THE END OF A LONG QUEST
I went to seek my mother in my best clothes. I had bought some new
things in Milwaukee, and was sure that my appearance would comfort her
greatly. Instead of being ragged, poverty-stricken, and
neglected-looking, I was a picture of a clean, well-clothed working boy.
I had on a good corduroy suit, and because the weather was cold, I wore
a new Cardigan jacket. My shirt was of red flannel, very warm and thick;
and about my neck I tied a flowered silk handkerchief which had been
given me by a lady who was very kind to me once during a voyage by
canal, and was called "my girl" by the men on the boat. I wore good kip
boots with high tops, with shields of red leather at the knees, each
ornamented with a gilt moon and star--the nicest boots I ever had; and I
wore my pants tucked into my boot-tops so as to keep them out of the
snow and also to show these glories in leather. With clouded woolen
mittens on my hands, given me as a Christmas present by Mrs. Fogg,
Captain Sproule's sister, that winter I worked for her near Herkimer,
and a wool cap, trimmed about with a broad band of mink fur, and a long
crocheted woolen comforter about my neck, I was as well-dressed a boy
for a winter's day as a body need look for. I took a look at myself in
the glass, and felt that even at the first glance, my mother would feel
that in casting her lot with me she would be choosing not only the
comfort of living with her only son but the protection of one who had
proved himself a man.
I glowed with pride as I thought of our future together, and of all I
would do to make her life happy and easy. I never was a better boy in my
life than on that winter evening when I went up the hilly street from
the tavern in Madison to the place on a high bluff overlooking a sheet
of ice, stretching away almost as far as I could see, which they told me
was Fourth Lake, to the house in which I was informed Doctor Rucker
lived--a small frame house among stocky, low burr oak trees, on which
the dead leaves still hung, giving forth a dreary hiss as the bitter
north wind blew through them.
I knocked at the door, and was answered by a red-haired young woman,
with a silly grin on her face, the smirk flanked on each side with
cork-screw curls which hung down over her bright blue dress; which, as I
could see, was pulled out at the seams under her round and shapely arms.
She put out a soft and plump hand to me, but I did not take it. She
looked in my face, and shrank back as if frightened.
"Where's Rucker?" I asked; but before I had finished the question he
came forward from the other room, clothed in dirty black broadcloth, his
patent-medicine-pedler's smile all over his face, with a soiled frilled
shirt showing back of his flowered vest, which was unbuttoned except at
the bottom, to show the nasty finery beneath. He had on a broad black
scarf filling the space between the points of his wide-open standing
collar, and sticking out on each side. I afterward recalled the
impression of a gold watch-chain, and a broad ring on his finger. He
was quite changed in outward appearance from the poverty-stricken skunk
I had once known; but was if anything more skunk-like than ever: yet I
had to look twice to be sure of him.
"I am exceedingly glad to see you in the flesh," said he, coming forward
with his hand stuck out--a hand which I stared at but never
touched--"exceedingly glad to see you, my young brother. I have had a
spiritual vision of you. Honor us by coming in by the fire!"
"Where's my mother?" I asked, still standing in the open door.
Rucker started at the sound of my voice, which had changed from the
boy's soprano into a deep bass--much deeper than it is now. It was the
hoarse croak of the hobbledehoy.
The young woman had shrunk back behind him now.
"Your mother?" said he, in a sort of panther-like purr. "A spirit has
been for three days seeking to speak to a lost child through my
daughter. Come in, and let us see. Let us see if my daughter can not
pierce the mysteries of the unseen in your case. Come in!"
The cold was blowing in at the open door, and his tone was a little like
that of a man who wants to say, but does not feel it wise to do so,
"Come in and shut the door after you!"
"Your daughter!" I said, trying to think of something to say that would
show what I thought of him, her, and their dirty pretense; "your
daughter! Hell!"
"Young man," said he, drawing himself up stiffly, "what do you mean--?"
"I mean to find my mother!" I cried. "Where is she?"
Suddenly the thought of being halted thus longer, and the fear that my
mother was not there, drove me crazy. I lunged at Rucker, and with a
sweep of my arms, threw him staggering across the room. The girl
screamed, and ran to, and behind him. I stormed through to the kitchen,
expecting to find my mother back there, working for this smooth, sly,
scroundrelly pair; but the place was deserted. There were dirty pots and
pans about; and a pile of unwashed dishes stacked high in the sink--and
this struck me with despair. If my mother had been about, and able to
work, such a thing would have been impossible. So she either was not
there or was not able to work--my instinct told me that; and I ran to
the foot of the stairs, and calling as I had so often done when a child,
"Ma, Ma! Where are you, ma!" I waited to hear her answer.
Rucker, pale as a sheet, came up to me, his quivering mouth trying to
work itself into a sneaking sort of smile.
"Why, Jacob, Jakey," he drooled, "is this you? I didn't know you. Sit
down, my son, and I'll tell you the sad, sad news!"
I heard him, but I did not trust nor understand him, and I went through
that house from cellar to garret, looking for her; my heart freezing
within me as I saw how impossible it would be for her to live so. There
were two bedrooms, both beds lying just as they had been left in the
morning--and my mother always opened her beds up for an airing when she
rose, and made them up right after breakfast.
The room occupied by the young woman was the room of a slut; the
clothes she had taken off the night before, or even before that, lay in
a ring about the place where her feet had been when she dropped them in
the dust and lint which rolled about in the corners like feathers. Her
corset was thrown down in a corner; shoes and stockings littered the
floor; her comb was clogged with red hair like a wire fence with dead
grass after a freshet; dingy, grimy underclothing lay about. I peered
into a closet, in which there were more garments on the floor than on
the nails. The other bedroom was quite as unkempt; looking as if the
occupant must always do his chamber work at the last moment before going
to bed. They were as unclean outwardly as inwardly.
After ransacking the house up-chamber, I ran down-stairs and went into
the room from which Rucker had come, where I found the girl hiding
behind a sofa, peeking over the back of it at me, and screaming "Go
away!" All the walls in this room were hung with some thin black cloth,
and it looked like the inside of a hearse. There was a stand in one
corner, and a large extension table in the middle of the room, with
chairs placed about it. In the corner across from the stand was a
spiritualist medium's cabinet; and hanging on the walls were a guitar, a
banjo and a fiddle. A bell stood in the middle of the table, and there
were writing materials, slates, and other things scattered about, which
theatrical people call "properties," I am told. I tore the black
draperies down, and searched for a place where my mother might be--in
bed I expected to find her, if at all; but she was not there. I tried
the cellar, but it was nothing but a vegetable cave, dug in the earth,
with no walls, and dark as a dungeon when the girl shut down the
trap-door and stood on it: from which I threw her by putting my back
under it and giving a surge. When I came up she was staggering to her
feet, and groaning as she felt of her head for the results of some
suspected cut or bump from her fall. Rucker was following me about
calling me Jacob and Jakey, a good deal as a man will try to smooth down
or pacify a vicious horse or mule; and after I had looked everywhere, I
faced him, took him by the throat, and choked him until his tongue stuck
out, and his face was purple.
"My God," said the girl, who had grown suddenly quiet, "you're killing
him!"
I looked at his empurpled face, and my madness came back on me like a
rush of fire through my veins--and I shut down on his throat again until
I could feel the cords draw under my fingers like taut ropes.
She laid her hand rather gently on my breast, and looked me steadily in
the eye.
"Fool!" she almost whispered. "Your mother's dead! Will it bring her
back to life for you to stretch hemp?"
I guess that by that action she saved my life; but it has been only of
late years that I have ceased to be sorry that I did not kill him. I
looked back into her eyes for a moment--I remember yet that they were
bright blue, with a lighter band about the edge of the sight, instead of
the dark edging that most of us have; and as I understood her meaning I
took my hands from Rucker's throat, and threw him from me. He lay on the
floor for a minute, and as he scrambled to his feet I sank down on the
nearest chair and buried my face in my hands.
It was all over, then; my long lone quest for my mother--a quest I had
carried on since I was a little, scared, downtrodden child. I should
never have the chance to serve her in my way as she had served me in
hers--my way that would never have been anything but a very small and
easy one at the most; while hers had been a way full of torment and
servitude. All my strength was gone; and the girl seemed to know it; for
she came over to me and patted me on the shoulder in a motherly sort
of way.
"Poor boy!" she said. "Poor boy! To-morrow, come to me and I'll show you
your mother's grave. I'll take you to the doctor that attended her. I
know how you feel."
I had passed a sleepless night before I remembered to feel revolted at
the sympathy of this hussy who had helped to bring my mother to her
death--and I did not go near her. But I inquired my way from one doctor
to another--there were not many in Madison then--until I found one,
named Mix, who had treated my mother in her last illness. She was weak
and run down, he said, and couldn't stand a run of lung fever, which had
carried her off.
"Did she mention me?" I asked.
"At the very last," said Doctor Mix, "she said once or twice, 'He had to
work too hard!' I don't know who she meant. Not Rucker, eh?"
I shook my head--I knew what she meant.
"And," said he, "if you can see your way clear to arrange with old
Rucker to pay my bill--winter is on now, and I could use the money."
I pulled out my pocketbook and paid the bill.
"Thank you, my boy," said he, "thank you!"
"I'm glad to do it," I answered--and turned away my head.
"Anything more I can do for you?" asked Doctor Mix, much kinder than
before.
"I'd be much obliged," I replied, "if you could tell me where I can find
some one that'll be able to show me my mother's grave."
"I'll take you there," he said quickly.
We rode to the graveyard in his sleigh, the bells jingling too merrily
by far, I thought; and then to a marble-cutter from whom I bought a
headstone to be put up in the spring. I worked out an epitaph which
Doctor Mix, who seemed to see through the case pretty well, put into
good language, reading as follows: "Here lies the body of Mary Brouwer
Vandemark, born in Ulster County, New York, in 1815; died Madison,
Wisconsin, October 19, 1854. Erected to her memory by her son, Jacob T.
Vandemark." So I cut the name of Rucker from our family record; but, of
course, he never knew.
Then the doctor took me back to the tavern, trying to persuade me on the
way to locate in Madison. He had some vacant lots he wanted to show me;
and said that he and a company of friends had laid out new towns at half
a dozen different places in Wisconsin, and even in Minnesota and Iowa.
Before we got back he saw, though I tried to be civil, that I was not
thinking about what he was saying, and so he let me think in peace; but
he shook hands with me kindly at parting, and wished I could have got
there in September.
"Things might have been different," said he. "You're a darned good boy;
and if you'll stay here till spring I'll get you a job."
2
There was no fire in my room, and it was cold; so there was no place to
sit except in the barroom, which I found deserted but for one man, when
I went back and sat down to think over my future. Should I go back to
the canal? I hated to do this, though all my acquaintances were there,
and the work was of the sort I had learned to do best; besides, here I
was in the West, and all the opportunities of the West were before me,
though it looked cold and dreary just now, and no great chances seemed
lying about for a boy like me. I was perplexed. I had lost my desire for
revenge on Rucker; and just then I felt no ambition, and saw no light. I
was ready, I suppose, to begin a life of drifting; this time with no
aim, not even a remote one--for my one object in life had vanished. But
something in the way of guidance always has come to me at such times;
and it came now. The one man who was in the bar when I came in got up,
and moving over by me, sat down in a chair by my side.
"Cold day," said he.
I agreed, and looked him over carefully. He was a tall man who wore a
long black Prince Albert coat which came down below his knees, a broad
felt hat, and no overcoat. He looked cold, and rather shabby; but he
talked with a good deal of style, and used many big words.
"Stranger here?" he asked.
I admitted that I was.
"May I offer," said he, "the hospitalities of the city in the form of a
hot whisky toddy?"
I thanked him and asked to be excused.
"Your name," he ventured, after clearing his throat, "is Vandemark."
Then I looked at him still more sharply. How did he know my name?
"I have been looking for you," said he, "for some months--some months;
and I was so fortunate as to observe the fact when you made a call last
evening on our fellow-citizen, Doctor Rucker. I was--ahem--consulted
professionally by the late lamented Mrs. Rucker--I am a lawyer,
sir--before her death, for the purpose of securing my services in
looking after the interests of her son, Mr. Jacob H. Vandemark."
"Jacob T. Vandemark," said I.
"Why, damn me," said he, looking again at his book, "it _is_ a 'T.'
Lawyer's writing, Jacob, lawyer's writing--notoriously bad, you know."
I sat thinking about the expression, "the interests of Jacob T.
Vandemark," for a long time; but the truth did not dawn an me, my mind
working slowly as usual.
"What interests?" I asked finally.
"The interest," said he, "of her only child in the estate of Mrs.
Rucker."
Then there recurred to my mind the words in my mother's last letter;
that the money had been paid on the settlement of my father's estate,
and that she and Rucker were coming out West to make a new start in
life. I had never given it a moment's thought before, and should have
gone away without asking anybody a single question about it, if this
scaly pettifogger, as I now know him to have been, had not sidled up
to me.
"The estate," said my new friend, "is small, Jacob; but right is right,
and there is no reason why this man Rucker should not be made to
disgorge every cent that's coming to you--every cent! I know Doctor
Rucker slightly, and I hope I shall not shock you if I say that in my
opinion he would steal the Lord's Supper, and wipe his condemned lousy
red whiskers and his freckled claws with the table-cloth! That's the
kind of pilgrim and stranger Rucker is. He will cheat you out of your
eye teeth, sir, unless you are protected by the best legal talent to be
had--the best to be had--the talent and the advice of the man to whom
your late lamented mother went for counsel."
"Yes," said I after a while, "I think he will."
"That is why your mother," he went on, "advised with me; for even if I
have to say it, I'm a living whirlwind in court. Suppose we have
a drink!"
I sat with my drink before me, slowly sipping it, and trying to see
through this man and the new question he had brought up. Certainly, I
was entitled to my mother's property--all of it by rights, whatever the
law might be--for it came through my father. Surely this lawyer must be
a good man, or my mother wouldn't have consulted him. But when I
mentioned to my new friend, whose name was Jackway, my claim to the
whole estate he assured me that Rucker was the legal owner of his share
in it--I forget how much.
"And," said he, "I make no doubt the old scoundrel has reduced the whole
estate to possession, and is this moment," lowering his voice
secretively, "acting as executor _de son tort_--executor _de son tort_,
sir! I wouldn't put it past him!"
I wrote this, with some other legal expressions in my note-book.
"How can I get this money away from him?" said I, coming to the point.
"Money!" said he. "How do we know it is money? It may be chattels,
goods, wares or merchandise. It may be realty. It may be _choses in
action_. We must require of him a complete discovery. We may have to go
back to the original probate proceedings through which your mother
became seized of this property to obtain the necessary information. How
old are you?"
I told him that I was sixteen the twenty-seventh of the last July.
"A minor," said he; "in law an infant. A guardian _ad litem_ will have
to be appointed to protect your interests, and to bring suit for you. I
shall be glad to serve you, sir, in the name of justice; and to confound
those with whom robbery of the orphan is an occupation, sir, a daily
occupation. Come up to my office with me, and we will begin proceedings
to make Rucker sweat!"
3
But this was too swift for a Vandemark. In spite of his urging, I
insisted that I should have to think it over. He grew almost angry at me
at last, I thought; but he went away finally, after I had taken the hint
he gave and bought him another drink. The next morning he was back
again, urging me to proceed immediately, "so that the property might not
be further sequestrated and wasted." He did not know how slow I was to
think and act; and suspected that I was going to some other lawyer, I
now believe; for I noticed him shadowing me, as the detectives say,
every time I walked out. On the third day, while I was still studying
the matter, and making no progress, Rucker himself came into the tavern,
with his neck bandaged and his head on one side, and in his best
clothes; and sitting on the edge of his chair between me and the door,
as if ready to take wing at any hostile movement on my part, he broached
the subject of my share in my mother's estate.
"I want to deal with you," said he in that dangerous whine of his, "as
with my own son, Jacob, my own son."
There was nothing to say to this, and I said nothing. I only looked at
him. He was studying me closely, but had never taken pains to learn my
peculiarities when I lived with him, and had to study a total stranger,
and a person who was too old to be treated as a child, but who at the
same time must be very green in money matters. I was a puzzle to him,
and my lack of words made me still more of a problem.
"You know, of course," he finally volunteered, "that the estate when it
was finally wound up had mostly been eaten up by court expenses and
lawyers' fees--the robbers!"
I could see he was in earnest in this last remark: but of course
lawyers' fees and court expenses were all a mystery to me. I did not
even know that lawyers and courts had anything to do with estates. I did
not know what an estate was--so I continued to keep still.
"There was hardly anything left," said he.
I was astonished at this; and I did not believe it. After thinking it
over for a few minutes, earnestly, and without any thought of saying
anything to catch him up, I said: "You traveled in good style coming
west on the canal. You took a steamer up the Lakes. You have been
dressing fine ever since the money came in; and you're keeping a woman."
He made no reply, except to say that I did not understand, but would
when he showed me where every cent of the estate money had gone which
he had spent, and just how much was left. As for his daughter--he
supposed I knew--but he never finished this speech. I rose to my feet;
and he left hurriedly, saying that he would show me a statement in the
morning. "I expect to pay your board here," said he, "for a few days,
you know--until you decide to move on--or move back."
For a week or so I refused to talk with Rucker or Jackway; but sat
around and tried to make up my mind what to do. To hire Jackway would
take all my savings; and the schedules which Rucker brought me on
legal-cap paper I refused even to touch with my hands. I am sure, now,
that Rucker had sent Jackway to me in the first place, never suspecting
that the matter of the estate had been so far from my mind; and thereby,
by too much craft, he lost the opportunity of stealing it all. Jackway
kept telling me of Rucker's rascalities, so as to get into my good
graces and confidence, in which he succeeded better than he knew; and
urging me to pay him a few dollars--just a few dollars--"to begin
proceedings to stay waste and sequestration"; but I did not give him
anything because it seemed a first step into something I had not
understood.
4
I began calling on land agents, thinking I might use what little money I
had left to make a first payment on a farm; but the land around Madison
was too high in price for me. Two or three of these real estate agents
were also lawyers; and I caught Rucker and Jackway together, looking
worried and anxious, when I came from the office of one of them who very
kindly informed me that, if he were in my place, he would go across the
Mississippi and settle in Iowa. He had been as far west as Fort Dodge,
and described to me the great prairies, unbroken by the plow, the
railroads which were just ready to cross the Mississippi, the rich soil,
the chance there was to get a home, and to become my own master. I began
to feel an interest in Iowa.
I think these days must have been anxious ones for Rucker, greedy as he
was for my little fortune, ignorant as he was of the depth of the
ignorance of the silent stupid boy with whom he was dealing--and a boy,
too, who had made that one remark about his way of living and traveling
that seemed to show a knowledge of just what he was doing, and had done.
I could see after that, that he thought me much sharper than I was.
Lawyer Jackway haunted the hotel, and was spending more money--Rucker's
money, I know. He had bought a new overcoat, and was drinking a good
deal more than was good for him; but he wormed out of me something about
my desire for a farm, and after having had a chance to see Rucker he
began talking of a compromise.
"The old swindler," said he, "has all the evidence in his own hands; and
he and that red-headed spiritual partner of his will swear to anything.
As your legal adviser," said he, "and the legal adviser of your sainted
mother, I'd advise you to take anything he is willing to give--within
bounds, of course, within bounds."
So the next time Rucker sidled into the tavern, and began beslavering me
about the way the money left by my mother was being eaten up by expenses
and debts, I blurted out: "Well, what will you give me to clear out and
let you and your red-headed woodpecker alone?"
"Now," said he, "you are talking sensibly--sensibly. There is a little
farm-out near Blue Mounds that I could, by a hard struggle, let you
have; but it would be more than your share--more than your share."
This was forty acres, and would have a mortgage on it. I waited a day or
so, and told him I wouldn't take it. What I was afraid of was the
mortgage; but I didn't give my reasons. Then he came back with a vacant
lot in Madison, and then three vacant lots, which I went and looked at,
and found in a swamp. Then I told him I wanted money or farm land; and
he offered me a lead mine near Mineral Point. All the time he was
getting more and more worried and excited; he used to tremble when he
talked to me; and as the winter wore away, and the season drew nearer
when he wanted to go on his travels, or deal with the properties in
which I had found out by this time he was speculating with my mother's
money, just as everybody was speculating then, in mines, town sites,
farm lands, railway stocks and such things, he was on tenter-hooks, I
could see that, to get rid of me, whom he thought he had given the slip
forever. Finally he came to me one morning, just as a warm February wind
had begun to thaw the snow, and said, beaming as if he had found a gold
mine for me: "Jacob, I've got just what you want--a splendid farm
in Iowa."
And he laid on the table the deed to my farm in Vandemark Township, a
section of land in one solid block a mile square. "Of course," said he,
"I can't let you have all of it--'but let us say eighty acres, or even I
might clean up a quarter-section, here along the east side,"--and he
pointed to a plat of it pinned fast to the deed.
"The whole piece," said I, "is worth eight hundred dollars, and not a
cent more--if it's all good land. That ain't enough."
"All good land!" said he--and I could see he was surprised at the fact
that I knew Iowa land was selling at a dollar and a quarter an acre.
"Why, there ain't anything but good land there. You can put a plow in
one corner of that section, and plow every foot of it without taking the
share out of the ground."
"All or nothing," said I, "and more."
Next day he came back and said he would let me have the whole section;
but that it would break him. He wanted to be fair with me--more than
fair. People had set me against him, he said, looking at Jackway who
was drinking at the bar; but nobody could say that he was a man who
would not deal fairly with an ignorant boy.
"I've got to have a team, a wagon, a cover for the wagon, and provisions
for the trip," I said, "and a few hundred dollars to live on for a while
after I get to Iowa."
At this he threw his hands up, and left me, saying that if I wanted to
ruin him I would have to do it through the courts. He had gone as far as
he would go, and I would never have another offer as generous as he had
made me. The next day I met on the street the red-headed girl, who went
by the name of Alice Rucker, and was notorious as a medium. She stopped
me, and asked why I hadn't been to see her--carrying the conversation
off casually, as if we had been ordinary acquaintances. All I could
say--for I was a little embarrassed, was "I do' know"--which was what I
had told Rucker and Jackway, in answer to a thousand questions, until
they were crazy to know how to come at me.
"Let me tell you something," said she. "If you want that Iowa farm,
pa--"
"Who?" said I.
"Rucker," said she, brazening it out with me. "He'll give you the land,
and your outfit. Don't let them fool you out of the team and wagon."
"Thank you for telling me," said I; "but I guess I'll have to have
more."
"If you go into court he'll beat you," said she, "and I'm telling you
that as a friend, even if you don't believe me."
"I'm much obliged," I said; and I believed then, and believe now, that
she was sincere.
"And when you start," said she, "if you want some one to cook and take
care of you, let me know. I like traveling."
I turned red at this; and halted and mumbled, until she tripped away,
laughing, but looking back at me; but I remembered what she had said,
and within a week I had consented that Jackway be appointed guardian _ad
litem_ for me in the court proceedings; and in a short time I received a
good team of mares, a bay named Fanny and a sorrel named Flora, good,
twelve hundred pound chunks, but thin in flesh--I would not take
geldings--a wagon, nearly new, a set of wagon bows, enough heavy
drilling to make a cover, some bedding, a stove, an old double-barreled
shotgun, two pounds of powder and a lot of shot, harness for the team,
horse-feed, and as complete an outfit as I could think of, even to the
box of axle-grease swinging under the wagon-box. Rucker groaned at every
addition; and finally balked when I asked him for a hundred dollars in
cash. The court entered up the proper decree, I put my deeds in my
pocket, and after making a feed-box for the horses to hang on the back
of the wagon-box, I pulled out for Iowa three weeks too soon--for the
roads were not yet settled.
5
The night before I started, I sat in the warm barroom, half pleased and
half frightened at the new world into which I was about to enter,
thinking of my new wagon and the complete equipage of emigration now
shown to be mine by the bills of sale and deeds in my pocket, and
occasionally putting my fingers to my nose to catch the good smell of
the horse which soap and water had not quite removed. This scent I had
acquired by currying and combing my mares for hours, clipping their
manes and fetlocks, and handling them all over to see if they were free
from blemishes. The lawyer, Jackway, my guardian _ad litem_, came into
the tavern in a high and mighty and popular way, saying "How de do,
ward?" in a way I didn't like, went to the bar and throwing down a big
piece of money began drinking one glass after another.
As he drank he grew boastful. He bragged to the men about him of his
ability. Nobody ever hired Jackway to care for his interests, said he,
without having his interests taken care of.
"You can go out," said he to a peaceful-looking man who stood watching
him, "into the street there, and stab the first man you meet, and
Jackway'll get you clear. I'm a living whirlwind! And," looking at me as
I sat in the chair by the wall, "you can steal a woman's estate and I'll
get it away from her heirs for you."
I wondered if he meant me. I hardly believed that he could; for all the
while he had made a great to-do about protecting my interests; and I now
remembered that he had taken an oath to do so. But he kept sneering at
me all the evening, and just as I was leaving to go to bed, he called
the crowd up to drink with him.
"This is on the estate," he hiccoughed--for he was very drunk by this
time--"and I'll give you a toast."
They all lined up, slapping him on the back; and as I stood in the door,
they all lifted their glasses, and Jackway gave them what he called his
"toast," which ran as follows:
"Sold again
And got the tin,
And sucked another Dutchman in!"
He paid out of a fat pocketbook, staggering, and pointing at me and
looking like a tipsy imp of some sort; and finally he started over
toward me, saying, "Hey, Dutchman! Wait a minute an' I'll tell you how
you got sucked in!"
I grew suddenly very angry; and slammed the door in his face to prevent
myself from doing him harm. I had not yet seen why I ought to do him
harm; and along the road to Iowa, I was all the time wondering why I got
madder and madder at Jackway; and that rhyme kept running through my
mind, oftener and oftener, as I drew nearer and nearer my journey's end:
"Sold again
And got the tin,
And sucked another Dutchman in!"
It was in the latter part of March. There were snowdrifts in places
along the road, and when I reached a place about where Mt. Horeb now is,
I had to stop and lie up for three days for a snow-storm. I was ahead
of the stream of immigrants that poured over that road in the spring of
1855 in a steady tide.
As I made my start from Madison I saw Rucker and Alice standing at the
door of the tavern seemingly making sure that I was really getting out
of town. He dodged back into the house when I glanced at them; but she
walked out into the street and stopped me, as bold as brass.
"I'm waiting," said she. "Where shall I ride?" And she put one foot on
the hub and stepped up with the other into the wagon box.
"I'm just pulling out for Iowa," I said, my face as red as her hair, I
suppose.
"_We're_ just pulling out," said she.
"I've got to move on," said I; "be careful or you'll get your dress
muddy on the wheel."
She couldn't have expected me to take her, of course; but I thought she
looked kind of hurt. There seemed to be something like tears in her eyes
as she put her arms around my neck.
"Kiss your little step-sister good-by," she said. "She's been a better
friend of yours than you'll ever know--you big, nice, blundering
greenhorn!"
She laid her lips on mine. It was the first kiss I had ever had from any
one since I was a little boy; and as I half struggled against but
finally returned it, it thrilled me powerfully. Afterward I was
disgusted with myself for kissing this castaway; but as I drove on,
leaving her standing in the middle of the road looking after me, it
almost seemed as if I were leaving a friend. Perhaps she was, in her
way, the nearest thing to a friend I had then in the world--strange as
it seems. As for Rucker, he was rejoicing, of course, at having trimmed
neatly a dumb-head of a Dutch boy--a wrong to my poor mother, the very
thought of which even after all these years, makes my blood boil.