The Preacher of Cedar Mountain: A Tale of the Open Country

by Ernest Thompson Seton

"I'll not forget the morning of our journey. It was raining by the bucketfuls. 'Well,' says I, 'for a semi-arid country this is going some'; and I felt so homesick and sore, I said, 'Hannah, let's not go any farther'; and Hannah she just looked at me and said, 'See here, John, I've come out so far to go to the Black Hills and I'm going.' Then, when the weather let up a little, we started out; and, after a couple of hours we stuck in a muddy creek and were all day getting across. Next day a couple more gullies just as bad, and the rain came down till ever hole in the prairie was a pond; and I tell you I wished I'd bought a boat instead of the buckboard. And the mosquitoes, oh, my! Well, we floundered around about three days and got all our stuff wet and half spoiled. Then we found we'd missed the way and had to flounder three days back again. I tell you, I felt pretty much discouraged. Then we saw something a-coming. It turned out to be a settler going back. He said there was nothing but pond holes and bogs, the mosquitoes were awful, the boom was bust, and the Sioux on the war path. I felt pretty sick. That was a finisher; and when that man says, 'You better come back with us,' I was for going. But Hannah, she just boiled up and she says, 'John Higginbotham, if you want to go back with that bunch of chicken-hearts, you can go. I'm going to the Black Hills, if I have to go alone.' I tried to make her see it my way, but she got into the buckboard, gathered up the reins, and headed for the West. I had to get in behind as best I could. We didn't talk much. We weren't on speaking terms that day; and, at night, as we sat eating supper, it started to raining worse'n ever, and I says, 'I wish we'd gone back.'

"'I don't,' she snapped, an' we never spoke till the morning.

"Then she called me to breakfast. I tell you, I never saw such a change. The sun was up and the sky was clear. In a little while, we were out of the sloughs and had no mosquitoes. Then we got a bad shake. A band of horsemen came riding right at us. But they turned out to be U. S. cavalrymen. They put us right on the road, and told us the Indian scare was just fool talk, and had nothing back of it. After that, all went fine and in two days we were in the Hills.

"I tell you, I felt different as we stood there at our last campfire, and I says, 'Hannah, you're a wonder. You are the best of the outfit. It was your money we started on. It was your grit kept me going on when I was for quitting, and you are in every deal I make. You bet I'll let the world know we are partners.' So that's why that signboard went up. Not a bad ad I reckon, for no one sees it without taking notice; so, if there's anything in our line you need, let me know."

As Carson and Hartigan walked down the street, the doctor said: "Well, what do you think of Woman Suffrage now?"

Hartigan shrugged his big shoulders, gave a comical glance back at the signboard, and replied:

"You've got me!"

It was indeed a poser for Jim; a shock to a deep-set prejudice. Notwithstanding the fact that his mother had been a woman of power, the unquestioned and able head in a community of men, he had unconsciously clung to the old idea of woman's mental inferiority. In college he had had that notion bolstered up with Scripture texts and alleged Christian doctrine.

This was not the time or place, he felt, to discuss the principle of it, and his natural delicacy would, in any case, have kept him from a free expression; but later, in the blacksmith shop, that neutral territory of free speech, they had it out. Higginbotham was there and was ready and able to fight with Scriptural weapons. He pointed out that all the texts quoted, such as: "Wives be in subjection to your own husbands in everything, etc.," were from St. Paul, who was believed to have had a painful history in such matters; whereas, St. Peter, admittedly a far better authority, said: "Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them, giving honour to the wife."

"Which may or may not be sound doctrine," said John, "but I know my wife brought me out here, it was her capital that set me up, she has a hand in all business, so why not say so on the signboard?"