The Land of the Dakotas
The movement of settlers toward Dakota had now become an exodus, a
stampede. Hardly anything else was talked about as neighbors met one
another on the road or at the Burr Oak school-house on Sundays. Every
man who could sell out had gone west or was going. In vain did the
county papers and Farmer's Institute lecturers advise cattle raising and
plead for diversified tillage, predicting wealth for those who held on;
farmer after farmer joined the march to Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota.
"We are wheat raisers," they said, "and we intend to keep in the wheat
belt."
Our own family group was breaking up. My uncle David of pioneer spirit
had already gone to the far Missouri Valley. Rachel had moved to
Georgia, and Grandad McClintock was with his daughters, Samantha and
Deborah, in western Minnesota. My mother, thus widely separated from her
kin, resigned herself once more to the thought of founding a new home.
Once more she sang, "O'er the hills in legions, boys," with such spirit
as she could command, her clear voice a little touched with the
huskiness of regret.
I confess I sympathized in some degree with my father's new design.
There was something large and fine in the business of wheat-growing, and
to have a plague of insects arise just as our harvesting machinery was
reaching such perfection that we could handle our entire crop without
hired help, was a tragic, abominable injustice. I could not blame him
for his resentment and dismay.
My personal plans were now confused and wavering. I had no intention of
joining this westward march; on the contrary, I was looking toward
employment as a teacher, therefore my last weeks at the Seminary were
shadowed by a cloud of uncertainty and vague alarm. It seemed a time of
change, and immense, far-reaching, portentous readjustment. Our
homestead was sold, my world was broken up. "What am I to do?" was my
question.
Father had settled upon Ordway, Brown County, South Dakota, as his
future home, and immediately after my graduation, he and my brother set
forth into the new country to prepare the way for the family's removal,
leaving me to go ahead with the harvest alone. It fell out, therefore,
that immediately after my flowery oration on _Going West_ I found myself
more of a slave to the cattle than ever before in my life.
Help was scarce; I could not secure even so much as a boy to aid in
milking the cows; I was obliged to work double time in order to set up
the sheaves of barley which were in danger of mouldering on the wet
ground. I worked with a kind of bitter, desperate pleasure, saying,
"This is the last time I shall ever lift a bundle of this accursed
stuff."
And then, to make the situation worse, in raising some heavy machinery
connected with the self-binder, I strained my side so seriously that I
was unable to walk. This brought the harvesting to a stand, and made my
father's return necessary. For several weeks I hobbled about, bent like
a gnome, and so helped to reap what the chinch bugs had left, while my
mother prepared to "follow the sunset" with her "Boss."
September first was the day set for saying good-bye to Dry Run, and it
so happened that her wedding anniversary fell close upon the same date
and our neighbors, having quietly passed the word around, came together
one Sunday afternoon to combine a farewell dinner with a Silver Wedding
"surprise party."
Mother saw nothing strange in the coming of the first two carriages, the
Buttons often came driving in that way,--but when the Babcocks, the
Coles, and the Gilchrists clattered in with smiling faces, we all stood
in the yard transfixed with amazement. "What's the meaning of all this?"
asked my father.
No one explained. The women calmly clambered down from their vehicles,
bearing baskets and bottles and knobby parcels, and began instant and
concerted bustle of preparation. The men tied their horses to the fence
and hunted up saw-horses and planks, and soon a long table was spread
beneath the trees on the lawn. One by one other teams came whirling into
the yard. The assembly resembled a "vandoo" as Asa Walker said. "It's
worse than that," laughed Mrs. Turner. "It's a silver wedding and a
'send off' combined."
They would not let either the "bride" or the "groom" do a thing, and
with smiling resignation my mother folded her hands and sank into a
chair. "All right," she said. "I am perfectly willing to sit by and see
you do the work. I won't have another chance right away." And there was
something sad in her voice. She could not forget that this was the
beginning of a new pioneering adventure.
The shadows were long on the grass when at the close of the supper old
John Gammons rose to make a speech and present the silver tea set. His
voice was tremulous with emotion as he spoke of the loss which the
neighborhood was about to suffer, and tears were in many eyes when
father made reply. The old soldier's voice failed him several times
during his utterance of the few short sentences he was able to frame,
and at last he was obliged to take his seat, and blow his nose very hard
on his big bandanna handkerchief to conceal his emotion.
It was a very touching and beautiful moment to me, for as I looked
around upon that little group of men and women, rough-handed, bent and
worn with toil, silent and shadowed with the sorrow of parting, I
realized as never before the high place my parents had won in the
estimation of their neighbors. It affected me still more deeply to see
my father stammer and flush with uncontrollable emotion. I had thought
the event deeply important before, but I now perceived that our going
was all of a piece with the West's elemental restlessness. I could not
express what I felt then, and I can recover but little of it now, but
the pain which filled my throat comes back to me mixed with a singular
longing to relive it.
There, on a low mound in the midst of the prairie, in the shadow of the
house we had built, beneath the slender trees we had planted, we were
bidding farewell to one cycle of emigration and entering upon another.
The border line had moved on, and my indomitable Dad was moving with it.
I shivered with dread of the irrevocable decision thus forced upon me. I
heard a clanging as of great gates behind me and the field of the future
was wide and wan.
From this spot we had seen the wild prairies disappear. On every hand
wheat and corn and clover had taken the place of the wild oat, the
hazelbush and the rose. Our house, a commonplace frame cabin, took on
grace. Here Hattie had died. Our yard was ugly, but there Jessie's small
feet had worn a slender path. Each of our lives was knit into these
hedges and rooted in these fields and yet, notwithstanding all this, in
response to some powerful yearning call, my father was about to set out
for the fifth time into the still more remote and untrodden west. Small
wonder that my mother sat with bowed head and tear-blinded eyes, while
these good and faithful friends crowded around her to say good-bye.
She had no enemies and no hatreds. Her rich singing voice, her smiling
face, her ready sympathy with those who suffered, had endeared her to
every home into which she had gone, even as a momentary visitor. No
woman in childbirth, no afflicted family within a radius of five miles
had ever called for her in vain. Death knew her well, for she had closed
the eyes of youth and age, and yet she remained the same laughing,
bounteous, whole-souled mother of men that she had been in the valley of
the Neshonoc. Nothing could permanently cloud her face or embitter the
sunny sweetness of her creed.
One by one the women put their worn, ungraceful arms about her, kissed
her with trembling lips, and went away in silent grief. The scene became
too painful for me at last, and I fled away from it--out into the
fields, bitterly asking, "Why should this suffering be? Why should
mother be wrenched from all her dearest friends and forced to move away
to a strange land?"
* * * * *
I did not see the actual packing up and moving of the household goods,
for I had determined to set forth in advance and independently, eager to
be my own master, and at the moment I did not feel in the least like
pioneering.
Some two years before, when the failure of our crop had made the matter
of my continuing at school an issue between my father and myself, I had
said, "If you will send me to school until I graduate, I will ask
nothing further of you," and these words I now took a stern pleasure in
upholding. Without a dollar of my own, I announced my intention to fare
forth into the world on the strength of my two hands, but my father, who
was in reality a most affectionate parent, offered me thirty dollars to
pay my carfare.
This I accepted, feeling that I had abundantly earned this money, and
after a sad parting with my mother and my little sister, set out one
September morning for Osage. At the moment I was oppressed with the
thought that this was the fork in the trail, that my family and I had
started on differing roads. I had become a man. With all the ways of the
world before me I suffered from a feeling of doubt. The open gate
allured me, but the homely scenes I was leaving suddenly put forth a
latent magic.
I knew every foot of this farm. I had traversed it scores of times in
every direction, following the plow, the harrow, or the seeder. With a
great lumber wagon at my side I had husked corn from every acre of it,
and now I was leaving it with no intention of returning. My action, like
that of my father, was final. As I looked back up the lane at the tall
Lombardy poplar trees bent like sabres in the warm western wind, the
landscape I was leaving seemed suddenly very beautiful, and the old home
very peaceful and very desirable. Nevertheless I went on.
Try as I may, I cannot bring back out of the darkness of that night any
memory of how I spent the time. I must have called upon some of my
classmates, but I cannot lay hold upon a single word or look or phrase
from any of them. Deeply as I felt my distinction in thus riding forth
into the world, all the tender incidents of farewell are lost to me.
Perhaps my boyish self-absorption prevented me from recording outside
impressions, for the idea of travelling, of crossing the State line,
profoundly engaged me. Up to this time, notwithstanding all my dreams of
conquest in far countries, I had never ridden in a railway coach! Can
you wonder therefore that I trembled with joyous excitement as I paced
the platform next morning waiting for the chariot of my romance? The
fact that it was a decayed little coach at the end of a "mixed
accommodation train" on a stub road did not matter. I was ecstatic.
However, I was well dressed, and my inexperience appeared only in a
certain tense watchfulness. I closely observed what went on around me
and was careful to do nothing which could be misconstrued as ignorance.
Thrilling with excitement, feeling the mighty significance of my
departure, I entered quietly and took my seat, while the train roared on
through Mitchell and St. Ansgar, the little towns in which I had played
my part as an actor,--on into distant climes and marvellous cities. My
emotion was all very boyish, but very natural as I look back upon it.
The town in which I spent my first night abroad should have been called
Thebes or Athens or Palmyra; but it was not. On the contrary, it was
named Ramsey, after an old pioneer, and no one but a youth of fervid
imagination at the close of his first day of adventure in the world
would have found it worth a second glance. To me it was both beautiful
and inspiring, for the reason that it was new territory and because it
was the home of Alice, my most brilliant school mate, and while I had in
mind some notion of a conference with the county superintendent of
schools, my real reason for stopping off was a desire to see this girl
whom I greatly admired.
I smile as I recall the feeling of pride with which I stepped into the
'bus and started for the Grand Central Hotel. And yet, after all, values
are relative. That boy had something which I have lost. I would give
much of my present knowledge of the world for the keen savor of life
which filled my nostrils at that time.
The sound of a violin is mingled with my memories of Ramsey, and the
talk of a group of rough men around the bar-room stove is full of savage
charm. A tall, pale man, with long hair and big black eyes, one who
impressed me as being a man of refinement and culture, reduced by drink
to poverty and to rebellious bitterness of soul, stands out in powerful
relief--a tragic and moving figure.
Here, too, I heard my first splendid singer. A patent medicine cart was
in the street and one of its troupe, a basso, sang _Rocked in the Cradle
of the Deep_ with such art that I listened with delight. His lion-like
pose, his mighty voice, his studied phrasing, revealed to me higher
qualities of musical art than I had hitherto known.
From this singer, I went directly to Alice's home. I must have appeared
singularly exalted as I faced her. The entire family was in the sitting
room as I entered--but after a few kindly inquiries concerning my people
and some general remarks they each and all slipped away, leaving me
alone with the girl--in the good old-fashioned American way.
It would seem that in this farewell call I was permitting myself an
exaggeration of what had been to Alice only a pleasant association, for
she greeted me composedly and waited for me to justify my presence.
After a few moments of explanation, I suggested that we go out and hear
the singing of the "troupe." To this she consented, and rose
quietly--she never did anything hurriedly or with girlish alertness--and
put on her hat. Although so young, she had the dignity of a woman, and
her face, pale as a silver moon, was calm and sweet, only her big gray
eyes expressed the maiden mystery. She read my adoration and was a
little afraid of it.
As we walked, I spoke of the good days at "the Sem," of our classmates,
and their future, and this led me to the announcement of my own plans.
"I shall teach," I said. "I hope to be able to work into a professorship
in literature some day.--What do you intend to do?"
"I shall go on with my studies for a while," she replied. "I may go to
some eastern college for a few years."
"You must not become too learned," I urged. "You'll forget me."
She did not protest this as a coquette might have done. On the contrary,
she remained silent, and I was aware that while she liked and respected
me, she was not profoundly moved by this farewell call. Nevertheless I
hoped, and in that hope I repeated, "You will write to me, won't you?"
"Of course!" she replied, and again I experienced a chilling perception
that her words arose from friendliness rather than from tenderness, but
I was glad of even this restrained promise, and I added, "I shall write
often, for I shall be lonely--for a while."
As I walked on, the girl's soft warm arm in mine, a feeling of
uncertainty, of disquiet, took possession of me. "Success" seemed a long
way off and the road to it long and hard. However, I said nothing
further concerning my doubts.
The street that night had all the enchantment of Granada to me. The
girl's voice rippled with a music like that of the fountain Lindarazza,
and when I caught glimpses of her sweet, serious face beneath her
hat-rim, I dreaded our parting. The nearer to her gate we drew the more
tremulous my voice became, and the more uncertain my step.
At last on the door-step she turned and said, "Won't you come in again?"
In her tone was friendly dismissal, but I would not have it so. "You
will write to me, won't you?" I pleaded with choking utterance.
She was moved (by pity perhaps).
"Why, yes, with pleasure," she answered. "Good-bye, I hope you'll
succeed. I'm sure you will."
She extended her hand and I, recalling the instructions of my most
romantic fiction, raised it to my lips. "Good-bye!" I huskily said, and
turned away.
My next night was spent in Faribault. Here I touched storied ground, for
near this town Edward Eggleston had laid the scene of his novel, _The
Mystery of Metropolisville_ and my imagination responded to the magic
which lay in the influence of the man of letters. I wrote to Alice a
long and impassioned account of my sensations as I stood beside the
Cannonball River.
My search for a school proving futile, I pushed on to the town of
Farmington, where the Dakota branch of the Milwaukee railroad crossed my
line of march. Here I felt to its full the compelling power of the swift
stream of immigration surging to the west. The little village had
doubled in size almost in a day. It was a junction point, a place of
transfer, and its thin-walled unpainted pine hotels were packed with
men, women and children laden with bags and bundles (all bound for the
west) and the joyous excitement of these adventurers compelled me to
change my plan. I decided to try some of the newer counties in western
Minnesota. Romance was still in the West for me.
I slept that night on the floor in company with four or five young Iowa
farmers, and the smell of clean white shavings, the wailing of tired
children, the excited muttering of fathers, the plaintive voices of
mothers, came through the partitions at intervals, producing in my mind
an effect which will never pass away. It seemed to me at the moment as
if all America were in process of change, all hurrying to overtake the
vanishing line of the middle border, and the women at least were
secretly or openly doubtful of the outcome. Woman is not by nature an
explorer. She is the home-lover.
Early the next morning I bought a ticket for Aberdeen, and entered the
train crammed with movers who had found the "prairie schooner" all too
slow. The epoch of the canvas-covered wagon had passed. The era of the
locomotive, the day of the chartered car, had arrived. Free land was
receding at railroad speed, the borderline could be overtaken only by
steam, and every man was in haste to arrive.
All that day we rumbled and rattled into a strange country, feeding our
little engine with logs of wood, which we stopped occasionally to secure
from long ricks which lined the banks of the river. At Chaska, at
Granite Falls, I stepped off, but did not succeed in finding employment.
It is probable that being filled with the desire of exploration I only
half-heartedly sought for work; at any rate, on the third day, I found
myself far out upon the unbroken plain where only the hairlike buffalo
grass grew--beyond trees, beyond the plow, but not beyond settlement,
for here at the end of my third day's ride at Millbank, I found a hamlet
six months old, and the flock of shining yellow pine shanties strewn
upon the sod, gave me an illogical delight, but then I was
twenty-one--and it was sunset in the Land of the Dakotas!
All around me that night the talk was all of land, land! Nearly every
man I met was bound for the "Jim River valley," and each voice was
aquiver with hope, each eye alight with anticipation of certain
success. Even the women had begun to catch something of this
enthusiasm, for the night was very beautiful and the next day promised
fair.
Again I slept on a cot in a room of rough pine, slept dreamlessly, and
was out early enough to witness the coming of dawn,--a wonderful moment
that sunrise was to me. Again, as eleven years before, I felt myself a
part of the new world, a world fresh from the hand of God. To the east
nothing could be seen but a vague expanse of yellow plain, misty purple
in its hollows, but to the west rose a long low wall of hills, the
Eastern Coteaux, up which a red line of prairie fire was slowly
creeping.
It was middle September. The air, magnificently crisp and clear, filled
me with desire of exploration, with vague resolution to do and dare. The
sound of horses and mules calling for their feed, the clatter of hammers
and the rasping of saws gave evidence of eager builders, of alert
adventurers, and I was hotly impatient to get forward.
At eight o'clock the engine drew out, pulling after it a dozen box-cars
laden with stock and household goods, and on the roof of a freight
caboose, together with several other young Jasons, I rode, bound for the
valley of the James.
It was a marvellous adventure. All the morning we rattled and rumbled
along, our engine snorting with effort, struggling with a load almost
too great for its strength. By noon we were up amid the rounded grassy
hills of the Sisseton Reservation where only the coyote ranged and the
Sioux made residence.
Here we caught our first glimpse of the James River valley, which seemed
to us at the moment as illimitable as the ocean and as level as a floor,
and then pitching and tossing over the rough track, with our cars
leaping and twisting like a herd of frightened buffaloes, we charged
down the western slope, down into a level land of ripened grass, where
blackbirds chattered in the willows, and prairie chickens called from
the tall rushes which grew beside the sluggish streams.
Aberdeen was the end of the line, and when we came into it that night it
seemed a near neighbor to Sitting Bull and the bison. And so, indeed, it
was, for a buffalo bull had been hunted across its site less than a year
before.
It was twelve miles from here to where my father had set his stakes for
his new home, hence I must have stayed all night in some small hotel,
but that experience has also faded from my mind. I remember only my walk
across the dead-level plain next day. For the first time I set foot upon
a landscape without a tree to break its sere expanse--and I was at once
intensely interested in a long flock of gulls, apparently rolling along
the sod, busily gathering their morning meal of frosted locusts. The
ones left behind kept flying over the ones in front so that a ceaseless
change of leadership took place.
There was beauty in this plain, delicate beauty and a weird charm,
despite its lack of undulation. Its lonely unplowed sweep gave me the
satisfying sensation of being at last among the men who held the
outposts,--sentinels for the marching millions who were approaching from
the east. For two hours I walked, seeing Aberdeen fade to a series of
wavering, grotesque notches on the southern horizon line, while to the
north an equally irregular and insubstantial line of shadows gradually
took on weight and color until it became the village in which my father
was at this very moment busy in founding his new home.
My experienced eyes saw the deep, rich soil, and my youthful imagination
looking into the future, supplied the trees and vines and flowers which
were to make this land a garden.
I was converted. I had no doubts. It seemed at the moment that my father
had acted wisely in leaving his Iowa farm in order to claim his share of
Uncle Sam's rapidly-lessening unclaimed land.