ACROSS THE MISSISSIPPI.
My time was so taken up in visiting old friends and seeing the sights
in Chicago that I found no opportunity to make the acquaintance of many
wheelmen in that city, but I met Mr. B. B. Ayers, who kindly gave me
directions for pursuing the journey westward, and so after a week's
stay in Chicago I started for Minonk, 125 miles away to the southwest,
to visit friends in that place, and the two days and a half passed
on that journey were the hardest of the trip thus far. One would
naturally think 1,500 miles of riding in the past five or six weeks
would have so strengthened the muscles of my arms that they would not
trouble me at least, but the hard, lumpy, rutty black clay roads of
Illinois were too much for them. My elbows became so stiff I could
hardly bend them, and the nervous strain occasioned by the constant
jar was very exhausting. Once I was induced to take the railroad track
and found very good riding for a few miles. At the station they told
me the next train would not be along for an hour and it would come
from the direction in which I was going, so I rode along unconcerned,
for I could see ahead for miles. Suddenly, without the least warning,
the sound of a short, sharp whistle from behind caused me to jump
off and into the ditch as I never did before. It was well I did so
quickly, for an extra locomotive immediately rushed by, and I came to
the sudden conclusion it would be a long while and the roads pretty
bad before I should again leave them to ride on a railroad track.
Two turnpike companies once started to build a pike from Indianapolis
to Lafayette, Ind., seventy miles, but when within two miles of each
other there was a disagreement between the two companies and that
intervening piece of road has never been finished. Although there is
a great deal of travel over this splendid pike there is not public
spirit sufficient to fill up this gap of two miles, and for years the
traveling public have driven off the ends of these two turnpikes into
two miles of the deepest mud fordable. In Illinois there are no pikes
even, all dirt roads; roads that are to-day in the same condition
they were when the country was first settled; not a day's work has
ever been expended upon them. I passed farm after farm on which were
fine houses, large substantial barns and hundreds of heads of stock,
and every indication of a rich soil and worldly prosperity, and yet
the road directly in front of these farm-houses has remained in such
a condition for years, that for six months out of the twelve it is
really dangerous for man or beast to travel after dark. I stopped
one night in a fine brick house that in the East would cost four
or five thousand dollars, and yet this house could only be reached
by a lane in which the mud for six months in the year was hub deep,
and a fine fat sow with a litter of pigs had full possession of the
front yard, if such a mud hole could be called a yard. Another case
I remember where the houses, barns, and stock indicated the farmer's
prosperous condition, and yet there was no well, nothing but rain
water to drink. The fact is, all these things--and I could keep on
mentioning them to the end of the chapter--serve to illustrate the
intense Western desire for display to the neglect of comfort. The
stately domes of their numerous court-houses seen on all sides make a
big show. Their large barns with the farmer's name painted on the side
in red letters or shingled into the slate roof advertise the owner's
name and financial standing. Whatever is above ground, whatever can
be seen from a distance, whatever makes a great display receives
the cordial support of the average Westerner, but when you look for
a fine country road, free of toll gates, or a good, deep well, or a
nice cool cellar, or anything, no matter how much it might add to the
personal comfort of the possessor, but which is below the surface or
unseen from the surrounding country, you may look in vain for these
evidences of a moderately high state of civilization. The diet of
Western families is simply abominable. It is pork, fried pork, every
meal. Their meals are as monotonous as their scenery. A farmer, rich
in money, lands, and houses, will live for weeks on pork, when beef,
mutton, turkey, and chicken are in great abundance on all sides and
so cheap as to be almost unsalable. And yet, probably because their
stomachs are out of sight and the satisfying effect of a good square
meal is quieting and not of the spread-eagle effect, the farmers live
upon the freshest and plainest sort of food. If the Western stomach
could be inflated and placed in some commanding position it would
be supplied with the choicest viands and the farmers would pour out
their money to fill it to overflowing.
The other Sunday I came along to a meeting-house just after the
bell stopped tolling, and riding out under the shed, I slipped off
my knapsack, buttoned on a clean collar, put on my coat, and went
in as quietly as possible, but every one in church except one old
lady looked around at me, and I lost most of the Scripture lesson in
consequence of this counter attraction. From her actions, afterwards,
I think the said old lady was deaf and did not hear me come in, which
accounts for her apparent neglect. Soon after a portly old gentleman
came waddling up the opposite aisle, and after putting his hat, cane,
and numerous other articles of extra baggage over in the seat in front,
he held on to the back of that seat to break the fall, finally letting
go and sitting down like a trip hammer. He immediately began to box
the congregation, and had gone from east around to northwest, when he
fetched up against me and put me under close inspection for so long
that I wickedly comforted myself knowing that I gave him a crick in
the neck. Very soon many in the congregation with eyes reverently
closed and heads on one side in imitation of Alexander the Great,
were apparently absorbing their spiritual food through their mouths,
when the choir of eleven noises followed the sermon with "Asleep in
Jesus." The choir kept well together for a while, although one or
two had to feel around in advance for the first note, but the last
line was always too much for the tenor, and with their leader gone
all discipline vanished and they came leisurely home in squads,
three and four at a time. But slow and solemn as the singing was,
the organist broke loose during the interlude, scampered up and
down the scale, trilled, stumbled, snorted, and galloped off into
the lots so far I thought he never would get back, and during his
last escapade he stepped on a note that stuck, and that note loudly
persisted in being heard through the benediction and sometime after
the congregation had dispersed. When the organ breathed its last,
the boys, old and young, all came out to see me off, and stayed so
long it broke up the Sunday-school; so altogether, unintentionally,
I caused a good deal of trouble.
Going through Aurora I met two wheelmen, Messrs. G. O. and
Chas. W. Clayton, one of whom, but since my return I cannot tell which,
accompanied me for 10 or 12 miles on my way.
Three-fourths of the area of the State of Illinois--a State eleven
times as large as Connecticut--is underlaid with seams of soft coal,
and at Minonk, where I spent several days in visiting relatives, is
the most productive mine in the State. Over 700 tons a day are raised
from a depth of 500 feet, and the machinery works with such rapidity
that a ton of coal is raised and emptied in twenty-two seconds. After
screening, great quantities of the coal, smaller than chestnut size,
are sold to farmers, who feed it out to their hogs with beneficial
results. The refuse rock and clay from this mine is carried up an
inclined railroad and dumped, making a mound perhaps seventy-five
feet high. The inhabitants think it quite a treat to climb to the top,
they get such a grand view. It really is the highest point of land for
miles around, and the view of a town ten miles away is to them quite a
sight. Horses in droves in the lots or loose by the roadside are very
common, but there is one peculiarity that distinguishes them from all
the other domestic animals I have seen. The instant they catch sight
of the bicycle they invariably come boldly toward it half a dozen
paces and then turn and run like all the other animals. They seem
to want to find out as soon as possible the nature of the machine,
but their courage is short lived.
At Lacon I crossed the Illinois River, which was half a mile wide at
this point. The river is very sluggish, falling only one inch to the
mile for 300 miles.
During several days I had felt sleepy all the time, doubtless due
to overeating and lack of exercise in Chicago, and, so, frequently I
would lay down beside the road and sleep soundly for an hour or two,
the hard clay bed not disturbing my slumbers in the least. In fact
I had, by this time, become quite a veteran in this respect, being
able to rest peacefully anywhere I felt inclined to stop.
At Rock Island I left the State of Illinois, which has a high-license
system that works admirably, as far as I could judge from the
frequent inquiries made, and crossed the Mississippi River into the
prohibition State of Iowa. Imagine my surprise to find beer and liquor
sold as openly as soda water in the city of Davenport. The State
law is circumvented and nullified in this manner: The city council
passed a law obliging all dealers in soda water and like temperance
drinks to take out a license. If a man sells soda water, and nothing
stronger, this law is not enforced against him; but if he sells liquor
in connection with his soda he is prosecuted, not for selling liquor,
mind you, but for selling soda without a license. Thus, beer and liquor
is sold openly, and the city of Davenport has reaped a revenue of over
$3,000 from this source within a few weeks. Before I got through the
State of Iowa I could judge better of the practical workings of their
prohibitory law, but the first day in the State certainly puzzled
me. At one small village all the inhabitants seemed to be devoting the
whole time that day to dancing and drinking beer. They were Germans,
and it is needless to add that there was no downright drunkenness to
be seen there. Even in Grinnell, a place of 3,500 inhabitants, that
has never had an open saloon, the "boys" have their beer shipped in
to them on such occasions as Memorial Day and the Fourth of July.
Traveling alone as I have, most of the way, I could appreciate to a
limited extent the lonely task Thomas Stevens performed in crossing
this country as he did, but never have I realized until I reached
Iowa to what extent he had been shut out from nearly all intelligent
communication with human beings in his journey through Europe and Asia.
About one hundred miles west of Davenport is a settlement of
Bohemians. They number six or eight thousand, and their little
villages are scattered along the Iowa River for a distance of ten
miles or more. Their system of families is very much like the Shakers
in Enfield, Conn., and beside keeping their farms up in excellent
condition they manufacture woolen goods, starch, and some other
articles of commerce. But not one of them that I met could speak a
word of English, so that my experience for two or three hours was
in a slight degree like what Stevens suffered for many weeks and
months. All I could do was to make signs.
Although I left Connecticut before the grass had hardly begun to
turn, since then I have seen nothing else but one everlasting sea of
green. The country is more rolling in Iowa than in any of the States
west of New York through which I have passed, but that change in the
scenery was not of much relief. Thus far I had not seen the smallest
kind of a wild flower to break the monotony of that color, green,
dark and rich as it was. Imagine with what pleasure I came upon a
sandy ridge of hills that were covered with a beautiful variety of
wild flowers, whose colors seemed particularly bright to me, probably
because they were the first I had seen in seven weeks of outdoor
life. I spent an hour or more in picking flowers and in biting off
the sweet tips of honey-suckles.
It is curious how many old veterans the sight of the knapsack brings
to the surface. Very often when I lay it aside for a rest some one
will pick it up and try it on so handily that I know without his
telling me what his experience has been. And the recent speech of
that arch traitor, Jefferson Davis, stirs these old soldiers from
the top of their heads to the very soles of their feet. Imagine the
feelings of one of these, a large-framed, well-formed man of forty,
who walked around Minonk with me, up the coal shaft and down, without
much apparent difficulty, and yet this same man, John W. January,
suffered a thousand deaths at Andersonville, where his feet rotted
off, and where he was reduced to forty-five pounds in weight, his
bones alone almost weighing that much. Jeff. Davis's words don't
exactly stir him to the soles of his feet, but from the words he and
so many others, with whom I have talked, have indignantly uttered,
I think these old heroes are sorry they were not allowed to do up
the job more thoroughly at the time of the war.
The bicycle is getting to be more of a wonder the farther west it
goes. Everywhere I stop crowds quickly gather, and then the inevitable
string of questions! At Rutland, Ill., the landlord, who was a native
of Connecticut, gave me all I could eat, but would not let me go
till I had ridden all over the sidewalks and gutters in the town,
under his direction. A few miles east of Grinnell I found I could
not reach that place the night I was expected, so I took a freight
train. While waiting for the train the whole town came down to the
station, and to escape being almost bored to death I went out back
of the station to wash my hot feet. But still there was no rest. An
Irishman who lived in Hartford "thirty year ago," was the first to
find me, then two or three natives went through the same old list
of questions, and finally a colored gentleman came around to pay his
respects, just as I was wiping my refreshed feet on the grass. When
the train arrived I laid out on one of the long benches, placed along
the side of the caboose, and went fast to sleep, apparently. But at
every station there was something in the air that told the inhabitants
there was an object as strange as a wild man from Borneo on board,
and the caboose was quickly filled with a gaping crowd of men, women,
and children. One passenger who had already got some points of the
trip, related all he knew and more, too, to the assembly, and it
required considerable composure to keep on breathing regularly and
keep my eyes shut with some old woman looking right down into my face
and sighing for my lifeless condition, but as long as my eyes were
closed no one asked me any questions, and that was a great relief.
As this is a plain unembellished tale of a bicycle journey in which
facts are reported as they exist, not as we would like to have them,
I may as well acknowledge, though not without a twinge, that during
the first week out the chafing of a stocking strap brought out a
boil on the side of my leg. The next week a second comforter appeared
underneath that member, and painful as it is to acknowledge it (the
bitterest pangs are now past), in a few days some six or eight more
obtruded themselves, seriously interfering with the saddle. After some
days of dogged persistence in riding and trying to rise above them
(which efforts from the nature of the case were obviously futile),
I succumbed and pleaded for a ride on a freight train; and when that
gentleman passenger, who knew the real cause of my desire to take
the train, told a lady passenger who was very anxious to know, too,
that I took the train because--and he hesitated--because I "had got
hurt," his answer pleased me so I was sure the lady, who was looking
straight at me from the opposite side of the car, would think I
was writhing with pain even in my sleep. "Poor boy!" she responded,
sympathetically,--"How dreadful! I do hope he will recover!"
Distance traveled on the wheel, 1830 miles.