We are very much struck with the mixture of nationalities upon this coast. We were so fortunate as to secure last winter the services of a splendid great Swedish girl, the heartiest and healthiest creature I ever saw. There did not seem to be a shadow of any kind about her, nor any thing more amiss with her in any way than there is with the sunshine or the blue sky. All kinds of work she took alike, with equal readiness, and never admitted to her mind a doubt or anxiety on any subject.
We felt sorry enough, when we had had her only three weeks, to have the foreman of the mill come and beg us to release her. It seems they were engaged to be married when they left Sweden; but, being of thrifty natures, they had agreed to work each a year before settling down in marriage. The constant sight of her charms proved too much for him, and they decided that all they needed to begin life together was their wealth of affection and their exuberant health and spirits.
Her size may be imagined, when I mention that her lover brought up six rings in succession, to try to find one big enough to go over her finger. Finally he squeezed on the largest one he could obtain, as an absolutely essential ceremony to bind them together, and smiled with delight to see that it could never be taken off.
The only help we could find in her place, at such short notice, was a Russian boy, lately arrived from Kodiac. When we first saw him, we were quite disheartened at his appearance, his mouth and eyes were so like those of a fish, and he seemed so terribly uncivilized. I attempted to intimate that I thought we could not undertake to do any thing with him. He seemed to suspect what I thought,—although he could not understand my words,—and took up a piece of paper, and wrote some Russian words on it. I asked him what they meant; and he said, "Jesus Christ, he dead; he get up again; men and devils he take them all up." I supposed the most civilized person he had ever seen was the priest; and, as the priest had taught him that, he thought it was a kind of introduction for him, and that I should feel it to be a bond of union between us. I did not feel quite so much as if he were a fish or a seal afterward. All the time, even over the hot cooking-stove, he kept his rough fur cap on his head. His great staring eyes rolled round in every direction; and he looked so utterly uncouth and so bewildered, that I doubted very much if he could ever be adapted to our needs.
To my great surprise, however, he learned very fast, stimulated by his curiosity to know about every thing. What made him appear so very stupid at first was, that he felt so strongly the newness of all his surroundings. After he learned to talk with us, he interested us very much with accounts of his own country, and with the letters he read us from his father, an old man of ninety, who had spent his life in charge of convicts in Siberia. He wrote his father that he was homesick; and the old man replied: "You homesick—work! work by and by make you strong!" His letters were directed only: "Son mine—George Olaf." He seemed to trust to some one on the way, to take an interest in their reaching him.
The boy generally set up his hymn-book in some place where he could occasionally glance at it, and chant his Russian hymns, while he was about his work. On the other side, the nurse sang Dutch songs to the baby.
July 1, 1873.
We have just returned from a long, rough journey in southern and western Oregon. We crossed the Coast Range of mountains,—not so high and snow-capped as the Cascades, but beautiful to watch in their variations of light and shade, always the shadows of clouds travelling over them, and mists stealing up through the dark ravines. A Dutchwoman—our fellow-passenger—was in ecstasies, exclaiming continually: "How beautiful is the land here! How bracht [bright]!"—noticing all the sun-lighted places; but I was more attracted by the shadows. I heard another hard-looking woman say to a man, that she cried when she saw the hills, they were so beautiful. There was a deep welcome in them; something human and responsive seemed to fill the stillness. In these solitary places, remote from all other associations, it seems as if Nature could communicate more directly with us.
I noticed, more than I ever did before, the difference in the appearance and bearing of the flowers; how some seemed only to flaunt themselves, and others had so much more character. As we passed a little opening in the woods, a great dark purple flower, that was a stranger to me, fixed its gaze upon me so that I felt the look, as we sometimes do from human eyes. Any thing supernatural is so in keeping with these solitary places, I felt as if some one had assumed that form to greet me. There were some beautiful new flowers; among them a snow-white iris, which was very lovely. It seemed like a miracle that this fair little creature should come up so unsoiled out of the rough, black earth.