Part 26 (1/2)

She looked carefully to the food, fresh air, exercise and bathing of her little flock with the most satisfying results. She believes in the house for the people, not the people for the house, and has invariably put the health and comfort of her household before her care for things.

Her mind is one to originate and further ideas of reform and eagerly appropriate the best of others' conclusions.

Ever the sympathetic counsellor and friend of her children in work and study, she shared their pastimes frequently as well. She remembers going through the heavy forest which once surrounded Lake Union with her boys trout-fis.h.i.+ng in the outlet of the lake; while she poked the fish with a pole from their hiding places under the bank the boys would gig them, having good success and much lively sport.

On one trip they had the excitement of a cougar hunt; that is, the cougar seemed to be hunting them, but they ”made tracks” and accomplished their escape; the cougar was afterward killed.

Several other of her adventures are recounted elsewhere. It would require hundreds of pages to set forth a moving picture of the stirring frontier life in which she partic.i.p.ated.

Louisa Boren Denny is a pioneer woman of the best type.

Her charities have been many; kind and encouraging words, sympathy and gifts to the needy and suffering; her nature is generous and unselfish, and, though working quietly, her influence is and has ever been none the less potent for good.

”Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war.”

Of the victories over environment and circ.u.mstances much might be written. The lack of comforts and conveniences compelled arduous manual toil and the busy ”brown hands” found many homely duties to engage their activities. In and out of the cabins the high-browed pioneer mothers wrought, where now the delicate dames, perhaps, indolently occupy luxuriant homes.

It is impossible for these latter to realize the loneliness, wildness and rudeness of the surroundings of the pioneer women. Instead of standing awed before the dauntless souls that preceded them, with a toss of the head they say, ”You might endure such things but we couldn't, _we are so much finer clay_.”

The friends they left behind were sorely regretted; one pioneer woman said the most cruel deprivation was the rarity of letters from home friends, the anxious waiting month after month for some word that might tell of their well-being. Neither telegraph nor fleet mail service had then been established.

The pioneer woman learned to face every sort of danger from riding rough water in an Indian canoe to hunting blackberries where bears, panthers and Indians roamed the deep forest. One said that she would not go through it again for the whole State of Was.h.i.+ngton.

Each was obliged to depend almost wholly on herself and was compelled to invent and apply many expedients to feed and clothe herself and little ones. There was no piano playing or fancy work for her, but she made, mended and re-made, cooked, washed and swept, helped put in the garden or clear the land, all the time instructing her children as best she could, and by both precept and example, inculcating those high principles that mark true manhood and womanhood.

The typical band of pioneer women who landed on Alki Point, all but one of whom sat down to weep, have lived to see a great city built, in less than a half century, the home of thousands who reap the fruits of their struggles in the wilderness.

The heroic endurance with which they toiled and waited, many years, the tide in their affairs, whereby they attained a moderate degree of ease, comfort and freedom from anxiety, all so hardily won, is beyond words of admiration.

The well-appointed kitchen of today, with hot and cold water on tap, fine steel range, cupboards and closets crowded with every sort of cunning invention in the shape of utensils for cooking, is a luxurious contrast to the meager outfit of the pioneer housewife. As an example of the inconvenience and privations of the early '50s, I give the following from the lips of one of the pioneer daughters, Sarah (Bonney) Kellogg:

”When we came to Steilacoom in 1853, we lived overhead in a rough lumber store building, and my mother had to go up and down stairs and out into the middle of the street or roadway and cook for a numerous family by a stump fire. She owned the only sieve in the settlement, a large round one; flour was $25.00 a barrel and had weevils in it at that, so every time bread was made the flour had to be sifted to get them out. The sieve was very much in demand and frequently the children were sent here or there among the neighbors to bring it home.

”We had sent to Olympia for a stove, but it was six weeks before it reached its destination.”

Think of cooking outdoors for six weeks for a family of growing children, with only the fewest possible dishes and utensils, too!

Any woman of the present time may imagine, if she will, what it would be to have every picture, or other ornament, every article of furniture, except the barest necessities for existence, the fewest possible in number, every fas.h.i.+onable garment, her house itself with its vines and shrubbery suddenly vanish and raise her eyes to see without the somber forest standing close around; within, the newspapered or bare walls of a log cabin, a tiny window admitting little light, a half-open door, but darkened frequently by savage faces; or to strain her ears to catch the song, whistle or step of her husband returning through the dark forest, fearing but hoping and praying that he may not have fallen on the way by the hand of a foe. She might look down to see her form clad in homely garments of cotton print, moccasins on her feet, and her wandering glance touch her sunbonnet hanging on a peg driven between the logs.

Now and then a wild cry sounds faintly or fully over the water or from the sighing depths of the vast wilderness.

An unusual challenge by ringing stentorian voices may call her to the door to scan the face of the waters and see great canoes loaded with brawny savages, whose intentions are uncertain, paddled swiftly up the bay, instead of the familiar sound of steam whistles and gliding in of steams.h.i.+ps to a welcome port.

Should it be a winter evening and her companion late, they seat themselves at a rude table and partake of the simplest food from the barely sufficient dishes, meanwhile striving to rea.s.sure each other ere retiring for the night.

So day after day pa.s.sed away and many years of them, the conditions gradually modified by advancing civilization, yet rendered even more arduous by increasing cares and toils incident upon the rearing and educating of a family with very little, if any, a.s.sistance from such sources as the modern mother has at her command. Physicians and nurses, cooks and house-maids were almost entirely lacking, and the mother, with what the father could help her, had to be all these in turn.

In all ordinary, incipient or trifling ailments they necessarily became skillful, and for many years kept their families in health with active and vigorous bodies, clear brains and goodly countenances.