THE SETTLERS AT HOME.
A wide, shallow river, whose turbid waters were yellow with the
freshets of early summer, shadowed by tall and sweeping cottonwoods
and water-maples; shores gently sloping to the current, save where a
tall and rocky bluff broke the prospect up stream; thickets of oaks,
alders, sycamores, and persimmons--this was the scene on which the
Illinois emigrants arrived, as they journeyed to their new home in the
far West. On the north bank of the river, only a few hundred rods from
the stream, was the log-cabin of Younkins. It was built on the edge of
a fine bit of timber land, in which oaks and hickories were mingled
with less valuable trees. Near by the cabin, and hugging closely up to
it, was a thrifty field of corn and other garden stuff, just beginning
to look promising of good things to come; and it was a refreshing
sight here in the wilderness, for all around was the virgin forest and
the unbroken prairie.
Younkins's wife, a pale, sallow, and anxious-looking woman, and
Younkins's baby boy, chubby and open-eyed, welcomed the strangers
without much show of feeling other than a natural curiosity. With
Western hospitality, the little cabin was found large enough to
receive all the party, and the floor was covered with blankets and
buffalo-skins when they lay down to sleep their first night near their
future home in the country of the Republican Fork. The boys were very
happy that their journey was at an end. They had listened with delight
while Younkins told stories of buffalo and antelope hunting, of Indian
"scares," and of the many queer adventures of settlers on this distant
frontier.
"What is there west of this?" asked Charlie, as the party were
dividing the floor and the shallow loft among themselves for the
night.
"Nothing but Indians and buffalo," said Younkins, sententiously.
"No settlers anywhere?" cried Sandy, eagerly.
"The next settlement west of here, if you can call it a settlement, is
Fort Kearney, on the other side of the Platte. From here to there,
there isn't so much as a hunter's camp, so far as I know." This was
Younkins's last word, as he tumbled, half dressed, into his bunk in
one corner of the cabin. Sandy hugged his brother Charlie before he
dropped off to sleep, and whispered in his ear, "We're on the frontier
at last! It's just splendid!"
Next day, leaving their cattle and wagon at the Younkins homestead,
the party, piloted by their good-natured future neighbor, forded the
Fork and went over into the Promised Land. The river was rather high
as yet; for the snow, melting in the far-off Rocky Mountains as the
summer advanced, had swollen all the tributaries of the Republican
Fork, and the effects of the rise were to be seen far down on the Kaw.
The newcomers were initiated into the fashion of the country by
Younkins, who directed each one to take off all clothes but his shirt
and hat. Then their garments were rolled up in bundles, each man and
boy taking his own on his head, and wading deliberately into the
water, the sedate Younkins being the leader.
It seemed a little dangerous. The stream was about one hundred rods
wide, and the current was tolerably swift, swollen by the inrush of
smaller streams above. The water was cold, and made an ominous
swishing and gurgling among the underbrush that leaned into the margin
of the river. In Indian file, Mr. Howell bringing up the rear, and
keeping his eyes anxiously upon the lads before him, they all crossed
in safety, Sandy, the shortest of the party, being unable to keep dry
the only garment he had worn, for the water came well up under his
arms.
"Well, that was funny, anyhow," he blithely remarked, as he wrung the
water out of his shirt, and, drying himself as well as he could,
dressed and joined the rest of the party in the trip toward their
future home.
Along the lower bank of the Republican Fork, where the new settlers
now found themselves, the country is gently undulating. Bordering the
stream they saw a dense growth of sycamores, cottonwoods, and birches.
Some of these trees were tall and handsome, and the general effect on
the minds of the newcomers was delightful. After they had emerged from
the woods that skirted the river, they were in the midst of a lovely
rolling prairie, the forest on the right; on their left was a thick
growth of wood that marked the winding course of a creek which, rising
far to the west, emptied into the Republican Fork at a point just
below where the party had forded the stream. The land rose gradually
from the point nearest the ford, breaking into a low, rocky bluff
beyond at their right and nearest the river, a mile away, and rolling
off to the southwest in folds and swales.
Just at the foot of the little bluff ahead, with a background of
trees, was a log-cabin of hewn timber, weather-stained and gray in the
summer sun, absolutely alone, and looking as if lost in this untrodden
wild. Pointing to it, Younkins said, "That's your house so long as you
want it."
The emigrants tramped through the tall, lush grass that covered every
foot of the new Kansas soil, their eyes fixed eagerly on the log-cabin
before them. The latch-string hung out hospitably from the door of
split "shakes," and the party entered without ado. Everything was just
as Younkins had last left it. Two or three gophers, disturbed in
their foraging about the premises, fled swiftly at the entrance of the
visitors, and a flock of blackbirds, settled around the rear of the
house, flew noisily across the creek that wound its way down to the
Fork.
The floor was of puncheons split from oak logs, and laid loosely on
rough-hewn joists. These rattled as the visitors walked over them. At
one end of the cabin a huge fireplace of stone laid in clay yawned for
the future comfort of the new tenants. Near by, a rude set of shelves
suggested a pantry, and a table, home-made and equally rude, stood in
the middle of the floor. In one corner was built a bedstead, two sides
of the house furnishing two sides of the work, and the other two being
made by driving a stake into the floor, and connecting that by
string-pieces to the sides of the cabin. Thongs of buffalo-hide formed
the bottom of this novel bedstead. A few stools and short benches were
scattered about. Near the fireplace long and strong pegs, driven into
the logs, served as a ladder, on which one could climb to the low loft
overhead. Two windows, each of twelve small panes of glass, let in the
light, one from the end of the cabin, and one from the back opposite
the door, which was in the middle of the front. Outside, a frail
shanty of shakes leaned against the cabin, affording a sort of outdoor
kitchen for summer use.
"So this is home," said Charlie, gazing about. "What will mother say
to this--if she ever gets here?"
"Well, we've taken a heap of comfort here, my old woman and me," said
Younkins, looking around quickly, and with an air of surprise. "It's a
mighty comfortable house; leastways we think so."
Charlie apologized for having seemed to cast any discredit on the
establishment. Only he said that he did not suppose that his mother
knew much about log-cabins. As for himself, he would like nothing
better than this for a home for a long time to come. "For," he added,
roguishly, "you know we have come to make the West, 'as they the East,
the homestead of the free.'"
Mr. Younkins looked puzzled, but made no remark. The younger boys,
after taking in the situation and fondly inspecting every detail of
the premises, enthusiastically agreed that nothing could be finer than
this. They darted out of doors, and saw a corral, or pound, in which
the cattle could be penned up, in case of need. There was a small
patch of fallow ground, that needed only to be spaded up to become a
promising garden-spot. Then, swiftly running to the top of the little
bluff beyond, they gazed over the smiling panorama of emerald prairie,
laced with woody creeks, level fields, as yet undisturbed by the
ploughshare, blue, distant woods and yet more distant hills, among
which, to the northwest, the broad river wound and disappeared.
Westward, nothing was to be seen but the green and rolling swales of
the virgin prairie, broken here and there by an outcropping of rock.
And as they looked, a tawny, yellowish creature trotted out from
behind a roll of the prairie, sniffed in the direction of the boys,
and then stealthily disappeared in the wildness of the vast expanse.
[Illustration: THE SETTLERS' FIRST HOME IN THE DESERTED CABIN.]
"A coyote," said Sandy, briefly. "I've seen them in Illinois. But I
wish I had my gun now." His wiser brother laughed as he told him that
it would be a long day before a coyote could be got near enough to be
knocked over with any shot-gun. The coyote, or prairie-wolf, is the
slyest animal that walks on four legs.
The three men and Charlie returned to the further side of the Fork,
and made immediate preparations to move all their goods and effects to
the new home of the emigrants. Sandy and Oscar, being rather too small
to wade the stream without discomfort, while it was so high, were left
on the south bank to receive the returning party.
There the boys sat, hugely enjoying the situation, while the others
were loading the wagon and yoking the oxen on the other side. The lads
could hear the cheery sounds of the men talking, although they could
not see them through the trees that lined the farther bank of the
river. The flow of the stream made a ceaseless lapping against the
brink of the shore. A party of catbirds quarrelled sharply in the
thicket hard by; quail whistled in the underbrush of the adjacent
creek, and overhead a solitary eagle circled slowly around as if
looking down to watch these rude invaders of the privacy of the
dominion that had existed ever since the world began.
Hugging his knees in measureless content, as they sat in the grass by
the river, Sandy asked, almost in a whisper, "Have you ever been
homesick since we left Dixon, Oscar?"
"Just once, Sandy; and that was yesterday when I saw those nice-looking
ladies at the fort out walking in the morning with their children. That
was the first sight that looked like home since we crossed the Missouri."
"Me, too," answered Sandy, soberly. "But this is just about as fine as
anything can be. Only think of it, Oscar! There are buffalo and
antelopes within ten or fifteen miles of here. I know, for Younkins
told me so. And Indians,--not wild Indians, but tame ones that are at
peace with the whites. It seems too good to have happened to us;
doesn't it, Oscar?"
Once more the wagon was blocked up for a difficult ford, the lighter
and more perishable articles of its load being packed into a dugout,
or canoe hollowed from a sycamore log, which was the property of
Younkins, and used only at high stages of the water. The three men
guided the wagon and oxen across while Charlie, stripped to his
shirt, pushed the loaded dugout carefully over, and the two boys on
the other bank, full of the importance of the event, received the
solitary voyager, unloaded the canoe, and then transferred the little
cargo to the wagon. The caravan took its way up the rolling ground of
the prairie to the log-cabin. Willing hands unloaded and took into the
house the tools, provisions, and clothes that constituted their all,
and, before the sun went down, the settlers were at home.
While in Manhattan, they had supplied themselves with potatoes; at
Fort Riley they had bought fresh beef from the sutler. Sandy made a
glorious fire in the long-disused fireplace. His father soon had a
batch of biscuits baking in the covered kettle, or Dutch oven, that
they had brought with them from home. Charlie's contribution to the
repast was a pot of excellent coffee, the milk for which, an
unaccustomed luxury, was supplied by the thoughtfulness of Mrs.
Younkins. So, with thankful hearts, they gathered around their frugal
board and took their first meal in their new home.
When supper was done and the cabin, now lighted by the scanty rays of
two tallow candles, had been made tidy for the night, Oscar took out
his violin, and, after much needed tuning, struck into the measure of
wild, warbling "Dundee." All hands took the hint, and all voices were
raised once more to the words of Whittier's song of the "Kansas
Emigrants." Perhaps it was with new spirit and new tenderness that
they sang,--
"No pause, nor rest, save where the streams
That feed the Kansas run,
Save where the pilgrim gonfalon
Shall flout the setting sun!"
"I don't know what the pilgrim's gonfalon is," said Sandy, sleepily,
"but I guess it's all right." The emigrants had crossed the prairies
as of old their father had crossed the sea. They were now at home in
the New West. The night fell dark and still about their lonely cabin
as, with hope and trust, they laid them down to peaceful dreams.