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A Night At Wingdam
by
But I was staringly wide awake. I heard the wind sweep down the mountain-side, and toss the branches of the melancholy pine, and then enter the house, and try all the doors along the passage. Sometimes strong currents of air blew my hair all over the pillow, as with strange whispering breaths. The green timber along the walls seemed to be sprouting, and sent a dampness even through the “bar-skin.” I felt like Robinson Crusoe in his tree, with the ladder pulled up,–or like the rocked baby of the nursery song. After lying awake half an hour, I regretted having stopped at Wingdam; at the end of the third quarter, I wished I had not gone to bed; and when a restless hour passed, I got up and dressed myself. There had been a fire down in the big room. Perhaps it was still burning. I opened the door and groped my way along the passage, vocal with the snores of the Alemanni and the whistling of the night wind; I partly fell down stairs, and at last entering the big room, saw the fire still burning. I drew a chair toward it, poked it with my foot, and was astonished to see, by the upspringing flash, that Parthenia was sitting there also, holding a faded-looking baby.
I asked her why she was sitting up.
“She did not go to bed on Wednesday night before the mail arrived, and then she awoke her husband, and there were passengers to ‘tend to.”
“Did she not get tired sometimes?”
“A little, but Abner” (the barbarian’s Christian name) “had promised to get her more help next spring, if business was good.”
“How many boarders had she?”
“She believed about forty came to regular meals, and there was transient custom, which was as much as she and her husband could ‘tend to. But HE did a great deal of work.”
“What work?”
“O, bringing in the wood, and looking after the traders’ things.”
“How long had she been married?”
“About nine years. She had lost a little girl and boy. Three children living. HE was from Illinois. She from Boston. Had an education (Boston Female High School,–Geometry, Algebra, a little Latin and Greek). Mother and father died. Came to Illinois alone, to teach school. Saw HIM–yes–a love match.” (“Two souls,” etc., etc.) “Married and emigrated to Kansas. Thence across the Plains to California. Always on the outskirts of civilization. HE liked it.
“She might sometimes have wished to go home. Would like to on account of her children. Would like to give them an education. Had taught them a little herself, but couldn’t do much on account of other work. Hoped that the boy would be like his father, strong and hearty. Was fearful the girl would be more like her. Had often thought she was not fit for a pioneer’s wife.”
“Why?”
“O, she was not strong enough, and had seen some of his friends’ wives in Kansas who could do more work. But he never complained,–was so kind.” (“Two souls,” etc.)
Sitting there with her head leaning pensively on one hand, holding the poor, wearied, and limp-looking baby wearily on the other arm, dirty, drabbled, and forlorn, with the firelight playing upon her features no longer fresh or young, but still refined and delicate, and even in her grotesque slovenliness still bearing a faint reminiscence of birth and breeding, it was not to be wondered that I did not fall into excessive raptures over the barbarian’s kindness. Emboldened by my sympathy, she told me how she had given up, little by little, what she imagined to be the weakness of her early education, until she found that she acquired but little strength in her new experience. How, translated to a backwoods society, she was hated by the women, and called proud and “fine,” and how her dear husband lost popularity on that account with his fellows. How, led partly by his roving instincts, and partly from other circumstances, he started with her to California. An account of that tedious journey. How it was a dreary, dreary waste in her memory, only a blank plain marked by a little cairn of stones,–a child’s grave. How she had noticed that little Willie failed. How she had called Abner’s attention to it, but, man-like, he knew nothing about children, and pooh-poohed it, and was worried by the stock. How it happened that after they had passed Sweetwater, she was walking beside the wagon one night, and looking at the western sky, and she heard a little voice say “Mother.” How she looked into the wagon and saw that little Willie was sleeping comfortably and did not wish to wake him. How that in a few moments more she heard the same voice saying “Mother.” How she came back to the wagon and leaned down over him, and felt his breath upon her face, and again covered him up tenderly, and once more resumed her weary journey beside him, praying to God for his recovery. How with her face turned to the sky she heard the same voice saying “Mother,” and directly a great bright star shot away from its brethren and expired. And how she knew what had happened, and ran to the wagon again only to pillow a little pinched and cold white face upon her weary bosom. The thin red hands went up to her eyes here, and for a few moments she sat still. The wind tore round the house and made a frantic rush at the front door, and from his couch of skins in the inner room–Ingomar, the barbarian, snored peacefully.