It was in 1850 that William Henry came to Chicago. He was then a young
man of twenty-five and fresh from his father’s farm. While William was
still in his teens it was plain that the slow life of New England would
never satisfy his ambitions and desires and so his restless nature turned
him to the great, wide West.
William had scarcely landed in the little, muddy, struggling town before
he knew that he and the city would grow up together. Even in its early
days, Chicago had that wonderful power which clings to it still—that
power of inspiring every one who touches it with absolute confidence in
its greatness and its strength.
When William Henry came to Chicago it was a little village stuck fast
in the swamp and mud that bordered the great lake, while in every other
direction stretched the endless prairie with its black soil and its
green, waving grass. But William Henry was young and Chicago was young
and even then in his imagination he saw before him the endless stone
streets and the unnumbered stores and factories and homes that the future
years would bring.
He had not long been in Chicago before he caught the spirit of its vigor
and they both marched rapidly toward wealth and power. He soon founded a
tobacco warehouse and salesroom on Lake Street, and his business steadily
increased with the growth of the city until he gained that imposing title
of dignity, influence, selfishness and narrowness, “a business man.” As
he left the busy years behind, his warehouse grew greater, and he moved
from place to place until he occupied a whole building on Lake Street
which he had bought and paid for from the incense that a generous people
was everlastingly sending up, if not to his glory, still to his profit.
William Henry had come from the farm, and with all his city life and
training he kept the inborn love for the soil, for the blue sky, the open
air and a piece of land big enough for a cottage, a garden, a barn and a
chicken house—such necessities as he had known in his younger days. These
simple surroundings of a rural life which seem hard and bare while they
are living things, because of the toil and pains that all the necessities
of life impose—these simple companions of our youth seem, somehow, to
grow into the fiber of our being, and when we look back upon them from
our artificial surroundings and our worn out feelings, the mist of the
gathering years covers them with a glamor that makes us think that our
childhood was lived in a fairyland.
So when business grew prosperous, Henry looked for a piece of land. He
did not want a twenty-five foot lot or even an acre, but he wanted a
fine, big “patch” on which he “could turn around.” He always kept a horse
and buggy, and every Sunday after his week’s work was done, he would
drive out into the country to find a “patch.” He drove out beyond the
brick stores; out beyond the houses and frame cottages; out beyond the
utmost limit of the place; out on the open prairie, covered with water
in the spring and rank with high weeds and waving grass in the summer
months, and out there in the country he found a “patch” of fifty acres
of raw prairie, which, like a herd of wild horses on the plains, had
never been subdued by man. His friends and neighbors laughed when he told
them of his “farm” clear out beyond the confines of civilization, almost
to the red man’s reservation, but he told them to wait and see. In his
prophetic brain there rose the scene of a great city, stretching out
along the lake, reaching far to the north and south and west—a wondrous
conglomeration of all the people of the earth drawn together by the magic
name “Chicago.”
In his vision, he could see railroads and street cars, stone pavements
and brick houses covering the “patch” with teeming life. Poor Henry, he
was not a fool; he was too wise. For there are two men for whom the world
never has any use; one is the fool and the other the philosopher. The
fool believes that there is nothing but today; the wise man thinks that
there is nothing but tomorrow. So the fool toils and the wise man dreams,
and the mediocre man reaps the harvest—reaps the harvest born of the poor
man’s work and the wise man’s dreams.
When William Henry bought this patch, he had a vision of a time when
relieved from business cares, he would build a house like the one his
father owned, only on a larger scale. He would have a garden, such as it
seemed to him was planted behind his father’s house. He would have a barn
with horses, and cows that gave real milk, and a chicken house where real
eggs were laid, and then, still further on in the magical future that he
knew was in store for the city that he loved, he saw his “patch” cut up
into building lots and covered with stores and factories and houses built
of brick and stone and standing firm and brave to verify his faith and
dreams.
So Sunday after Sunday he drove to his “Farm”, week by week he carried
out his neighbors and his friends. He planted trees and he dug a well. He
worked and planned and planted and dreamed out on his “patch” beyond the
great town ever reaching farther and farther toward the cherished spot.
Well, the dreams and plans of man all go for naught in the presence of
the blind forces that control the world, and one day Henry was startled
by the cry of fire. In the twinkling of an eye his warehouse was in
flames and all of his tobacco at once turned into smoke, without so
much as the aid of a single pipe. When Henry awoke from his stupor, all
Chicago was a smoldering heap of ashes, and he was a ruined man. The only
thing that escaped the flames was the little green patch so far away on
the prairies that even the fire scorned to search it out.
Henry no longer had the strength and energy of twenty years before, but
he did the best he could. He built a little cigar store in place of the
great warehouse that was once his pride. He still went back and forth on
Sundays to his patch of ground, and now he dreamed only of a little house
out there on the farm where he might keep a cow and some chickens, and
return to the simple life that his childhood years had known. But there
was one man who found his patch, and this was the tax gatherer. No land
was ever yet too far away for him. Year by year, the assessor put a value
on his farm, and the little cigar store could not yield the revenue to
pay. Of course, he never dreamed of selling the land to some one else; no
one does. Deep in the soul of man is planted the old inborn desire to own
a portion of the earth.
When Henry had no money to pay the tax, some of the “patch” was sold.
With never failing regularity the assessment came, and with almost equal
regularity a piece of the “patch” was sold to a buyer of tax-titles.
Finally, one Sunday in the early spring, Henry drove down to his little
farm. It was the first visit since the fall. Here and there a swale
filled with the rain of early spring stood in his path. Now and then the
black mud of the rich prairie held his buggy fast, but finally, after
much time and trouble, he reached the farm, and there, plain before his
eyes, was a high, tight board fence which barred him out. His first
impulse was to go back and get a gang of men to tear down the fence; his
next was to hire a lawyer. After some search he found a lawyer that he
thought would do. The lawyer knew more about the case when it was done
than when he started bravely in. Of course, Henry had no money, else the
taxes would have been paid, so the lawyer took the case on shares and
agreed to pay the costs, and then they started in to get the “patch.”
No one familiar with the courts would expect me to tell the history of
this case. It is familiar to even the common lawyer who reads the State
reports. It was about the year 1880 that Henry’s lawyer filed the first
papers in the court. The lawyer was young and full of hope—full of the
hope that is the heritage of all the young; the hope that gives courage
to live and fight and endure in the vain belief that it all counts for
something; the hope that keeps alive while years and adversity, with
their deadening, staggering blows, teach that all strivings are equally
vain. But Henry’s lawyer was young. He had the money to commence the suit
and he thought that this would be enough. Both Henry and his lawyer could
see the fence fall down and the farm platted and sold and their money in
the bank, while Henry’s life was in the early autumn and the lawyer’s in
the first green of summer time. But the days and weeks and months and
years went by.
At first they lost the case, but they were not cast down. There were
other courts that were better because they were higher up, and besides
all this, the law provided that in a contest for real estate each side
had the right to try his case twice, and the right to go each time to the
highest court of the State. Had Henry’s life been at stake he could have
had but a single chance and no right to go to a higher court, unless the
judges graciously granted him permission, and then only on the showing
that he was innocent of the crime. But land is one thing and life is
another. And this is quite right, for the amount of land upon the earth
is fixed, while there is no limit to human life.
Well, in a year or two the Supreme Court reversed the case, and then
Henry and his lawyer had another chance. In the meantime two more years
were passed in waiting and the case came on again. This time Henry won.
It was the turn of the other side to find a higher court. But the Supreme
Court found a flaw and sent it back to be tried again. Two or three more
years were spent in waiting before the case was reached. At last it
came again. Henry had grown old and white and feeble; his clothes, too,
were shabby and unkempt. His little cigar store had dwindled until only
his old comrades came to loaf and talk of the grand old days “before
the fire.” Henry never doubted that he would win. Through it all he had
held the same faith in final victory that he had ever cherished about
the future of his “patch.” He had lived to see cable cars run past his
land, to see crosstown electric cars on each side of the little farm, and
to see the elevated road stretching slowly down in anticipation of the
sub-division that would one day come.
Henry took the stand and told the story of his “patch,” of his early
years when he drove out on the raw prairie and fixed the stakes; of his
Sunday pilgrimages with his many friends; of his well, and grove and
green hedge; of the high board fence that he found on the spring day so
long ago. He looked like a patriarch as he sat bent over in the witness
chair, and his voice and story was that of some long-forgotten day.
The jury could not resist the old man’s case and again he won. Once more
the other side took it to the higher court, but found no relief. Still,
under the rules of the law, they had the right to one more trial, because
a piece of real estate was involved. So, of course, they took the last
chance that the wisdom of the law held out to them.
In the meantime, Henry’s lawyer had spent $5,000 and waited twelve long
years. He was no longer young, and most of the illusions and dreams of
early life had passed away. He was fighting now from habit, and because
he had learned that there was really not much else in life. He knew that
one fights for the sake of fighting, not for the hope of any reward that
falls to the victorious cause. Two years more dragged on. Henry, of
course, grew older and more shabby year by year; then, too, disease had
come with age; poverty and age and disease often travel hand in hand.
This is when poverty comes in the latter part of life. When it comes in
youth the lucky victim misses age. Henry had an iron will, and then he
had a life’s ambition which seemed to defy years and poverty and disease.
But time is the only warrior that never knows defeat, and it was plain
that age and sickness were to triumph even here.
Finally, one day the long-looked-for trial came. If Henry won, this would
be the end. It was now fifteen years since the first paper was filed.
The lawyer sent a carriage for Henry on this long-to-be-remembered day.
It came back empty to the court. Henry had been taken to the hospital in
the morning before the carriage came. He had protested, and asked to go
to court, but it was of no avail, so they drove him to the great brick
building and carried him slowly to the elevator and took him to the top
floor and laid him on the bed. He asked for his lawyer, and was told that
he was busy with the case, which he had concluded to try without his
client’s presence in the court.
Day after day dragged on; each night Henry asked about his case; each
day he was told that he was sure to win. The nurse knew nothing about
the case, she saw only the old sick man, as white as the spotless
coverlet that she smoothed tenderly above his wasted form. She knew that
he might as well spend his last few hours in peace, so she told him that
the case was coming along all right and that he was sure to win. Henry’s
mind was failing with his strength. The nurse could never tell when he
was asleep or awake. Sometimes he seemed to be back on his father’s farm,
a little boy. Again, he was driving out over the bare prairie looking
for his “patch.” Then he wanted to get out of bed and buy a cow and some
chickens for his “farm,” and then he sank to sleep.
In the meantime, the lawyer fought valiantly along. Finally the case
was ended, and for the last time the jury gave the land to Henry. The
lawyer waited only to hear the verdict read, then rushed to the elevator
and down to the street. He took a carriage and told the driver to go
with all speed to the hospital. He ran to the wide approach, passed the
doorkeeper, went up the stairs two steps at a time and turned down the
hall. He stopped at Henry’s door, opened it softly and went in.
The nurse was standing silent near the little iron bed. At the window
the setting sun was struggling through the smoke and grime of the great
city and painting the sky with a dull red glare. Its last beams struggled
through the dim window and fell upon the white coverlet, the worn, sad
face and the scattering hair. Henry was as still as the bed on which he
lay.
The lawyer looked down at the old, white face, and saw the eyes staring
out at the red beams of the setting sun. He could plainly see that they
rested on nothing this side of the crimson sky.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: A RADICAL CORPUSCLE