DISCOURAGEMENT.
Right glad were our settlers to see their log-cabin home peacefully
sleeping in the autumnal sunshine, as they returned along the familiar
trail from the river. They had gone back by the way of the Younkins
place and had partaken of the good man's hospitality. Younkins thought
it best to leave his brood with his neighbors on the Big Blue for
another day. "The old woman," he said, "would feel sort of scary-like"
until things had well blown over. She was all right where she was, and
he would try to get on alone for a while. So the boys, under his
guidance, cooked a hearty luncheon which they heartily enjoyed.
Younkins had milk and eggs, both of which articles were luxuries to
the Whittier boys, for on their ranch they had neither cow nor hens.
"Why can't we have some hens this fall, daddy?" asked Sandy,
luxuriating in a big bowl of custard sweetened with brown sugar, which
the skilful Charlie had compounded. "We can build a hen-house there by
the corral, under the lee of the cabin, and make it nice and warm for
the winter. Battles has got hens to sell, and perhaps Mr. Younkins
would be willing to sell us some of his."
"If we stay, Sandy, we will have some fowls; but we will talk about
that by and by," said his father.
"Stay?" echoed Sandy. "Why, is there any notion of going back? Back
from 'bleeding Kansas'? Why, daddy, I'm ashamed of you."
Mr. Howell smiled and looked at his brother-in-law. "Things do not
look very encouraging for a winter in Kansas, bleeding or not
bleeding; do they, Charlie?"
"Well, if you appeal to me, father," replied the lad, "I shall be glad
to stay and glad to go home. But, after all, I must say, I don't
exactly see what we can do here this winter. There is no farm work
that can be done. But it would cost an awful lot of money to go back
to Dixon, unless we took back everything with us and went as we came.
Wouldn't it?"
Younkins did not say anything, but he looked approvingly at Charlie
while the other two men discussed the problem. Mr. Bryant said it was
likely to be a hard winter; they had no corn to sell, none to feed to
their cattle. "But corn is so cheap that the settlers over on
Solomon's Fork say they will use it for fuel this winter. Battles told
me so. I'd like to see a fire of corn on the cob; they say it makes a
hot fire burned that way. Corn-cobs without corn hold the heat a long
time. I've tried it."
"It is just here, boys," said Uncle Aleck. "The folks at home are
lonesome; they write, you know, that they want to come out before the
winter sets in. But it would be mighty hard for women out here, this
coming winter, with big hulking fellows like us to cook for and with
nothing for us to do. Everything to eat would have to be bought. We
haven't even an ear of corn for ourselves or our cattle. Instead of
selling corn at the post, as we expected, we would have to buy of our
neighbors, Mr. Younkins here, and Mr. Fuller, and we would be obliged
to buy our flour and groceries at the post, or down at Manhattan; and
they charge two prices for things out here; they have to, for it costs
money to haul stuff all the way from the river."
"That's so," said Younkins, resignedly. He was thinking of making a
trip to "the river," as the settlers around there always called the
Missouri, one hundred and fifty miles distant. But Younkins assured
his friends that they were welcome to live in his cabin where they
still were at home, for another year, if they liked, and he would haul
from the river any purchases that they might make. He was expecting to
be ready to start for Leavenworth in a few days, as they knew, and one
of them could go down with him and lay in a few supplies. His team
could haul enough for all hands. If not, they could double up the two
teams and bring back half of Leavenworth, if they had the money to buy
so much. He "hated dreadfully" to hear them talking about going back
to Illinois.
But when the settlers reached home and found amusement and some little
excitement in the digging up of their household treasures and putting
things in place once more, the thought of leaving this home in the Far
West obtruded itself rather unpleasantly on the minds of all of them,
although nobody spoke of what each thought. Oscar had hidden his
precious violin high up among the rafters of the cabin, being willing
to lose it only if the cabin were burned. There was absolutely no
other place where it would be safe to leave it. He climbed to the loft
overhead and brought it forth with great glee, laid his cheek lovingly
on its body and played a familiar air. Engrossed in his music, he
played on and on until he ran into the melody of "Home, Sweet Home,"
to which he had added many curious and artistic variations.
"Don't play that, Oscar; you make me homesick!" cried Charlie, with a
suspicious moisture in his eyes. "It was all very well for us to hear
that when this was the only home we had or expected to have; but daddy
and Uncle Charlie have set us to thinking about the home in Illinois,
and that will make us all homesick, I really believe."
"Here is all my 'funny business' wasted," cried Sandy. "No Indian came
to read my comic letter, after all. I suppose the mice and crickets
must have found some amusement in it; I saw any number of them
scampering away when I opened the door; but I guess they are the only
living things that have been here since we went away."
"Isn't it queer that we should be gone like this for nearly two days,"
said Oscar, "leaving everything behind us, and come back and know that
nobody has been any nearer to the place than we have, all the time? I
can't get used to it."
"My little philosopher," said his Uncle Charlie, "we are living in the
wilderness; and if you were to live here always, you would feel, by
and by, that every newcomer was an interloper; you would resent the
intrusion of any more settlers here, interfering with our freedom and
turning out their cattle to graze on the ranges that seem to be so
like our own, now. That's what happens to frontier settlers,
everywhere."
"Why, yes," said Sandy, "I s'pose we should all be like that man over
on the Big Blue that Mr. Fuller tells about, who moved away when a
newcomer took up a claim ten miles and a half from him, because, as he
thought, the people were getting too thick. For my part, I am willing
to have this part of Kansas crowded to within, say, a mile and a half
of us, and no more. Hey, Charlie?"
[Illustration: "HOME, SWEET HOME."]
But the prospect of that side of the Republican Fork being over-full
with settlers did not seem very imminent about that time. From parts
of Kansas nearer to the Missouri River than they were, they heard of a
slackening in the stream of migration. The prospect of a cold winter
had cooled the ardor of the politicians who had determined, earlier in
the season, to hold the Territory against all comers. Something like a
truce had been tacitly agreed on, and there was a cessation of
hostilities for the present. The troops had been marched back from
Lawrence to the post, and no more elections were coming on for the
present in any part of the Territory. Mr. Bryant, who was the only
ardent politician of the company, thought that it would be a good plan
to go back to Illinois for the winter. They could come out again in
the spring and bring the rest of the two families with them. The land
would not run away while they were gone.
It was with much reluctance that the boys accepted this plan of their
elders. They were especially sorry that it was thought best that the
two men should stay behind and wind up affairs, while the three lads
would go down to the river with Younkins, and thence home by steamer
from Leavenworth down the Missouri to St. Louis. But, after a few days
of debate, this was thought to be the best thing that could be done.
It was on a dull, dark November day that the boys, wading for the last
time the cold stream of the Fork, crossed over to Younkins's early in
the morning, while the sky was red with the dawning, carrying their
light baggage with them. They had ferried their trunks across the day
before, using the oxcart for the purpose and loading all into
Younkins's team, ready for the homeward journey.
Now that the bustle of departure had come, it did not seem so hard to
leave the new home on the Republican as they had expected. It had been
agreed that the two men should follow in a week, in time to take the
last steamboat going down the river in the fall, from Fort Benton,
before the closing of navigation for the season. Mr. Bryant, unknown
to the boys, had written home to Dixon directing that money be sent in
a letter addressed to Charlie, in care of a well-known firm in
Leavenworth. They would find it there on their arrival, and that would
enable them to pay their way down the river to St. Louis and thence
home by the railroad.
"But suppose the money shouldn't turn up?" asked Charlie, when told of
the money awaiting them. He was accustomed to look on the dark side of
things, sometimes, so the rest of them thought. "What then?"
"Well, I guess you will have to walk home," said his uncle, with a
smile. "But don't worry about that. At the worst, you can work your
passage to St. Louis, and there you will find your uncle, Oscar G.
Bryant, of the firm of Bryant, Wilder & Co. I'll give you his address,
and he will see you through, in case of accidents. But there will be
no accidents. What is the use of borrowing trouble about that?"
They did not borrow any trouble, and as they drove away from the
scenes that had grown so familiar to them, they looked forward, as all
boys would, to an adventurous voyage down the Missouri, and a welcome
home to their mothers and their friends in dear old Dixon.
The nights were now cold and the days chilly. They had cooked a goodly
supply of provisions for their journey, for they had not much ready
money to pay for fare by the way. At noon they stopped by the roadside
and made a pot of hot coffee, opened their stores of provisions and
lunched merrily, gypsy-fashion, caring nothing for the curious looks
and inquisitive questions of other wayfarers who passed them. For the
first few nights they attempted to sleep in the wagon. But it was
fearfully cold, and the wagon-bed, cluttered up with trunks, guns, and
other things, gave them very little room. Miserable and sore, they
resolved to spend their very last dollar, if need be, in paying for
lodging at the wayside inns and hospitable cabins of the settlers
along the road. The journey homeward was not nearly so merry as that
of the outward trip. But new cabins had been built along their route,
and the lads found much amusement in hunting up their former
camping-places as they drove along the military road to Fort
Leavenworth.
In this way, sleeping at the farm-houses and such casual taverns as
had grown up by the highway, and usually getting their supper and
breakfast where they slept, they crept slowly toward the river. Sandy
was the cashier of the party, although he had preferred that Charlie,
being the eldest, should carry their slender supply of cash. Charlie
would not take that responsibility; but, as the days went by, he
rigorously required an accounting every morning; he was very much
afraid that their money would not hold out until they reached
Leavenworth.
Twenty miles a day with an ox-team was fairly good travelling; and it
was one hundred and fifty miles from the Republican to the Missouri,
as the young emigrants travelled the road. A whole week had been
consumed by the tedious trip when they drove into the busy and
bustling town of Leavenworth, one bright autumnal morning. All along
the way they had picked up much information about the movement of
steamers, and they were delighted to find that the steamboat "New
Lucy" was lying at the levee, ready to sail on the afternoon of the
very day they would be in Leavenworth. They camped, for the last time,
in the outskirts of the town, a good-natured border-State man
affording them shelter in his hay-barn, where they slept soundly all
through their last night in "bleeding Kansas."
The "New Lucy," from Fort Benton on the upper Missouri, was blowing
off steam as they drove down to the levee. Younkins helped them
unload their baggage, wrung their hands, one after another, with real
tears in his eyes, for he had learned to love these hearty, happy
lads, and then drove away with his cattle to pen them for the day and
night that he should be there. Charlie and Oscar went to the warehouse
of Osterhaus & Wickham, where they were to find the letter from home,
the precious letter containing forty dollars to pay their expenses
homeward.
Sandy sat on the pile of trunks watching with great interest the novel
sight of hurrying passengers, different from any people he ever saw
before; black "roustabouts," or deck-hands, tumbling the cargo and the
firewood on board, singing, shouting, and laughing the while, the
white mates overseeing the work with many hard words, and the captain,
tough and swarthy, superintending from the upper deck the mates and
all hands. A party of nice-looking, citified people, as Sandy thought
them, attracted his attention on the upper deck, and he mentally
wondered what they could be doing here, so far in the wilderness.
"Car' yer baggage aboard, boss?" asked a lively young negro, half-clad
and hungry-looking.
"No, not yet," answered Sandy, feeling in his trousers pocket the last
two quarters of a dollar that was left them. "Not yet. I am not ready
to go aboard till my mates come." The hungry-looking darky made a rush
for another more promising passenger and left Sandy lounging where the
other lads soon after found him. Charlie's face was a picture of
despair. Oscar looked very grave, for him.
"What's up?" cried Sandy, starting from his seat. "Have you seen a
ghost?"
"Worse than that," said Charlie. "Somebody's stolen the money!"
"Stolen the money?" echoed Sandy, with vague terror, the whole extent
of the catastrophe flitting before his mind. "Why, what on earth do
you mean?"
Oscar explained that they had found the letter, as they expected, and
he produced it, written by the two loving mothers at home. They said
that they had made up their minds to send fifty dollars, instead of
the forty that Uncle Charlie had said would be enough. It was in
ten-dollar notes, five of them; at least, it had been so when the
letter left Dixon. When it was opened in Leavenworth, it was empty,
save for the love and tenderness that were in it. Sandy groaned.
The lively young darky came up again with, "Car' yer baggage aboard,
boss?"
It was sickening.
"What's to be done now?" said Charlie, in deepest dejection, as he sat
on the pile of baggage that now looked so useless and needless. "I
just believe some of the scamps I saw loafing around there in that
store stole the money out of the letter. See here; it was sealed with
that confounded new-fangled 'mucilage'; gumstickum I call it. Anybody
could feel those five bank-notes inside of the letter, and anybody
could steam it open, take out the money, and seal it up again. We have
been robbed."
"Let's go and see the heads of the house there at Osterhaus &
Wickham's. They will see us righted," cried Sandy, indignantly. "I
won't stand it, for one."
"No use," groaned Charlie. "We saw Mr. Osterhaus. He was very
sorry--oh, yes!--awfully sorry; but he didn't know us, and he had no
responsibility for the letters that came to his place. It was only an
accommodation to people that he took them in his care, anyhow. Oh,
it's no use talking! Here we are, stranded in a strange place, knowing
no living soul in the whole town but good old Younkins, and nobody
knows where he is. He couldn't lend us the money, even if we were mean
enough to ask him. Good old Younkins!"
"Younkins!" cried Sandy, starting to his feet. "He will give us good
advice. He has got a great head, has Younkins. I'll go and ask him
what to do. Bless me! There he is now!" and as he spoke, the familiar
slouching figure of their neighbor came around the corner of a
warehouse on the levee.
"Why don't yer go aboard, boys? The boat leaves at noon, and it's past
twelve now. I just thought I'd come down and say good-by-like, for
I'm powerful sorry to have ye go."
The boys explained to the astonished and grieved Younkins how they had
been wrecked, as it were, almost in sight of the home port. The good
man nodded his head gravely, as he listened, softly jingled the few
gold coins in his trousers pocket, and said: "Well, boys, this is the
wust scald I ever did see. If I wasn't so dreadful hard up, I'd give
ye what I've got."
"That's not to be thought of, Mr. Younkins," said Charlie, with
dignity and gratitude, "for we can't think of borrowing money to get
home with. It would be better to wait until we can write home for
more. We might earn enough to pay our board." And Charlie, with a
sigh, looked around at the unsympathetic and hurrying throng.
"You've got baggage as security for your passage to St. Louis. Go
aboard and tell the clerk how you are fixed. Your pa said as how you
would be all right when you got to St. Louis. Go and 'brace' the
clerk."
This was a new idea to the boys. They had never heard of such a thing.
Who would dare to ask such a great favor? The fare from Leavenworth to
St. Louis was twelve dollars each. They had known all about that. And
they knew, too, that the price included their meals on the way down.
"I'll go brace the clerk," said Sandy, stoutly; and before the others
could put in a word, he was gone.
The clerk was a handsome, stylish-looking man, with a good-natured
countenance that reassured the timid boy at once. Mustering up his
waning courage, Sandy stated the case to him, telling him that that
pile of trunks and guns on the levee was theirs, and that they would
leave them on board when they got to St. Louis until they had found
their uncle and secured the money for their fares.
The handsome clerk looked sharply at the lad while he was telling his
story. "You've got an honest face, my little man. I'll trust you.
Bring aboard your baggage. People spar their way on the river every
day in the year; you needn't be ashamed of it. Accidents will happen,
you know." And the busy clerk turned away to another customer.
With a light heart Sandy ran ashore. His waiting and anxiously
watching comrades saw by his face that he had been successful, before
he spoke.
"That's all fixed," he cried, blithely.
"Bully boy!" said Younkins, admiringly.
"Car' yer baggage aboard, boss?" asked the lively young darky.
"Take it along," said Sandy, with a lordly air. They shook hands with
Younkins once more, this time with more fervor than ever. Then the
three lads filed on board the steamboat. The gang-plank was hauled in,
put out again for the last tardy passenger, once more taken aboard,
and then the stanch steamer "New Lucy" was on her way down the turbid
Missouri.
"Oh, Sandy," whispered Charlie, "you gave that darky almost the last
cent we had for bringing our baggage on board. We ought to have lugged
it aboard ourselves."
"Lugged it aboard ourselves? And all these people that we are going to
be passengers with for the next four or five days watching us while we
did a roustabout's work? Not much. We've a quarter left."
Charlie was silent. The great stern-wheel of the "New Lucy" revolved
with a dashing and a churning sound. The yellow banks of the Missouri
sped by them. The sacred soil of Kansas slid past as in a swiftly
moving panorama. One home was hourly growing nearer, while another was
fading away there into the golden autumnal distance.