Woman on the American Frontier: A Valuable and Authentic History of the Heroism, Adventures, Privations, Captivities, Trials, and Noble Lives and Deaths of the "Pioneer Mothers of the Republic"Fowler, William Worthington
History
Woman on the American Frontier: A Valuable and Authentic History of the Heroism, Adventures, Privations, Captivities, Trials, and Noble Lives and Deaths of the "Pioneer Mothers of the Republic"
Fowler, William Worthington
Frontier and pioneer life -- United States; Women -- United States -- Biography
Dr. White offered his services to the Board of Missions, they were
accepted, and he was requested to be in readiness to sail in a few weeks,
from Boston via the Sandwich Islands, to Oregon. Mrs. White still retained
her determination to accompany her husband, though till she saw the
appointment and its publication, she scarcely realized the possibility of a
necessity for her doing so. The thought that they were now to leave,
probably for ever, their dear home, and dearer friends, was a sad one, and
she shed tears of regret though not of reluctance to go. She pictured to
herself her mother's anguish, at what must be very like consigning her only
daughter to the grave.
The anticipated separation from that mother, who had nursed her so tenderly
and loved her with that tireless, changeless affection which the maternal
heart only knows, filled her with sorrow. However, by a fortunate
coincidence they were spared the painful scene they had feared, and
obtained her consent with little difficulty. When they visited her, for
that purpose, she had just been reading for the first time the life of Mrs.
Judson; and the example of this excellent lady had so interested her that
when the project was laid before her she listened with comparative
calmness, and, though somewhat astonished, was willing they should go where
duty led them. This in some measure relieved Mrs. White, and with a
lightened heart and more composure she set about the necessary
preparations.
In a short time all was in readiness, the last farewell wept, rather than
spoken, the last yearning look lingered on cherished objects, and they were
on their way to Oregon.
On the day that their eldest son was one year old, they embarked from
Boston.
That their adieus were sorrowful may not be doubted, indeed this or any
other word in our language is inadequate to describe the emotions of the
party. As the pilot-boat dropped at the stern of the vessel, its occupants
waved their handkerchiefs and simultaneously began singing a farewell
"Missionary Hymn." The effect was electric; some rushed to the side in
agony as though they would recall the departed ones and return with them to
their native land. Others covered their faces, and tears streamed through
their trembling fingers, and sobs shook the frames of even strong men. They
thought not of formalities in that hour; it was not a shame for the sterner
sex to weep. The forms of their friends fast lessened in the distance, and
at last their boat looked like a speck on the wave, and the sweet cadences
of that beautiful song faintly rolling along to their hearing, like the
sigh of an angel, were the last sounds that reached them, from the home of
civilization.
With hushed respiration, bowed heads, and straining ears, they listened to
its low breathings now wafted gently and soothingly to them on the breeze,
then dying away, and finally lost in the whisperings of wind and waves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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