“Katharine”

“ Not long after this there might have been seen upon the back porch of the Ranch of the Pointed Firs a woman’s waving shadow, bowing and bending low above a wash-tub, the shadow muttering,—
“For men must work, and women must weep,
And there’s little to earn, and many to keep.”
After an hour or more of hard work, I observed Thomas coming up from the ruins of Palmyra, and hoping to awaken a spark of compassion in his adamantine bosom, I put on my most fagged expression, rubbing so fast and with such force that every loose thing on the porch was jingling when he reached it. ”

“ After the slackening of the Winter rains, which I tried to picture to you in my last letter, there came an aftermath of light showers and lovely mists, soft, filmy, floating about the mountain mists. Nothing else in all these beautiful Oregon hills seems quite so near and dear to me as these mists, so sympathetic, so companionable, and yet so indescribable; a witchery of nature, too changeful and elusive to be caught by words. I cannot tell you how much I love them, nor how strangely they appeal to my better self. Often, when annoyed by household cares, and the many ”

“ Farmers may despise the thistle, but I’m sure the butterflies love it. Oh, the beauties I have seen this day,—not the delicately tinted butterflies of Summer, but living, glowing jewels, fluttering always above the thistles! One rested for a long time upon a purple bloom quite near me, opening and closing his exquisite wings of black and gold, sun-illumined, like dainty, gauzy Japanese fans.
I must go back and tell you of the beauty of that towering hill directly in front of us. It is really a mountain, I think, but here we call it a hill. ”

“ Many of our Eastern friends have written us that the Oregon rains must be terrible, the many gray days pressing heavily upon us poor mortals cooped up in our little mountain home. But this sympathy is not altogether called for. In the first place, the rains here don’t come with a wind that wraps your skirts about you like a winding-sheet and turns your umbrella inside out. They fall straight down from the heavens, in a decent, unhurrying way. ”

“ Just above the garden is another spring, hidden away in a tangle of greenery. Back of the house is a precipitous hill, crowned with fir, laurel, and young oak trees, the latter draped with pendent fringes of silvery moss, in fine contrast with the green of the firs; while straggling down toward the house are trees of various kinds, clumps of bushes, and tall brown ferns, with a perfect network of dewberry vines covering the ground and forming a snare for the foot of the unwary. ”

“ Every blade of grass, bush, twig, and tree had a covering of hoar-frost; even the fir trees were decked in white robes for the coming Christmas carnival. Later in the day the sun turned on his flashlight, showering all with diamond dust as a finishing touch. Such purity, such whiteness and glitter! Our little hill-guarded glen was for two whole days a veritable fairy-land, and we were grateful for the usual holiday setting, though the festivities were lacking. ”

“ The usual supply of oats and chaff was then shaken out, and the lightened garments were plunged in the tub, where, becoming inflated with hot air, they refused to down at my bidding,—just fell upon their knees, looking so like their owner that I felt as if I were drowning him. Unmoved, I was jabbing them viciously with a stick, when a strange voice said, “Good-morning, ma’am!” I jumped, dropped the stick, and the blue-jeans bobbed up like a jack-in-the-box. Near me stood a perfect giant of a man with a flour-sack on his shoulder, really the tallest man ever seen outside of a canvas. ”

“ But with the first hint of the coming of the flood he began tossing and tumbling restlessly, and presently he broke loose from his restraining banks and went plunging through the alders and maples, whisking, whirling, and foaming, dealing destruction right and left, demolishing cattle-sheds, poultry-houses, and pasture fence. He then made a dash for the bridges, destroying one and trying hard for the other, blustering and raging about it for a day and night, hurling great logs against it, savagely bumping the floor, lifting a part of the planks, pulling and pushing and tugging fiercely at it ”

“ A luminous flood of sunshine is in the air, soft, caressing, and sweet with the aromatic breath of the fir trees; brooding over all is “Nature’s own exceeding peace,” a hush unusual even in this land of silence. I thought—as I often do here—of the stillness of Craigenputtoch, where “for hours the only sound is that of the sheep nibbling the short grass a quarter of a mile away;” ”

“ And no walls but the far-off mountain tops,”
then come to my beloved Oregon hills. All for which you long is here; and far more, now that Autumn is abroad in the land, standing tiptoe upon the hilltops, pouring down their slopes “from a beaker full of richest dyes” a flame that setteth the mountains on fire and maketh a new heaven and a new earth. ”

“ Though we have here the solitude, thank goodness we have not the gray desolation of Craigenputtoch nor the gloom of a man of genius. The only sounds that come to me in this peaceful Eden are those of softly rippling invisible waters, the low murmur of insects, the occasional dropping of the tiny brown cones of the alders, and a faint rustle of falling leaves. Nothing more. Even the clamorous cricket is silent. Our birds have long been mute, and now “slide o’er the lustrous woodland,” voiceless phantoms of the minstrels we once knew. ”

“ Turkey, cranberries, mince-pie ingredients, Christmas remembrances, all such essentials, are twenty miles away, and as unattainable as if in Darkest Africa. Neither friend nor stranger could be hoped for within our gates. The decoration of the old house in recognition of the day seemed the only pleasure left us; and for this, Nature stood at our very door offering a wealth of greenery. Every evil has its good, and this is one of Oregon’s compensations for her deplorable roads.
Bert and Mary were to spend Christmas with us. ”

“ In the old stone fireplace pitchy pine knots are blazing like campaign torches, filling the big room with a ruddy glow. Outside are gray skies, falling rain, and sodden earth; but from a window here by my desk, I see the wet leaves of the orchard trees ablaze with color, and through this vista, just below, an old fence overgrown with blackberry and wild rose-bushes ”

“ In the fun of conjuring up ludicrous uses for our new wood, we quite forgot that it was not the most desirable for fuel. There is nothing like a good laugh to float one over difficult places.
Well, we never got our big tree until summer. Then the men were told by a wise Nestor of the hills that by boring holes in these large trees and firing them from the inside, they could soon burn them down. They eagerly pounced upon that idea, and since then we have had excellent wood.
Our souls were tried not only by fire, but by flour. ”

“ We may not be so young as we used to be, but we are not yet quite in our dotage. Don’t you know, my friend, that monotony is stagnation and death to the middle-aged? They need change of scene, and the novelty and excitement that come with it. The tonic of fresh fields and pastures new is both stimulating and rejuvenating, and the Oregon air is an intoxicant like wine,—pure, fresh, and exhilarating. ”

“ They lie so close to the ground that Bert always speaks of digging them. The filling of my basket was a work of time; when it was accomplished, that hillside was as hot as a fiery furnace. Gasping for breath, I hurried to the shade of a mighty fir,—one that Tom calls the guardian of the ranch, as it stands not far from the summit of Mount Nebo. ”

“ Across one side is an old paling fence, at least so tradition tells us, for if it still is there it is lost to sight and serves only as a support for vines and brambles. There the blackberry trails its flowery sprays, and the wild gourd runs like a creature alive, holding up its slender stems of green, tipped with fragrant starry white blossoms, such as we never saw until we came to Oregon. The farmers call it a pest ”

“ As I crouched there, working, and thinking of these things, I suddenly heard a familiar bird-voice, and looking up I saw perched upon a curving willow wand a little wood-wren that comes many times each day to the porch for crumbs. If I am not in sight, he lights on the railing and calls persistently until I appear. He has become quite fearless, hopping so near that I could reach him with my hand. A most lovable bird is little “Hop o’ My Thumb,” as Tom calls him. ”

“ At such times Mary’s lamp-shade showed its evil nature. Glancing her way, I saw that it was useless to protest against its murderous attacks. Her feet were planted on the horse-collar, her lips closed with Napoleonic firmness, her hat jammed over one eye, the other blazing with a high resolve to carry that lamp-shade to its goal though her every living friend and relative should fall by the wayside. ”

“ Sheila is our Scotch shepherd-dog, given me a year ago by a genuine dog-lover, a kind girl-friend of the hills. When she came to us, she was a woolly little thing, like a soft fluffy ball of chenille; now she is a graceful, light-footed creature, with a small pointed head, and honest eyes of clear gray, just matching her coat; she looks the true-born patrician, and is one. Having no dog friends, she has to depend upon us for society, and we talk to her about everything, and rather think she understands. ”

“ Open wide your eyes and look across the rainy night away up into the dark fir forests of Oregon. Do you see a faint light shining and wavering among the wet leaves? Well, that glimmer is from a student lamp in front of the big stone fireplace of the Ranch of the Pointed Firs. At the left of it, in an old Morris chair, sits Tom, silently and diligently reading. A low willow rocker on the right is occupied by Katharine, also silently and diligently reading. ”

“ The thistle family also is well represented here. Purple with bloom and white with down, the yard looks like a cotton-field. I find the thistle rather interesting, now that I have left the vain world and its distractions and have time to look at it, with its long narrow leaf deeply notched and lance-tipped, its purple-stained paintbrush blossom, its seed-pod,—such a pretty flaring cup of wood-brown, thickly studded with sharp spikes and filled with tiny brown seeds all feathered and ready for flight. ”

“ Once in a while I enjoy being quite alone for a whole day. It must be the hermit-strain in my blood, inherited from dead-and-gone ancestors, who probably ate roots and herbs, dressed in skins, and lived in caves.
The travellers set out for the giddy world just at sunrise, and as I stood at the gate to see them off, Mary looked at me quite sorrowfully, and Tom said, “You have a long day before you, Katharine; what will you do when we are gone?” ”

“ As we advanced, the woods grew denser, the road curving around narrow mountain ledges, above deep dark canyons, where, crowding close, tier upon tier, in watchful guardianship, stood the sombre sentinel firs. A slip of a foot or two, and we would have been hurled into the bottomless pit. A native Oregonian may pursue his serpentine way nonchalantly on the edge of these craters, but to a tenderfoot they bring pimples of gooseflesh, as night brings out the stars. ”

“ We searched high and low; inside, outside, and under the barn; looking through all the sheds, in clumps of ferns, and in the low bushes along the fence; peering into hollow logs and stumps as gravely and anxiously as if searching for the treasures of Captain Kidd. ”

“ Curving and winding through this little valley, with a tracery of green trees and leafless ones, is the loveliest mountain stream that ever the sun shone on,—in summer-time a dreamily murmuring rivulet; in winter a rushing, roaring torrent. ”

“ Then, naturally, I fell a-thinking of the bewitching Hetty,—of the rose-petal cheeks, the round dimpled arms and pretty hands tossing and patting the butter, losing myself in the tragical story of that young life until recalled to consciousness by a queer slushing about of the cream in my own churn. ”

“ If she had been at home during our long winter, we should have been less lonely, as she, in short skirts and rubber boots, roams these hills regardless of weather. Three dogs are her inseparable companions,—Texas, a great fierce fellow, with a deep and terrible voice; Shady, a hound, lean, lank, and brown—as his name implies; and June, a Scotch collie. The latter is a beauty, yellow and white in color, and clean, fluffy, and fringy, like a prize chrysanthemum ”

“ As we skirt the red-furrowed fields, hugging the old rail-fence for the sake of a grassy path, frightened quails go scurrying off through the tall weeds and tangled briers, while from near-by thickets, with a rush of wings that is almost a roar, startled China pheasants fly up and over, croaking as hoarsely as though an epidemic of sore throat were raging among them. ”

“ Away from all the refinements of life, shut up in that gaunt, hungry-looking house on that treeless waste with that tragic man of genius,—of terrible earnestness and blackest melancholy,—is it any wonder that she lost her cheerfulness and vivacity? ”

“ During this flood-time we often heard the dull roar of the ocean; the wind blew straight from it with the force almost of a hurricane. The house shook in the fierce gusts; great branches of the alders snapped off and came tumbling down in the yard. Occasionally a big tree, uprooted by wind and water, fell with a tremendous crash. ”

“ When Tom had finished his evening work and was standing on the porch, shaking the rain from his storm-coat, he called out, “A fine night for the Abbey, Katharine!”
“Yes, won’t it be glorious?” I responded with enthusiasm. We were in high glee,—couldn’t wait for our regular bedtime, but put our books aside early, covered the embers in the old stone fireplace, lighted a hand-lamp, and were ready for the ascension soon after eight o’clock. ”

“ While the grass is still green, it has lost its freshness through the drouth and heat of summer; and the wild flowers that once blossomed here are but a memory. A few clover blooms, in defiance of fate and frost, are trying bravely to hold up their heads, but they have lost the rosy glow of youth. ”