XXI
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—
“Little sharp vexations,
The briers that catch and fret,”
I look out of my kitchen window and see these tender gray mists quietly rising from the encircling hills, like clouds of incense to the Great Spirit. Tears “rise in my heart and gather to my eyes,” my rebellious mood is softened, my worries slip away, peace steals into my heart, and I am comforted and helped as by the silent sympathetic pressure of the hand of a friend. I cannot analyze the mysterious charm of these dreamy, brooding shadows, nor define what it is they say to me, nor make clear even to myself the secret of their silent ministry. I only know they soothe and tranquillize and restore. Perhaps the Father, mindful of the solitariness of his mountain children, sends these soft wings of peace to hover over them, in token of His unforgetting love and care.
If through an unkind fate I should suffer banishment from this land of enchantment, I know I should be homesick day and night for the “Sisters of the gray veil,” as Tom calls them. He often comes in saying, “The gray veils have camped among the firs to-day,” or “The Sisters of the gray veil are climbing the hills this morning,” and somehow the name satisfies my sense of kinship with them.
About this time I enjoyed some delightful walks with my new acquaintance, the young lady who gave me Sheila. She had just returned from a distant ranch where she had gone to spend the holiday season, and where she had been imprisoned by high waters for many weeks. We call this young lady “Di Vernon,” because of her adventurous spirit and love of out-door life. We met her once or twice soon after our arrival here, but before we had become fairly acquainted she went to visit friends in Colorado, where she remained many months, and we did not meet again until about a year ago. 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; she has a pretty face, too, with big, luminous brown eyes, set in a tiny circle of black, as if she had coquettishly touched them up with India ink. I really believe there is no handsomer dog in Oregon,—with one notable exception.
Miss Vernon rides a fleet little Indian pony, without a saddle,—just a surcingle, with stirrup attached. She uses a queer sort of bridle, with reins of braided rawhide, and a cruel-looking curb bit; and, strangest of all, she rides with a spur. When I first caught a glimpse of her shoe embellished with that shining metal wheel, I grew fairly dizzy. But, oh, how she rides! Flying along at a furious pace, leaping over logs and even fences, how she manages to stick on is a mystery to me.
The hill women all ride, and ride well, using only the surcingle, though sometimes it is buckled around a blanket or a sheepskin. The only side-saddle we have seen here came up from the valley, and we all looked upon it with contempt. You may think that as they ignore the saddle they have adopted the modern method of riding astride; but they haven’t. Such dashing horsemanship among women has greatly astonished us, and our interest in it never wanes. When I hear galloping hoofs, and see through the trees the flash of a sunbonnet or streaming veil, I stand stock-still in admiration.
But I am straying far from our own particular enchantress, who greatly surprised us during her first call. In speaking of this isolated life, I had asked what her amusements were here.
“Oh, I ride, fish, and hunt, and I’m fond of dogs and horses, and as we have a lot of them I spend a good deal of my time with them. I always help break the bunchgrassers, and that’s exciting.”
Bunchgrassers! I had never before heard that word, and wondered if she could possibly mean jack-rabbits. I have never seen any, but have always associated them with bunchgrass. But why should they want to break them? I kept still and waited for light.
When I had learned that she was talking of horses, I made bold to ask, “Why bunchgrassers?” and was told they were horses that had been running wild on the range.
Tom, who had been an interested listener to all this, asked her if she could wield the lassoo.
“Oh, yes,” she replied; “my father taught me that when I was quite a young girl, though I don’t pretend to be an expert.”
While she discussed horsebreaking methods with Tom, I looked at her in amazement. It was hard to reconcile such deeds with the doer. She was “like the hazel twig, straight and slender, and as brown as hazel nuts,” with a pleasant voice, a charming smile, a frank, cordial manner, entirely free from self-consciousness; was well gowned in dark blue cloth, wore a Rough Rider hat of tan color, with gauntlets to match, and tucked in her belt was a yellow daffodil.
As she discoursed enthusiastically of ropes, thongs, slipknots, and nooses, I remembered that only a few minutes before in our talk she had quoted from “The Birds of Killingworth” and from “The Bonnie Brier Bush,” and so my wonder grew.
When she left us we sat for a moment looking at each other dumbly. Then Tom remarked, “Exit Saint Cecilia, the female bronco-buster.”
“Aren’t you ashamed, Tom, to speak in that way of one of my visitors?”
“Why, no, Katharine,—I meant that as a compliment. Though she talked of the overturning of wild horses, she certainly looked the gentlest of saints. She is a new type, and I like her immensely. She’s a thousand times more interesting than such girls as we have known, talking eternally of receptions and clubs, of whist and theatre parties, of pink teas and green luncheons, color schemes that were poems, and gowns that were dreams, and that sort of gush. Now this girl is a real Di Vernon, a novelty, and a most refreshing one.”
Tom had hit upon a name that seemed rightfully to belong to her, and we have called her by it ever since. We have learned that she is a very successful trout-fisher, and as a discoverer of bee-trees has no equal in the hills. She has no fear of bees, and always helps to take the honey; is a fine marksman,—has a rifle and a shotgun of her own, and can bag as many pheasants and quail as her brother or uncle when out with them on a hunting trip. She often goes with them coon-hunting at night, when it is so dark they have to carry lanterns. Once when she was out hunting alone in our woods, the dogs got on the track of a wildcat, chased it half the morning, and finally treed it. She followed them, found it high among the branches, fired, and brought it down.”
“Of course, Di, you kept its skin for a rug?”
“No; sold it.”
“You foolish girl! Why did you?”
“Oh, to get some more money to buy some more ammunition to kill some more wildcats!” she answered laughingly.
I am very sorry to tell you that a few years ago she killed a deer,—her first, and, I am glad to say, her last. In telling me of it she said: “Never again while I live will I point a gun toward a deer; for that poor thing, as it lay dying, turned its beautiful head in my direction, and two big reproachful eyes looked me squarely in my face, and I felt myself the cruel murderess that I was. I had no pride in that shot. I went home ashamed and in tears, haunted by those dying eyes. But I’ve saved the life of many a one since in atonement for that crime.”
“How, Di?”
“Very easily,—just by misdirecting their pursuers. You know there is a regular deer-run on our place, and many a time when I have been strolling through the fields or along the banks of the stream I’ve seen one of those poor frightened creatures come flying out of the woods with death at his heels, clear the brook at a bound, and, though ready to drop with exhaustion, not daring to pause even a second for a drop of pure water to cool its throat. The hunters are seldom far behind, and when they come crashing through the underbrush and see me, they naturally ask whether I have seen the deer and which way it ran. That’s my opportunity, and I rise to meet it.
“‘The deer? Yes, I saw it about three minutes ago. It jumped this stream where that alder stands and ran straight up the canyon.’ Or, ‘It ran across the meadow, leaped the fence and entered the opposite woods just between those two tall dead firs.’
“‘Oh, thank you, miss! thank you!’ they gasp excitedly, as they dash off—in the wrong direction. I suppose I ought to suffer remorse for the lie I have told, but I don’t; I know that I have saved the life of a hunted wild thing, and I feel glad to my finger-tips.”
Our young lady knows these hills and woods and streams like a book. She knows the haunts of the wild-flowers, but not always their names,—to my regret, for, not learning them of her, I despair of learning them at all. She it was who told us of the rhododendrons and where they grew; it was four miles farther back in the mountains; a part of the way there was no road, only a tangled trail, the last half-mile straight up. Though eager to go at once to that field Elysian, my ardor cooled somewhat as I thought of the walk of eight miles, part of it a straight climb, with active housework before and after taking. I decided the rhododendrons of the mountains must come to Mahomet. And come they did; for Bert, after hearing of them, never really enjoyed a good night’s rest until he had scaled the heights crowned by those blushing rose-trees. He returned from his trip late in the evening, footsore and weary, but glowing with enthusiasm, declaring he had seen the most wonderful sight in all the world. “Fully a half-acre of those magnificent blooms! Just think of it!—a pink-canopied island in a sea of green!”
He had carried a great arm-load of their flowery branches all that distance, and for the next ten days “rose-pink rhododendron bells, with narrow leaves of satin’s sheen,” glorified and illumined this old box-house.
We were surprised and pleased to find our new friend a most intelligent and appreciative reader of good literature. The books in her home, though few, are of the best, and have been so thoroughly and thoughtfully read that she seems to know them by heart. She is a good comrade, and we enjoyed many delightful walks during the time of mists of which I have written. As there were still frequent showers, and the ground was well soaked by the Winter rains, I followed her example, donning a pair of rubber boots which Tom had bought for me to wear during “snake week.”
A rainy-day walk in town is an uncomfortable experience compared with our free-and-easy hill excursions. We wear old soft felt hats, and our most disreputable jackets, and gowns with skirts reaching but little below our boot-tops. Unhampered by gloves and umbrellas, we swing along with the mist in our faces, as happy as gypsies. Four barking dogs go frisking ahead, so insanely gleeful they must needs run back very often to leap on us with muddy feet, just to ask if this isn’t a lark and if we aren’t glad they let us come.
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.
Our foot-path leads straight to the woods, the entrance barred only by a few mossy poles. We slide back the two middle ones, and gracefully tumble through the opening. Our impatient four-footed friends, who long before had leaped that barrier, plunging into the forest’s fringing undergrowth, were doubtless already engaged in a still hunt, as no sound came from them. As we struggle through the dripping bushes, rejoicing in both their baptism and their benediction, and enter the dusky atmosphere of the real woods, where the stately trees stand in crowded columns, and catch that first cool wave of scented silence, we are apt to talk compassionately of city dwellers, all heaped and huddled together, with nothing but a little carpentry or masonry between them. I think of all such pityingly, as I stand in the solitude of the pointed firs, crushing their green aromatic needles in my hands, burying my face in them to catch their fullest and sweetest perfume; and then I thank the kindly star that guided us across plain and desert and mountain into these glorious hills of Oregon.