Mary Derwent. 1858

CHAPTER I

THE VALLEY OF WYOMING

Monockonok Island lies in the stream of the Susquehanna, where the Valley of Wyoming presents its greenest fields and most level banks to the sunshine. It is a quiet little spot, lying dreamily in the river, which breaks and sparkles around it with a silvery tumult. The Indians have gathered up the music of these waters in a name that will live forever—Monockonok—rapid or broken waters. You scarcely notice the island amid the luxuriant scenery of Wyoming, it seems so insignificant in its prettiness. Hedges of black alder, hazel branches, and sedgy rushes stand in thickets, or droop in garlands along its shores.

A few miles below Monockonok, between a curve of the river and a picturesque sweep of the mountains, lies the town of Wilkesbarre, a gem among villages set in a haven of loveliness.

Two or three miles higher up may be seen the town of Pittston, with its mines, its forges, its mills, and its modern dwelling-houses, crowding close up to the heart of the valley, in which the Lackawanna and the Susquehanna unite among exhaustless coal beds and the eternal beat of human industry.

For twenty miles below the Lackawanna gap, the valley, though under partial cultivation for nearly a 

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quarter of a century, seemed scarcely more than an unbroken forest. The beautiful river in its bosom was almost hidden beneath the huge black walnuts, the elms and sycamores that crowded to its banks.

But with all this beautiful wildness, the strife of disputed civilization had already been felt in the valley. Indian forages were frequent, and the Connecticut settlers had been twice driven from their humble dwellings by the Pennsylvanians, who were restive at the introduction of pioneers from the neighboring States into this fertile region.

The blackened ruins of a dwelling here and there left evidence of this unnatural contest, while stockades and block-houses of recent erection, scattered along the valley, gave picturesque proofs of continued anxiety and peril.

From twenty to thirty houses occupied the spot where Wilkesbarre now stands, while log-cabins were grouped near the forts, each with its clearing, its young fruit-orchard, and its patch of wheat or corn.

A single log-cabin, sheltered by a huge old elm with a slope of grass descending to the water in front, and a garden in the rear, enriched with variously tinted vegetables, and made cheerful by a few hollyhocks, marigolds, and sunflowers, stood like a mammoth bird’s nest on Monockonok Island.

Two immense black walnuts, with their mastlike trunks naked thirty feet high, stood back from the house. The shore was broken up with clumps of sycamores, oaks, maples, and groups of drooping willows, while an undergrowth of dogwood, mountain-ash and tamarisk trees chained into huge garlands by frost grape-vines and wild clematis, were seen in picturesque leafiness along the banks.

This log-cabin had been built years before, by a young man who came with his mother and his two little orphan girls to seek a home, and hide the deep grief occasioned 

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by the loss of his wife in the wilderness. Derwent took up his residence in Wyoming with the New England settlers on their second return to the valley, when it was almost as much inhabited by the Indians as the whites.

Derwent struggled manfully in his new enterprise, but it was with a broken spirit and by stern moral force alone. His health, always delicate, sunk beneath the labor of establishing a new home, and though he worked on, month by month, it was as a Pilgrim toils toward a shrine, patiently and with endurance rather than hope.

Two little girls formed the sunshine of this humble family, and the fairy island was made brighter by their pleasant voices and graceful ways, as it was by the wild birds that haunted it with music. In the great indulgence of the invalid father, and the active love of that dear old grandmother, they had early lost all sense of orphanage, and were happy as the wild birds, free as the striped squirrels that peeped at them from the branches of the black walnut trees where they loved to play.

Very different were these two children from infancy up. Jane, the youngest, was a bright, happy little creature, full of fun, eager for a frolic, and heedless of everything else; endowed with commonplace goodness and a pleasant temper, she was simply a bright, lovable child. But Mary, who seemed younger by half than her robust sister, was so fragile, so delicate, that you dreaded to see the very winds of heaven blow upon her, even when they left the spring blossoms unhurt. Her large wistful eyes were full of earnestness. She was so fair, so fragile, swaying as she walked, like a flower too heavy for its stem, and with that look of unutterable sweetness forever about the little mouth.

With Derwent Little Mary was an object of singular tenderness, while the force and life of his warmer 

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affections went to the younger child. He was their only teacher, and during the years that he lived it was a pleasant recreation to give them such instruction as his own rather superior attainments afforded.

Thus in primitive happiness the little family lived till Mary passed gently out of her childhood. There was little visiting among the pioneers, and a stranger seldom made way to Monockonok. An Indian sometimes touched the island with his canoe in his progress down the river; but this was always a happy event to the children, who received the savages with childish admiration, as if they had been orioles or golden robins. At the sight of a canoe, Jane would run gleefully to the river, waving kisses to the savage with her hand, and flaunting out her apron as a signal to win him shoreward. It was a singular fact, but the Indians seldom obeyed these signals unless Mary was by her side. A single gleam of her golden hair—a glimpse of her bent form—would prove more effectual than all her sister’s pretty wiles.

Why did these savages come so readily at her look? What was the meaning of the strange homage with which they approached her? Why did they never touch her dress, or smooth her hair, or give her any of those wild marks of liking which Jane received so cheerfully? Why did they lay eagles’ plumes and the skins of flame-colored birds at her feet, with so much humility? Mary could never comprehend this, but it filled her with vague awe, while the savages went away thoughtfully, like men filled with a spirit of worship.

One other person sometimes visited the island, who had a powerful influence over these children. This man was an Indian missionary, who, following the path of Zinzendorf, had made his home in the wilderness, about the time that Derwent entered the valley. He was evidently a man of birth and education, for even the wild habits of the woods had been insufficient to 

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disguise the natural refinement of mind and manners which made the humility of his character so touchingly beautiful.

This man came often to the island. Sometimes he remained all night in the cabin. Sometimes he lingered days with the family, teaching the little girls those higher branches which their father could not control, and planting a thousand holy thoughts in the young minds, that lifted themselves to his knowledge, as the flower opens its cup for the night dew.

Under these beautiful and almost holy influences the children lived in their island home, each taking from the elements around her such nutriment as her nature craved, till Derwent, who had been ill since their first remembrance, sunk slowly to his deathbed.

The last attack came suddenly, while the missionary was absent among the Shawnees, far down the valley; but scarcely had the little family felt the need of his presence, when he appeared quietly and kindly. All one night he remained with the sick man; their conversation could be heard in broken fragments in the next room, where the old mother sat weeping over her grandchildren, holding Jane fondly in her lap, while Mary sat upon the floor, so chilled with grief that she did not feel the tender sorrow lavished upon her sister, as neglect of herself. Like a pure white lily broken at the stem, she sat wistfully gazing in the distance, wondering what death was, vaguely and in dreamy desolation. They were called at last, and with a dying effort Jane was drawn to her father’s bed, the last breath, the last blessing fell upon her. Mary had no time; the father’s life was exhausted in that one benediction.

The missionary led her forth into the open air. He said but little, and his voice fell dreamily on the senses of the child; but its first low cadence filled her soul with infinite resignation. From that time Mary could 

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never realize that her father had died, leaving no blessing for her. It seemed as if the missionary had inhaled the life from his departing soul, and turned it all to love. The child recognized a double presence in this holy man. Not even her grandmother was permitted to kiss the forehead which his lips had touched. Her brow became sacred from that time, and she would shrink back with a cry of absolute pain if any one attempted to disturb the kiss which was to her the place of a lost blessing.

The missionary had many duties to perform, and his intercourse with the island was sometimes interrupted for months; but the little heart that clung to him could live upon a remembrance of his teachings, even when his presence was withheld. It was a wonderful influence, that which his strong, pure soul had obtained over the child. While these feelings were taking root in the nature of one sister, the other was working out her own life, and the grandmother took up the duties imposed by her bereavement with great resolution.

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