Blazing the Way; Or, True Stories, Songs and Sketches of Puget SoundDenny, Emily Inez
History
Blazing the Way; Or, True Stories, Songs and Sketches of Puget Sound
Denny, Emily Inez
Indians of North America -- Northwestern States; Oregon Territory -- History; Washington (State) -- History
The path crossed a pretty open space covered with ripe yellow grass and
set around with giant trees, just before it vanished in the hurrying
stream.
Father rode on and crossed, quite easily, the uneven bed of the swift
river, with its gravelly islands and deep pools.
When it came our turn, our patient beast plunged in and courageously
advanced to near the middle of the stream, wavered and stood still and
seemed about to go down with the current. How distinctly the green,
rapid water, gravelly shoals and distant bank with its anxious onlookers
is photographed on my memory's page!
Only for a moment did the brave animal falter and then sturdily worked
her way to the shore. Mr. Warbass, with white face and trembling voice,
said "I thought you were gone, sure." His coat was off and he had been
on the point of plunging in to save us from drowning, if possible.
Willing hands helped us down and into the hospitable home, where we were
glad to rest after such a severe trial. A sleepless night followed for
my mother, who suffered from the reaction common to such experience,
although not panic stricken at the time of danger.
It was here I received my first remembered lesson in "meum et tuum."
While playing under the fruit trees around the house I spied a peach
lying on the ground, round, red and fair to see. I took it in to my
mother who asked where I got it, if I had asked for it, etc. I replied I
had found it outdoors.
"Well, it isn't yours, go and give it to the lady and never pick up
anything without asking for it."
A lesson that was heeded, and one much needed by children in these days
when individual rights are so little regarded.
The muddy wagon road between this point and Olympia over which the teams
had struggled in the springtime was now dry and the wagon was put
together with hope of a fairly comfortable trip. It was discovered in so
doing that the tongue of the vehicle had been left at Monticello. Not to
be delayed, father repaired to the woods and cut a forked ash stick and
made it do duty for the missing portion.
At Olympia we were entertained by Mr. and Mrs. Dickinson with whom we
tarried as we went to Oregon.
My mother preferred her steed to the steamer plying on the Sound; that
same trip the selfsame craft blew up.
On horseback again, we followed the trail from Olympia to the Duwampsh
River, over hills and hollows, out on the prairie or in the dark forest,
at night putting up at the house of a hospitable settler. From thence we
were told that it was only one day's travel but the trail stretched out
amazingly. Night, and a stormy one, overtook the hapless travelers.
The thunder crashed, the lightning flamed, sheets of rain came down, but
there was no escape.
A halt was called at an open space in a grove of tall cedar trees, a
fire made and the horses hitched under the trees.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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