The Cabin on the Prairie Part 7

"_Brother_ Smith--who's he? I know _Charles_ Smith; and if you kin fellows.h.i.+p him, I can't. An' when you come to sift folks down,--as I foresee sich as you will,--you won't brother him much, unless he repints--an' I don't say he won't. Now let me introduce you to your future home, ef you settles in these parts. There, _this_ is the town, where we now are;" and he placed the tip of his little finger on the place as represented on the map. "Now coming down square on to the town-site is this eighty-acre lot; lays beautiful to the town, the main street running right up to it. And through that street,"

continued he, impressively, "must go all the travel to the important places beyond. And by and by, when the immigration gets strong enough, the owner of that piece of land will hev corner lots and sich to sell.

Let me show jist how it lays;" and crossing the bridge, and pa.s.sing up the projected street, he stopped the horses on a gentle rise of ground, forming the nearest point in the eighty acres. "There," he continued, referring to the map again, "you see the eighty-acre lot runs lengthwise from the town. Across it runs a tributary of the river--just down there where you see the plum and ba.s.s-wood trees; and beyond that are ten acres of the richest and easiest-worked river bottom that the sun ever shone on--all fenced; then follers thirty acres of young and valuable timber land. Here's your building spot right here where we stand, in sight of everybody, and all the travel, handy to the store, and saw-mill, and post-office, and sich, and handy to meetin'; and the ten acres of alluvial, rich as the richest, and finely pulverized as powder,--you ken plough it or hoe it jist as easy as you ken turn your hand over,--will give you all the sarce you want, and something to sell. And there's wood enough down over the place to keep yer fires a going; and when you want to pre-empt, jist sell some of yer standing timber there, to help pay for the whole, at government price."

"But," replied the missionary, as the squatter finished his graphic description, "I see by this chart that this is taken up;" for he had meanwhile been examining it.

"Well," said the hunter, "whose name's writ down as the owner of this land?"

"Henry Simonds," said the minister, reading from the paper.

"And do you know who 'Henry Simonds' may be?" asked the hunter. "It's a young chap jist turned nineteen, and of course not old 'nough to pre-empt, according to law, and who hasn't lived on this claim a day in his life. There isn't a sign of a shanty on the place, and the law requires that every man must show _something_ of a house to prove that he is an actual settler. That name's a blind. This land jines Smith's, and he's been carrying on the ten-acre lot over the river, rent free; and it comes very handy for him to come in on this piece and get his saw-logs. It's government property; and all you have to do is, to put you up a cabin, and go ahead, and if Smith kicks up a fuss, jist send him to me."

This revelation of duplicity on the part of Mr. Smith took the minister by surprise. It was evident that the location would be as advantageous for him as his plain-spoken guide had represented. It was defrauding the government for Smith to hold it as he did; and should he, in a legal way, take possession, no one could accuse him of wrong.

But he had not come out on the frontier to promote his worldly interests; and he said to the hunter,--

"What you say is all right, I have no doubt, Mr. Jones; but it is not land that I want so much as to do good among this people; and I should not wish to do anything that would cause ill feeling."

"Just as I expected," said the squatter, with a disappointed air; "and I rather think you belong to the kingdom that is not of this world.

But you are stopping at Edmunds's--aren't you? Well, it's only a short piece to his cabin, and I must take the team back; but"--after thinking a moment--"if you'll take the dam on your way, you'll find Palmer there. He's a Christian, if there is one in these parts; and you can depend on him; and if you choose to talk with him a bit about this eighty-acre lot, there won't be any harm done."

The minister thanked the squatter for his services, the latter saying, as he drove off,--

"Call on me agin, if you want anything in my line."

As the missionary pa.s.sed towards the dam, he saw the surveyors at work, dividing the town site into lots; and he paused to notice again the location. The underbrush had been carefully removed, and the cleared s.p.a.ce--bounded on one hand by the river, and on the other by the forest, while farther away from each side stretched the smooth prairie--looked as if nature had intended it as a business centre.

"How do you like our town plot?" said a voice at his side.

"It is charming!" exclaimed the preacher; and, turning, he saw Mr.

Palmer.

He was a medium-sized man, in s.h.i.+rt sleeves and blue overalls, with an old black silk hat on, which, from its bent appearance, gave one the idea that it had on occasions been used for a seat as well as a covering. The keen blue eyes under it, and the general contour of the face, ending in a smoothly-shaven chin, revealed a hard-working, frugal, money-saving character, yet honest, sincere, and unselfish. He was, indeed,--what he struck the observer as being,--a prudent counsellor, a true friend, a wisely-generous helper in every good word and work. No man in the settlement was more respected than he--a respect not based on his personal appearance, it was clear; for he had a perfect contempt for the ostentations of dress and equipage, but due to his straightforward and consistent deportment. He was about forty, and unmarried, and, on account of his amiable, thrifty, and Christianly qualities, was said to be the victim of incessant "cap-setting" by managing mammas and marriageable daughters, and of no little raillery on the part of the men, which he bore with great good nature, safely escaping from each matrimonial snare, and returning joke for joke.

"Been looking up land?" asked the bachelor.

The missionary related the day's doings, and what the squatter had said about Mr. Smith and the eighty acres.

"Jones has stated the facts in the case," said Mr. Palmer, "and advised well; but it won't do for you to have any falling out with Smith. If you will leave the matter with me, I guess I can manage it so that you shall have the eighty acres, and there be no bad feelings.

We had better pay Smith something than to have a quarrel."

"But is Smith a member of a church?" asked the missionary.

"We don't know who is who, yet," answered the other; "but should we ever form a church here, of course he'll have to show a certificate of members.h.i.+p in order to join; and I rather think he'll never be able to do that. Do him all the good you can, but don't trust him overmuch."

CHAPTER VI.

MRS. JONES'S STORY.--THE GRAY WOLF.

"Was it so _very_ different east, mother," asked Tom, one day, "where you came from, from what it is here?"

"Different in what respects?" she inquired.

"O," he answered, hesitatingly, "I mean, were folks as poor and ignorant as--as--"

"As we are, you were going to say," said she, placidly, finis.h.i.+ng his sentence for him.

"I don't think that you and father are _ignorant_," he replied, looking confused; "but--"

"I understand what you mean, Tom. No; where your father and I were born, and where we were married, the country was thickly settled. All the children went to school, and there were no such cabins as the one we live in, but nice, framed houses of wood, stone, or brick."

"Were there no poor people there?"

"Yes, as many as there are here,--a great many in the large cities,--and they found it very hard getting along."

"Were yours and father's folks very poor?"

"No; they were in comfortable circ.u.mstances."

"Then why, mother, did you come west, and why do we live as we do now?"

As she did not at once reply, the lad, busy once more with his own thoughts, forgot that he had asked the question. He had often revolved the matter in his own mind, but had never before ventured to speak of it. His mother's conversation with him, after his injury by the gun, had shown him the folly of his plan of leaving home clandestinely; but dissatisfaction with his lot grew with his growth and strengthened with his strength. It was a great mystery to him how his mother could consent to live so, for so many years. He would look at the black and crazy loggery, with its clay "c.h.i.n.king," that was ever more cracking, and crumbling, and falling to the floor, leaving holes between the logs, through which the wind and rain entered; and the one rickety chair, and the rude benches and boxes for sitting accommodations, and the bedsteads, composed of rough oaken slabs, spiked at the head and side to the walls, and a rough post at the unsupported corner, and the cracked and rusted stove and leaky funnel; and then he would look at his mother, who, despite her coa.r.s.e and dingy dress, seemed so superior to her condition; and the more he realized the contrast, the more he marvelled. When he was younger, he had noticed this incongruity between his gentle mother and her wretched surroundings; and now he sometimes wished he could be insensible to it, it made him so unhappy. How restless he became--how like a caged eaglet, as he pondered the subject by night and by day--none knew save the watchful friend who moved so gently about the dark-lighted cabin, and kept so uncomplainingly at her tasks.

And his father seemed to him, in his way, as much of a mystery as his mother. Was he contented with the roving life he led? and did he never realize the deprivations of his wife and children? Did father and mother ever know brighter days? and were they never to see them again?

And was it duty for him to keep on in the same way, sacrificing every rising aspiration and pure taste, and getting nothing in return but poor food and clothing, a comfortless home, and a mind undeveloped and unfurnished?

Seated on the end of a box, sh.e.l.ling corn by drawing the ears against the back of a broken scythe, he had been working and thinking through the evening, while the children slept, with no one to notice his absent-minded labor but his ever-wakeful mother.

"I will not endure it," he mentally exclaimed; and, by way of emphasis, he drew the ear of corn he held against the edge of the scythe with unusual force, at the same instant springing to his feet with a cry of pain, and a finger in his mouth, upsetting his seat, and sending the contents of the box rolling across the floor, and into the gaping cracks.

"O, I've sc.r.a.ped my finger awfully!" he said, with grimaces that added nothing to his personal attractions.

"Why, how did you do it, my son?" asked the mother, although she knew very well.

"Why, you see, I was thinking about something, and pulled my finger, instead of the cob, against the edge."

Mrs. Jones laid back the strip of bleeding flesh into the place from which it had thus unceremoniously been torn, and from which it hung by a bit of skin, and carefully bound up the wound.

Then, sweeping the scattered kernels into a heap, and restoring them to the box, she seated herself in a little dislocated chair, and said,--

"There, don't sh.e.l.l any more now, Tom; I have something to say to you.

You asked why we came west. The time has come when you had better know something of our history; it may help you decide your course of action.

"Your father and I were born in Connecticut, in the same town. We attended school together in our early childhood, and often played together. Both of our families were respectable--your father's quite so, although not so well off as to property as mine. He was a bright, promising boy, quick to learn, warm-hearted, and conscientious. I never knew him guilty of any of the petty meannesses too common among school children. He was sensitive to a fault, but had high notions of honor, and despised falsehood and deception in any form. When I was seventeen I became secretly engaged to him. My parents did not suspect this, nor did any of the household, except a younger sister, to whom I confided my secret. I now think it would have been better for all concerned had I from the first been open in the matter, and frankly stated to my mother what my preference was. But I knew that he was not their choice for me. They were ambitious to have me marry brilliantly, as the phrase went,--that is, wealthily and in style,--and he was young, and had his fortune to carve out pretty much for himself. He knew what their hopes were concerning me, matrimonially, and, that I might be perfectly free to break the engagement, should I repent of it, rarely saw me, nor did any correspondence pa.s.s between us. My regard for him did not lessen on this account, for I understood his motives. When he was of age, his father died, leaving him a thousand dollars as his portion. With this he went into business, with good prospects, in a neighboring city. I shall never forget how earnestly he spoke, one evening, as we parted after a brief interview.

"'Mary,' said he, 'I will be rich. I've set my mind on that; and then your father won't be ashamed to own me as a son-in-law, and I shall come and claim you.'