Edge of the Wilderness - By Stephanie Grace Whitson Page 0,32
men seem resigned to their lot. Yesterday one even said to me that for all the whites that were killed he supposed someone must pay a price, and that if being held in prison would be accepted as payment for his brother’s crimes, he was willing to do it.
I am gaining more than I am giving while I serve among these men. Their resolute faith humbles me. I would wish that I could be so content as they. And yet I am not, because I am removed from the one my heart holds dearest of all. Please write every word Hope speaks, every lesson Meg recites, and tell Aaron that if he dares grow taller than his father during his absence, he will have some very serious explaining to do when I return.
I miss you terribly. And yet I am where the Lord wishes me to be. Tell me, Genevieve, does absence make the heart grow fonder?
As time went on, Simon Dane grew more and more astute in the finer points of courting by mail. He began to take risks, sharing observations and feelings about life that he would have avoided in Gen’s presence.
Gen faithfully responded to each letter with anecdotes about the children, news from St. Anthony, and nonjudgmental acceptance of Simon.
When the war chief Little Crow was killed while picking raspberries in a thicket north of Hutchinson, Minnesota, Gen expressed outrage that the chief’s body was thrown on a heap of entrails at a slaughterhouse. Whatever crimes he may have committed, Gen scribbled angrily, he deserved to be treated with the dignity owing any human created in the image of God. Simon agreed.
A seventy-five-dollar bounty was offered any man in Minnesota who could prove he had killed a Sioux warrior. Gen wrote, Do you not find it ironic that Dakota scouts—men who accept the duty of scouting for the white army and may find themselves forced to act against their former friends and brothers—are offered only twenty-five dollars for the same scalp! I shudder to think of it.
Reports of General Sibley’s campaign against the “savages” filled the newspapers. Amid the reports of battles at Stony Lake, Big Mound, and White Stone Hill, Gen and Simon kept up a lively correspondence in which they wondered about their Dakota friends and church members. Samuel Whitney says that a church has been formed at the scouts’ camp. I like to think of Nancy and Robert Lawrence being reunited there and having some semblance of a happy life.
Small parties of hostile Sioux continued to participate in violent raids in isolated parts of Minnesota. A soldier of the Second Nebraska lost his entire family when they were massacred while he was away fighting with Sibley.
Gen and Simon discussed all these events in their letters, and as they discussed and shared their thoughts, little by little, their hearts began to come together. Simon began reaching out by asking her to pray for him. Eventually he shared his innermost thoughts in a way that might never have been possible except for the safety of physical distance. Little by little, Simon and Gen opened their inner selves to one another until one evening Gen wept as she read aloud Simon’s account of the death of one of the older men. She replied, As I reread your letter alone in my room, I weep with you at the loss of the dear old man. It is as if I can feel your heart breaking, even though you know he has entered the eternal kingdom where none can do him harm. How I wish that even now I could put the children to bed and come sit beside you and mourn with you and yes, hold you while we cry together.
“What is it?” Miss Jane asked, looking up from the half-knitted sock in her lap. “Is something wrong?”
“It’s nothing,” Gen said quickly, studying Simon’s most recent letter carefully.
Miss Jane’s knitting needles flew as she glanced over her glasses at Gen.
Gen shook her head. “Really. It’s nothing.”
Miss Jane nodded and got up. “Well, then, I’m retiring.” From the door she said, “Timothy and Rebecca both need new shoes. I promised them we’d trek uptown tomorrow after school. Is it all right if we take Meg and Hope with us?”
No answer.
“Miss LaCroix?”
Gen started and looked up. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I said it appears as if nothing is mighty distracting,” Miss Jane said.
Gen blushed. “Do you remember Cloudman having a daughter about my age?” she asked abruptly.