May 31 2009
Fireflies (Hatching) in a Bottle IV
Read an article (”Roughing It”) on an old New Yorker (Apr. 20, 2009, I am terribly falling behind). I found it very moving. The story tells of an adventure of two young girls from upper New York state coming to teach in a mountain village school in Colorado.
The story was an easy read, quite humorous, with a quick and cheerful tempo. Even the hardship the two young girls endured was used to prop up their frontier spirit and adventurous soul.
The story seems to be full of misfits: two Smith-educated New England girls coming to a homestead community, teaching boisterous kids from cowboy and miner families on subjects from Latin to “Domestic Science” (e.g. cooking). They came all the way across the country to seek natural beauty, a sense of adventure and fulfillment. But the community, led by a couple of enterprising New England transplants, is also expecting eligible brides for local “boys”.
Despite the plots and the mis-matches, the girls and the community grew close over time. Almost a hundred years later, when the author–the granddaughter of one of the two–traced back their lives and those of their students, she found that the two girls left their marks on many people in the community. In the process, their experience in a remote Rockies mountains also reshaped their own lives.
This is a very heartwarming story and, even better, is true. I have seen movies and read books on the Western life before. They all left me with a combined feeling of admiration but scare. I was never able to relate to that stylized life. The reason I found this story moving is because it says, “Life was harsh. Not everyone went there found gold or became rich. However, even in a failed story like this, you see the beauty in man’s nature and will.”
I liked the story so much that I am translating it into Chinese. For now I am posting it here. Once I completed it, I will post it in other places.