We Move Again
One day there came into our home a strange man who spoke in a fashion
new to me. He was a middle-aged rather formal individual, dressed in a
rough gray suit, and father alluded to him privately as "that English
duke." I didn't know exactly what he meant by this, but our visitor's
talk gave me a vague notion of "the old country."
"My home," he said, "is near Manchester. I have come to try farming in
the American wilderness."
He was kindly, and did his best to be democratic, but we children stood
away from him, wondering what he was doing in our house. My mother
disliked him from the start for as he took his seat at our dinner table,
he drew from his pocket a case in which he carried a silver fork and
spoon and a silver-handled knife. Our cutlery was not good enough for
him!
Every family that we knew at that time used three-tined steel forks and
my mother naturally resented the implied criticism of her table ware. I
heard her say to my father, "If our ways don't suit your English friend
he'd better go somewhere else for his meals."
This fastidious pioneer also carried a revolver, for he believed that
having penetrated far into a dangerous country, he was in danger, and I
am not at all sure but that he was right, for the Minnesota woods at
this time were filled with horse-thieves and counterfeiters, and it was
known that many of these landhunting Englishmen carried large sums of
gold on their persons.
We resented our guest still more when we found that he was trying to buy
our lovely farm and that father was already half-persuaded. We loved
this farm. We loved the log house, and the oaks which sheltered it, and
we especially valued the glorious spring and the plum trees which stood
near it, but father was still dreaming of the free lands of the farther
west, and early in March he sold to the Englishman and moved us all to a
rented place some six miles directly west, in the township of Burr Oak.
This was but a temporary lodging, a kind of camping place, for no sooner
were his fields seeded than he set forth once again with a covered
wagon, eager to explore the open country to the north and west of us.
The wood and prairie land of Winnesheik County did not satisfy him,
although it seemed to me then, as it does now, the fulfillment of his
vision, the realization of our song.
For several weeks he travelled through southern Minnesota and northern
Iowa, always in search of the perfect farm, and when he returned, just
before harvest, he was able to report that he had purchased a quarter
section of "the best land in Mitchell County" and that after harvest we
would all move again.
If my mother resented this third removal she made no comment which I can
now recall. I suspect that she went rather willingly this time, for her
brother David wrote that he had also located in Mitchell County, not two
miles from the place my father had decided upon for our future home, and
Samantha, her younger sister, had settled in Minnesota. The circle in
Neshonoc seemed about to break up. A mighty spreading and shifting was
going on all over the west, and no doubt my mother accepted her part in
it without especial protest.
Our life in Burr Oak township that summer was joyous for us children. It
seems to have been almost all sunshine and play. As I reflect upon it I
relive many delightful excursions into the northern woods. It appears
that Harriet and I were in continual harvest of nuts and berries. Our
walks to school were explorations and we spent nearly every Saturday and
Sunday in minute study of the country-side, devouring everything which
was remotely edible. We gorged upon May-apples until we were ill, and
munched black cherries until we were dizzy with their fumes. We
clambered high trees to collect baskets of wild grapes which our mother
could not use, and we garnered nuts with the insatiable greed of
squirrels. We ate oak-shoots, fern-roots, leaves, bark,
seed-balls,--everything!--not because we were hungry but because we
loved to experiment, and we came home, only when hungry or worn out or
in awe of the darkness.
It was a delightful season, full of the most satisfying companionship
and yet of the names of my playmates I can seize upon only two--the
others have faded from the tablets of my memory. I remember Ned who
permitted me to hold his plow, and Perry who taught me how to tame the
half-wild colts that filled his father's pasture. Together we spent long
days lassoing--or rather snaring--the feet of these horses and subduing
them to the halter. We had many fierce struggles but came out of them
all without a serious injury.
Late in August my father again loaded our household goods into wagons,
and with our small herd of cattle following, set out toward the west,
bound once again to overtake the actual line of the middle border.
This journey has an unforgettable epic charm as I look back upon it.
Each mile took us farther and farther into the unsettled prairie until
in the afternoon of the second day, we came to a meadow so wide that
its western rim touched the sky without revealing a sign of man's
habitation other than the road in which we travelled.
The plain was covered with grass tall as ripe wheat and when my father
stopped his team and came back to us and said, "Well, children, here we
are on The Big Prairie," we looked about us with awe, so endless seemed
this spread of wild oats and waving blue-joint.
Far away dim clumps of trees showed, but no chimney was in sight, and no
living thing moved save our own cattle and the hawks lazily wheeling in
the air. My heart filled with awe as well as wonder. The majesty of this
primeval world exalted me. I felt for the first time the poetry of the
unplowed spaces. It seemed that the "herds of deer and buffalo" of our
song might, at any moment, present themselves,--but they did not, and my
father took no account even of the marsh fowl.
"Forward march!" he shouted, and on we went.
Hour after hour he pushed into the west, the heads of his tired horses
hanging ever lower, and on my mother's face the shadow deepened, but her
chieftain's voice cheerily urging his team lost nothing of its clarion
resolution. He was in his element. He loved this shelterless sweep of
prairie. This westward march entranced him, I think he would have gladly
kept on until the snowy wall of the Rocky Mountains met his eyes, for he
was a natural explorer.
Sunset came at last, but still he drove steadily on through the sparse
settlements. Just at nightfall we came to a beautiful little stream, and
stopped to let the horses drink. I heard its rippling, reassuring song
on the pebbles. Thereafter all is dim and vague to me until my mother
called out sharply, "Wake up, children! Here we are!"
Struggling to my feet I looked about me. Nothing could be seen but the
dim form of a small house.--On every side the land melted into
blackness, silent and without boundary.
Driving into the yard, father hastily unloaded one of the wagons and
taking mother and Harriet and Jessie drove away to spend the night with
Uncle David who had preceded us, as I now learned, and was living on a
farm not far away. My brother and I were left to camp as best we could
with the hired man.
Spreading a rude bed on the floor, he told us to "hop in" and in ten
minutes we were all fast asleep.
* * * * *
The sound of a clattering poker awakened me next morning and when I
opened my sleepy eyes and looked out a new world displayed itself before
me.
The cabin faced a level plain with no tree in sight. A mile away to the
west stood a low stone house and immediately in front of us opened a
half-section of unfenced sod. To the north, as far as I could see, the
land billowed like a russet ocean, with scarcely a roof to fleck its
lonely spread.--I cannot say that I liked or disliked it. I merely
marvelled at it, and while I wandered about the yard, the hired man
scorched some cornmeal mush in a skillet and this with some butter and
gingerbread, made up my first breakfast in Mitchell County.
An hour or two later father and mother and the girls returned and the
work of setting up the stove and getting the furniture in place began.
In a very short time the experienced clock was voicing its contentment
on a new shelf, and the kettle was singing busily on its familiar stove.
Once more and for the sixth time since her marriage, Belle Garland
adjusted herself to a pioneer environment, comforted no doubt by the
knowledge that David and Deborah were near and that her father was
coming soon. No doubt she also congratulated herself on the fact that
she had not been carried beyond the Missouri River--and that her house
was not "surrounded by Indians who murder by night."
A few hours later, while my brother and I were on the roof of the house
with intent to peer "over the edge of the prairie" something grandly
significant happened. Upon a low hill to the west a herd of horses
suddenly appeared running swiftly, led by a beautiful sorrel pony with
shining white mane. On they came, like a platoon of cavalry rushing down
across the open sod which lay before our door. The leader moved with
lofty and graceful action, easily out-stretching all his fellows.
Forward they swept, their long tails floating in the wind like
banners,--on in a great curve as if scenting danger in the smoke of our
fire. The thunder of their feet filled me with delight. Surely, next to
a herd of buffalo this squadron of wild horses was the most satisfactory
evidence of the wilderness into which we had been thrust.
Riding as if to intercept the leader, a solitary herder now appeared,
mounted upon a horse which very evidently was the mate of the leader. He
rode magnificently, and under him the lithe mare strove resolutely to
overtake and head off the leader.--All to no purpose! The halterless
steeds of the prairie snorted derisively at their former companion,
bridled and saddled, and carrying the weight of a master. Swiftly they
thundered across the sod, dropped into a ravine, and disappeared in a
cloud of dust.
Silently we watched the rider turn and ride slowly homeward. The plain
had become our new domain, the horseman our ideal.