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THE BOY SETTLERS
* * * * *
In Uniform Style.
THE BOY SETTLERS. By NOAH BROOKS. $1.25.
THE BOY EMIGRANTS. By NOAH BROOKS. $1.25.
A NEW MEXICO DAVID. By C. F. LUMMIS. $1.25.
* * * * *
[Illustration: SURE ENOUGH, THERE THEY WERE, TWENTY-FIVE OR THIRTY
INDIANS.]
THE BOY SETTLERS
A Story of Early Times in Kansas
by
NOAH BROOKS
Illustrated by W. A. Rogers
New York
Charles Scribner's Sons
1891
Copyright, 1891,
by Charles Scribner's Sons.
TO
John Greenleaf Whittier
Whose patriotic songs were the inspiration of the prototypes of
THE BOY SETTLERS
This little book is affectionately inscribed
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Settlers, and Whence They Came. 1
II. The Fire Spreads. 9
III. On the Disputed Territory. 20
IV. Among the Delawares. 36
V. Tidings from the Front. 53
VI. Westward Ho! 62
VII. At the Dividing of the Ways. 72
VIII. The Settlers at Home. 85
IX. Setting the Stakes. 95
X. Drawing the First Furrow. 105
XI. An Indian Trail. 116
XII. House-Building. 126
XIII. Lost! 134
XIV. More House-Building. 150
XV. Play Comes After Work. 158
XVI. A Great Disaster. 181
XVII. The Wolf at the Door. 187
XVIII. Discouragement. 200
XIX. Down the Big Muddy. 215
XX. Stranded Near Home. 236
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
TO FACE PAGE
SURE ENOUGH, THERE THEY WERE, TWENTY-FIVE OR THIRTY
INDIANS. _Frontispiece_
IN CAMP AT QUINDARO. THE POEM OF "THE KANSAS
EMIGRANTS." 34
THE YANKEE EMIGRANT. 54
OSCAR WAS PUT UP HIGH ON THE STUMP OF A TREE, AND,
VIOLIN IN HAND, "RAISED THE TUNE." 60
THE POLLS AT LIBERTYVILLE. THE WOBURN MAN IS
"HOISTED" OVER THE CABIN. 70
THE SETTLERS' FIRST HOME IN THE DESERTED CABIN. 90
YOUNKINS ARGUED THAT SETTLERS WERE ENTITLED TO ALL
THEY COULD GET AND HOLD. 102
SANDY SEIZED A HUGE PIECE OF THE FRESHLY-TURNED SOD,
AND WAVING IT OVER HIS HEAD CRIED, "THREE CHEERS FOR
THE FIRST SOD OF BLEEDING KANSAS!" 106
MAKING "SHAKES" WITH A "FROW." 128
FILLING IN THE CHINKS IN THE WALLS OF THE LOG-CABIN. 142
LOST! 146
THEY WERE FEASTING THEMSELVES ON ONE OF THE DELICIOUS
WATERMELONS THAT NOW SO PLENTIFULLY DOTTED THEIR OWN
CORN-FIELD. 160
HE GENTLY TOUCHED THE ANIMAL WITH THE TOE OF HIS BOOT
AND CRIED, "ALL BY MY OWN SELF." 176
A GREAT DISASTER. 188
THE RETREAT TO BATTLES'S. 194
"HOME, SWEET HOME." 204
THE BOY SETTLERS.
CHAPTER I.
The Settlers, and Whence They Came.
There were five of them, all told; three boys and two men. I have
mentioned the boys first because there were more of them, and we shall
hear most from them before we have got through with this truthful
tale. They lived in the town of Dixon, on the Rock River, in Lee
County, Illinois. Look on the map, and you will find this place at a
point where the Illinois Central Railroad crosses the Rock; for this
is a real town with real people. Nearly sixty years ago, when there
were Indians all over that region of the country, and the red men were
numerous where the flourishing States of Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin
are now, John Dixon kept a little ferry at the point of which I am now
speaking, and it was known as Dixon's Ferry. Even when he was not an
old man, Dixon was noted for his long and flowing white hair, and the
Indians called him Na-chu-sa, "the White-haired." In 1832 the Sac
tribe of Indians, with their chief Black Hawk, rose in rebellion
against the Government, and then there happened what is now called the
Black Hawk war.
In that war many men who afterwards became famous in the history of
the United States were engaged in behalf of the government. One of
these was Zachary Taylor, afterwards better known as "Rough and
Ready," who fought bravely in the Mexican war and subsequently became
President of the United States. Another was Robert Anderson, who, at
the beginning of the war of the Rebellion, in 1861, commanded the
Union forces in Fort Sumter when it was first fired upon. Another was
Jefferson Davis, who, in the course of human events, became President
of the Southern Confederacy. A fourth man, destined to be more famous
than any of the others, was Abraham Lincoln. The first three of these
were officers in the army of the United States. Lincoln was at first a
private soldier, but was afterwards elected captain of his company,
with whom he had come to the rescue of the white settlers from the
lower part of the State.
The war did not last long, and there was not much glory gained by
anybody in it. Black Hawk was beaten, and that country had peace ever
after. For many years, and even unto this day, I make no doubt, the
early settlers of the Rock River country loved to tell stories of the
Black Hawk war, of their own sufferings, exploits, hardships, and
adventures. Father Dixon, as he was called, did not choose to talk
much about himself, for he was a modest old gentleman, and was not
given, as they used to say, to "blowing his own horn," but his memory
was a treasure-house of delightful anecdotes and reminiscences of
those old times; and young and old would sit around the comfortable
stove of a country store, during a dull winter evening, drinking in
tales of Indian warfare and of the "old settlers" that had been handed
down from generation to generation.
It is easy to see how boys brought up in an atmosphere like this, rich
in traditions of the long-past in which the early settlement of the
country figured, should become imbued with the same spirit of
adventure that had brought their fathers from the older States to this
new region of the West. Boys played at Indian warfare over the very
ground on which they had learned to believe the Sacs and Foxes had
skirmished years and years before. They loved to hear of Black Hawk
and his brother, the Prophet, as he was called; and I cannot tell you
with what reverence they regarded Father Dixon, the white-haired old
man who had actually talked and traded with the famous Indians, and
whose name had been given him as a title of respect by the great Black
Hawk himself.
Among the boys who drank in this sort of lore were Charlie and
Alexander Howell and their cousin Oscar Bryant. Charlie, when he had
arrived at his eighteenth birthday, esteemed himself a man, ready to
put away childish things; and yet, in his heart, he dearly loved the
traditions of the Indian occupation of the country, and wished that he
had been born earlier, so that he might have had a share in the
settlement of the Rock River region, its reclamation from the
wilderness, and the chase of the wild Indian. As for Alexander,
commonly known as "Sandy," he had worn out a thick volume of Cooper's
novels before he was fifteen years old, at which interesting point in
his career I propose to introduce him to you. Oscar was almost exactly
as many years and days old as his cousin. But two boys more unlike in
appearance could not be found anywhere in a long summer day. Sandy was
short, stubbed, and stocky in build. His face was florid and freckled,
and his hair and complexion, like his name, were sandy. Oscar was
tall, slim, wiry, with a long, oval face, black hair, and so lithe in
his motions that he was invariably cast for the part of the leading
Indian in all games that required an aboriginal character.
Mr. Howell carried on a transportation business, until the railroads
came into the country and his occupation was gone. Then he began to
consider seriously the notion of going further west with his boys to
get for them the same chances of early forestalling the settlement of
the country that he had had in Illinois. In the West, at least in
those days, nearly everybody was continually looking for a yet
further West to which they might emigrate. Charlie Howell was now a
big and willing, good-natured boy; he ought to be striking out for
himself and getting ready to earn his own living. At least, so his
father thought.
Mr. Bryant was engaged in a profitable business, and he had no idea of
going out into another West for himself or his boy. Oscar was likely
to be a scholar, a lawyer, or a minister, perhaps. Even at the age of
fifteen, he had written "a piece" which the editor of the Dixon
_Telegraph_ had thought worthy of the immortality of print in his
columns.
But about this time, the Northern States were deeply stirred by the
struggle in the new Territory of Kansas to decide whether freedom or
slavery should be established therein. This was in 1854 and
thereabout. The Territory had been left open and unoccupied for a long
time. Now settlers were pouring into it from adjacent States, and the
question whether freedom should be the rule, or whether slave-holding
was to be tolerated, became a very important one. Missouri and
Arkansas, being the States nearest to Kansas, and holding slavery to
be a necessity, furnished the largest number of emigrants who went to
vote in favor of bringing slavery into the new Territory; but others
of the same way of thinking came from more distant States, even as far
off as South Carolina, all bent on voting for slavery in the laws
that were to be made. For the most part, these people from the slave
States did not go prepared to make their homes in Kansas or Nebraska;
for some went to the adjoining Territory of Nebraska, which was also
ready to have slavery voted up or down. The newcomers intended to stay
just long enough to vote and then return to their own homes.
The people of the free States of the North heard of all this with much
indignation. They had always supposed that the new Territories were to
be free from slavery. They saw that if slavery should be allowed
there, by and by, when the two Territories would become States, they
would be slave States, and then there would be more slave States than
free States in the Union. So they held meetings, made speeches, and
passed resolutions, denouncing this sort of immigration as wrong and
wicked. Then immigrants from Iowa, Illinois, and other Northern
States, even as far off as Massachusetts, sold their homes and
household goods and started for the Promised Land, as many of them
thought it to be. For the men in Kansas who were opposed to slavery
wrote and sent far and wide papers and pamphlets, setting forth in
glowing colors the advantages of the new and beautiful country beyond
the Missouri River, open to the industry and enterprise of everybody.
Soon the roads and highways of Iowa were dotted with white-topped
wagons of immigrants journeying to Kansas, and long lines of
caravans, with families and with small knots of men, stretched their
way across the country nearest to the Territory.
Some of these passed through Dixon, and the boys gazed with wonder at
the queer inscriptions that were painted on the canvas covers of the
wagons; they longed to go with the immigrants, and taste the sweets of
a land which was represented to be full of wild flowers, game in great
abundance, and fine streams, and well-wooded hills not far away from
the water. They had heard their elders talk of the beauties of Kansas,
and of the great outrage that was to be committed on that fair land by
carrying slavery into it; and although they did not know much about
the politics of the case, they had a vague notion that they would like
to have a hand in the exciting business that was going on in Kansas.
Both parties to this contest thought they were right. Men who had been
brought up in the slave States believed that slavery was a good
thing--good for the country, good for the slave-owner, and even good
for the slave. They could not understand how anybody should think
differently from them. But, on the other hand, those who had never
owned slaves, and who had been born and brought up in the free States,
could not be brought to look upon slavery as anything but a very
wicked thing. For their part, they were willing (at least, some of
them were) to fight rather than consent that the right of one man to
own another man should be recognized in the Territories of Kansas and
Nebraska. Some of these started at once for the debatable land; others
helped their neighbors to go, and many others stayed at home and
talked about it.
Mrs. Bryant, Oscar's mother, said: "Dear me, I am tired and sick of
hearing about 'bleeding Kansas.' I do wish, husband, you would find
something else to talk about before Oscar. You have got him so worked
up that I shouldn't be the least bit surprised if he were to start off
with some of those tired-looking immigrants that go traipsing through
the town day by day." Mrs. Bryant was growing anxious, now that her
husband was so much excited about the Kansas-Nebraska struggle, as it
was called, he could think of nothing else.