Slowly, one by one, the men drew back and returned to the sitting room, leaving the women to wash up the dishes and put the kitchen to rights. David seized the opportunity to ask my father to tell once again of the trip he had made, of the lands he had seen, and the farm he had purchased, for his young heart was also fired with desire of exploration. The level lands toward the sunset allured him. In his visions the wild meadows were filled with game, and the free lands needed only to be tickled with a hoe to laugh into harvest.
He said, "As soon as Dad and Frank are settled on a farm here, I'm going west also. I'm as tired of climbing these hills as you are. I want a place of my own—and besides, from all you say of that wheat country out there, a threshing machine would pay wonderfully well."
As the women came in, my father called out, "Come, Belle, sing 'O'er the Hills in Legions Boys!'—Dave get out your fiddle—and tune us all up."
David tuned up his fiddle and while he twanged on the strings mother lifted her voice in our fine old marching song.
Cheer up, brothers, as we go,O'er the mountains, westward ho—
and we all joined in the jubilant chorus—
Then o'er the hills in legions, boys,Fair freedom's starPoints to the sunset regions, boys,Ha, ha, ha-ha!—
My father's face shone with the light of the explorer, the pioneer. The words of this song appealed to him as the finest poetry. It meant all that was fine and hopeful and buoyant in American life, to him—but on my mother's sweet face a wistful expression deepened and in her fine eyes a reflective shadow lay. To her this song meant not so much the acquisition of a new home as the loss of all her friends and relatives. She sang it submissively, not exultantly, and I think the other women were of the same mood though their faces were less expressive to me. To all of the pioneer wives of the past that song had meant deprivation, suffering, loneliness, heart-ache.
From this they passed to other of my father's favorite songs, and it is highly significant to note that even in this choice of songs he generally had his way. He was the dominating force. "Sing 'Nellie Wildwood,'" he said, and they sang it.—This power of getting his will respected was due partly to his military training but more to a distinctive trait in him. He was a man of power, of decision, a natural commander of men.
They sang "Minnie Minturn" to his request, and the refrain,—
I have heard the angels warning,I have seen the golden shore—
meant much to me. So did the line,
But I only hear the drummersAs the armies march away.
Aunt Deb was also a soul of decision. She called out, "No more of these sad tones," and struck up "The Year of Jubilo," and we all shouted till the walls shook with the exultant words:
Ol' massa run—ha-ha!De darkies stay,—ho-ho!It must be now is the kingdom a-comin'In the year of Jubilo.
At this point the fire suggested an old English ballad which I loved, and so I piped up, "Mother, sing, 'Pile the Wood on Higher!'" and she complied with pleasure, for this was a song of home, of the unbroken fireside circle.
Oh, the winds howl mad outdoorsThe snow clouds hurry past,The giant trees sway to and froBeneath the sweeping blast.
and we children joined in the chorus:
Then we'll gather round the fireAnd we'll pile the wood on higher,Let the song and jest go round;What care we for the storm,When the fireside is so warm,And pleasure here is found?
Never before did this song mean so much to me as at this moment when the winds were actually howling outdoors, and Uncle Frank was in very truth piling the logs higher. It seemed as though my stuffed bosom could not receive anything deeper and finer, but it did, for father was saying, "Well, Dave, now for some tunes."
This was the best part of David to me. He could make any room mystical with the magic of his bow. True, his pieces were mainly venerable dance tunes, cotillions, hornpipes,—melodies which had passed from fiddler to fiddler until they had become veritable folk-songs,—pieces like "Money Musk," "Honest John," "Haste to the Wedding," and many others whose names I have forgotten, but with a gift of putting into even the simplest song an emotion which subdued us and silenced us, he played on, absorbed and intent. From these familiar pieces he passed to others for which he had no names, melodies strangely sweet and sad, full of longing cries, voicing something which I dimly felt but could not understand.
At the moment he was the somber Scotch Highlander, the true Celt, and as he bent above his instrument his black eyes glowing, his fine head drooping low, my heart bowed down in worship of his skill. He was my hero, the handsomest, most romantic figure in all my world.
He played, "Maggie, Air Ye Sleepin," and the wind outside went to my soul. Voices wailed to me out of the illimitable hill-land forests, voices that pleaded:
Oh, let me in, for loud the linnGoes roarin' o'er the moorland craggy.
He appeared to forget us, even his young wife. His eyes looked away into gray storms. Vague longing ached in his throat. Life was a struggle, love a torment.
He stopped abruptly, and put the violin into its box, fumbling with the catch to hide his emotion and my father broke the tense silence with a prosaic word. "Well, well! Look here, it's time you youngsters were asleep. Beckie, where are you going to put these children?"
Aunt Rebecca, a trim little woman with brown eyes, looked at us reflectively, "Well, now, I don't know. I guess we'll have to make a bed for them on the floor."
This was done, and for the first time in my life, I slept before an open fire. As I snuggled into my blankets with my face turned to the blaze, the darkness of the night and the denizens of the pineland wilderness to the north had no terrors for me.
I was awakened in the early light by Uncle David building the fire, and then came my father's call, and the hurly burly of jovial greeting from old and young. The tumult lasted till breakfast was called, and everybody who could find place sat around the table and attacked the venison and potatoes which formed the meal. I do not remember our leave-taking or the ride homeward. I bring to mind only the desolate cold of our own kitchen into which we tramped late in the afternoon, sitting in our wraps until the fire began to roar within its iron cage.
Oh, winds of the winter night! Oh, firelight and the shine of tender eyes! How far away you seem tonight!
So faint and far,Each dear face shineth as a star.
Oh, you by the western sea, and you of the south beyond the reach of Christmas snow, do not your hearts hunger, like mine tonight for that Thanksgiving Day among the trees? For the glance of eyes undimmed of tears, for the hair untouched with gray?
It all lies in the unchanging realm of the past—this land of my childhood. Its charm, its strange dominion cannot return save in the poet's reminiscent dream. No money, no railway train can take us back to it. It did not in truth exist—it was a magical world, born of the vibrant union of youth and firelight, of music and the voice of moaning winds—a union which can never come again to you or me, father, uncle, brother, till the coulee meadows bloom again unscarred of spade or plow.
VII
Winnesheik "Woods and Prairie Lands"
Our last winter in the Coulee was given over to preparations for our removal but it made very little impression on my mind which was deeply engaged on my school work. As it was out of the question for us to attend the village school the elders arranged for a neighborhood school at the home of John Roche, who had an unusually large living room. John is but a shadowy figure in this chronicle but his daughter Indiana, whom we called "Ingie," stands out as the big girl of my class.
Books were scarce in