The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Boy Settlers, by Noah Brooks, Illustrated by W. A. Rogers This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Boy Settlers A Story of Early Times in Kansas Author: Noah Brooks Release Date: June 15, 2009 [eBook #29129] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOY SETTLERS*** E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) THE BOY SETTLERS In Uniform Style. THE BOY SETTLERS. By NOAH BROOKS. $1.25. THE BOY EMIGRANTS. By NOAH BROOKS. $1.25. A NEW MEXICO DAVID. By C. F. LUMMIS. $1.25. Sure Enough, There They Were, Twenty-five or Thirty Indians. THE BOY SETTLERS A STORY OF EARLY TIMES IN KANSAS BY NOAH BROOKS ILLUSTRATED BY W. A. ROGERS NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1891 COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS. TO Whose patriotic songs were the inspiration of the prototypes of THE BOY SETTLERS This little book is affectionately inscribed CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. The Settlers, and Whence They Came. 1 II. The Fire Spreads. 9 III. On the Disputed Territory. 20 IV. Among the Delawares. 36 V. Tidings from the Front. 53 VI. Westward Ho! 62 VII. At the Dividing of the Ways. 72 VIII. The Settlers at Home. 85 IX. Setting the Stakes. 95 X. Drawing the First Furrow. 105 XI. An Indian Trail. 116 XII. House-Building. 126 XIII. Lost! 134 XIV. More House-Building. 150 XV. Play Comes After Work. 158 XVI. A Great Disaster. 181 XVII. The Wolf at the Door. 187 XVIII. Discouragement. 200 XIX. Down the Big Muddy. 215 XX. Stranded Near Home. 236 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO FACE PAGE Sure Enough, There They Were, Twenty-five or Thirty Indians. Frontispiece In Camp at Quindaro. The Poem of “The Kansas Emigrants.” 34 The Yankee Emigrant. 54 Oscar was put up High on the Stump of a Tree, and, Violin in Hand, “Raised the Tune.” 60 The Polls at Libertyville. the Woburn Man is “Hoisted” Over the Cabin. 70 The Settlers’ First Home in the Deserted Cabin. 90 Younkins Argued that Settlers were Entitled to all they Could Get and Hold. 102 Sandy Seized a Huge Piece of the Freshly-Turned Sod, and Waving It Over His Head Cried, “Three Cheers for the First Sod of Bleeding Kansas!” 106 Making “Shakes” with a “Frow.” 128 Filling in the Chinks in the Walls of the Log-cabin. 142 Lost! 146 They were Feasting Themselves on One of the Delicious Watermelons that now so Plentifully Dotted their Own Corn-field. 160 He Gently Touched the Animal with the Toe of His Boot and Cried, “All by My Own Self.” 176 A Great Disaster. 188 The Retreat to Battles’s. 194 “Home, Sweet Home.” 204 THE BOY SETTLERS. CHAPTER I The Settlers, and Whence They Came. There were five of them, all told; three boys and two men. I have mentioned the boys first because there were more of them, and we shall hear most from them before we have got through with this truthful tale. They lived in the town of Dixon, on the Rock River, in Lee County, Illinois. Look on the map, and you will find this place at a point where the Illinois Central Railroad crosses the Rock; for this is a real town with real people. Nearly sixty years ago, when there were Indians all over that region of the country, and the red men were numerous where the flourishing States of Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin are now, John Dixon kept a little ferry at the point of which I am now speaking, and it was known as Dixon’s Ferry. Even when he was not an old man, Dixon was noted for his long and flowing white hair, and the Indians called him Na-chu-sa, “the White-haired.” In 1832 the Sac tribe of Indians, with their chief Black Hawk, rose in rebellion against the Government, and then there happened what is now called the Black Hawk war. In that war many men who afterwards became famous in the history of the United States were engaged in behalf of the government. One of these was Zachary Taylor, afterwards better known as “Rough and Ready,” who fought bravely in the Mexican war and subsequently became President of the United States. Another was Robert Anderson, who, at the beginning of the war of the Rebellion, in 1861, commanded the Union forces in Fort Sumter when it was first fired upon. Another was Jefferson Davis, who, in the course of human events, became President of the Southern Confederacy. A fourth man, destined to be more famous than any of the others, was Abraham Lincoln. The first three of these were officers in the army of the United States. Lincoln was at first a private soldier, but was afterwards elected captain of his company, with whom he had come to the rescue of the white settlers from the lower part of the State. The war did not last long, and there was not much glory gained by anybody in it. Black Hawk was beaten, and that country had peace ever after. For many years, and even unto this day, I make no doubt, the early settlers of the Rock River country loved to tell stories of the Black Hawk war, of their own sufferings, exploits, hardships, and adventures. Father Dixon, as he was called, did not choose to talk much about himself, for he was a modest old gentleman, and was not given, as they used to say, to “blowing his own horn,” but his memory was a treasure-house of delightful anecdotes and reminiscences of those old times; and young and old would sit around the comfortable stove of a country store, during a dull winter evening, drinking in tales of Indian warfare and of the “old settlers” that had been handed down from generation to generation. It is easy to see how boys brought up in an atmosphere like this, rich in traditions of the long-past in which the early settlement of the country figured, should become imbued with the same spirit of adventure that had brought their fathers from the older States to this new region of the West. Boys played at Indian warfare over the very ground on which they had learned to believe the Sacs and Foxes had skirmished years and years before. They loved to hear of Black Hawk and his brother, the Prophet, as he was called; and I cannot tell you with what reverence they regarded Father Dixon, the white-haired old man who had actually talked and traded with the famous Indians, and whose name had been given him as a title of respect by the great Black Hawk himself. Among the boys who drank in this sort of lore were Charlie and Alexander Howell and their cousin Oscar Bryant. Charlie, when he had arrived at his eighteenth birthday, esteemed himself a man, ready to put away childish things; and yet, in his heart, he dearly loved the traditions of the Indian occupation of the country, and wished that he had been born earlier, so that he might have had a share in the settlement of the Rock River region, its reclamation from the wilderness, and the chase of the wild Indian. As for Alexander, commonly known as “Sandy,” he had worn out a thick volume of Cooper’s novels before he was fifteen years old, at which interesting point in his career I propose to introduce him to you. Oscar was almost exactly as many years and days old as his cousin. But two boys more unlike in appearance could not be found anywhere in a long summer day. Sandy was short, stubbed, and stocky in build. His face was florid and freckled, and his hair and complexion, like his name, were sandy. Oscar was tall, slim, wiry, with a long, oval face, black hair, and so lithe in his motions that he was invariably cast for the part of the leading Indian in all games that required an aboriginal character. Mr. Howell carried on a transportation business, until the railroads came into the country and his occupation was gone. Then he began to consider seriously the notion of going further west with his boys to get for them the same chances of early forestalling the settlement of the country that he had had in Illinois. In the West, at least in those days, nearly everybody was continually looking for a yet further West to which they might emigrate. Charlie Howell was now a big and willing, good-natured boy; he ought to be striking out for himself and getting ready to earn his own living. At least, so his father thought. Mr. Bryant was engaged in a profitable business, and he had no idea of going out into another West for himself or his boy. Oscar was likely to be a scholar, a lawyer, or a minister, perhaps. Even at the age of fifteen, he had written “a 1 2 3 4 5 piece” which the editor of the Dixon Telegraph had thought worthy of the immortality of print in his columns. But about this time, the Northern States were deeply stirred by the struggle in the new Territory of Kansas to decide whether freedom or slavery should be established therein. This was in 1854 and thereabout. The Territory had been left open and unoccupied for a long time. Now settlers were pouring into it from adjacent States, and the question whether freedom should be the rule, or whether slave-holding was to be tolerated, became a very important one. Missouri and Arkansas, being the States nearest to Kansas, and holding slavery to be a necessity, furnished the largest number of emigrants who went to vote in favor of bringing slavery into the new Territory; but others of the same way of thinking came from more distant States, even as far off as South Carolina, all bent on voting for slavery in the laws that were to be made. For the most part, these people from the slave States did not go prepared to make their homes in Kansas or Nebraska; for some went to the adjoining Territory of Nebraska, which was also ready to have slavery voted up or down. The newcomers intended to stay just long enough to vote and then return to their own homes. The people of the free States of the North heard of all this with much indignation. They had always supposed that the new Territories were to be free from slavery. They saw that if slavery should be allowed there, by and by, when the two Territories would become States, they would be slave States, and then there would be more slave States than free States in the Union. So they held meetings, made speeches, and passed resolutions, denouncing this sort of immigration as wrong and wicked. Then immigrants from Iowa, Illinois, and other Northern States, even as far off as Massachusetts, sold their homes and household goods and started for the Promised Land, as many of them thought it to be. For the men in Kansas who were opposed to slavery wrote and sent far and wide papers and pamphlets, setting forth in glowing colors the advantages of the new and beautiful country beyond the Missouri River, open to the industry and enterprise of everybody. Soon the roads and highways of Iowa were dotted with white-topped wagons of immigrants journeying to Kansas, and long lines of caravans, with families and with small knots of men, stretched their way across the country nearest to the Territory. Some of these passed through Dixon, and the boys gazed with wonder at the queer inscriptions that were painted on the canvas covers of the wagons; they longed to go with the immigrants, and taste the sweets of a land which was represented to be full of wild flowers, game in great abundance, and fine streams, and well-wooded hills not far away from the water. They had heard their elders talk of the beauties of Kansas, and of the great outrage that was to be committed on that fair land by carrying slavery into it; and although they did not know much about the politics of the case, they had a vague notion that they would like to have a hand in the exciting business that was going on in Kansas. Both parties to this contest thought they were right. Men who had been brought up in the slave States believed that slavery was a good thing––good for the country, good for the slave-owner, and even good for the slave. They could not understand how anybody should think differently from them. But, on the other hand, those who had never owned slaves, and who had been born and brought up in the free States, could not be brought to look upon slavery as anything but a very wicked thing. For their part, they were willing (at least, some of them were) to fight rather than consent that the right of one man to own another man should be recognized in the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska. Some of these started at once for the debatable land; others helped their neighbors to go, and many others stayed at home and talked about it. Mrs. Bryant, Oscar’s mother, said: “Dear me, I am tired and sick of hearing about ‘bleeding Kansas.’ I do wish, husband, you would find something else to talk about before Oscar. You have got him so worked up that I shouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he were to start off with some of those tired-looking immigrants that go traipsing through the town day by day.” Mrs. Bryant was growing anxious, now that her husband was so much excited about the Kansas-Nebraska struggle, as it was called, he could think of nothing else. CHAPTER II. THE FIRE SPREADS. One fine morning in May, Mr. Bryant was standing at his front gate watching for his brother-in-law, Mr. Howell, to come down the street. He held a newspaper in his hand, and with this, loosely rolled, he was impatiently tapping on the gate as Mr. Howell drew near. Evidently something had happened to disturb him. “See here, Aleck,” he exclaimed, as soon as his brother-in-law was within the sound of his voice, “I can stand this sort of thing no longer. I’m bound to go to Kansas. I’ve been thinking it over, and I have about made up my mind to go. Brubaker will take my store and the good-will of the concern. Oscar is wild to go, and his mother is perfectly able to take care of the house while I am getting ready for her to come out. What d’ye say? Will you go too?” “Well,” said Mr. Howell, slowly, “you nearly take my breath away! What’s happened to stir you up so?” “Just listen to this!” cried the other, “just listen!” and, unfolding his newspaper, he read, with glowing cheeks and 6 7 8 9 10 kindling eyes, an account of an attack made by some of the “pro-slavery men,” as they were named, on a party of free-State immigrants who had attempted to cross the river near Kansas City. His voice trembled with excitement, and when he had finished reading, he asked his companion what he thought of that. Mr. Howell looked pensively down the street, now embowered with the foliage of early summer, noted the peaceful aspect of the village, and the tranquil picture which gardens, cottages, and sauntering groups of school-children presented, and then said slowly, “I never was much of a hand at shooting, Charles, leastways, shooting at folks; and I don’t know that I could take steady aim at a man, even if I knew he was a Border Ruffian out gunning for me. But I’m with you, Charles. Charlie and Sandy can do a heap sight better in Kansas, after things get settled, than they can here. This place is too old; there’s too much competition, and the boys will not have any show if they stay here. But what does Amanda say?” Now, Amanda was Mr. Bryant’s wife, Mr. Aleck Howell’s sister. When Aleck asked this question, the two men looked at each other for a moment, queerly and without speaking. “Well, she’ll hate to part with Oscar; he’s the apple of her eye, as it were. But I guess she will listen to reason. When I read this piece in the paper to her this morning, at the breakfast-table, she was as mad as a wet hen. As for Oscar, he’s so fired up about it that he is down in the wood-shed chopping wood to blow off steam. Hear him?” And Mr. Bryant laughed quietly, notwithstanding his rising anger over the news of the day. At that moment Sandy came whooping around the corner, intent on overtaking a big yellow dog, his constant companion,––Bose by name,––who bounded along far in advance of the boy. “See here, Sandy,” said his uncle, “how would you like to go to Kansas with your father, Oscar, Charlie, and myself?” “To Kansas? shooting buffaloes, deer, Indians, and all that? To Kansas? Oh, come, now, Uncle Charles, you don’t mean it.” “But I do mean it, my laddie,” said the elder man, affectionately patting the freckled cheek of the lad. “I do mean it, and if you can persuade your father to go along and take you and Charlie with him, we’ll make up a party––just we five––that will scare the Border Ruffians ’way into the middle of next year.” Then, with a more serious air, he added, “This is a fight for freedom, my boy, and every man and every boy who believes in God and Liberty can find a chance to help. I’m sure we can.” This he said with a certain sparkle of his eye that may have meant mischief to any Border Ruffian that might have been there to see and hear. As for Sandy, he turned two or three hand-springs by way of relieving his feelings; then, having once more assured himself that the two men had serious thoughts of migrating to Kansas, he rushed off to the wood-shed to carry the wonderful news to Oscar. Dropping his axe, the lad listened with widened eyes to the story that Sandy had to tell. “Do you know, Sandy,” he said, with an air of great wisdom, “I thought there was something in the wind. Oh, I never saw father so roused as he was when he read that story in the Chicago Press and Tribune this morning. Why, I thought he’d just get up and howl when he had read it out to mother. Jimmini! Do you really suppose that he will go? And take us? And Uncle Aleck? Oh, wouldn’t that be too everlastingly bully for anything?” Oscar, as you will see, was given to the use of slang, especially when under great excitement. The two boys rushed back to the gate, where the brothers-in-law were still talking eagerly and in undertones. “If your mother and Aunt Amanda will consent, I guess we will go,” said Mr. Bryant, with a smile on his face as he regarded the flushed cheeks and eager eyes of Sandy and Oscar. Sandy’s father added: “And I’ll answer for your mother, my son. She and I have talked this thing over many a time, more on your account and Charlie’s than for the sake of ‘bleeding Kansas,’ however. I’m bound to say that. Every man is in honor bound to do his duty by the country and by the good cause; but I have got to look after my boys first.” And the father lovingly laid his hand on Sandy’s sturdy shoulder. “Do you think you could fight, if the worst comes to the worst, Sandy, boy?” Of course the lad protested confidently that he could fight; certainly he could protect his rights and his father’s rights, even with a gun, if that should be found necessary. But he admitted that, on the whole, he would rather shoot buffaloes and antelope, both of which species of large game he had already learned were tolerably plentiful in Kansas. “Just think of it, Oscar, we might have some real Indian-fighting out there, like that Father Dixon and the rest of the old settlers had in the time of the Black Hawk war.” His father assured him, however, that there was no longer any danger from the red man in Kansas. The wild Indians were now far out on the frontier, beyond the region to which emigrants would probably go in search of homestead lands for settlement. Sandy looked relieved at this explanation. He was not anxious for fighting with anybody. Fun was more to his liking. The two mothers, when they were informed of the decision of the male members of the family, made very little opposition to the emigration scheme. In fact, Mrs. Howell had really felt for some time past that her boys would be better provided for in a new country. She had been one of the “old settlers” of Dixon, having been brought out from the interior of New York when she and her brother were small children. She had the same spirit of adventure that he had, and, although she remembered very well the privations and the discomforts of those early days, it was more with amusement than sorrow that she recalled them to mind, now that they were among the traditions of long-past years. The two young Howells were never weary of hearing their mother tell of the time when she killed a wildcat with her father’s rifle, or of her walking fifteen miles and back to buy herself a bonnet-ribbon to wear to her first ball in the court-house. Now her silent influence made it easier for the Kansas Exodus (as they already called their scheme) to be 11 12 13 14 accepted all around. The determination of the two families to migrate made some stir in the town. It was yet a small place, and everybody knew every other body’s business. The Bryants and Howells were among the “old families,” and their momentous step created a little ripple of excitement among their friends and acquaintances. The boys enjoyed the talk and the gossip that arose around them, and already considered themselves heroes in a small way. With envious eyes and eager faces, their comrades surrounded them, wherever they went, asking questions about their outfit, their plans, and their future movements. Every boy in Dixon looked on the three prospective boy settlers as the most fortunate of all their young playfellows. “I wish my father would catch the ‘Kansas fever,’” said Hiram Fender, excitedly. “Don’t you suppose your father could give it to him, Charlie? Do you suppose your uncle would take me along if Dad would let me go? Oh, wouldn’t that be just gaudy, if I could go! Then there would be four of us boys. Try it on him.” But the two families resolutely attended to their own business, asking help from nobody, and not even so much as hinting to anybody that it would be a good thing for others to go with them to the Promised Land. The three boys were speedily in the midst of preparations for their migration. It was now well along in the middle of May. If they were to take up land claims in Kansas and get in a crop, they had no time to spare. The delightful excitement of packing, of buying arms and ammunition, and of winding up all the small concerns of their life in Dixon made the days pass swiftly by. There were all the details of tents for camping-out, provisions for the march, and rough clothing and walking gear for the new life beyond to be looked after. Some of the notions of the boys, in regard to what was needed and what was to be expected from the land beyond, were rather crude. And perhaps their fathers were not in all cases so wise as they thought themselves. The boys, however, cherished the idea that absolutely everything they should require in Kansas must be carried from Illinois. “Why,” said the practical Mr. Howell, “if we cannot buy ploughs, cattle, and seed, cheaper in Missouri than we can here, we can at least save the labor and cost of transportation. We don’t want to haul a year’s provisions, either. We expect to raise something to eat, don’t we?” Charlie, to whom this remonstrance was addressed, replied, “Well, of course we can raise some garden truck, and I suppose we can buy bacon and flour cheaper in Missouri than here.” “Then there’s the game,” interrupted Oscar and Sandy, both in one breath. “Governor Robinson’s book says that the country is swarming with game,” added Sandy, excitedly. The boys had devoured a little book by Mr. Robinson, the free-State Governor of Kansas, in which the richness of the Promised Land was glowingly set forth. “Much time we shall have to shoot buffaloes and antelope when we are breaking up the sod and planting corn,” Mr. Howell answered with a shade of sarcasm in his voice. “And we may have to fire at bigger game than either of those,” added Mr. Bryant, grimly. “Border Ruffians?” asked Sandy, with a feeble attempt at a grin. His mother shuddered and hastily went out of the room. The Kansas scheme seemed no longer pleasant to her, when she read the dreadful stories of violence and bloodshed with which some of the Western newspapers were teeming. But it was settled that most of the tools needed for farming could be bought better in Missouri than in Illinois; the long haul would be saved, and the horses with which they were to start could be exchanged for oxen to good advantage when they reached “the river.” They had already adopted the common phrase, “the river,” for the Missouri River, then generally used by people emigrating westward. “But perhaps the Missourians will not sell you anything when they know that you are free-State men,” suggested Mrs. Bryant, timidly, for this was a family council. “Oh, well,” answered Mr. Howell, sturdily, “I’ll risk that. I never saw a man yet with anything to sell who wouldn’t sell it when the money was shaken in his face. The newspapers paint those border men pretty black, I know; but if they stop to ask a man’s politics before they make a bargain with him, they must be queer cattle. They are more than human or less than human, not Americans at all, if they do business in that way.” In the end they found that Mr. Howell was entirely right. All was settled at last, and that, too, in some haste, for the season was rapidly advancing when planting must be attended to, if they were to plant that year for the fall harvest. From the West they heard reports of hosts of people pouring into the new Territory, of land being in great demand, and of the best claims near the Missouri being taken by early emigrants. They must be in a hurry if they were to get a fair chance with the rest and a fair start on their farm,––a farm yet existing only in their imagination. Their wagon, well stored with clothing and provisions, a few books, Oscar’s violin, a medicine chest, powder, shot, and rifle-balls, and an assortment of odds and ends,––the wagon, so long a magical repository of hopes and the most delightful anticipations, was ready at last. It stood at the side gate of Mr. Bryant’s home, with a “spike team” (two horses at the pole, and one horse for a leader) harnessed. It was a serious, almost solemn, moment. Now that the final parting had come, the wrench with which the two families were to be broken up seemed harder than any of the members had expected. The two mothers, bravely keeping up smiling faces, went about the final touches of preparations for the lads’ departure and the long journey of their husbands. Mr. Howell mounted the wagon with Sandy by his side; Mr. Bryant took his seat with the other two boys in an open 15 16 17 18 buggy, which they were to drive to “the river” and there trade for a part of their outfit. Fond and tearful kisses had been exchanged and farewells spoken. They drove off into the West. The two women stood at the gate, gazing after them with tear-dimmed eyes as long as they were in sight; and when the little train disappeared behind the first swale of the prairie, they burst into tears and went into the house which was now left unto them desolate. It was a quiet party that drove over the prairie that bright and beautiful morning. The two boys in the buggy spoke occasionally in far-off-sounding voices about indifferent things that attracted their attention as they drove along. Mr. Howell held the reins, with a certain stern sense of duty on his dark and handsome face. Sandy sat silently by his side, the big tears coursing down his freckled cheeks. CHAPTER III. ON THE DISPUTED TERRITORY. The straggling, unkempt, and forlorn town of Parkville, Missouri, was crowded with strangers when the emigrants arrived there after a long and toilsome drive through Iowa. They had crossed the Mississippi from Illinois into Iowa, at Fulton, on the eastern shore, and after stopping to rest for a day or two in Clinton, a pretty village on the opposite bank, had pushed on, their faces ever set westward. Then, turning in a southwesterly direction, they travelled across the lower part of the State, and almost before they knew it they were on the sacred soil of Missouri, the dangers of entering which had been pictured to them all along the route. They had been warned by the friendly settlers in Iowa to avoid St. Joseph, one of the crossings from Missouri into Kansas; it was a nest of Border Ruffians, so they were told, and they would surely have trouble. They must also steer clear of Leavenworth; for that town was the headquarters of a number of Missourians whose names were already terrible all over the Northern States, from Kansas to Massachusetts Bay. “But there is the military at Fort Leavenworth,” replied Mr. Bryant. “Surely they will protect the citizens of the United States who are peaceful and well-behaved. We are only peaceable immigrants.” “Pshaw!” answered an Iowa man. “All the army officers in this part of the country are pro-slavery men. They are in sympathy with the pro-slavery men, anyhow, and if they had been sent here to keep free-State men out of the Territory, they couldn’t do any different from what they are doing. It’s an infernal shame, that’s what it is.” Bryant said nothing in reply, but as they trudged along, for the roads were very bad, and they could not often ride in their vehicles now, his face grew dark and red by turns. Finally he broke out,–– “See here, Aleck,” he cried, “I don’t want to sneak into the Territory. If these people think they can scare law-abiding and peaceable citizens of a free country from going upon the land of these United States, we might just as well fight first as last. For one, I will not be driven out of a country that I have got just as much right to as any of these hot- headed Missouri fellows.” His brother-in-law looked troubled, but before he could speak the impetuous and fiery Sandy said: “That’s the talk, Uncle Charlie! Let’s go in by the shortest way, and tackle the Border Ruffians if they tackle us. Who’s afraid?” And the lad bravely handled his “pepper-box,” as his old-fashioned five-barrelled revolver was sportively called by the men of those days; for the modern revolver with one barrel for all the chambers of the weapon had not then come into use. “Who’s afraid?” he repeated fiercely, looking around. Everybody burst out laughing, and the valorous Sandy looked rather crestfallen. “I am afraid, for one,” said his father. “I want no fighting, no bloodshed. I want to get into the Territory and get to work on our claim, just as soon as possible; but if we can’t get there without a fight, why then, I’ll fight. But I ain’t seeking for no fight.” When Aleck Howell was excited, his grammar went to the four winds. His view of the situation commended itself to the approval of Oscar, who said he had promised his mother that he would avoid every appearance of hostile intention, keep a civil tongue in his head, have his weapons out of sight and his powder always dry. The emigrants decided to go into Kansas by way of Parkville. At Claybank, half-way between the Iowa line and the Missouri River, they encountered a drover with a herd of cattle. He was eager to dicker with the Kansas emigrants, and offered them what they considered to be a very good bargain in exchanging oxen for their horses. They were now near the Territory, and the rising prices of almost everything that immigrants required warned them that they were not far from the point where an outfit could no longer be bought at any reasonable price. The boys were loth to part with their buggy; for, although they had been often compelled to go afoot through some of the worst roads in the States of Iowa and Missouri, they had clung to the notion that they might have a pair of horses to take into the Territory, and, while the buggy was left to them, they had a refuge in times of weariness with walking; and these were rather frequent. The wagon was exchanged for another, suitable for oxen. 19 20 21 22 23 The immigrants drove gayly into Parkville. They were in sight of the Promised Land. The Big Muddy, as Missourians affectionately call the turbid stream that gives name to their State, rolled sluggishly between the Parkville shore and the low banks fringed with cottonwoods that were the eastern boundary of Kansas. Looking across, they could see long lines of white-covered wagons, level plains dotted with tents, and the rising smoke of many fires, where people who had gone in ahead of them were cooking their suppers; for they entered Parkville late in the afternoon. It was a commonplace-looking view of Kansas, after all, and not at all like what the lads had fancied it would be. Sandy very emphatically expressed his disappointment. “What would you have, Sandy?” asked his uncle, with some amusement. “Did you expect to see wild honey dripping out of the cottonwoods and sycamores, buffaloes and deer standing up and waiting to be shot at, and a farm ready to be tilled?” “Well,” replied the boy, a little shamefacedly, “I didn’t exactly expect to see all those things; but somehow the country looks awful flat and dull. Don’t you think so?” For answer, Mr. Bryant pointed out a line of blue slopes in the distance. “Those are not very high hills, my boy, to be sure, but they are on the rolling prairie beyond, and as soon as we get away from the river we shall find a bluffy and diversified country, I’ll warrant you.” “Yes; don’t you remember,” broke in Oscar, eagerly, “Governor Robinson’s book told all about the rolling and undulating country of the Territory, and the streams that run under high bluffs in some places?” Sandy admitted that this was true of the book; but he added, “Some books do lie, though.” “Not Governor Robinson’s book,” commented his brother Charlie, with a slight show of resentment. For Charlie had made a study of the reports from the Promised Land. But a more pressing matter was the attitude of the border-State men toward the free-State emigrants, and the question of making the necessary purchases for their farming scheme. Parkville was all alive with people, and there were many border-State men among them. Some of these regarded the newcomers with unmistakable hostility, noting which, Sandy and Oscar took good care to keep near their two grown-up protectors; and the two men always went about with their weapons within easy reaching distance. All of the Borderers were opposed to any more free-State men going into the Territory; and many of them were disposed to stop this by force, if necessary. At one time, the situation looked very serious, and Sandy got his “pepper-box” into position. But the trouble passed away, and the arrival of fifteen or twenty teams, accompanied by a full complement of men, checked a rising storm of wrath. From Platte City, a short distance up the river, however, came doleful and distressing stories of the ill-treatment of the free-State men who had gone that way. They were harassed and hindered, and, in some cases, their teams were deliberately turned about and driven back on the road by which they had come. It was useless to remonstrate when the rifles of a dozen men were levelled at the would-be immigrants. But our travellers in Parkville heard a good story of the bravery of one free-State man who had been refused transportation across the ferry at Platte City, kept by an ardent pro-slavery man. The intending immigrant, unconscious of any hindrance to his crossing, was calmly driving down to the ferry-boat, a flat-bottomed craft propelled by long oars, or sweeps, when the ferryman stopped him with the question, “What hev ye got into yer waggin?” “Oxen,” sententiously replied the newcomer. “And what’s them thar cattle follering on behind?” he asked, pointing to a drove of milch-cattle in the rear. “Caouws,” answered the immigrant, in the broad pronunciation peculiar to provincial people of the New England States. “All right,” was the rejoinder; “a man that says ‘caouws’ can’t go over this yere ferry withouten he’s got the tickets.” No argument would induce the ferryman to explain what the tickets were and where they could be procured. Finally, his patience exhausted, the free-State man suddenly drew from the big pockets of his frock a pair of tremendous pistols, ready cocked, and, holding them full in the face of the surprised ferryman, he said,–– “Here are my tickets, and I’m going across this ferry right off, caouws or no caouws!” And he went. Even at Parkville, where there was very little difficulty in crossing, as compared with what there had been earlier in the struggle for Kansas, they were advised by discreet friends and sympathizers to be on the lookout for opposition. Every fresh arrival of free-State men angered yet more the Borderers who were gathered there to hinder and, if possible, prevent further immigration. Mr. Bryant chafed under the necessity of keeping his voice hushed on the topic that engaged all his thoughts; and Oscar and Sandy were ready to fight their way across the river; at least they said so. They did find, however, that the buying of provisions and farming-tools required for their future use, was out of the question in Parkville. Whether it was the unexpected demand, or a refusal of the Missourians to sell to free-State men, they could not determine. But the prices of everything they wanted were very high. What should they do? These articles they must have. But their cost here was far beyond their most extravagant estimates. When Mr. Howell was reminded by his brother-in-law how he had said that no politics could interfere with trade and prices, he was amused. “Of course,” he said, “it does look as if these Missourians would not sell at fair prices because they want to hinder us; but don’t you see that the demand is greater than the supply? I know these folks are bitterly hostile to us; but the reason why they have so small a stock of goods on hand is that they have sold out to other free-State men that have come before us to buy the same things. Isn’t that so?” 24 25 26 27 Mr. Bryant was obliged to admit that this was a reasonable explanation; but as he had begun by thinking that every Borderer hated a free-State man and would do him an injury if he could, he did not give up that notion willingly. He was certain that there was a plot in the high prices of bacon, flour, corn-meal, and ploughs. In this serious dilemma, Charlie came to the relief of the party with the information that a free-State man, whose team had just recrossed the river for a load of supplies sent him by a wagon that was to return to Iowa, brought news that a large trading-post had been opened at a new Kansas town called Quindaro. He said that the Iowa man told him that prices were just now lower in Quindaro than they had ever been in Parkville. “Quindaro?” said Oscar, musingly;––“why, that must be an Indian name,––feminine Indian name, too, unless I miss my guess.” Mr. Bryant had heard of Quindaro. It was a brand-new town, a few miles down the river, settled by free-State men and named for a young, full-blooded Indian girl of the Delaware tribe. The town was on the borders of the Delaware reservation, which in those days came close to the Missouri River. Charlie, also, had gathered some facts about the town, and he added that Quindaro was a good place to start from, going westward. The party had laid in a stock of groceries––coffee, tea, and other articles of that description––before leaving home. Now they needed staple provisions, a few farming tools, a breaking-plough, and some seed corn. Few thought of planting anything but corn; but the thrifty settlers from Illinois knew the value of fresh vegetables, and they were resolved to have “garden truck” just as soon as seeds could be planted and brought to maturity. “And side-meat?” asked Sandy, wonderingly, as he heard his father inquiring the price of that article of food. Side- meat, in the South and West, is the thin flank of a porker, salted and smoked after the fashion of hams, and in those parts of the Southwest it was (and probably is) the staple article of food among the people. It is sold in long, unattractive-looking slabs; and when Sandy heard its name mentioned, his disgust as well as his wonder was kindled. “Side-meat?” he repeated, with a rising inflection. “Why, I thought we were going to live on game,––birds and buffalo and the like! Side-meat? Well, that makes me sick!” The two men laughed, and Mr. Howell said,–– “Why, Sandy, you are bent on hunting and not on buckling down to farm work. How do you suppose we are going to live if we have nothing to eat but wild game that we kill, and breadstuffs and vegetables that we buy?” Sandy had thought that they might be able to step out into the woods or prairie, between times, as it were, and knock down a few head of game when the day’s work was done, or had not begun. When he said as much, the two heads of the party laughed again, and even Charlie joined in the glee. “My dear infant,” said his father, seriously, but with a twinkle in his eye, “game is not so plenty anywhere as that; and if it were, we should soon tire of it. Now side-meat ‘sticks to the ribs,’ as the people hereabouts will tell you, and it is the best thing to fall back upon when fresh meat fails. We can’t get along without it, and that is a fact; hey, Charlie?” The rest of the party saw the wisdom of this suggestion, and Sandy was obliged to give up, then and there, his glowing views of a land so teeming with game that one had only to go out with a rifle, or even a club, and knock it over. But he mischievously insisted that if side-meat did “stick to the ribs,” as the Missourians declared, they did not eat much of it, for, as a rule, the people whom they met were a very lank and slab-sided lot. “Clay-eaters,” their new acquaintance from Quindaro said they were. “Clay-eaters?” asked Charlie, with a puzzled look. “They are clayey-looking in the face. But it can’t be possible that they actually eat clay?” “Well, they do, and I have seen them chewing it. There is a fine, soft clay found in these parts, and more especially south of here; it has a greasy feeling, as if it was a fatty substance, and the natives eat it just as they would candy. Why, I should think that it would form a sand-bar inside of a man, after awhile; but they take to it just as naturally!” “If I have got to choose between side-meat and clay for a regular diet,” said Sandy, “give me side-meat every time.” That night, having made their plans to avoid the prying eyes of the border-State men, who in great numbers were now coming in, well-armed and looking somewhat grimly at the free-State men, the little party crossed the river. Ten dollars, good United States money, was demanded by the ferryman as the price of their passage; it looked like robbery, but there was no other way of getting over the river and into the Promised Land; so it was paid, with many a wrench of the patience of the indignant immigrants; and they pitched their tent that night under the stars and slept soundly on the soil of “bleeding Kansas.” Bright and early next morning, the boys were up and stirring, for now was to begin their camp life. Hitherto, they had slept in their tent, but had taken their meals at the farm-houses and small taverns of the country through which they had passed. They would find few such conveniences in the new country into which they had come, and they had been warned that in Kansas the rule was “every man for himself.” They made sad work with their first breakfast in camp. Oscar had taken a few lessons in cooking from his mother, before leaving home, and the two men had had some experience in that line of duty when out on hunting expeditious in Illinois, years before. So they managed to make coffee, fry slices of side-meat, and bake a hoe-cake of Indian-corn meal. “Hog and hominy,” said Sandy’s father. “That’s the diet of the country, and that is what we shall come to, and we might as well take it first as last.” 28 29 30 31 32 “There’s worse provender than this, where there’s none,” said Mr. Bryant, cheerfully; “and before we get through we shall be hungry more than once for hog and hominy.” It was an enlivening sight that greeted the eyes of the newcomers as they looked around upon the flat prairie that stretched along the river-side. The tents of the immigrants glistened in the rising sun. The smoke of many camp-fires arose on the summer air. Groups of men were busily making preparations for their long tramp westward, and, here and there, women and children were gathered around the white-topped wagons, taking their early breakfast or getting ready for the day’s march. Here, too, could now be seen the rough and surly-looking border men who were on the way to points along the route that were to be occupied by them before too many free-State men should come in. An election of some sort, the newcomers could not exactly make out what, was to take place in a day or two, and the Missourians whom they had seen flocking into Parkville were ready to vote as soon as they got into the Territory. Breakfast over, the boys sauntered around through the camps, viewing the novel sights with vast amusement. It was like a militia muster at home, except that the only soldier element they saw was the band of rough-looking and rough- talking men who were bound to vote and fight for slavery. They swaggered about with big pistols girt at their hips and rifles over their shoulders, full-bearded and swarthy, each one a captain apparently, all without much organization, but very serious in their intention to vote and to fight. It really seemed as if they had reached the fighting-ground at last. “See here, daddy,” said Oscar, as he came in from the camps when the Dixon caravan was ready to move; “see what I found in this newspaper. It is a piece of poetry, and a mighty fine piece, too”; and the boy began to read some lines beginning thus,–– “We cross the prairie as of old The pilgrims crossed the sea, To make the West, as they the East, The homestead of the free!” “Oh, well; I can’t bother about poetry, now,” said the father, hastily. “I have some prose work on hand, just about this time. I’m trying to drive these pesky cattle, and I don’t make a very good fist at it. Your Uncle Aleck has gone on ahead, and left me to manage the team; but it’s new business to me.” “John G. Whittier is the name at the top of these verses. I’ve heard of him. He’s a regular-built poet,––lives somewhere down East.” “I can’t help that, sonny; get on the other side of those steers, and see if you can’t gee them around. Dear, dear, they’re dreadful obstinate creatures!” That night, however, when they were comfortably and safely camped in Quindaro, amid the live-oaks and the tall sycamores that embowered the pretty little town, Oscar again brought the newspaper to his father, and, with kindling eyes, said,–– “Read it out, daddy; read the piece. Why, it was written just for us, I do declare. It is called ‘The Kansas Emigrants.’ We are Kansas Emigrants, aren’t we?” The father smiled kindly as he looked at the flushed face and bright eyes of his boy, and took from him the paper folded to show the verses. As he read, his eyes, too, flashed and his lip trembled. “Listen to this!” he cried. “Listen to this! It is like a trumpet call!” And with a voice quivering with emotion, he began the poem,–– “We cross the prairie as of old The pilgrims crossed the sea, To make the West, as they the East, The homestead of the free!” “Something has got into my eyes,” said Mr. Howell, as the last stanza was read. “Great Scott! though, how that does stir a man’s blood!” And he furtively wiped the moisture from his eyes. It was time to put out the light and go to sleep, for the night now was well advanced. But Mr. Bryant, thoroughly aroused, read and re-read the lines aloud. 33 34 In Camp at Quindaro. The Poem of “The Kansas Emigrants.” “Sing ’em,” said his brother-in-law, jokingly. Bryant was a good singer, and he at once tuned up with a fine baritone voice, recalling a familiar tune that fitted the measure of the poem. “Oh, come now, Uncle Charlie,” cried Sandy, from his blankets in the corner of the tent, “that’s ‘Old Dundee.’ Can’t you give us something lively? Something not quite so solemn?” “Not so solemn, my laddie? Don’t you know that this is a solemn age we are in, and a very solemn business we are on? You’ll think so before we get out of this Territory, or I am greatly mistaken.” “Sandy’ll think it’s solemn, when he has to trot over a piece of newly broken prairie, carrying a pouchful of seed corn, dropping five grains in each sod,” said his father, laughing, as he blew out the candle. “It’s a good song; a bully good song,” murmured the boy, turning over to sleep. “But it ought to be sung to something with more of a rig-a-jig-jig to it.” So saying, he was off to the land of dreams. CHAPTER IV. AMONG THE DELAWARES. Quindaro was a straggling but pretty little town built among the groves of the west bank of the Missouri. Here the emigrants found a store or trading-post, well supplied with the goods they needed, staple articles of food and the heavier farming-tools being the first required. The boys looked curiously at the big breaking-plough that was to be of so much consequence to them in their new life and labors. The prairies around their Illinois home had been long broken up when they were old enough to take notice of such things; and as they were town boys, they had never had their attention called to the implements of a prairie farm. “It looks like a plough that has been sat down on and flattened out,” was Oscar’s remark, after they had looked the thing over very critically. It had a long and massive beam, or body, and big, strong handles, suggestive of hard work to be done with it. “The nose,” as Sandy called the point of the share, was long, flat, and as sharp as a knife. It was this thin and knife-like point that was to cut into the virgin turf of the prairie, and, as the sod was cut, the share was to turn it over, bottom side up, while the great, heavy implement was drawn along by the oxen. “But the sod is so thick a...