The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1877-08-17
Frontier Women.

~ 10 oOulGbtuuCo NV q libblC sui
to the traveller to find that the women
on almost any frontier are vastly su-
perior order of women to the great gen.
erality, and when the little differences
of manner that arise from frequent So
cial contact, and the elegances of dress
that any one can have by money and
neighborhood, are overlooked, that they
shine beside their city sisters with an
enviable luster.
! 1t ought not to be surprising, if one
only paused to think; but that is the
last thing which many of US do. We
see and wonder, without reasoning and
weighing; and one quick and sighting
glance having rested on the dress not in
the last fashion, on the jewelry doubt
| less of price to the owner, but uncom-
monty com mon to US, on the ill-arranged
hair and the restless hands, we form a
rapid and superciliOus conclusion of in
| feriority, possibly strengthened by some
peculiarities of speech.
Never we're g more mistaken. In
what does our Superiority consist? We
dress in tie mode-no merit of ours,
since any fool can do il who lives where
the mode prevails; we perhaps play on
! the piano; but our best playing is so far
beneath the standard of excellence, that
the difference between that and the
worst, when compared with excellence,
is really not appreciable. We have GER
tain little graces of behavior-the ready
smile, the ready word-which are un-
known or difficult of achievement with
them, but which are ours merely through
the accident of situation and conta-
gious example, not from anything in
herent in ourselves, nowise intrinsic or
| to our credit. To offset these superficial
advantages of ours, what have they ?
They can fire a rifle and hit with the
shot; they can dress a wound; they can
saddle horse and ride him; they can
face wilderness and supply themselves
with civilization out of their own re-
sources. While we flutter round the
! flowers and enjoy ourselves, they meet
and conquer all the stern realities of
life, and found States and peoples.
| We do not mean to decry civilization
and culture, or any of the best things in
city life, for one can be bOor upon the
frontier as one can be a doll in the city,
but merely to speak of the claims to
consideration of those who, without any
of the great helps that city life is able
to afford to those that will avail them
selves of their opportunities, really
achieve corresponding mental results.
Nor do we mean by the latter class SIM
ply those persons who 'live in the
country" and rust away soul aud body
there, and who meet with few develop
ing emergencies there, but strictly the
women of the frontier-the wives and
daughters and mothers of pioneers
who have always been meeting emer-
gencies, and setting all their wits at
work to conquer circu in whom
presence of mind and an amazing self
possession have been developed, with
self-devotion and keen intelligence, and
who have weighed the world in the bal
ance, and learned to look with no awe
upon the trivial and unnecessary, al
though often dazzling, things of it.
The faces of these women are some
times, but by no means always, wealth
er-stained; their dress is often poor; but
in those faces there is a vivid intellect
as attractive as mere pink and white,
and when they have satisfied them
selves sufficiently concerning your
worthiness, and have begun to talk,
you find yourself in the presence of peo-
pie who have spent their long silences
in thinking-thinking out for them
selves all the problems whose result
others too often take on mere hearsay,
and frequently with a startling origi-
nality of premise and conclusion.
AS rule, the minds of the women of
the frontier are great and strong minds,
we'll fed and constantly active. OF
course there are exceptions; but, in
comparison, they are seldom met. These
women are eager and assiduous readers;
they find time to attend to all their du-
ties, and more than all-fOr they are
constantly exercising their inventive
ingenuity in little ways in order to en-
| L, Df fhair hnncahOIAc
and to attend to their reading, too
They have very little to read, but what
, they have, they read thoroughly; they
extract the last drop of honey from
every flower of literature that they
2 come across. When they have reaC
| their book, they think of it, and theI
they read it again; they talk it over; il
is a feature in their lives, living par
of them.
l In our own experience we have found
women of whom, judging from thei
lonely life in the wilderness, we shOulC
have expected absolutely nothing bu
I strong common sense when needed, who
, presently discussed Darwinism muct
more learnedly than any but scientific
professors, we should have supposed
would have thought of doing; were in
t terested in the last discovery of astron
omy, the last theory of medicine; ha(
original conclusions to draw from his
tory; had new ideas upon the distribu
ton of race; and evinced knowledg
= of the interior economy of certain states
s men and politicians, gathered from tn
9 deductions afforded by some poor week.!
= newspaper, that people who had know
the statesmen all their lives had failet
i to gather. 1t is, of course, very posi-
g BILE that this same woman in cit,
" would have been equally thoughtful
and intellectual, with a good deal o
added grace; but, in proportion to mum
: bers, she is not so frequently met witt
2 in the city, for city life is apt to seattle
a the intellectual power over wider sur
face, instead of running it into profoun
u grooves, as solitary life does.
Solitude has its uses; it is vast res
IS ervoir, out of which the soul suck
If strength as the earth sucks sunshin
out of the sky. Danger there keep
Ii ones powers upon the alert; the neces
'r sity of providing ones daily bread, wit
nothing to fall back on in case of fail
ure, stimulates all the faculties; an
for the rest, one is so remote from th
world that one can judge it. Rather
q then, than surprise at the mental qua
- u ity and attainment of the women {
- - the frontier, we should be astonished