Our First Winter on the Prairie
For a few days my brother and I had little to do other than to keep the
cattle from straying, and we used our leisure in becoming acquainted
with the region round about.
It burned deep into our memories, this wide, sunny, windy country. The
sky so big, and the horizon line so low and so far away, made this new
world of the plain more majestic than the world of the Coulee.--The
grasses and many of the flowers were also new to us. On the uplands the
herbage was short and dry and the plants stiff and woody, but in the
swales the wild oat shook its quivers of barbed and twisted arrows, and
the crow's foot, tall and sere, bowed softly under the feet of the wind,
while everywhere, in the lowlands as well as on the ridges, the
bleaching white antlers of by-gone herbivora lay scattered, testifying
to "the herds of deer and buffalo" which once fed there. We were just a
few years too late to see them.
To the south the sections were nearly all settled upon, for in that
direction lay the county town, but to the north and on into Minnesota
rolled the unplowed sod, the feeding ground of the cattle, the home of
foxes and wolves, and to the west, just beyond the highest ridges, we
loved to think the bison might still be seen.
The cabin on this rented farm was a mere shanty, a shell of pine boards,
which needed re-enforcing to make it habitable and one day my father
said, "Well, Hamlin, I guess you'll have to run the plow-team this
fall. I must help neighbor Button wall up the house and I can't afford
to hire another man."
This seemed a fine commission for a lad of ten, and I drove my horses
into the field that first morning with a manly pride which added an inch
to my stature. I took my initial "round" at a "land" which stretched
from one side of the quarter section to the other, in confident mood. I
was grown up!
But alas! my sense of elation did not last long. To guide a team for a
few minutes as an experiment was one thing--to plow all day like a hired
hand was another. It was not a chore, it was a job. It meant moving to
and fro hour after hour, day after day, with no one to talk to but the
horses. It meant trudging eight or nine miles in the forenoon and as
many more in the afternoon, with less than an hour off at noon. It meant
dragging the heavy implement around the corners, and it meant also many
ship-wrecks, for the thick, wet stubble matted with wild buckwheat often
rolled up between the coulter and the standard and threw the share
completely out of the ground, making it necessary for me to halt the
team and jerk the heavy plow backward for a new start.
Although strong and active I was rather short, even for a ten-year-old,
and to reach the plow handles I was obliged to lift my hands above my
shoulders; and so with the guiding lines crossed over my back and my
worn straw hat bobbing just above the cross-brace I must have made a
comical figure. At any rate nothing like it had been seen in the
neighborhood and the people on the road to town looking across the
field, laughed and called to me, and neighbor Button said to my father
in my hearing, "That chap's too young to run a plow," a judgment which
pleased and flattered me greatly.
Harriet cheered me by running out occasionally to meet me as I turned
the nearest corner, and sometimes Frank consented to go all the way
around, chatting breathlessly as he trotted along behind. At other times
he was prevailed upon to bring to me a cookie and a glass of milk, a
deed which helped to shorten the forenoon. And yet, notwithstanding all
these ameliorations, plowing became tedious.
The flies were savage, especially in the middle of the day, and the
horses, tortured by their lances, drove badly, twisting and turning in
their despairing rage. Their tails were continually getting over the
lines, and in stopping to kick their tormentors from their bellies they
often got astride the traces, and in other ways made trouble for me.
Only in the early morning or when the sun sank low at night were they
able to move quietly along their ways.
The soil was the kind my father had been seeking, a smooth dark sandy
loam, which made it possible for a lad to do the work of a man. Often
the share would go the entire "round" without striking a root or a
pebble as big as a walnut, the steel running steadily with a crisp
craunching ripping sound which I rather liked to hear. In truth work
would have been quite tolerable had it not been so long drawn out. Ten
hours of it even on a fine day made about twice too many for a boy.
Meanwhile I cheered myself in every imaginable way. I whistled. I sang.
I studied the clouds. I gnawed the beautiful red skin from the seed
vessels which hung upon the wild rose bushes, and I counted the prairie
chickens as they began to come together in winter flocks running through
the stubble in search of food. I stopped now and again to examine the
lizards unhoused by the share, tormenting them to make them sweat their
milky drops (they were curiously repulsive to me), and I measured the
little granaries of wheat which the mice and gophers had deposited deep
under the ground, storehouses which the plow had violated. My eyes dwelt
enviously upon the sailing hawk, and on the passing of ducks. The
occasional shadowy figure of a prairie wolf made me wish for Uncle David
and his rifle.
On certain days nothing could cheer me. When the bitter wind blew from
the north, and the sky was filled with wild geese racing southward, with
swiftly-hurrying clouds, winter seemed about to spring upon me. The
horses' tails streamed in the wind. Flurries of snow covered me with
clinging flakes, and the mud "gummed" my boots and trouser legs,
clogging my steps. At such times I suffered from cold and
loneliness--all sense of being a man evaporated. I was just a little
boy, longing for the leisure of boyhood.
Day after day, through the month of October and deep into November, I
followed that team, turning over two acres of stubble each day. I would
not believe this without proof, but it is true! At last it grew so cold
that in the early morning everything was white with frost and I was
obliged to put one hand in my pocket to keep it warm, while holding the
plow with the other, but I didn't mind this so much, for it hinted at
the close of autumn. I've no doubt facing the wind in this way was
excellent discipline, but I didn't think it necessary then and my heart
was sometimes bitter and rebellious.
The soldier did not intend to be severe. As he had always been an early
riser and a busy toiler it seemed perfectly natural and good discipline,
that his sons should also plow and husk corn at ten years of age. He
often told of beginning life as a "bound boy" at nine, and these stories
helped me to perform my own tasks without whining. I feared to voice my
weakness.
At last there came a morning when by striking my heel upon the ground I
convinced my boss that the soil was frozen too deep for the mold-board
to break. "All right," he said, "you may lay off this forenoon."
Oh, those beautiful hours of respite! With time to play or read I
usually read, devouring anything I could lay my hands upon. Newspapers,
whether old or new, or pasted on the wall or piled up in the
attic,--anything in print was wonderful to me. One enthralling book,
borrowed from Neighbor Button, was _The Female Spy_, a Tale of the
Rebellion. Another treasure was a story called _Cast Ashore_, but this
volume unfortunately was badly torn and fifty pages were missing so that
I never knew, and do not know to this day, how those indomitable
shipwrecked seamen reached their English homes. I dimly recall that one
man carried a pet monkey on his back and that they all lived on
"Bustards."
Finally the day came when the ground rang like iron under the feet of
the horses, and a bitter wind, raw and gusty, swept out of the
northwest, bearing gray veils of sleet. Winter had come! Work in the
furrow had ended. The plow was brought in, cleaned and greased to
prevent its rusting, and while the horses munched their hay in
well-earned holiday, father and I helped farmer Button husk the last of
his corn.
Osman Button, a quaint and interesting man of middle age, was a native
of York State and retained many of the traditions of his old home
strangely blent with a store of vivid memories of Colorado, Utah and
California, for he had been one of the gold-seekers of the early
fifties. He loved to spin yarns of "When I was in gold camps," and he
spun them well. He was short and bent and spoke in a low voice with a
curious nervous sniff, but his diction was notably precise and clear. He
was a man of judgment, and a citizen of weight and influence. From O.
Button I got my first definite notion of Bret Harte's country, and of
the long journey which they of the ox team had made in search of
Eldorado.
His family "mostly boys and girls" was large, yet they all lived in a
low limestone house which he had built (he said) to serve as a granary
till he should find time to erect a suitable dwelling. In order to make
the point dramatic, I will say that he was still living in the "granary"
when last I called on him thirty years later!
A warm friendship sprang up between him and my father, and he was often
at our house but his gaunt and silent wife seldom accompanied him. She
was kindly and hospitable, but a great sufferer. She never laughed, and
seldom smiled, and so remains a pathetic figure in all my memories of
the household.
The younger Button children, Eva and Cyrus, became our companions in
certain of our activities, but as they were both very sedate and slow of
motion, they seldom joined us in our livelier sports. They were both
much older than their years. Cyrus at this time was almost as venerable
as his father, although his years were, I suppose, about seventeen.
Albert and Lavinia, we heard, were much given to dancing and parties.
One night as we were all seated around the kerosene lamp my father said,
"Well, Belle, I suppose we'll have to take these young ones down to town
and fit 'em out for school." These words so calmly uttered filled our
minds with visions of new boots, new caps and new books, and though we
went obediently to bed we hardly slept, so excited were we, and at
breakfast next morning not one of us could think of food. All our
desires converged upon the wondrous expedition--our first visit to town.
Our only carriage was still the lumber wagon but it had now two spring
seats, one for father, mother and Jessie, and one for Harriet, Frank and
myself. No one else had anything better, hence we had no sense of being
poorly outfitted. We drove away across the frosty prairie toward
Osage--moderately comfortable and perfectly happy.
Osage was only a little town, a village of perhaps twelve hundred
inhabitants, but to me as we drove down its Main Street, it was almost
as impressive as LaCrosse had been. Frank clung close to father, and
mother led Jessie, leaving Harriet and me to stumble over nail-kegs and
dodge whiffle trees what time our eyes absorbed jars of pink and white
candy, and sought out boots and buckskin mittens. Whenever Harriet spoke
she whispered, and we pointed at each shining object with cautious
care.--Oh! the marvellous exotic smells! Odors of salt codfish and
spices, calico and kerosene, apples and ginger-snaps mingle in my mind
as I write.
Each of us soon carried a candy marble in his or her cheek (as a
chipmunk carries a nut) and Frank and I stood like sturdy hitching posts
whilst the storekeeper with heavy hands screwed cotton-plush caps upon
our heads,--but the most exciting moment, the crowning joy of the day,
came with the buying of our new boots.--If only father had not insisted
on our taking those which were a size too large for us!
They were real boots. No one but a Congressman wore "gaiters" in those
days. War fashions still dominated the shoe-shops, and high-topped
cavalry boots were all but universal. They were kept in boxes under the
counter or ranged in rows on a shelf and were of all weights and degrees
of fineness. The ones I selected had red tops with a golden moon in the
center but my brother's taste ran to blue tops decorated with a golden
flag. Oh! that deliciously oily _new_ smell! My heart glowed every time
I looked at mine. I was especially pleased because they did _not_ have
copper toes. Copper toes belonged to little boys. A youth who had
plowed seventy acres of land could not reasonably be expected to dress
like a child.--How smooth and delightfully stiff they felt on my feet.
Then came our new books, a McGuffey reader, a Mitchell geography, a
Ray's arithmetic, and a slate. The books had a delightful new smell
also, and there was singular charm in the smooth surface of the unmarked
slates. I was eager to carve my name in the frame. At last with our
treasures under the seat (so near that we could feel them), with our
slates and books in our laps we jolted home, dreaming of school and
snow. To wade in the drifts with our fine high-topped boots was now our
desire.
It is strange but I cannot recall how my mother looked on this trip.
Even my father's image is faint and vague (I remember only his keen
eagle-gray terrifying eyes), but I can see every acre of that rented
farm. I can tell you exactly how the house looked. It was an unpainted
square cottage and stood bare on the sod at the edge of Dry Run ravine.
It had a small lean-to on the eastern side and a sitting room and
bedroom below. Overhead was a low unplastered chamber in which we
children slept. As it grew too cold to use the summer kitchen we cooked,
ate and lived in the square room which occupied the entire front of the
two story upright, and which was, I suppose, sixteen feet square. As our
attic was warmed only by the stove-pipe, we older children of a frosty
morning made extremely simple and hurried toilets. On very cold days we
hurried down stairs to dress beside the kitchen fire.
Our furniture was of the rudest sort. I cannot recall a single piece in
our house or in our neighbors' houses that had either beauty or
distinction. It was all cheap and worn, for this was the middle border,
and nearly all our neighbors had moved as we had done in covered
wagons. Farms were new, houses were mere shanties, and money was scarce.
"War times" and "war prices" were only just beginning to change. Our
clothing was all cheap and ill fitting. The women and children wore
home-made "cotton flannel" underclothing for the most part, and the men
wore rough, ready-made suits over which they drew brown denim blouses or
overalls to keep them clean.
Father owned a fine buffalo overcoat (so much of his song's promise was
redeemed) and we possessed two buffalo robes for use in our winter
sleigh, but mother had only a sad coat and a woolen shawl. How she kept
warm I cannot now understand--I think she stayed at home on cold days.
All of the boys wore long trousers, and even my eight year old brother
looked like a miniature man with his full-length overalls, high-topped
boots and real suspenders. As for me I carried a bandanna in my hip
pocket and walked with determined masculine stride.
My mother, like all her brothers and sisters, was musical and played the
violin--or fiddle, as we called it,--and I have many dear remembrances
of her playing. _Napoleon's March_, _Money Musk_, _The Devil's Dream_
and half-a-dozen other simple tunes made up her repertoire. It was very
crude music of course but it added to the love and admiration in which
her children always held her. Also in some way we had fallen heir to a
Prince melodeon--one that had belonged to the McClintocks, but only my
sister played on that.
Once at a dance in neighbor Button's house, mother took the "dare" of
the fiddler and with shy smile played _The Fisher's Hornpipe_ or some
other simple melody and was mightily cheered at the close of it, a brief
performance which she refused to repeat. Afterward she and my father
danced and this seemed a very wonderful performance, for to us they were
"old"--far past such frolicking, although he was but forty and she
thirty-one!
At this dance I heard, for the first time, the local professional
fiddler, old Daddy Fairbanks, as quaint a character as ever entered
fiction, for he was not only butcher and horse doctor but a renowned
musician as well. Tall, gaunt and sandy, with enormous nose and sparse
projecting teeth, he was to me the most enthralling figure at this dance
and his queer "Calls" and his "York State" accent filled us all with
delight. "_Ally_ man left," "Chassay _by_ your pardners," "Dozy-do"
were some of the phrases he used as he played _Honest John_ and
_Haste to the Wedding_. At times he sang his calls in high nasal chant,
"_First_ lady lead to the _right_, deedle, deedle dum-dum--
_gent_ foller after--dally-deedle-do-do--_three_ hands round"--and
everybody laughed with frank enjoyment of his words and action.
It was a joy to watch him "start the set." With fiddle under his chin he
took his seat in a big chair on the kitchen table in order to command
the floor. "Farm on, farm on!" he called disgustedly. "Lively now!" and
then, when all the couples were in position, with one mighty No. 14 boot
uplifted, with bow laid to strings he snarled, "Already--GELANG!" and with
a thundering crash his foot came down, "Honors TEW your pardners--right and
left FOUR!" And the dance was on!
I suspect his fiddlin' was not even "middlin'," but he beat time fairly
well and kept the dancers somewhere near to rhythm, and so when his
ragged old cap went round he often got a handful of quarters for his
toil. He always ate two suppers, one at the beginning of the party and
another at the end. He had a high respect for the skill of my Uncle
David and was grateful to him and other better musicians for their
non-interference with his professional engagements.
The school-house which was to be the center of our social life stood on
the bare prairie about a mile to the southwest and like thousands of
other similar buildings in the west, had not a leaf to shade it in
summer nor a branch to break the winds of savage winter. "There's been a
good deal of talk about setting out a wind-break," neighbor Button
explained to us, "but nothing has as yet been done." It was merely a
square pine box painted a glaring white on the outside and a desolate
drab within; at least drab was the original color, but the benches were
mainly so greasy and hacked that original intentions were obscured. It
had two doors on the eastern end and three windows on each side.
A long square stove (standing on slender legs in a puddle of bricks), a
wooden chair, and a rude table in one corner, for the use of the
teacher, completed the movable furniture. The walls were roughly
plastered and the windows had no curtains.
It was a barren temple of the arts even to the residents of Dry Run, and
Harriet and I, stealing across the prairie one Sunday morning to look
in, came away vaguely depressed. We were fond of school and never missed
a day if we could help it, but this neighborhood center seemed small and
bleak and poor.
With what fear, what excitement we approached the door on that first
day, I can only faintly indicate. All the scholars were strange to me
except Albert and Cyrus Button, and I was prepared for rough treatment.
However, the experience was not so harsh as I had feared. True, Rangely
Field did throw me down and wash my face in snow, and Jack Sweet tripped
me up once or twice, but I bore these indignities with such grace and
could command, and soon made a place for myself among the boys.
Burton Babcock was my seat-mate, and at once became my chum. You will
hear much of him in this chronicle. He was two years older than I and
though pale and slim was unusually swift and strong for his age. He was
a silent lad, curiously timid in his classes and not at ease with his
teachers.
I cannot recover much of that first winter of school. It was not an
experience to remember for its charm. Not one line of grace, not one
touch of color relieved the room's bare walls or softened its harsh
windows. Perhaps this very barrenness gave to the poetry in our readers
an appeal that seems magical, certainly it threw over the faces of
Frances Babcock and Mary Abbie Gammons a lovelier halo.--They were "the
big girls" of the school, that is to say, they were seventeen or
eighteen years old,--and Frances was the special terror of the teacher,
a pale and studious pigeon-toed young man who was preparing for college.
In spite of the cold, the boys played open air games all winter. "Dog
and Deer," "Dare Gool" and "Fox and Geese" were our favorite diversions,
and the wonder is that we did not all die of pneumonia, for we battled
so furiously during each recess that we often came in wet with
perspiration and coughing so hard that for several minutes recitations
were quite impossible.--But we were a hardy lot and none of us seemed
the worse for our colds.
There was not much chivalry in the school--quite the contrary, for it
was dominated by two or three big rough boys and the rest of us took our
tone from them. To protect a girl, to shield her from remark or
indignity required a good deal of bravery and few of us were strong
enough to do it. Girls were foolish, ridiculous creatures, set apart to
be laughed at or preyed upon at will. To shame them was a great
joke.--How far I shared in these barbarities I cannot say but that I did
share in them I know, for I had very little to do with my sister Harriet
after crossing the school-house yard. She kept to her tribe as I to
mine.
This winter was made memorable also by a "revival" which came over the
district with sudden fury. It began late in the winter--fortunately, for
it ended all dancing and merry-making for the time. It silenced Daddy
Fairbanks' fiddle and subdued my mother's glorious voice to a wail. A
cloud of puritanical gloom settled upon almost every household. Youth
and love became furtive and hypocritic.
The evangelist, one of the old-fashioned shouting, hysterical,
ungrammatical, gasping sort, took charge of the services, and in his
exhortations phrases descriptive of lakes of burning brimstone and ages
of endless torment abounded. Some of the figures of speech and violent
gestures of the man still linger in my mind, but I will not set them
down on paper. They are too dreadful to perpetuate. At times he roared
with such power that he could have been heard for half a mile.
And yet we went, night by night, mother, father, Jessie, all of us. It
was our theater. Some of the roughest characters in the neighborhood
rose and professed repentance, for a season, even old Barton, the
profanest man in the township, experienced a "change of heart."
We all enjoyed the singing, and joined most lustily in the tunes. Even
little Jessie learned to sing _Heavenly Wings_, _There is a Fountain
filled with Blood_, and _Old Hundred_.
As I peer back into that crowded little schoolroom, smothering hot and
reeking with lamp smoke, and recall the half-lit, familiar faces of the
congregation, it all has the quality of a vision, something experienced
in another world. The preacher, leaping, sweating, roaring till the
windows rattle, the mothers with sleeping babes in their arms, the
sweet, strained faces of the girls, the immobile wondering men, are
spectral shadows, figures encountered in the phantasmagoria of
disordered sleep.