"She was married, yes. Happy? she told me, as she had once before, that she was 'content.' She said it with a sigh, as she did the first time; and I doubted her as I did then. But they are putting out the lights. There is always, in this world, somebody going around, putting out our lights. Good-night."
"Good-night."
I was summering at our Oregon Newport, known to us by the aboriginal name of Clatsop. Had a balloonist, uninstructed in the geography and topography of this portion of the Pacific coast, dropped down among us, his impression would have been that he had alighted in a military encampment, very happily chosen, as military encampments usually are.
Given, one long, low, whitewashed house enclosed by whitewashed pickets; a group of tents outside the enclosure and on the bank of a beautiful graveled-bottom, tree-shadowed stream, and you have the brief summing up of accommodations for summer visitors at Clatsop. The plentiful sprinkling of army buttons among the guests—for there are two forts within a three hours' ride of this beach—tend to confirm the impression of military possession. Besides, our host of the whitewashed hotel is a half-breed; and there is enough of the native element hanging about the place, picking berries and digging clams, to suggest an Indian family where a temporary station might be demanded. It would only be by peeping inside those tents where ladies and children are more numerous than bearded men, that one could be convinced of the gypsy nature of this encampment; though, to be sure, one need not press inside to find them, for the gay campers are sauntering about in all directions, ladies with their escorts, children with their nurses, parties returning from boating or fishing, or riding or bathing: everybody living out in the open air the whole day through on one pretense or another, and only repairing to the hotel at meal times, when the exquisite dishes prepared by French half-breeds suffer the most instant demolition—such hunger does open air inspire.
I had come here just invalid enough to be benefited by our primitive style of living; not too delicate to endure it, nor too robust to enjoy the utter vagabondism of it. There had been no necessity upon us to ape fashionable manners; no obligation to dress three times a day; no balls to weary ourselves with at night. Therefore this daily recurring picnic was just sufficient for our physical recreation, while our mental powers took absolute rest. For weeks I had arisen every morning to a breakfast of salmon-trout. French coffee (au lait), delicious bread, and fresh berries; and afterwards to wander about in the cool sea-fog, well wrapped up in a water-proof cloak. Sometimes we made a boating party up the lovely Neah-can-a-cum, pulling our boat along under the overhanging alders and maples, frightening the trout into their hiding-places under the banks, instead of hooking them as was our ostensible design. The limpid clearness of the water seemed to reflect the trees from the very bottom, and truly made a medium almost as transparent as air, through which the pebbles at the greatest depth appeared within reach of our hands. A morning idled away in this manner, and an afternoon spent in seeing the bathers—I never trust my easily curdled blood to the chill of the sea—and in walking along the sands with a friend, or dreaming quietly by myself as I watched the surf rolling in all the way from Tilamook Head to Cape Disappointment,—these were my daily labors and recreations. The arrival of a bundle of letters, or, still better, of a new visitor, made what variety there was in our life.
I had both of these excitements in one day. One of my correspondents had written: "I hope to see you soon, and to have the opportunity, long sought, of telling you some of the experiences of my early life. When I promised you this I had not anticipated the pleasure of talking over the recollections of my youth while listening with you to the monotone of the great Pacific, whose 'ever, forever' is more significant to me than to most lovers of its music. I never gaze upon its restless waves, nor hear the sound of their ripple on the sands, or their thunder on the rocks without being reminded of one episode in my life peculiarly agitating to remember; but perhaps when I have told it to you, you may have power to exercise the restless spirit which rises in me at the recollection."
So here was promise of the intellectual aliment I had begun to crave after all these weeks of physical, without mental, action. I folded my letter with a feeling of self-congratulation, and turned to watch the movements of a newly arrived party for whom our half-breed host was spreading a tent, and placing in it rather an extra amount of furniture; for, be it known to the uninitiated, we had platform floors under our tents, real bedsteads, dressing-bureaus, rugs, and other comforts to match. That our new arrival exceeded us in elegant conveniences was, of course, duly noted by such idlers as we.
The party consisted of a lady, a little girl of ten, and a Kanaka servant. The lady's name, we learned, was Mrs. Sancy, and she was from the Sandwich Islands. More than that no one was informed. We discussed her looks, her manners, her dress, and her probable circumstances, as we sat around the camp-fire that evening, after the way of idle people. It occurred to me, as I glanced toward her tent door, illuminated by our blazing fire, and saw her regarding the weird scene with evident admiration of its picturesqueness, to ask her to come and sit with us and help us eat roast potatoes—roasted as they cook pigs in the Islands, by covering up in the ground with hot stones. The fact that the potatoes, and the butter which went with them, were purloined from our host's larder, gave a special flavor to the feast—accompanied as it was, too, by instrumental and vocal music, and enlivened by sallies of wit.