White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1936-09-03

mountains, Scpdldlcu lynn AAo
her Great Great randfather Saul
who first strobe through the wilder
ness on his long legs spying out the
land. During that century, wave
after wave of change and reform.
sweeping over the Republic. and
bearing it on into the Westland, had
broken against the: monntain walls,
leaving the valleys within almost
untouched. The way of life. which
CYNTHIA Pattern from the brown
Pinnacle saw in the valley below
her was the indigenous fruit of an
unbroken tradition Of family life de-
veloped without benefit of the world
beyond the wide horizon of the Big
Sandy hills If there were surv1v-
ing anywhere in America in 1885
anything resembling. q native cul-
ture, it was represented by the life
of the Patterns now in their fifth
generation on their six thousand
acres of hills and valleys surround
ing Wolfpen Bottoms. But a new
steam-mill would not be indigenous.
Cynthia had slipped away from
the weaving-room of the big farm
house and gone around the palings
of Julia's garden, and under the
grape arbor, and through the peach
| orchard, across the creek and up the
steep path which led her through
the yellow girdle of the poplar for
est, through the dark belt OF pine
trees, into the clump of rhododen-
dron where the rock pushed out OF
the black leaf-mould to look at the
valleys and the undulating expanse
| of untouched timber-land.
Sitting at the loom she had
thought: Daddy and the boys have
been down at the mill all morning
and this evening they'll start the
new engine. I'd like to see him
start it but womenfolk can't hard
" ever go anywheres like that
when all the menfolks on the creek
gang about and Mother wouldn't ev-
en- think about going down there.
But if was on the Pinnacle ] could
look right down on the mill and
watch Just like I was one Of the
buzzards or a hawk or crow and
see them without them taking any
notice of me-"
!. CYNTHIA sat on the ledge watch
]. ing Spared Pattern while he con
e. yerted to modern steam-power the
h old water-wheeled mill her grand
n father had built. The mill gathered
1t no for her the romance of a fam
h ily tradition and became the sym
st Dol of progression for the genera
u tons of her men. She had sat OF
e the Pinnacle watching the arc O.
d the great wheel loaded with wate
n spin without effort in the sun, re
% volving to the muted rumble of thu
5. stones within the log mill. 1t turned
d her thoughts into the past where II
y. imagination she recreated the live
70 of her grandfathers. They were no
te dead and forgotten; they had bull
II themselves into the place and locke
Of out at her from the barn, the house
the bottoms, the old mill. The lift
IN span of one man does not PERM
the fashioning of a culture from
raw wilderness; his vision must b
carried on by his sons and hi
grandsons. Grandfather Saul wa
g. sorely pressed during the first har
" years in the mountains; he had t
q. be content with the temporary make
a. shift of a hand-mill. The woode
ad bench on which it was mounted wa
~ decayed, but the two little stones
a. larger than a milk crock were pr
served in one corner Of the presel
gs mill.
XIV They seemed little beside the gre'