FERNANDO'S JOURNEY EAST. HE MEETS WITH QUEER PEOPLE.
From the day Fernando Stevens began to read and learn of the great world
beyond the narrow confines of his western home, he was filled with the
laudable ambition to know more about it. The solitude of the wilderness
may be congenial for meditation; but it is in the moving whirl of
humanity that ideas are brightened. Fernando was promised that if he
would master the common school studies taught in their log schoolhouse,
he should be sent to one of the eastern cities to have his education
completed. Albert Stevens, the lad's father, was becoming one of the
most prosperous farmers of the west. He had purchased several tracts of
land which rapidly increased in value, and his flocks and herds
multiplied marvelously. He was in fact regarded as "rich" in those days
of simplicity. He had sent several flatboats loaded with grain down the
Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans and sold the cargoes at great
profit, so that, in addition to his fields, his stock and houses, he
had between three and four thousand dollars in money.
Fernando grew to be a tall, slender youth, and in 1806 having finished
his education, so far as the west could afford, his father determined to
send him to the East, where it was hoped he would develop into a lawyer
or a preacher. The mother hoped the latter. His brother and sister had
grown up, married and were settled on farms in the neighborhood, taking
on the same existence of their parents; living honest, peaceful and
unambitious lives.
The youth Fernando was more inclined to mental than physical activity,
and his parents, possessing an abundance of common sense, decided not to
force him to engage in an occupation distasteful to him.
What school should he enter? was a question which the father long
debated. There were Harvard and Yale, both famous seats of learning, and
there were any number of academies all over the country. Captain Stevens
finally decided to allow the youth to make his own selection, giving him
money sufficient to take a little tour in the eastern States, before
settling down.
Captain Stevens had a well-to-do neighbor, who lived across Bear Creek,
by the name of Winners. Old Zeb Winners was one of those quaint
products of the West. He was an easy-going man, proverbially slow of
speech and movement, and certainly the last person on earth one would
expect to become rich; yet he was wealthy. With all his slothfulness he
was shrewd, and could drive a better bargain than many men twice as
active in mind and body. One morning after it had become noised abroad
that Fernando was going away to college, Mr. Winners rode up to the
house on his big sorrel mare, her colt following, and, dismounting, tied
the mare to the rail fence and entered the gate.
"Good mornin', cap'in, good mornin'," said the visitor.
"Come in, Mr. Winners. Glad to see you. Hope you are all well!"
"Oh, yes, middlin' like," answered the farmer entering the house without
the ceremony of removing his hat. A chair was offered, and he sat for a
moment with his hands spread out before the fireplace, his hat still on
his head. There was no fire in the fireplace, for it was late in May;
but Mr. Winners held his hands before it, from habit.
"Wall, cap'in, I do hear as how yer goin' ter send yer boy Fernando to
college."
"I am."
"Wall, that air a good notion. Now I ain't got no book larnin' myself;
but I don't object to nobody else gittin' none. I've made up my mind to
send one of my boys along with 'im, ef ye've no objection."
Of course Captain Stevens had no objection. Which of his boys was he
going to send?
"I kinder thought az how I'd send Sukey."
Sukey was a nickname given a tall, lazy youth named Richard Winners. Why
he had been nicknamed Sukey we have never been able to ascertain; but
the sobriquet, attached to him in childhood, clung to him all through
life. Sukey was like his father, brave, slow, careful, but a steadfast
friend and possessed of considerable dry humor. He took the world easy
and thought "one man as good as another so long as he behaved himself."
It was arranged that Sukey and Fernando should start in a week for New
York, from which point they might select any college or school they
chose. The mail stage passed the door of farmer Winners, crossed the big
bridge and then passed the home of Captain Stevens. Captain Stevens'
house was no longer a cabin in the wilderness. It was a large,
substantial two-story farm mansion, with chimneys of brick instead of
sticks and mud. The forests had shrunk back for miles, making place for
vast fields, and the place had the appearance of a thrifty farm.
Fernando's trunk was packed, and he sat on the door-step in his best
clothes awaiting the appearance of the stage. At last the rumbling
thunder of wheels rolling over the great bridge smote his ears, and a
few moments later the vehicle came up to the gate. The six prancing
horses were drawn up, and the vehicle stopped, while the driver cried:
"All aboard!"
Sukey was in the stage, his dark eyes half closed. He roused himself to
drawl out:
"Come on, Fernando, we're off now, for sure."
While two farm hands, assisted by the driver, placed the trunk in the
boot, Fernando bade father and mother adieu. Sister had come over with
her husband and the baby. His brother with his young wife were present
to bid the young seekers after knowledge adieu. They followed Fernando
to the stage coach and cried:
"Good bye, Sukey! take good care of Fernando!" and Sukey drawled out:
"Who'll take keer o' me?"
The last good bye's were said, and the great stage coach rolled on. The
impressions of the young frontiersmen on approaching the first town were
strange and indescribable. The number of houses and streets quite
confused them. There seemed to be little or no order in the construction
of streets, and everybody seemed in a bustle and confusion. They
stopped over night at a tavern, and at early dawn the stage horn awoke
them, and after a hasty breakfast they were again on their journey.
Several weeks were spent in traveling from town to town, and on
September 1st, 1807, they found themselves in New York City, still
undecided where they would go.
One morning Fernando went for his usual walk toward the river, when a
large crowd of people at the wharf attracted his attention. Drawing
near, he saw a curious-looking boat on the water, the like of which he
had never seen before. It was one hundred feet long, twelve feet wide
and seven feet deep. There was a staff or mast at the bow, another at
the stern. From a tall chimney there issued volumes of smoke, while from
a smaller pipe there came the hissing of boiling water and white steam.
Two great, naked paddle-wheels were on the boat, one on each side near
the middle. Fernando thought this must be the toy of which he had heard
so much, being constructed by Robert Fulton and Chancellor Livingston.
On one side of the boat was painted the name _Clermont_.
"What is that?" Fernando asked of a rollicking, fun-loving young
Irishman about twenty-two or three years of age, who stood near.
"Faith, sir, it's a steamboat. We have all come to see her launched.
They call her the _Clermont_; but it's mesilf as thinks she ought to be
_Fulton's Folly_, for divil a bit do I believe she'll go a
cable's length."
Fernando and his new acquaintance drew nearer. The hissing of the steam
and the roaring of the furnaces were fearful.
"Do you know Robert Fulton?" Fernando asked.
"Indade, I do. Would you like to see the greatest lunatic out of Bedlam?
Then it's mesilf as will point him out to yez."
"I should like to see him."
There were a number of men at work on the boat, all expressing the
wildest eagerness and anxiety. They were rushing forward and aft, above
and below, to those ponderous engines and boilers; but no one could see
what they did. At last Mr. Fulton, the great inventor, appeared. He was
a large, smooth-shaved gentleman, with a long head and melancholy gray
eye. On his nose was a smut spot from the machinery. Thousands were now
assembled to witness the trial voyage. Mr. Livingston gave the order to
cast off, and start the vessel. The lines were loosed and the steam
turned on. Loud hissed the confined monster; but the wheels did not
move. What was the matter?
"Failure!" was on every tongue, and the crowd assembled already began
to hoot and jeer. Mr. Fulton's face expressed the deepest anxiety. He
ran below to inspect the machinery. A bolt had caught. This was removed,
and then the ponderous wheels began to move. The great paddles churned
the water to a mass of foam, and the boat glided forward against wind
and tide at a rate of speed astonishing. Fernando saw Robert Livingston
standing in the stern waving his handkerchief at the crowd which was now
sending up cheer after cheer. The American flag was run up on the staff,
and the steamboat continued on her course up the river to Albany, making
the distance of one hundred and sixty miles in thirty-six hours against
wind and tide; and from that time until now, navigation by steam, travel
and commerce, has been steadily increasing in volume and perfection,
until such vessels may be seen on every ocean and in almost every harbor
of the globe, even among the ice packs of the polar seas. This was the
second of the great and beneficent achievements which distinguished
American inventors at that early period of our country's struggles. The
cotton-gin, invented by Eli Whitney, was the first; an implement that
could do the work of a thousand persons in cleaning cotton wool of the
seeds. That machine has been one of the most important aids in the
accumulation of our national wealth.
[Illustration]
Fernando Stevens stood on the wharf among the assembled thousands,
watching the steamer until it disappeared far up the river. He was lost
in wonder and amazement and was first aroused from his reverie by the
young man at his side saying:
"Don't she bate the divil?"
It was his skeptical Irish friend.
Fernando turned to him and asked, "What do you think of it now?"
"Faith, she's a bird, so she is. Don't she cleave the water?"
From this time, the two became acquainted, and Fernando learned that the
young Hibernian's name was Terrence Malone. Terrence was a true Irishman
of the good old type. He was brave as a lion, full of native wit and
humor, and yet an intelligent gentleman. From the first, he took a great
fancy to Fernando and when he learned that he had come from the West to
enter some academy or college, he informed him that he knew of the
place--the very place. It was the Baltimore Academy. He was a member of
the Baltimore school himself and he was sure there was not another like
it in the world. In short, the dashing young Irishman soon persuaded
Fernando to try the Baltimore school.
He went back to the tavern where he had left Sukey writing letters.
"What was all that catterwaulin' and yellin' about down at the river?"
Sukey asked.
"The new steamboat began her trial trip," answered Fernando.
"Wonder if that thing I saw with a stovepipe in it was a steamboat?"
"It was."
Sukey shook his head sagely and remarked:
"It don't look as if it would ever amount to much."
"Sukey, I have found a school for us at last."
"Where?"
"At Baltimore."
"What d'you want to go there for?"
"I met a young man who belongs there, and he advised us to go."
"Who is he?"
"His name is Terrence Malone, an Irishman."
"That name's not French any way. How are we going to Baltimore?"
"A schooner sails to-morrow."
"Can we go in her?"
"Yes."
"Plague take the sea! I never tried it, and I don't want to."
"It will be a short voyage."
"Short, yes, but long enough to make me sick. I don't want to be in the
game. I am not a water dog. Keep me on the dry land, and I'm all right."
But Fernando knew that a journey by land would take much longer than by
sea. Terrence Malone came to see them that evening and informed them
that the schooner would sail next day. He was a jolly young fellow and
had so many droll stories and jokes, that he kept his companions in a
roar of laughter. One joke followed another in such rapid succession
that the youngsters had scarce done laughing at one, before he fired
another at them.
"Baltimore is the most wonderful city in the world, barin Cork," the
fair-haired son of the Emerald Isle declared. "There you find gallant
gintlemen and the prettiest girls on earth. Ah! if you could but see my
Kitty Malone! She's a beauty, just a trifle older than mesilf, but every
inch a darlint. Her head is red, her face a trifle freckled, her body's
so stout that the girt of a mule wouldn't encircle her waist," and here
Terrence winked, "She plays on the wash-board an illigant tune, for
which she charges a half a dime a garment."
"Did you ever meet with such a jolly fellow?" laughed Fernando when he
was gone.
"No," Sukey answered. "He has made my sides ache."
Next day found the westerners on board the schooner sailing out from
the harbor of New York. The skipper was half tipsy, his crew
insubordinate, and for awhile no one seemed to know or care whither they
went. The captain had such frequent recourse to his demijohn, that it
was evident that he would soon be wholly unfit for duty. At last
Terrence declared he would have to take matters in hand himself.
The sea was rough, and both Fernando and Sukey were too sick to leave
their bunks long at the time.
"Jist ye lie still there, like a darlint, and lave the skipper to me,"
said Terrence to Fernando. "Not another divil of a drop shall he have,
until we are safe in Baltimore."
Then he went away, leaving Fernando wholly in ignorance of his plan. At
last, becoming anxious about him, he went out to see what he was doing.
The schooner was rolling heavily and Fernando was so sick he could
scarcely stand, yet he crept out under the lee of the cabin and saw a
sight that made him smile.
Terrence and the captain were sitting on the deck playing cards. The
young Irishman had won two demijohns and three jugs of rum from the
captain, and he was now playing for the last pint flask the skipper
possessed. The young Irishman won it and carried his property to his
stateroom, and when the skipper next applied for a drink,
Malone answered:
"Divil a drop will ye get, till we are safe in Baltimore." The captain
plead in vain. Terrence was firm, and the skipper in time became sober.
Next morning it was discovered that owing to the drunkenness and
carelessness of the captain and crew, they had drifted far out to sea.
The waves rolled high, and the little schooner plunged about in a manner
frightful to a landlubber.
Fernando was awakened by a groan. It was Sukey, and going to his berth
Terrence asked:
"What's the matter, Sukey?"
"I am dying!" he answered.
"Courage, courage, me boy, ye'll get over it."
"I don't want to get over it," answered Sukey, with a hollow groan.
A few moments later the skipper came to beg for a morning dram.
"Divil a drop, cap'in, until we are in Baltimore."
"How long will it take to reach Baltimore, captain?" asked the seasick
Sukey.
"Twenty-four hours."
"Oh, Heavens!" groaned Sukey. "Can't you sink the ship?"
"What do you want to sink for?" demanded the astounded skipper.
"I'd rather drown than live twenty-four hours longer in this blamed
boat."
"You'll live over it," growled the thirsty skipper.
"I don't want to live over it. I want to die."
Terrence roared with laughter, then he told a funny story which seemed
to increase the pangs of poor Sukey.
By the middle of the afternoon, Fernando had recovered enough to go out
on deck. He found the captain and his crew huddled up in the fore part
of the deck, discussing a large, square-rigged ship, which was bearing
toward them. He heard one of the sailors say:
"She flies English colors."
A little later there was a puff of smoke from her forecastle and a ball
dashed into the water athwart their bow.
"It's a cruiser, and that means to heave to; but blow my eyes if I do
it!" cried the captain, who was opposed to search and impressment. He
put the schooner about and, with all sail spread, flew over the water at
a rate of speed which defied pursuit. The cruiser fired several shots
after them.
"Who is that shootin'?" Sukey asked unconcernedly, as Fernando entered
the wretched cabin.
"A British man-of-war."
"What is it shootin' at?"
"At us."
"I hope she will hit us and put me out o' this misery," groaned Sukey.
Fortunately for the chief characters of this story, the man-of-war did
not hit them, and next day they reached Baltimore. Sukey recovered his
health with remarkable rapidity, and a few hours on shore made him
quite himself.
Terrence, who seemed to know the town thoroughly, conducted them to an
inn where they were to remain until arrangements could be made for
entering the school. Terrence took the two young men under his care in a
fatherly way, assuring them it would be bad luck to any who spoke ill of
them; but Terrence could not be with them for several days. He had
urgent business in Philadelphia, which would require his absence.
For a week after their arrival at Baltimore, their lives were of the
most dreary monotony. The rain, which had begun to fall soon after their
arrival, continued to descend in torrents, and they found themselves
close prisoners in the sanded parlors of the miserable inn. They could
but compare this wretched place with the grand old forests and broad
prairies of the West, and Sukey began to sigh for home.
"Are you homesick already, Sukey?" asked Fernando.
"I am not homesick--blast such a place as this--give me a country where
it don't rain 365 days out o' the year, and I'm content, home or
abroad," growled Sukey.
Their situation was by no means pleasant. Their front window looked out
upon a long, straggling, ill-paved street, with its due proportion of
mud heaps and duck pools. The houses on either side were, for the most
part, dingy-looking edifices, with half-doors, and such pretensions to
being shops as the display of a quart of meal, salt, or string of red
peppers confers. A more wretched, gloomy-looking picture of woe-begone
poverty one seldom beheld.
It was no better if they turned for consolation to the rear of the
house. There their eyes fell upon the dirty yard of a dirty inn, and the
half-covered cowshed, where two famishing animals mourned their hard
fate as they chewed the cud of "sweet and bitter fancy." In addition,
they saw an old chaise, once the yellow postchaise, the pride and glory
of the establishment, now reduced from its wheels and ignominiously
degraded to a hen house. On the grass-grown roof, a cock had taken his
stand, with an air of protective patronage to the feathered
inhabitants beneath.
Sukey stood at the narrow window gazing out on the dreary and melancholy
scene, while he heaved an occasional sigh.
"If this is what you call gitten an education I don't want it," he
drawled at last. "I would rather go back to Ohio and hunt for deer or
black bear, than enjoy such amusement as this is."
"Oh, it will get better," said Fernando.
"It has great room for growing better."
"But it might be worse."
"Yes, we might be at sea."
Their landlady, a portly woman with two marriageable daughters, did all
in her power to make their stay pleasant. She praised Baltimore for its
beauty and health, its picturesqueness and poetry. It was surely
destined to be the greatest city in the United States.
When they were alone, Sukey pointed to the mud heaps and duck pools and
gravely asked:
"Do they show the poetry and picturesk of which she speaks? Is that old
chaise a sign of health or prosperity?"
"Be patient, Sukey; we have seen little or none of Baltimore."
"Plague take me if I haven't seen more than I want to see of it now,"
growled Sukey.
At last the weather cleared a little, and the sun shone brilliantly on
the pools of water and muddy street. The young gentlemen strolled forth
to look about the town.
When about to start from the inn, Sukey asked:
"Say, Fernando, how are we goin' to find our way back?"
This was a serious question for even Fernando. He reflected over it a
moment and then said:
"It's the house at the foot of the second hill with the road or street
that winds around the cliff."
"Wouldn't it be better to take hatchets and blaze the corners of the
houses as we go along?" suggested Sukey. Fernando smiled and thought the
owners might raise some serious objections to having their houses
blazed. They were still somewhat undecided in regard to the matter, when
their landlady, with a movement about as graceful as the waddle of a
duck, came down the rickety stairs, and they in despair appealed to her.
She relieved them of their trouble in short order. On a piece of tin
over her door was the number 611. She told them the name of the street,
and assured them if they would remember that and the number, any one
would point it out to them. Besides they had only to remember the widow
Mahone, everybody in the town knew the widow Mahone.
With this assurance of safe return, the two youngsters ventured forth
into the city. They were not as verdant as the reader may imagine. Both
had been reared in the western wilderness and retained much of the
pioneer traits about them; but books had been society for them, and
their four months spent in New York and Boston had given them an urbane
polish. Sukey, however, had many inherent traits, which all the schools
could not wholly eradicate.
"I don't like towns," he declared, as they ascended a hill, which gave
them an excellent view of the harbor and shipping. "They are too close.
I want elbow room, and as soon as I get through my college course, I am
going back to the woods."
"Won't your education be lost there?"
"No; can't I be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a preacher as well there as
here? Besides, if we only sit down and wait awhile in Ohio, the cities
will come to us."
"Yes, Sukey, you are right. Civilization is going West, and in course of
time the largest part of the republic will be west of the mountains." Of
course Fernando referred to the Alleghany Mountains, for the Rocky
Mountains were hardly thought of at this date. "But come; we don't seem
to be in the most populous part of the town. Let us go over the hill
where the houses are better and look cleaner."
"I am willing, for, to tell you the truth, this place smells too much of
the sea."
They went along a narrow street, which had a decidedly fishy odor, for
there were two markets on it. They passed an old woman carrying on her
back a great bag which seemed filled with rags and waste papers gathered
up from the refuse of the street. Sukey wondered if that was the way she
made her living. At the corner was a low public house in which were some
sailors drinking and singing songs.
"Fernando, there is a fellow with a plaguy red coat on!" suddenly cried
Sukey, seizing his companion's arm.
"Yes, he is an officer of the English army or navy."
"Do they allow him here?"
"Of course; we are at peace with England."
"Well, I'd like to take that fellow down a bit. He walks too straight.
Why he thinks he could teach Alexander somethin' on greatness."
"Never mind him; come on."
Next they met a party of half-drunken marines, who began to chafe them,
and Sukey, though slow to wrath, was about to give them an exhibition of
frontier muscle, when his friend got him away, and they hastened to a
better part of the city.
Here they found beautiful residences, and on the next street were
magnificent stores and shops. Elegant carriages, drawn by horses in
shining harness, indicating wealth, were seen. Elegantly dressed ladies
and gentlemen were premenading the street, or exchanging
congratulations. Sukey thought this would "sort o' do," and he wondered
why Terrence Malone had quartered them down in that miserable frog pond,
when there was higher ground and better houses.
While standing on the corner watching the gay equipages and handsomely
dressed people, a carriage drawn by a pair of snow-white horses came
suddenly dashing down the street. The equipage, though one of the finest
they had ever seen, was stained with travel as if it had come from
a distance.
"There, Fernando, by zounds, there is some rich fellow you can be sure!"
said Sukey as the vehicle drove by. "Egad! I would like to see who is
inside of it."
He had that privilege, for the carriage paused only half a block away,
and an elderly man with a rolling, sailor-like movement got out and
assisted a young girl of about sixteen to alight.
"Jehosophat--Moses and Aaron's rod, my boy! do you see her?" gasped
Sukey.
"Yes."
"Ain't she pretty?"
"Hush! she may hear you."
"Well, if she'd get mad at that, she is different from most girls."
"Her father might not think it much of a compliment."
The coachman, closing the door of the carriage mounted his box and took
the reins, while the pretty girl took her father's arm and came down the
street passing the young men, who, we fear, stared at her rudely. They
were hardly to be blamed for it, for she was as near perfection as a
girl of sixteen can be. Tall, willowy form, with deep blue eyes, soft as
a gazelle's, long, silken lashes and arched eyebrows, with golden hair,
and so graceful that every movement might be set to music.
Fernando gazed after her until she disappeared into a fashionable shop,
and then, uttering a sigh, started as if from a dream.
"What do you say now, old fellow?" asked Sukey.
"Let us go home."
"Home?"
"Well, back to the widow Mahone's inn."
"All right; now let us try to find the trail."
It was no easy matter, although they had the street and number well
fixed in their mind. Finally they asked a watchman (policemen were
called watchmen in those days) and he conducted them to the abode of
Mrs. Mahone.
The first person to greet them was Terrence. There was a bright smile on
his jolly face as he cried:
"It's right plazed I am to see ye lookin' so cheerful, boys; and it's a
good time ye be having roaming the streets and looking at the beauty of
Baltimore. Much of it you'll find, to be sure. To-morrow we'll go to the
academy, pay our entrance fee and begin business."
[ILLUSTRATION: AS NEAR PERFECTION AS A GIRL OF SIXTEEN CAN BE.]
"Terrence," said Fernando in a half whisper, "Can't we find a more
comfortable place than this to live in?"
"Oh, be aisy, me frind, for it's an illegant a house I've got for all
of us, and we'll be as comfortable there as a banshee."
Not knowing what a "banshee" was, Fernando, of course, could draw no
conclusion from the comparison. When the three young men had entered
their room, Terrence began to tell them of a beautiful "craythur" he had
that day seen in town, and on inquiry learned she lived a few miles away
on the coast. She was the daughter of an old sea captain and came almost
daily to the city.
"What is her name?" asked Fernando.
"Lane."
"Great Jehosiphat, Fernando! Lane was on that carriage we saw," cried
Sukey, starting suddenly from a couch on which he had been reclining.