Sarah and Zoe followed me to the door the morning I went to see Mr.
Brooks. Cholera had descended upon the community and they begged me to
go to Mr. Brooks' office and return at once, and not to be in the sun
any more than was necessary. I had no fear. Having come from so serious
an illness I did not feel that another malady would attack me soon. As I
walked along I could see that the boundless prairie was around me. I
inhaled the spaciousness of the scene. I could see the deep woods which
stood beyond the rich prairies of tall and heavy grass. The town was
built roughly of hewn logs. It was like a camp of hastily constructed
shacks. But a college had already been founded. It had two buildings,
one of logs and one of brick. I looked back to see that the Spurgeon
house was substantially built, with care and taste.... Mr. Brooks'
office was in one of the log structures about the square. One entered it
from the street. I counted the signs of eleven lawyers on my way. The
tavern where I had stayed, except for Douglas and Miss Spurgeon, was a
most uninviting place.
Mr. Brooks sat behind a rude table. Back of him on a wall were a
portrait of Washington and a map of Illinois. On the table there was a
law book of some sort. Altogether there were three chairs in the room.
The floor was made of puncheon boards, and was bare. Flies buzzed in the
air and at the rude windows. I felt strong when I left the house. Now I
was not sure how long I should feel so. Mr. Brooks invited me to have a
seat; and after a few words about the heat and the cholera he began to
tell me stories of the people and the country. "Some years ago," he
said, "a man came to this country, I mean over around the river country
which you saw when you took the steamboat at Bath. He didn't have
anything, but he was ambitious to be rich. How could he do it? Well,
you can work and buy land with your savings, and land here under the
Homestead Act has been $1.25 an acre since 1820; still that may not put
you ahead very fast. And if you're ambitious you want to get rich quick.
That's the way every one here feels who is bent on getting rich. Money
is not as plentiful as land; and if land is only $1.25 an acre it takes
$800 to get a section. That's a lot of money to a man who has nothing.
This land around here is rich as the valley of the Nile. It is six feet
or more of black fertility. I'll bet that some say it will be worth $50
an acre."
I began to wonder why these Americans talk so much. I had observed it
everywhere. Here I was come on a matter of business, of my father's
estate; and the lawyer with whom I was forced to deal was talking to me
interminably of things that had nothing to do with it. But I was young
and strange, and not very strong; and it did not occur to me to show
impatience with him. And so he went on.
"This man was fine to look at, prepossessing and engaging. He looked
like a driver, a man of his word too. And one day when he was standing
on the street here he was approached by a stranger who began to get him
into conversation. You see, we don't have slavery here as a regular
thing. The negroes are sort o' apprenticed--free but apprenticed. But
under pretty severe laws, have to be registered, can't testify, and so
forth. This state is part of the Northwest Territory which was made free
by the old Confederate States in 1787; but we actually had an election
here eleven years ago to make it slave. And the people voted it free.
Anyhow we have negroes here; and the people are from Tennessee,
Kentucky, Virginia, and the Carolinas where they do have slavery, and
we're all beginnin' to be scared over the agitation. Now this stranger
was a Southerner and any one could see he was; but of course didn't look
different from some of our own people. So this stranger began to talk to
this man and ask him if he was married, and he wasn't; and asked him if
he would like to make some money, which of course he did.
"And finally the stranger said that he had a daughter that he would like
to introduce, and asked this man to come with him a mile or so, and if
he liked the girl he would pay him to marry her. They started off and
found the girl. She was a mulatto or octoroon as they say, and as
pretty as a red wagon. You see the stranger was pure white and from New
Orleans; but the mother of the girl was a slave and they say kind of
coffee colored. And the upshot of it was that the stranger offered this
man $2500 to marry the octoroon. What he wanted to do was to place her
well. He didn't want her to run the chance of ever being a slave, as she
might be in the South. He was her father and he naturally had a father's
feeling for her, even if she was an octoroon. And this stranger said
that he had been around town and the country for some days looking at
prospective husbands and making some inquiry, and that he had found no
one to equal this man. The man liked the octoroon, the octoroon liked
the man. And they struck a bargain. The man got his $2500; he married
the girl on the spot. The stranger disappeared, and was never seen or
heard of again. It all happened right there. The man bought land, he got
rich. He was one of the best men I ever knew, and one of my best
friends. The octoroon died in childbirth, leaving a daughter still
living and in this town. The man died recently. His name was James
Miles. He was your father. And Zoe is your half-sister, and wants to
share in the estate, and that's why I sent for you."
The flies began a louder buzzing at the window. The heat had increased.
I looked through the open door and saw a man fall over, whether from
heat or cholera I could not tell. I was by now weary and faint. I said:
"I do not know what to say now. If we can agree, I mean if we are
allowed to agree, Zoe and I will have no trouble. I am getting faint.
And I shall come again." With that I arose and walked weakly from the
room.