University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XVI.

Well do I remember my thoughts and feelings
when first I beheld the mighty and beautiful prairie
of Cannon Ball River. With what singular emotions
I beheld it for the first time! I could compare it to
nothing but a vast sea, changed suddenly to earth,
with all its heaving, rolling billows; thousands of
acres lay spread before me like a mighty ocean, bounded
by nothing but the deep blue sky. What a magnificent
sight—a sight that made my soul expand with lofty
thought and its frail tenement sink into utter nothingness
before it! Well do I remember my sad thoughts
and the turning of my mind upon the past, as I stood
alone upon a slight rise of ground, and overlooked
miles upon miles of the most lovely, the most sublime
scene I had ever beheld. Wave upon wave of land
stretched away on every hand, covered with beautiful
green grass and the blooming wild flowers of the
prairie. Occasionally I caught glimpses of wild animals,
while flocks of birds of various kinds and beautiful
plumage skimming over the surface here and

there, alighting or darting upward from the earth,
added life and beauty and variety to this most enchanting
scene.

It had been a beautiful day, and the sun was now
just burying himself in the far-off ocean of blue, and
his golden rays were streaming along the surface of the
waving grass and tinging it with a delightful hue.
Occasionally some elevated point caught and reflected
back his rays to the one I was standing upon, and it
would catch, for a moment, his fading rays, and glow
like a ball of golden fire. Slowly he took his diurnal
farewell, as if loth to quit a scene so lovely, and at last
hid himself from my view beyond the western horizon.

I stood and marked every change with that poetical
feeling of pleasant sadness which a beautiful sunset
rarely fails to awaken in the breast of the lover of
nature. I noted every change that was going on, and
yet my thoughts were far, far away. I thought of the
hundreds of miles that separated me from the friends
that I loved. I was recalling the delight with which
I had, when a little girl, viewed the farewell scenes of
day from so many romantic hills, and lakes, and rivers,
rich meadows, mountain gorge and precipice, and the
quiet hamlets of my dear native land so far away. I
fancied I could see my mother move to the door, with a
slow step and heavy heart, and gaze, with yearning
affection, toward the broad, the mighty West, and sigh,
wondering what had become of her lost child.

I thought, and grew more sad as I thought, until
tears filled my eyes.

Mother! what a world of affection is comprised in
that single word; how little do we in the giddy round
of youthful pleasure and folly heed her wise counsels;
how lightly do we look upon that zealous care with
which she guides our otherwise erring feet, and watches
with feelings which none but a mother can know the
gradual expansion of our youth to the riper years of
discretion. We may not think of it then, but it will
be recalled to our minds in after years, when the gloomy
grave, or a fearful living separation, has placed her far
beyond our reach, and her sweet voice of sympathy
and consolation for the various ills attendant upon us
sounds in our ears no more. How deeply then we
regret a thousand deeds that we have done contrary to
her gentle admonitions! How we sigh for those days
once more, that we may retrieve what we have done
amiss and make her kind heart glad with happiness!
Alas! once gone, they can never be recalled, and we
grow mournfully sad with the bitter reflection.

"O, my mother!" cried aloud, "my dearly beloved
mother! Would I ever behold her again? should I
ever return to my native land? Would I find her
among the living? If not, if not, heavens! what a
sad, what a painful thought!" and instantly I found
my eyes swimming in tears and my frame trembling
with nervous agitation. But I would hope for the

best. Gradually I became calm; then I thought of
my husband, and what might be his fate. It was sad
at best, I well knew. And lastly, though I tried to
avoid it, I thought of Mary; sweet, lost, but dearly
beloved Mary; I could see her gentle features; I could
hear her plaintive voice, soft and silvery as running
waters, and sighed a long, deep sigh as I thought of her
murdered. Could I never behold her again? No; she
was dead, perished by the cruel, relentless savage.
Silence brooded over the world; not a sound broke
the solemn repose of nature; the summer breeze had
rocked itself to rest in the willow boughs, and the
broad-faced, familiar moon seemed alive and toiling as
it climbed slowly up a cloudless sky, passing starry
sentinels, whose nightly challenge was lost in vast vortices
of blue as they paced their ceaseless round in the
mighty camp of constellations. With my eyes fixed
upon my gloomy surroundings of tyranny, occasionally
a slip of moonshine silvered the ground. I watched
and reflected. Oh, hallowed days of my blessed girlhood!
They rise before me now like holy burning
stars breaking out in a stormy, howling night, making
the blackness blacker still. The short, happy springtime
of life, so full of noble aspirations, and glowing
hopes of my husband's philanthropic schemes of charitable
projects in the future.

We had planned so much for the years to come,
when, prosperous and happy, we should be able to

distribute some happiness among those whose fate might
be mingled with ours, and in the pursuit of our daily
avocations we would find joy and peace. But, alas!
for human hopes and expectations!

It is thus with our life. We silently glide along,
little dreaming of the waves which will so soon sweep
over us, dashing us against the rocks, or stranding us
forever. We do not dream that we shall ever wreck,
until the greater wave comes over us, and we bend
beneath its power.

If some mighty hand could unroll the future to our
gaze, or set aside the veil which enshrouds it, what
pictures would be presented to our trembling hearts?
No; let it be as the All-wise hath ordained—a closed-up
tomb, only revealed as the events occur, for could
we bear them with the fortitude we should if they
were known beforehand? Shrinking from it, we would
say, "Let the cup pass from me."