Part Love Story, Part Travelogue Pt 5

Our
Love – Story

My Grandmother Margaret E. Winslow, 1908

BY SWEETHEART (SHARED BY J. STEWART)

( click here for other installments)

Installment #5:

Oh! Other Girl, will you ever forget the next morning? Before you pushed up your curtains you heard the Miss Perkins talking, and this was their conversation.
“Here we are in the Rockies, Sue.” The less old Miss P ~ fretfully, “Oh I’m sick of mountains, pull down the shade and let me go to sleep again.”

You were filled with indignation and wondered why the lofty tops didn’t fall right down on such puny mockers. How you hurried to dress and how everything caught and hid away! But finally you crawled from between the curtains, hurried to the platform ~ and screamed. There was Banff ~ or rather, there were Banff’s sentinels, piercing the sky and clouds with their glistening tops. It seemed as tho’ you must turn a page, whereon would be the statistics concerning the average annual rainfall of the Canadian provinces, for you had never seen snow peaks before except in pictures. But the lumpy feeling in your throat and the quickened beating of your heart proved that you were gazing at the mountains themselves.

Later in the morning after you had breakfasted with Grandma and Mr. Baldwin, you and he started for a stroll down to the falls which roar and tumble in foam not far from the hotel. Such a happy time! Reverently you sang hymns as you gazed at the everlasting splendor of the towering peaks around you, while the rushing of the torrent made a fitting accompaniment. Heaven seemed very near that morning.

You proved that the view of the mountains from the Presbyterian Church was much finer than from the Methodist so you attended service there. Your thoughts and eyes unerringly thru open doors that were not opened by the “firstly” nor yet the “tenthly.” You saw Mr. Baldwin across the church and after the benediction he made his way toward you.

“The horses are ordered for this afternoon, Margaret,” he said.
“I shall be ready,” Margaret answered, and her eyes lighted in expectation of the glorious canter thru the mountain village.

So after dinner the two young enthusiasts mounted their ponies. Toward the mountain wall they galloped, over the resounding bridge by the buffalo park. Her hair flew out in the wind; his rugged face relaxed into softer lines that spoke of love of the great places and the open.

“Little girl” he said, when they dismounted at the hotel, “This has been the happiest day of my life,” but not only did his lips say it. There was a light in his eyes more eloquent than words.

So it came about that as you were eating your last meal at Banff, close by a window that overlooked the valley, the silver fall and the pink sunset clouds nestling in the crevices of the mountain, that you told him about Stanley. That seemed the wisest thing for you to do. As the sunset glow faded from the snow caps, the light faded from the man’s eyes. And his voice rang hollow as he said,
“Thank you, Margaret. You have told me just in time. Let us go.”

Even a sad-goodnight could not efface the beautiful memories of that beautiful day and long after you had retired to your berth, you relived the happy experiences.

At Laggan, the following morning, you rode up the trail with your guardian. Mr. Baldwin had planned to go, too, but after last night’s crisis had expressed the desire to keep away from you rather than seek your company. And you missed his companionship on that early morning canter. At the head of the trail lay Lake Louise ~ an emerald in a diamond setting. The mountain torrents rushing down the side of the trail; the cliff rising sheer on the right and dropping hundreds of feet at the left; the pointed firs and cloud shadows creeping down the wooded slopes are stamped in your memory, I know, Other Girl, for you couldn’t forget them. Coming down the trail you rode with a cow-boy, bronzed as to features, honest as to eyes, knotted as to handkerchief, fringed as to trousers. How he laughed when you asked earnestly, “Isn’t everyone good who lives in the shadow of these beautiful mountains?”
“I reckon they ain’t,” he made answer. “Some on ‘ems durned onlikely to even recognize good when they see it.”

A little later The Special stopped at Glacier. Three miles from the hotel gleamed the white cap of ice in which there is cut a cave, so toward it you started with two of the party. They fell by the wayside but you scrambled on till you had entered the huge sapphire like cave and chipped off some of the age-old ice. As you were retracing your steps from the glacier which showed near its top long rifts of brilliant blue and emerald green, you met Mr. Baldwin. He stepped to your side and walked along with you.
“I’ve tried staying away, Margaret, but it is of no use. This way is best, I can see you and hear your voice. You’ll let me stay?”

Your rejoinder made him glad for you spoke of how you had enjoyed him as a friend and of the loss you had felt in having him take his friendship away. So you went down the mountain together and climbed up to the roof of the snow-shed. There you looked down upon a gray valley, guarded by towering snow peaks which were slowly dimming in the twilight haze. You will never recall the sweetness of that time and place without its sadness, too. After a pregnant silence Mr. Baldwin stepped to the edge of the platform. He swept his hat from his head and with upstretched arms addressed the surrounding peaks in resonant tones,
“Wonderful tributes to the everlasting might of our Creator, witness that I am but a feeble worshipper of His power. Yet by faith could these piles be leveled as the plain, while man’s soul is immortal, to live and love thru eternity.” His arms drooped. His face as he turned it to you was gray and you hurried toward him with outstretched hand. Your unspoken sympathy overpowered him. In broken sentences, he poured out his love for you, plead with you to search your own heart, blamed himself for not being self-controlled. It was hard for you Other Girl, but you saw your course and you sailed it unswervingly. When he had followed you down to the level of the road, he called your name softly. You turned.
“Take my hand, Margaret, and know that I can be a friend since you wish it that way.”

From Margaret's photo album of her "Western Trip," 1909.
Picture cut from a brochure ~ there is the hotel where she stayed for two nights.

This photograph is in Margaret's album. Although she didn't mention it in the story, she may have written about Bow River Falls in one of her journals.

I looked it up ~ this glacier is in Glacier National Park and is the one sporting the cave that Margaret climbed to, and entered. She chipped off a piece of ice to take back with her.

There is The Special (I assume)... Maybe this stop is between Glacier and Seattle.

I decided to add a contemporary color photo, so that you can see the "sentinels" that Margaret refers to ~