding by a stream at the foot of the hill and dispatched it by a shot from her rifle.
Dismounting, she whipped out her hunting knife and was proceeding to flay the carcass, when she was attracted by a low rumbling sound which shook the earth, and looking up the steep bluff at the foot of which she stood, saw a herd which must have contained ten thousand bison, plunging madly down upon her. Her horse taking fright broke away from the bush to which he was fastened and galloped off. Mrs. B——— ran after him at the top of her speed, but was conscious that the black mass behind her would soon overtake and trample her under foot, such was the impetus they had received in their course down the hill.
Not a tree was in sight, but remembering two or three sink-holes which she had seen beside a clump of bushes near the spot where she had taken aim at the bull-bison, she hastened thither and succeeded in dropping into one some ten feet in depth just as the leaders of the herd were almost upon her. Lying there panting and up to her waist in water, she heard the shaggy battalions sweep over her, and, a moment after they had passed, caught the sound of voices. Emerging cautiously for fear of Indians, which were swarming in the region, she saw four of the hunters whom she had left an hour before galloping in hot pursuit of the herd. The five other hunters coming up in front of the herd as it was commencing to climb the bluff on the other side of the valley, succeeding in turning the terrified multitude to one side, and when they came up with Mrs. B——— she saw they had caught her horse, which had met them as it was galloping homeward.
Thus supplied with a steed she mounted, and regaining her rifle which she had dropped in her flight, nothing daunted by the danger she had so narrowly escaped, joined in the hunt which ended in a perfectbattue. The hunters succeeded in driving a part of the herd into a narrow gorge and strewing the ground with carcasses.
Three months of this wild life made our heroine pine for more quiet pursuits, and she induced her husband to return to the frontier of eastern Nebraska, where, with the profits of the cattle enterprise and the hunt, a large tract was purchased on one of the tributaries of the Platte. Here, after six years of labor, they built up a model farm, well stocked with choice breeds of cattle, planted with nurseries of fruit trees, and laid down to grain. Attracted by the story of their success, other settlers flocked into the region. The completion of the Pacific Railroad soon after furnished them with an easy access to market. Every thing went on prosperously till the death of Mr. B——— from a casualty. But notwithstanding this loss, Mrs. B——— kept up the noble farm which her energy and perseverance had done so much to make what it was. She was then on a visit to her father's family in Kansas, where we met her, and had invited her father, mother, and sisters to remove to her home in Nebraska, which they were intending shortly to do.
The whole family showed evidence of the possession of the same bold and energetic character which the eldest daughter had displayed during her ten years' experience on the extreme frontier, beside those other qualities both of heart and mind which mark the true pioneer woman.
Heartfelt kindness and hospitality, seriousness and mirth in the family circle,—these characteristics of border life, when it is good, had all been transplanted into the western wilderness by these colonists. That day among the dwellers of the plain; that fine old lady; those handsome, fearless, warm-hearted, kind, and modest young women; that domestic life; that rich hospitality, combined to show how much happiness may be enjoyed in those frontier homes, where woman is the presiding genius.
"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings: that publisheth peace: that bringeth good tidings of good: that publisheth salvation."
Among the faithful messengers who have borne this Gospel of peace to the benighted red man, there have been many devoted and pious women. The story of woman as a missionary in all climes and countries contains in itself the elements of the moral-sublime. History has not recorded,—poetry itself has seldom portrayed more affecting exhibitions of Christian fortitude, of feminine heroism, and of all the noble and generous qualities which constitute the dignity and glory of woman, than when it spreads before the wondering eyes of the world the picture of her toils, her sacrifices, and even her martyrdom, in this field of her glory.
We see her in the pestilential jungles of India, or beneath the scorching sun on Africa's burning sands, or amid the rigors of an Arctic winter, in the midst of danger, disease, and every trial or hardship that can crush the human heart; and through all presenting a character equal to the sternest trial, and an address and fertility of resource which has often saved her co-workers and herself from what seemed an inevitable doom.
Such an exhibition of heroic qualities, such a picture of toils, sacrifices, sufferings, and dangers, is also presented to our eyes in the record of woman as a missionary among the fierce and almost untamable aboriginal tribes which roam over our American continent. The trials, hardships, and perils which always environ frontier life, were doubled and intensified in that mission. Taking her life in her hand, surrounded by alien and hostile influences, often entirely cut off from communication with the civilized world, armed not with carnal weapons, but trusting that other armor—the sword of the Spirit, the shield of faith, and the helmet of salvation—with her heart full of love and pity for her dark-browed brethren, woman as a missionary to the Indians is a crowning glory of her age and sex.
The influence of woman in this field has been poured out through two channels—one direct, the other indirect; and it is sometimes difficult to decide which of these two methods have produced the greatest results. As an indirect worker, she has lightened her husband's labors as a missionary, has softened the fierce temper of the pagan tribes, and by her kind and placid ministrations has prepared their minds for the reception of Gospel truth.
As an example of such a worker, Mrs. Ann Eliot, the wife of the Rev. John Eliot, surnamed the "Apostle," stands conspicuous among a host. It was the prudence and skill of this good woman, exercised in her sphere as a wife, a mother, a housekeeper, and a doctress, that enabled her husband to carry out his devout and extensive plans and perform his labors in Christianizing the Indian tribes of New England.
In estimating the great importance of those pious and far-reaching plans, we must bear in mind the precarious condition of the New England Colonies in the days of the "Apostle" John and his excellent wife. The slender and feeble settlements on Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay had hardly yet taken root, and were barely holding their own against the adverse blasts that swept over them. A combination between the different savage tribes, by which they were surrounded, might have extinguished, in a day, the Puritan Colonies, and have set back, for generations, the destinies of the American continent.
The primary and unselfish purpose of the "Apostle" John Eliot was to convert these wild tribes to the doctrine and belief of Christ. One of the results of his labors in that direction was also, we can hardly doubt, the political salvation of those feeble colonies. The mind and heart of the "Apostle" were so absorbed in the great work wherein he was engaged that a skillful and practical partner was absolutely necessary to enable him to prepare for and fully discharge many duties which might properly devolve upon him, but from which his wife in his preoccupation now relieved him.
In her appropriate sphere she also exercised an important influence, indirectly, in carrying out her husband's plans. Amidst her devoted attentions to the care and nurture of her six children she found time for those many duties that devolved on a New England housekeeper of the olden time, when it was difficult and almost impossible to command the constant aid of domestics. To provide fitting apparel and food for her family, and to make this care justly comport with a small income, a free hospitality, and a large charity, required both efficiency and wisdom.
This she accomplished without hurry of spirit, fretfulness, or misgiving. But she had in view more than this: she aimed so to perform her own part as to leave the mind of her husband free for the cares of his sacred profession, and in this she was peculiarly successful. Her understanding of the science of domestic comfort, and her prudence—the fruit of a correct judgment—so increased by daily experience, that she needed not to lay her burdens upon him, or divert to domestic cares and employments the time and energy which he would fain devote to God. "The heart of her husbanddidsafely trust in her," and his tender appreciation of her policy and its details was her sweet reward.
It was graceful and generous for the wife thus to guard, as far as in her lay, her husband's time and thoughts from interruption. For, in addition to his pastoral labors, in which he never spared himself, were his missionary toils among the heathen. His poor Indian people regarded him as their father. He strove to uplift them from the debasing habits of savage life.
Groping amid their dark wigwams, he kneeled by the rude bed of skins where the dying lay, and pointed the dim eye of the savage to the Star of Bethlehem. They wept in very love for him, and grasped his skirts as one who was to lead them to heaven. The meekness of his Master dwelt with him, and day after day he was a student of their uncouth articulations, until he could talk with the half-clad Indian children, and see their eyes brighten, for they understood what he said. Then he had no rest until the whole of the Book of God, that "Word" which has regenerated the world, was translated into their language.
Not less remarkable was the assistance lent by Mrs. Eliot to her husband's labors in her capacity as a medical assistant. The difficulty of commanding the attendance of well educated physicians, by the sparse population of the colony, rendered it almost indispensable that a mother should be not unskillful in properly treating those childish ailments which beset the first years of life. Mrs. Eliot's skill and experience as a doctress soon caused her to be sought for by the sick and suffering. Among the poor, with a large charity, she dispensed safe and salutary medicines. Friends and strangers sought her in their sicknesses, and from such as were able she received some small remuneration, often forced upon her, and used to eke out the slender income of her husband.
The poor Indians, too, were among her patients. Often they would come to her house in pain and suffering, and she would cheerfully give them medicine and advice, and dismiss them healed and rejoicing. The red man in his wigwam, tossing on his couch of anguish, was visited by this angel of mercy, who bound up the aching brow, and cooled the sore fever. Who can question that many souls were won to Christ by these deeds of practical charity.
In the light of such acts and such a life, we ascribe to Mrs. Eliot no small share in the success of those heroic labors by which five thousand "praying Indians" in New England were brought to bear testimony to the truths of the Bible and the power of revealed religion.
While woman's work in the Indian missions has been often indirect, in many other cases she has cooperated directly in efforts looking to the conversion of the red man. Prominent among the earlier pioneers in the missionary cause was Jemima Bingham. She came of a devout and God-fearing race, being a niece of Eleazur Wheelock, D. D., himself a successful laborer in the Indian missionary work, and was reared amid the religious privileges of her Connecticut home. There, in 1769, she married the Rev. Samuel Kirkland, who had already commenced among the Oneida Indians those active and useful labors which only terminated with his life.
Entering with a sustained enthusiasm into the plans of her husband, she shortly after her marriage, accompanied him to his post of duty in the wilderness near Fort Stanwix—now Rome. This was literally on the frontier, in the midst of a dense forest which extended for hundreds of miles in every direction, and was the abode of numerous Indian tribes, some of which were hostile to the white settlers.
Their forest-home was near the "Council House" of the Oneidas—in the heart of the forest. There, surrounded by the dusky sons of the wilderness, the devoted couple, alone and unaided, commenced their joint missionary labors. The gentle manners and the indomitable courage and energy of Mr. Kirkland, were nobly supplemented by the admirable qualities of his wife. With the sweetness, gentleness, simplicity, and delicacy so becoming to woman under all circumstances, were blended in her character, energy that was unconquerable, courage that danger could not blench, and firmness that human power could not bend.
Faithfully too, in the midst of her missionary labors, did she discharge her duties as a mother. One of her sons rewarded her careful teaching by rising to eminence, and becoming President of Harvard College.
Prior to his marriage Mr. Kirkland made his home and pursued his missionary labors at the "Council House;" after a house had been prepared for Mrs. Kirkland, he still continued to preach and teach at the "Council House," addressing the Indians in their own language, which both he and his wife had acquired. Mrs. Kirkland visited the wigwams and instructed the squaws and children, who in turn flocked to her house where she ministered to their bodily and spiritual wants.
The women and children of the tribe were her chosen pupils. Seated in circles on the greensward beneath the spreading arches of giant oaks and maples, they listened to her teachings, and learned from her lips the wondrous story of Christ, who gave up his life on the cross that all tribes and races of mankind might live through Him. Then she prayed for them in the musical tongue of the Oneidas, and the "sounding aisles of the dim woods rang" with the psalms and hymns which she had taught those dusky children of the forest.
The change wrought by these ministrations of Mr. and Mrs. Kirkland was magical. A peaceful and well-ordered community, whose citizens were red men, rose in the wilderness, and many souls were gathered into the fold of Christ.
During the years of her residence and labors among the Oneidas, she won many hearts by her kind deeds as a nurse and medical benefactor to the red men and their wives and children. She was thus presented to them as a bright exemplar of the doctrines which she taught. Both she and her husband gained a wide influence among the Indians of the region, many of whom they were afterwards and during the Revolutionary contest, able to win over to the patriot cause.
The honor of having inaugurated Sunday schools on the frontier, must be awarded to woman. Truly this class of religious enterprises, in view of the circumstances by which they were surrounded, and the results produced, may be placed side by side with that missionary work which looks to the conversion of the pagan. The impressing of religious truth on the minds of the young, and preparing them to build up Christian communities in the wilderness, is in itself a great missionary work, the value of which is enhanced by the sacrifices and difficulties it involves. It was in Ohio that one of the first Sunday-schools in our country was kept, with which the name of Mrs. Lake must ever be identified.
In 1787, a year made memorable by the framing of the Constitution of the United States, the Ohio Company was organized in Boston, and soon after built a stockade fort at Marietta, Ohio, and named it Campus Martius. The year it was completed, the Rev. Daniel Storey, a preacher at Worcester, Massachusetts, was sent out as a chaplain. He acted as an evangelist till 1797, when he became the pastor of a Congregational church which he had been instrumental in collecting in Marietta and the adjoining towns, and which was organized the preceding year. He held that relation till the spring of 1804. Probably he was the first Protestant minister whose voice was heard in the vast wilderness lying to the northwest of the Ohio river.
In the garrison at Marietta, was witnessed the formation and successful operation of one of the first Sunday-schools in the United States. Its originator, superintendent, and sole teacher, was Mrs. Andrew Lake, an estimable lady from New York. Every Sabbath, after "Parson Storey had finished his public services," she collected as many of the children at her house as would attend, and heard them recite verses from the Scriptures, and taught them the Westminster catechism. Simple in her manner of teaching, and affable and kind in her disposition, she was able to interest her pupils—usually about twenty in number—and to win their affections to herself, to the school, and subsequently, in some instances, to the Saviour. A few, at least, of the little children that used to sit on rude benches, low stools, and the tops of meal bags, and listen to her sacred instructions and earnest admonitions, have doubtless ere this become pupils with her, in the "school of Christ" above.
Among the many names especially endeared to the friends of missions, there is another that we cannot forget—that of Sarah L. Smith. Like the Rev. Samuel Kirkland, she was a native of Norwich, Connecticut.
Her maiden name was Huntington. She was born in 1802; made a profession of religion in youth; became the wife of the Rev. Eli Smith in July, 1833; embarked with him for Palestine in the following September, and died at Boojah, near Smyrna, the last day of September, 1836.
Her work as a foreign missionary was quickly finished. She labored longer as a home missionary among the Mohegans, who lived in the neighborhood of Norwich, and there displayed most conspicuously the moral heroism of her nature. In conjunction with Sarah Breed, she commenced her philanthropic operations in the year 1827. "The first object that drew them from the sphere of their own church was the project of opening a Sunday-school for the poor Indian children of Mohegan. Satisfied that this was a work which would meet with the Divine approval, they marked out their plans and pursued them with untiring energy. Boldly they went forth, and, guided by the rising smoke or sounding axe, followed the Mohegans from field to field, and from hut to hut, till they had thoroughly informed themselves of their numbers, condition, and prospects. The opposition they encountered, the ridicule and opprobrium showered upon them from certain quarters, the sullenness of the natives, the bluster of the white tenants, the brushwood and dry branches thrown across their pathway, could not discourage them. They saw no 'lions in the way,' while mercy, with pleading looks, beckoned them forward."