THE QUEEN CITY OF THE LAKE.
“I saw the domes before me rise,
The lake behind me swell;
I thought upon the bygone days,
When nature wore a different phase,
And man a different skin;
And stretching far, through plain and swamp,
I saw the Indian’s fiery camp,
And heard the buffalo’s marching tramp,
And felt the mammoth’s earthquake stamp,
And all that once had been.
“A sudden change came o’er my dream;
I must have waked and dropp’d my theme.
For ships and cars, in fire and steam,
Begirt the horizon round;
Tall houses rose, with shops in front,
And bricks piled up, as bricks are wont,
In cloud-capp’d turrets frown’d;
And through the living, boiling throng
Thunder’d a thousand carts along,
And railroads howl’d their shrieking song,
Across the groaning ground.”
Norman had many little friends to say good-by to as he left for the cars
on Thursday morning, and very many pleasant memories to take with him.
Kind friends were waiting for them at the station at Chicago, and they
were soon driving through its busy streets. They approached the river,
which has _made_ the town, affording as it does a safe harbor for
vessels. This river runs due east and falls into the lakes, receiving,
about a mile from its mouth, branches from the north and the south. The
river and its branches, lined with substantial warehouses, divide the
city into the north, south and west side. On approaching the bridge it
suddenly swung round to give passage to a large schooner towed by a
little puffing black tug, which gave its shrill whistle as a signal for
the drawbridge to open, and then went panting and snorting through.
While waiting for the bridge to resume its place, Emily Percy, a
blue-eyed, fair-haired little girl who was seated beside Norman, showed
him an old wooden house that formerly belonged to Fort Dearborn, and
that, with the light-house, was the only thing left to tell of its
existence.
“Norman,” said Mrs. Lester, “this is the fort spoken of in those lines
you are so fond of repeating about the Indians:
‘Where, to repel their fierce attack,
Fort Dearborn rear’d across their track
Its log-constructed walls.
For forty years these fronts of wood
The tempest and the foe withstood;
And many a night of fire and flood,
The dauntless garrison made good
Their supper in its halls.’”
“It is difficult to fancy any Indians here, in the heart of this busy
city,” said Norman.
“And yet this great city,” said Mrs. Percy “is the growth of twenty-five
years. In 1831 there were but four arrivals, two brigs and two
schooners, and now there are eight thousand.”
“The lonely garrison that abandoned this fort in 1812,” said Mrs.
Lester, “would have been rather astonished, could the vision of this
city have risen up: before them.”
“Why did they abandon the fort, mother?” asked Norman.
“They thought it best when they heard of General Hull’s surrender at
Detroit. Soon after leaving the fort they were attacked by a large body
of Indians, to whom they surrendered, on condition that their lives
should be spared. Notwithstanding this promise, the Indians cruelly
murdered several of them.”
“You must not forget to tell of Mrs. Heald,” said Mrs. Percy, “for I
think we may call her the heroine of Chicago.”
“I leave that to you,” replied Mrs. Lester.
“An Indian,” said Mrs. Percy, “approached her with uplifted tomahawk,
when, with great presence of mind, she looked him full in the face, and
smilingly said, ‘Surely you would not kill a squaw!’ This Indian warrior
was disarmed by this appeal, and the lady’s life was saved.”
The schooner towed by the potent little tug soon passed through, but
they were detained by a sloop that made its way very slowly, and Norman
had time to look at the vessels in the river, many of them loaded with
grain, twenty-five millions of bushels being annually received at this
grain port. He also watched with great interest the working of a
dredging machine used to take mud out of the river and thus deepen its
channel.
A great number of carriages and carts awaited the return of the moving
bridge, and many, pedestrians were ready to leap upon it as it
approached. The bridges are a daily school of patience for the citizens
of Chicago.
The few days at Mrs. Percy’s Norman enjoyed very much. He took long
walks with Emily about the north side of the city, which is pleasantly
shaded with trees and adorned with many fine residences. They drove out
too with Mrs. Percy on Michigan Avenue, a noble street, with rows of
fine houses built of beautiful cream-colored stone, and pretty cottages
embowered in shrubbery, fronting on the lake. The railway is laid
through the water, at a short distance from the shore, and the interval
affords a fine safe place for rowing, sheltered as it is from the sudden
storms of the lake. There were a number of pretty row boats rapidly
darting to and fro, and young people enjoying the air and exercise on
the quiet waters.
They returned by Wabash Avenue, adorned with its noble churches. They
alighted, and went in to look at the new Methodist church, which was
nearly finished. Norman thought it very beautiful. This, and the
handsome Presbyterian church at the next corner, are built of the
cream-colored stone which gives such a cheerful light aspect to the
edifices in Chicago. The Second Presbyterian church is the most
antique-looking structure in the city. It is built of a whitish stone,
spotted with black, giving it somewhat the aspect of the white marble of
St. Paul’s begrimed with the smoke and dust of London. This stone was
found on the prairies; the black is a sort of bitumen that exudes from
it, and as the quarry is exhausted, this church will be unique as well
as antique in its appearance.
Norman was amused at the inequality of the sidewalks, sometimes rising
above the carriage way, sometimes depressed far below, so that the
pedestrian is obliged continually to go up and down steps, or inclined
planes, and to mind his ways if he wishes to avoid a fall. The new
stores open finely on the elevated sidewalks, and Norman was astonished
to see the splendid rows of stores with elaborate iron fronts. The older
houses and stores must be entered by descending steps to reach their
level. Mrs. Percy told Norman the reason of this, that the city was
built on a flat prairie, so low that the water would not run off, and
the streets could not be drained; and so this enterprising people are
lifting up the whole city six or seven feet, and there must be
inequality of surface while this transition process is going on. Norman
saw a frame house, mounted on rollers, leisurely making its way through
the streets.
Charlie Percy, who was several years older than Norman had a chemical
cabinet, and the boys had a very animated evening, trying a number of
experiments, making colored fires, and making fire jump about the
surface of the water.
“Here is an invitation for you, children,” said Mr. Percy, “which I have
no doubt you will be very glad to accept. Mr. and Mrs. Bowers called to
invite us to accompany them to Green Park, where they are to have a
pic-nic.”
“How pleasant that will be,” exclaimed Emily; “I am sure you will like
to go, Norman.”
The children were ready immediately after dinner, when Mr. Bowers’s
carriage drove up for them, and at the station they found quite a party
of children, baskets in hand, with their mothers and fathers, bound for
the pic-nic. They were a joyous family party, Mr. Bowers’s sisters and
their families. Norman looked from the cars upon the stately buildings
of Michigan Avenue, and there was not time to look at much more, for a
few minutes brought them to Green Park, and the party were soon out of
the cars, and on a bank overlooking the lake. It is a pretty place,
grassy turf, graveled walks, grateful shade, and rustic summer houses;
better than all, the pleasant beach with its rounded pebbles, and the
constant dash of its gentle waves. The children had merry games of tag
and puss-in-the-corner, then they wandered along the beach, and then
they came with sharpened appetites to inquire when the baskets were to
be opened. “You may go and bring them now,” was the welcome response.
“Are we not to sit round the table in the summer-house?” asked one of
the little girls.
“No,” replied her mamma, “it is cooler here.”
Willing feet ran to the rustic arbor, and willing hands brought the
baskets from the rustic table. They seated themselves on the grass and
ate the biscuits and sardines and sandwiches, and the gingerbread and
cake. A little girl whom they did not know was playing near her father
and mother, who were seated on a bench at a little distance. One of the
children, with thoughtful kindness, asked her mother’s permission to
take some biscuits and cake to the little stranger, and joyfully she ran
off to offer of their abundance to the little one.
After they had done full justice to the contents of the baskets, and
picked up pebbles on the beach, they sat in the large summer house and
sang hymns, sweet familiar hymns, sung by sweet childish voices,
sobering and sanctifying the pleasures of that happy Saturday afternoon.
At the station they found a merry party of school-girls who had walked
out in the morning to gather flowers on the prairie. They were in high
glee; their large straw hats were wreathed with oak leaves, and their
hands were filled with great bunches of flowers,
“The golden and the flame-like flower.”
Norman said good-by to Emily Percy at her door, for he and his mother
were to spend the Sabbath with Mrs. Bowers, and a pleasant Sabbath it
was. The conversation, in harmony with the day, on the piazza, after
breakfast, beneath the shade of lofty spreading trees; the sermons and
services of morning, afternoon, and evening, different in tone and
character, but all profitable and pleasing; the visit to the large and
interesting Sunday school, in which Mrs. Bowers taught a class, made the
Sabbath a delightful one.
Monday morning Mrs. Percy took Mrs. Lester and Norman and Emily to her
husband’s grain warehouse, the top of which they reached after ascending
many flights of steps. The roof is of canvas, covered with tar, upon
which, while it is warm, pebbles are thrown, making a durable and fire
proof roof. The city lay beneath them; they could mark its great extent,
trace the course of its dividing rivers, with their sails, and steamers,
and propellers; see trains of cars arriving and departing; count the
spires which
“With silent fingers point to heaven,”
and around all see the great lake and the encircling prairie.
The warehouse was filled with dust, as the machinery was in motion.
Norman watched the elevators lifting up the grain from the rail-car on
one side to the fifth story of the warehouse, where it is weighed and
poured into great bins, whence it is discharged into vessels on the
other side. The elevator is a series of buckets on an endless band.
Thousands of bushels, from the wide prairies of Illinois, are thus
elevated, weighed, and transferred from car to boat, to be sent to the
Eastern states or to Europe.
The saddest sight Norman saw in this city was the great number of
saloons, as they call the shops where liquor is sold, where drunkards
are made, and where many an unwary victim is lured to destruction. In
almost every block, they tempt the thoughtless; music sounds her
welcome; vice puts on her most attractive mien; and young men forget a
father’s counsel, a mother’s prayers; and for the momentary
gratification of their appetites they offer up reputation, character,
health, life, and their eternal all; a costly sacrifice! Everything
lost, and nothing gained but degradation, misery, and death.