THE TURNING OF THE ROAD
At the close of the war Captain Edward Franklin returned to a shrunken
world. The little Illinois village which had been his home no longer
served to bound his ambitions, but offered only a mill-round of duties
so petty, a horizon of opportunities so restricted, as to cause in his
mind a feeling of distress equivalent at times to absolute abhorrence.
The perspective of all things had changed. The men who had once seemed
great to him in this little world now appeared in the light of a wider
judgment, as they really were--small, boastful, pompous, cowardly,
deceitful, pretentious. Franklin was himself now a man, and a man
graduated from that severe and exacting school which so quickly matured
a generation of American youth. Tall, finely built, well set up, with
the self-respecting carriage of the soldier and the direct eye of the
gentleman, there was a swing in his step not commonly to be found
behind a counter, and somewhat in the look of his grave face which
caused men to listen when he spoke. As his hand had fitted naturally a
weapon, so his mind turned naturally to larger things than those
offered in these long-tilled fields of life. He came back from the war
disillusionized, irreverent, impatient, and full of that surging
fretfulness which fell upon all the land. Thousands of young men,
accustomed for years to energy, activity, and a certain freedom from
all small responsibility, were thrust back at once and asked to adjust
themselves to the older and calmer ways of peace. The individual
problems were enormous in the aggregate.
Before Franklin, as before many other young men suddenly grown old,
there lay the necessity of earning a livelihood, of choosing an
occupation. The paternal arm of the Government, which had guided and
controlled so long, was now withdrawn. The young man must think for
himself. He must choose his future, and work out his way therein alone
and unsupported. The necessity of this choice, and the grave
responsibility assumed in choosing, confronted and oppressed Edward
Franklin as they did many another young man, whose life employment had
not been naturally determined by family or business associations. He
stood looking out over the way of life. There came to his soul that
indefinite melancholy known by the young man not yet acquainted with
the mysteries of life. Franklin had been taken away at the threshold
of young manhood and crowded into a rude curriculum, which taught him
reserve as well as self-confidence, but which robbed him of part of the
natural expansion in experience which is the ordinary lot of youth. He
had seen large things, and had become intolerant of the small. He
wished to achieve life, success, and happiness at one assault, and
rebelled at learning how stubborn a resistance there lies in that
perpetual silent line of earth's innumerable welded obstacles. He
grieved, but knew not why he grieved. He yearned, but named no cause.
To this young man, ardent, energetic, malcontent, there appeared the
vision of wide regions of rude, active life, offering full outlet for
all the bodily vigour of a man, and appealing not less powerfully to
his imagination. This West--no man had come back from it who was not
eager to return to it again! For the weak and slothful it might do to
remain in the older communities, to reap in the long-tilled fields, but
for the strong, for the unattached, for the enterprising, this unknown,
unexplored, uncertain country offered a scene whose possibilities made
irresistible appeal. For two years Franklin did the best he could at
reading law in a country office. Every time he looked out of the
window he saw a white-topped wagon moving West. Men came back and told
him of this West. Men wrote letters from the West to friends who
remained in the East. Presently these friends also, seized upon by
some vast impulse which they could not control, in turn arranged their
affairs and departed for the West. Franklin looked about him at the
squat buildings of the little town, at the black loam of the monotonous
and uninviting fields, at the sordid, set and undeveloping lives around
him. He looked also at the white wagons moving with the sun. It
seemed to him that somewhere out in the vast land beyond the Missouri
there beckoned to him a mighty hand, the index finger of some mighty
force, imperative, forbidding pause.
The letter of Battersleigh to his friend Captain Franklin fell
therefore upon soil already well prepared. Battersleigh and Franklin
had been friends in the army, and their feet had not yet wandered apart
in the days of peace. Knowing the whimsicality of his friend, and
trusting not at all in his judgment of affairs, Franklin none the less
believed implicitly in the genuineness of his friendship, and counted
upon his comradeship as a rallying point for his beginning life in the
new land which he felt with strange conviction was to be his future
abiding place. He read again and again the letter Battersleigh had
written him, which, in its somewhat formal diction and informal
orthography, was as follows:
"_To Capt. Edw. Franklin, Bloomsbury, Ill._
"MY DEAR NED: I have the honour to state to you that I am safely
arrived and well-established at this place, Ellisville, and am fully
disposed to remain. At present the Railway is built no further than
this point, and the Labourers under charge of the Company Engineers
make the most of the population. There is yet but one considerable
building completed, a most surprising thing to be seen in this wild
Region. It is of stone and built as if to last forever. It is large
as a Courthouse of one of your usual Towns, and might seem absurd in
this country did it not suggest a former civilization instead of one
yet to come. It is full large enough for any Town of several thousand
people. This is the property of the Co. that is building the Ry. It
is said that the Co. will equip it fully, so that the country round
about may depend upon it for Rations.
"There is another building, intended also for an Hotel, but of a
different sort. This is called the Cottage, and is much frequented by
fellows of the lower sort, the Labourers and others now stopping in
this vicinity. It is the especial rendezvous of many men concerned
with the handling of Cattle. I must tell you that this is to be a
great market for these Western Beeves. Great numbers of these cattle
are now coming in to this country from the far South, and since the Ry.
is yet unable to transport these Animals as they arrive there is good
Numbers of them in the country hereabout, as well as many strange
persons curiously known as Cowboys or Cow-Punchers, which the same I
may call a purely Heathan sort. These for the most part resort at the
Cottage Hotel, and there is no peace in the Town at this present
writing.
"For myself I have taken entry upon one hundred and sixty Acres Govt.
Land, and live a little way out from the Town. Here I have my quarters
under tent, following example of all men, for as yet there are scarce a
dozen houses within fifty Miles. I find much opportunity for studies
to be presented to the London Times, which paper as you know I
represent, and I prosecute with great hopes the business of the British
American Colonization Society, of which corporation I am resident Agent.
"I have Chosen this point because it was the furtherest one yet reached
by Rail. Back of this, clean to the Missouri River, new Towns have
grown up in most wonderful fashion. I have been advised that it is
highly desirable to be in at the beginning in this Country if one is to
stay in the Hunt, therefore I have come to a Town which has just Begun.
Believe me, dear Ned, it is the beginning of a World. Such chances are
here, I am Sure as do not exist in any other Land, for behind this land
is all the Richer and older Parts, which are but waiting to pour money
and men hither so soon as the Ry. shall be Fully completed. I have
heard of many men who have made Fortunes since the War. It is truly a
rapid Land.
"I am persuaded, my dear boy, that this is the place for you to come.
There are an Hundred ways in which one may earn a Respectable living,
and I find here no Class Distinction. It is an extraordinary fact that
no man and no profession ranks another here. One man is quite good as
another.
"Of society I regret to say we can not as yet offer you much. There is
yet but four women in the place and for the men a Part seem mostly busy
consuming Whisky at the Cottage, at which I wonder, for I have found
the Whisky very bad. Let this not dishearten you, for many things will
change when the Ry. is completed. We are to have Shops here, and I
understand this is to be the seat of the county. A year from now, as I
am told, we shall have 2,000 Persons living here, and in five years
this will be a City. Conceive the opportunity meantime. The Cattle
business is bound to grow, and I am advised that all this land will
Ultimately be farmed and prove rich as that through which I Past in
coming out. You are welcome, my dear Ned, as I am sure you know, to
half my blankets and rations during your stay here, however long same
may be, and I most cordially invite you to come out and look over this
Country, nor do I have the smallest doubt that it will seem to you
quite as it does to me, and I shall hope that we make a Citizen of you.
"Above all is this a man's country. For sport it has no equal I have
ever seen, and as you know I have visited some Parts of the World. The
Buffaloes is to be found by Millions within a few miles of this point,
and certain of the savidge Tribes still live but a short journey from
this point, though now the Army has pretty much Reduced them.
Antelopes there is all around in thousands, and many Wolves. It is,
indeed, my boy, as I have told you, a country entirely new. I have
travelled much, as you know, and am not so Young as yourself, but I
must say to you that your friend Batty feels like a boy again. There
is something Strange in this air. The sky is mostly clear, and the Air
very sweet. The wind is steady but pleasant, and a man may live in
comfort the year round as I am told. I am but new here as yet myself,
but am fully disposed, as they say in the strange language here, to
drive my Stake. I want you, my dear boy, also to drive Yours beside
me, and to that Effect I beg to extend you whatever Aid may lie in my
Power.
"Hoping that you may receive this communication duly, and make reply to
Same, and hoping above all things that I may soon meet again my
Companion of the 47th., I beg to subscribe myself, my dear boy, ever
your Obdt. & Affect. Friend,
"BATTERSLEIGH.
"P.S.--Pray Herild your advent by a letter & bring about 4 lbs. or 5
lbs. of your Favourite Tea, as I am Short of Same."
The letter ended with Battersleigh's best flourish. Franklin turned it
over again and again in his hand and read it more than once as he
pondered upon its message. "Dear old fellow," he said; "he's a good
deal of a Don Quixote, but he never forgets a friend. Buffalo and
Indians, railroads and hotels--it must at least be a land of contrasts!"