"Of course in any emergency," Demeré argued, "the forces at the fort would relieve you at once. But the true military principle ought to govern even in such a minor stronghold. An unfailing water-supply ought to be a definitely recognized necessity in every military post subject to beleaguerment. Otherwise the station can be held only very temporarily; one can lay in provisions and stand a siege, but drouth means death, for surrender is massacre."
Nevertheless, eastward at the time, and later in westward settlements, this obvious precaution was often neglected and the obvious disaster as often ensued.
The woodland spring within the stockade was a charming and rocky spot with no suggestion of flowing water till one might notice that the moss and mint beneath a gigantic tree were moist; then looking under a broad, flat, slab-like ledge might be descried a deep basin four feet in diameter filled with water, crystal, clear, and brown in the deep shadow—brown and liquid as the eyes of some water-nymph hidden among the rocks and the evergreen laurel.
And, oh joy! the day when Odalie kindled her own fire once more on her own hearth-stone—good, substantial flagging; when traversing the passage from one room to another she could look down through the open gate of the stockade at the silvery rushing of the Tennessee in its broad expanse under the blue sky, giving, as it swirled around, a long perspective, down the straight and gleaming reach before it curved anew. And oh, the moment of housewifely pride when the slender stock of goods was unpacked and once more the familiar articles adjusted in their places, her flax wheel in the chimney corner, her china ranged to its best advantage on the shelf; and often did she think about the little blue jug that came from France and marvel what had been its fate! All her linen that was saved, the pride of her heart, made, too, its brave show. She had a white cloth on her table, albeit the table seemed to have much ado to stand alone since its legs were of unequal length, and white counterpanes on her beds, and gay curtains at the windows opening within the stockade—the other side had but loop-holes—on which birds of splendid plumage, cut from East Indian chintz, had been overcast on the white dimity, and which looked when the wind stirred them, for there was no glass and only a batten shutter, as if all the winged denizens of the brilliant tropics were seeking entrance to this happy bower; the room had an added woodland suggestion because of the bark adhering to the logs of the walls, for the timbers of these primitive houses were unhewn, although the daubing and the chinking were stout and close, and with the aid of the great flaring fires stood off Jack Frost with a very valiant bluff.
So many things had she brought in small compass. When the fire was a-flicker on a dull wintry afternoon, and the snow a-whirl outside, and the tropical birds quite still on their shadowy perches against the closed batten shutters, Odalie, Hamish, Fifine, and the cat were wont to congregate together and sit on the buffalo rug spread on the puncheon floor beside the hearth, and explore sundry horns of buffalo or elk in which many small articles of varying degrees of value had been compactly packed. They all seemed of an age—and this a young age—when the joyous exclamations arose upon the recognition of sundry treasured trifles whose utility had begun to be missed.
"My emery bag!" her eyes dewy with delight, "and oh, my cake of wax!"
"And Lord!" exclaimed Hamish, "there's my bullet-mould—whoever would have thought of that!"
"And your new ribbon; 'tis a very pretty piece," and Odalie let the lustrous undulations catch the firelight as she reeled it out. "The best taffeta to tie up your queue."
"And oh, the moment of housewifely pride!"