Page:The Souvenir of Western Women.djvu/81

Rh heroes of the West. The author has painted these heroes in the coloring of her rich imagination, and adorned with grace of expression the life history of those who first broke the silence of the wilderness with the heraldry of civilization.

The influence of the author's personality directs in a measure the reader's trend of thought. Happy is it if the written page has embalmed the sentiments of truth and of right; more important far is the spirit that dominates the home, for wider into the world reach the waves it sets in motion. The sweet home life of Eva Emery Dye will continue to live in the lives of her children. To the world it affords the testimony that women, who would send abroad a message and earn undying fame, need not divorce themselves from home life nor avoid that most sacred function, motherhood, but through the faithful discharge of these high offices gain a fullness of soul that may enkindle in the minds of their readers aspirations for higher and holier living. M. O. D.

Before the finding of gold in California money was very scarce. The little that was brought in by the immigrants was quickly spent for the family and the farm.

My mother's dress supply after the long journey was very limited. One day a neighbor came to her for advice about some sewing. Mother was busy over the wash tub, and the neighbor offered to exchange work. The washing was soon out to dry—but not on clothes lines. No, no, that would have been a luxury—but on the fence around the house and on every bush and brier near. Among the garments hung out was mother's dress, the only one besides what she wore. The family cow was near, and before it was noticed she had chewed the dress beyond repair. I think it was pieces of this dress that were afterwards used as binding for the spelling books that we had in our first Oregon school.

Mother was at first in despair—no money, nothing to sell, and Oregon City sixteen miles away through an unbroken wilderness. But, oh! those pioneer women, how full of resources they were! There stood the ever-ready ash hopper, without which no family was equipped for living. They were soon at work leaching the ashes for lye, and the soap kettle was boiling. Each had a bucket of soap, and in the early morning they mounted their horses and holding their bucket of soap in front of them were off for Oregon City to exchange it for at least mother's first Oregon dress. What the neighbor got I do not know. M. H. D'A.