See America First

O >> Orville O. Hiestand >> See America First

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"I was born in 1871. Yes, I was born, bred and raised near
Yellow Sulphur Springs, Ohio. I ramped around thar many a day."
Looking at the flock of children who lacked many of the bare
necessities of life, we thought what the Book of Books says: "He
who careth not for his own is worse than an infidel."

Out across the valley we beheld the beautiful Blue Ridge rising
like a grand graded way. Here was displayed a panorama that of
all our Shenandoah journeys still appears as one of our most
memorable mountain scenes. At our feet lay the valley
interspersed with villages, homes and vast stretches of corn,
oats and wheat, all clothed in that blue filmy veil making all
appear like a rich garden of various emerald tints. Far away
toward the horizon rose a lovely forest-crowned ridge so
gloriously colored and luminous it seemed like the scene of a
vast painting. Out over the tremulous billowy fields of grain
and over the forest and meadow the sunlight fell in pale
spangles of light over which a few gray shadows chased one
another.

The sun was gilding the west as we started down the mountain
side. The radiant host of evergreens stood silent in bold relief
against their luminous background. High in the azure dome a few
rose-colored clouds were drifting, scarce seeming to move in the
light filled ether. Over all the vast expanse of sky a crimson
spread which was followed by pink that was quickly succeeded by
violet purple. Never had we beheld such a striking crimson sea.

Soon those radiant splendors vanished in the purple twilight. We
watched the last faint color fade from the distant ridges. A
soft breeze sighed among the pines and rustled the aspen leaves,
then, died away. Mingled odors of pine and fern floated to us
from the nearby forests. The light vanished from the sky but the
mysterious charm of the time was not broken. In the east a
softer and more quiet splendor tipped the foliage with silvery
radiance, edging the fleecy clouds with mellow light. Only the
purling music of the distant waterfall now broke the restful
solemnity of the mountain solitudes. Night with its thoughts of
other fairer worlds than this, was here and we with all Nature
were preparing for rest.

As we drew near the Lawrence Hotel at Luray, the Moonlight
Sonata floated dreamily upon the calm night air, and we seemed
to feel the beauty of Hugo's lines:

Come child, to prayer; the busy day is done,
A golden star gleams through the dusk of night;
The hills are trembling in the rising mist,
The rumbling wain looms dim upon the sight;
All things wend home to rest; the roadside trees
Shake off their dust, stirred by the evening breeze.

The sparkling stars gush forth in sudden blaze,
As twilight open flings the doors of night;
The bush, the path-all blend in one dull gray--
The doubtful traveler gropes his anxious way.

Oh, day; with toil, with wrong, with hatred rife;
Oh, blessed night! with sober calmness sweet,
The age-worn hind, the sheep's sad broken bleat--
All Nature groans opprest with toil and care,
And wearied craves for rest, and love and prayer.

At eve the babes with angels converse hold,
While we to our strange pleasures wend our way,
Each with its little face upraised to heaven,
With folded hands, barefoot kneels down to pray,
At selfsame hour with selfsame words they call
On God, the common Father of us all.

And then they sleep, the golden dreams anon,
Born as the busy day's last murmurs die,
In swarms tumultuous flitting through the gloom,
Their breathing lips and golden locks descry,
And as the bees o'er bright flowers joyous roam,
Around their clustered cradles clustering come.

Oh, prayer of childhood! simple, innocent;
Oh, infant slumbers! peaceful, pure and light;
Oh, happy worship! ever gay with smiles,
Meet prelude to the harmonies of night;
As birds beneath the wing enfold their head,
Nestled in prayer the infant seeks its bed.

CHAPTER III

LURAY CAVERNS AND MAMMOTH CAVE

O! bear me then to vast embowering shades,
To twilight groves and visionary vales,
To weeping grottoes and prophetic glooms,
Where angel forms, athwart the solemn dusk
Tremendous, sweep, or seem to sweep, along,
And voices more than man through the void,
Deep sounding, seize the enthusiastic ear.
Or is this gloom too much?
Where creeping water ooze, and where rivers wind,
Cluster the rolling fogs and swim along
The dusky mantled lawns. --Thompson.

The Shenandoah valley is not only famous for its beauty,
picturesque scenery and many historical associations, but here
in Page county, Virginia, are located the beautiful caverns of
Luray. Here we find caverns that for variety and beauty of their
calcite formations excel many if not all caverns of the same
kind in the world.

The valley at Luray is ten miles wide, extends from the Blue
Ridge to the Massanutten mountain, and displays remarkably fine
scenery. These ridges lie in vast folds and wrinkles, and
elevations in the valley are often found to be pierced by
erosion. Cave Hill, three hundred feet above the water level,
had long been an object of local interest on account of its pits
and oval hollows, through one of which, August 13, 1878, Mr.
Andrew J. Campbell and others entered, thus discovering the
extensive and beautiful caverns.

There is a house built on the entrance to these caverns and one
does not realize that such a remarkable region is located here.
The natural arch that admits one to Mammoth Cave has a span of
seventy feet. It is very high and on its edges grow ferns,
vines, and various wild flowers, and the phoebe builds her nest
and fills all the space about with her sweet prophecy of spring.
It is what the entrance to a place so vast should be.

At the Luray Caverns cement walks have been laid, stairways,
bridges and iron railings have been erected, and the entire
route through this most beautiful of subterranean palaces is
illuminated by brilliant electric lights. On entering the
caverns you experience a thrill of strange emotion and mute
wonder. One speaks, if at all, in whispers. It is too much for
your imagination to grasp at once and you are overwhelmed as
much as you were on first seeing Niagara. Here is silence such
as never came to the outer world, darkness that far exceeds the
blackest midnight; glittering stalactites that gleam like
diamonds from the ceiling above; massive artistic drapery which
falls in graceful folds; cascades of rarest beauty formed by
stone of marble whiteness, in place of falling water; tinted
walls like evening skies; all these seen by the gleam of
brilliant electric lights fill one with admiration and deepest
awe. Here the Master Artist has carved spacious palaces of
rarest beauty. Columns of yellowish-brown, resembling
transparent amber, support great vaulting domes above you. These
lovely pillars seem to rise toward their proper arches as
majestically as those of Rheims, Amiens, and Cologne, only here
we find "no signs of decay" and "they never knew the cruel
ravages of war."

This calls to memory a visit to the Steen, the old Spanish
prison built in the eighth century in the city of Antwerp. A
crowd of English soldiers and American doughboys were viewing
the time-worn relics of the place when they found an old map of
the world dating from the year 1300, A. D., whereupon one of the
Englishmen exclaimed, "Where is America? Why, your bloomin',
bloody country was not on the map. at that time!" Such good-
natured humor was borne with about the same patience as the
bites of "cooties" or Jersey mosquitoes. As they journeyed on, a
companion of the first speaker said, "You don't have such
wonderfully old and interesting things in America." The fiery
American doughboys accepted this remark as a challenge and could
keep silent no longer. One of them, voicing the sentiment of
all, exclaimed in a voice that fairly awoke the echoes of those
aged walls, "No, we do not have much of this old trash in our
country. Everything in America is new and up-to-date." But in
Luray Caverns we have one of the world's great wonders "that was
old long before the foundation of the Pyramid of Cheops." Here
are columns of gigantic proportions, one of which has lain on
the floor of the cave for more than four thousand years. Some
geologists state that the glacial period was sixty thousand
years ago. If their deductions be true; we have in Luray a
cavern that was fifty-four thousand years old when Adam gazed on
Paradise.

These caverns are carved from the Silurian limestone, although
they are considered to date from the Tertiary period. Long after
the cave was formed, and after many stalactites had been hung on
those spacious halls with their down-grown crystals, it was
completely filled with glacial mud charged with acid, whereby
the dripstones were eroded in singular grotesque shapes. The
eroded forms remained after the mud had been mostly removed by
flowing water. Massive columns have been wrenched from the
ceiling by this aqueous energy and lie prostrate on the floor; a
hollow column, forty feet high and thirty feet in diameter,
stands erect, but has been pierced by a tubular passage from top
to bottom in the same manner; a leaning column almost as large
has been undermined so as to resemble the leaning tower of Pisa;
these are only a few of the many wonderful forms of Nature's
architecture formed by no other tools than time and waterdrops.

We find no streams and true springs here as in Mammoth Cave, but
there are numerous basins of pellucid water, varying from one to
fifty feet in diameter, and from six to fifteen feet in depth.
Crystal Lake is a clear body of water surrounded by sparkling
stalactites. How long its waters must have waited to mirror
these lovely formations! They gleam and sparkle, forming an arch
of dazzling splendor; fit drapery for such a gem of water, which
shows again their marvelous beauty.

Here these waters have lain for countless ages with never a
breeze to ripple their surface. At Mammoth Cave the waters enter
through numerous domes and pits in cascades of great volume, and
are finally collected in River Hall where they form several
extensive lakes or rivers, which are connected with Green river
by two deep springs that appear under arches on its margin. The
water has been known to rise sixty feet above low water mark
when there is a freshet in Green river. The waters of these
rivers are navigable from May to October.

The first lake approached is called the Dead Sea. Here you gaze
upward at vast cliffs sixty feet high and one hundred feet long,
above which you go with cautious tread, then up a stone stairway
that leads to the river Styx, a body of water forty feet wide
and four hundred feet long, which is crossed by a natural
bridge. A beach of finest yellow sand extends for five hundred
yards to Echo river, the largest of all, being from twenty to
two hundred feet wide, ten to forty feet deep, and about three
miles long.

You never can forget your trip on this river of Stygian
darkness. With oil lanterns that emit but a feeble flickering
flame you see ghostlike figures, goblins and grim cave monsters
that loom before you; your imagination peoples these
subterranean halls and their titanic masonry with fantastic
forms of its own creation. At this place these lines from Poe
will perhaps flash through your mind:

By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where the Eidalon, named night
On a black throne reigns upright;
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule,
From a wild, weird chink sublime,
Out of space and out of time.

When you speak loudly your words have a weird sepulchral tone
that echoes far and near through the spacious halls and avenues
that makes the black pall of mystery all the more uncanny. As
you first enter on your journey on this stream of inky blackness
you are appalled by the awful darkness, and the stillness so
intense is like that of some vast primeval forest at midnight.
The ceiling is so low at one place you can touch it with your
hands. With rock above and on both sides of you and water
beneath, you think you have a faint conception of Hades. You
hear no sound but the gentle splash of the water struck by the
oars, or the labored and rapid breathing of the more timid ones
of your party.

Suddenly your boat stops and the guide utters a few tones
beginning low in the scale and running higher, when, lo! the
whole subterranean cavern seems filled with fairy tongues and
becomes melodious with softer, sweeter tones until they die away
among those avenues, like the music heard only in the realm of
dreams. Some one suggests that a song be sung, whereupon an
Irishman with deep sonorous voice starts, "Nearer, My God, to
Thee," but he only sings but one line, for the clamor of voices
insisting on another selection, is like that of a flock of crows
in autumn who have discovered an owl. The multitudinous echoes,
if not as musical as the voice of the guide, made more obvious
harmony.

Thus do these aged halls send back rarest melodies for the
discordant notes received. How like the noble souls one knows
who take the discordant jeers and taunts of the world and by a
life of serenity and steadfastness of purpose (which is ever to
help mankind onward) build for them an admiration and devotion
that returns from a multitude of grateful hearts like musical
echoes, perhaps too late unheard.

The temperature of both Luray Caverns and Mammoth Cave is
uniformly fifty-four degrees Fahrenheit throughout the year, and
the atmosphere is both chemically and optically of singular
purity. For this reason stone huts were once erected for
consumptives in Mammoth Cave. Thirteen was the original number
and for the poor unfortunates who inhabited them it was most
unlucky; the patients became worse, and on being taken from
their subterranean homes in Mammoth Cave quickly died. Only two
of the huts still remain.

"Those curious mortals who are always seeking morgues and
graveyard scenes should come here." What a place for
contemplation! "Into what vast unrecorded ages the philosopher
could let his thoughts go back!"

On entering Luray Caverns one of the first of the many curious
formations to attract your attention will be rows of stalactites
resembling fish on market. Here are fish that were on exhibit
before Noah entered the ark. How patient the old fisherman must
be to have stood through innumerable years and not yet have had
a sale. You will see other forms that represent hams and
sidemeat. You will, perchance, detect the lean streak as most
people do. This meat needs no sugarcuring or smoking and will
keep many more years with no fear of the blue-bottle fly.
Glittering stalactites. blaze in front of you; fluted columns
and draperies in broad folds with a formation that resembles the
finest hemstitching may be seen all around you, while Pluto's
chasm, a wide rift in the walls, contains a spectre clothed in
shadowy draperies. One wonders how long this grim, ghastly
person has stood here. Long ages came and went in that shadowy
and evanescent time with no record save these stony ghosts, and
over all a black pall of mystery still broods.

One of the most remarkable formations as well as one of the most
beautiful which may be seen in Mammoth Cave is the flower
garden. Dr. Hovery describes its beauty thus: "Each rosette is
made of countless fibrous crystals; each tiny crystal is in
itself a study; each fascicle of carved prisms is wonderful and
the whole glorious blossom is a miracle of beauty. Now multiply
this mimic blossom from one to a myriad as you move down the
dazzling vista as if in a dream of Elysium; not for a few yards,
but for two magnificent miles all is virgin white, except here
and there a patch of gray limestone, or a spot bronzed by
metallic stain, or as we purposely vary the lonely monotony by
burning chemical lights. We admire the effective grouping done
by Nature's skillful fingers. Here is a great cross made by a
mass of stone rosettes; while floral coronets, clusters,
wreaths, and garlands embellish nearly every foot of the ceiling
and walls. The overgrown ornaments actually crowd each other
till they fall on the floor and make the pathway sparkle with
crushed and trodden jewels."

We find several forms of life in Mammoth Cave, such as light
gray or stone colored crickets, with antennae and legs twice the
length of our black musician. If this cave dweller is a musician
like our cheery outdoor fiddler, how the empty walls must ring!
We found several of these odd insects near Echo river and on the
walls of the cave near the well known as the "Bottomless Pit."
White crayfish moved back and forth on the sand at the edge of
Echo river and backed away from us when we tried to procure one
for a specimen. His subterranean home has seemingly not affected
his habits. This cave also contains a fish known to scientists
as "Amblyopsis Speloens," meaning "A weak-eyed cave dweller."

At one place in the caverns rows of stalactites are arranged in
lines of various lengths in reference to tone, just like the
strings of a piano, in regular graduated system. A small boy who
accompanies the guide will strike those stone harps in rapid
succession which give forth delicious liquid tones, sweet and
silvery as the chimes of Antwerp Cathedral. They waver and float
through those vast halls until the ear catches only a faint echo
from some far, dim aisle. "How many centuries elapsed before
this subterranean organ gave forth its delightful tones!" It
lacked only the soul of a Beethoven or Chopin to interpret them
aright. How like many noble lives whose talents perhaps shall
only bud "unseen" or waste upon the desert air of environment.
One thinks of Keats, whose wonderful Ode to the Nightingale and
lovely Nature Poems might never have been sung had he not gone
out into the fragrant fields and woods, where the song of the
lark and the breezes, "heaven born," touched his great soul like
an Aeolian harp which dispersed sweetest melodies for all
mankind to hear.

CHAPTER IV

FOUR UNUSUAL PICTURES

We spent another memorable day on the mountain roads marveling
again at the omnipotent power that creates such beauty. Looking
out over the valley from the slope of a hill we had a glorious
view. From the ravishing beauty of the scene, our minds fell to
musing over that other race who had dwelt here, whose destiny
the coming of the white man changed. We wondered how the valley
appeared to them and what bird songs burst upon the fragrant air
when that other race possessed the land. Our thoughts were soon
recalled from the vague past; for over the summit of a green
hill a thunder head pushed itself into view. As the great mass
spread swiftly over the heavens, darkness began to creep over
the land like a premature twilight. The songs of the birds that
had been so noticeable before were hushed, the passing breeze
paused a moment as if undecided which course to pursue, then in
sudden fury swept over the land, hurling the leaves and dead
branches in wild confusion through the air.

Like a mighty trumpet summoning those cloud warriors to battle
sounded the thunder, whose terrific peals shook the hills around
us. The clouds, as if obedient to the summons rushed from all
directions, like frightened soldiers. The lightning began to
leap to the earth in angry flashes, or spread through the masses
of rolling clouds like golden chains, or leaped and darted like
the lurid tongues of serpents. The trees rocked and roared on
the hills about us; now and then one fell with a mighty crash
scarcely discernible in the awful roar of the raging wind. The
rain came in blinding sheets to the earth. Soon, however, the
fury of the storm was spent and we heard the echoing peals of
thunder among the distant hills.

The sun came out again and shone among the water drops that
clung in countless myriads to the leaves. They glittered and
scintillated like vast emerald crowns studded with millions of
diamonds. Not an hour had passed and there again was the
heavenly blue smiling down upon the glorious woods. A rainbow,
like a radiant, triumphal arch, bent lovingly over the earth,
now more tranquil and beautiful than ever. It was as if Nature
had made a fitting frame for the endless variety and beauty of
the picture she had painted. The birds came forth from their
leafy coverts and shook the water drops from their feathers
while their notes rained like "liquid pearls" around us. As we
watched the fading hues of the lovely bow and listened to the
bird song that rose and fell in tides of rarest melody we
thought how like life the passing storm had been. The early
hours of summer sky, how quickly they pass away, to be overcast
by dark foreboding clouds of doubt and fear. Yet, after the
storm of life is almost past a radiant bow of promise, tender as
memory and bright as hope, lingers on its ebon folds and we seem
to glimpse through the dispersing gloom fairer fields beyond.

We neared the old historical town of Frederick on a Saturday
afternoon. The rose light from the west that shone upon the
hillsides of green seemed to mingle its hues with that of its
own, and it sifted through the transparent leaves and spread
itself in a mellow glow upon the ground beneath. Never did light
seem so impressive as that which streamed through the forest and
lit up the hills with "strange golden glory." There had been a
rain in the afternoon and the shimmering light from the west was
trying his color effects. It was such an evening as Longfellow
describes in Hiawatha:

Slowly o'er the shimmering landscape,
Fell the evening's dusk and coolness,
And the long and pleasant sunbeams
Shot their spears into the forest,
Breaking through its shields of shadow,
Rushed into each secret ambush,
Searched each thicket, dingle, hollow.

Gazing at the quiet and luxuriant loveliness of the landscape
about us we almost forgot we were entering the town where
Washington met Braddock to prepare for the expedition against
Fort Duquesne. This town was twice taken by the Confederates and
when occupied by the troops of General Early the inhabitants
were forced to pay a ransom of two hundred thousand dollars. It
was occupied in 1862 by General McClellan.

It was not of armies or their generals of whom we were thinking
as we entered the old town, now wearing its evening smile. The
twilight song of birds came to us from the maple trees as we
passed, or broken phrases were just audible from the distant
meadows. It seemed that plenty, purity and peace had always
reigned here and it was with a feeling of rare delight we
approached the charming Wayside Inn, peeping from its gracefully
overhanging elms. After procuring rooms for the night we went in
search of the spot where Barbara Frietchie lived. The day had
been extremely oppressive, but since the shower we were enjoying
a cool breeze that was stirring the leaves and rippling the
grass with its purifying breath. Slowly we made our way along
the streets of the town until we arrived in front of the spot
where Old Glory had been flaunted over the Confederate troops.
We thought of that day when,

"Forty flags with their silver stars,
Forty flags with their crimson bars,
Flapped in the morning wind; the sun
Of noon looked down and saw not one."

But,--

"Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed by her three score years and ten;
Bravest of all in Frederick town
She took up the flag the men hauled down."

We proceeded from this spot to the beautiful Mount Olivet
cemetery. Here we were thrilled anew, for near the entrance we
beheld the splendid monument erected in memory of Francis Scott
Key. This, aside from its significance, is one of the finest
statues our country affords. The grace and beauty of that
figure, as if still pointing toward his country's glorious
emblem, causes the heart of the beholder to swell with emotion.
We seemed to catch from those lips the grave question: "O! Say,
does the Star Spangled Banner yet wave, o'er the land of the
free, and the home of the brave?" Something in this monument
made us think of the fine statue erected to the memory of Vauban
in Verdun.

We passed the grave of Barbara Frietchie over which waved the
flag she so dearly loved, and in a twinkling came the answer to
the eager questioner of bronze, as the west wind caught the
lovely banner and waved it, oh, so gently, over this hallowed
spot. A robin repeated his evening song softly from a maple near
it, and a mourning dove began his meditative cooing. Slowly we
left the secluded place where the hero and heroine slumber and
returned to the Wayside Inn, while myriads of stars began to
sparkle and gleam on the vast field of blue above, reminding us
that "ever the stars above look down on the stars below in
Frederikctown."

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