SCENES ON CANNON BALL PRAIRIE—REFLECTIONS.
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!” I 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 spring-time 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.”
[Illustration: PRAIRIE ON FIRE.]