Woman on the American Frontier Part 30

A child of Mrs. Pike, and one of Mrs. Kiesburg, were carried in the arms of two of the party. Hardly had they marched two miles through the snow, when two of Mrs. Reed's children became exhausted--one of them a girl of eight, the other a little boy of four.

There were but two alternatives: either to return with them to the mountain-camp, or abandon them to death. When the mother was informed that it would be necessary to take them back, a scene of the most thrilling and painful interest ensued. She was a wife, and her affection for her husband, who was then in the settlement, dictated that she should go on; but she was also a mother, and all-powerful maternal love a.s.serted its sway, and she determined to send forward the two children who could walk, and return herself with the two youngest, and die with them.

No argument or persuasion on the part of Mr. Glover could shake her resolution. At last, in response to his solemn promises that, after reaching Bear River, he would return to the mountain-camp and bring back her children, after standing in silence for some moments, she turned from her darling babes and asked Mr. Eddy, "Are you a mason?" A reply being given in the affirmative, she said, "will you promise me, upon the word of a mason, that when you arrive at Bear River Valley, you will return and bring back my children if we do not meantime meet their father going for them?" "I do thus promise," Mr. Glover replied. "Then I will go on," said the mother, weeping bitterly as she p.r.o.nounced the words. Patty, the little girl, then took her mother by the hand and said, "Well, mamma, kiss me good-bye! I shall never see you again. I am willing to go back to our mountain-camp and die, but I cannot consent to your going back. I shall die willingly if I can believe that you will see papa. Tell him good-bye for his poor little Patty."

The mother and the children lingered in a long embrace. As Patty turned from her mother to go back to the camp, she whispered to Mr. Glover and Mr.

Mootrey, who were to take her, that she was willing to go back and take care of her little brother, but that she should never see her mother again.

Before reaching the settlement Mrs. Reed met her husband, who had been driven, for some cause, from the party several weeks before, and had succeeded in crossing the mountains in safety.

Messrs. Reed and McCutchen next headed a relief party, and crossed the mountains with supplies for the remainder of the emigrants. The Reed children were alive, but terribly wasted from their dreadful sufferings.

Hunger had driven the emigrants to revolting extremities. In some of the cabins were found parts of human bodies trussed and spitted for roasting, and traces of these horrid feasts were seen about the s.p.a.ce in front of the doors where offal was thrown.

The persons taken under Mr. Reed's guidance on the return, were Patrick Brinn, wife and five children; Mrs. Graves, and four children; Mary and Isaac Donnor, children of Jacob Donner; Solomon Work, a stepson of Jacob Donner, and two of his children. They reached the foot of the mountain without much difficulty; but they ascertained that their provisions would not last them more than a day and a half. Mr. Reed then sent three men forward with instructions to get supplies at a _cache_ about fifteen miles from the camp. The party resumed its journey, crossed the Sierra Nevada, and after traveling about ten miles, encamped on a bleak point, on the north side of a little valley, near the head of the Yuba River. A storm set in, and continued for two days and three nights. On the morning of the third day, the clouds broke away and the weather became more intensely cold than it had been during the journey. The sufferings of the emigrants in their bleak camp were too dreadful to be described. There was the greatest difficulty in keeping up the fire, and during the night the women and children, who had on very thin clothing, were in great danger of freezing to death; when the storm pa.s.sed away, the whole party were very weak, having pa.s.sed two days without food. Leaving Patrick Brinn and his family and the rest of the party who were disabled, Mr. Reed, and his California friends, his two children, Solomon Hook and a Mr. Miller, pressed forward for supplies, and in five days they succeeded in reaching the settlement.

It was some weeks before a new relief party organized by Messrs. Eddy and Foster were successful in reaching the party which Reed had left. A shocking spectacle was presented to the eyes of the adventurers at the "Starved Camp" as they rightly named it. Patrick Brinn and his wife were sunning themselves with a look of vacuity upon their faces. They had eaten the two children of Jacob Donner: Mrs. Graves' body was lying near them with almost all the flesh cut from the arms and limbs. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, heart, and liver were then being boiled over the fire. Her child sat by the side of the mangled remains crying bitterly.

After being supplied with food they were left in charge of three men who undertook to conduct them to the settlement. Meanwhile Messrs. Eddy and Foster went on to the horrible mountain-camp only to be shocked and revolted by new scenes of horror. Strewed about the cabins and burrows, in the snow, were the fragments of human bodies from which the flesh had been stripped; among the _debris_ of the hideous feasts sat the emaciated survivors looking more like cannibal-demons than human beings. Kiesburg had dug up the corpse of one of Mr. Eddy's children and devoured it, even when other food could be obtained, and the enfuriated father could with difficulty be restrained from killing the monster on the spot. Of the five surviving children at the mountain-camp, three were those of Mr. and Mrs.

Jacob Donner. When the time came for the party of unfortunates to start for the settlement under the guidance of their generous protectors, Mr.

Donner's condition was so feeble that he was unable to accompany them, and though Mrs. Donner was capable of traveling, she utterly refused to leave her husband while he survived. In response to the solicitations of those who urged that her husband could live but a little longer, and that her presence would not add one moment to the remaining span of his life, she expressed her solemn and unalterable purpose which no hardship or danger could change, to remain and perform for him the last sad offices of duty and affection. At the same time she manifested the profoundest solicitude for her beloved children, and implored Mr. Eddy to save them, promising all that she possessed if he would convey them in safety to the settlement. He pledged himself to carry out her wishes without recompense, or perish in the attempt.

No provisions remained to supply the needs of these unhappy beings. At the end of two hours Mr. Eddy informed Mrs. Donner that a terrible necessity constrained him to depart. It was certain that Jacob Donner would never rise from the wretched couch on which he lay, worn out with toil and wasted by famine. It was almost equally certain that unless Mrs. Donner then abandoned her unfortunate partner and accompanied Mr. Eddy and his party to the settlement, she would die of wasting famine or perish violently at the hands of some lurking cannibal. By accompanying her children she could minister to their wants and perhaps be the means of saving their lives. The all-powerful maternal instinct combined with the love of life, urged her to fly with her children from the scene of so many horrors and dangers. Well might her reason have questioned her, "Why stay and meet inevitable death since you cannot save your husband from the grave which yawns to receive him? and when your presence, your converse and hands can only beguile the few remaining hours of his existence?" Time pa.s.sed. By no entreaties could she enlarge the hour of departure which had now arrived. Nor did she seek to and thus endanger the lives of those who were hastening to depart. She must decide the dread question that moment.

Rarely in the long suffering record of woman, has she been placed in circ.u.mstances of such peculiar trial, but the love of life, the instinct of self-preservation, and even maternal affection, could not triumph over her affection as a wife. Her husband begged her to save her life and leave him to die alone, a.s.suring her that she could be of no service to him, as he could not probably survive under any circ.u.mstances until the next morning; with streaming eyes she bent over him, kissed his pale, emaciated, haggard, and even then, death-stricken cheek, and said:

"No! no! dear husband, I will remain with you, and here perish rather than leave you to die alone, with no one to soothe your dying sorrows, and close your eyes when dead. Entreat me not to leave you. Life, accompanied with the reflection that I had thus left you, would possess for me more than the bitterness of death; and death would be sweet with the thought in my last moments, that I had a.s.suaged one pang of yours in your pa.s.sage into eternity No! no! no!" She repeated, sobbing convulsively.

The parting interview between the parents and the children is represented to have been one that can never be forgotten as long as reason remains or the memory performs its functions. In the dying father the fountain of tears was dried up; but the agony on his death-stricken face and the feeble pressure of his hand on the brow of each little one as it bade him adieu for ever, told the story of his last great sorrow. As Mrs. Donner clasped her children to her heart in a parting embrace, she turned to Mr. Eddy with streaming eyes and sobbed her last words, "O, save, save, my children!"

This closing scene in the sad and eventful careers of those unfortunate emigrants was the crowning act in a long and terrible drama which ill.u.s.trated, under many conditions of toil, hardship, danger, despair, and death, the courage, fort.i.tude, patience, love, and devotion of woman.

CHAPTER XX.

THE COMFORTER AND THE GUARDIAN.

Mind-power and heart-power--these are the forces that move the moral universe. Which is the stronger, who shall say? If the former is within the province of the man, the latter is still more exclusively the prerogative of woman. With this she wins and rules her empire, with this she celebrates her n.o.blest triumphs, and proves herself to be the G.o.d-delegated consoler and comforter of mankind. This is the power which moves the will to deeds of charity and mercy, which awakens the latent sympathies for suffering humanity, which establishes the law of kindness, soothes the irritated and perturbed spirit, and pours contentment and happiness into the soul.

If we could collect and concentrate into one great pulsating organ all the n.o.ble individual emotions that have stirred a million human hearts, what a prodigious agency would that be to act for good upon the world! And yet we may see something of the operation of just such an agency if we search the record of our time, watch the inner movements which control society and reflect that nearly every home contains a fractional portion of this beneficent agency, each fraction working in its way, and according to its measure, in harmony with all the others towards the same end.

Warm and fruitful as the sunshine, and subtle, too, as the ether which illumines the solar walk, we can gauge the strength of this agency only by its results. Nor can we by the symbols of language fully compa.s.s and describe even these results.

The man of science can measure the great forces of physical nature; heat, electricity, and light can all be gauged by mechanisms constructed by his hand, but by no device can he measure the forces of our moral nature.

The poet, whose insight is deeper than others' into this great and mysterious potency, can only give glimpses of its source, and draw tears by painting, in words, the traits which it induces.

The historian and biographer can record and dwell with fondness upon the acts of men and women, which were prompted by this power of the soul.

The moralist can point to them as examples to follow, or as cheering evidence of the loftier impulses of humanity. But still, in its depth and height, in its fountain, and in its remotest outflow, this power cannot be fully measured or appreciated by any standards known to man. The comprehensive and conceptive faculty of the imagination is wearied in placing before itself the springs, the action, and the boundless beneficence of this grand force, which flourishes and lives in its highest efficiency in the breast of woman. "Thanks," cries the poet of nature and of G.o.d,

"Thanks, to the human heart, by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, its fears."

We have shown how in all the ages since the landing, woman has proved her t.i.tle to the possession of the manly virtues. We have shown her as a heroine, battling with the hostile powers of man and nature, and yet, even in those cases, if we were to a.n.a.lyze the motives which prompted her heroic acts, we should find them to spring at last from the source of power whereof we are speaking. It is out of her abounding and forceful emotional nature that she becomes a heroine. It is to relieve, to succor, or to save her dear ones, that she is brave, strong, enduring, patient, and devoted.

Frontier life has called, upon her for the exercise of these qualities, and she has n.o.bly responded to the call. She fought; she toiled; she was undaunted by the apprehension of dangers and difficulties as well as intrepid in facing them. She bore without complaint the privations and hardships incident to such a life, and taxed every resource of body and mind in efforts to secure for her successors a home which neither peril nor trial should a.s.sail.

But this did not embrace the entire circle of her acts and her influence.

To soothe, to comfort, to sustain in the trying time, to throw over the darkest hour the brightness of her sunny presence and sweet voice--by these influences she did more to establish and confirm, that civilization which our race has been carrying westward, than by even those exhibitions of manly heroism of which we have spoken.

Nine generations of men and women, through a period which a few years more will make three centuries, have been engaged in extending the frontier line, or have lived surrounded by circ.u.mstances similar to those which environ the remote border. The aggregate number of these men and women cannot be any more than estimated. Doubtless it will amount to many millions. A million helpmeets and comforters in a million homes! Mothers, wives, daughters, sisters--all supporting and buoying up the well-nigh broken spirits of the "stronger s.e.x," and, by simple words, encouraging and stimulating to repair their desperate fortunes. Who can calculate the sum total of such an influence as this?

Among the myriad instances of the solacing and soul-inspiring power of a woman's voice in hours of darkness on the lonely border, we select a few for the purpose of showing her in this her appropriate domain.

Nearly two centuries ago, in one of those heated religious controversies which occurred in a river settlement in Ma.s.sachusetts, a young man and his wife felt themselves constrained, partly through a desire for greater liberty of thought and action, and partly from natural energy of disposition, to push away from the fertile valley and establish their home on one of those bleak hillsides which form the spurs of the Green Mountain range. Here they set up their household deities, and lit the lights of the fireside in the darkness of the forest, and amid the wild loneliness of nature's. .h.i.therto untended domain.

In such situations as these, not merely from their isolation, but from the sterility of the soil and the inhospitable air of the region, the struggle for existence is often a severe one. Perseverance and self-denial, however, triumphed over all difficulties. Year after year the trees bowed themselves before the axe, and the soil surrendered its reluctant treasures in the furrow of the ploughshare.

Plenty smiled around the cabin. The light glowed on the hearth, and the benighted traveler hailed its welcome rays as he fared towards the hospitable door.

Apart from the self-interest and happiness of its inmates, it was no small benefit to others that such a home was made in that rugged country. Such homes are the outposts of the army of pioneers: here they can pause and rest, gathering courage and confidence when they regard them as establishments in the same wilderness where they are seeking to plant themselves.

Five years after their arrival their house and barns were destroyed by fire. Their cattle, farming utensils, and household furniture were all fortunately saved, and before long the buildings were replaced, and in two years all the ravages of the devouring element had been repaired. Again a happy and plenteous abode rewarded the labors of the pair. Three years rolled away in the faithful discharge of every duty inc.u.mbent upon them, each toiling in their respective sphere to increase their store and rear their large family of children.

A series of severe rains had kept them within doors for nearly ten days.

One afternoon as they were sitting before their fire they experienced a peculiar sensation as though the ground on which the house stood was moving. Running out doors, they saw that the rains had loosened the hill-side soil from the rock on which it lay, and that it was slowly moving into the ravine below. Hastily collecting their children, they had barely time to escape to a rock a short distance from their house, when the landslide carried the house and barns, with the ground on which they stood, into the ravine, burying them and their entire contents beneath twenty feet of earth.

Almost worn out with his unremitting toils continued through ten years, and seeing the fruits of that toil swept away in an instant, looking around him in vain for any shelter, and far away from any helping hand, it was not surprising that the man should have given way to despair. He wept, groaned, and tore his hair, declaring that he would struggle no longer with fates which proved so adverse. "Go," said he, "Mary, to the nearest house with the children. I will die here."

His wife was one of those fragile figures which it seemed that a breath could blow away. Hers, however, was an organization which belied its apparent weakness. A brave and loving spirit animated that frail tenement.

Long she strove to soothe her husband's grief, but without avail.

Gathering a thick bed of leaves and sheltering her children as well as she could from the chilly air, she returned ever and anon to the spot where her husband sat in the stupor of despair, and uttered words of comfort and timely suggestions of possible means of relief.

"We began with nothing, John, and we can begin with nothing again. You are strong, and so am I. Bethink yourself of those who pa.s.s by on their way to the great river every year at this time. These folk are good and neighborly, and will lend us willing hands to dig out of the earth the gear that we have lost by the landslip." Thus through the night, with these and like expressions, she comforted and encouraged the heart-broken man, and having at length kindled hope, succeeded in rousing him to exertion.

For two days the whole family suffered greatly while awaiting help, but that hope which the words of the wife had awakened, did not again depart.

A party of pa.s.sing emigrants, ascertaining the condition of the family, all turned to, and having the necessary tools, soon dug down to the house and barn, and succeeded in recovering most of the buried furniture, stores, and utensils. The unlucky couple succeeded finally in retrieving themselves, and years after, when the father was pa.s.sing a prosperous old age in the valley of the Mohawk, to which section the family eventually moved, he was wont to tell how his wife had lifted him out of the depths of despair by those kind and thoughtful words, and put new life and hope into his heart during those dark days among the mountains of Ma.s.sachusetts.

There is no section of our country where the presence of woman is so strong for good, and where her words of lofty cheer to the stricken and distressed are so potential as in the mountain republics on our extreme western border. There are in that section communities composed almost entirely of men who not only treat the few of the other s.e.x who live among them, with a chivalrous respect, but who listen to their words as if they were heaven-sent messages. In one of the mining settlements of California, during the early years of that State, an epidemic fever broke out, and raged with great malignity among the miners. The settlement was more than two hundred miles from San Francisco, in a secluded mountain gorge, barren of all but the precious metal which had attracted thither a rough, and motley mult.i.tude. There was no doctor within a hundred miles, and not a single female to nurse and watch the forlorn subjects of the pestilence.

Mrs. Maurice, a married lady who had recently come from the east to San Francisco with her husband, hearing of the distress which prevailed in that mountain district, immediately set out, in company with her husband, who heartily sympathized with her generous enterprise, and crossed the Sierra Nevada for the purpose of ministering to the wants of the sick. She carried a large supply of medicines and other necessaries, and after a toilsome journey over the rough foot-paths which were then the only avenues by which the place could be reached, arrived at the settlement. By some means the miners had become apprised of her approach, and she was met by a cavalcade of rough-bearded men, a score in number, mounted on mules, as a guard of honor to escort her to the scene of her n.o.ble labors. As she came in sight, riding down the mountain side, the escort party waved their huge hats in the air and hurrahed as if they were mad, while the tears streamed down their swarthy cheeks. With heads uncovered they ranged themselves on either side of the lady and her husband, and accompanied them to the place where the pestilence was raging. Some of the sick men rose from their beds and stood with pale, fever-wasted faces at the doors of their wretched cabins, and smiled feebly and tried to shout as the n.o.ble woman drew near. Their voices were hollow and sepulchral, and the ministering angel who had visited them witnessed this moving spectacle not without tears. For two months she pa.s.sed her time night and day in watching over and ministering to those unfortunate men. s.n.a.t.c.hing a nap now and then, every other available moment was given to her patients. Many died, and after receiving their last messages to friends far away in the east, she closed their eyes and pa.s.sed on in her errand of mercy.

One of her patients thus testified to the efficacy of her ministrations: "As I owe my recovery to her exertions, I rejoice to give my testimony to her untiring zeal, her self-sacrificing devotion, and her angelic kindness.

She never seemed to me to be happy except when engaged in alleviating the sufferings of us who were sick, and she watched over us with all the tenderness and love of a mother. Many of the sick men called her by that endeared name, and we all seemed to be her children.