a mountain woman(山妇)

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A Mountain Woman

By Elia Wilkinson Peattie

To My best Friend, and kindest Critic, My Husband.

A Mountain Woman

IF Leroy Brainard had not had such a respect for literature, he would

have written a book.

As it was, he played at being an architect -- and succeeded in being a

charming fellow. My sister Jessica never lost an opportunity of laughing at

his endeavors as an architect.

"You can build an enchanting villa, but what would you do with a

cathedral?"

"I shall never have a chance at a cathe- dral," he would reply. "And,

besides, it always seems to me so material and so im- pertinent to build a

little structure of stone and wood in which to worship God!"

You see what he was like? He was frivo- lous, yet one could never tell

when he would become eloquently earnest.

Brainard went off suddenly Westward one day. I suspected that Jessica

was at the bottom of it, but I asked no questions; and I did not hear from

him for months. Then I got a letter from Colorado.

"I have married a mountain woman," he wrote. "None of your puny

breed of modern femininity, but a remnant left over from the heroic ages, -

- a primitive woman, grand and vast of spirit, capable of true and steadfast

wifehood. No sophistry about her; no knowledge even that there is

sophistry. Heavens! man, do you remember the ron- deaux and triolets I

used to write to those pretty creatures back East? It would take a Saga man

of the old Norseland to write for my mountain woman. If I were an artist,

I would paint her with the north star in her locks and her feet on purple

cloud. I suppose you are at the Pier. I know you usually are at this season.

At any rate, I shall direct this letter thither, and will follow close after it. I

want my wife to see some- thing of life. And I want her to meet your

sister."

"Dear me!" cried Jessica, when I read the letter to her; "I don't know

that I care to meet anything quite so gigantic as that mountain woman. I'm

one of the puny breed of modern femininity, you know. I don't think my

nerves can stand the encounter."

"Why, Jessica!" I protested. She blushed a little.

A Mountain Woman

"Don't think bad of me, Victor. But, you see, I've a little scrap-book of

those triolets upstairs." Then she burst into a peal of irresistible laughter.

"I'm not laughing because I am piqued," she said frankly. "Though any

one will admit that it is rather irritating to have a man who left you in a

blasted condition recover with such extraordinary promptness. As a phi-

lanthropist, one of course rejoices, but as a woman, Victor, it must be

admitted that one has a right to feel annoyed. But, honestly, I am not

ungenerous, and I am going to do him a favor. I shall write, and urge him

not to bring his wife here. A primitive woman, with the north star in her

hair, would look well down there in the Casino eating a pineapple ice,

wouldn't she? It's all very well to have a soul, you know; but it won't keep

you from looking like a guy among women who have good dressmakers. I

shudder at the thought of what the poor thing will suffer if he brings her

here."

Jessica wrote, as she said she would; but, for all that, a fortnight later

she was walking down the wharf with the "mountain woman," and I was

sauntering beside Leroy. At dinner Jessica gave me no chance to talk with

our friend's wife, and I only caught the quiet contralto tones of her voice

now and then contrasting with Jessica's vivacious soprano. A drizzling rain

came up from the east with nightfall. Little groups of shivering men and

women sat about in the parlors at the card-tables, and one blond woman

sang love songs. The Brainards were tired with their journey, and left us

early. When they were gone, Jessica burst into eulogy.

"That is the first woman," she declared, "I ever met who would make a

fit heroine for a book."

"Then you will not feel under obligations to educate her, as you

insinuated the other day?"

"Educate her! I only hope she will help me to unlearn some of the

things I know. I never saw such simplicity. It is antique!"

"You're sure it's not mere vacuity?" "Victor! How can you? But you

haven't talked with her. You must to-morrow. Good-night." She gathered

up her trail- ing skirts and started down the corridor. Suddenly she turned

back. "For Heaven's sake!" she whispered, in an awed tone, "I never even

A Mountain Woman

noticed what she had on!"

The next morning early we made up a riding party, and I rode with

Mrs. Brainard. She was as tall as I, and sat in her saddle as if quite

unconscious of her animal. The road stretched hard and inviting under our

horses' feet. The wind smelled salt. The sky was ragged with gray masses

of cloud scudding across the blue. I was beginning to glow with

exhilaration, when suddenly my companion drew in her horse.

"If you do not mind, we will go back," she said.

Her tone was dejected. I thought she was tired.

"Oh, no!" she protested, when I apolo- gized for my thoughtlessness in

bringing her so far. "I'm not tired. I can ride all day. Where I come from,

we have to ride if we want to go anywhere; but here there seems to be no

particular place to -- to reach."

"Are you so utilitarian?" I asked, laugh- ingly. "Must you always have

some reason for everything you do? I do so many things just for the mere

pleasure of doing them, I'm afraid you will have a very poor opinion of

me."

"That is not what I mean," she said, flushing, and turning her large

gray eyes on me. "You must not think I have a reason for everything I do."

She was very earnest, and it was evident that she was unacquainted with

the art of making conversation. "But what I mean," she went on, "is that

there is no place -- no end -- to reach." She looked back over her shoulder

toward the west, where the trees marked the sky line, and an expression of

loss and dissatisfaction came over her face. "You see," she said, apolo-

getically, "I'm used to different things -- to the mountains. I have never

been where I could not see them before in my life."

"Ah, I see! I suppose it is odd to look up and find them not there."

"It's like being lost, this not having any- thing around you. At least, I

mean," she continued slowly, as if her thought could not easily put itself in

words, -- "I mean it seems as if a part of the world had been taken down. It

makes you feel lonesome, as if you were living after the world had begun

to die."

"You'll get used to it in a few days. It seems very beautiful to me here.

A Mountain Woman

And then you will have so much life to divert you."

"Life? But there is always that every- where."

"I mean men and women."

"Oh! Still, I am not used to them. I think I might be not -- not very

happy with them. They might think me queer. I think I would like to

show your sister the mountains."

"She has seen them often."

"Oh, she told me. But I don't mean those pretty green hills such as we

saw com- ing here. They are not like my mountains. I like mountains that

go beyond the clouds, with terrible shadows in the hollows, and belts of

snow lying in the gorges where the sun cannot reach, and the snow is blue

in the sunshine, or shining till you think it is silver, and the mist so

wonderful all about it, changing each moment and drifting up and down,

that you cannot tell what name to give the colors. These mountains of

yours here in the East are so quiet; mine are shouting all the time, with the

pines and the rivers. The echoes are so loud in the valley that sometimes,

when the wind is rising, we can hardly hear a man talk unless he raises his

voice. There are four cataracts near where I live, and they all have

different voices, just as people do; and one of them is happy -- a little

white cataract -- and it falls where the sun shines earliest, and till night it is

shining. But the others only get the sun now and then, and they are more

noisy and cruel. One of them is always in the shadow, and the water looks

black. That is partly because the rocks all underneath it are black. It falls

down twenty great ledges in a gorge with black sides, and a white mist

dances all over it at every leap. I tell father the mist is the ghost of the

waters. No man ever goes there; it is too cold. The chill strikes through

one, and makes your heart feel as if you were dying. But all down the side

of the mountain, toward the south and the west, the sun shines on the

granite and draws long points of light out of it. Father tells me soldiers

marching look that way when the sun strikes on their bayonets. Those are

the kind of mountains I mean, Mr. Grant."

She was looking at me with her face trans- figured, as if it, like the

mountains she told me of, had been lying in shadow, and wait- ing for the

A Mountain Woman

dazzling dawn.

"I had a terrible dream once," she went on; "the most terrible dream

ever I had. I dreamt that the mountains had all been taken down, and that I

stood on a plain to which there was no end. The sky was burn- ing up, and

the grass scorched brown from the heat, and it was twisting as if it were in

pain. And animals, but no other person save myself, only wild things, were

crouch- ing and looking up at that sky. They could not run because there

was no place to which to go."

"You were having a vision of the last man," I said. "I wonder myself

sometimes whether this old globe of ours is going to collapse suddenly

and take us with her, or whether we will disappear through slow disastrous

ages of fighting and crushing, with hunger and blight to help us to the end.

And then, at the last, perhaps, some luckless fellow, stronger than the rest,

will stand amid the ribs of the rotting earth and go mad."

The woman's eyes were fixed on me, large and luminous. "Yes," she

said; "he would go mad from the lonesomeness of it. He would be afraid

to be left alone like that with God. No one would want to be taken into

God's secrets."

"And our last man," I went on, "would have to stand there on that

swaying wreck till even the sound of the crumbling earth ceased. And he

would try to find a voice and would fail, because silence would have come

again. And then the light would go out --"

The shudder that crept over her made me stop, ashamed of myself.

"You talk like father," she said, with a long-drawn breath. Then she

looked up suddenly at the sun shining through a rift in those reckless gray

clouds, and put out one hand as if to get it full of the headlong rollicking

breeze. "But the earth is not dying," she cried. "It is well and strong, and it

likes to go round and round among all the other worlds. It likes the sun

and moon; they are all good friends; and it likes the people who live on it.

Maybe it is they instead of the fire within who keep it warm; or maybe it is

warm just from always going, as we are when we run. We are young, you

and I, Mr. Grant, and Leroy, and your beautiful sister, and the world is

young too!" Then she laughed a strong splendid laugh, which had never

A Mountain Woman

had the joy taken out of it with drawing-room re- strictions; and I laughed

too, and felt that we had become very good companions indeed, and found

myself warming to the joy of companionship as I had not since I was a

boy at school.

That afternoon the four of us sat at a table in the Casino together. The

Casino, as every one knows, is a place to amuse yourself. If you have a

duty, a mission, or an aspiration, you do not take it there with you, it

would be so obviously out of place; if poverty is ahead of you, you forget

it; if you have brains, you hasten to conceal them; they would be a serious

encumbrance.

There was a bubbling of conversation, a rustle and flutter such as there

always is where there are many women. All the place was gay with

flowers and with gowns as bright as the flowers. I remembered the

apprehensions of my sister, and studied Leroy's wife to see how she fitted

into this highly colored picture. She was the only woman in the room who

seemed to wear draperies. The jaunty slash and cut of fashionable attire

were missing in the long brown folds of cloth that enveloped her figure. I

felt certain that even from Jessica's standpoint she could not be called a

guy. Picturesque she might be, past the point of convention, but she was

not ridiculous.

"Judith takes all this very seriously," said Leroy, laughingly. "I suppose

she would take even Paris seriously."

His wife smiled over at him. "Leroy says I am melancholy," she said,

softly; "but I am always telling him that I am happy. He thinks I am

melancholy be- cause I do not laugh. I got out of the way of it by being so

much alone. You only laugh to let some one else know you are pleased.

When you are alone there is no use in laughing. It would be like explain-

ing something to yourself."

"You are a philosopher, Judith. Mr. Max Müller would like to

know you."

"Is he a friend of yours, dear?"

Leroy blushed, and I saw Jessica curl her lip as she noticed the blush.

She laid her hand on Mrs. Brainard's arm.

A Mountain Woman

"Have you always been very much alone?" she inquired.

"I was born on the ranch, you know; and father was not fond of

leaving it. In- deed, now he says he will never again go out of sight of it.

But you can go a long journey without doing that; for it lies on a plateau in

the valley, and it can be seen from three different mountain passes. Mother

died there, and for that reason and others -- father has had a strange life --

he never wanted to go away. He brought a lady from Pennsylvania to teach

me. She had wonderful learning, but she didn't make very much use of it. I

thought if I had learning I would not waste it reading books. I would use it

to -- to live with. Father had a library, but I never cared for it. He was

forever at books too. Of course," she hastened to add, noticing the look of

mortification deepen on her hus- band's face, "I like books very well if

there is nothing better at hand. But I always said to Mrs. Windsor -- it was

she who taught me -- why read what other folk have been thinking when

you can go out and think yourself? Of course one prefers one's own

thoughts, just as one prefers one's own ranch, or one's own father."

"Then you are sure to like New York when you go there to live," cried

Jessica; "for there you will find something to make life entertaining all the

time. No one need fall back on books there."

"I'm not sure. I'm afraid there must be such dreadful crowds of people.

Of course I should try to feel that they were all like me, with just the same

sort of fears, and that it was ridiculous for us to be afraid of each other,

when at heart we all meant to be kind."

Jessica fairly wrung her hands. "Hea- vens!" she cried. "I said you

would like New York. I am afraid, my dear, that it will break your heart!"

"Oh," said Mrs. Brainard, with what was meant to be a gentle jest, "no

one can break my heart except Leroy. I should not care enough about any

one else, you know."

The compliment was an exquisite one. I felt the blood creep to my

own brain in a sort of vicarious rapture, and I avoided looking at Leroy

lest he should dislike to have me see the happiness he must feel. The

simplicity of the woman seemed to invigorate me as the cool air of her

moun- tains might if it blew to me on some bright dawn, when I had come,

A Mountain Woman

fevered and sick of soul, from the city.

When we were alone, Jessica said to me: "That man has too much

vanity, and he thinks it is sensitiveness. He is going to imagine that his

wife makes him suffer. There's no one so brutally selfish as your sensitive

man. He wants every one to live according to his ideas, or he immediately

begins suffering. That friend of yours hasn't the courage of his

convictions. He is going to be ashamed of the very qualities that made him

love his wife."

There was a hop that night at the hotel, quite an unusual affair as to

elegance, given in honor of a woman from New York, who wrote a novel a

month.

Mrs. Brainard looked so happy that night when she came in the parlor,

after the music had begun, that I felt a moisture gather in my eyes just

because of the beauty of her joy, and the forced vivacity of the women

about me seemed suddenly coarse and insincere. Some wonderful red

stones, brilliant as rubies, glittered in among the diaphanous black

driftings of her dress. She asked me if the stones were not very pretty, and

said she gathered them in one of her mountain river-beds.

"But the gown?" I said. "Surely, you do not gather gowns like that in

river-beds, or pick them off mountain-pines?"

"But you can get them in Denver. Father always sent to Denver for my

finery. He was very particular about how I looked. You see, I was all he

had --" She broke off, her voice faltering.

"Come over by the window," I said, to change her thought. "I have

something to repeat to you. It is a song of Sydney Lanier's. I think he was

the greatest poet that ever lived in America, though not many agree with

me. But he is my dear friend anyway, though he is dead, and I never saw

him; and I want you to hear some of his words."

I led her across to an open window. The dancers were whirling by us.

The waltz was one of those melancholy ones which speak the spirit of the

dance more elo- quently than any merry melody can. The sound of the sea

booming beyond in the darkness came to us, and long paths of light, now

red, now green, stretched toward the distant light-house. These were the

A Mountain Woman

lines I repeated: --

"What heartache -- ne'er a hill! Inexorable, vapid, vague, and chill

The drear sand levels drain my spirit low. With one poor word they tell me

all they know; Whereat their stupid tongues, to tease my pain, Do drawl it

o'er and o'er again. They hurt my heart with griefs I cannot name;

Always the same -- the same."

But I got no further. I felt myself moved with a sort of passion which

did not seem to come from within, but to be communicated to me from her.

A certain unfamiliar hap- piness pricked through with pain thrilled me, and

I heard her whispering, --

"Do not go on, do not go on! I cannot stand it to-night!"

"Hush," I whispered back; "come out for a moment!" We stole into the

dusk without, and stood there trembling. I swayed with her emotion.

There was a long silence. Then she said: "Father may be walking alone

now by the black cataract. That is where he goes when he is sad. I can see

how lonely he looks among those little twisted pines that grow from the

rock. And he will be remembering all the evenings we walked there

together, and all the things we said." I did not answer. Her eyes were still

on the sea.

"What was the name of the man who wrote that verse you just said to

me?"

I told her.

"And he is dead? Did they bury him in the mountains? No? I wish I

could have put him where he could have heard those four voices calling

down the canyon."

"Come back in the house," I said; "you must come, indeed," I said, as

she shrank from re-entering.

Jessica was dancing like a fairy with Le- roy. They both saw us and

smiled as we came in, and a moment later they joined us. I made my

excuses and left my friends to Jessica's care. She was a sort of social tyrant

wherever she was, and I knew one word from her would insure the

popularity of our friends -- not that they needed the intervention of any

one. Leroy had been a sort of drawing-room pet since before he stopped

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AMountainWoman1AMountainWomanByEliaWilkinsonPeattieToMybestFriend,andkindestCritic,MyHusband.AMountainWoman2IFLeroyBrainardhadnothadsucharespectforliterature,hewouldhavewrittenabook.Asitwas,heplayedatbeinganarchitect--andsucceededinbeingacharmingfellow.MysisterJessicaneverlostanopportunityoflaughing...

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a mountain woman(山妇)

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