The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1877-11-08
Frontier Women.

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 elegance OF dress
that any one can have by money and
neighborhood, are overlooked, that they
shine beside their city sisters with an
enviable luste-.
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 common to us, on the ill-arrang-
ed hair and the restless hands, we form
a rapid and supercilious conclusion of
inferiority, possibly strengthened by
some peculiarities of speech.
Never were we more mistaken. In
what does our superiority consist? We
dress in the mode-no merit of ours,
since any fool can do it who lives where
the mode prevails; but our best playing
is so far beneath the standard OF excel
lence, that the difference between that
and the worst, when compared with ex-
cellence, is really not appreciate. We
have certain little graces of behavior
the ready smile, the ready word which
are unknown or difficult of achievement
with them, but which are ours merely
through the accident of situation and
contagious example, not from any thing
inherent in ourselves, nowise intrinsic
or to our credit. To offset these super
fetal advantages of ours, what have
they? They can fire rifle, and hit
with the shot; they can dress wound;
they can saddle horse, and ride him !;
they can face a wilderness, and supply
themselves with civilization out of their
own resources. While we fiutter 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 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
themselves of their opportunities, real
ly achieve corresponding mental results.
Nor do we mean by the latter class
simply those persons who " live in the
country" and rust away the soul and
body there, and who meet with few de-
veloping emergencies there, but strictly
and daughters and mothers of pioneers
who have always been meeting new
emergencies and setting their wits at
work to conquer circumstance, in whom
presence of mind and an amazing self
possession have been developed, with
devotion and keen intelligence, and who
have weighed the world in the balance,
and learned to look with no awe upon
the trivial and unnecessary, although
often dazzling, things of it.
The face of these women are some.
times, but by no means always, weather.
stained; their dress is often poor; blu,
in those faces there is vivid intellect
as attractive as mere pink and white
and when they have satisfied themselves
sufficiently concerning your worthiness
aud have begun to talk, you find your.
self in the presence of people who have
spent their long silences in thinking
thinking out for themselves all the prob
lens whose result others too often take
on mere hearsay, and frequently with /;
startling originality of premise and con
clusion.
AS rule, the minds of the women O.
the frontier are great and strong minds
well fed and constantly active. o.
course there are exceptions; but, in com
parison, 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 in
genuity in little ways in order to en-
nance the comfort of their households
and to attend to their reading too. They
have very little to read, but what the,
have, they read thoroughly; they ex
tract the last drop of honey from ever,
flower of literature that they conn
across. When they have read thei
book, they think of it, and then the,
read it again; they talk it over; it is
feature in their lives, Il living part o
them.
In our own experience we have foun,
women of whom, Judging from thei
lonely life in the wilderness, we shout,
have expected absolutely nothing bu
strong common sense when needed, VIII,
presently discussed Darwinism mucl
more learnedly than any but scientific
professors, we should have supposed
would have thought of doing; were in
terested in the last discovery of astrono
my, 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