We were some hours getting through the sand. Then we came to hilly
country overgrown with oaks and some pines. Later the soil was rocky. We
skirted along a little river; and here and there I had my first view of
the prairie. The air above me was thrilling with the song of spring
birds. I did not know what they were. Some of them resembled the English
skylark in the habit of singing and soaring. But the note was different.
My head felt heavy. I seemed to be growing more listless. But I could
not help but note the prairie: the limitless expanse of heavy grass,
here and there brightened by brilliant blossoms. All the houses along
the way were built of logs. The inhabitants were a large breed for the
most part, tall and angular, dressed sometimes in buckskin, coonskin
caps. Now and then I saw a hunter carrying a long rifle. The wild geese
were flying....
Some of the passengers were dressed in jeans; others in linsey-woolsey
dyed blue. As we stopped along the way I had an opportunity to study the
faces of the Illinoisians. Their jaws were thin, their eyes, deeply
sunk, had a far-away melancholy in them. They were swarthy. Their voices
were keyed to a drawl. They sprawled, were free and easy in their
movements. They told racy stories, laughed immoderately, chewed tobacco.
Some of the passengers were drinking whisky, which was procured anywhere
along the way, at taverns or stores. The stage rolled from side to side.
The driver kept cracking his whip, but without often touching the
horses, which kept an even pace hour after hour. We had to stop for
meals. But the heavy food turned my stomach. I could not relish the
cornbread, the bacon or ham, the heavy pie. When we reached La Salle,
where I was to get the boat, I found myself very fatigued, aching all
through my flesh and bones, and with a dreamy, heavy sensation about my
eyes.
The country had become more hilly. And now the bluffs along the Illinois
River rose with something of the majesty of the Palisades of the Hudson.
The river itself was not nearly so broad or noble, but it was not
without beauty.... More oblivious of my surroundings than I had been
before, I boarded _The Post Boy_, a stern wheeler, and in a few minutes
she blew the most musical of whistles and we were off....
The vision of hills and prairies around me harmonized with the dreamy
sensations that filled my heavy head and tired body. I sat on deck and
viewed it all. I did not go to the table. The very smell of the food
nauseated me. I do not remember how I got to bed, nor how long I was
there. I remember being brought to by a negro porter who told me that we
were approaching Bath where I was to get off. I heard him say to another
porter: "That boy is sure sick." And then a tall spare man came to me,
told me that he was taking the stage as I was, and was going almost to
Jacksonville, and that he would see me through. He helped me in the
stage and we started. I remember nothing further....
I became conscious of parti-colored ribbons fluttering from my body as
if blown by a rapid breeze from a central point of fixture in my breast.
Was it the life going out of me, or the life clinging to me in spite of
the airs of eternity? My eyes opened. I saw standing at the foot of the
bed, an octoroon about fourteen years of age. She was staring at me with
anxious and sympathetic eyes, in which there was also a light of terror.
I tried to lift my hands. I could not. I was unable to turn my body. I
was completely helpless. I looked about the room. It was small, papered
in a figure of blue. Two windows stared me in the face. "Where am I?" I
asked. "Yo's in Miss Spurgeon's house ... yo's in good hands." At that
moment Miss Spurgeon entered. She was slender, graceful. Her hair was
very black. Her eyes gray and hazel. Her nose delicate and exquisitely
shaped. She put her hand on my brow and in a voice which had a musical
quaver, she said: "I believe the fever has left you. Yes, it has. Would
you like something to eat?" I was famished and said: "Yes, something, if
you please." She went out, returning with some gruel. Turning to the
octoroon she said: "Will you feed him, Zoe?" And Zoe came to the chair
by the bed and fed me, for I could not lift a hand. Then I fell into a
refreshing sleep. I had been ill of typhoid. Had I contracted it from
the oysters, or from food on the steamer? But I had been saved. Miss
Spurgeon had refused to let the doctor bleed me. She believed that
careful nursing would suffice, and she had brought me through. But I had
a relapse. I was allowed to eat what I craved. I indulged my inordinate
hunger, and came nearer to death than with the fever itself. But from
this I rallied by the strength of my youth and a great vitality. All the
while Zoe and Miss Spurgeon watched over me with the most tender care.
And one day I came out of a sleep to find Reverdy Clayton by the bed.
A father could not have looked at me with more solicitude. His voice was
grave and tender. His eyes bright with sympathy. "You will soon be well
again," he said. He took my hand, sat down by me, cautioned me not to
worry about my business affairs, told me that nothing would happen
adverse to my interests while I was incapacitated, that Mr. Brooks was
guarding my affairs and that they were not in peril.... And it turned
out that Miss Spurgeon was his fiancée, that it was to her that he had
returned from Chicago. They were soon now to be married. I asked him if
Zoe was a slave. He laughed at this. "No one born in Illinois is a
slave," he said. "This is a free country. Zoe was born here."
Miss Spurgeon came in and I could now see them side by side. They seemed
so kind and noble hearted, so suited to each other. I loved both of
them.
I was stronger now, was sitting up part of each day. I reached out my
hands and took their hands, bringing them together in a significant
contact. Miss Spurgeon bent over me, placing a kiss upon my brow. "You
are a dear boy," she said. And Reverdy said: "The Lord keep you always,
son." Their eyes showed the tears, and as for me my cheeks were suddenly
wet. Then from what they said I learned that Reverdy had been gone many
months, that Sarah, for that was her name, had been in great anxiety,
that Reverdy had just got out of the service the morning I had seen him
in Chicago; and that he had speculated on staying there a while for the
purpose of improving his fortune with a view to his marriage. But now
having returned, they were to be married soon. What had been the delay
thus far? They were waiting for me to get well. I had interfered, no
doubt, with the wedding plans, with the arranging and ordering of the
house for the wedding. But they said they wished me to be present. Sarah
thought there was something well omened in my meeting with Reverdy in
Chicago, and in the fate that had brought me to her house, and she
wished to fulfill the happy auspices to the end by having me for the
chief guest at the wedding. But how had I come to this household?
The stranger who had helped me on the boat at Bath had turned me over to
a young man named Douglas who had brought me here, because of the poor
comforts at the inn of Jacksonville. Douglas had been here but a few
months himself, having come from the state of Vermont. He, too, had
been ill of the same disease; had been confined under wretched
circumstances at Cleveland on his way west; had nearly died. When he saw
me he was moved to do the very best for me. He had brought me to Miss
Spurgeon's and pleaded with her to take me in. And she had consented to
the ordeal of my care, because Zoe insisted upon it, offering to take
the burden of waiting upon me and watching over me. The Spurgeon house
was quite the best in this town of 1000 people. Sarah's father and
mother were both dead, and she was living here with a grandmother, a
woman now of more than eighty, whom I did not see until I began to go
about the house.... Meantime Zoe's face and manner became clearer to me
day by day. She was not very darkly hued, rather lighter than the Hindus
I had seen in England. Her hair was abundant and straight. Her lips were
full but shapely. Her nose rather of a Caucasian type. Her voice was the
most musical one could imagine. And she sang--she sang "Annie Laurie" at
times in a voice which thrilled me. There was grace in her carriage,
charm in her gestures and movements. And she waited upon me with the
affection of a sister.
As I grew better Mr. Brooks came to call upon me. And at last I went to
his office to talk over the matter of my father's estate. It was now
July and the heat was more terrible than I had ever conceived could
prevail outside of a tropical country.