The race for the lands of the new Territories of Kansas and Nebraska was
on to the finish. Nebraska was far North. Kansas only interested the
Southerner. The frontiersmen were crossing the boundary lines years
before Congress formally opened them for settlement.
After a brief stop in West Tennessee the Doyles had succeeded in
reaching Miami County, just beyond the Missouri border, in 1853. They
had settled on a fertile quarter section on the Pottawattomie Creek in a
small group of people of Southern feeling.
The sun of a new world had begun to shine at last for the humble but
ambitious woman who had borne five strong children to be the athletic
sons and daughters of a free country. Her soul rose in a triumphant song
that made her little home the holy of holies of a new religion. Her
husband was the lord of a domain of fertile land. His fields were green
with wheat. She loved to look over its acres of velvet carpet. In June
her man and three stalwart boys, now twenty, eighteen and fourteen years
of age, would swing the reaper into that field and harvest the waving
gold without the aid of a hired laborer. She and her little girls would
help and sing while they toiled.
There was no debt on their books. They had horses, cows, sheep, pigs,
chickens, ducks, turkeys. Their crib was bulging with corn. The bins in
their barn were filled with grain.
Their house was still the humble cottage of the prairie pioneer, but her
men had made it snug and warm against the winds and snows of winter.
Their farm had plenty of timber on the Pottawattomie Creek which flowed
through the center of the tract. They had wood for their fires and logs
with which to construct their stable and outhouses.
The house they built four-square with sharp gables patterned after the
home they had lost. There were no dormers in the attic, but two windows
peeped out of the gable beside the stone chimney and gave light and air
to the boys' room in the loft. A shed extension in the rear was large
enough for both kitchen and dining room.
The home stood close beside the creek, and the murmur of its waters made
music for a busy mother's heart.
There was no porch over the front door. But her boys had built a lattice
work that held a labyrinth of morning glories in the summer. She had
found the gorgeous wild flowers blooming on the prairies and made a
hedge of them for the walks. They were sending their shoots up through
the soil now to meet the sun of spring. The warm rays had already begun
to clothe the prairie world with beauty and fragrance.
The mother never tired of taking her girls on the hill beyond the creek
and watching the men at work on the wide sweeping plains that melted
into the skyline miles beyond. Something in its vast silence, in its
message of the infinite, soothed her spirit. All her life in the East
she had been fighting against losing odds. These wide breathing plains
had stricken the shackles from her soul.
She was free.
Sometimes she felt like shouting it into the sky. Sometimes she knelt
among the trees and thanked God for His mercy in giving her the new
lease of life.
The new lease on life had depth and meaning because she lived and
breathed in her children. Her man had a man's chance at last. Her boys
had a chance.
The one thing that gave her joy day and night was the consciousness of
living among the men and women of her own race. There was not a negro
in the county, bond or free, and she fervently prayed that there never
would be. Now that they were free from the sickening dread of such
competition in life, she had no hatred of the race. As a free white
woman, the mother of free white men and women, all she asked was freedom
from the touch of an inferior. She had always felt instinctively that
this physical contact was poison. She breathed deeply for the first
time.
There was just one cloud on the horizon which threatened her peace and
future. Her husband, after the fashion of his kind, in the old world and
the new, had always held political opinions and had dared to express
them without fear or favor. In Virginia his vote was sought by the
leaders of the county. He had been poor but he had influence because he
dared to think for himself.
He was a Southern born white man, and he held the convictions of his
birthright. He had never stopped to analyze these faiths. He believed in
them as he believed in God. They were things not to be questioned.
Doyle had not hesitated to express his opinions in Kansas as in
Virginia. The few Southern settlers on the Pottawattomie Creek were
sympathetic and no trouble had come. But the keen ears of the woman had
caught ominous rumors on the plains.
The father and mother sat on a rude board settee which John had built.
The boy had nailed it against a black jack close beside the bend of
the creek where the ripple of the hurrying waters makes music when the
stream is low and swells into a roar when gorged by the rains.
The woman's face was troubled as she listened to the waters. She studied
the strong lines of her husband's neck, shoulders and head, with a touch
of pride and fear. His tongue was long in a political argument. He had a
fatal gift of speech. He could say witty, bitter things if stung by an
opponent.
She spoke with deep seriousness:
"I wish you wouldn't talk so much, John--"
"And why not?"
"You'll get in trouble."
"Well, I've been in trouble most of my life. There's no use livin' at
all, if you live in fear. I ain't never knowed what it is to be afraid.
And I'm too old to learn."
"They say, the Northern men that's passin' into the Territory have got
guns and swords. And they say they're goin' to use 'em. They outnumber
the Southerners five to one."
"What are they goin' to do with their guns and swords? Cut a man's
tongue out because he dares to say who he's goin' to vote for next
election?"
"You don't have to talk so loud anyhow," his wife persisted.
"Ole woman, I'm free, white, and twenty-one. I've been a-votin' and
watchin' the elections in this country for twenty odd years. Ef I've got
to tiptoe around, ashamed of my raisin', and ashamed of my principles, I
don't want to live. I wouldn't be fit ter live."
"I want ye to live."
"You wouldn't want to live with a coward."
"A brave man can hold his tongue, John."
"I ain't never learnt the habit, Honey."
"Won't you begin?"
"Ye can't learn a old dog new tricks--can they, Jack?"
He stroked his dog's friendly nose suddenly thrust against his knee.
"You know, Honey," he went on laughingly, "we brought this yellow pup
from Old Virginia. He's the best rabbit and squirrel dog in the county.
I've taught him to stalk prairie chickens out here. I'd be ashamed to
look my dog in the face ef I wuz ter tuck my tail between my legs and
run every time a fool blows off his mouth about the South--"
He stopped and laughed, his white teeth gleaming through his fine beard.
"Don't you worry, Honey. Those fields are too purty this spring for
worrying. We're goin' to send Colonel Lee our last payment this fall and
we'll not owe a cent to any man on earth."