--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Baggarley, Maud collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 9 number: 10 published: 1906-08 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Maud Baggarley, "Umentucken—Lamb of the Mountain," *Improvement Era* 9, no. 10 (August 1906): 753–757.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0910unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera0910unse start_page: 753 end_page: 757 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1906-08) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0910unse publication_year: 1906 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1906, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Umentucken—Lamb of the Mountain UMENTUCKEN—LAMB OF THE MOUNTAIN BY MAUD BAGGARLEY. Umentucken tossed the heavy black hair away from her face, and, shading her eyes with one little brown hand, gazed towards the ocean, which looked green and angry, even in the distance. White-caps marked the place where the waters of the Columbia joined the old Pacific—now anything but pacific. The storm had raged all night. Umentucken, snug and warm in her bear-skin robe and blankets, could not sleep for very joy as she listened to the roaring of the Columbia, the shrieking of the wind, the sound of the pouring rain, and to the crashings of the falling fir trees. Her father's tepee was in a sheltered spot and no harm, she knew, would befall them. At day-dawn she had fought her way against the wind to Smith's Point, where she now stood like a little bronze statue, with face turned sea-ward, her anxious eyes scanning the river for a glimpse of the little boat which had carried her father away the preceding day. The sun shone fitfully, fog shrouded the mountains, and about noon a drizzling rain began to fall. Umentucken, abandoning her post on the height, scampered back to the tepee and mother whom she found busily engaged in packing camping outfit, and otherwise preparing for the trip to the valley. The mother was a Flathead Indian whose uncle had sold her when she was but eleven years of age to Umentucken's father, a famous guide, trapper and scout. He renamed her Virginia, in honor of his native state,and married her immediately—the marriage being performed in the usual Indian manner. 754 IMPROVEMENT ERA. Virginia left her people to accompany the white man, but left them unwillingly, begging and pleading to be allowed to remain. Finding that her prayers and tears were wasted, she, at length became reconciled to her lot, and in time grew very fond and proud of her handsome white husband, forgot her own people, and only remembered to cherish an intense hatred for the "snackinjuns" as she termed their dreaded foes, the "Snakes." ***** Umentucken was delighted with the journey homeward. The weather cleared, the wide, shining Columbia was left behind, and the trapper with his little family struck boldly across the Nehalems in order that they might the more quickly reach their little log hut on Tualitin Plains. They had been at home but three days when the scout rode up to the house leading a horse with an empty saddle. "Hello, Tuck!" "Want to come with 'pap' to Oregon City?" he called. "Oh, yes! yes!" came the eager answer, as she ran out and was swung into the saddle. • On reaching the city, the trapper went at once to the "mission house" where he left Umentucken, so that he might be free to transact his business. The Presbyterian missionary and his wife were charmed with the shy, fawn-eyed Indian child, and begged to be allowed to take her east with them where they were soon to go on account of the wife's failing health. The scout readily consented, thinking it best for the little daughter, and only wishing that he could do as well for her numerous brothers and sisters. When he returned without Umentucken, and her half savage mother was at length made to comprehend that she had been robbed of her daughter, as she had been robbed in the far away past of her childhood, she behaved like a madwoman. Setting out, she walked every step of the long distance to Oregon City to recover her child—too late—the missionary had sailed fo r the Isthmus and had taken the little half-breed girl with him. Like a wounded tigress she crept back to her home and young. UMENTUCKEN—LAMB OF THE MOUNTAIN. 755 Meanwhile, the little Umentucken cast off her shyness and romped from bow to stern of the large ship, from cook's galley to the upper deck, and made friends with all on board. The big, good natured captain carried her on his shoulder? pointed out the sea-gulls which sported in the water, and laughed boisterously when she asked if the bad man's fire under the water caused the waves to look so green and queer. The cook was the captain's rival, and his presents of large, round, ship-biscuits, (hard-tack) won him a very high place in the affections of Umentucken. The seasick passengers looked with languid interest upon the Indian child when the weather was calm, but when it grew rough and the clumsy old ship tossed heavily, th ey forgot her very existence. After a tedious voyage they reached the Isthmus and crossed it on the backs of donkeys. After a weary journey overland, they went on board another ship and sailed for New York. Years passed away. The minister gave his foster child every advantage of education and travel, until at length the little log cabin on Tualitin Plains and the long journey on the oceans seemed a half-forgotten dream—when she thought about them at all. When Umentucken (or Olive as she was now called) was twenty years of age, two things happened that changed her from a thoughtless, happy child, into a woman—her foster-mother died, and a girl friend called her an Indian. "Am I really an Indian, father," she asked, one evening as they sat alone by the fireside. "Your own father is a white man, your mother an Indian, but that need never trouble you, dear. No one here knows it, Myra's words were only a random thrust," he answered. "But father," she cried, "since she called me an Indian, I have been trying to recall the scenes of my childhood, my father, my mother, and I feel that my place is with mother, now that she is growing old." "Did she know that my father was going to give me away?" "No, dear, and I have heard that she walked to Oregon City to take you away from us, and when they told her that we were on the ocean, she said never a word but turned and walked away." 756 IMPROVEMENT ERA. "And they stole me from her! Oh, how cruel!" cried Olive, and, laying her head on the old man's knee, she wept bitterly. "There, there, little daughter," said the minister, soothingly, as he smoothed the bowed, grief-stricken head, "she wculd soon forget, she had other children, and an Indian woman has not the fine feeling that characterizes the women of our race." ' 'Our race," repeated Olive slowly, ' 'you forget that I am an Indian. I shall go to my mother, and teach her the things I have b een learning all these years, and help my brothers and sisters to become like the boys and girls of my acquaintance. You have said truly no one knows that I am an Indian. If I can rise, so can my people, and with the help of God they shall!" "But, would you leave your poor old foster-father alone, Olive," said the minister in a trembling voice. "Not for any one on earth, father, but my mother, and she has done without me all these years. Father, think how you would feel if some one should take me away from you, without even letting me say good-bye, and suppose you should never see me again." ' 'You are right, child, the path of duty for you leads to your home and Oregon, and we must part, but—how shall I do without you?" and the minister wept. With the minister's blessing, Olive started once again on a long journey, but this time with face turned homeward and— alone. The memory of that home-coming she carried to the grave with her. The log hut, its broken windows stopped with rags, with a "wood pile" in front of the door; the dirty, unkempt children; the unventilated, untidy house, and—a strange woman to be called mother. The poor Indian mother was all smiles and attention. This pretty young girl was her little Umentucken—her baby that she had lost so long ago—her baby that had come home because she wanted to be with her poor old mother. Olive's heart filled with pity and tenderness, in a flash of intuition she understood what the long separation had meant to her mother, and—she clasped her to her breast. UMENTUCKEN—LAMB OF THE MOUNTAINS. 757 That night Olive was given the only sheet in the house, and it was taken from the mother's bed in a pitiful attempt to make her child comfortable. In the months that followed a transformation was wrought in and around the little cabin on Tualitin Plains. The. windows were repaired, the wood pile removed, flowers, trees and vines planted, and the house rendered a model of neatness within. The settlers built a little school-house of logs near Glencoe, in which Olive taught the children of the settlement—both white and red, until a good man claimed her for his wife. Waterloo, Salt Lake City, Utah. THE