Part 18 (1/2)

One night, toward morning, she dreamed that she saw a horse saddled and bridled at the gate and some one said to her that she must mount and ride to see her husband, who was very sick; she obeyed, in her dream, riding over a strange road, crossing a swollen stream at one point.

At daylight she awoke; a horse with side-saddle on was waiting and a messenger called her to go to her husband, as he was dangerously ill at a distant house. Exactly as in her dream she was conducted, she traversed the road and crossed the swollen stream to reach the place where he lay, stricken with a fatal malady.

After his death she returned to her father's house, but the family migrated from Tennessee to Illinois, spent their first winter in Sangamon County, afterward settling in Knox County.

There the brave young pioneer took up her abode in a log cabin on a piece of land which she purchased with the proceeds of her own hard toil.

The cabin was built without nails, of either oak or black walnut logs, it is not now known, with oak clapboards, braces and weight-poles and puncheon floor. There was one window without gla.s.s, a stick and clay mortar chimney, and a large, cheerful fireplace where the backlogs and fore-sticks held pyramids of dancing, ruddy flames, and the good cooking was done in the good old way.

By industry and thrift everything was turned to account. The ground was made to yield wheat, corn and flax; the last was taken through the whole process of manufacture into bed and table linen on the spot. Sheep were raised, the wool sheared, carded, spun, dyed and woven, all by hand, by this indefatigable worker, just as did many others of her time.

They made almost every article of clothing they wore, besides cloth for sale.

Great, soft, warm feather beds comforted them in the cold Illinois winters, the contents of which were plucked from the home flock of geese.

As soon as the children were old enough, they a.s.sisted in planting corn and other crops.

The domestic supplies were almost entirely of home production and manufacture. Soap for was.h.i.+ng owed its existence to the ash-hopper and sc.r.a.p-kettle, and the soap-boiling was an important and necessary process. The modern housewife would consider herself much afflicted if she had to do such work.

And the sugar-making, which had its pleasant side, the sugar camp and its merry tenants.

About half a mile from the cabin stood the sugar maple grove to which this energetic provider went to tap the trees, collect the sap and finally boil the same until the ”sugaring off.” A considerable event it was, with which they began the busy season.

One of the daughters of Sarah Latimer Denny remembers that when a little child she went with her mother to the sugar camp where they spent the night. Resting on a bed of leaves, she listened to her mother as she sang an old camp meeting hymn, ”Wrestling Jacob,” while she toiled, mending the fire and stirring the sap, all night long under dim stars sprinkled in the naked branches overhead.

Other memories of childish satisfaction hold visions of the early breakfast when ”Uncle John” came to see his widowed sister, who, with affectionate hospitality, set the ”Johnny-cake” to bake on a board before the fire, made chocolate, fried the chicken and served them with snowy biscuits and translucent preserves.

For the huge fireplace, huge lengths of logs, for the backlogs, were cut, which required three persons to roll in place.

Cracking walnuts on the generous hearth helped to beguile the long winter evenings. A master might have beheld a worthy subject in the merry children and their mother thus occupied.

If other light were needed than the ruddy gleams the fire gave, it was furnished by a lard lamp hung by a chain and staple in the wall, or one of a pallid company of dipped candles.

Sometimes there were unwelcome visitors bent on helping themselves to the best the farm afforded; one day a wolf chased a chicken up into the chimney corner of the Boren cabin, to the consternation of the small children. Wolves also attacked the sheep alongside the cabin at the very moment when one of the family was trying to catch some lambs; such savage boldness brought hearty and justifiable screams from the young shepherdess thus engaged.

The products of the garden attached to this cabin are remembered as wonderful in richness and variety; the melons, squashes, pumpkins, etc., the fragrant garden herbs, the dill and caraway seeds for the famous seedcakes carried in grandmothers' pockets or ”reticules.” In addition to these, the wild fruits and game; haws, persimmons, grapes, plums, deer and wild turkey; the medicinal herbs, bone-set and blood-root; the nut trees heavily laden in autumn, all ministered to the comfort and health of the pioneers.

The mistress was known for her generous hospitality then, and throughout her life. In visiting and treating the sick she distanced educated pract.i.tioners in success. Never a violent partisan, she was yet a steadfast friend. One daughter has said that she never knew any one who came so near loving her neighbor as herself. Just, reasonable, kind, ever ready with sympathetic and wholesome advice, it was applicably said of her, ”She openeth her mouth with wisdom and in her tongue is the law of kindness.”

As the years went by the children were sent to school, the youngest becoming a teacher.

Toilsome years they were, but doubtless full of rich reward.

Afterward, while yet in the prime of life, she married John Denny, a Kentuckian and pioneer of Indiana, Illinois and finally of Oregon and Was.h.i.+ngton.

With this new alliance new fields of effort and usefulness opened before her. The unusual occurrence of a widowed mother and her two daughters marrying a widower and his two sons made this new tie exceeding strong.

With them, as before stated, she crossed the plains and ”pioneered it”

in Oregon among the Waldo Hills, from whence she moved to Seattle on Puget Sound with her husband and little daughter, Loretta Denny, in 1859.