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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 1888)
580 THE WEST SHORE. - NIL. rPHE Wallowa valley lies like a gem in the heart of 1 the Mluo mountains, in Oregon. Sometimes it is an emerald, softly, palely green under the April inn; ft gain, the warm breath of August blows across, and it is a rippling sea, far as the eye can reach, of yellow topaz; a little later, autumn reaches oat her fall hand and gives it a thousand opaline tints, so rich and deep, and yet bo softly blended, that the eye never wearies of the ever restless panorama. Even when white winter comes on, it is still a gem a great, cold diamond of crusted snow, sending oat a myriad of pure, sparkling, changeful rays as the sun light falls open it Half way up the side of the mountain, in a little, old bouse built partly of logs and partly of rough boards, lived Nil. Ever since she could remember, she had lived there, so that at last sho came to regard herself as nearly a part of the mountains, as were the sweet-scented pine trees, growing so straight and tall that their shadows lay down the mountain side and out into the valley. Nil usod to slip out sometimes in the evening, for getting all about the chickens to bo fed and the kin dling wood to bo gathered, and, lying in a mossy nook behind a big rock, watch these shadows waver ing, shifting, reaching ever farther and farther till their fine, spoar-like points seemed at last to touch the mountains on the other sido of the valley. Then, all in a moment, the rich tints would die out of the western sky, leaving only a soft, pale flash of amber; tho shadow of tho mountains would spread out, cov ering op thoso of the pine trees and the long flakes of oolor that had lain between, and a little chill wind would spring up and go about among the tall grasses, sighing and whispering in a mournful way. Then Nil knew that tho sun had gono down, and that night lay over tho whole Wallowa valley. Sho was only a little girl, born of ignorant moan taineer parents, and tho only life she knew was that of tho mountains about her. There was a houseful of brothers aud sisters, wrangling, quarreling and fighting from morning till night; but Nil seemed to !h always alone, always wandering off by herself in the woods, with no other companion than some dumb animal-a dog, a horse, a cat There was even an old lame hen that used to hop after her on one foot and cluck contonUxlly while Nil scratched about for pret ty cones, or sUnd in tho shade and sleep, with one yellow cyo wide open and head turned to one side, when her mistress sat quietly upon some old log and watched, in silence, tho sunlight falling in fantastic shapes through tho leaves. In Nil's little heArt there was always a song-the ong that the lark sings early in the morning from over the meadows, that the little mountain brook sings as it runs over shining pebbles and goes bur rying away to the valley below, that the summer wfod sings as it kisses the flowers and rises and falls anions the trees. " Let er alone' the old grandmother, sitting by the fire smoking her pipe, would say, whf n Nil tM scolded for being idle and lazy, " she's not like the other uns." " The Lord knows I hope not," the mother would say, with a sour look at Nil. " She's not right in 'er head, thet she be not, 'r she'd never go foolin' about alone es she do, with nothin' but a dog 'r a hen. Th' good Lord ferbid thet I ever hev another un like 'er with sech a daft look to 'er eye, an sech a daft way o' pokin' 'round alone, a-talkin' to 'erself." " It's you thet be daft,'' the old woman would al. ways reply, puffing away at her pipe. But, though her dim eyes recognized something in Nil that the others saw not, she was too old to care for anything save her warm corner by the fireside, so the child got no kind word from her ever, only she knew that gran'ma always took her part when the others set upon her, and in a vague, dreamy way, she appreci ated it. Sometimes there were terrible scenes in the old, tumble-down house, violent quarrels in which the whole family took part all save Nil, who, at these times, would run far out on the mountain, almost wild with terror, and throwing herself prone upon the ground, would pray passionately that the scene which so terrified her might oome to an end. Not that she had ever been taught to pray, nor, indeed, did she know that there was such a word in her simple language; but yet, the words she uttered so vehemently, the supplications her little heart poured out were most pathetic prayers. To whom she addressed them, she knew not; only there was i vague, indistinct idea in her mind that she was talk ing to the mountains, to the silent rocks, to the rest less shadows of the pine trees, and, without knowing it, she had become, as natural as the sunflower torni to the sun, a little Druidess of the woods. One day in spring she had slipped quietly away and hid herself out in the grass where the warm son light lay, and looked down over the valley an em erald now below her. She watched the soft play of the lights and shadows over the fields of waviDg grain, while a long line of yet leafless trees, like a wide net work of fine, gray lace, told where the river, leaping from its birthplace in the mountain fastnesses, wound away through the fertile valley, while over her bent the soft blue sky, that, better than anything else better, even, than the mountains or the flowers or the woods Nil loved.