CHAPTER XXI.

Most of the actions and events of our lives are chameleon-hued: their

colors vary according to the light by which we view them. Thus Eve, who

the night before had seen nothing but happiness in the final arrangement

between Adam and herself, awoke on the following morning with a feeling

of dissatisfaction and a desire to be critical as to the rosy hues which

seemed then to color the advent of their love.

The spring of tenderness which had burst forth within her at sight of

Adam's humility and subsequent despair had taken Eve by surprise. She

knew, and had known for some time, that much within her was capable of

answering to the demands which Adam's pleading love would most probably

require; but that he had inspired her with a passion which would make

her lay her heart at his feet, feeling for the time that, though he

trampled on it, there it must stay, was a revelation entirely new, and,

to Eve's temperament, rather humiliating. She had never felt any

sympathy with those lovesick maidens whose very existence seemed

swallowed up in another's being, and had been proudly confident that

even when supplicated she should never seem to stoop lower than to

accept. Therefore, just as we experience a sense of failure when we find

our discernment led astray in our perception of a friend, so now,

although she studiously avoided acknowledging it, she had the

consciousness that she had utterly misconceived her own character, and

that the balance by which she had adjusted the strength of her emotions

had been a false one. A dread ran through her lest she should be seized

hold upon by some further inconsistency, and she resolved to set a watch

on the outposts of her senses, so that they might not betray her into

further weakness.

These thoughts were still agitating her mind when Joan suddenly awoke,

and after a time roused herself sufficiently to say, "Why, whatever made

you pop off in such a hurry last night, Eve? I runned in a little after

ten, and there wasn't no signs of you nowheres; and then I come upon

Adam, and he told me you was gone up to bed."

"Yes," said Eve: "I was so tired, and my foot began to ache again, so I

thought there wasn't any use in my sitting up any longer. But you were

very late, Joan, weren't you?"

"Very early, more like," said Joan: "'twas past wan before I shut my

eyes. Why, I come home three times to see if uncle was back; and then I

wouldn't stand it no longer, so I went and fetched un."

"What, not from--where he was?" exclaimed Eve.

Joan nodded her head. "Oh Lors!" she said, "'tain't the fust time by

many; and," she added in a tone of satisfaction, "I lets 'em know when

they've brought Joan Hocken down among 'em. I had Jerrem out, and uncle

atop of un, 'fore they knawed where they was. Awh, I don't stand beggin'

and prayin', not I: 'tis 'whether or no, Tom Collins,' when I come, I

can tell 'ee."

"Well, they'd stay a very long time before they'd be fetched by me,"

said Eve emphatically.

"Awh, don't 'ee say that, now," returned Joan. "Where do 'ee think

there'd be the most harm in, then--sittin' comfortable at home when you

might go down and 'tice 'em away, or the goin' down and doin' of it?"

"I've not a bit of patience with anybody who drinks," exclaimed Eve,

evading a direct answer.

"Then you'll never cure anybody of it, my dear," replied Joan. "You'm

like Adam there, I reckon--wantin' to set the world straight in one day,

and all the folks in it bottommost side upward; but, as I tell un, he

don't go to work the right way. They that can't steer 'ull never sail;

and I'll bet any money that when it comes to be counted up how many

glasses o' grog's been turned away from uncle's lips, there'll be more

set to the score o' my coaxin' than ever 'ull be to Adam's

bullyraggin'."

"Perhaps so," said Eve; and then, wishing to avoid any argument into

which Adam could be brought, she adroitly changed the subject, and only

indifferent topics were discussed until, their dressing completed, the

two girls were ready to go down stairs.

The first person who answered the summons to breakfast was Uncle

Zebedee--not heavy-eyed and shamefaced, as Eve had expected to see him,

but bright and rosy-cheeked as an apple. He had been up and out since

six o'clock, looking after the repairs which a boat of his was laid up

to undergo, and now, as he came into the house fresh as a lark, he

chirruped in a quavery treble,

"Tom Truelove woo'd the sweetest fair

That e'er to tar was kind:

Her face was of a booty rare--

That's for all the world what yourn is," he said, breaking off to bestow

a smacking kiss on Joan. "So look sharp, like a good little maid as you

be, and gi'e us sommat to sit down for;" and he drew a chair to the

table and began flourishing the knife which had been set there for him.

Then, catching sight of Eve, whose face, in her desire to spare him,

betrayed an irrepressible look of consciousness, he exclaimed, "Why,

they've bin tellin' up that I was a little over-free in my speech last

night about you, Eve: is there any truth in it, eh? I doan't fancy I

could ha' said much amiss--did I?"

"Oh, nothing to signify, uncle."

"'Twas sommat 'bout you and Adam, warn't it?" he continued with a

puzzled air: "'tis all in my head here, though I can't zackly call it to

mind. That's the divil o' bein' a little o'ertook that ways," he added

with the assurance of meeting ready sympathy: "'tis so bafflin' to set

things all ship-shape the next mornin'. I minds so far as this, that it

had somehow to do with me holdin' to it that you and Adam was goin' to

be man and wife; but if you axes for the why and the wherefore, I'm

blessed if I can tell 'ee."

"Why, whatever put such as that into your head?" said Joan sharply.

"Wa-al, the liquor, I reckon," laughed Zebedee. "And, somehow or

'nother, Maister Adam didn't seem to have overmuch relish for the

notion;" and he screwed up his face and hugged himself together as if

his whole body was tickled at his son's discomfiture. "But there! never

you mind that, Eve," he added hastily: "there's more baws than one to

Polperro, and I'll wager for a halfscore o' chaps ready to hab 'ee

without yer waitin' to be took up by my son Adam."

Poor Eve! it was certainly an embarrassing situation to be placed in,

for, with no wish to conceal her engagement, to announce it herself

alone, and unaided by even the presence of Adam, was a task she

naturally shrank from. In the endeavor to avoid any direct reply she sat

watching anxiously for Adam's arrival, her sudden change of manner

construed by Zebedee into the effect of wounded vanity, and by Joan into

displeasure at her uncle's undue interference. By sundry frowns and nods

of warning Joan tried to convey her admonitions to old Zebedee, in the

midst of which Adam entered, and with a smile at Eve and an inclusive

nod to the rest of the party took a chair and drew up to the table.

"Surely," thought Eve, "he intends telling them."

But Adam sat silent and occupied with the plate before him.

"He can't think I can go living on here with Joan, even for a single

day, and they not know it;" and in her perplexity she turned on Adam a

look full of inquiry and meaning.

Still, Adam did not speak: in his own mind he was casting over the

things he meant to say when, breakfast over and the two girls out of the

way, he would invite his father to smoke a pipe outside, during the

companionship of which he intended taking old Zebedee decidedly to task,

and, putting his intended marriage with Eve well to the front, clinch

his arguments by the startling announcement that unless some reformation

was soon made he would leave his native place and seek a home in a

foreign land. Such words and such threats as these could not be uttered

to a father by a son save when they two stood quite alone; and Adam,

after meeting a second look from Eve, shook his head, feeling satisfied

that she would know that only some grave requirement deterred him from

immediately announcing the happiness which henceforth was to crown his

life. But our intuition, at the best, is somewhat narrow, and where the

heart is most concerned most faulty: therefore Eve, and Adam too, felt

each disappointed in the other's want of acquiescence, and inclined to

be critical on the lack of mutual sympathy.

Suddenly the door opened and in walked Jerrem, smiling and apparently

more radiant than usual under the knowledge that he was more than

usually an offender. Joan, who had her own reasons for being very

considerably put out with him, was not disposed to receive him very

graciously; Adam vouchsafed him no notice whatever; Uncle Zebedee,

oppressed by the sense of former good fellowship, thought it discreet

not to evince too much cordiality; so that the onus of the morning's

welcome was thrown upon Eve, who, utterly ignorant of any offence Jerrem

had given, thought it advisable to make amends for the pettish

impatience she feared she had been betrayed into on the previous

morning.

Old Zebedee, whose resolves seldom lasted over ten minutes, soon fell

into the swing of Jerrem's flow of talk; a little later on and Joan was

forced to put in a word; so that the usual harmony was just beginning to

recover itself when, in answer to a remark which Jerrem had made, Eve

managed to turn the laugh so cleverly back upon him that Zebedee, well

pleased to see what good friends they were growing, exclaimed, "Stop her

mouth! stop her mouth, lad! I'd ha' done it when I was your years twenty

times over 'fore this. Her's too sarcy--too sarcy by half, her is."

Up started Jerrem, but Adam was before him. "I don't know whether what

I'm going to say is known to anybody here already," he burst out, "but I

think it's high time that some present should be told by me that Eve has

promised to be my wife;" and, turning, he cast a look of angry defiance

at Jerrem, who, thoroughly amazed, gradually sank down and took

possession of his chair again, while old Zebedee went through the dumb

show of giving a long whistle, and Joan, muttering an unmeaning

something, ran hastily out of the room. Eve, angry and confused, turned

from white to red and from red to white.

A silence ensued--one of those pauses when some event of our lives seems

turned into a gulf to separate us from our former surroundings.

Adam was the first to speak, and with a touch of irony he said, "You're

none of you very nimble at wishing us joy, I fancy."

"And no wonder, you've a-tooked us all aback so," said old Zebedee. "'T

seems to me I'm foaced to turn it round and round afore I can swaller it

for rale right-down truth."

"Why, is it so very improbable, then?" asked Adam, already repenting the

abruptness of the disclosure.

"Wa-al, 'twas no later than last night that you was swearin' agen and

cussin' everybody from stem to starn for so much as mentionin' it as

likely. Now," he added, with as much show of displeasure as his cheery,

weatherbeaten old face would admit of, "I'll tell 'ee the mind I've got

to'ard these sort o' games: if you see fit to board folks in the smoke,

why do it and no blame to 'ee, but hang me if I can stomach 'ee sailin'

under false colors."

"There wasn't anything of false colors about us, father," said Adam in a

more conciliatory tone; "for, though I had certainly spoken to Eve, it

was not until after I'd parted with you last night that she gave me her

answer."

"Awh!" said the old man, only half propitiated. "Wa-al, I s'pose you can

settle your consarns without my help; but I can tell 'ee this much, that

if my Joanna had took so long afore she could make her mind up, I'm

blamed if her ever should ha' had the chance o' bein' your mother,

Adam--so there!"

Adam bit his lip with vexation. "There's no need for me to enter upon

any further explanations," he said: "Eve's satisfied, I'm satisfied, so

I don't see why you shouldn't be satisfied."

"Awh, I'm satisfied enough," said Zebedee; "and, so far as that goes,

though I ain't much of a hand at speechifyin', I hopes that neither of

'ee 'ull never have no raison to repent yer bargain. Eve's a fine

bowerly maid, so you'm well matched there; and so long as she's ready to

listen to all you say and bide by all you tells her, why 'twill be set

fair and sail easy."

"I can assure you Eve isn't prepared to do anything of the sort, Uncle

Zebedee," exclaimed Eve, unable to keep silence any longer. "I've always

been told if I'd nothing else I've got the Pascals' temper; and that,

according to your own showing, isn't very fond of sitting quiet and

being rode over rough-shod."

The whistle which Uncle Zebedee had tried to choke at its birth now came

out shrill, long and expressive, and Adam, jumping up, said, "Come,

come, Eve: we've had enough of this. Surely there isn't any need to take

such idle talk as serious matter. If you and me hadn't seen some good in

one another we shouldn't have taken each other, I suppose; and, thank

the Lord, we haven't to please anybody but our two selves."

"Wa-al, 'tis to be hoped you'll find that task aisier than it looks,"

retorted Uncle Zebedee with a touch of sarcasm; while Jerrem, after

watching Adam go out, endeavored to throw a tone of regret into the

flattering nothings he now whispered by way of congratulation, but Eve

turned impatiently away from him. She had no further inclination to talk

or to be talked to; and Uncle Zebedee having by this time sought solace

in a pipe, Jerrem joined him outside, and the two sauntered away

together toward the quay.

Left to the undisturbed indulgence of her own reflections, Eve's mood

was no enviable one--the more difficult to bear because she had to

control the various emotions struggling within her. She felt it was time

for plain speaking between her and Adam, and rightly judged that a

proper understanding come to at once would be the safest means of

securing future comfort. Turn and twist Adam's abrupt announcement as

she would, she could assign but one cause for it, and that cause was an

overweening jealousy; and as the prospect came before her of a lifetime

spent in the midst of doubt and suspicion, the strength of her love

seemed to die away and her heart grew faint within her. For surely if

the demon of jealousy could be roused by the sight of commonplace

attentions from one who was in every way like a brother--for so in Eve's

eyes Jerrem seemed to be--what might not be expected if at any time

circumstances threw her into the mixed company of strangers? Eve had

seen very little of men, but whenever chance had afforded her the

opportunity of their society she had invariably met with attention, and

had felt inwardly gratified by the knowledge that she was attracting

admiration; but now, if she gave way to this prejudice of Adam's, every

time an eye was turned toward her she would be filled with fear, and

each time a look was cast in her direction her heart would sink with

dread.

What should she do? Give him up? Even with the prospect of possible

misery staring at her, Eve could not say yes, and before the thought had

more than shaped itself a dozen suggestions were battling down the dread

alternative. She would change him, influence him, convert him--anything

but give him up or give in to him. She forgot how much easier it is to

conceive plans than to carry them out--to arrange speeches than to utter

them. She forgot that only the evening before, when, an opportunity

being afforded, she had resolved upon telling Adam the whole

circumstance of Reuben May and the promise made between them, while the

words were yet on her lips she had drawn them back because Adam had said

he knew that the promise was "nothing but the promise of a letter;" and

Eve's courage had suddenly given way, and by her silence she had led him

to conclude that nothing else had passed between them. Joan had spoken

of the envious grudge which Adam had borne toward Jerrem because he had

shared in his mother's heart, so that this was not the first time Adam

had dropped in gall to mingle with the cup of his love.

The thought of Joan brought the fact of her unexplained disappearance to

Eve's mind, and, full of compunction at the bare suspicion of having

wounded that generous heart, Eve jumped up with the intention of seeking

her and of bringing about a satisfactory explanation. She had not far to

go before she came upon Joan, rubbing and scrubbing away as if the

welfare of all Polperro depended on the amount of energy she could throw

into her work. Her face was flushed and her voice unsteady, the natural

consequences of such violent exercise, and which Eve's approach but

seemed to lend greater force to.

"Joan, I want to speak to you."

"Awh, my dear, I can't listen to no spakin' now," replied Joan hastily,

"and the tables looking as they do."

"But Tabithy always scrubs the tables, Joan: why should you do it?"

"Tabithy's arms ain't half so young as mine--worse luck for me or for

she!"

Having by this time gained a little insight into Joan's peculiarities,

Eve argued no further, but sat herself down on a convenient seat,

waiting for the time when the rasping sound of the brush would come to

an end. Her patience was put to no very great tax, for after a few

minutes Joan flung the brush along the table, exclaiming, "Awh, drabbit

the ole scrubbin'! I must give over. I b'lieve I've had enuf of it for

this time, 't all events."

"Joan, you ain't hurt with me, are you?" said Eve, trying to push her

into the seat from which she had just risen. "I wanted to be the first

to tell you, only that Adam spoke as he did, and took all I was going to

say out of my mouth. It leaves you to think me dreadfully sly."

"Awh, there wasn't much need for tellin' me," said Joan with a sudden

relax of manner. "When I didn't shut my eyes o' purpose I could tell,

from the first, what was certain to happen."

"It was more than I could, then," said Eve. "I hadn't given it a thought

that Adam meant to speak to me, and when he asked me I was quite taken

aback, and said 'No' for ever so long."

"What made 'ee change yer mind so suddent, then?" said Joan bluntly.

Eve hesitated. "I hardly know," she said, with a little confusion. "I

think it was seeing him so cast down made me feel so dreadfully sorry."

"H'm!" said Joan. "Didn't 'ee never feel no sorrow for t'other poor chap

that wanted to have 'ee--he to London, Reuben May?"

"Not enough to make me care in that way for him: I certainly never did."

"And do you care for Adam, then?"

"I think I do."

"Think?"

"Well, I am sure I do."

"That's better. Well, Eve, I'll say this far;" and Joan gave a sigh

before the other words would come out: "I'd rather it should be you than

anybody else I ever saw."

The struggle with which these words were said, their tone and the look

in Joan's face, seemed to reveal a state of feeling which Eve had not

suspected. Throwing her arms round her, she cried out, "Oh, Joan, why

didn't he choose you? You would have been much better for him than me."

"Lord bless the maid!"--and Joan tried to laugh through her tears--"I

wouldn't ha' had un if he'd axed me. Why, there'd ha' bin murder 'tween

us 'fore a month was out: us 'ud ha' bin hung for one 'nother. No: now

don't 'ee take no such stuff as that into yer head, 'cos there's no

sense in it. Adam's never looked 'pon me not more than a sister;" and,

breaking down, Joan sobbed hysterically; "and when you two's married I

shall feel 'zackly as if he was a brother, and be gladder than e'er a

one else to see how happy you makes un."

"That's if I _do_ make him happy," said Eve sadly.

"There's no fear but you'll do that," said Joan, resolutely wiping the

tears from her eyes; "and 'twill be your own fault if you bain't happy

too yourself, Eve. Adam's got his fads to put up with, and his fancies

same as other men have, and a masterful temper to keep under, as nobody

can tell better than me; but for rale right-down goodness I shouldn't

know where to match his fellow--not if I was to search the place

through; and, mind 'ee, after all, that's something to be proud of in

the man you've got to say maister to."

Eve gave a little smile: "But he must let me be mistress, you know,

Joan."

"All right! only don't you stretch that too far," said Joan warningly,

"or no good 'ull come of it; and be foreright in all you do, and spake

the truth to un. I've many a time wished I could, but with this to hide

o' that one's and that to hush up o' t'other's, I know he holds me for a

downright liard; and so I am by his measure, I 'spects."

"I'm sure you're nothing of the sort, Joan," said Eve. "Adam's always

saying how much people think of you. He told me only yesterday that he

was certain more than half the men of the place had asked you to marry

them."

"Did he?" said Joan, not wholly displeased that Adam should hold this

opinion. "Awh, and ax they may, I reckon, afore I shall find a man to

say 'Yes' to."

"That is what I used to think myself," said Eve.

"Iss, and so you found it till Roger put the question," replied Joan

decisively. Then, after a minute's pause, she added, "What be 'ee goin'

to do 'bout the poor sawl to London, then--eh? You must tell he

somehow."

"Oh, I don't see that," said Eve. "I mean to write to him, because I

promised I would; and I shall tell him that I've made up my mind not to

go back, but I sha'n't say anything more. There isn't any need for it,

that I see--at least, not yet a while."

"Best to tell un all," argued Joan. "Why shouldn't 'ee? 'Tis the same,

so far as you'm concerned, whether he's killed to wance or dies by

inches."

But Eve was not to be persuaded. "There isn't any reason why I should,"

she said.

"No reason?" replied Joan. "Oh, Eve, my dear," she added, "don't 'ee let

happiness harden your heart: if love is sweet to gain, think how bitter

'tis to lose; and, by all you've told me, you'll forfeit a better man

than most in Reuben May."

_The Author of "Dorothy Fox._"

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

ON THE SKUNK RIVER.

The Lady of Shalott, looking into the mirror which reflected the highway

"a bowshot from her bower-eaves," saw the villagers passing to their

daily labor in the barley-fields; market-girls in red cloaks and damsels

of high degree; curly shepherd-boys and long-haired pages in gay livery;

an abbot on an ambling pad and knights in armor and nodding plumes; and

her constant pastime was to weave these sights into the magic web on

which she wrought. I undertake, in a modest way, to follow her example,

and weave a series of pictures from the sights that daily meet my eyes.

The highway which runs a bowshot from _my_ bower-eaves is a

much-travelled road, leading from the farms of a prairie country into a

prairie town. It is a stripe of black earth fifteen or twenty feet wide,

the natural color of the soil, ungraded, ungravelled, and just now half

a foot deep in mud from the melting February snows. Looking in the

direction from which it comes, a mile or two of rolling prairie-land is

visible, divided into farms of one hundred, one hundred and forty or one

hundred and sixty acres. Just now it is faded yellow in hue, with

patches of snow in the hollows, and bare of trees, stumps or fences,

except the almost invisible wire-fences which separate the fields from

the road and from each other. Here and there, at wide intervals, a few

farm-houses can be seen, sheltered on the north and west by a

thickly-set row of cottonwood or Lombardy poplar trees, which serve in a

great measure to break the sweep of the pitiless Iowa winds. Most of the

houses are large and comfortable, and are surrounded by barns, haystacks

and young orchards, denoting a long residence and prosperity; but two or

three, far off on the horizon, are small wooden structures, set on the

bare prairie, without a tree or outbuilding near them, and looking bleak

and lonely. To one who knows something of the straitened lives, the

struggles with poverty, that go on in them, they seem doubly pitiful and

desolate.

The town into which the highway leads lies straight before my window,

flat, unpicturesque, uninteresting, marked by the untidiness of

crudeness and the untidiness of neglect. The ungraded streets are

trodden into a sticky pudding by horses' feet, the board sidewalks are

narrow, uneven and broken, and the crossings are deep in mud. In the

eastern part of the town the dwellings are large, comfortable, even

elegant, with well-kept grounds filled with trees and shrubbery, and

there are a few of the same character scattered here and there

throughout the town; but the large majority of houses, those that give

the place its discouraged, unambitious look, are small wooden dwellings,

a story or a story and a half high, with the end facing the street and a

shed-kitchen behind. Those that are painted are white or brown, but many

are unpainted, have no window-shutters and are surrounded by untidy

yards and fences that need repair.

The centre of the town, both in position and importance, is "The

Square." This is an open space planted thickly with trees, which have

now grown to a large size and cast a refreshing shade over the crowd

that gathers there in summer to hear political speeches or to celebrate

the Fourth of July. It is surrounded by hitching-racks, and on Saturdays

and other unusually busy days these racks, on all the four sides of the

Square, are so full of teams--generally two-horse farm-wagons--that

there is not room for another horse to be tied. Facing the Square

and extending a block or two down adjacent streets are the

business-houses--stores, banks, express-office, livery-stables,

post-office, gas-office, the hotels, the opera-house, newspaper and

lawyers' offices. Many of the buildings are of brick, three stories

high, faced or trimmed with stone, but the general effect is marred by

the contiguity of little wooden shanties used as barber-shops and

meat-markets.

Except in the north-east, where the land is rolling and densely wooded,

the horizon-line is flat and on a level with our feet. The sun rises

from the prairie as he rises from the ocean, and his going down is the

same: no far-off line of snowy mountains, no range of green hills nor

forest-crest, intercepts his earliest and his latest rays. Over this

wide stretch of level land the wind sweeps with unobstructed violence,

and more than once in the memory of settlers it has increased to a

destructive tornado, carrying buildings, wagons, cattle and human beings

like chaff before it. Just now, a sky of heavenly beauty and color bends

over it, and through the wide spaces blow delicious airs suggestive of

early spring.

Nearly every day, and often many times a day, farm-wagons drawn by two

horses pass along the highway in front of my window. The wagon-bed is

filled with sacks of wheat or piled high with yellow corn, and on the

high spring-seat in front sits the farmer driving, and by him his wife,

her head invariably wrapped in a white woollen nubia or a little shawl,

worn as a protection against the catarrh-producing prairie winds.

Cuddled in the hay at their feet, but keeping a bright lookout with

round eager eyes, are two or three stout, rosy children, and often there

is a baby in the mother's arms. When "paw" has sold his wheat or corn

the whole family will walk around the Square several times, looking in

at the shop-windows and staring at the people on the sidewalk. When they

have decided in which store they can get the best bargains, they will go

in and buy groceries, calico and flannel, shoes for the children, and

perhaps a high chair for the baby. Later in the day they rattle by

again, the farmer sitting alone on the spring-seat, the wife and

children, as a better protection against the wind, on some hay in the

now empty wagon-bed behind. So they jolt homeward over the rough, frozen

road or toil through sticky mud, as the case may be, well pleased with

their purchases and their glimpse of town, and content to take up again

the round of monotonous life on their isolated prairie farm.

Sometimes on spring-like days, when the roads are good, two women or a

woman and one or two half-grown children drive by in a spring-wagon,

bringing chickens, eggs, and butter to market. Heavy wagons loaded with

large clear blocks of ice go by every day, the men walking and driving

or seated on a board seat at the extreme rear of the wagon. The great

crystal cubes look, as they flash in the sunshine, like

building-material for Aladdin's palace quarried from some mine of

jewels, but they are only brought from the Skunk River, three miles

distant, to the ice-houses in town, and there packed away in sawdust

for summer use. On two days of the week--shipping days for

live-stock--farm-wagons with a high railing round the beds go by, and

inside the railing, crowded as thickly as they can stand, are fat black

or black-and-white hogs, which thrust their short noses between the

boards and squeal to get out. They are unloaded at the cattle-pens near

the railroad, and thence shipped to pork-packers at Chicago.

And sometimes half a dozen Indians, the roving gypsies of the West,

dressed in warm and comfortable clothing and wrapped in red or blue

blankets, ride into town on good horses. They belong to the Sacs and

Foxes, a friendly, well-disposed remnant of people who live half a day's

ride to the north-east of this place. They are better off than the

average of white people, for every man, woman and child owns a quarter

section of land in the Indian Territory, and receives an annuity of

money besides. Immediately after pay-day they visit the neighboring

towns, their pockets full of silver dollars, and buy whatever necessity

or fancy dictates. The women are generally neat and comely in

appearance, and the pappooses that peer from the bags hung on either

side of the ponies are bright-eyed, round-faced youngsters, who never

cry and seldom cause any trouble. They seem to be born with a certain

amount of gravity, and a capacity for patient endurance that forbids

them to lift up their voices at every slight provocation after the

manner of white babies. The Indian ponies too are models of endurance.

The squaws tie their purchases in blankets and hang them across the

backs of their ponies, swing their pappooses to one side and perhaps a

joint of fresh meat to the other, then mount on top astride, dig the

pony's neck with their moccasined heels and start off at a trot.

Sometimes a large party of Indians, men, women and children, camp on

Skunk River and fish. In the spring they make a general hegira to a

wooded section two or three days' journey to the northward for the

purpose of tapping the maple trees and boiling down the syrup into

sugar. As before mentioned, they are friendly and inoffensive in their

dealings with the white people, but their patience must be sorely tried

sometimes. The town-boys hoot at them, throw stones at their ponies, and

try in many ways to annoy them. I remember once seeing them pass through

another town on their annual spring excursion to the sugar-camps. Two of

the pack-ponies had strayed behind the train, and a squaw rode back to

drive them ahead. A number of town-boys, thinking this an excellent

opportunity to have some fun, threw sticks at them and drove them off on

by-streets and up back alleys. The squaw tried patiently again and again

to get them together and join the train, but it was not until a brave

turned back and came to her assistance that she succeeded. Neither of

the Indians uttered a word or betrayed by sign or expression that they

noticed the insults of the boys.

Often, when the mud is too deep for teams, farmers go by on horseback,

with their horses' tails tied into a knot to keep them out of the mud.

They have come to town to learn the price of wheat, corn or hogs, to

bargain for some article of farm use, or perhaps to pay the interest on

their mortgages. Many of them have not yet paid entirely for their

farms, and comparatively few are free from debt in some form. Some,

being ambitious to have large farms, have taken more land than they can

profitably manage or pay for in a number of years, and are what is

called "land poor:" others, though content with modest portions of sixty

or a hundred acres, have not yet been able, by reason of poor crops,

their own mismanagement or some other cause, to clear their farms of

debt. They work along from year to year, supporting their families,

paying the interest, and paying off the principal little by little. When

the last payment is made and the mortgage released, then the owner can

hold the land in spite of all other creditors. His store-bills or other

debts may run up to hundreds of dollars, but his homestead cannot be

taken to satisfy them by any process of law. This is the homestead law

of the State. A single exception is made in favor of one creditor: the

mechanic who has erected the buildings can hold what is called a

mechanic's lien upon the property until his claim is satisfied.

Advantage is often taken of this law for the purpose of defrauding

creditors. In one instance a merchant who owned a good residence in a

city and a valuable store-property, sold or transferred his residence,

moved his family into the rooms above his store, and soon afterward

failed. His creditors tried to get possession of his store-property, and

entered suit, but the testimony proved that it was his dwelling also,

and therefore exempt under the homestead law. The amount of land that

can be held in this way is limited to forty acres.

Beginning life in a new country with small capital involves many years

of hard work and strict economy, perhaps privation and loneliness. This

comes especially hard on the farmers' wives, many of whom have grown up

in homes of comfort and plenty in the older States. Ask the men what

they think of Iowa, and they will say that it is a fine State; it has

many resources and advantages; there is room for development here; the

avenues to positions of profit and honor are not so crowded as they are

in the older States; a good class of emigrants are settling up the

State: that, on the whole, Iowa has a bright future before it. But the

women do not deal in such generalities. Their own home and individual

life is all the world to them, and if that is encompassed with toil and

hardship, if all their cherished longings and ambitions are denied and

their hearts sick with hope deferred, this talk about the undeveloped

resources of Iowa and its future greatness has no interest or meaning

for them. In their isolated homes on the bleak prairie they have few

social opportunities, and their straitened means do not allow them to

buy books or pictures, to take papers or magazines, or to indulge in

many of the little household ornaments dear to the feminine heart. What

wonder, then, if their eyes have a weary, questioning look, as if they

were always searching the flat prairie-horizon for some promise or hope

of better days, something fresh and stimulating to vary the dull

monotony of toil?

"There's a better time coming," the farmer says. "When we get the farm

paid for we will build a new house and send the children to town to

school;" and so the slow years go by. If every new country is not

actually fertilized with the heart's blood of women, the settling and

development of it none the less require the sacrifice of their lives.

One generation must cast itself into the breach, must toil and endure

and wear out in the struggle with elementary forces, in order that those

who come after them may begin life on a higher plane of physical comfort

and educational and social advantages. They have not, like the settlers

of Eastern States, had to fell forests, grub up stumps, and so wrest

their farms from Nature; but they have none the less endured the

inevitable hardships of life in a new, thinly-settled country, far from

markets, railroads, schools, churches and all that puts a market value

on man's labor. I see many women who have thus sacrificed, and are

sacrificing, their lives. Their faces are wrinkled, their hands are hard

with rough, coarse work, they have long ago ceased to have any personal

ambitions; but their hopes are centred in their children. Their

self-abnegation is pathetic beyond words. Looking at them and musing on

their lives, I think truly

The individual withers, and the world is more and more.

Must the old story be repeated over and over again? Must some hearts be

denied all their lives long in order that a possible good may come to

others in the future? Must some lives, full of throbbing hopes and

aspirations, be put down in the dust and mire as stepping-stones, that

those who come after may go over dryshod? Is the individual not to be

considered, but only the good of the mass? Can there be justice and

righteousness in a plan that requires the lifelong martyrdom of a few?

Have not these few as much right to a full and free development, to

liberty to work out their own ambitions, as have any of the multitude

who reap the benefit of their sacrifices? But peace: this little

existence is not all there is of life, and in the sphere of wider

opportunities and higher activity that awaits us there will be room for

these thwarted, stunted lives to grow and flourish and bloom in immortal

beauty. With our limited vision, our blind and short-sighted judgment,

how can we presume to say what is harsh or what is kind in the

discipline of life? The earth as she flies on her track through space

deviates from a straight line less than the eighth of an inch in the

distance of twenty miles. We, seeing only twenty miles of her course,

would declare that it was perfectly straight, that it did not curve in

the slightest degree; yet flying on that same course the earth makes

every year her vast elliptical journey around the sun. Could we see a

hundred million miles of the track, we should discern the curve very

plainly. Could we see a part of the boundless future of a life whose

circumstances in this little span of existence were limited and

depressing, we should discern the meaning of much that viewed separately

seems hard and bitter and useless.

The settlers of this State have chiefly emigrated from the older

States--Indiana, Ohio and the Eastern and Middle States. There are many

foreigners--Swedes, Norwegians, Germans, Dutch and Irish--who generally

live in colonies. The German element predominates, especially in the

cities. In the south-western part of the State there is a colony of

Russian Mennonites, and at Amana, in the eastern part, there are several

flourishing German colonies where the members hold all property in

common. They preserve to some extent the quaint customs and costumes of

the Fatherland, and one set down in the midst of their homes without

knowing where he was might well believe himself in Germany. The Swedes

and Norwegians bear a good character for industry and sobriety: the

young women are in great demand as house-servants and command good

wages.

The emigrants from older States were many of them farmers of small

means, who came through in covered wagons with their families and

household stuff. In pleasant weather this mode of travelling was not

disagreeable, but in rainy or cold weather it was very uncomfortable. No

one could walk in the deep mud: the whole family were obliged to huddle

together in the back part of the wagon, wrapped in bed-quilts or other

covers, while the driver, generally the head of the family, sat on the

seat in front, exposed to the cold or driving rain. The horses slowly

dragged the heavily-laden wagon through the mud, and the progress toward

their new home was tedious in the extreme. The wagons were usually

common farm-wagons with hoops of wood, larger and stouter than barrel

hoops, arched over the bed and covered with white cotton cloth.

Sometimes, as a protection against rain, a large square of black

oil-cloth was spread over the white cover. The front of the wagon was

left open: at the back the cover was drawn together by a string run

through the hem. Before leaving his old home the farmer generally held a

public sale and disposed of his household furniture, farming utensils

and the horses and cattle he did not intend to take with him. Sometimes

this property went by private sale to the purchaser of his farm. He

reserved the bedding, a few cooking utensils and other necessaries.

These were loaded into the wagon, a feed-box for the horses was fastened

behind, an axe strapped to it, and a tar-bucket hung underneath. Flour

and bacon were stored away in a box under the driver's seat, or, if

they expected no chance for replenishing on the way, another wagon was

filled with stores. Then, when all was ready, the farmer and his family

looked their last upon their old home, bade good-bye to the friends who

had gathered to see them off, took their places in the wagon and began

the long, tedious journey to "Ioway." Hitherto they had had a local

habitation and a name: now, for several months, they were to be known

simply as "movers." Among the memories of a childhood spent in a village

on the old National 'Pike those pertaining to movers are the earliest.

It was the pastime of my playmates and myself to hang on the fence and

watch the long train of white-covered wagons go by, always toward the

setting sun. Sometimes there were twenty in a train, and the slow creak

of the wagons, the labored stepping of the horses, had an important

sound to our childish ears. It was

The tread of pioneers

Of nations yet to be.

Looking backward to that time, it seems to me now that they went by

every day. It was a common sight, but one which never lost its interest

to us. The cry of "Movers! movers!" would draw us from our play to hang

idly on the fence until the procession had passed. In some instances

nightfall overtook them just as they reached our village, and they

camped by the roadside, lighting fires on the ground with which to cook

their evening meal. Our timidity was greater than our curiosity, and we

seldom went near their camps. Movers, in our estimation, were above

"stragglers," the name by which we knew the vagrants--forerunners of the

great tribe of tramps--who occasionally passed along the road with a

bundle on a stick over their shoulders; but still, they were a vague,

unknown class, whose intentions toward us were questionable, and we

remained in the vicinity of our mothers' apron-strings so long as they

were in the neighborhood.

When the weeks or months of slow travel during the day and camping out

by night were over, and the new home on the prairie was reached, the

discomforts and privations of the emigrating family were not ended: they

were only fairly begun. There was no house in which to lay their heads,

no sawmill where lumber could be obtained, no tree to shelter them,

unless they had the good fortune to locate near a stream--nothing but a

smooth, level expanse of prairie-sod, bright green and gay with the

flowers of early summer or faded and parched with the droughts of

autumn. Sometimes they camped in the open air until lumber could be

brought from a distance and a rude shanty erected, but often they built

a turf house, in which they passed their first winter. These houses were

constructed by cutting blocks of turf about eighteen inches square--the

roots of prairie-grass being that long--and piling one upon another

until the walls were raised to the desired height. Slender poles were

then laid across from wall to wall, and on these other strips and

squares of turf were piled until a roof thick enough to keep out the

rain was formed. A turf fireplace and chimney were constructed at one

end; the opening left for entrance was braced with poles and provided

with a door; and sometimes a square opening was cut in the end opposite

the chimney and a piece of muslin stretched across it to serve as a

window. The original earth formed the floor, and piles of turf covered

with bedding served as beds. It was only when the family intended to

live some time in the turf house that all these pains were taken to make

it comfortable. Many of these dwellings were dark huts, with floors a

foot or two below the level of the ground and without window or chimney.

These were intended for temporary occupation. A few of this kind, still

inhabited, are to be seen in the sparsely-settled north-western part of

the State. I do not mean this description to apply in a general sense to

the early settlers of Iowa. Many parts of the State are heavily wooded,

and cabins of hewed logs chinked with mud are still to be seen here and

there--specimens of the early homes. In the regions where turf houses

were necessary prairie-hay was burned as fuel.

When his family was housed from the weather the farmer turned his

attention to his land. The virgin sod had to be broken and the rich

black soil turned up in ridges to the air and sunlight. When the ground

was prepared the stock of seed-corn was planted or wheat sown, and the

farmer's old life began again under new and quite different

circumstances. In the eastern and oldest-settled part of the State these

beginnings date back a generation: in the western part they are still

fresh and recent. In the old part well-cultivated fields, large barns,

orchards, gardens and comfortable farm-houses greet the traveller's eye:

in the new he may travel for half a day without seeing a single

dwelling, and may consider himself fortunate if he does not have to pass

the night under the lee side of a haystack.

After a foothold has been gained in a new country and a home

established, a generation, perhaps two, must pass away before a fine

type of humanity is produced. The fathers and mothers have toiled for

the actual necessaries of life, and gained them. The children are

supplied with physical comforts. Plenty of food and exercise in the pure

air give them stalwart frames, good blood and perfect animal health, but

there is a bovine stolidity of expression in their faces, a

suggestion of kinship with the clod. They are honest-hearted and

well-meaning--stupid, not naturally, but because their minds have never

been quickened and stimulated. They grope in a blind way for better

things, and wonder if life means no more than to plough and sow and

reap, to wash and cook and sew. I see young people of this class by the

score, and my heart goes out toward them in pity, though they are all

unconscious of needing pity. Perhaps one out of every hundred will break

from the slowly-stepping ranks and run ahead to taste of the springs of

knowledge reserved for the next generation, but the vast majority will

go down to their graves without ever attaining to the ripeness and

symmetry of a fully-developed life. Their children perhaps--certainly

their grand-children--will attain a fine physical and mental type; and

by that time "the prairies" will cease to be a synonym for lack of

society and remoteness from liberal and refining influences.

The land in this vicinity is largely devoted to wheat, corn and oats:

much, however, is used for pasturage, and several fine stock-farms lie

within a radius of five miles. Sheep-rearing is a profitable industry,

the woollen manufactory at this place affording a convenient and ready

market for the clip. But the statistics of Iowa show that the rearing of

hogs is a more prominent industry than any of these. The agricultural

fairs that are held at the county-seats in August or September every

year serve to display the growth of these and other industries and the

development of the resources of the country, as well as the advance in

material comfort. The fair-ground is generally a smooth plat of ground

several acres in extent just outside the city limits, and besides the

race-track and wooden "amphitheatre" there are sheds for cattle, stalls

for horses, pens for hogs and sheep and poultry, a large open shed for

the exhibition of agricultural machinery and implements, a long wooden

building--usually called "Farmers' Hall"--where fruits, grain and

vegetables are displayed, and another, called "Floral Hall," where there

is a motley display consisting of flowering plants and cut flowers,

needlework, embroidery, pieced bed-quilts, silk chair-cushions and

sofa-pillows, jellies, preserves, jams, butter, cake, bread--the

handiwork of women. There is generally a crowd of women from the country

around these exhibits, examining them and bestowing friendly comment or

criticism.

The fair which is held here every year affords a good opportunity for a

study of the bucolic character. Farm-wagons, full of men, women and

children, come in from the country early in the morning, and by eleven

o'clock the halls are crowded with red-faced and dusty sightseers, who

elbow their way good-humoredly from one attractive exhibit to another,

and gaze with open eyes and mouth and loud and frequent comment. At noon

they retire to their wagons or the shade of the buildings to eat their

dinner, which they have brought from home in a large basket, and there

is a great flourish of fried chicken legs and wings and a generous

display of pies, pickles and ginger-bread. The young men and half-grown

boys have scorned the slow progress of the farm-wagons, and have come

into town early on horseback. They have looked forward to this occasion

for months, and perhaps have bought a suit of "store clothes" in honor

of it. They have already seen the various exhibits, and now that the

dinner-hour has arrived they seek refreshment--not from the family

dinner-basket, but from some of the various eating-stands temporarily

erected on the grounds--and buy pop-beer, roasted peanuts and candy of

the vendors, who understand the art of extracting money from the rural

pockets. Then in the afternoon come the races, and, having paid a

quarter for a seat in the "amphitheatre," they give themselves up to the

great excitement of the day. The incidents of fair-time will serve as

food for thought and conversation for weeks afterward. It is the

legitimate dissipation of the season.

What character shall I choose as a typical Iowan? Not the occupant of

the large brick house with tall evergreens in front which meets my sight

whenever I look toward the country. An old woman lives there alone,

except for a servant or two, having buried her husband and ten children.

She is worth a hundred thousand dollars, but can neither read nor write.

Her strong common sense and deep fund of experience supply her lack of

education, and one would not think while listening to her that she was

ignorant of letters. Her life has been one of toil and sorrow, but her

expression is one of brave cheerfulness. She and her husband came to

this place forty years ago. They were the first white settlers, and for

neighbors they had Indians and wolves. They entered most of the land on

which the town now stands, and when other settlers came in and the town

was laid out their land became valuable, and thus the foundation of

their fortune was laid. But as riches increased, cares also increased:

the husband was so weighed down by responsibility and anxiety that his

mind gave way, and in a fit of despondency he committed suicide. The

sons and daughters who died, with the exception of two or three, were

taken away in childhood. So the large mansion, with its richly-furnished

rooms, is shut up from the sunlight and rarely echoes to the patter of

childish feet. The mistress lives in the back part, but exercises a care

over the whole house, which is kept in a state of perfect order and

neatness. Not a speck of dirt is to be seen on the painted wood-work or

the window-glass, not a stain mars the floor--long as the deck of a

ship--of the porch which extends the length of the ell. The plates in

the corner cupboard in the sitting-room are freshly arranged every day,

the tins in the kitchen shine till you can see your face in them, and in

summer the clean flower-beds, bright with pansies, roses, carnations and

geraniums, that border the long walk leading to the front gate and adorn

the side yards, attest the care and neatness of the mistress. Though she

has lived on the prairie for forty years, yet the expressions that savor

of her early life in a densely-wooded State still cling to her, and if

you find her in her working-dress among her flowers she will beg you to

excuse her appearance, adding, "I look as if I was just out of the

timber."

But this character, though interesting, is not a typical one. Neither is

that of the pinched, hungry-looking little man whose five acres and

small dwelling meet my sight when I look toward the country in another

direction. His patch of ground is devoted to market-gardening, and from

its slender profits he is trying to support himself and wife and four

children and pay off a mortgage of several hundred dollars. He has

lately invented an ingenious toy for children, and is trying to raise

enough money to get it patented, hoping when that is done to reap large

profits from the sale of it. He is like a poor trembling little mouse

caught and held in the paws of a cruel cat. Sometimes Fate relaxes her

grip on him, and he breathes freer and dares to hope for a larger

liberty: then she puts her paw on him again, and tosses him and plays

with him in very wantonness.

Neither are the three old-maid sisters whose house I often pass types of

Iowa character, but I cannot forbear describing them. Their names are

Semira, Amanda and Melvina. There is nothing distinctive in their

personal appearance, but their character, as expressed in their home and

surroundings, is quite interesting. Their little low house is on a

corner lot, and as the other three corners are occupied by large

two-story houses, it seems lower still by contrast. It is unpainted, and

has a little wooden porch over the front door. The floors are covered

with homemade carpet, and braided mats are laid before each door and in

front of the old-fashioned bureau, which has brass rings for handles on

the drawers. A snow tree made of frayed white cotton or linen cloth

adorns the table in the best room; woolly dogs with bead eyes and

cotton-flannel rabbits with pink ears stand on the mantel; a bead

hanging-basket filled with artificial flowers decorates the window; an

elaborate air-castle, made of straw and bright worsted, hangs from the

middle of the low ceiling; and hung against the wall, between two

glaring woodcuts representing "Lady Caroline" in red and "Highland Mary"

in blue, is a deep frame filled with worsted flowers, to which a

butterfly and a bumble-bee have been pinned. Paper lacework depends from

their kitchen-shelves, and common eggshells, artificially colored,

decorate the lilac-bushes in the side yard. They are always making new

mats or piecing quilts in a new pattern.

As soon as the first bluebird warbles they begin to work in their flower

and vegetable garden, and from then until it is time to cover the

verbena-beds in the fall I rarely pass without seeing one or more of

them, with sunbonnet on head and hoe in hand, busy at work. Besides

keeping their little front yard a mass of gorgeous bloom and their

vegetable garden free from weed or stone, they raise canary-birds to

sell and take care of a dozen hives of bees. Last fall I frequently saw

all three of them in the yard, with a neighbor or two called in for

conference, and all twittering and chattering like blackbirds in March.

Finally, the mystery was solved. Going past one day, I saw a carpenter

deliberately cutting out the whole end of the house, and soon a large

bay-window made its appearance. When this was completed three rows of

shelves were put up inside close to the glass, and immediately filled

with plants in pots and tin cans. What endless occupation and

entertainment the watering and watching and tending of these must afford

the sisters during winter!

Neither does another neighbor of mine supply the type I seek--the old

Quaker farmer, who is discontented and changeable in his disposition,

having lived in Indiana a while, then in Iowa, then in Indiana again,

and who is now in Iowa for the second time. He rents some land which

lies just across the railroad, and in summer, when he is ploughing the

growing corn, I hear him talking to his horse. He calls her a "contrary

old jade," and jerks the lines and saws her mouth, and says, "Get over

in that other row, I tell thee!" Once I heard him mutter to her, when he

was leading her home after the day's work was done, "I came as near

killin' thee to-day as ever I did."

I will take for one type a man whom we met last summer in the country.

We had driven for miles along the country roads in search of a certain

little glen where the maiden-hair ferns grew waist-high and as broad

across as the fronds of palms, and having found it and filled our

spring-wagon with the treasures, we set out to return home by another

road. We lost our way, but did not regret it, as this mischance made

known to us the most stately and graceful tree we had ever seen--one

that was certainly worth half a day's ride to see. The road left the

treeless uplands, where the sunshine reflected from the bright yellow

stubble of the newly-cut wheat-fields beat against our faces with a

steady glare, and dipped into a cool, green, shady hollow where cows

cropped the rich grass or stood knee-deep in the water of a little

stream. Well they might stand in quiet contentment: a king might have

envied them their surroundings. Overhead rose a dozen or more of the

tallest and finest elms we had ever seen, stretching their thick

branches till they met and formed a canopy so dense that only a stray

sunbeam or two pierced through and fell upon the smooth green sward.

Peerless among them stood an elm of mighty girth and lofty height, its

widely-stretching branches as large around, where they left the trunk,

as a common tree, and clothed to the farthest twig with luxuriant

foliage. And all up and down the mossy trunk and around the branches

grew young twigs from a few inches to a foot or two in length, half

hiding the shaggy bark with their tender green leaves. It was a

combination of tree-majesty and grace that is rarely seen. In a tropical

forest I have beheld a lofty tree covered thickly all over its trunk and

branches with ferns and parasitic plants, but the sight, though

beautiful, was suggestive of morbid, unnatural growth. This royal elm

out of its own sap had clothed its trunk as with a thickly-twining vine.

When, after gazing our fill, we drove reluctantly out of the shady green

hollow into the sunshine, and began to climb a hill, we saw at the top a

small house surrounded by fruit trees and shaded in front by a

grape-arbor. On reaching it we stopped to ask our way of a man who sat

in his shirt-sleeves near the front door, fanning himself with his straw

hat. He seemed frank and inclined to talk, and asked us to stop and rest

a while in the shade. We did so, and his wife brought us some fresh

buttermilk to drink, the children gathering about to look at us as if

our advent was the incident of the month. In conversation we learned

that he was the owner of forty acres, which he devoted largely to the

cultivation of small fruits. The land was paid for, with the exception

of a mortgage of three hundred dollars, which he hoped to lift in a

season or two if the yield was good.

"We're doing well now," he said, "but when we started, eight years ago,

it was truly discouraging. There was no house on the place when we came

here. We put up the room we now use as a kitchen, and lived in it for

two years and a half. It was so small that it only held a bed, a table,

a cook-stove and two or three chairs, and when the table was drawn out

for meals my wife had to set the rocking-chair on the bed, because there

wasn't room for it on the floor. She helped me on the farm the first

year or two. We moved here late in the spring, and I only had time to

get the sod broken before corn-planting time. My wife had a lame foot

that spring, but I made her a sort of crutch-stilt, and with this she

walked over the ground as I ploughed it, making holes in the earth by

means of it and dropping in the corn. She also rode the reaper when our

wheat was ripe the next year, and I followed, binding and stacking. She

has helped me in many other ways on the farm, for she is as ambitious as

I am to have a place free from debt which we can call our own. We added

these two other rooms in the third year, and when we are out of debt and

have money ahead we shall put up another addition: we shall need it as

the children grow up. I have a nice lot of small fruit--strawberries,

raspberries, currants, gooseberries--and besides these I sell every

spring a great many early vegetables. The small fruits pay me more to

the acre than anything else I could raise. There is a good market for

them in the neighboring towns, and I seldom have to hire any help. My

children do most of the picking."

It is only a bit of personal history, to be sure, but it affords an

insight into the life of one who, like many others in this State, began

with only his bare hands and habits of industry and economy for capital.

Another typical illustration is supplied by a man whose home we visited

in the winter. His comfortable farm-house was overflowing with the good

things of life: a piano and an organ stood in the parlor, and a

well-filled bookcase in the sitting-room; a large bay-window was bright

with flowering plants; and base-burner coal-stoves and double-paned

windows mocked at the efforts of the wintry winds and kept perpetual

summer within. In the large barn were farm-wagons, a carriage, a buggy,

a sleigh--a vehicle for every purpose. The farmer invited us one morning

to step into a large sled which stood at the door, and took us half a

mile to his stock-yards. There we saw fat, sleek cattle by the dozen and

fat hogs by the score, great cribs bursting with corn, a windmill pump

and other conveniences for watering stock. Besides all these possessions

this man owns two or three other good farms, and has money loaned on

mortgages; in short, is worth about fifty thousand dollars, every cent

of which he has gained by his own exertions in the last twenty years. He

said: "When my father died and his estate was divided among his

children, each of us received eighty-three dollars as his share. I

resolved then that if thrift and energy could avail anything I would

have more than that to leave to each of my children when I died. It has

required constant hard work and shrewd planning, but I have gained my

stake, and am not a very old man yet," passing his hand over his hair,

which was thinly sprinkled with gray.

This man gave us a description of a tornado which passed over that

portion of the State a number of years ago. It was shortly after he was

married and while he was staying at his father-in-law's house. The whole

family were away from home that day, and when they returned they found

only the cellar. The house had been lifted from its foundation, and

carried so far on the mighty wings of the hurricane that nothing

pertaining to it was ever found except the rolling-pin and a few boards

of the yellow-painted kitchen-floor. Of a new farm-wagon nothing

remained but one tire, and that was flattened out straight. The trees

that stood in the yard had been broken off at the surface of the ground.

The grass lay stretched in the direction of the hurricane as if a flood

of water had passed over it. Horses, cattle and human beings had been

lifted and carried several rods through the air, then cast violently to

earth again. Those who witnessed the course of the tornado said that it

seemed to strike the ground, then go up in the air, passing harmlessly

over a mile or two of country, then strike again, all the time whirling

over and over, and occasionally casting out fragments of the spoils it

had gathered up. After passing east to a point beyond the Mississippi it

disappeared.

This part of Iowa has rich deposits of coal, and mining is a regular and

important business. The coal-mines lying a few miles south of this place

are the largest west of the Mississippi River. A thriving little town

has grown up around them, composed chiefly of miners' cottages, stores

and superintendents' dwellings. A creek winds through it whose banks are

shaded by elms and carpeted in spring and early summer with

prairie-flowers; and a range of wooded hills in whose depths the richest

coal-deposits lie lends a picturesque aspect to the scene, and partly

compensates for the dreary look of the town itself, the comfortless

appearance of many of the miners' houses and the great heaps of slag and

refuse coal at the mouth of the mines. Mules hitched to little cars

serve to draw the coal out of several of the mines, but the largest one

is provided with an engine, which, by means of an endless rope of

twisted wire, pulls long trains of loaded cars out of the depths of the

mine and up to a high platform above the railroad, whence the coal is

pitched into the waiting cars beneath. Sixty-five railroad cars are

sometimes loaded in one day from this single mine. The coal is soft

coal, and is sold by retail at from six to seven cents a bushel.

One April day, when the woods were white and pink with the bloom of the

wild plum and crab trees and the ground was blue with violets, we rode

over to this place, and, hitching our horses to some trees growing over

the principal mine, we descended to the entrance. A miner, an

intelligent middle-aged man who was off work just then, volunteered to

be our guide, and after providing each of us with a little oil lamp like

the one he wore in his hat-brim, he led us into the dark opening that

yawned in the hillside. The passage was six or seven feet wide, and so

low that we could not stand erect. Under our feet was the narrow track,

the space between the ties being slippery with mud: over our heads and

on either hand were walls of rock, with a thick vein of coal running

through them, braced every few feet with heavy timbers. The track began

to descend, and soon we lost sight of the daylight and had to depend

entirely on the feeble glimmer of our lamps. We occasionally came to

smooth-plastered spaces in the walls, the closed-up mouths of old

side-tunnels, and placing our hands upon them felt that they were warm.

Fires were raging in the abandoned galleries, but, being shut away from

the air and from access to the main tunnel, they were not dangerous. The

dangers usually dreaded by the miners are the falling of heavy masses of

earth and rock from the roof of the gallery and the sudden flow of water

into the mine from some of the secret sources in the hillside. After

penetrating about a quarter of a mile into the mine and descending one

hundred and twenty feet, we reached the end of the main tunnel and saw

the great wheel, fixed in the solid rock, on which the endless steel

rope turned. A train of loaded cars had passed out just before we

entered the mine, and on a switch near the end of the track stood

another train of empty cars. The air thus far on our dark journey had

been cool and good, for the main tunnel was ventilated by means of

air-shafts that pierced the hillside to the daylight above; but now our

guide opened the door of what seemed a subterranean dungeon, closed it

behind us when we had passed through, lifted a heavy curtain that hung

before us, and ushered us into a branch-tunnel where the air was hot and

stifling and heavy with the fumes of powder. At the farther end we saw

tiny specks of light moving about. As we neared them we found that they

were lamps fastened in the hat-bands of the miners at work in this

distant tunnel--literally, "the bowels of the earth." Some were using

picks and shovels, others were drilling holes in the solid coal and

putting in blasts of gunpowder. When these blasts were fired a

subterranean thunder shook the place: it seemed as if the hill were

falling in upon us. Little cars stood upon the track partly filled with

coal, and mules were hitched to them. The forms of these animals loomed

large and dark in the dim light: they seemed like some monsters of a

previous geologic age. The men themselves, blackened with coal and grimy

with powder-smoke, might have seemed like gnomes or trolls had we not

seen their homes in the plain, familiar sunlight above, and known that

they were working for daily bread for themselves and families. They are

paid according to the amount of coal they dig. Some have earned as high

as one hundred and thirty dollars a month, but half that sum would be

nearer the average.

As we left this shaft and came back into the main tunnel we saw a miner

sitting by the track with his small tin bucket open. It was noon and he

was eating his dinner. It might just as well have been midnight, so

dense was the darkness. We seemed to have been an uncomputable time in

the depths, yet, glancing at the bunch of wild flowers in my belt, I saw

that they were only beginning to wilt. Did poor Proserpine have the same

feeling when she was ravished from the sunshine and the green and

flowery earth and carried into the dark underground kingdom of Pluto?

Remembering her fate, I whispered to my companion, "We will not eat

anything while here--no, not so much as one pomegranate-seed."

There are many smaller coal-mines in this vicinity--hardly a hillside

but has a dark doorway leading into it--but they are not all worked

regularly or by more than a few hands.

On the road leading from town to the Skunk River one has glimpses of

another industry. Limekilns, with uncouth signs announcing lime for sale

at twenty-five cents a bushel, thrust themselves almost into the road,

and the cabins or neatly-whitewashed board huts of the lime-burners

border the way. Some have grass-plots and mounds of flowers around them:

others are without ornament, if we except the children with blue eyes,

red cheeks and hair like corn-silk that hang on the fence and watch us

ride by.

Skunk River is a broad, still stream, with hilly banks heavily wooded

with willow, oak, maple, sycamore and bass-wood. Here we find the

earliest wild flowers in spring: blue and purple hepaticas blossom among

the withered leaves on the ground while the branches above are still

bare, and a little later crowds of violets and spring-beauties brighten

the tender grass; clusters of diacentra--or "Dutchman's breeches," as

the children call them--nod from the shelter of decaying stumps to small

yellow lilies with spotted leaves and tufts of fresh green ferns.

The place is equally a favorite bird-haunt. The prairie-chicken, the

best-known game-bird of the State, chooses rather the open prairie, but

wild-ducks settle and feed here in their migratory journeys, attracting

the sportsman by their presence; the fish-hawk makes his nest in the

trees on the bank; the small blue heron wades pensively along the

margin; and the common wood-birds, such as blackbirds, bluebirds, jays,

sparrows and woodpeckers, chatter or warble or scold among the branches.

Sometimes the redbird flashes like a living flame through the green

tree-tops, or the brilliant orange-and-black plumage of the Baltimore

oriole contrasts with the lilac-gray bark of an old tree-trunk.

Besides the small wild flowers there are many shrubs and trees that

bloom in spring. The haw tree and wild plum put forth masses of small

creamy-white flowers, the redbud tree blooms along the water-courses,

the dogwood in the woods and the wild crab-apple upon the open hillside.

The crab trees often form dense thickets an acre or two in extent, and

when all their branches are thickly set with coral buds or deep-pink

blossoms they form a picture upon which the eye delights to rest. Spring

redeems even the flat prairie from the blank monotony which wearies the

eye in winter. There are few places in this vicinity where the virgin

sod has not been broken, consequently few spots where the original,

much-praised prairie-flowers grow; but a tender green clothes all the

plain, hundreds of meadow-larks sing in the grass, the tints and colors

of the sky are lovely beyond words, and the balmy winds breathe airs of

Paradise.

Even the town, whose ugliness has offended artistic taste and one's love

of neatness all winter, clothes itself in foliage and hides its

ungraceful outlines in bowery verdure. Lilacs scent the air, roses crowd

through the broken fences, the milky floss of the cottonwood trees is

strewed upon the sidewalks or floats like thistledown upon the air. To

one sensitive to physical surroundings the change is like that from a

sullen face to a smiling one, from a forbidding aspect to a cheerful

one. The constant bracing of one's self against the influence of one's

surroundings is relaxed: a feeling of relief and contentment comes

instead. Our thirst for picturesque beauty may not be satisfied, but we

accept with thankful hearts the quiet loveliness of spring. In this, as

in deeper experiences, we learn that

At best we gain not happiness,

But peace, friends--peace in the strife.

LOUISE COFFIN JONES.

A FORGOTTEN AMERICAN WORTHY

The pleasant agricultural village of Reading, in Fairfield county,

Western Connecticut, presents much that is charming and picturesque in

scenery, and is withal replete with historic incidents; but its chief

claim to interest rests on the fact that it was the birthplace of Joel

Barlow, who has decided claims to the distinction of being the father of

American letters. Nearly seventy years have passed since the poet's

tragic death, and the story of his life is still untold, while his

memory has nearly faded from the minds of the living; nor would it be

easy, at this late day, to collect sufficient material for an extended

biography if such were demanded. Some pleasant traditions still linger

in the sleepy atmosphere of his native village; a few of his letters and

papers still remain in his family; contemporary newspapers had much to

say both for and against him; the reviewers of his day noticed his

poems, sometimes with approbation, sometimes with bitterness. There are

fragmentary sketches of him in encyclopaedias and biographical

dictionaries, and several pigeonholes in the State Department are filled

with musty documents written by him when abroad in his country's

diplomatic service. From these sources alone is the scholar of our times

to glean his knowledge of one who in his day filled as large a space in

the public eye as almost any of his contemporaries, and whose talents,

virtues and public services entitled him to as lasting a fame as theirs.

Not from any of these sources, but from the Barlow family register in

the ancient records of Fairfield, we learn that the poet was born on

March 24, 1754, and not in 1755, as is almost universally stated by the

encyclopaedists. His father was Samuel Barlow, a wealthy farmer of the

village--his mother, Elizabeth Hull, a connection of the general and

commodore of the same name who figured so prominently in the war of

1812. There is little in the early career of the poet of interest to the

modern reader. He is first presented to us in the village traditions as

a chubby, rosy-faced boy, intent on mastering the Greek and Latin tasks

dealt out to him by Parson Bartlett, the Congregational minister of the

village, who, like many of the New England clergy of that day, added the

duties of schoolmaster to those of the clergyman. In a year or two he

was placed at Moor's school for boys in Hanover, New Hampshire, and on

completing his preparatory course he entered Dartmouth College in 1774.

His father had died the December previous, and, with the view probably

of being nearer his mother and family in Reading, he left Dartmouth in

his Freshman year and was entered at Yale.

Barlow's college career was marked by close application to study, and

won for him the respect and confidence of all with whom he came in

contact. During his second year the war of the Revolution broke out, but

the young poet, though an ardent patriot, clung to his books, resolutely

closing his ears to the clamor of war that invaded his sacred cloisters

until the long summer vacation arrived. Then he threw aside books and

gown and joined his four brothers in the Continental ranks, where he did

yeoman's service for his country. He graduated in 1778, and signalized

the occasion by reciting an original poem called the "Prospect of

Peace," which, in the quaint language of one of his contemporaries,

gained him "a very pretty reputation as a poet."

The next year found him a chaplain in the Continental army, in the same

brigade with his friend Dwight, later renowned as the poet-president of

Yale College, and with Colonel Humphreys, whom we shall find associated

with him in a far different mission. The two young chaplains, not

content with the performance of their clerical duties, wrote in

connection with Humphreys stirring patriotic lyrics that were set to

music and sung by the soldiers around the camp-fires and on the weary

march, and aided largely in allaying discontent and in inducing them to

bear their hardships patiently.

For four years, or until the peace of 1783, Barlow continued to serve

his country in the army: he left the service as poor as when he entered

it, and a second time the question of a vocation in life presented

itself. He at length chose the law, but before being admitted to

practice performed an act which, however foolish it may have seemed to

the worldly wise, proved to be one of the most fortunate events of his

life. Although poor and possessing none of the qualities of the

successful bread-winner, he united his fortunes with those of an amiable

and charming young lady--Miss Ruth Baldwin of New Haven, daughter of

Michael Baldwin, Esq., and sister of Hon. Abraham C. Baldwin, whom the

student will remember as a Senator of note from Georgia. After marriage

the young husband settled in Hartford, first in the study, and later in

the practice, of the law. In Hartford we find him assuming the duties of

lawyer, journalist and bookseller, and in all proving the truth of the

fact often noted, that the possession of literary talent generally

unfits one for the rough, every-day work of the world. As a lawyer

Barlow lacked the smoothness and suavity of the practised advocate,

while the petty details and trickeries of the profession disgusted him.

As an editor he made his journal, the _American Mercury_, notable for

the high literary and moral excellence of its articles, but it was not

successful financially, simply because it lacked a constituency

sufficiently cultured to appreciate and sustain it. His bookstore, which

stood on the quiet, elm-shaded main street of the then provincial

village, was opened to dispose of his psalm-book and poems, and was

closed when this was accomplished.

As a poet, however, he was more successful, and it was here that the

assurance of literary ability, so dear to the heart of the neophyte,

first came to him. Dr. Watts's "imitation" of the Psalms, incomplete and

inappropriate in many respects, was then the only version within reach

of the Puritan churches, and in 1785 the Congregational Association of

Connecticut applied to the poet for a revised edition of the work.

Barlow readily complied, and published his revision the same year,

adding to it several psalms which Dr. Watts had omitted. This work was

received with marked favor by the Congregational churches, and was used

by them exclusively until rumors of the author's lapse from orthodoxy

reached them, when it was superseded by a version prepared by Dr.

Dwight.

Two years after, in 1787, Barlow published his _Vision of Columbus_, a

poem conceived while in the army and largely written during the poet's

summer vacations at Reading. It was received with unbounded favor by his

patriotic countrymen, and after passing through several editions at

home was republished both in London and Paris, and made its author the

best known American in the literary circles of his day. There was in

Hartford at this time a coterie of literary spirits whose sprightliness

and bonhomie had gained for them the sobriquet of the "Hartford Wits."

Dr. Lemuel Hopkins was doubtless the chief factor in the organization of

this club: Barlow, John Trumbull, Colonel Humphreys, Richard Alsop and

Theodore Dwight--all of whom had gained literary distinction--were its

chief members. The principal publications of the club were the

_Anarchiad_, a satirical poem, and the _Echo_, which consisted of a

series of papers in verse lampooning the social and political follies of

the day. To both of these, it is said, Barlow was a prominent

contributor. He was also a prominent figure in the organization, about

this time, of the Connecticut Cincinnati, a society formed by

Revolutionary officers for urging upon Congress their claims for

services rendered in the Revolution.

In these varied pursuits and amid such pleasant associations three years

passed away, but during all this time the grim spectre of Want had

menaced the poet--first at a distance, but with each succeeding month

approaching nearer and nearer, until now, in 1788, it stared him in the

face. His patrimony had been nearly exhausted in his education; his

law-business was unremunerative; his paper, as we have said, was not a

success financially; and his poetry brought him much more honor than

cash. And thus it happened that at the age of thirty-four he found

himself without money or employment. At this trying juncture there came

from the West--fruitful parent of such schemes!--the prospectus of the

Scioto Land Company, furnished with glaring head-lines and seductive

phrases, and parading in its list of stockholders scores of the

best-known names in the community. This company claimed to have become

the fortunate possessor of unnumbered acres in the valley of the Scioto,

and was anxious to share its good fortune--for a consideration--with

Eastern and European capitalists. It was desirous of securing an agent

to negotiate its sales in Europe, and, quite naturally, its choice fell

on Joel Barlow, the only American having a reputation abroad who was at

liberty to undertake the mission; and, since the company bore a good

repute and offered fair remuneration, the poet very gladly embraced its

offer. He does not seem to have met with much success in England, but in

France his reception was much more encouraging. An estate in the New

World was a veritable _chateau en Espagne_ to the mercurial Frenchmen,

and they purchased with some avidity; but just as the agent's ground was

prepared for a plenteous harvest news came that the Scioto Company had

burst, as bubbles will, leaving to its dupes only a number of

well-executed maps, some worthless parchments called deeds, and that

valuable experience which comes with a knowledge of the ways of the

world. Barlow, being the company's principal agent abroad, came in for

his full share of the abuse excited by its operations; and yet it is

evident that he was as innocent of its real character as any one, and

that he had accepted the position of agent with full confidence in the

company's integrity. Its collapse left him as poor as ever, and a

stranger in a strange land, notwithstanding he was surrounded here by

conditions that assured him the generous and honorable career which had

been denied him in the New World.

Of the foreigners who then thronged cosmopolitan Paris, none were so

popular as Americans. Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, by their

courtesy and dignity, joined to republican simplicity, had provided

passports for their countrymen to the good graces of all Frenchmen:

besides, the name "republican" was a word of magic import in France at

that time. Barlow's reputation as a poet was also of great service to

him at a time when literature exercised a commanding influence both in

society and politics. He was presented at court, admitted to the

companionship of wits and savants, and was enabled, by the favor of some

financial magnates, to participate in speculations which proved so

successful that in a short time he was raised above the pressure of

want. But in less than a year after his arrival the Revolution broke

out, and involved him in its horrors. His sympathies were entirely with

the Girondists--the party of the literati, and the most patriotic and

enlightened of the rival factions. He is said to have entered heartily

into the advocacy of their cause, writing pamphlets and addresses in

their interest and contributing frequently to their journals: he is also

said to have figured prominently at the meetings of the Girondist

leaders held in the salon of Madame Roland. The atrocities of the

Jacobins, however, so shocked and disgusted him that he shortly withdrew

and went into retirement outside of the city. The greater part of the

years 1791-92 he spent in England, with occasional visits to France.

During one of these visits the privileges of French citizenship were

conferred on him--an honor that had been previously conferred on but two

Americans, Washington and Hamilton.

In 1795 a crisis in his fortunes occurred, and from this date the story

of his life becomes an interesting and important one. He had been for

some months on a business-tour through the northern provinces, and,

returning to Paris early in September, was surprised at receiving a

visit from his old friend Colonel David Humphreys, who had been American

minister to Portugal for some years, and was now in Paris on a political

mission. He was accompanied on this visit by James Monroe, then American

minister at the French court. They bore a commission from President

Washington naming Barlow consul at Algiers, and their object was to

induce him to accept the appointment. The post was one of extreme

difficulty and danger, and had Barlow consulted his own wishes and

interests he would undoubtedly have declined it. But by appeals to his

philanthropy, and by representations that from his knowledge of courts

and experience of the world he was well fitted for the performance of

the duties assigned to him, he was at length induced to accept the

commission. Preparations were at once made for the journey. His

business-affairs were arranged and his will made: then, bidding his wife

farewell, he set out with Humphreys on the 12th of September, 1795, for

Lisbon, _en route_ for the Barbary coast.

At the time of Barlow's mission Algiers was at the height of its power

and arrogance. Great Britain, France, Spain, Holland, Denmark, Sweden

and Venice were tributaries of this barbarous state, which waged

successful war with Russia, Austria, Portugal, Naples, Sardinia, Genoa

and Malta. Its first depredation on American commerce was committed on

the 25th of July, 1785, when the schooner Maria, Stevens master, owned

in Boston, was seized off Cape St. Vincent by a corsair and carried into

Algiers. Five days later the ship Dauphin of Philadelphia, Captain

O'Brien, was taken and carried into the same port. Other captures

quickly followed, so that at the time of Barlow's mission there were one

hundred and twenty American citizens in the Algerine prisons, exclusive

of some forty that had been liberated by death or ransomed through the

private exertions of their friends.

The course pursued by Congress for the liberation of these captives

cannot be viewed with complacency even at this late day. After some

hesitation it decided to ransom the prisoners, and proceeded to

negotiate--first, through Mr. John Lamb, its agent at Algiers, and

secondly through the general of the Mathurins, a religious order of

France instituted in early times for the redemption of Christian

captives from the infidel powers. These negotiations extended through a

period of six years, and accomplished nothing, from the fact that the

dey invariably demanded double the sum which Congress thought it could

afford to pay. In June, 1792, with the hope of negotiating a treaty and

rescuing the captives, the celebrated John Paul Jones was appointed

consul to Algiers, but died before reaching the scene of his mission.

His successor, Mr. Thomas Barclay, died at Lisbon January 19, 1793,

while on his way to Algiers. The conduct of Barbary affairs was next

confided to Colonel Humphreys, our minister to Portugal, with power to

name an agent who should act under him, and Mr. Pierre E. Skjoldebrand,

a brother of the Swedish consul, was appointed under this arrangement;

but the latter gentleman seems to have been no more successful than his

predecessors. Late in 1794, Humphreys returned to America, and while

here it was arranged that Joseph Donaldson should accompany him on his

return as agent for Tunis and Tripoli, while Barlow, it was hoped, could

be induced to accept the mission to Algiers and the general oversight of

Barbary affairs.

The two diplomats left America early in April, 1795, and proceeded to

Gibraltar, where they separated, Donaldson continuing his journey to

Algiers _via_ Alicant, and Humphreys hastening on to Paris in search of

Barlow, as has been narrated. Colonel Humphreys and Mr. Barlow did not

reach Lisbon until the 17th of November, and when the latter was about

prosecuting his journey he was surprised by a visit from Captain

O'Brien, who had been despatched by Mr. Donaldson with a newly-signed

treaty with Algiers. Mr. Donaldson, it was learned, had reached Algiers

on the 3d of September, and finding the dey in a genial mood had

forthwith concluded a treaty with him, considering that he had

sufficient authority for this under the general instructions of Colonel

Humphreys. It was found that some of the conditions of the treaty could

not be fulfilled, particularly one stipulating that the first payment of

nearly eight hundred thousand dollars should be made by the 5th of

January, 1796; and Barlow therefore hastened forward to Algiers to

explain the matter to the dey and make such attempts at pacification as

were practicable, while Captain O'Brien was sent to London in the brig

Sophia for the money. Of his life in Algiers, and of the subsequent fate

of the treaty, some particulars are given in a letter from Barlow to

Humphreys, dated at Algiers April 5, 1796, and also in a letter to Mrs.

Barlow written about the same time. The letter to Humphreys is as

follows:

"SIR: We have now what we hope will be more agreeable news to you. For

two days past we have been witnesses to a scene of as complete and

poignant distress as can be imagined, arising from the total state of

despair in which our captives found themselves involved, and we without

the power of administering the least comfort or hope. The threat of

sending us away had been reiterated with every mark of a fixed and final

decision, and the dey went so far as to declare that after the thirty

days, if the money did not come, he never would be at peace with the

Americans. Bacri the Jew, who has as much art in this sort of management

as any man we ever knew, who has more influence with the dey than all

the regency put together, and who alone has been able to soothe his

impatience on this subject for three months past, now seemed unable to

make the least impression, and the dey finally forbade him, under pain

of his highest displeasure, to speak to him any more about the

Americans. His cruisers are now out, and for some days past he has been

occupied with his new war against the Danes. Three days ago the Danish

prizes began to come in, and it was thought that this circumstance might

put him in good-humor, so that the Jew might find a chance of renewing

our subject in some shape or other; and we instructed the Jew that if he

could engage him in conversation on his cruisers and prizes he might

offer him a new American-built ship of twenty guns which should sail

very fast, to be presented to his daughter, on condition that he would

wait six months longer for our money. The Jew observed that we had

better say a ship of twenty-four guns, to which we agreed. After seeing

him three or four times yesterday under pretence of other business,

without being able to touch upon this, he went this morning and

succeeded.

"The novelty of the proposition gained the dey's attention for a moment,

and he consented to see us on the subject; but he told the Jew to tell

us that it must be a ship of thirty-six guns or he would not listen to

the proposition. We were convinced that we ought not to hesitate an

instant. We accordingly went and assented to his demand, and he has

agreed to let everything remain as it is for the term of three months

from this day, but desired us to remember that not a single day beyond

that will be allowed on any account.

"We consider the business as now settled on this footing, and it is the

best ground that we could possibly place it upon. You still have it in

your power to say peace or no peace: you have an alternative. In the

other case war was inevitable, and there would have been no hope of

peace during the reign of this dey....

"In order to save the treaty, which has been the subject of infinite

anxiety and vexation, we found it necessary some time ago to make an

offer to the Jew of ten thousand sequins (eighteen thousand dollars), to

be paid eventually if he succeeded, and to be distributed by him among

such great officers of state as he thought necessary, and as much of it

to be kept for himself as he could keep consistent with success. The

whole of this new arrangement will cost the United States about

fifty-three thousand dollars. We expect to incur blame, because it is

impossible to give you a complete view of the circumstances, but we are

perfectly confident of having acted right."

A few weeks later the long-expected ransom arrived: the prison-doors

were thrown open, and the captives came out into the sunlight. How

pitifully the poet-diplomatist received them, how tenderly he cared for

their wants, and how he exerted himself to secure for them a speedy

passage to their native land, may be inferred from the character of the

man. Having now accomplished the object of his mission, it was to be

expected that he would be free to give up his unpleasant post and return

to France. But in the adjacent states of Tunis and Tripoli there were

other prisons in which American citizens were confined, and until they

were liberated he does not seem to have considered his mission as fully

performed. Six months or more were spent in effecting this object, and

when it was accomplished he very gladly delivered up his credentials to

the government and returned to his home and friends in France.

The succeeding eight years were spent in congenial pursuits, chiefly of

a literary and philanthropic character. He purchased the large hotel of

the count Clermont Tonnere, near Paris, which he transformed into an

elegant villa: here he lived during his residence in France, dispensing

a broad hospitality and enjoying the friendship of the leading minds of

the Empire, as well as the companionship of all Americans of note who

visited the capital. But at length, in 1805, after seventeen years of

absence, the home-longing which sooner or later comes to every exile

seized upon him, and, yielding to its influence, he disposed of his

estates in France and with his faithful wife embarked for America.

Great changes had occurred in his native land during these seventeen

years. Washington was gone, and with him the power and prestige of

Federalism; Jefferson and Burr had led the Republican hosts to victory;

Presbyterianism as a political force was dead; and everywhere in society

the old order was giving place to the new. This was more markedly the

case in New England, where the Puritan crust was being broken and

pulverized by the gradual upheaval of the Republican strata. Withal, it

was an era of intense political feeling and of partisan bitterness

without a parallel.

This will explain, perhaps, the varying manner in which Barlow was

received by the different parties among his countrymen. The Republicans

greeted him with acclamation as the honored citizen of two republics,

the man who had perilled life and health in rescuing his countrymen from

slavery. The Federalists, on the other hand, united in traducing him--an

assertion which may be gainsaid, but which can be abundantly proved by

reference to the Federal newspapers and magazines of the day. In

evidence, and as a curious instance of the political bitterness of the

times, I will adduce the following article from the _Boston Repertory_,

printed in the August after the poet's return:

"JEFFERSON, BARLOW AND PAINE.

"In our last paper was announced, and that with extreme

regret, the return of Joel Barlow, Esq., to this country.

This man, the strong friend of Mr. Jefferson and

confidential companion of his late warm defender, Tom Paine,

is one of the most barefaced infidels that ever appeared in

Christendom. Some facts respecting these distinguished

personages may serve to show the votaries of Christianity

what a band of open enemies (to the faith) is now assembling

in this country.

"Mr. Jefferson, in his famous _Notes on Virginia_, advances

opinions incompatible with Mosaic history. This cannot be

disputed, nor will Mr. Jefferson dare to deny that he has,

since he has been President of the United States, publicly

made the Eucharist a subject of impious ridicule. Tom Paine

has written two books for the express purpose of combating

the Holy Scriptures. His _Age of Reason_ is but too common,

and his letter to the late Samuel Adams still evinces his

perverse adherence to his infidel system.

"Joel Barlow is said to have written the following shocking

letter to his correspondent, John Fellows, dated Hamburg,

May 23, 1805: 'I rejoice at the progress of good sense over

the _damnable imposture_ of _Christian mummery_. I had no

doubt of the effect of Paine's _Age of Reason_: it may be

cavilled at a while, but it must prevail. Though things as

good have been often said, they were never said in so good a

way,' etc. Mr. Barlow can now answer for himself: if this

letter be a forgery, let him inform the public. It has never

yet been contradicted, though it has been four years

published in America."

From which we gather that in the political code of that day the grossest

calumnies if uncontradicted were to be accepted as truth. There is not

the slightest evidence, however, in his writings or public utterances

that the poet ever renounced the faith of his fathers, although it is

not probable that he was a very strict Presbyterian at this time.

Barlow seems not to have returned with any hopes of political

preferment: at least he made no attempt to enter the field of politics,

but after spending several months in travel took up his residence in

Washington and devoted himself to philosophical studies and the

cultivation of the Muses. He had purchased a beautiful site on the banks

of the Potomac within the city limits, and here he erected a mansion

whose beauty and elegance made it famous throughout the country. This

mansion he called Kalorama, and the wealth and correct taste of its

owner were lavishly employed in its adornment. Broad green lawns, shaded

by forest trees, surrounded the house, fountains sparkled and gleamed

amid the shrubberies, and gay parterres of flowers added their beauty to

the scene. Within, French carpets, mirrors, statuary, pictures and

bric-a-brac betokened the foreign tastes of the owner. In the library

was gathered the most extensive private collection of foreign books

which the country then contained. Kalorama was the Holland House of

America, where were to be met all the notables of the land, political,

literary or philanthropic. The President, heads of departments,

Congressmen, foreign ambassadors, poets, authors, reformers, inventors,

were all to be seen there. Robert Fulton, the father of

steam-navigation, was the poet's firm friend, and received substantial

aid from him in his enterprise. Jefferson, throwing off the cares of

state, often paid him informal visits, and the two sages had a pet plan

which was generally the subject of conversation on these occasions. This

was the scheme of a national university, to be modelled after the

Institute of France, and to combine a university, a learned society, a

naval and military school and an academy of fine arts. The movement had

been originated by Washington, and Jefferson and Barlow, with many other

leading men of the day, were its warm friends and promoters. In 1806,

Barlow, at Jefferson's suggestion, drew up a prospectus, which was

printed and circulated throughout the country. So great a public

sentiment in favor of the scheme was developed that a bill for its

endowment was shortly after introduced in Congress; but New England

exerted her influence against it in favor of Yale and Harvard so

successfully that it was defeated.

The chief literary work which occupied the poet in this classic retreat

was _The Columbiad_, which appeared in 1808. He also busied himself with

collecting materials for a general history of the United States--a work

which, if he had been permitted to finish it, would have proved no doubt

a valuable contribution to this department of literature. But in the

midst of this scholarly retirement he was surprised at receiving a note

from Mr. Monroe, then Secretary of State, offering him the position of

minister to France, and urging his acceptance of it in the strongest

terms.

Our relations with France were then (1811) in a very critical state,

owing to the latter's repeated attacks on American commerce, and it was

of vital moment to the government that a man so universally respected by

the French people, and so familiar with the French court and its circle

of wily diplomats, as was Barlow, should have charge of American

interests in that quarter. A man less unselfish, less patriotic, would

have refused the burden of such a position, especially one so foreign to

his tastes and desires; but the poet in this case, as in 1795, seems not

to have hesitated an instant at the call of his country. Kalorama was

closed--not sold, for its owner hoped that his absence would not be of

long duration--preparations for the journey were speedily made, and

early in August, 1811, Barlow, accompanied by his faithful wife, was set

down at the port of Annapolis, where the famous frigate Constitution,

Captain Hull, had been lying for some time in readiness to receive him.

In Annapolis the poet was received with distinguished honor: at his

embarkation crowds thronged the quay, and a number of distinguished

citizens were gathered at the gang-plank to bid him God-speed on his

journey. Captain Hull received his guest with the honor due his

station: then the Constitution spread her sails, and, gay with bunting

and responding heartily to the salutes from the forts on shore, swept

gallantly down the bay and out to sea. The beautiful city, gleaming amid

the foliage of its stately forest trees, and the low level shores, green

with orchards and growing corn, were the last objects that the poet

beheld ere the outlines of his native land sank beneath the waters.

Happily, he could not foresee the untimely death in waiting for him not

eighteen months distant, nor the lonely sepulchre in the Polish waste,

nor the still more bitter fact that ere two generations should pass an

ungrateful country would entirely forget his services and martyrdom.

Barlow's correspondence with Mr. Monroe and the duke de Bassano while

abroad on this mission forms an interesting and hitherto unpublished

chapter in our history. It has rested undisturbed in the pigeonholes of

the State Department for nearly a century, and if published in

connection with a brief memoir of the poet would prove a valuable

addition to our annals. The first of the series is Mr. Monroe's letter

of instruction to the newly-appointed minister, defining the objects of

his mission, which were, in brief, indemnity for past spoliations and

security from further depredations. The second paper is Mr. Barlow's

first letter from Paris, under date of September 29, 1811, and is as

follows:

"I seize the first occasion to announce to you my arrival, though I have

little else to announce. I landed at Cherbourg the 8th of this month,

and arrived at Paris the 19th. The emperor has been residing for some

time at Compiegne, and it unluckily happened that he set out thence for

the coast and for Holland the day of my arrival here. The duke de

Bassano, Minister of Foreign Relations, came the next day to Paris for

two days only, when he was to follow the emperor to join him in Holland.

General Turreau and others, who called on me the morning after I reached

Paris, assured me that the duke was desirous of seeing me as soon as

possible and with as little ceremony.

"On the 21st I made my first visit to him, which of course had no other

object than that of delivering my credentials. I expressed my regret at

the emperor's absence, and the consequent delay of such business as was

rendered particularly urgent by the necessity of sending home the

frigate and by the approaching session of Congress, as well as by the

distressed situation of those American citizens who were awaiting the

result of decisions which might be hastened by the expositions I was

charged to make on the part of the President of the United States. He

said the emperor had foreseen the urgency of the case, and had charged

him to remedy the evil, as far as could be done, by dispensing with my

presentation to His Majesty till his return, and that I might

immediately proceed to business as if I had been presented. He said the

most flattering things from the emperor relative to my appointment. He

observed that His Majesty had expected my arrival with some solicitude,

and was disposed to do everything that I could reasonably ask to

maintain a good intelligence between the two countries.... I explained

to him with as much precision as possible the sentiments of the

President on the most pressing objects of my mission, and threw in such

observations as seemed to arise out of what I conceived to be the true

interests of France. He heard me with patience and apparent solicitude,

endeavored to explain away some of the evils of which we complain, and

expressed a strong desire to explain away the rest. He said that many of

the ideas I suggested were new to him, and were very important--that he

should lay them before the emperor with fidelity and in a manner

calculated to produce the most favorable impression; desired me to

reduce them to writing, to be presented in a more solemn form; and

endeavored to convince me that he doubted not our being able on the

return of the emperor to remove all obstacles to a most perfect harmony

between the two countries."

In a letter dated December 19, 1811, he writes:

"Since the date of my last I have had many interviews with the Minister

of Foreign Relations. I have explained several points, and urged every

argument for as speedy an answer to my note of the 10th as its very

serious importance would allow. He always treats the subject with

apparent candor and solicitude, seems anxious to gain information, and

declares that neither he nor the emperor had before understood American

affairs, and always assures me that he is nearly ready with his answer.

But he says the emperor's taking so long a time to consider it and make

up his decision is not without reason, for it opens a wide field for

meditation on very interesting matters. He says the emperor has read the

note repeatedly and with great attention--that he told him the reasoning

in it was everywhere just and the conclusions undeniable, but to

reconcile its principles with his continental system presented

difficulties not easy to remove. From what the emperor told me himself

at the last diplomatic audience, and from a variety of hints and other

circumstances remarked among the people about his person, I have been

made to believe that he is really changing his system relative to our

trade, and that the answer to my note will be more satisfactory than I

had at first expected."

Several other letters from the poet to Monroe follow, all of the same

general tenor--complaining of delay, yet hopeful that the treaty would

shortly be secured. February 8, 1812, he writes to the Secretary of

State that the duke is "at work upon the treaty, and probably in good

earnest, but the discussions with Russia and the other affairs of this

Continent give him and the emperor so much occupation that I cannot

count upon their getting on very fast with ours."

Amid these delays the summer passed away, and the emperor, intent on

mapping out his great campaign against Russia, still neglected to sign

the important instrument. Early in the summer Napoleon left Paris for

Wilna to take command of the vast armies that had been collected for the

invasion, and from that place, on the 11th of October, the duke de

Bassano addressed the following note to Mr. Barlow in Paris:

"SIR: I have had the honor to make known to you how much I regretted, in

the negotiation commenced between the United States and France, the

delays which inevitably attended a correspondence carried on at so great

a distance. Your government has desired to see the epoch of this

arrangement draw near: His Majesty is animated by the same dispositions,

and, willing to assure to the negotiation a result the most prompt, he

has thought that it would be expedient to suppress the intermediaries

and to transfer the conference to Wilna. His Majesty has in consequence

authorized me, sir, to treat directly with you; and if you will come to

this town I dare hope that, with the desire which animates us both to

conciliate such important interests, we shall immediately be enabled to

remove all the difficulties which until now have appeared to impede the

progress of the negotiation. I have apprised the duke of Dalberg that

his mission was thus terminated, and I have laid before His Majesty the

actual state of the negotiation, to the end that when you arrive at

Wilna, the different questions being already illustrated either by your

judicious observation or by the instructions I shall have received, we

may, sir, conclude an arrangement so desirable and so conformable to the

mutually amicable views of our two governments."

Barlow could do no less than comply with this invitation, since, as he

remarked in a letter to Monroe under date of October 25, "it was

impossible to refuse it without giving offence." His letter accepting

the duke's invitation was probably the last ever written by him, and is

dated Paris, October 25, 1812:

"SIR: In consequence of the letter you did me the honor to write me on

the 11th of this month, I accept your invitation, and leave Paris

to-morrow for Wilna, where I hope to arrive in fifteen or eighteen days

from this date. The negotiation on which you have done me the honor to

invite me at Wilna is so completely prepared in all its parts between

the duke of Dalberg and myself, and, as I understand, sent on to you for

your approbation about the 18th of the present month, that I am

persuaded that if it could have arrived before the date of your letter

the necessity of this meeting would not have existed, as I am confident

His Majesty would have found the project reasonable and acceptable in

all its parts, and would have ordered that minister to conclude and sign

both the treaty of commerce and the convention of indemnities."

Barlow left Paris for Wilna on the 26th of October in his private

carriage, yet travelling night and day and with relays of horses at the

post-towns to expedite his progress. His sole companion was his nephew

and secretary of legation, Thomas Barlow, who had been educated and

given an honorable position in life through the poet's munificence.

Their route, the same as that pursued by Napoleon a few weeks before,

led across the Belgian frontiers and through the forests and defiles of

the German principalities. Once across the Niemen, they met with rumors

of the emperor's disaster at Moscow, and that portions of his army were

then in full retreat, but, discrediting them, pushed on to Wilna, which

they reached about the 1st of December. Wilna is the only considerable

village in Russia between the Niemen and Moscow: it is a quaint and

venerable town, capital of the ancient province of Lithuania, and played

an important part in Napoleon's Russian campaign, being the rendezvous

of his legions after crossing the Niemen and the site of his

army-hospitals. When our travellers entered it, it was filled with a

horde of panic-stricken fugitives, who made the town a temporary

resting-place before continuing their flight to the frontiers; nor were

they long in learning the, to them, distressing news that the French

army was in swift retreat, and that the duke de Bassano, so far from

being at leisure to attend a diplomatic conference at Wilna, was then on

the frontiers hurrying forward reinforcements to cover the retreat of

his emperor across the Beresina.

The perilous journey had been made in vain, and the treaty was doomed to

still further delay. It now only remained for Barlow to extricate

himself from his dangerous position and to reach the frontiers before

the fleeing army and the pursuing Cossacks should close every avenue of

escape.

Thomas Barlow on his return to America sometimes favored his friends

with vivid pictures of the sufferings and privations endured by the

travellers in their flight from Wilna. The passage of so many men had

rendered the roads well-nigh impassable; food, even of the meanest kind,

could only be procured with the greatest difficulty; and often the

travellers were mixed up with the flying masses, as it seemed

inextricably. Ruined habitations, wagons and provision-vans overturned

and pillaged, men dying by scores from hunger and starvation, and frozen

corpses of men and horses, were objects that constantly presented

themselves. At length they crossed the Niemen and pursued their journey

through Poland, still suffering terribly from the cold and from the

insufficient nature of the food obtainable; but on reaching Zarrow,[C]

an obscure village near Cracow, the poet was seized with a sudden and

fatal attack of pneumonia, the result, no doubt, of privation and

exposure. He was borne to a little Jewish cottage, the only inn that the

village afforded, and there died December 26, 1812. His remains were

interred in the little churchyard of the village where he died. It is

rarely that an American visits his grave, and the government has never

taken interest enough in its minister to erect a memorial slab above his

dust; but wifely devotion has supplied the omission, and a plain

monument of marble, on which are inscribed his name, age and station and

the circumstances of his death, marks the poet's place of sepulture.

The news of his death seems not to have reached the United States until

the succeeding March. The Federal journals merely announced the fact

without comment: the Republican papers published formal eulogiums on the

dead statesman. President Madison, in his inaugural of 1813, thus

referred to the event: "The sudden death of the distinguished citizen

who represented the United States in France, without any special

arrangement by him for such a conclusion, has kept us without the

expected sequel to his last communications; nor has the French

government taken any measures for bringing the depending negotiations to

a conclusion through its representative in the United States."

In France the poet's demise excited a more general feeling of regret,

perhaps, than in his own country. A formal eulogy on his life and

character was pronounced by Dupont de Nemours before the Society for the

Encouragement of National Industry, and the year succeeding his death an

account of his life and writings was published at Paris in quarto form,

accompanied by one canto of _The Columbiad_, translated into French

heroic verse. The American residents of Paris also addressed a letter of

condolence to Mrs. Barlow, in which is apparent the general sentiment of

respect and affection entertained for the poet in the French capital.

"In private life," says one of his eulogists, "Mr. Barlow was highly

esteemed for his amiable temperament and many social excellences. His

manners were generally grave and dignified, and he possessed but little

facility of general conversation, but with his intimate friends he was

easy and familiar, and upon topics which deeply interested him he

conversed with much animation."

Another thus refers to his domestic relations: "The affection of Mr.

Barlow for his lovely wife was unusually strong, and on her part it was

fully reciprocated. She cheerfully in early life cast in her lot with

his 'for better or for worse'--and sometimes the worst, so far as their

pecuniary prospects were concerned. In their darkest days Barlow ever

found light and encouragement at home in the smiles, sympathy and

counsel of his prudent, faithful wife. No matter how dark and portentous

the cloud that brooded over them might be, she always contrived to give

it a silver lining, and his subsequent success in life he always

attributed more to her influence over him than to anything else."

Barlow lived a dual life--the life of a poet as well as of a

diplomatist--and this paper can scarcely be considered complete unless

it touches somewhat on his literary productions. It will be the verdict

of all who study his life carefully that he was a better statesman than

poet, and a better philanthropist than either; yet as a poet he

surpassed his contemporaries, producing works that fairly entitle him to

the distinction of being the father of American letters. His _Hasty

Pudding_ would be a valuable addition to any literature, and in his

_Advice to the Privileged Orders_ and his _Conspiracy of Kings_ much

poetic power and insight is apparent. It was on his epic of _The

Columbiad_ that he no doubt founded his hopes of fame, but, though the

book was extensively read in its day and passed through several editions

on both continents, no reprint has been demanded in modern times, and it

long since dropped out of the category of books that are read.

Barlow's private letters from abroad would have possessed undoubted

interest to the present generation, but, so far as is known, none of

them have been preserved--with one exception, however. There is in

existence a long letter of his, written to his wife while he was in

Algiers in imminent danger from the plague, and which was to be

forwarded to her only in case of his death. It was found among his

papers after his death nearly sixteen years later. This letter has

already appeared in print, but it will be new to most of our readers,

and it is so remarkable in itself, and throws such light on the

character of the writer, that, in spite of its length, no apology is

required for inserting it here:

"_To Mrs. Barlow in Paris_:

"ALGIERS, 8th July, 1796.