Vanished Arizona: Recollections of the Army Life by a New England WomanSummerhayes, Martha
History
Vanished Arizona: Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman
Summerhayes, Martha
Arizona -- Biography; Arizona -- Description and travel; Summerhayes, Martha, 1844-1926; United States. Army -- Military life
In the meantime, the young woman had gone ashore and was sitting upon
her trunk, gazing hopelessly about. Jack approached, offered her a home
and good wages, and brought her to me.
I could have hugged her for very joy, but I restrained myself and
advised her to stay with us for awhile, saying the Ehrenberg climate was
quite as good as that of Tucson.
She remarked quietly: "You do not look as if it agreed with you very
well, ma'am."
Then I told her of my young child, and my hard journeys, and she decided
to stay until she could earn enough to reach Tucson.
And so Ellen became a member of our Ehrenberg family. She was a fine,
strong girl, and a very good cook, and seemed to be in perfect health.
She said, however, that she had had an obstinate cough which nothing
would reach, and that was why she came to Arizona. From that time,
things went more smoothly. Some yeast was procured from the Mexican
bakeshop, and Ellen baked bread and other things, which seemed like the
greatest luxuries to us. We sent the soldier back to his company at Fort
Yuma, and began to live with a degree of comfort.
I looked at Ellen as my deliverer, and regarded her coming as a special
providence, the kind I had heard about all my life in New England, but
had never much believed in.
After a few weeks, Ellen was one evening seized with a dreadful
toothache, which grew so severe that she declared she could not endure
it another hour: she must have the tooth out. "Was there a dentist in
the place?"
I looked at Jack: he looked at me: Ellen groaned with pain.
"Why, yes! of course there is," said this man for emergencies; "Fisher
takes out teeth, he told me so the other day."
Now I did not believe that Fisher knew any more about extracting teeth
than I did myself, but I breathed a prayer to the Recording Angel, and
said naught.
"I'll go get Fisher," said Jack.
Now Fisher was the steamboat agent. He stood six feet in his stockings,
had a powerful physique and a determined eye. Men in those countries had
to be determined; for if they once lost their nerve, Heaven save them.
Fisher had handsome black eyes.
When they came in, I said: "Can you attend to this business, Mr.
Fisher?"
"I think so," he replied, quietly. "The Quartermaster says he has some
forceps."
I gasped. Jack, who had left the room, now appeared, a box of
instruments in his hand, his eyes shining with joy and triumph.
Fisher took the box, and scanned it. "I guess they'll do," said he.
So we placed Ellen in a chair, a stiff barrack chair, with a raw-hide
seat, and no arms.
It was evening.
"Mattie, you must hold the candle," said Jack. "I'll hold Ellen, and,
Fisher, you pull the tooth."
So I lighted the candle, and held it, while Ellen tried, by its
flickering light, to show Fisher the tooth that ached.
Fisher looked again at the box of instruments. "Why," said he, "these
are lower jaw rollers, the kind used a hundred years ago; and her tooth
is an upper jaw."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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