"There was no sound beyond the quick-whispered name, no presence, only
the touch, but my mother knew as people know in dreams that my father
was there, gay and happy, and intending to startle Susie, who when my
mother was married was only a child of eight, and was always a pet
playmate of my father's. Her shrill, prolonged scream was his delight,
and he never lost an opportunity to startle her.
"Mother came back to the girl's room, but before she could speak, Susie
gave a great cry, fell in a heap upon the rug, and screamed again and
again, until mother crushed her balldress over her head to keep the
sound from the neighbors. Her cousin asked mother what she had seen, and
she explained that she had seen nothing, but had heard my father tell
her to keep still until he could scare Susie.
"Peace came to my mother instantly, and on retiring she fell into a
refreshing sleep from which she did not waken until ten the next
morning; all fear for the safety of father had vanished from her mind;
with sleep came strength, and she soon was her happy self again.
"When my father returned home, we learned that it was at the time the
party was starving that my mother had the premonition of evil having
befallen them, and the entry in his journal showed that exactly the
moment he had written it in Parowan, my mother had felt his presence,
and in the wireless message from heart to heart knew that my father was
safe and free from harm. The hour exactly tallied with the entry in his
book, allowing for the difference in longitude."
Further details would have been desirable, particularly just what was
the immediate occasion of Susie's fright, for she screamed before Mrs.
Fremont related what had befallen herself. The only escape from the
conclusion that Susie had some separate peculiar experience is to
suppose--which we may not unreasonably do--that the elder lady betrayed
her own agitation before she spoke, perhaps by dropping the sticks,
hurrying back, and looking strangely at Susie. We would have liked a
sight of the General's journal, also, and to have been permitted to copy
the entry exactly as it stands.
Nevertheless, though we leave Susie and her screams quite out of
account, we have a very pretty case remaining, however we explain it.
Mrs. Fremont's depression might be explained by the very natural fears
of a woman whose husband was engaged in a possibly dangerous expedition,
though she picked out for her fears exactly the period of the expedition
when there was an actual state of privation and danger. But why did the
fear so afflicting to her health and spirits so suddenly leave her,
while it was still winter in the mountains? And why did the hour and
moment of the cessation of these fears coincide with the hour and moment
when the explorer was occupied with thoughts of home and writing his
wish that his wife might know that he was safe?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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