High-water Mark

: Selected Stories

When the tide was out on the Dedlow Marsh, its extended dreariness

was patent. Its spongy, low-lying surface, sluggish, inky pools, and

tortuous sloughs, twisting their slimy way, eel-like, toward the open

bay, were all hard facts. So were the few green tussocks, with their

scant blades, their amphibious flavor and unpleasant dampness. And if

you choose to indulge your fancy--although the flat monotony of the

Dedlow Ma sh was not inspiring--the wavy line of scattered drift gave

an unpleasant consciousness of the spent waters, and made the dead

certainty of the returning tide a gloomy reflection which no present

sunshine could dissipate. The greener meadowland seemed oppressed with

this idea, and made no positive attempt at vegetation until the work of

reclamation should be complete. In the bitter fruit of the low cranberry

bushes one might fancy he detected a naturally sweet disposition curdled

and soured by an injudicious course of too much regular cold water.



The vocal expression of the Dedlow Marsh was also melancholy and

depressing. The sepulchral boom of the bittern, the shriek of the

curlew, the scream of passing brent, the wrangling of quarrelsome

teal, the sharp, querulous protest of the startled crane, and syllabled

complaint of the "killdeer" plover, were beyond the power of written

expression. Nor was the aspect of these mournful fowls at all cheerful

and inspiring. Certainly not the blue heron standing mid-leg deep in the

water, obviously catching cold in a reckless disregard of wet feet

and consequences; nor the mournful curlew, the dejected plover, or

the low-spirited snipe, who saw fit to join him in his suicidal

contemplation; nor the impassive kingfisher--an ornithological

Marius--reviewing the desolate expanse; nor the black raven that went to

and fro over the face of the marsh continually, but evidently couldn't

make up his mind whether the waters had subsided, and felt low-spirited

in the reflection that, after all this trouble, he wouldn't be able to

give a definite answer. On the contrary, it was evident at a glance that

the dreary expanse of Dedlow Marsh told unpleasantly on the birds, and

that the season of migration was looked forward to with a feeling

of relief and satisfaction by the full-grown, and of extravagant

anticipation by the callow, brood. But if Dedlow Marsh was cheerless

at the slack of the low tide, you should have seen it when the tide was

strong and full. When the damp air blew chilly over the cold, glittering

expanse, and came to the faces of those who looked seaward like another

tide; when a steel-like glint marked the low hollows and the sinuous

line of slough; when the great shell-incrusted trunks of fallen trees

arose again, and went forth on their dreary, purposeless wanderings,

drifting hither and thither, but getting no farther toward any goal

at the falling tide or the day's decline than the cursed Hebrew in the

legend; when the glossy ducks swung silently, making neither ripple nor

furrow on the shimmering surface; when the fog came in with the tide and

shut out the blue above, even as the green below had been obliterated;

when boatmen lost in that fog, paddling about in a hopeless way, started

at what seemed the brushing of mermen's fingers on the boat's keel, or

shrank from the tufts of grass spreading around like the floating hair

of a corpse, and knew by these signs that they were lost upon Dedlow

Marsh and must make a night of it, and a gloomy one at that--then you

might know something of Dedlow Marsh at high water.



Let me recall a story connected with this latter view which never failed

to recur to my mind in my long gunning excursions upon Dedlow Marsh.

Although the event was briefly recorded in the county paper, I had the

story, in all its eloquent detail, from the lips of the principal actor.

I cannot hope to catch the varying emphasis and peculiar coloring of

feminine delineation, for my narrator was a woman; but I'll try to give

at least its substance.



She lived midway of the great slough of Dedlow Marsh and a good-sized

river, which debouched four miles beyond into an estuary formed by

the Pacific Ocean, on the long sandy peninsula which constituted the

southwestern boundary of a noble bay. The house in which she lived was

a small frame cabin raised from the marsh a few feet by stout piles, and

was three miles distant from the settlements upon the river. Her husband

was a logger--a profitable business in a county where the principal

occupation was the manufacture of lumber.



It was the season of early spring when her husband left on the ebb of a

high tide, with a raft of logs for the usual transportation to the lower

end of the bay. As she stood by the door of the little cabin when the

voyagers departed she noticed a cold look in the southeastern sky, and

she remembered hearing her husband say to his companions that they must

endeavor to complete their voyage before the coming of the southwesterly

gale which he saw brewing. And that night it began to storm and blow

harder than she had ever before experienced, and some great trees fell

in the forest by the river, and the house rocked like her baby's cradle.



But however the storm might roar about the little cabin, she knew that

one she trusted had driven bolt and bar with his own strong hand, and

that had he feared for her he would not have left her. This, and her

domestic duties, and the care of her little sickly baby, helped to keep

her mind from dwelling on the weather, except, of course, to hope that

he was safely harbored with the logs at Utopia in the dreary distance.

But she noticed that day, when she went out to feed the chickens and

look after the cow, that the tide was up to the little fence of their

garden-patch, and the roar of the surf on the south beach, though miles

away, she could hear distinctly. And she began to think that she would

like to have someone to talk with about matters, and she believed that

if it had not been so far and so stormy, and the trail so impassable,

she would have taken the baby and have gone over to Ryckman's, her

nearest neighbor. But then, you see, he might have returned in the

storm, all wet, with no one to see to him; and it was a long exposure

for baby, who was croupy and ailing.



But that night, she never could tell why, she didn't feel like sleeping

or even lying down. The storm had somewhat abated, but she still "sat

and sat," and even tried to read. I don't know whether it was a Bible or

some profane magazine that this poor woman read, but most probably the

latter, for the words all ran together and made such sad nonsense that

she was forced at last to put the book down and turn to that dearer

volume which lay before her in the cradle, with its white initial leaf

as yet unsoiled, and try to look forward to its mysterious future. And,

rocking the cradle, she thought of everything and everybody, but still

was wide-awake as ever.



It was nearly twelve o'clock when she at last lay down in her clothes.

How long she slept she could not remember, but she awoke with a dreadful

choking in her throat, and found herself standing, trembling all over,

in the middle of the room, with her baby clasped to her breast, and she

was "saying something." The baby cried and sobbed, and she walked up

and down trying to hush it when she heard a scratching at the door. She

opened it fearfully, and was glad to see it was only old Pete, their

dog, who crawled, dripping with water, into the room. She would like to

have looked out, not in the faint hope of her husband's coming, but to

see how things looked; but the wind shook the door so savagely that she

could hardly hold it. Then she sat down a little while, and then walked

up and down a little while, and then she lay down again a little while.

Lying close by the wall of the little cabin, she thought she heard

once or twice something scrape slowly against the clapboards, like the

scraping of branches. Then there was a little gurgling sound, "like the

baby made when it was swallowing"; then something went "click-click"

and "cluck-cluck," so that she sat up in bed. When she did so she was

attracted by something else that seemed creeping from the back door

toward the center of the room. It wasn't much wider than her little

finger, but soon it swelled to the width of her hand, and began

spreading all over the floor. It was water.



She ran to the front door and threw it wide open, and saw nothing but

water. She ran to the back door and threw it open, and saw nothing

but water. She ran to the side window, and throwing that open, she saw

nothing but water. Then she remembered hearing her husband once say that

there was no danger in the tide, for that fell regularly, and people

could calculate on it, and that he would rather live near the bay than

the river, whose banks might overflow at any time. But was it the tide?

So she ran again to the back door, and threw out a stick of wood. It

drifted away toward the bay. She scooped up some of the water and put it

eagerly to her lips. It was fresh and sweet. It was the river, and not

the tide!



It was then--O God be praised for his goodness! she did neither faint

nor fall; it was then--blessed be the Saviour, for it was his merciful

hand that touched and strengthened her in this awful moment--that fear

dropped from her like a garment, and her trembling ceased. It was then

and thereafter that she never lost her self-command, through all the

trials of that gloomy night.



She drew the bedstead toward the middle of the room, and placed a table

upon it and on that she put the cradle. The water on the floor

was already over her ankles, and the house once or twice moved so

perceptibly, and seemed to be racked so, that the closet doors all flew

open. Then she heard the same rasping and thumping against the wall,

and, looking out, saw that a large uprooted tree, which had lain near

the road at the upper end of the pasture, had floated down to the house.

Luckily its long roots dragged in the soil and kept it from moving as

rapidly as the current, for had it struck the house in its full career,

even the strong nails and bolts in the piles could not have withstood

the shock. The hound had leaped upon its knotty surface, and crouched

near the roots shivering and whining. A ray of hope flashed across her

mind. She drew a heavy blanket from the bed, and, wrapping it about

the babe, waded in the deepening waters to the door. As the tree swung

again, broadside on, making the little cabin creak and tremble, she

leaped on to its trunk. By God's mercy she succeeded in obtaining a

footing on its slippery surface, and, twining an arm about its roots,

she held in the other her moaning child. Then something cracked near the

front porch, and the whole front of the house she had just quitted fell

forward--just as cattle fall on their knees before they lie down--and at

the same moment the great redwood tree swung round and drifted away with

its living cargo into the black night.



For all the excitement and danger, for all her soothing of her crying

babe, for all the whistling of the wind, for all the uncertainty of

her situation, she still turned to look at the deserted and water-swept

cabin. She remembered even then, and she wonders how foolish she was to

think of it at that time, that she wished she had put on another dress

and the baby's best clothes; and she kept praying that the house would

be spared so that he, when he returned, would have something to come to,

and it wouldn't be quite so desolate, and--how could he ever know what

had become of her and baby? And at the thought she grew sick and faint.

But she had something else to do besides worrying, for whenever the

long roots of her ark struck an obstacle, the whole trunk made half a

revolution, and twice dipped her in the black water. The hound, who kept

distracting her by running up and down the tree and howling, at last

fell off at one of these collisions. He swam for some time beside her,

and she tried to get the poor beast up on the tree, but he "acted silly"

and wild, and at last she lost sight of him forever. Then she and her

baby were left alone. The light which had burned for a few minutes

in the deserted cabin was quenched suddenly. She could not then

tell whither she was drifting. The outline of the white dunes on the

peninsula showed dimly ahead, and she judged the tree was moving in a

line with the river. It must be about slack water, and she had

probably reached the eddy formed by the confluence of the tide and the

overflowing waters of the river. Unless the tide fell soon, there was

present danger of her drifting to its channel, and being carried out to

sea or crushed in the floating drift. That peril averted, if she were

carried out on the ebb toward the bay, she might hope to strike one

of the wooded promontories of the peninsula, and rest till daylight.

Sometimes she thought she heard voices and shouts from the river, and

the bellowing of cattle and bleating of sheep. Then again it was only

the ringing in her ears and throbbing of her heart. She found at about

this time that she was so chilled and stiffened in her cramped position

that she could scarcely move, and the baby cried so when she put it to

her breast that she noticed the milk refused to flow; and she was so

frightened at that, that she put her head under her shawl, and for the

first time cried bitterly.



When she raised her head again, the boom of the surf was behind her, and

she knew that her ark had again swung round. She dipped up the water to

cool her parched throat, and found that it was salt as her tears. There

was a relief, though, for by this sign she knew that she was drifting

with the tide. It was then the wind went down, and the great and awful

silence oppressed her. There was scarcely a ripple against the furrowed

sides of the great trunk on which she rested, and around her all was

black gloom and quiet. She spoke to the baby just to hear herself speak,

and to know that she had not lost her voice. She thought then--it was

queer, but she could not help thinking it--how awful must have been the

night when the great ship swung over the Asiatic peak, and the sounds of

creation were blotted out from the world. She thought, too, of mariners

clinging to spars, and of poor women who were lashed to rafts, and

beaten to death by the cruel sea. She tried to thank God that she was

thus spared, and lifted her eyes from the baby, who had fallen into a

fretful sleep. Suddenly, away to the southward, a great light lifted

itself out of the gloom, and flashed and flickered, and flickered and

flashed again. Her heart fluttered quickly against the baby's cold

cheek. It was the lighthouse at the entrance of the bay. As she was yet

wondering, the tree suddenly rolled a little, dragged a little, and

then seemed to lie quiet and still. She put out her hand and the current

gurgled against it. The tree was aground, and, by the position of the

light and the noise of the surf, aground upon the Dedlow Marsh.



Had it not been for her baby, who was ailing and croupy, had it not been

for the sudden drying up of that sensitive fountain, she would have

felt safe and relieved. Perhaps it was this which tended to make all her

impressions mournful and gloomy. As the tide rapidly fell, a great flock

of black brent fluttered by her, screaming and crying. Then the plover

flew up and piped mournfully as they wheeled around the trunk, and at

last fearlessly lit upon it like a gray cloud. Then the heron flew over

and around her, shrieking and protesting, and at last dropped its gaunt

legs only a few yards from her. But, strangest of all, a pretty white

bird, larger than a dove--like a pelican, but not a pelican--circled

around and around her. At last it lit upon a rootlet of the tree, quite

over her shoulder. She put out her hand and stroked its beautiful white

neck, and it never appeared to move. It stayed there so long that she

thought she would lift up the baby to see it, and try to attract her

attention. But when she did so, the child was so chilled and cold, and

had such a blue look under the little lashes which it didn't raise at

all, that she screamed aloud, and the bird flew away, and she fainted.



Well, that was the worst of it, and perhaps it was not so much, after

all, to any but herself. For when she recovered her senses it was bright

sunlight, and dead low water. There was a confused noise of guttural

voices about her, and an old squaw, singing an Indian "hushaby," and

rocking herself from side to side before a fire built on the marsh,

before which she, the recovered wife and mother, lay weak and weary. Her

first thought was for her baby, and she was about to speak, when a young

squaw, who must have been a mother herself, fathomed her thought and

brought her the "mowitch," pale but living, in such a queer little

willow cradle all bound up, just like the squaw's own young one, that

she laughed and cried together, and the young squaw and the old squaw

showed their big white teeth and glinted their black eyes and said,

"Plenty get well, skeena mowitch," "wagee man come plenty soon," and she

could have kissed their brown faces in her joy. And then she found that

they had been gathering berries on the marsh in their queer, comical

baskets, and saw the skirt of her gown fluttering on the tree from afar,

and the old squaw couldn't resist the temptation of procuring a new

garment, and came down and discovered the "wagee" woman and child. And

of course she gave the garment to the old squaw, as you may imagine, and

when HE came at last and rushed up to her, looking about ten years older

in his anxiety, she felt so faint again that they had to carry her to

the canoe. For, you see, he knew nothing about the flood until he met

the Indians at Utopia, and knew by the signs that the poor woman was

his wife. And at the next high tide he towed the tree away back home,

although it wasn't worth the trouble, and built another house, using the

old tree for the foundation and props, and called it after her, "Mary's

Ark!" But you may guess the next house was built above high-water mark.

And that's all.



Not much, perhaps, considering the malevolent capacity of the Dedlow

Marsh. But you must tramp over it at low water, or paddle over it at

high tide, or get lost upon it once or twice in the fog, as I have,

to understand properly Mary's adventure, or to appreciate duly the

blessings of living beyond High-Water Mark.