THE APOSTACY OF DOROTHY.

King Country Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 10, 28 December 1906, Page 3

THE APOSTACY OF DOROTHY.

A Christmas Story of Pioneer Times. " I'm a goin' to dream to-night of a great, big, green Christmas tree, all lighted up with wax candles, and hung full of striped candy, and nuts and popcorn, and dollies all dressed in red, and lots of people, and Santa Claus smilin' round, and ever so many little girls and boys, more'n this house full, all to get presents off the tree."

" An' drums, rub-a-dub-dub —don't Christmas trees have drums on them, Dolly?" " Of course, for boys ; don't interrupt me, Johnny. You can't 'member the Christmas trees way back in the States, but I can. So, I'll tell you all' about it, an' we'll both dream, maybe." The two listening women sitting in opposite corners of the wide, mud fire-place, knitted diligently their unspoken longings into the blue meshes of coarse yarn socks. The prattle in the trundle-bed rippled merrily on. The younger woman fidgeted. At last, she spoke up, sharply. " Do hush and go to sleep, children ; not a word more," she commanded, hoarsely, through unshed tears. An hour more of silence and knitting, and the women rolled up their work, smothered the smoking, halfburnt backlog with ashes to keep fire, and crept silently into the one big.bed the house afforded, beside the sleeping two-year-old baby, Frank. No sociable clock chimed with silvery tongue the passing hours as these two kept silent vigil, for troubled thought had come and banished sleep; at ten they knew the hogs would noisily seek their sleeping quarters under the house; and, at midnight, or thereabouts, the clarion notes of old Brigham, inihis harem near by, would announce the turn of night.

" S'pose we give the children a Christmas tree, Eliza," spoke at length the elder woman from out the midnight silence. "It will break the monotony."

" A Christmas tree loaded wtth presents —law, yes! and perhaps we'll have a dinner of turkey, and a mincepie, and cramberry sass to top off with!"

" Oh, well, we can make the best of things. We can have roast pig. If .you'll shoot it, I'll dress it. The lost han'ful of dried apples I've hid away for company will do fer sass, and carrots and vinegar will make fruit for mince pies. It won't be a regular, oldfashioned Christmas dinner like we used to have way back in the States, but it'll be a heap better dinner than our poor boys 'll be a gettin' in the mountains, I'm 'fraid." " I "could make Dolly a nice rag baby," said the younger woman, rapidly coming under suggestion, "if I had something for a frock."

" Take that red silk handkerchief that belonged to father." " I was thinking of that —if you didn't care." ■

" We might as well use it that way as to keep it hid out o' sight. I'm just longing to see something pretty." The morning before Christmas eve day, dawned chilly and raw, with a drizzling rain. Eliza, or " Joe Simon's wife," as she was known throughout the country, dressed in a pair of buckskin trousers, fringed at the outer seams, that belonged to her absent husband, and an old army overcoat, crushed a shapeless felt hat over her thick, blonde tresses, mounted her pinto pony, and scurried over the hills to look after the sheep. When she returned, two hours later, trailing behind her at the pony's heels was, oh, joy of juveniles ! the Christmas tree — a green and fragrant fir. At the foot of the big bed, near the middle of the room, they planted the Christmas tree ; so close, that at night, when the trundle-bed was pulled out, two little brown heads slept under its beneficent and balmy branches, and the dreams, sleeping, as well as waking, were all of Christmaa festivities. Once a week —and now it was the day before Christmas —mail day came and somebody, usually Joe Simon's wife, on Pinto, went over the hills to the trail, two miles distant, for the mail deposited in a box, nailed into the crotch of a white oak by the mail carrier. Sometimes she met him and got a whiff of news from the outside world, but oftener he passed after dark, these short winter days. To-day she missed him, but the package he had promised to bring her was there ; the half pound of candy, some popcorn, and two toy soldiers, all carried in his kind and capacious overcoat pockets from the nearest store, twenty miles away, along with lots of other miscellaneous stuff for settlers along his route. Yes, the package was there, but no letter. No news from the boys, whose wives these lonesome women were, left here to " hold the fort " among these dreary hills, while the men delved and dug for gold in the mountains hundreds of miles away. No letter for three months. It was so late in the season now, they could not return. She must give up all hopes of seeing her husband for another year, but it would be iso comforting to have a letter oftener. The mails were so irregular. A tear splashed on her hand but she dashed it away, and turned the pony out of the trail to mount the hill that lay between this valley and the next, where lived, on his "section" their nearest neighbour, three miles down the river in the bend. She always climbed this hill Iwhen her duties called her in this direction, it was so comforting just to see somebody else's house and to see that they were not entirely alone in this big, wild, mountain country.

A rough and narrow valley lay before her. On either side rose rough and rugged rock-crowned sentinels, too large for hills and too small for mountains, great piles of rock that jiature had left in the rough ; more or less clothed with verdure, even in midwinter and patches of evergreen trees between, while, far as the eye could reach, along one side of the valley at the foot of' the frowning bluffs, ran the river, the noisy and turbulent Umpqua, now swollen by the continuous rain and out of its banks, and roaring and swashing over many feet of a higher, earlier, river-

bed, whose tip-tilted rock bottom told the story of prehistoric and mighty convulsions.

As Joe Simon's wife reached the hill-top, her practiced eye swept the horizon and discerned far in the dim blue distance, rising straight and fine and blue as a knitting needle, a shaft of smoke from the top of a bald hill on the east. Her heart stood still—the opposite hill—yes, there was the same dread, sinister sign another and another. Her heart beat fast and furious now. The house, was it there? She hardly dared to look. A few steps now, just beyond that tree, and Jim Williams' house would be in sight, that is, if there was any house there. For, the smoke on the hills was the signal for a rising among the Indians. The house, she couldn't see it; she looked wildly, wondering vaguely if she wasn't too excited to discern it. She paced her pony slowly along the hilltop. Good God! the house was gone ! She was sure of it —sure of it! There was a great, black spot. It was so far away, she could make out nothing more. She turned and galloped homeward. What if she should look in vain for another house —her own — and find instead, a great, black spot of smoking ruins ? Her darling baby, her sister, the children ! " Oh, my God ! I can't endure it," she gasped, and slid from the saddle to her feet. " I must control myself." On her knees she went, among the dripping bushes, while the pony amiably waited and browsed. A few moments of Gethsemane, and, upon that rigid, fear-stricken, upturned face, a change came; the change inscrutable, wonderful, instantaneous, the passing from earth to heaven, from fear to the glory of victory that martyrs wear. The shadows of night were fast blotting out the uncertain light of that short, cloudy, winter day, when Joe Simon's wife turned the pony over to the children to be cared for, and went to assist her sister with the milking. The mud was ankle deep in the corral, but it had forgotten to rain for a few moments, and the moon was making the best of its unwonted opportunities. By its dim and watery light the face of Eliza was revealed to her sister. She arose instantly from her stooping position. " Well ? " said she.

" Yes, the signals are out. Bald Butte, Knox Hill, Biscuit and Bunker." " The soldiers 'll be along soon, and escort us to the fort; to-morrow, perhaps," said sister Catherine. " Perhaps." Joe Simon's wife laid her hand suggestively on the hilt of a shcfrp, dirk-like knife she always carried at her belt. Her sister nodded gravely and resumed her milking. By this, they sealed once more a solemn compact, never to be taken alive, they or their children. " Please, mother, can't we light the Christmas tree ? " implored three small but' urgent voices for the twentieth time. • " It is growing late —nearly seven, as far as I can calklate. Shall we begin, Eliza." " Go and put on your new blue and red homespun frocks, children, and your white aprons." " Oh, Aunt Eliza, can we ? and our new shoes ? "

" Yes, your new shoes, and your red hair ribbons."

" Oh, my ! It's just like going to a meetin'," exclaimed Dolly, ecstatically. " We'd ought to have some devotional exercises, Eliza, don't you think on a Christmas eve ? " "Of course, sister. You select some hymns and I'll read a part of a sermon of Wesley's or a sam. I like sams best, don't you ? " " Read about the little Jesus and the shepherds by night," suggested Dolly. " Of course, that is what we want."

She was feeling terribly, absentminded and listening, listening: her heart was alive to the slightest sound outside, and the vision of the black spot where once stood the home of neighbour Williams cast a dead weird shadow on her soul.

Was her courage deserting her? Her lips moved silently and her heart rose in prayer, as she fell on her knees beside a certain mysterious old chest, unlocked, threw back its lid, and drew forth that wonderful creation of her own, a gorgeous rag doll, for Dolly—a big doll with a gaudy red silk dress and a lace-trimmed handkerchief, her wedding one, pinned around its neck ; a doll with legs and feet, and white stockings and violet shoes, and four strings of many-coloured beads dangling about its neck, and something on its head that might have been a hat, or a cap, or a butterfly. Anyhow, it was bright and pretty, and was surmounted with a waving red feather, plucked from Brigham's adornments. Dolly was delighted, and jumped and danced for joy the moment she beheld the doll, which was just as soon as Aunt Eliza had smuggled her ro the tree.

" I want to hug her just once aunty, before you hang her on the tree," implored Dolly, as she clasped the rag baby to her little mother heart, and gazed fondly into those little indigo eye spots with very black ink eyebrow marks around them, and kissed those ruby lips, indicated by a broad pen sweep of beet juice. " I shall name her Dorothy— my dear Dorothy—and she shall be baptized."

Watch.a great, spotted, stub-tailed dog, now rose with a growl, and sprang to the door. An instant of suspense—tense, terrible then the frail clapboard door was crushed in, split into a hundred pieces, and their faithful protector rushed out to meet an immediate and heroic death. Half a dozen savages, hideous in war-paint and feathers entered, silent, observant, vengeful; their weapons at their sides, awaiting the signal of their teyee, Si. A wild, wierd picture they made, as they ranged around the wall. The room was ablaze with light for the pine knots were snapping and sparkling in the long, low fireplace. The Christmas tree, its slim, green fingers reaching the ceiling, was gay with coloured paper cut in many fantastic shapes, in swinging baskets, with strings of snowy popcorn, little jets of sickly flame from the tallow dips, with here and there a stick of highly coloured candy, and the two gay, wooden soldiers for the little boys ; and, at its foot, stood, undismayed, and quite unafraid, little Dolly

with her rag doll clasped closely in her arms.

She was pretty well acquainted with two or three of the uninvited guests ; old Si, the chief, in particular, she had often fed, and prattled to, when he came begging round the door. Now, she held her dolly towards him for a grunt of admiration, but he took no notice.

" You don't know my dolly, Si; she's Dorothy, and I'm going to baptise her, like Father Wilbur baptised Aunty Williams's Hanner Ann at camp meetin'. I know how. Jest you hold her, Aunt Eliza:" and Dolly laid the doll across the trembling knees of the quiet, though terribly frightened woman, sitting, open hymn-book in hand, close under the Christmas tree. Dolly flew across the room to the bucket, and returning" with a tin cupful, proceeded without any ministerial credentials to perform the ceremony of baptism. " Hold her up, Aunty. There, now; I baptise you, Dorothy," and she sprinkled the white cotton face liberally, " in the name of the Holy Father and the ghosts, amen : let us pray." Joe Simon's wife led, with true Methodist unction, her sister followed ; the little ones joining in the Lord's prayer, as usual, at the family devotions" Then, a happy thought came t6 Eliza; a " special providence " sent it she thought that she would render the Lord's prayes tn a lanuage intelligible to their enemy, whose superstitions nature she well understood.

" Nesika papa," she began " klaksta mitlite kopa saghalie." (pray Si) ; but Si preserved a glum and sulky silence, to the end, The prayer must have appealed to him, howeveJ, especially the chinook jargon, " Potlatch konaway sun nesika muckamuck." (Give us every day our food.) When all rose from their knees, and the grand old melody. " Nearer My God to Thee," was borne to heaven on waves of children's sweet, strong voices, Dolly hung the newlyacquired neophyte on the tree, with the pious abjuration that " now, Dorothy being a baptized Christian, and a Methodiat, she hoped she would always be good." Ceremonial and mystery appeal to the untutored mind of man not less strongly than to the heart and imagination of his most highly civilized brother, andtt r ee Si and his warriors superstitiously interpreted the simple scene before 'them. Of the white man's God they had heard much, and to their sorrow. He was variously reported to have a home up in the heavens, and away, siah, toward the sunrise, in Washington. It was by his almighty power that the white man came and conquered, and could not be driven away, This idol the white folks worshipped was the representative of the great god in the east, He was allpowerful, and it would be a great and mighty good for the Indians to possess him, and worship him, and then he would of course transfer his allegiance to the Indian. So, old Si reached out his lean and scrawny brown fingers and gently disengaged Dorothy from the tree on which she hung; and then, oh, horrible to relate, he tucked her under his dirty old coat and followed by his obedient braves, vanished into the rain and darkness.

"Oh, what are they going to do with Dorothy, mother ?" exclaimed Dolly, amid tears aud lementations.

" They are going to make a heathen god of her," replied Joe Simon's wife, with ready comprehension. And bitterly Dolly wailed : " Dorothy is a baptized Methodist, and she's gone to be a heathen idol. Oh, my poor, dear Dorothy;"