The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-02-19
A STRANGE STORY.

/ HAVE strange, almost incredible,
story to tell of an experience of my own
one fearful night in the woods. Imagin-
alton had nothing to do with it, for |
am a backwoodsman' daughter, accus-
toned to the wild sounds of the forest,
the lonliness, and all that is terrifying to
a novice.
My father was a good man, serving
God after his own simple fashion, seeing
Him and loving Him in His works. /
have heard him hold forth on the provi-
dent ways of the beaver: "Why! the
little critter'd starve in the cold season,
if it hadn't used its little fiat tail for
buidin' its house, and then filled it with
food in time!" l have heard him tell
of the caribou: "Look at that, too, {"
he would say, sand at the moose. Now,
the caribou has to travel often a matter
of twenty miles for his dinner, for he's
dainty 'un, and only eats the long gray
moss that hangs from the trees-so God
gave him snOw-shoes good as an Injtin
could make 'em to skim over the ice
crust-while the big, heavy moose there
sinks right in. His dinner is close to
hand. He could live for months on an
acre lott" He would speak of the loon,
and its adaptation in every way to its
watery home-always ending such talk
with: GAN Gods works are pom hon
or; there's no halfway with Him!"
Twas the only one left of ten children.
My father, when mourning over and
missing the others, would never COM
plain. but only say: "They're better
off! Why! if we can't trust the little
children, that don't know what wrong
doing is, and don't know the meaning
of sin, then there amt any chance for
us men!" And so he lived his quiet
life-his heart beating close to NATURES
heart, and his soul unconsciously seek
ing and finding NATURES God.
My mother must have been beautiful
in her youth. She was l0rette Cana
dienne, and her bright French spirits
carried her gayly over many a hard
trial in her life of frequent deprivations.
One great, overshadowing sorrow of her
life was the unaccountable disappear
ance of her little year-old daughter, her
only beautiful child-the one in her own
image, whom from the first she loved
with peculiar tenderness.
The child had been left alone in her
little birch-bark crib for short half
hour, while mother was busy at the
spring, a mile from home, in the midst
of the woods. l, little six-vear-old,
was off in the canoe with my father, as
treat for having been especially good
the day before. Father and had had
a splendid time-we always did when
we went away together-and, our canoe
full of trout, we were coming gayly
home, toward evening, when q cold
chill fell on our happiness, and my
child's heart felt strange thrill as
read sudden anxiety in my fathers
face, whose every change 1 knew. His
quick ear had caught the sound of moth
er's voice, and, after a while, l, too,
could hear a hopeless moaning, dread
full heart-broken sound. We found
mother kneeling on the floor, her head
leaning on the empty crib, and mourn
ing as one that could not be comforted
The baby was gone. How, or where,
we could not tell-we never knew.
Weeks were spent in searching for her,
and, at length, to save mothers reason,
father forced her to leave the pretty log
cabin in the woods by the lake, where
this last sorrow had come upon her, and
we went to Montreal
There we lived quietly for years dur
ing the winter time. The nuns of the
great convent of the Gray Sisters took
charge of my education. Mother and l
had neat little rooms in the French quar-
ter, while father went off moose
hunting for weary months; but
the summer-times we always spent with
him. He would choose lovely spots
for our summer encampments, but never
on the site of the log-cabin deserted af-
ter the baby's loss, until the summer of
my nineteenth year. Then great de-
sire took possession of my mother to 90
once more to the old home. She had
been very delicate that winter, and my
great, rough father denied her nothing.
shudder when l think of that beauti-
full, direful place now-it seems as
though our evil fate lowered about it..
All the anguish ever knew centers
there!
We passed one peaceful month to-
gether, disturbed only by distant ru-
mors of the diphtheria, a scourge which
seemed to be striding along from village
to village, first on the river, then nearer us
on the great lake but we never thoughtof
its touching us, until one miserable night
when father came home, languid and
feverish, from one of his numerous ex-
peditions, and we read in his face that
the CHASTITY finger of the scourge had set
its mark upon him. After the second
day of anxiety about father, all strength
seemed to desert my delicate little moth
er. From the first she had despaired
about him, and now l saw that, if ia
TIERS life were taken, should have to
part with them both.
Her life would die with his, for sor-
row forges stronger bonds even than
joy, and they had suffered so much to-