185
On the Walla Walla, that fateful day.
It was September, forty-three—
Little less than a year, you see—
When the woman who waited thought she heard
The clatter of foot-beats that she knew
On the Walla Walla again. "What word
From Whitman?" Whitman himself! And see!
What do her glad eyes look upon?
The first of two hundred wagons rolls
Into the valley before her. He
Who, a year ago, had left her side,
Had brought them over the Great Divide—
Men, women and children, a thousand souls—
The army to occupy Oregon.
You know the rest. In the books you have read
That the British were not a year ahead.
The United States have kept Oregon,
Because of one Marcus Whitman. He
Rode eight thousand miles, and was not too late!
In a single hand, not a Nation's fate,
Perhaps; but a gift for the Nation, she
Would hardly part with it to-day, if we
May believe what the papers say upon
This great Northwest, that was Oregon.
And Whitman? Ah! my children, he
And his wife sleep now in a martyr's grave!
Murdered! Murdered, both he and she,
By the Indian souls they went West to save!
