Vandemark's Folly Part 14

"I wish you hadn't!" she cried. "I wish you had let me die!"

"What's the matter, little girl?" I asked, seating her on the bench once more. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Oh! oh! oh! oh!" she cried, maybe a dozen times--and nothing more, until finally she burst out: "She was all I had in the world. My G.o.d, what will become of me!" And she sprang up, and would have run off, I believe, if Buckner Gowdy had not overtaken her, and coaxingly led her back into the house.

We come now into a new state of things in the history of Vandemark Towns.h.i.+p.

We meet not only the things that made it, but the actors in the play.

Buckner Gowdy, Doctor Bliven, their a.s.sociates, and others not yet mentioned will be found helping to make or mar the story all through the future; for an Iowa community was like a growing child in this, that its character in maturity was fixed by its beginnings.

I know communities in Iowa that went into evil ways, and were blighted through the poison distilled into their veins by a few of the earliest settlers; I know others that began with a few strong, honest, thinking, reading, praying families, and soon began sending out streams of good influence which had a strange power for better things; I knew other settlements in which there was a feud from the beginning between the bad and the good; and in some of them the blight of the bad finally overwhelmed the good, while in others the forces of righteousness at last grappled with the devil's gang, and, sometimes in violence, redeemed the neighborhood to a place in the light.

In one of these cla.s.ses Monterey County, and even Vandemark Towns.h.i.+p, took its place. Buckner Gowdy and Doctor Bliven, the little girl who fainted away on the wooden bench in the night, and the yellow-haired woman who stole a ride with me across the Dubuque ferry had their part in the building up of our great community--and others worked with them, some for the good and some for the bad.

Now I come to people whose histories I know by the absorption of a lifetime's experience. I know that it was Mrs. Bliven's husband--we always called her that, of course--who expected to arrest the pair of them as they crossed the Dubuque ferry; and that I was made a cat's-paw in slipping her past her pursuers and saving Bliven from arrest. I know that Buckner Gowdy was a wild and turbulent rakeh.e.l.l in Kentucky and after many bad sc.r.a.pes was forced to run away from the state, and was given his huge plantation of "worthless" land--as he called it--in Iowa; that he had married his wife, who was a poor girl of good family named Ann Royall, because he couldn't get her except by marrying her.

I know that her younger sister, Virginia Royall, came with them to Iowa, because she had no other relative or friend in the world except Mrs.

Gowdy. I pretty nearly know that Virginia would have killed herself that night on the prairie by the Old Ridge Road, because of a sudden feeling of terror, at the situation in which she was left, at the prairies and the wild desolate road, at Buck Gowdy, at life in general--if she had had any means with which to destroy her life. I know that Buck Gowdy took her into the house and comforted her by telling her that he would care for her, and send her back to Kentucky.

A funeral by the wayside! This was my first experience with a kind of tragedy which was not quite so common as you might think. Buckner Gowdy instead of giving his wife a grave by the road, as many did, sent the man of the house back to Dubuque for a hea.r.s.e, the women laid out the corpse, and after a whole day of waiting, the hea.r.s.e came, and went back over the road down the Indian trail through the bluffs to some graveyard in the old town by the river. Virginia Royall sat in the back seat of the carriage with Buckner Gowdy, and the darky, Pinckney Johnson--we all knew him afterward--drove solemnly along wearing white gloves which he had found somewhere. Virginia shrank away over to her own side of the seat as if trying to get as far from Buckner Gowdy as possible.

The movers moved on, leaving me four of their cows instead of two of mine, and I went diligently to work breaking them to the yoke. New prairie schooners came all the time into view from the East, and others went over the sky-line into the West.

4

And that day the Fewkes family hove into sight in a light democrat wagon drawn by a good-sized apology for a horse, poor as a crow, and carrying sail in the most ferocious way of any beast I ever saw. He had had a bad case of poll-evil and his head was poked forward as if he was just about to bite something, and his ears were leered back tight to his head with an expression of the most terrible anger--I have known people who went through the world in a good deal the same way for much the same reasons.

Old Man Fewkes was driving, and sitting by him was Mrs. Fewkes in a faded calico dress, her shoulders wrapped in what was left of a shawl.

Fewkes was letting old Tom take his own way, which he did by rus.h.i.+ng with all vengeance through every bad spot and then stopping to rest as soon as he reached a good bit of road. The old man was thin and light-boned, with a high beak of a nose which ought to have indicated strength of character, I suppose; but the other feature that also tells a good deal, the chin, was hidden by a gray beard which hung in long curving locks over his breast and saved him the expense of a collar or cravat. His hands were like claws--I never saw such hands doing much of the hard work of the world--and, like his face, were covered with great patches which, if they had not been so big would have been freckles. His wife was a perfect picture of those women who had the life drailed out of them by a yielding to the whiffling winds of influence that carried the dead leaves of humanity hither and yon in the advance of the frontier. She sat stooped over on the stiff broad seat, with her shoulders drawn down as no shoulders but hers could be drawn. It was her one outstanding point that she had no collar-bones. It doesn't seem possible that this could be so; but she could bring her shoulders together in front until they touched. She was rather proud of this--I suppose every one must have something to be proud of.

I guess the old man's chin must have been pretty weak; for the boys, who were seated on the back seat, both had high noses and no chins to speak of. The oldest was over twenty, I suppose, and was named Celebrate. His mother explained to me that he was born on the Fourth of July, and they called him at first Celebrate Independence Fewkes; but finally changed it to Celebrate Fourth--I am telling you this so as to give you an idea as to what sort of folks they were. Celebrate was tall and well-built, and could be a good hand if he tried; which he would do once in a while for half a day or so if flattered. The second son was named Surajah Dowlah Fewkes--the name was p.r.o.nounced Surrager by everybody. Old Man Fewkes said they named him this because a well-read man had told them it might give him force of character; but it failed. He was a harmless little chap, and there was nothing bad about him except that he was addicted to inventions. When they came into camp that day he was explaining to Celebrate a plan for catching wild geese with fish-hooks baited with corn, and that evening came to me to see if he couldn't borrow a long fish-line.

"I can ketch meat for a dozen outfits with it," he said, "if I can borrow a fish-hook."

Walking along behind the wagon came the fifth member of the family, Rowena, a girl of seventeen. She went several rods behind the wagon, and as they rushed and plodded along according to old Tom's temper, I noticed that she rambled over the prairie a good deal picking flowers; and you would hardly have thought to look at her that she belonged to the Fewkes outfit at all. I guess that was the way she wanted it to look. She was as vigorous as the others were limpsey and boneless; and there was in her something akin to the golden plovers that were running in hundreds that morning over the prairies--I haven't seen one for twenty-five years! That is, she skimmed over the little knolls rather than walked, as if made of something lighter than ordinary human clay.

Her dress was ragged, faded, and showed through the tears in it a tattered quilted petticoat, and she wore no bonnet or hat; but carried in, her hand a boy's cap--which, according to the notions harbored by us then, it would have been immodest for her to wear. Her hair was brown and blown all about her head, and her face was tanned to a rich brown--a very bad complexion then, but just the thing the society girl of to-day likes to show when she returns from the seash.o.r.e.

When her family had halted, she did not come to them at once, but made a circuit or two about the camp, like a shy bird coming to its nest, or as if she hated to do it; and when she did come it was in a sort of defiant way, swinging herself and tossing her head, and looking at every one as bold as bra.s.s. I was staring at the astonis.h.i.+ng horse, the queer wagon, and the whole outfit with more curiosity than manners, I reckon, when she came into the circle, and caught my unmannerly eye.

"Well," she said, her face reddening under the tan, "if you see anything green throw your hat at it! Sellin' gawp-seed, or what is your business?"

"I beg your pardon," "I meant no offense," and even "Excuse me" were things I had never learned to say. I had learned to fight any one who took offense at me; and if they didn't like my style they could lump it--such was my code of manners, and the code of my cla.s.s. To beg pardon was to knuckle under--and it took something more than I was master of in the way of putting on style to ask to be excused, even if the element of back-down were eliminated. Remember, I had been "educated" on the ca.n.a.l.

So I tried to look her out of countenance, grew red, retreated, and went about some sort of needless work without a word--completely defeated. I thought she seemed rather to like this; and that evening I went over and offered Mrs. Fewkes some b.u.t.ter and milk, of which I had a plenty.

I was soon on good terms with the Fewkes family. Old Man Fewkes told me he was going to Negosha--a region of which I had never heard. It was away off to the westward, he said; and years afterward I made up my mind that the name was made up of the two words Nebraska and Dakota--not very well joined together. Mrs. Fewkes was not strong for Negosha; and when Fewkes offered to go to Texas, she objected because it was so far.

"Why," said the old man indignantly, "it hain't only a matter of fifteen hundred mile! An' the trees is in constant varder!"

He still harped on Negosha, though, and during the evening while we were fattening up on my bread and meat, which I had on a broad hint added to our meal, he told me that what he really wanted was an estate where he could have an artificial lake and keep some deer and plenty of ducks and geese. Swans, too, he said could be raised at a profit, and sold to other well-to-do people. He said that by good farming he could get along with only a few hundred acres of plow land. Mrs. Fewkes grew more indulgent to these ideas as the food satisfied her hungry stomach.

Celebrate believed that if he could once get out among 'em he could do well as a hunter and trapper; while Surajah kept listening to the honking of the wild geese and planning to catch enough of them with baited hooks to feed the whole family all the way to Negosha, and provide plenty of money by selling the surplus to the emigrants. Rowena sat in her ragged dress, her burst shoes drawn in under her skirt, looking at her family with an expression of unconcealed scorn. When she got a chance to speak to me, she did so in a very friendly manner.

"Did you ever see," said she, "such a set of darned infarnal fools as we are?"

Before the evening was over, however, and she had hidden herself away in her clothes under a thin and ragged comforter in their wagon, she had joined in the discussion of their castle in Spain in a way that showed her to be a legitimate Fewkes. She spoke for a white saddle horse, a beautiful side-saddle, a long blue riding-habit with shot in the seam, and a man to keep the horse in order. She wanted to be able to rub the horse with a white silk handkerchief without soiling it. Ah, well!

dreams hovered over all our camps then. The howling of the wolves couldn't drive them away. Poor Rowena!

CHAPTER VIII

MY LOAD RECEIVES AN EMBARRa.s.sING ADDITION

I still had some corn for my cattle, of the original supply which I had got from Rucker in Madison. Hay was fifteen dollars a ton, and all it cost the producer was a year's foresight and the labor of putting it up; for there were millions of acres of wild gra.s.s going to waste which made the sweet-smelling hay that old hors.e.m.e.n still prefer to tame hay. It hadn't quite the feeding value, pound for pound, that the best timothy and clover has; but it was a wonderful hay that could be put up in the clear weather of the fall when the ground is dry and warm, and cured so as to be free from dust. My teams never got the heaves when I fed prairie hay. It graveled me like sixty to pay such a price, but I had to do it because the season was just between hay and gra.s.s. Sometimes I thought of waiting over until the summer of 1856 to make hay for sale to the movers; but having made my start for my farm I could not bring myself to give up reaching it that spring. So I only waited occasionally to break in or rest up the foot-sore and lame cattle for which I traded from time to time.

The Fewkes family went on after I had given them some b.u.t.ter, some side pork and a milking of milk. While I was baking pancakes that last morning, Rowena came to my fire, and s.n.a.t.c.hing the spider away from me took the job off my hands, baking the cakes while I ate. She was a pretty girl, slim and well developed, and she had a fetching way with her eyes after friendly relations were established with her--which was pretty hard because she seemed to feel that every one looked down on her, and was quick to take offense.

"Got any saleratus?" she asked.

"No," said I. "Why?"

She stepped over to the Fewkes wagon and brought back a small packet of saleratus, a part of which she stirred into the batter.

"It's gettin' warm enough so your milk'll sour on you," said she. "This did. Don't you know enough to use saleratus to sweeten the sour milk?

You better keep this an' buy some at the next store."

"I wish I had somebody along that could cook," said I.

"Can't you cook?" she asked. "I can."

I told her, then, all about my experience on the ca.n.a.l; and how we used to carry a cook on the boat sometimes, and sometimes cooked for ourselves. I induced her to sit by me on the spring seat which I had set down on the ground, and join me in my meal while I told her of my adventures. She seemed to forget her ragged and unwashed dress, while she listened to the story of my voyages from Buffalo to Albany, and my side trips to such places as Oswego. This ca.n.a.l life seemed powerfully thrilling to the poor girl. She could only tell of living a year or so at a time on some run-down or never run-up farm in Indiana or Illinois, always in a log cabin in a clearing; or of her brothers and sisters who had been "bound out" because the family was so large; and now of this last voyage in search of an estate in Negosha.

"I can make bread," said she, after a silence. "Kin you?"

When I told her I couldn't she told me how. It was the old-fas.h.i.+oned salt-rising bread, the receipt for which she gave me; and when I asked her to write it down I found that she was even a poorer scribe than I was. We were two mighty ignorant young folks, but we got it down, and that night I set emptins[6] for the first time, and I kept trying, and advising with the women-folks, until I could make as good salt-rising bread as any one. When we had finished this her father was calling her to come, as they were starting on toward Negosha; and I gave Rowena money enough to buy her a calico dress pattern at the next settlement.

She tried to resist, and her eyes filled with tears as she took the money and chokingly tried to thank me for it. She climbed into the wagon and rode on for a while, but got out and came back to me while old Tom went on in those mad rushes of his, and circling within a few yards of me she said, "You're right good," and darted off over the prairie at a wide angle to the road.

[6] Our author resists firmly all arguments in favor of the generally accepted dictionary spelling, "emptyings." He says that the term can not possibly come from any such idea as things which are emptied, or emptied out. The editor is reconciled to this view in the light of James Russell Lowell's discussion of "emptins" in which he says: "Nor can I divine the original." Mr. Lowell surely must have considered "emptyings"--and rejected it.--G.v.d.M.

I watched her with a buying eye, as she circled like a pointer pup and finally caught up with the wagon, a full mile on to the westward. I had wondered once if she had not deserted the Fewkes party forever. I had even, such is the imagination of boyhood, made plans and lived them through in my mind, which put Rowena on the nigh end of the spring seat, and made her a partner with me in opening up the new farm. But she waved her hand as she joined her family--or I thought so at least, and waved back--and was gone.

The Gowdy outfit did not return until after I had about cured the lameness of my newly-acquired cows and set out on my way over the Old Ridge Road for the West. The spring was by this time broadening into the loveliest of all times on the prairies (when the weather is fine), the days of the full blowth of the upland bird's-foot violets. Some southern slopes were so blue with them that you could hardly tell the distant hill from the sky, except for the greening of the peeping gra.s.s. The possblummies were still blowing, but only the later ones. The others were aging into ta.s.sels of down.

The Canada geese, except for the nesters, had swept on in that marvelous ranked army which ends the migration, spreading from the east to the west some warm morning when the wind is south, and extending from a hundred feet in the air to ten thousand, all moved by a common impulse like myself and my fellow-migrants, pressing northward though, instead of westward, with the piping of a thousand organs, their wings whirring, their eyes glistening as if with some mysterious hope, their black webbed feet folded and stretched out behind, their necks strained out eagerly to the north, and held a little high I thought as if to peer over the horizon to catch a glimpse of their promised land of blue lakes, tall reeds, and broad fields of water-celery and wild rice, with dry nests downy with the harvests of their gray b.r.e.a.s.t.s; and fluffy goslings swimming in orderly cla.s.ses after their teachers. And up from the South following these old honkers came the snow geese, the Wilson geese, and all the other little geese (we ignorantly called all of them "brants"), with their wild flutings like the high notes of clarinets--and the ponds became speckled with teal and coot.