Field and Forest; Or, The Fortunes of a Farmer

by Oliver Optic

Old Matt Rockwood, my friend and protector, the friend and protector of my childhood, was dead.

Ten years before, he had taken me to his home and his heart, and since that time had done for me all that his limited means would permit. He had been a father to me, and the bullet that sped through his heart lacerated mine.

All that I could remember of existence was associated with the Castle and its vicinity, though I was not born there. I knew nothing of my parents, and nothing of the circumstances under which I had come into the world. Ten years before, while upon a hunt, Matt Rockwood had wrapped himself up in his blanket, and slept on the bank of the Missouri, about a dozen miles below the Castle. It was in the spring, and the water was very high, for the melting snows in the mountains had swelled the mighty stream to its fullest volume.

A bright light awoke the hunter in the evening, and he discovered a steamer on fire in the river, only a short distance below. Launching his bateau, in which he had come down the stream, he paddled with all his might to the scene of disaster. The pilot had run the steamer ashore; but before those on board could escape,—for the fire was in the forward part of the boat,—the swift current carried her off again, and she descended the stream at a rapid rate. Matt paddled after her; but, half a mile below the point where the steamer had run ashore, he heard the wail of a child, very near him.

The light from the burning boat enabled him to see the child. It was floating on a door, which had evidently been put into the water to support its helpless burden. Matt, who often told me the story, believed that the child's father, or some other person, had intended to ferry the little one on shore in this manner, when the steamer had been run aground. Probably the starting of the boat had defeated his plan, or possibly the person who was trying to save the child had lost his hold on the door. There was no one near the little raft. Matt took the young voyager on the great river from its perilous situation. It was benumbed with cold, and he wrapped it in his blanket, and laid it in the bottom of the boat.

Hardly had he accomplished this humane task before the boilers of the burning steamer exploded, and she was instantly a wreck on the swift tide. Matt paddled his bateau as swiftly as possible, but he was unable to overtake the mass of rushing fire. He shouted occasionally, in order to attract the attention of any sufferer; but no one responded to his call. Though he searched diligently, he was unable to find another survivor of the terrible calamity.

The little child thus saved from the fire and the water was myself.

Matt took his charge to the shore, made a fire, warmed it, and fed it with buffalo meat and soaked cracker. Wrapping the little stranger in his blanket, he pressed him to his bosom, and both slept till morning. The next day, with the child in his bateau, he renewed the search for any survivors of the calamity. He could find none; but months afterwards he read in an old newspaper he had obtained from a trading steamer, that another boat had passed down the river and picked up a few persons; but neither the names of the lost nor of the saved were given.

Loading his bateau with as much buffalo meat as it would carry, Matt started for the Castle with his new charge; but the current of the swollen river was so swift that it was night before he arrived. At this point in his story, I used to ask my kind protector whether he tried to find out anything more about me. He always answered that he was unable to obtain any information; but, after I was old enough to understand the matter better, he confessed that he did not wish to discover the friends of the child. After he had taken care of it for a few months, he became so attached to it that he was only afraid of losing the little waif.