John Stevens' Courtship: A Story of the Echo Canyon WarGates, Susa Young
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John Stevens' Courtship: A Story of the Echo Canyon War
Gates, Susa Young
Latter Day Saints -- Fiction; Utah Expedition (1857-1858) -- Fiction
She thought resentfully of the many flowers which Aunt Clara said grew
in such generous loveliness in her own native Massachusetts hills;
there was nothing but hardship and desolation in Utah, with common
daisies and cheap grasses for flowers. But on she wandered, sometimes
humming softly and sometimes bitterly reflecting on her many trials,
as she recalled the daily annoyances of her life. Suddenly she saw,
a little ahead of her and out in the thick brush, a blue-coated man,
either dead or asleep.
Her first impulse was to fly as with the wind, for her own safe home.
But there was a sort of unnatural look about the figure; a distortion
which could not mean sleep. She paused, her heart making such confusion
that she had to hold her hand over it for a moment to still its wild
beating. Then, with a vague, dark fear, her heart now choking her
delicate throat, she cautiously approached the recumbent figure. No, he
certainly was not asleep, for his head hung down limp over the bushes
in a helpless way which could never be sleep. And as she approached
nearer, she saw his arm flung out, the sleeve drawn tightly up, and a
stream of blood pouring over the white cuff of the shirt and staining
the outer blue sleeve with its dull sanguinary hue.
She looked at the face! It was colorless, and the lips were parted
under the dark mustache, as if in death itself. What should she do?
Again the wild impulse, the whispering voice in her heart, clamored
for her to turn and flee to her own home and send some one out who
could do much more than she, an ignorant girl. But what if the soldier
should die while she was traveling all that distance? She looked into
the face; it was handsome in the extreme, and about the whole figure
there was an indefinable clinging fascination, which drew her onward
so unconsciously, that she hardly realized what decision she had made
until she found herself on her knees beside the recumbent form, tying
up the gaping wound in the arm as tightly as she could with her own
homely but strong cotton handkerchief; then over her own, she tied his
own large handkerchief, which she did not fail to notice was of the
finest texture and of snowy whiteness. She ran down to the river, and
filling the pretty blue soldier cap with water, managed to get a little
between his lips, and then she bathed his head and moistened his pale
brows.
It seemed hours to her, but it was only a few minutes, before the dark
eyes opened and gazed with seeming stupidity into her own. Then life
returned to his face with a look, which in some way thrilled her to her
very finger-tips--she could not say whether it gave more pleasure or
pain--as it crept into the eyes of the soldier, and he gazed silently
into the face bent over him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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