WESTWARD HO!
The following two or three days were wet and uncomfortable. Rain fell
in torrents at times, and when it did not rain the ground was steamy,
and the emigrants had a hard time to find spots dry enough on which to
make up their beds at night. This was no holiday journey, and the
boys, too proud to murmur, exchanged significant nods and winks when
they found themselves overtaken by the discomforts of camping and
travelling in the storm. For the most part, they kept in camp during
the heaviest of the rain. They found that the yokes of the oxen chafed
the poor animals' necks when wet.
And then the mud! Nobody had ever seen such mud, they thought, not
even on the black and greasy fat lands of an Illinois prairie.
Sometimes the wagon sunk in the road, cut up by innumerable wheels, so
that the hubs of their wheels were almost even with the surface, and
it was with the greatest difficulty that their four yoke of oxen
dragged the wagon from its oozy bed. At times, too, they were obliged
to unhitch their team and help out of a mud-hole some other less
fortunate brother wayfarer, whose team was not so powerful as their
own.
One unlucky day, fording a narrow creek with steep banks, they had
safely got across, when they encountered a slippery incline up which
the oxen could not climb; it was "as slippery as a glare of ice,"
Charlie said, and the struggling cattle sank nearly to their knees in
their frantic efforts to reach the top of the bank. The wagon had been
"blocked up," that is to say, the wagon-box raised in its frame or bed
above the axles, with blocks driven underneath, to lift it above the
level of the stream. As the vehicle was dragged out of the creek, the
leading yoke of cattle struggling up the bank and then slipping back
again, the whole team of oxen suddenly became panic-stricken, as it
were, and rushed back to the creek in wild confusion. The wagon
twisted upon itself, and cramped together, creaked, groaned, toppled,
and fell over in a heap, its contents being shot out before and behind
into the mud and water.
"Great Scott!" yelled Sandy. "Let me stop those cattle!" Whereupon the
boy dashed through the water, and, running around the hinder end of
the wagon, he attempted to head off the cattle. But the animals,
having gone as far as they could without breaking their chains or the
wagon-tongue, which fortunately held, stood sullenly by the side of
the wreck they had made, panting with their exertions.
"Here is a mess!" said his father; but, without more words, he
unhitched the oxen and drove them up the bank. The rest of the party
hastily picked up the articles that were drifting about, or were
lodged in the mud of the creek. It was a sorry sight, and the boys
forgot, in the excitement of the moment, the discomforts and
annoyances of their previous experiences. This was a real misfortune.
But while Oscar and Sandy were excitedly discussing what was next to
be done, Mr. Howell took charge of things; the wagon was righted, and
a party of emigrants, camped in a grove of cottonwoods just above the
ford, came down with ready offers of help. Eight yoke of cattle
instead of four were now hitched to the wagon, and, to use the
expressive language of the West, the outfit was "snaked" out of the
hole in double-quick time.
"Ho, ho, ho! Uncle Charlie," laughed Sandy, "you look as if you had
been dragged through a slough. You are just painted with mud from top
to toe. Well, I never did see such a looking scarecrow!"
"It's lucky you haven't any looking-glass here, young Impudence. If
you could see your mother's boy now, you wouldn't know him. Talk about
looks! Take a look at the youngster, mates," said Uncle Charlie,
bursting into a laugh. A general roar followed the look, for Sandy's
appearance was indescribable. In his wild rush through the waters of
the creek, he had covered himself from head to foot, and the mud from
the wagon had painted his face a brilliant brown; for there is more or
less of red oxide of iron in the mud of Kansas creeks.
It was a doleful party that pitched its tent that night on the banks
of Soldier Creek and attempted to dry clothes and provisions by
the feeble heat of a little sheet-iron stove. Only Sandy, the
irrepressible and unconquerable Sandy, preserved his good temper
through the trying experience. "It is a part of the play," he said,
"and anybody who thinks that crossing the prairie, 'as of old the
pilgrims crossed the sea,' is a Sunday-school picnic, might better
try it with the Dixon emigrants; that's all."
But, after a very moist and disagreeable night, the sky cleared in the
morning. Oscar was out early, looking at the sky; and when he shouted
"Westward ho!" with a stentorian voice, everybody came tumbling out to
see what was the matter. A long line of white-topped wagons with four
yoke of oxen to each, eleven teams all told, was stringing its way
along the muddy road in which the red sun was reflected in pools of
red liquid mud. The wagons were overflowing with small children; coops
of fowls swung from behind, and a general air of thriftiness seemed to
be characteristic of the company.
"Which way are you bound?" asked Oscar, cheerily.
"Up the Smoky Hill Fork," replied one of the ox-drivers. "Solomon's
Fork, perhaps, but somewhere in that region, anyway."
One of the company lingered behind to see what manner of people these
were who were so comfortably camped out in a wall-tent. When he had
satisfied his curiosity, he explained that his companions had come
from northern Ohio, and were bound to lay out a town of their own in
the Smoky Hill region. Oscar, who listened while his father drew this
information from the stranger, recalled the fact that the Smoky Hill
and the Republican Forks were the branches of the Kaw. Solomon's Fork,
he now learned, was one of the tributaries of the Smoky Hill, nearer
to the Republican Fork than to the main stream. So he said to his
father, when the Ohio man had passed on: "If they settle on Solomon's
Fork, won't they be neighbors of ours, daddy?"
Mr. Bryant took out a little map of the Territory that he had in his
knapsack, and, after some study, made up his mind that the newcomers
would not be "neighbors enough to hurt," if they came no nearer the
Republican than Solomon's Fork. About thirty-five miles west and south
of Fort Riley, which is at the junction of the Smoky Hill and the
Republican, Solomon's Fork branches off to the northwest. Settlers
anywhere along that line would not be nearer the other fork than
eighteen or twenty miles at the nearest. Charlie and Sandy agreed with
Oscar that it was quite as near as desirable neighbors should be. The
lads were already learning something of the spirit of the West. They
had heard of the man who had moved westward when another settler drove
his stakes twenty miles from his claim, because the country was
"gettin' too crowded."
That day, passing through the ragged log village of Tecumseh, they got
their first letters from home. When they left Illinois, they had not
known just where they would strike, in the Territory, but they had
resolved that they would not go further west than Tecumseh; and here
they were, with their eyes still fixed toward the west. No matter;
just now, news from home was to be devoured before anybody could talk
of the possible Kansas home that yet loomed before them in the dim
distance. How good it was to learn all about the dear ones left at
home; to find that Bose was keeping guard around the house as if he
knew that he was the protector of the two mothers left to themselves
in one home; to hear that the brindle calf had grown very large, and
that a circus was coming to town the very next day after the letter
was written!
"That circus has come and gone without our seeing it," said Sandy,
solemnly.
"Sandy is as good as a circus, any day," said his uncle, fondly. "The
greatest show in the country would have been willing to hire you for
a sight, fixed out as you were last night, after we had that upset in
the creek." The boys agreed that it was lucky for all hands that the
only looking-glass in camp was the little bit of one hidden away in
Uncle Charlie's shaving-case.
The next day, to their great discomfiture, they blundered upon a
county election. Trudging into Libertyville, one of the new mushroom
towns springing up along the military road that leads from Fort
Leavenworth to Fort Riley, they found a great crowd of people gathered
around a log-house in which the polls were open. Country officers were
to be chosen, and the pro-slavery men, as the Borderers were now
called in this part of the country, had rallied in great numbers to
carry the election for their men. All was confusion and tumult.
Rough-looking men, well armed and generally loud voiced, with slouched
hats and long beards, were galloping about, shouting and making all
the noise possible, for no purpose that could be discovered. "Hooray
for Cap'n Pate!" was the only intelligible cry that the newcomers
could hear; but who Captain Pate was, and why he should be hurrahed
for, nobody seemed to know. He was not a candidate for anything.
"Hullo! there's our Woburn friend, John Clark," said Mr. Howell. Sure
enough, there he was with a vote in his hand going up to the cabin
where the polls were open. A lane was formed through the crowd of men
who lounged about the cabin, so that a man going up to the door to
vote was obliged to run the gauntlet, as it were, of one hundred men,
or more, before he reached the door, the lower half of which was
boarded up and the upper half left open for the election officers to
take and deposit the ballots.
"I don't believe that man has any right to vote here," said Charlie,
with an expression of disgust on his face. "Why, he came into the
Territory with us, only the other day, and he said he was going up on
the Big Blue to settle, and here he is trying to vote!"
"Well," said Uncle Charlie, "I allow he has just as good a right to
vote as any of these men who are running the election. I saw some of
these very men come riding in from Missouri, when we were one day out
of Quindaro." As he spoke, John Clark had reached the voting-place,
pursued by many rough epithets flung after him.
He paused before the half-barricaded door and presented his ballot.
"Let's see yer ticket!" shouted one of the men who stood guard, one
either side of the cabin-door. He snatched it from Clark's hand,
looked at it, and simply said, "H'ist!" The man on the other side of
the would-be voter grinned; then both men seized the Woburn man by his
arms and waist, and, before he could realize what was happening, he
was flung up to the edge of the roof that projected over the low door.
Two other men sitting there grabbed the newcomer by the shoulders and
passed him up the roof to two others, who, straddling the ridge-pole,
were waiting for him. Then the unfortunate Clark disappeared over the
top of the cabin, sliding down out of sight on the farther side. The
mob set up a wild cheer, and some of them shouted, "We don't want any
Yankee votes in this yer 'lection!"
"Shameful! Shameful!" burst forth from Mr. Bryant. "I have heard of
such things before now, but I must say I never thought I should see
it." He turned angrily to his brother-in-law as Mr. Howell joined the
boys in their laugh.
"How can you laugh at such a shameful sight, Aleck Howell? I'm sure
it's something to cry over, rather than to laugh at--a spectacle like
that! A free American citizen hustled away from the polls in that
disgraceful fashion!"
"But, Charlie," said Uncle Aleck, "you'll admit that it was funny to
see the Woburn man hoisted over that cabin. Besides, I don't believe
he has any right to vote here; do you?"
"He would have been allowed to vote fast enough if he had had the sort
of ballot that those fellows want to go into the box. They looked at
his ballot, and as soon as they saw what it was, they threw him over
the cabin."
[Illustration: THE POLLS AT LIBERTYVILLE. THE WOBURN MAN IS "HOISTED"
OVER THE CABIN.]
Just then, John Clark came back from the ravine into which he had slid
from the roof of the log-house, looking very much crestfallen. He
explained that he had met some pro-slavery men on the road that
morning, and they had told him he could vote, if he chose, and they
had furnished him with the necessary ballot.
"They took in my clothes at a glance," said Clark, "and they seemed to
suppose that a man with butternut homespun was true-blue; so they
didn't ask any questions. I got a free-State ballot from another man
and was a-goin' to plump it in; but they were too smart for me, and
over I went. No, don't you worry; I ain't a-goin' up there to try it
ag'in," he said, angrily, to an insolent horseman, who, riding up,
told him not to venture near the polls again if he "did not want to be
kicked out like a dog."
"Come on, neighbor; let's be goin'," he said to Uncle Aleck. "I've had
enough voting for to-day. Let's light out of this town." Then the men,
taking up their ox-goads, drove out of town. They had had their first
sight of the struggle for freedom.