Page:Oregon Literature by Horner.djvu/68

46. The cry of the poor caged starling, "I can't get out," is echoed by many a talented mind when its possessor is surrounded by poverty and other circumstances unfavorable to mental development.

We know of no one whose life's history more forcibly illustrates this restless longing for larger and higher sphere of action than the subject of this sketch, Minnie Myrtle Miller. Thirty-six years ago when the war-cloud lowered heavy and dark over our land, when there were heard criminations and recriminations everywhere, when the deliberations of our congress assumed the form of angry debate, when the startling cry of "traitor" was heard echoing through the halls dedicated to liberty, when father and son held bitter converse, and brothers prepared to array themselves as enemies in deadly combat, when every home in the land was shocked by the clash of arms and the tramp of mustering steeds—she first was known through the public press and beyond the immediate neighborhood of her home. Even there though furthest removed from the seat of war on the extreme western verge of civilization, she heard among her few associates angry words spoken by youthful tongues and read fiery sentences penned by aged hands. Hers was a nature too gentle, too kind, too sweet to sound or even echo the notes of war. When all the land was a Babel of angry voices, hers was clear and sweet. She wrote of her home, her friends, of the sunlit waves of the Pacific which smoothed the