It must have been that “Bird and bee and blossom taught her Love’s spell to know,” and then she went away to the “land where Love itself had birth.”
CHAPTER Vb.
LIKE A FOREST FLOWER.
ANNA LOUISA DENNY.
Anna was the fourth daughter of D. T. and Louisa Boren Denny. In infancy she showed a marked talent for music, signifying by her eyes, head and hands her approval of certain tunes, preferring them to all others. Before she was able to frame words she could sing tunes. When a young girl her memory for musical tones was marvelous, enabling her to reproduce difficult strains while yet unable to read the notes. Possessed of a pure, high, flexible soprano voice, her singing was a delight to her friends. Upon hearing famous singers render favorite airs, her pleasure shone from every feature, although her comments were few. On the long summer camping expeditions of the family, the music books went along with her brothers’ cornets, possibly her own flute, and many a happy hour was spent as we drove leisurely along past the tall, dark evergreens, or floated on the silvery waters of the Sound, with perhaps a book of duets open before us, singing sweet songs of bird, blossom and pine tree.
While the other daughters were small and delicately formed, Anna grew up to be a tall, statuesque woman of a truly noble appearance, with a fair face, a high white forehead crowned by masses of brown hair, and a countenance mirthful, sunny, serious, but seldom stern.
A certain draped marble statue in the Metropolitan Museum in New York bears a striking resemblance to Anna, but is not of so noble a type.
Childhood in the wild Northwest braved many dangers both seen and unseen.
While returning late one summer night through the deep forest to our home after having attended a concert in which the children had taken part, Anna, then a little girl of perhaps seven or eight years, had a narrow escape from some wild beast, either a cougar or wildcat. Her mother, who was leading her a little behind the others, said that something grabbed at her and disappeared instantly in the thick undergrowth; grasping her hand more firmly she started to run and the little party, thoroughly frightened, fairly flew along the road toward home.
In this north country it is never really dark on a cloudless summer night, but the heavy forests enshroud the roads and trails in a deep twilight.