Blazing the Way; Or, True Stories, Songs and Sketches of Puget Sound

No lack was felt, however, as the wild animals were numerous and interesting. The birds, rabbits and squirrels were friendly and fearless then; the birds were especially loved and it was pleasing to translate their notes into endearments for ourselves.

But the rolling suns brought round the day when we must return to our native heath on Puget Sound. Right sorry were the two little “clam-diggers” to leave the little companion of delightful days, and grandparents. With a rush of tears and calling “good-bye! good-bye!” as long as we could see or hear we rode away in a wagon, beginning the long journey, full of variety, back to the settlement on Elliott Bay.

Ourselves, and wagon and team purchased in the “web-foot” country, were carried down the Willamette and across the sweeping Columbia on a steamer to Monticello. There the wagon was loaded into a canoe to ascend the Cowlitz River, and we mounted the horses for a long day’s ride, one of the children on the pommel of father’s saddle, the other perched behind on mother’s steed.

The forest was so dense through which we rode for a long distance that the light of noonday became a feeble twilight, the way was a mere trail, the salal bushes on either side so tall that they brushed the feet of the little riders. The tedium of succeeding miles of this weird wilderness was beguiled by the stories, gentle warnings and encouragement from my mother.

The cicadas sang as if it were evening, the dark woods looked a little fearful and I was advised to “Hold on tight and keep awake, there are bears in these woods.”

The trail led us to the first crossing of the Cowlitz River, where father hallooed long and loud for help to ferry us over, from a lonely house on the opposite shore, but only echo and silence returned. The deep, dark stream, sombre forest and deserted house made an eerie impression on the children.

The little party boarded the ferryboat and swimming the horses, alongside crossed without delay.

The next afternoon saw us nearing the crossing of the Cowlitz again at Warbass Landing.

The path crossed a pretty open space covered with ripe yellow grass and set around with giant trees, just before it vanished in the hurrying stream.

Father rode on and crossed, quite easily, the uneven bed of the swift river, with its gravelly islands and deep pools.

When it came our turn, our patient beast plunged in and courageously advanced to near the middle of the stream, wavered and stood still and seemed about to go down with the current. How distinctly the green, rapid water, gravelly shoals and distant bank with its anxious onlookers is photographed on my memory’s page!

Only for a moment did the brave animal falter and then sturdily worked her way to the shore. Mr. Warbass, with white face and trembling voice, said “I thought you were gone, sure.” His coat was off and he had been on the point of plunging in to save us from drowning, if possible. Willing hands helped us down and into the hospitable home, where we were glad to rest after such a severe trial. A sleepless night followed for my mother, who suffered from the reaction common to such experience, although not panic stricken at the time of danger.

It was here I received my first remembered lesson in “meum et tuum.” While playing under the fruit trees around the house I spied a peach lying on the ground, round, red and fair to see. I took it in to my mother who asked where I got it, if I had asked for it, etc. I replied I had found it outdoors.

“Well, it isn’t yours, go and give it to the lady and never pick up anything without asking for it.”

A lesson that was heeded, and one much needed by children in these days when individual rights are so little regarded.

The muddy wagon road between this point and Olympia over which the teams had struggled in the springtime was now dry and the wagon was put together with hope of a fairly comfortable trip. It was discovered in so doing that the tongue of the vehicle had been left at Monticello. Not to be delayed, father repaired to the woods and cut a forked ash stick and made it do duty for the missing portion.

At Olympia we were entertained by Mr. and Mrs. Dickinson with whom we tarried as we went to Oregon.

My mother preferred her steed to the steamer plying on the Sound; that same trip the selfsame craft blew up.

On horseback again, we followed the trail from Olympia to the Duwampsh River, over hills and hollows, out on the prairie or in the dark forest, at night putting up at the house of a hospitable settler. From thence we were told that it was only one day’s travel but the trail stretched out amazingly. Night, and a stormy one, overtook the hapless travelers.

The thunder crashed, the lightning flamed, sheets of rain came down, but there was no escape.

A halt was called at an open space in a grove of tall cedar trees, a fire made and the horses hitched under the trees.

The two children slept snugly under a fir bark shed made of slabs of bark leaned up against a large log. Father and mother sat by the fire under a cedar whose branches gave a partial shelter. Some time in the night I was awakened by my mother lying down beside me, then slept calmly on.

The next morning everything was dripping wet and we hastened on to the Duwampsh crossing where lived the old man who stood on the bank at Seattle when we started.

What a comfort it was to the cold, wet, hungry, weary quartette to be invited into a dry warm place! and then the dinner, just prepared for company he had been expecting; a bountiful supply of garden vegetables, beets, cabbage, potatoes, a great dish of beans and hot coffee. These seemed veritable luxuries and we partook of them with a hearty relish.

A messenger was sent to Seattle to apprise our friends of our return, two of them came to meet us at the mouth of the Duwampsh River and brought us down the bay in a canoe to the landing near the old laurel (Madrona) tree that leaned over the bank in front of our home.

The first Fourth of July celebration in which I participated took place in the old M. E. Church on Second Street, Seattle, in 1861.

Early in the morning of that eventful day there was hurrying to and fro in the Dennys’ cottage, on Seneca Street, embowered in flowers which even luxuriant as they were we did not deem sufficient. The nimble eldest of the children was sent to a flower-loving neighbor’s for blossoms of patriotic hues, for each of the small Americans was to carry a banner inscribed with a strong motto and wreathed with red, white and blue flowers. Large letters, cut from the titles of newspapers spelled out the legends on squares of white cotton, “Freedom for All,” “Slavery for none,” “United we stand, divided we fall,” each surrounded with a heavy wreath of beautiful flowers.

Arrived at the church, we found ourselves a little late, the orator was just rounding the first of his eloquent periods; the audience, principally men, turned to view the disturbers as they sturdily marched up the aisle to a front seat, and seeing the patriotic family with their expressive emblems, broke out in a hearty round of applause. Although very young we felt the spirit of the occasion.

The first commencement exercises at the University took place in 1863. It was a great event, an audience of about nine hundred or more, including many visitors from all parts of the Sound, Victoria, B. C., and Portland, Oregon, gathered in the hall of the old University, then quite new.

I was then nine years of age and had been trained to recite “Barbara Frietchie,” it “goes without the saying” that it was received with acclaim, as feeling ran high and the hearts of the people burned within them for the things that were transpiring in the South.

Still better were they pleased and much affected by the singing of “Who Will Care for Mother Now,” by Annie May Adams, a lovely young girl of fifteen, with a pure, sympathetic, soprano voice and a touching simplicity of style.

How warm beat the hearts of the people on this far off shore, as at the seat of war, and even the children shouted, sang and wept in sympathy with those who shed their lifeblood for their country.

The singing of “Red, White and Blue” by the children created great enthusiasm; war tableaux such as “The Soldier’s Farewell,” “Who Goes There?” “In Camp,” were well presented and received with enthusiastic applause, and whatever apology might have been made for the status of the school, there was none to be made for its patriotism.

Our teachers were Unionists without exception and we were taught many such things; “Rally Round the Flag” was a favorite and up went every right hand and stamped hard every little foot as we sang “Down With the Traitor and Up With the Stars” with perhaps more energy than music.

The children of my family, with those of A. A. Denny’s, sometimes held “Union Meetings;” at these were speeches made that were very intense, as we thought, from the top of a stump or barrel, each mounting in turn to declaim against slavery and the Confederacy, to pronounce sentence of execution upon Jeff. Davis, Captain Semmes, et al. in a way to have made those worthies uneasy in their sleep. Every book, picture, story, indeed, every printed page concerning the war was eagerly scanned and I remember sitting by, through long talks of Grandfather John Denny with my father, to which I listened intently.

We finally burned Semmes in effigy to express our opinion of him and named the only poor, sour apple in our orchard for the Confederate president.

For a time there were two war vessels in the harbor, the “Saranac” and “Suwanee,” afterwards wrecked in Seymour Narrows. The Suwanee was overturned and sunk by the shifting of her heavy guns, but was finally raised. Both had fine bands that discoursed sweet music every evening. We stood on the bank to listen, delighted to recognize our favorites, national airs and war songs, from “Just Before the Battle, Mother” to “Star Spangled Banner.”

Other beautiful music, from operas, perhaps, we enjoyed without comprehending, although we did understand the stirring strains with which we were so familiar.

In those days the itinerant M. E. ministers were often the guests of my parents and many were the good natured jokes concerning the fatalities among the yellow-legged chickens.

On one occasion a small daughter of the family, whose discretion had not developed with her hospitality, rushed excitedly into the sitting room where the minister was being entertained and said, “Mother, which chicken shall I catch?” to the great amusement of all.

One of the reverend gentlemen declared that whenever he put in an appearance, the finest and fattest of the flock immediately lay down upon their backs with their feet in the air, as they knew some of them would have to appear on the festal board.

Like children everywhere we lavished our young affections on pets of many kinds. Among these were a family of kittens, one at least of which was considered superfluous. An Indian woman, who came to trade clams for potatoes, was given the little “pish-pish,” as she called it, with which she seemed much pleased, carrying it away wrapped in her shawl.

Her camp was a mile away on the shore of Elliott Bay, from whence it returned through the thick woods, on the following day. Soon after she came to our door to exhibit numerous scratches on her hands and arms made by the “mesachie pish-pish” (bad cat), as she now considered it. My mother healed her wounds by giving her some “supalel” (bread) esteemed a luxury by the Indians, they seldom having it unless they bought a little flour and made ash-cake.

Now this same ash-cake deserves to rank with the southern cornpone or the western Johnny cake. Its flavor is sweet and nut-like, quite unlike that of bread baked in an ordinary oven.

The first Christmas tree was set up in our own house. It was not then a common American custom; we usually called out “Christmas Gift,” affecting to claim a present after the Southern “Christmas Gif” of the darkies. One early Christmas, father brought in a young Douglas fir tree and mother hung various little gifts on its branches, among them, bright red Lady apples and sticks of candy; that was our very first Christmas tree. A few years afterward the whole village joined in loading a large tree with beautiful and costly articles, as times were good, fully one thousand dollars’ worth was hung upon and heaped around it.

When the fourth time our family returned to the donation claim, now a part of the city of Seattle, we found a veritable paradise of flowers, field and forest.

The claim reached from Lake Union to Elliott Bay, about a mile and a half; a portion of it was rich meadow land covered with luxuriant grass and bordered with flowering shrubs, the fringe on the hem of the mighty evergreen forest covering the remainder.

Hundreds of birds of many kinds built their nests here and daily throughout the summer chanted their hymns of praise. Robins and wrens, song-sparrows and snow birds, thrushes and larks vied with each other in joyful song.

The western meadow larks wandered into this great valley, adding their rich flute-like voices to the feathered chorus.

Woodpeckers, yellow hammers and sap-suckers, beat their brave tattoo on the dead tree trunks and owls uttered their cries from the thick branches at night. Riding to church one Sunday morning we beheld seven little owls sitting in a row on the dead limb of a tall fir tree, about fourteen feet from the ground. Winking and blinking they sat, silently staring as we passed by.