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
It is this characteristic that makes her presence on the frontier so
essential to a successful prosecution of true pioneer enterprises. The
man's work is one of destruction and subjugation. He must level the forest,
break the soil, and fight all the forces that oppose him in his progress.
Woman guards the health and life of the household, hoards the stores of the
family, and economizes the surplus strength of her husband, father, or son.
We are speaking now of the sex as it is seen in a new country and in remote
settlements. In crowded cities, amid a superabundant wealth, and an idle
and luxurious mode of life, we see too often the types of selfish,
frivolous, and conventional females such as are hardly known on the border.
But even in these, populous districts the same spirit is not unfrequently
shown, with important results, in respect to the accumulation of great
fortunes.
Some forty years since, a capitalist who now counts his fortune by the tens
of millions, informed his wife that if he was only in possession of five
thousand dollars, he could derive great gains from a business into which he
designed to enter. To his astonishment she immediately brought him a bank
book showing a balance of five thousand dollars, the savings of many years,
and told him to use it as he thought best. Those hoardings judiciously
invested laid the foundation of one of the largest properties owned by a
single man upon this continent.
As a conserving agency, the spirit and influence of woman is of course most
strongly exerted within the circle of her own family. Here she knits the
ties that binds that circle together, and gathers and holds the material
and moral resources which make the household what it is. When disaster
comes, it is her study to prevent disintegration and keep the home
uninjured and unbroken.
While a family were flying from a ferocious band of tories during the
Revolution, in the confusion, one of the children was left behind. It was
the eldest daughter who first discovered the fact, and only she dared to
return and save her little brother from their blood-thirsty enemies. It was
dark and rainy, and imminent danger would attend the effort to rescue the
lad. But the brave girl hastened back; reached the house still in
possession of the British; begged the sentinel to let her enter; and though
repeatedly repulsed doubled the earnestness of her entreaties, and finally
gained admittance. She found the child in his chamber, hastened down stairs
and passing the sentry, fled with the shot whizzing past her head, and with
the child soon joined the rest of the family.
When deprived of her natural protector and left the sole guardian of her
children she becomes a prodigy of watchful care.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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