Leaf From Minne Myrtle Miller's Journal
Left with Joaquin Miller, describing their journey across the Cascades to Canyon City. "Here is one leaf from her journal, or rather, I think, her recollections of the journey, which she left me along with her other papers when she died."
One night of the journey I shall not soon forget. There had been some fighting ahead of us, and we knew the foe was lurking in ambush. They made a kind of fort of the freight, and while we lay down in the canyon, baby and I, way up on the high, sharp butte, Joaquin stood sentinel. And I say this tonight in his behalf and in his praise that he did bravely, and saved his loved ones from peril that night. That he stood on that dreary summit, a target for the foe, and no one but me to take note of his valor-stood till the morning shone radiant, stood till the night was passed. There was no world looking on to praise his courage and echo it over the land; only the frozen stars in mystic groups far away, and the slender moon, like a sword drawn to hold him at bay.
What has been given is all of her published verse and prose that can be found. Here, however, is an addition of one other poem, which has never before been published and which was found in manuscript among the papers left by her daughter Maud. Through the suggestion of Ella Higginson, the poet, long a close friend of the family, the poem was kindly furnished for this book by Mrs. Florence E. Radley of Bandon, Oregon, who is a niece of Minnie Myrtle Miller.
The Lost Portrait
With the poem, Minnie Myrtle Miller's niece sent the following explanation: "We found the original of this among Maud Miller's belongings. We think that it was written when her mother went east to get her after her father sent her to school in a convent. Minnie Myrtle had made several changes in it. . . . So far as we know this has never been published.
