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High-Water Mark by Bret Harte
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 Marsh 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 ***, 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 *** 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 ***, 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 *** 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.
End of High-Water Mark by Bret Harte