HE SPIRIT 
 
 OF AN 
 
 ILLINOIS TOWN 
 
 BV 
 
 M A RV HART WELL 
 CATHERWOOD 
 
ALVMNVS BOOK FVND 
 
 363 
 
|)arttoeU 
 
 THE LADY OF FORT ST. JOHN. A Novel. 
 
 i6mo, {1.25. 
 
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 THE CHASE OF ST. CASTIN, and Other Tales. 
 
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 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN, and 
 
 THE LITTLE RENAULT. Illustrated. i6mo, 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY, 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK. 
 
THE IROQUOIS ARROW. (Page 131) 
 
THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS 
 TOWN 
 
 AND 
 
 THE LITTLE RENAULT 
 
 TWO STORIES OF ILLINOIS 
 
 AT DIFFERENT 
 
 PERIODS 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY HARTWELL CATHERWOOD 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 @bt ffifoetfibe pre&, Cambridge 
 1897 
 
Copyright, 1897, 
 BY MARY HARTWELL CATHERWOOD. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 /, 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge Mass., U.S.A. 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Co. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN 
 THE LITTLE RENAULT 
 
 PAOK 
 1 
 
 , 109 
 
THE SPIRIT 
 OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS 
 TOWN. 
 
 I. 
 
 ON THE NOKTH SIDE. 
 
 THE prairie was intersected by two rail 
 roads, and at their junction, without a sin 
 gle natural advantage, the town sprang up. 
 Neither lake nor stream, neither old woods 
 nor diversity of hills, lured man s enter 
 prise to the spot ; nothing but the bald roll 
 ing prairie, gorgeous, if you rode into its 
 distances, with scarlet bunches of paint- 
 lady, small yellow sunflowers, and lavender 
 asters, and acres of other blooms. In yet 
 undrained slews the iris flags stood in ranks, 
 and at a passing touch millions of sensitive- 
 plants folded their lace leaves and closed 
 their black - eyed maize - colored blossoms. 
 By such tokens it was early autumn the 
 
2 THE SPlkl? OF t AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 first evening 1 Sam Peevey and I walked 
 north along one of the principal streets to 
 our new boarding-house. 
 
 "We had begun by sleeping on benches 
 provided for visiting subscribers in the 
 sanctum of our new paper, and eating 
 crackers and cheese and such cheap browse 
 as the restaurants afforded. Sam was proud 
 of this, and intended to put it in his future 
 political speeches. As for me, I was ready 
 for anything at that time. But our news 
 paper had so prospered that we could now 
 afford to live in a house, and pay a woman 
 who kept no other guests a modest price for 
 boarding us. 
 
 Our belongings had already been sent to 
 her care, and we hoped the drayload would 
 impress her. Sam did the partnership hop 
 ing, for I didn t care for anything in the 
 world. The street along which we walked 
 to our new experiences had been a Potta- 
 watomie trail from the Great Lakes; and 
 mindful of bygones, the founders of the 
 town called it on their map Trail Street. 
 
ON THE NORTH SIDE. 3 
 
 Further justice had been done the Potta- 
 watomies, and their forerunner in path-mak 
 ing, the buffalo, by naming the town Trail 
 City. Long gaps of vacant lots still showed 
 between buildings. Shopping women had 
 to walk half a mile from the north side to the 
 south side, matching samples. It was the 
 favorite joke of merchants in this direction 
 to bid their customers, " Give us a call on 
 your way to Chicago." Some still thought 
 the supremacy of trade might be wrested 
 from Main Street on the south side, but 
 others were wavering toward that thorough 
 fare. On every hand were scattering houses, 
 from mansions having their own gas, and 
 their water propelled by gayly painted wind 
 mills, to the rudest shelters of pine, in which 
 lot-owners tabernacled until they could do 
 better; every man s first care being to 
 secure what promised to be the most valu 
 able location he could command. 
 
 Resin weed, strung with lumps of trans 
 lucent gum, brushed our knees at the edge 
 of the sidewalk, which like a narrow end- 
 
4 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 less bridge carried us above the black soil. 
 This causeway let directly into many front 
 rooms where the functions of humble life 
 went on almost in public. But the virgin 
 town was still untainted with deep poverty 
 or vice. It had kept itself entirely free, 
 Sam informed me, from that American in 
 stitution called the saloon, so different from 
 foreign wineshops. We were literally walk 
 ing through a square mile of Ohio cheer, 
 New England thrift and conscientiousness, 
 Kentucky hospitality, New York far-sighted 
 ness with capital to back it, and native Illi 
 nois grit. The very air, resinous and sweet, 
 had a peculiar tingle that a man, having 
 once felt, cannot forget. Everybody was 
 going to succeed, and on the way could put 
 up with a few inconveniences. 
 
 The sun, a plainly defined ball, was melt 
 ing away in its own radiance, and flattening 
 as it melted, just above the horizon. This 
 unobstructed setting made weird and long- 
 shadowed effects. I hung back to see it 
 touch ground beyond low buildings. Now 
 
ON THE NORTH SIDE. 5 
 
 it was half gone now three quarters ; now 
 it was a disk of gold a quivering thread 
 of fire and now a memory. The wan 
 ness of sudden twilight stole eastward. The 
 whole wide land was a map. A freight- 
 train trailed off into glorified northern prai 
 rie. The town-herder was bringing cows 
 out of the west, and we could hear farmers 
 wagons rattling home on the dry autumnal 
 plain. Everybody wore a satisfied grin, be 
 cause the days of rattlesnake-fighting were 
 over and a long-looked-for millennium had 
 come. Eastward, on a billow of the prairie, 
 a land agent with his swarm of followers 
 could be seen offering lots. Under the 
 clang of locomotive bells and the scattered 
 noises of a skeleton corporation came the 
 suction hint of the note of the bull-goose or 
 thunder-pumper, like a buried village work 
 ing its pumps. 
 
 There were a great many passers, for 
 people were continually walking about to 
 gloat over the promised land, and brag, 
 north side, south side, or west side; the 
 
THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TO WN. 
 
 southwest quarter did not count, being re 
 served for driving-parks, manufactories, and 
 other municipal appendages. 
 
 Sam was always in a hurry, but he let me 
 see the sunset as a spectacle of local value. 
 Sam was broad and pink and muscular. 
 He had been the athlete of our class, while 
 I was only the poor fellow who carried off 
 college honors. He intended to go in for 
 politics from the ground up. Congress was 
 one of his goals. Congress indorsed you for 
 the presidency, or any other job that came 
 your way after you had been elected town 
 alderman. Sam put a great deal of time 
 into what he called making himself solid 
 with people and left me to do the office 
 work, but I didn t want to be solid with 
 people. The only endearing characteristic 
 of the town was its Auiericanness. The 
 raw land, the unfinish, the glad rush, the 
 high, clear air, the jolly insolence of inde 
 pendent human beings, how American 
 they all were I I had been so sick for 
 things American. In Paris it had seemed 
 
ON THE NORTH SIDE. 7 
 
 impossible to wait until the ship ferried 
 me over. Gorgeous autumn colors of my 
 country, high zenith shining as no other sky 
 shines, clean gladness of a landscape un- 
 soaked by mediaeval filth, primitive still, but 
 full of promise that no words can set forth, 
 my God! how my soul shouted hallelu 
 jah, while I whizzed through in a dining-car, 
 paying five prices for a vile breakfast and 
 rancid butter ! If a man could always be 
 coming home from Europe, he might accom 
 plish something by the mere rise of his spir 
 its. That was when I thought I could begin 
 again where I had left off six years before. 
 
 " I m hungry," said Sam. " And we re 
 going to the house of one of the best ama 
 teur cooks in Trail City. But they say she 
 has a falling jaw, and we don t want to let 
 it drop on us. She s a holy terror over 
 poor Kate Keene. Why don t you limber 
 up, Seth, and fascinate folks as you used to 
 before you went abroad? Travel s taken 
 all the life out of you. Six years more of 
 Europe would have made you an imbecile." 
 
8 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TO WN. 
 
 "Who s Kate Keene?" 
 
 " You did n t need six years more ; you re 
 an imbecile now. Ever since you dumped 
 your baggage in Trail City and walked into 
 the War Path office, you ve had the 
 names of all the inhabitants put at your 
 pen s end. Who s Colonel York ? Who s 
 Banker Babcock? I ll make you a little 
 catechism." 
 
 " You 11 make me an apology. You are 
 taking an unpopular manner with me, and 
 may lose my vote." 
 
 " Try to feel a little interest in humanity 
 around you, Seth," pleaded Sam. " When 
 Esther comes into the office to scrub, you 
 do take her boy on your knee, and notice 
 her and even her confounded crane." 
 
 "Esther comes only once a month. If 
 we could afford to have her of tener, it might 
 exhaust me." 
 
 " I tell you it isn t liked, Seth." 
 
 I laughed because he could think that 
 would make any difference to me. 
 
 " Some of the finest families in the United 
 
ON THE NORTH SIDE. 9 
 
 States have gathered to this town," blus 
 tered Sam. "Lucia and Alice York and 
 Teresa Babcock, where will you find pret 
 tier girls? And if you look at externals, 
 there ll be plenty of people sitting down 
 to well-served dinners when we sit down to 
 supper." 
 
 " I don t look at externals." 
 
 " I wish you did. For a fellow that works 
 like a horse, you take confounded little no 
 tice of what s around you. Now, we ought 
 to be laying our plans to get hold of some 
 of this land while it s comparatively cheap. 
 It ll be worth a hundred dollars an acre 
 some time. Rich, black, deep " 
 
 " Up to a man s knees," said I. 
 
 " Or a mule s," assented Sam. " And we 
 want some. You had a fortune when you 
 left college." He gave me that cast of the 
 eye with which he always approached this 
 subject. It was almost a compensation to 
 me for the loss of my fortune to see how 
 defrauded Sam felt. 
 
 "If I had it now, would I be here? " 
 
10 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 " But how could you run through with it 
 all?" 
 
 " Same old way." 
 
 " You had fifty thousand dollars." 
 
 " And you 11 come back at me fifty thou 
 sand times to make me account for every 
 doUar of it." 
 
 " You ought to account to somebody." 
 
 " That s been one of my fatal troubles, 
 Sam: there was no one for me to account 
 to, no father, mother, brother, or sister." 
 
 " I d be a brother to you and show you 
 where to put it now, if you had it. I don t 
 understand how you let foreigners rob you 
 so ; you re no profligate. Buying old books 
 and old pictures is n t absolute drunken 
 ness." 
 
 I never excused myself to Sam or helped 
 him to better understanding of my affairs. 
 We were partners, with all we both had 
 staked in our little printing-house, and I had 
 dropped into that place when I came back 
 because it was the first thing that offered. 
 When Sam had<given me a thought, he went 
 on: 
 
ON THE NORTH SIDE. 11 
 
 " Poor Keene, his profligacy was absolute 
 drunkenness. We came here to start the 
 paper together. I did n t know as much as 
 I do now. I had been rubbing around at 
 different jobs four or five years, trying to 
 study law and one thing or another, without 
 enough money to live on, and dabbling with 
 newspapers all the time. In six months 
 Keene had us sold out, and he was in the 
 gutter. So I tried it again alone. He was 
 as bright a fellow as you are, but he could n t 
 be kept steady. We opened the new grave 
 yard with him just before you came. He 
 never did a more distinguished thing than 
 plant his carcass on that slope. We made 
 an occasion of it, like laying a corner-stone. 
 Poor Kate ! He left her without a cent in 
 the world, and without a relation except this 
 half-aunt. I should say she was literally 
 on her wits; and she needs them, to get 
 on with Mrs. Jutberg. Jutberg is a Swede, 
 well-to-do, but probably the most regretful 
 Swede that ever was in a hurry to marry an 
 American woman. I never saw him do any- 
 
12 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 thing but follow his wife submissively into 
 church. But she has religious ecstasies, and 
 they tell this story of him : One night he sat 
 watching Mrs. Jutberg in disgust while she 
 paraded the aisles shouting, I want to be a 
 burden-bearer ! and the next morning he 
 refused to carry any coal into the house for 
 her. Get on to dat burden yourself, Jut- 
 berg says. You vas so sveet on burdens, I 
 let you bear dat one. " 
 
 Any but homeless men might have en 
 tered Mrs. Jutberg s sphere apprehensively. 
 The two or three weeks I had camped in 
 the office with Sam separated me from my 
 former life, and the square, roomy house 
 typified a return to civilization. From the 
 porch inward one was impressed by exquisite 
 rigorous housekeeping. An odor of roses 
 sifted about. There was not a speck of dust 
 on the furniture or on the framed hair-flow 
 ers and ancient sampler-work in the parlor. 
 I wondered if the orphan Kate Keene held 
 levees of youthful people in this little salon. 
 She was nowhere to be seen, and neither was 
 
ON THE NORTH SIDE. 13 
 
 there any visible servant. Mrs. Jutberg 
 received us with brisk dispatch. She was 
 a small woman, of excellent trim figure, 
 though I thought her sallow face a sullen 
 one. Her teeth were large and broad. With 
 unusual scrutiny I detected a looseness 
 about the lower part of her face, which 
 seemed thrown on its own support. But 
 when you are predisposed against a person, 
 and find that person a quick-footed and 
 capable domestic angel, small minor imper 
 fections go for nothing. Our rooms had 
 the sweetness of lavender in the sheets. My 
 box of books had been opened and arranged 
 on standing shelves by some one who knew 
 their value. I had a comfortable feeling in 
 the house, such as I thought I should never 
 have again in the world. 
 
 Sam and I sat down in state with the 
 Swedish host in the dining-room, and the 
 hostess herself served us. 
 
 " Good - evening, yentlemens," he said, 
 holding knife and fork upright in his fists ; 
 and I thought he was a dear blue-eyed old 
 
14 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TO WN. 
 
 fellow who would appreciate sitting and 
 smoking in silence with a companion after 
 meals. Sam gormandized on broiled prairie 
 chicken and talked all the time, but the 
 fragrance of the tea floated Mr. Jutberg and 
 myself into a smiling, unspoken friendship. 
 It was a meal to set a man on Mount Olym 
 pus, Sam said, becoming heartily solid with 
 Mrs. Jutberg, who appeared distrustful of 
 the praises of men s mouths, yet exacting of 
 appreciation. It did indeed mark a new era 
 after bread and cheese and restaurant stuff, 
 and there was no restraining the vigor it put 
 into Sam. He rushed forth, as soon as he 
 rose from the table, into the dusk streets, 
 where the kerosene lamps were yet unlighted, 
 to further cultivate the influence of woman, 
 or pursue patrons for advertising, or talk 
 his kind of politics, or continue what he 
 called hustling along the development of 
 the town. 
 
 I was used to Sam s desertions in the even 
 ing, for we never went in the same direction 
 if we walked, and often I lighted a lamp in 
 
ON THE NORTH SIDE. 15 
 
 the office and read or wrote, beetles and 
 evening street noises buzzing up from the 
 sidewalks. The discipline on the sanctum 
 benches made me look forward to a bed 
 with gratitude that astonished me, and the 
 very best preparation for such bliss seemed 
 a smoke on the porch with Mr. Jutberg. 
 So we sat down, with our feet on the top 
 step, he and his pipe, and I and one of my 
 treasured cigars. 
 
 " I vas not a feller dat talk much ven I 
 smoke," remarked Mr. Jutberg before each 
 man sunk into his own sweet trance ; and I 
 responded, " The same." 
 
 His gentle Swedish monotone was more 
 soothing than his tobacco. The sky seemed 
 to let its stars down almost within reach, 
 and over eastern hummocks we could watch 
 the unobstructed rising of constellations. 
 There was no light in the house except in 
 the kitchen, at the end of the hall behind us. 
 We could hear the tinkle of dishes being 
 washed and set on shelves, and by turning 
 our heads could see Mrs. Jutberg and an- 
 
16 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 other figure passing back and forth. I 
 wondered if the two women of the house ate 
 in secret, and like the priests of the oracles 
 performed their feats by hidden machinery ? 
 After my life of fierce and sickening pas 
 sion these saltless doings were infinitely 
 peaceful. 
 
 There had not been an audible word 
 spoken in the house, when the clamor of a 
 shrew began, almost lifting Mr. Jutberg and 
 me, like a powder explosion, from the top 
 step. He turned toward me, pipe in mouth, 
 his face drawn back in apprehensive hori 
 zontal lines. I began a Latin quotation un 
 der my breath, but the terrible words of that 
 incensed woman could not be shut out. Her 
 voice soared and spread, and must have 
 filled the air for several blocks. I have 
 heard hysterical cries, but never anything 
 so like the shrieking of a human beast. The 
 mire of Billingsgate market and its red- 
 faced fishwives at once came into my mind. 
 Could any one have imagined this trim, 
 pleasant-spoken, and skilled American wo- 
 
ON THE NORTH SIDE. 17 
 
 man was such a devil ? The opinion of 
 neighbors was no check on Mrs. Jutberg. 
 She called her young relation names. The 
 insanity of her anger being restrained by 
 nothing but religion, she doomed the poor 
 girl to fire and flame, which is the second 
 death and a well-deserved one. 
 
 I saw a figure dart across the lighted 
 space with its hands over its ears, and Mrs. 
 Jutberg pursued it. It was then that her 
 shrewish face worked in a spasm. The 
 muscles struggled ineffectually while she 
 chewed air with dreadful mouthings and 
 contortions of the countenance, and beck 
 oned to us with imperative hand. I leaped 
 up, convinced that the woman was in a fit, 
 but Mr. Jutberg shook the ashes deliber 
 ately out of his pipe. 
 
 " It vas netting but her yaw come un- 
 yointed," he explained in gentle monotone. 
 " I put it up again. But, by Vashin tons 
 and all dem big fellers ! it vas better out of 
 yoint dan it vas in." 
 
 The girl s hand was stretched forth to 
 
18 TEE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 help Mrs. Jutberg, but Mrs. Jutberg slapped 
 at it. My friend arose, straightening his 
 stiffened limbs, and went in to the rescue. 
 At my distance I thought I heard a slight 
 click which might signify that his surgery 
 was effectual. Mrs. Jutberg worked her jaw 
 up and down, recovering command of it ; 
 and then, without a word to acknowledge his 
 services, she turned her back and went into 
 darkness at the rear of the house. We 
 heard a door slam. Her husband took his 
 hat from the hall and passed me, with an 
 apology for our interrupted smoke. 
 
 " I yust valk out behind her aviles and 
 keep her in sight. It make her so mad ven 
 her yaw come unyointed she not stay in de 
 house aviles, but go out and valk de streets 
 in her sunbonnet. Seem like ven I put it 
 up she blame me because it come down." 
 
 I shared Mr. Jutberg s feeling of uneasi 
 ness and responsibility because Mrs. Jutberg 
 could no longer bear to be in the house with 
 us. The long streets, safe though poorly 
 lighted, would lead her past much jollity and 
 
ON THE NORTH SIDE. 19 
 
 banjo and guitar playing. Nearly every 
 body was young and happy. 
 
 I thought it a pity that Protestant 
 churches never keep open doors for weary 
 and passion-tormented souls, as the Catholic 
 church does. Toilers who left their work 
 for a minute s prayer in the cathedral were 
 a common sight abroad ; and the dim light 
 and holy silence must have done a lurid 
 spirit like Mrs. Jutberg much good. There 
 was a wide sprinkling of variously housed 
 denominations all over town. Every man 
 had put his hand in his pocket to help the 
 churches, and none more generously than 
 the banker, Mr. Babcock, until he called a 
 halt with sudden thought. 
 
 " Look here, boys ! We 11 have the 
 preachers of all these churches to keep by 
 and by. Let up on subscriptions. We 
 won t build any more." 
 
 I had smoked out my cigar and thrown 
 the stump away, when it occurred to me 
 what guileless people these were to leave 
 their young relation alone in the house with 
 
20 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 a stranger. Ashamed of the thought be 
 cause it was un-American, I rose to go to 
 bed, when we met in the hall. The young 
 girl was carrying a lamp. There was no 
 back stairway in the house, I understood 
 afterwards, and the kitchen lamp was the 
 only one she was allowed to make use of. 
 It was clean and bright as the flambeaux of 
 the wise virgins, showing her face and brown 
 hair, and her black dress, short like a little 
 girl s around the ankles. She was lithe and 
 long-bodied, with an undulous motion as she 
 walked, which struck me as the perfection 
 of young grace. I did not expect to find 
 anything perfect in Mrs. Jutberg s relation, 
 though I was as indifferently sorry for the 
 lot of the unprotected creature as I could be 
 for anything. 
 
 We stopped, I to give her the right of 
 way up the stairs, and she in humility to de 
 cline it. The sickening shame which the 
 young experience when their guardians de 
 grade themselves made her avoid my eyes. 
 I knew instantly that one of her ideals of 
 
ON THE NORTH SIDE. 21 
 
 life was high breeding, daughter of a 
 drunkard and niece of a scold ! 
 
 I said, " Good - evening," and she an 
 swered, " Good-evening." 
 
 "Adams, one of Mrs. Jutberg s board 
 ers," I mentioned, to quiet any misappre 
 hension. 
 
 "Yes, I know." 
 
 " I in going upstairs too. Shall I carry 
 the lamp for you ? " 
 
 She gave it to me ; but with a touching 
 swiftness which moistened my own eyes, she 
 turned against the stair-side and burst out 
 crying. 
 
 " Oh, come, now," I objected, " don t do 
 that." 
 
 I looked around and set the lamp on a 
 step. It threw our shadows across the nar 
 row passage, but I put my length in front of 
 her as a screen from the street. Her slim 
 sides expanded and contracted with the 
 effort she made to hold her sobs. That 
 helpless crying into which a visibly brave 
 creature fell cut me up. I did not know 
 
22 TEE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 how to comfort her; but I could have 
 brought her Mrs. Jutberg s jaw on a salver. 
 
 " Never mind," I said ; " I don t believe 
 anybody heard but myself, and it makes no 
 difference, anyway." 
 
 The girl began to laugh, and lifted her 
 head, though tears ran down her clear 
 cheeks. " It was n t that." 
 
 " What was it then ? " 
 
 " Oh, you look like my father you look 
 like my father ! " She flung herself against 
 the stair-side and sobbed again. 
 
 This was flattering to a man who had 
 had some measure of success : I looked like 
 a sot, the opener of the new cemetery, the 
 mortuary corner-stone, so to speak, of Trail 
 City. I passed my hand through the thin 
 layer of hair on my cadaverous head, being 
 unable to hit on any suitable response. 
 
 Her second fit of weeping was short, and 
 she dried her face, showing the freshest 
 innocence I had ever seen on a human coun 
 tenance. The guilelessness of childhood 
 was supplemented by something like a high 
 
ON THE NORTH SIDE. 23 
 
 spiritual brightness which gave her an intent 
 and all-alive look. Among chance comings 
 of children into this world, I divined, what 
 ever her parentage had been, that hers was 
 a happy chance. She attracted the material 
 needful to make her life. 
 
 "My father has only been dead a few 
 months. I haven t got used to it yet." 
 
 " He left you here, did he? " I remarked, 
 making a case against the man I resem 
 bled. 
 
 " Only until I am eighteen. After I am 
 eighteen I may go where I please." 
 
 " He made that provision for you ? " 
 
 " He only told me to stay until I was of 
 age ; and I will do as he told me." 
 
 " Perhaps he thought you would be taking 
 a husband by that time." 
 
 " No, indeed. I am never going to 
 marry. My father told me not to." 
 
 "He was a man of sense," I admitted, 
 feeling more reconciled to the resemblance. 
 
 " He was the best man in the world. 
 Other people have bad faults, but he had 
 
24 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 only one little weakness. You don t know 
 what my father was to me. I miss him" 
 She stopped, catching her lip in her teeth. 
 
 The forcible reminder which I had been 
 of this good man for the first time suggested 
 itself as an advantage. A differentiation, 
 impalpable as air, set the child apart to me, 
 and gave me some hold on the only friend 
 ship I felt moved to seek. I was possessed 
 to let out my story, which had cost lying 
 to keep from American ears, to a person 
 I had talked with five minutes. Sam had 
 labored on me incessantly, and closed me 
 up tighter all the time ; and for backing he 
 had our college years. This girl was not 
 acquainted with my kind of grief. It was 
 in fact unfit to mention to her. You knew 
 by instinct she was the species of innocent 
 who might stand in the thick of intrigue 
 and never see it, keeping company with 
 holy angels all the time. But I felt sure 
 she could help me with my intolerable load 
 just as she defended her father s little weak 
 ness. 
 
ON TEE NORTH SIDE. 25 
 
 I took up the lamp and rested it on the 
 flat newel, detaining her when she would 
 have continued up the stairs. 
 
 " I wish you would sometimes call me 
 father. Not openly, I mean but some 
 times. I had a child of my own, and he 
 died. I think of him day and night, like a 
 woman." 
 
 " But where is the child s mother? " 
 
 "That is what I have asked myself a 
 great many times," I said deliberately. 
 " Where is the child s mother ? And the 
 only satisfactory answer I could ever give 
 was, Damn the child s mother. She left 
 her little sick boy with me, and she left me 
 because she had impoverished me. But the 
 boy, he was old enough to call me father, 
 and I should like to hear the word once 
 in a while." 
 
 My young confessor took hold of a narrow 
 ribbon and drew a packet out of her bosom, 
 her wide and solemn eyes transfixing me 
 while she prepared to exchange confidences. 
 From the packet she unfolded a paper, and 
 
26 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 gave into my hand her father s last will and 
 testament. I read it by the lamplight. 
 
 Kate, my child, you are the only thing 
 that excuses me for ever having lived. I 
 want you to make a success of life, my girl. 
 Do it for me. Cover my failure. Don t 
 idolize anybody, Kate, but be friends with 
 all. Be cautious about men ; some of them 
 are worse even than I am. 
 
 It s a battle, my child, getting through 
 the world. The people you see best off have 
 their fights as well as the rest of us. But if 
 you get through with credit, think what it 
 will be to your mother and me. For God s 
 sake, Kate, my love, do your best ; and if 
 they let a fellow out on the other side, I will 
 watch you night and day. Your 
 
 FATHER. 
 
 I gave her back the paper, and she folded 
 and returned it to its place. By one im 
 pulse we then shook hands, feeling that we 
 had made a compact of friendship. 
 
ON THE NORTH SIDE. 27 
 
 She said, " You may call me Kate." 
 
 I said, " My name is Seth." 
 
 We stood with our eyes cast down, as be 
 came the importance of the moment. 
 
 " Well, good-night," said Kate. " Good 
 nightfather." 
 
 " Good-night, Kate." 
 
 I gave her the lamp and turned again to 
 the porch, where I sat until Sam came 
 home. 
 
n. 
 
 ON THE WEST SIDE. 
 
 FRIENDSHIP between man and woman is 
 so little tolerated or understood in our coun 
 try that I avoided giving Trail City any oc 
 casion to call me Kate Keene s suitor. She 
 herself had an instinct against lovers, so 
 singular in a maid of her age that it was 
 talked about. But she had an equally strong 
 instinct for comradery, and every soul in the 
 place was bound to Kate Keene by some in 
 visible cord. 
 
 In the dark of every morning I heard 
 her slip downstairs to begin her daily tasks. 
 How hard these tasks were I do not know, 
 the domestic machinery never appearing, 
 though for a fortnight after our compact I 
 had mere glimpses of her. I took to select 
 ing books from my shelves, and leaving 
 them with the conspicuous appeal " Read " 
 
ON THE WEST SIDE. 29 
 
 on my table. They might or might not be 
 appropriated by Mrs. Jutberg. But the 
 venture proved lucky, as a small marker 
 lettered "Kate," forgotten in one of the 
 returned books, convinced me. 
 
 Autumn glooms and howling winds came 
 on. The sodden prairie was raw and hor 
 rible, worse than a steamer-deck in a fog. 
 Above seas of black and waxy mud rushed 
 a river of wind, drowning human hope. In 
 this bleakness everything took a trivial and 
 contemptible guise. One said to himself, 
 " What are these fools doing out on an open 
 plain? Why don t they hunt shelter?" 
 My life hung so torpidly on me, I thought 
 every day of suicide. If there was ever man 
 or woman born into this world who won 
 through it without feeling sometimes im 
 pelled to take the old pagan short cut out, 
 that man or woman must have been a stupid 
 brute. Like the sender of anonymous let 
 ters, the incipient suicide is often the person 
 you least suspect. I did my work ; and my 
 daily bread was something to be thankful 
 
30 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 for. But the dead level of that plain and 
 its pursuing blackness were too typical. 
 
 On some days I could not put out of my 
 mind a sodden and neglected little grave in 
 a foreign churchyard, undecorated by the 
 beaded flowers and wreaths and crowns 
 which defied weather and memorialized grief 
 around it. A farmer leading his freckle- 
 nosed boy by the hand was a taunting re 
 minder that some wretches are denied the 
 commonest comforts of the commonest lot. 
 
 Then I began to think of winter rime on 
 European villages. Paris, London, Rome, 
 Florence, called me, with all their art treas 
 ures, all their variety of life in which a 
 man might lose himself. Homesickness for 
 things American passed into astonishment 
 that man is held to his own place on earth 
 by a cord he cannot break even in a migra 
 tory age. His life seems kneaded into that 
 land, and he longs for it when he is away 
 with a reasonless passion that has nothing 
 to do with its adaptability to his physical 
 health or the building of his fortunes. But 
 
ON THE WEST SIDE. 31 
 
 I was too poor to turn eastward again. The 
 petty treadmill of a country newspaper had 
 me for its automatic motor. 
 
 It was surprising to see what interest Sam 
 took in the thing. Nothing pleased him bet 
 ter than leading a crowd of old rattlesnake 
 fighters in to see our type ; and when we 
 hazarded a small steam-plant in place of the 
 old hand-press, and began to feel our way 
 to a daily, he was as wild as a Pottawatomie. 
 
 The whole town rushed like a comet along 
 the plane of improvement. Its local politi 
 cal spirit was intense. The salary of mayor 
 and aldermen was fixed rigidly at fifty cents 
 per head a year. When a man was nomi 
 nated for one of these offices, however, he 
 poured out his own private means like water 
 on the expenses of an election rather than 
 suffer the odium of defeat. The town had 
 contempt for any one who failed in any way 
 to "get there." 
 
 Feuds and cross - purposes existed, but 
 these were all new and swiftly changing, 
 like the clouds over the prairie. No families 
 
32 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TO WN. 
 
 had hereditary enemies. By the time Sam 
 had me adjusted to the fact that Colonel 
 York and Mr. Babcock were in a furious 
 tug over grain elevators or the placing of the 
 school funds, they had passed again through 
 the amicable process which he called kissing 
 and making up. We had to steer our bark 
 very carefully among breakers, and lean to 
 this side or that with discretion ; but Sam 
 had the discretion and did the leaning. 
 
 Many good fellows thought I was sickly, 
 and came into the office to cheer me up. 
 One jolly, roseate old rascal, with tufts of 
 hair like wool above his ears, swapped daily 
 jokes about his nomination for county cor 
 oner. 
 
 44 You 11 give me employment if I get 
 there," said he. 
 
 "But why do you want to sit on such 
 objects as I am ? " 
 
 " Well, I 11 tell you, editor : my aim is to 
 get into some business where there won t be 
 any more kicking. Now, the man I deal 
 with as coroner won t kick : he can t. His 
 
ON THE WEST SIDE. 33 
 
 friends won t : the State pays the expenses, 
 I m getting on, and peaceful, soothing em 
 ployment like this is what I want for my 
 old age." 
 
 Sometimes the conviction stung me that 
 I was wasting my prime in this eddy, with 
 people whose thoughts could never be iden 
 tical with mine. " It is not my place," my 
 soul said. Every morning when I rose, the 
 sickening distaste swept over me. And a 
 man who submits to disadvantage maims his 
 own spirit. Yet there I lay prostrate, like 
 a tangled horse, who after vain efforts to 
 rise sinks flat, with his head on the paving. 
 And suppose I did stand on my feet once 
 more, for whom should I do anything ? All 
 around were men with set faces and tense 
 purpose, their eyes fixed on better futures 
 for their children and an old age of plenty. 
 I could work with mechanical execution, 
 but not as a creative mind. 
 
 Blessed is that transcriber with electrical 
 touch who makes his page crackle and 
 sparkle at the very points where we might 
 
34 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 blindly miss the meaning. So much that 
 happens to us seems not worth setting down. 
 I have tallied these blank days as they were 
 tallied against me. I simply lost them with 
 out living. Sallow northern light fell across 
 my page while I wrote, and rain drove 
 against our office windows. Esther, our 
 periodical scrub-woman, progressed on her 
 knees as far as my chair ; and when I had 
 to move, her infant nephew, whom she called 
 "buddy," a contraction of "brother," 
 always improved the opportunity to get on 
 my lap. She kept him very clean, and of 
 this I was glad, on his adoption of me. The 
 smell of dirty little boy on a wet day sur 
 passes every other rankness. His pet and 
 constant follower, a sand-hill crane of bluish- 
 gray plumage, would stalk after him and 
 stand beside the desk, stretching himself up 
 to overtop me as I sat, or stooping deject 
 edly to forage in the waste-basket. Esther 
 told me she had sometimes seen cranes dan 
 cing real quadrilles at the edge of a slew ; 
 and the stately manners of this one, whose 
 
ON THE WEST SIDE. 35 
 
 name was Jimmy, testified to some breeding. 
 But he had been caught young, and deprived 
 of courtly example at the very time when 
 lank leg and neck were developing to the 
 utmost, so he lacked the wild grace of his 
 ancestors, and knocked things over with his 
 feet, and convulsively tried to swallow what 
 ever he could pick up with his bill. 
 
 Seeing that I regarded Jimmy without the 
 animosity which was so often his portion, 
 Esther explained : " I named him after my 
 brother that was consumpted and died. My 
 brother used to go steppin around slow, with 
 his hands in his pockets, somethin like a 
 crane. Jimmy is a comfort to me, if he 
 does dirty the floors and chaw clothes on the 
 line. It takes hard work to support my 
 brother s children, now he s gone. But you 
 ought to seen the style they used to put on. 
 His wife had as much as seven hundred dol 
 lars left to her. I never got none of it : it 
 come from her folks. And she did n t save 
 a cent of that money. I wanted them to get 
 a home. But all-wools was n t too good for 
 
36 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TO WN. 
 
 them then. How that family did dress ! 
 And they went into s ciety and spent it all. 
 Now she s a widow, with five children for 
 her and me to keep, and she can t do much." 
 
 " Were you never married yourself, 
 Esther ? " I inquired. 
 
 " Oh, yes," she responded cheerfully, lift 
 ing a liver-colored face in which pleasant 
 eyes were set, "two or three times. But 
 nary one was any account. So I turned 
 them off, and took in my brother s folks." 
 
 Jimmy the crane, having begun hopefully 
 on a ball of twine in the waste-basket while 
 Esther talked, now caught her eye and re 
 pented. He offered no resistance to disgorg 
 ing when Esther picked up the remainder 
 of the ball to unwind him, and she on her 
 part brought link after link of cord from 
 his midst, until it seemed that Jimmy s in 
 testines were being spun forth through his 
 open bill. Having parted with the end of 
 the twine, which I pressed upon Esther s 
 acceptance, as we no longer needed it in the 
 office, Jimmy shook his wings, and uttered 
 
ON THE WEST SIDE. 37 
 
 a resigned plaintive sound which might be 
 interpreted " Koort." 
 
 "Jimmy s a great hand for string," re 
 marked Esther ; " and he miscalculates 
 about what he eats like folks miscalculate 
 about other things. Folks does a heap of 
 things there ain t no need of. My mother, 
 she used to part us children s hair on the 
 side instead of in the middle ; she said she 
 wanted to save the middle partin till we 
 .was growed, so it would be new and nice. 
 But now it ain t the fashion for women to 
 part their hair at all, and I might as well 
 have saved myself from bein laughed at so 
 much at school. I think about these things 
 sometimes when I m unwindin Jimmy, and 
 I wish everybody was as easy to manage in 
 their innards." 
 
 When I told Sam this adventure of Jim 
 my s he exploded with a similar wish regard 
 ing my unmanageable and unseen interior. 
 I was a trial to him at that time, sulking in 
 retreat while I should have identified myself 
 with the Dancing Club, the Billiard Club, 
 
38 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 the Lyric Club, the Wilderness Club ; for 
 club life began early to mould the society of 
 the ambitious town. The Tennis Club was 
 temporarily suspended until summer should 
 again permit nets to be stretched and courts 
 to be marked out. I heard even of amateur 
 plays which outdid traveling barnstormers 
 in the little theatre on the west side. 
 
 Nor did I take that interest in funerals 
 which Sam, who mourned departed friends 
 with policy and devotion, would have had 
 me take. 
 
 " Man, you act as if you thought you d 
 never die. How would you like to have 
 people slight your funeral ? " 
 
 " What difference would it make to me ? " 
 
 " It would make a tremendous difference 
 to me whether folks came to mine or not," 
 declared my partner. " I m setting my 
 stakes for a regular boom when my turn 
 comes. It often brings the tears to my eyes 
 to think how I shall be mourned and shan t 
 be there to see." 
 
 I thought it likely Sam would not be dis- 
 
ON THE WEST SIDE. 39 
 
 appointed of his boom, when I saw how 
 Trail City packed a house to which he 
 dragged me where an obscure dead citizen 
 lay. The hideous drenching weather had 
 passed, and silver mists and burnished frost- 
 iness now made the morning landscapes glo 
 rious, so that to walk abroad was a delight. 
 Yet this did not account for the hushed mul 
 titudinous gathering. I had before seen all 
 Trail City on the old Pottawatomie road 
 leading to the cemetery, bearing through 
 sheets of rain and deep mud-ruts some old 
 shell of a body that was really no loss to 
 the community. But at that time I had 
 not learned the great neighborly heart of an 
 Illinois town. 
 
 I saw Kate Keene s hat and jacket be 
 yond us in one of the crowded rooms, and 
 they made a spot of living interest for me 
 while the minister s voice labored like a loco 
 motive up a steep grade with the character 
 of the departed. 
 
 " Our brother was strictly honest. No 
 body can gainsay that," he challenged. 
 
40 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TO WN. 
 
 "He had n t sense enough to overreach 
 anybody, hardly enough to coine in when 
 it rained," wrote Sam in a private note 
 book for my eye. The good people around 
 watched him respectfully as he made record 
 of local eloquence. 
 
 " Our brother s health, or rather his lack 
 of health," proceeded the laboring advocate, 
 "prevented his greatly distinguishing him 
 self in active life." 
 
 "Too lazy to draw his breath," wrote Sam. 
 
 " His bereaved family " 
 
 " Eelieved family," wrote Sam. 
 
 " Come along," he whispered, when the 
 wearied crowd were permitted to stir, and 
 I would have escaped from the file. " It s 
 the custom of this country to put yourself 
 on review when you go to a funeral. You 
 won t get any credit if you don t pass around 
 and view the remains. Do you think that 
 widow isn t jealously counting noses, and 
 tallying against the absentees? The less 
 she has to bury, the more fuss she wants 
 made over it." 
 
ON THE WEST SIDE. 41 
 
 We duly paid our last tribute to that 
 which had a dignity denied to us who gazed, 
 and I confided to my partner, as we reached 
 the sidewalk, that the occasion had been 
 profitable in suggesting notes for his own 
 obituary. " I will do you up something 
 like this: * The Honorable Sham Peevey, 
 who deceived no one by dropping the A, has 
 gone to his long rest, and we may now en 
 joy a little ourselves. His aim in life was 
 to make his generation serve him to the 
 utmost. Popularity was his religious creed. 
 His favorite occupation was laying flattery 
 on living men with a trowel " 
 
 " Hold on ; I never basted you," remon 
 strated Sam. 
 
 " but for dead men, who no longer 
 represented votes, he had nothing but a 
 scalpel. " 
 
 " Nobody saw it but his ill-natured part 
 ner, though." 
 
 " He was good-natured because he had 
 a digestion proof against gormandizing. En 
 ergy he did possess, and a boundless desire 
 
42 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 to boom himself, but being constituted with 
 out an immortal soul, his chances for dis 
 tinction in the next world are small. " 
 
 " He never neglected his friends, however, 
 and he has something pigeonholed for an 
 emergency which may overtake his dear part 
 ner, Seth Adams. I 11 do you justice, my 
 boy. It runs like this : * His noble form, 
 six feet in height and two inches in width, 
 enshrined the most genial nature in Trail 
 City. But he kept it all to himself. My 
 friends, no corporation in the State of Illi 
 nois would miss Seth Adams more than Trail 
 City if Trail City only knew he had been 
 here. Traveled, scholarly, of a culture so 
 sensitive that it could find companionship 
 only in the silence of Esther s crane, what 
 might he not have done in this community 
 if he had only quit locking himself up in 
 his own room ! So light a vehicle overloaded 
 with soul will probably never again slip 
 through Trail City without making any 
 noise. " 
 
 While we chaffed each other the pushing 
 
ON THE WEST SIDE. 43 
 
 crowd separated us, Sam letting himself 
 be carried off with a man he wanted to dun, 
 and I consciously waiting for our house 
 mate; for I might walk with her in sight 
 of the town after a funeral, like any other 
 acquaintance. 
 
 Mrs. Jutberg did not interfere with, or 
 direct, or in any way chaperon her niece, 
 varying her indifference only by outbursts 
 of unexpected rage. To see the girl try 
 to avoid giving offense, and keep to a nar 
 row path unaided, harrowed me as it must 
 have harrowed any man who approved of 
 conventual care over girls. The protection 
 Kate had was nothing but brutal abandon 
 ment. The young town s innocence was in 
 fact her only bulwark. A dialogue which 
 we sometimes overheard took this form : 
 
 " Aunt, do you care if I go to the Club 
 this evening ? " 
 
 " No, I don t care where you go." 
 
 " But you have no objections ? You have 
 nothing for me to do here ? " 
 
 " If I had, I d let you know. 
 
44 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 " Yes, I thought you would. And llucia 
 York s party will call for me. If we are 
 late, I can stay all night at the Yorks , and 
 not disturb you." 
 
 " You d better," signified Mrs. Jutberg. 
 
 With large patience which would have 
 been unnatural in any but a child trained 
 in Kate s hard school, she would then thank 
 her guardian for the privilege. I wondered 
 where she had learned this gentle deference 
 to elders so unworthy of it. The remark 
 able man who looked like me rose more and 
 more in my opinion, as I reflected on what 
 he had produced between his bouts in the 
 ditch ; for as far as my acquaintance with 
 the maternal stock had gone, I rejected it as 
 having no part in the result called Kate. 
 
 Mrs. Jutberg certainly had times of ex 
 altation and lightness, but she was not on 
 speaking terms with any neighbor, and 
 treated the world as in conspiracy against 
 her. Several times she arraigned Sam and 
 me for dark and deadly clippings in our 
 paper. The most innocent and open human 
 
ON THE WEST SIDE. 45 
 
 selfishness she translated as malign influence 
 directed against her ; and we heard her ac 
 cuse Kate of plots and deep-laid schemes. 
 She would nurse these ideas for days, and 
 then suddenly explode them with disastrous 
 force. I never saw Mrs. Jutberg dislocated 
 by laughter ; she came to grief through tem 
 per. Yet this self -tormentor was the most 
 exquisite of that school of old-fashioned 
 housekeepers who cannot tolerate servants, 
 and make a fine art of living ; and she would 
 sit up night after night with any sick en 
 emy. When her benevolence passed a mod 
 erate limit, however, I could see a gentle 
 uneasiness appear in Mr. Jutberg ; he anti 
 cipated a recoil, and he was seldom wrong. 
 
 I lifted my hat and fell into step with 
 Kate Keene in the midst of the dispersing 
 crowd. I cannot now tell what her features 
 were like, speech or expression so mobilized 
 them; but she affected me as the only in 
 dividual in all that crowd. The best com 
 panion in the world is a woman capable of 
 great friendship whose mind does not run 
 
46 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TO WN. 
 
 to love and marriage. She had no self-con 
 sciousness. The awkwardness of late child 
 hood was just passing like a discord into 
 virgin harmony. And as I walked beside 
 her the thought came over me that I too 
 was young, really little beyond my boyhood. 
 I was not twenty-eight years old. 
 
 "Death is made a very disgusting trial 
 to a man by the customs we have," I said 
 to her. " When we die we ought simply to 
 disappear, as if dropped through a hole in 
 the crust. Survivors missing us could then 
 say with some respect and awe, He s gone 
 under. 
 
 " Perhaps it will be that way for you and 
 me. I have often thought it would be fine 
 to have a bureau of death in every town or 
 on city street corners, where poor wretches 
 who could no longer bear life might drop 
 it" 
 
 " Enter without money, and disappear 
 without a funeral." 
 
 " Yes ; in some nice painless chemical way 
 that leaves no traces, the whole responsi- 
 
ON TEE WEST SIDE. 47 
 
 bility resting on the person, who decides for 
 himself." 
 
 " I have had the same thought ! " and we 
 looked at each other with the surprise of 
 meeting in a discovery. 
 
 " Do you believe it would be very 
 wicked ? " inquired Kate. 
 
 " I believe it would be very civilized." 
 
 "But many people would rush to the 
 place in a passion of disappointment." 
 
 " And stop at the door. Only those who 
 really needed to die would ever go in." 
 
 " I have seen times when I would have 
 gone in," said Kate. 
 
 "You?" 
 
 " Yes. Those who feel deeply would be 
 always at that door ; my father would have 
 been lost to me years before he was. We 
 used to talk about it. He made a sketch 
 once that he called A Death Bureau, but 
 he never printed it." 
 
 " I made a sketch on the same theme last 
 week, and called it The Keady Door ; and 
 if pushed, I shall print mine." 
 
48 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 Again Kate and I looked at each other 
 with astonishment at the family resemblance 
 in mental states. 
 
 " Don t print it, because some one might 
 read it who would make a ready door for 
 himself ; and after he was dead he would be 
 so sorry. Now I am older, I can see there 
 is danger of our turning around at the other 
 side of the grave and wishing to come back 
 to finish what we were made for." 
 
 " But so few of us are made for anything. 
 We are accidents." 
 
 " No," said the girl, her voice softening ; 
 " no, father, we all mean something. But 
 some of us are a long time finding out what. 
 When you really know what you are here 
 for and how to take hold to do it, it s grand 
 to live. You can be full of joy when you 
 are most miserable. Now I have found 
 this out, the preachers never told me : 
 when you cannot stand trouble any longer, 
 pray to God Almighty and say, O God 
 Almighty, I thank you for everything, 
 I thank you for everything ! That takes 
 
ON THE WEST SIDE. 49 
 
 the bitterness away, and makes you feel 
 calm and as if you could wait and see what 
 it all meant." 
 
 " I neither pray nor go to church." 
 
 "Church is everywhere," said Kate, 
 " and you have to pray. You pray whether 
 you know it or not." 
 
 Two tall boys pushed by us, with critical 
 recognition of a girl overheard counseling 
 prayer. Kate gave them a nod and a smile, 
 and I did not think she noticed their grins 
 until she said to me, watching their hulk 
 ing backs, "Poor fellows, they are yet in 
 cattlehood, and have to pray with a kind 
 of lowing." 
 
 " A great many of us are yet in cattle- 
 hood, and have n t learned even the lowing." 
 
 " A man like you ought to have got more 
 out of his troubles. Such as those yonder 
 depend on men like you to do their thinking 
 and direct their salvation. I have heard my 
 father say that." 
 
 The family tendency toward religion, 
 which in Mrs. Jutberg took the form of 
 
50 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 hysteria, had received an impetus from her 
 father. 
 
 " It always seemed to me a childish thing 
 to call on the Lord in trouble, and forget 
 him at other times." 
 
 " Why, no one forgets," said Kate. " You 
 can t forget. It goes on all the time, with 
 out words. When I am reading to people, 
 I am praying with all my soul, O God Al 
 mighty, please let your light shine through 
 me now. " 
 
 " What do you read to people ? " 
 
 " Many different things." She turned 
 her innocent face full upon me. "I am 
 going to read in public for my living when 
 I am of age." 
 
 This, then, was her ambition. The mat 
 ter was settled, with sublime indifference to 
 obstacles ; and my heart ached for her. 
 
 " Have you had training ? " 
 
 " Only what my father gave me. But he 
 said I must learn housekeeping with my 
 aunt until I am eighteen. For when you 
 know housekeeping you have a trade to fall 
 
ON THE WEST SIDE. 51 
 
 back on, as the Jews always brought up 
 their children to have." 
 
 I secretly admired the Israelitish wisdom 
 of my double, and intimated that she must 
 not be disappointed at having to fall back 
 upon her trade. 
 
 " Oh, I should n t mind going as house 
 maid or cook in a city while I watched for 
 my chance," said Kate. " I don t mind 
 work ; it s beautiful. There s such satis 
 faction in making everybody comfortable. 
 But I can do a better thing ; and my father 
 said I must do my best." 
 
 " It will be very hard to make a place for 
 yourself as a public reader, Kate." 
 
 " I know it will, but I shall get engage 
 ments when the time comes." 
 
 And when I saw her radiant patience and 
 confidence I could not say another word. 
 Could I tell her how nearly impossible it 
 was, without stage traditions and training, 
 influence, means, or protection, to enter a 
 career so nearly allied to the actor s, that 
 closest profession in the world? Could I 
 
52 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 show her that not one aspirant in a thousand 
 who really gained the boards ever rose to 
 distinction ? Could I threaten her with the 
 coldness of empty halls and theatres, and 
 hard-hearted landlords who would seize bag 
 gage for unpaid bills ? 
 
 The pessimism of a cosmopolite was so 
 strong in me that I did some lying awake 
 and suffering on account of the disappoint 
 ment in store for this poor child, who de 
 served so much better of fate. I had no 
 influence, no money, was of no use to her 
 myself. This vicarious despondency, which 
 oppressed me greatly, must have lasted two 
 or three weeks, for winter had struck us 
 with what the natives called a blizzard, when 
 Sam walked into the office one morning and 
 informed me that I would go to the Wilder 
 ness Club with him that evening. I remem 
 ber the snow ground under wheels with a 
 scream like little bells, and when I went to 
 the railway stations for items the north 
 wind blew the crystals like white dust. 
 There was a fog over all the whiteness, 
 
ON THE WEST SIDE. 53 
 
 dry, the very lacework of smoke-mist ; and 
 frost flowers and trees decorated our win 
 dows. Everything was so full of electricity 
 that hair crackled, and a little " tic " of a 
 shock went through you when you touched 
 metal. It was several degrees below zero, 
 and I had merely unbuttoned and thrown 
 back my overcoat, though our stove sim 
 mered in red heat. 
 
 Our postal-card correspondence was be 
 fore me, items gathered by rural helpers, 
 and headed with the names of their respec 
 tive centres, " Plum Eidge," " Prairie 
 Dog Hollow," " Kattlesnake Corner," " Big 
 Slew," "Fidelity Schoolhouse," and many 
 others. It gave one a neighborly thrilling 
 of the heart to read that " Sam Cass is fin 
 ishing the inside of his new house. That s 
 right, Sam: first fix the cage, and then 
 catch the bird." 
 
 And " Jerry Fox always knowed a good 
 thing when he seen it. Jerry has took in 
 another half -section. He now has as fine 
 a farm as any in this part of Illinois." 
 
54 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 " "We regret to learn that Eli Harness s 
 children is down with the whooping-cough, 
 but health in this neighborhood is otherwise 
 good, except Milton Singly s wife, who is 
 also bedfast." 
 
 "Tade Saindon has took to Sundaying 
 in Caxton. Wonder what the attraction 
 is, and this neighborhood so full of pretty 
 girls?" 
 
 And the human bitterness and envy be 
 trayed in one which declared, " Some of the 
 boys around here are getting too smart. 
 Because their fathers can afford to send 
 them off to college, the airs they put on is 
 enough to disgust sensible people." 
 
 "Well," I said, looking up from this mass 
 of local history, " you have been threatening 
 me with various clubs a long while. But 
 why Wilderness ? In this bald world, where 
 there is n t a stump and the trees are trans 
 planted sticks, why Wilderness ? " 
 
 " That s Kate Keene s favorite word ; she 
 named the club. And you will go in full 
 evening dress." 
 
ON THE WEST SIDE. 55 
 
 " Sam, I have n t unfolded my dress coat 
 since I left Paris." 
 
 " Some of the boys around here are get 
 ting too smart, " quoted my partner, taking 
 up a postal card. " Because they have 
 been abroad, the airs they put on is enough 
 to disgust sensible people. 
 
 " Airs would be lost on Trail City. You 
 only feel sorrow for a man who has been 
 away from it and its boom. What s the 
 occasion at the Wilderness Club to-night? " 
 
 " Something swell. And the girls mo 
 thers will be there to help them receive 
 after the theatrical business. You think 
 you re the only citizen that knows his little 
 Shakespeare ; you 11 find out there s an 
 other of us. And it ends with a cosy ball, 
 good orchestra music. I want you to do 
 the style for the firm ; you can do it better 
 than anybody, when you want to." 
 
 " But I don t think I want to." 
 
 " Come, old man. It s in the theatre. 
 Parquet floored over for dancing ; women 
 there working like mad now, decorating with 
 
56 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 flags and things; and Mrs. Babcock has 
 risked some of her finest greenhouse flowers 
 in this zero weather. They re certain to 
 freeze on the road ; but when a woman goes 
 into a thing, she goes in. Folks will be 
 there friends of the Babcocks from 
 Chicago, and the Yorks have some of their 
 people here from the East. Trail City is 
 going to eclipse herself, and we ve got to be 
 in it with both feet." 
 
 "I have no desire to eclipse anything 
 with my feet." 
 
 " Oh, come, Seth. This won t do any 
 longer. It s treating little Kate Keene 
 badly, you know." 
 
 " What has she to do with it ? " 
 
 " Why, she s the star. And the whole 
 thing is for charity, besides." 
 
 " Why did n t you tell me it was a charity 
 scheme ? " I demanded, with instant change 
 of resolution. " That alters the matter. 
 I 11 come out for charity s sake. What 
 does Kate Keene do ? " 
 
 " Wait until you hear her. She does some 
 
ON THE WEST SIDE, 57 
 
 things that nobody else ever did. I told you 
 her father was an actor before he took to 
 drinking and newspaper work, did n t I ? " 
 
 " No, you never did." 
 
 " Well, she s a corker when you put her 
 before an audience. I can t tell you what 
 it is. Sometimes I think it s genius. She 
 is n t pretty, like Teresa Babcock or Lucia 
 York but confound Keene ! why did n t 
 he leave her better fixed? I have often 
 thought she would make a fine wife for a 
 public man, with that magnetic pull." 
 
 " Somebody has set it down, Sam Peevey, 
 that the basest men will take the devotion 
 of the best women as a matter of course, but 
 I never saw such a disgusting illustration of 
 it as you are." 
 
 Sam laughed, shaking his ample flesh. 
 But that evening I saw him shake more 
 uncontrollably with weeping, for the hearty 
 fellow always carried his emotions on the 
 outside of his person. 
 
 The little theatre, with its single huge 
 chandelier and row of footlights, was pretty 
 
58 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 with bunting and potted plants, and warm, 
 and full. Chairs had been arranged upon 
 the floored parquet, and here and in the 
 two boxes and all around the walls spread a 
 sea of faces. "We saw Teresa Babcock turn 
 ing her black eyes toward us for an instant, 
 with the proprietary interest she certainly 
 had in all young men ; the York girls sur 
 rounded by a court and smiling; maids, 
 matrons, men, children, a gathered popula 
 tion, humming like bees. All the girls had 
 their mothers or other relatives to witness 
 their social triumphs. I looked about for 
 the sallow face of Mrs. Jutberg, and when 
 Sam detected my quest he laughed at me 
 for a dull sinner, to think she would trust 
 her frail soul and anatomy in such a vortex 
 of play-acting and dancing. 
 
 Then the daughter of the man I resembled 
 came across the stage. Kate Keene looked 
 like a Greek girl. How the slim creature 
 in a short black dress that we were used to, 
 became a supple goddess I do not know. 
 Perhaps her father s stage traditions taught 
 
LIKE A GREEK GIRL 
 
ON THE WEST SIDE. 59 
 
 her that noble draping of silk, or wool, or 
 cotton, it might have been snow; one was 
 not conscious of material which fell from 
 her shoulders to the floor, and was bound 
 under the breasts by a girdle. She had her 
 hair encircled by a fillet. Her neck and 
 undeveloped young arms were like veined 
 marble. And I remember having an un- 
 derthought of surprise that her wrists and 
 hands were only expressive ; were not coars 
 ened by the labor they daily performed. 
 
 When her transformation had taken hold 
 of us, we found it was more than a trick of 
 clothing ; she began to do with us as she 
 pleased. If there were people in the audi 
 ence whose prejudices she shocked by that 
 peculiar simple dress, or who recalled her 
 father to her disadvantage, they were found 
 in their innermost hidings by a piercing 
 sweetness of voice and presence that I can 
 not make known in words. It was a spell. 
 None of the hollow tricks of the elocutionist 
 broke it. She made people pass before our 
 minds, magnifying our human experience. 
 
60 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 She was Perdita as white as a lily. She 
 was Cleopatra with a Greek-Egyptian face. 
 With sudden angularity she was Betsey 
 Trotwood chasing donkeys. She was a 
 score of droll American forms which we 
 recognized with shouts of laughter. She 
 was age, youth, childhood, tears. 
 
 She left us ; . and four times, five times, 
 six times, seven times, we dragged her back 
 to give us the joy of living a moment longer 
 in the mimic world. And then the town of 
 Trail, with its guests, stood upon its feet, 
 and shouted and laughed and cried, until I 
 felt something break away within me. I 
 rushed from the theatre, leaving Sam stand 
 ing on a seat, blubbering and waving his 
 handkerchief. 
 
 I worshiped her. The light of God Al 
 mighty shone through her. I seemed to 
 walk among thick-clustering stars, and the 
 constellations overhead were near enough to 
 pull down. My trouble was gone. A re 
 turning tide of life filled me with warmth 
 like success. There was a lambent spirit 
 
ON THE WEST SIDE. 61 
 
 who had brought the world, the whole 
 world, into this small Illinois town. It 
 made no difference that I had managed af 
 fairs badly in the past: they had brought 
 me to her; the main interest in life had 
 been served. 
 
 I looked around the arctic expanse lost 
 in the vastness of unseen horizon, and loved 
 my town. The semaphore at the railway 
 junction threw crimson lights across the 
 snow, and a hissing of quiescent locomo 
 tives came to the ear. Let them plough 
 through darkness on long quest to distant 
 cities. I myself was landed. Through all 
 this fury of exaltation there was no definite 
 object before my mind. I did not know 
 what I should do; the happiness of being 
 was as much as I could endure. 
 
 It was bitter cold, but to the outermost 
 layer of skin I tingled with resisting heat. 
 My overcoat was on my arm. I breasted 
 the awful breath of the Northwest. I was 
 rushing to the limits of the western side 
 walk when a panting behind made itself 
 
62 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TO WN. 
 
 heard, and I turned to see in the dimness 
 one of the hotel runners following me. 
 
 " You re wanted," he said, blowing on 
 his hands and stamping. " I ve hollered at 
 you nearly ever since you left the theatre, 
 but you didn t hear." 
 
 " You don t want me ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, you re the man. There s a 
 friend of yours at the house that sent for 
 you." 
 
 "Who is he?" 
 
 " I was just to say it was a sick friend, 
 and to tell you to hurry." 
 
 The fact of my having a sick friend made 
 little impression on me. As far as I paid 
 attention to the fellow s words his message 
 was of little account. But I walked back 
 with him, intending to look in at the hotel, 
 where some passing bore was probably find 
 ing time hang heavy between trains. The 
 merest acquaintances will seize on you in 
 the name of friendship, when they have 
 ends of their own to serve. What Sam 
 would have called the sick-friend gag did 
 
ON THE WEST SIDE. 63 
 
 not in the least deceive me. I expected to 
 look in at some rubicund fellow with his 
 feet and a box of cigars on the table. 
 
 The huge wooden hotel, mansard-roofed 
 and many-lighted, was gaudy as a steamer 
 in the waste of dim whiteness. That many- 
 storied caravansary went up in fire years 
 ago ; but I can see it yet as I stepped from 
 the broad stone paving into the pretentious 
 entrance, and passed vistas of billiard and 
 smoking rooms, and the deserted long apart 
 ment which the management proudly called 
 its saloon parlor, from which a weak piano 
 usually tinkled. 
 
 The messenger led me upstairs, and though 
 this was carrying the joke of the sick friend 
 whom I expected to find in the smoking- 
 room too far, I followed, still in the white 
 mental heat that makes a man externally 
 numb and indifferent. He rapped on a door 
 at the front end of the corridor, and opened 
 it for me to enter. A sift of well-known 
 perfume met me. The door shut me in, and 
 I stood face to face with my wife. 
 
III. 
 
 ON THE SOUTH SIDE. 
 
 WE stood without speaking. The most 
 vital consciousness I had was of the change 
 that had come over me, rendering me so 
 indifferent to her presence. Her dark 
 beauty was intensified rather than marred 
 by what she had done. Vivid health and 
 the very insolence of prosperity sat visible 
 upon her. Her eye, encountering mine with 
 resistant hardihood, swept critically down 
 my length. She could not help that; she 
 was a physical epicure. It was I, care- 
 and-sorrow-worn, lean in my clothes, who 
 winced before her. 
 
 " You sent for me ? " 
 
 "Yes. I saw you at the station this 
 morning. I was on the south-bound train. 
 I got off at the next junction and came 
 back." 
 
ON THE SOUTH SIDE. 65 
 
 " What do you want ? " 
 
 She sank into the chair on which her 
 hand rested, and said, " Sit down." 
 
 I stood. On the opposite side of the 
 small parlor was a full-length glass, reflect 
 ing a cadaverously pale man in evening 
 dress, hat in hand, holding an overcoat on 
 his left arm. His features were large, but 
 the mouth was like a woman s. He had a 
 thin layer of blond hair on his head. His 
 eyes, which I had always thought blue, were 
 points of steel. I had no interest in him as 
 a presentation of myself, except to despise 
 his lankriess and his pitiable attitude before 
 the world and the woman who had wronged 
 him. 
 
 She, who had been for me the romance 
 of youth, my first voyage, my first taste 
 of life, the woman who had done with me 
 as she pleased without having her caprices 
 questioned, began the arraignment : 
 
 " I want to know what you are doing here 
 on this miserable raw prairie." 
 
 " May I ask what concern it is of yours ? " 
 
66 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 " I choose to know what brought you 
 here." 
 
 " Poverty." 
 
 " What are you doing ? " 
 
 " Editing a country paper. There was a 
 time when I could have selected my occupa 
 tion, but that time is past." 
 
 The swimming nights of our young dis 
 sipation floated between us. Any human 
 presence is compelling, but the power held 
 by one who has been wedded to you is a 
 spiritual tyranny which I do not believe 
 death destroys. I was calm, and without 
 any desire to throw my ruin in her face. 
 She, on her part, I could see, was yielding 
 to the strain of the old tie. 
 
 " There is some other reason for your 
 being here. Your talents would command 
 something better." 
 
 "My talents are perhaps undeveloped. 
 And the place need not trouble you to the 
 extent of sending for me to remonstrate 
 about it. There was really no occasion for 
 this meeting." 
 
ON THE SOUTH SIDE. 67 
 
 Her crimson mouth flattened across her 
 teeth. " You are here on account of a 
 person," she accused, and for the first time 
 I felt jarred. 
 
 "As you are evidently neither in ill 
 health nor in need, I will say good-night. 
 Our relation ended when you left me in 
 Paris with our sick boy." 
 
 " You shall not blame me with the child s 
 death. It was the nurse s fault. I have 
 shed enough tears without being unjustly 
 blamed. You know I was not fit for the 
 care of children." 
 
 I wondered that I had ever thought her 
 fit for anything except bending the world to 
 her amusement. I could look at her with 
 out any cursing and see the tangle of erratic 
 motives which governed her life. It was 
 not manly to be even bitter toward a crea 
 ture so slight. Her pretty selfishness I had 
 myself fostered. We met on shipboard, 
 during my first voyage, and I followed her 
 and her parents, and courted her from Ed 
 inburgh to Egypt, so that the guidebook 
 
68 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 routes were full of her. Her indulgent 
 father and mother finally witnessed our 
 marriage and went home, and then like two 
 prodigals we wasted my living. And all 
 the time that rich American friend who had 
 been her suitor hovered around us, pitying 
 her for the shortness of my purse, until we 
 quarreled, and she suddenly chose her lot 
 with him. It actually seemed now the af 
 fair of another man, and I an idiot for hav 
 ing taken it to heart. Her trespasses were 
 far away in a dream, as all trespasses may 
 appear when we look back at them from 
 another life. 
 
 " I have not accused you of being fit for 
 anything ; and as I said before, there is no 
 need of this interview, so good-night again, 
 and good-by." 
 
 She threw herself against the door and 
 faced me. 
 
 " No, Seth Adams, you are not going to 
 leave this room yet. I have disgraced you. 
 I have disgraced myself. But my father 
 and mother have forgiven me, and they have 
 
ON THE SOUTH SIDE. 69 
 
 hushed things up. It is n t known, among 
 us, exactly what happened ; and that other 
 you know he lives abroad. I shall never 
 see him again. I don t want to." She 
 was crimson. " I never should have be 
 haved as I did if you had not blamed me 
 about money. At home they never blamed 
 me for anything. I was n t used to it. You 
 made me wretched, and I was determined 
 to make you wretched, and I did. But I 
 never thought how terrible it was until I 
 had actually gone with him. I made him 
 send me home when I heard the baby was 
 dead." 
 
 I put out my hand to stop her. I was 
 ashamed. But she caught my hand and 
 hung to it, and I loathed her touch, shak 
 ing it off. 
 
 " Clara, I don t know what you have done 
 to me, but you have killed something in me 
 that can t be brought to life again. Doubt 
 less I was to blame, but I cannot be what I 
 was before. I don t feel now as I did for 
 months after the baby died. That s past. 
 
70 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 I believe I can honestly say I forgive you, 
 but as for anything else you are dead to 
 me." 
 
 She stood away from the door, turning so 
 pallid that I remembered keenly the pinched 
 nostrils of my dead child. 
 
 " You have never cared for me, you 
 let me go easily, and I I have been 
 searching for you." 
 
 I broke away and ran downstairs, and 
 paused, moved to go back and comfort her, 
 and rushed on, anywhere, to get her out of 
 my sight. The personal charm that I had 
 once thought so irresistible filled me with 
 loathing. I said, " She would try it on any 
 man." I did not believe she had been seek 
 ing me. It was her caprice to get off the 
 train, and to-morrow it would be her caprice 
 to do something else. 
 
 Sam found me about one o clock in my 
 room, burning a student s lamp, and smok 
 ing densely from a case containing my 
 blackest cigars. Having caused a front 
 door key to be made for himself, and coaxed 
 
ON THE SOUTH SIDE. 71 
 
 Mrs. Jutberg not to bolt the locks, he en 
 tered at will ; but no other footsteps than 
 his came into the house. Kate stayed all 
 night with the Yorks, when she had been 
 given to what her aunt called play-acting. 
 
 Sam tiptoed, the floor creaking under 
 him, and sat noisily down, giving me so de 
 termined a look of misery that I thought my 
 secret was out. It would have to come out 
 to Sam, anyhow, without further evasion. 
 The next day might bring me trouble. I 
 was in a frame of mind to expect anything. 
 Discovery could no longer pain me. I had 
 a steady front fixed for Sam, but the poor 
 fellow stretched himself out in great weari 
 ness, declaring : " You have the only level 
 head in the firm, after all, old man. Here 
 you sit smoking in comfort, and I ve been 
 bawling and dancing and eating and pro 
 posing ever since eight o clock, until I m a 
 complete wreck." 
 
 " Lucia York or Teresa Babcock ? " 
 " Both, man, both. I ve been asking 
 em right and left. If Alice had n t been 
 
72 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 engaged, and the young man in attendance, 
 I d have given her a whirl, too. In fact, 
 there s hardly a girl in Trail City that I 
 have n t proposed to to-night." 
 
 " You must have been drinking." 
 
 "Not in this town. I d like to get 
 drunk." 
 
 " And which of these young ladies may I 
 congratulate ? " 
 
 " All of them, man, all of them. I m 
 not quite unanimously accepted, but I m 
 taken on probation and the approval of our 
 elders by one or two. And the only one 
 I m head over ears in love with I did n t 
 dare tackle at all." Sam heaved a sigh 
 which might have alarmed the house. 
 "That s Kate Keene." 
 
 I transfixed Sam with an eye which 
 arrested him in the midst of his emotions, 
 and pushing the cigars toward him, I began 
 and told him my own story. 
 
 "We smoked until three o clock, and he 
 gave me copious advice. He had been sure 
 I was hiding something from him. I had 
 
ON THE SOUTH SIDE. 73 
 
 to defend my child s mother, so scathing 
 and contemptuous was his wrath. 
 
 " If we had both of us come to these 
 prairies from college, instead of trying ex 
 periments or loping off to Europe, we might 
 be rich men now. As it is, your prospects 
 are ruined, and mine have been damaged at 
 least ten years." 
 
 "I like your material view of things," 
 I said. " I had n t quite reduced the mat 
 ter to dollars and cents before, but your 
 calculation is a great help to a man." 
 
 Sam spouted forth a strong oath and 
 struck the table with his fist. " Everything 
 in this world has to stand on a basis of 
 dollars and cents. You are like a dog 
 chained to a post, if you have n t dollars 
 and cents. Money is liberty, freedom of 
 choice, power, generosity, virtue, religion." 
 
 This estimate of his struck me a convin 
 cing blow in the face next morning when a 
 telegram was handed to me, signed with my 
 wife s initials : " I am going back to him. 
 Shall sail Saturday from New York." 
 
74 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 " Sam," I exclaimed, starting up from my 
 office chair, " I must have a hundred dollars 
 before the train goes north." 
 
 As I crushed the telegram into my pocket 
 my partner answered, " Bank won t be 
 open ; and we have n t a hundred dollars 
 on the right side of the balance, anyhow, 
 collections have been so slow." 
 
 " You must get it." 
 
 The keen north wind made me bow to 
 encounter it as I rushed to my boarding- 
 house. By the time I had put some things 
 in a valise I paused. The old habit of 
 guarding the woman I had married from 
 her impulses had sent me like a bolt from a 
 bow. But why should I attempt to restrain 
 her now? What would it mean if I did 
 restrain her, except an assertion of rights 
 which could never be resumed ? I smoothed 
 the telegram on my knee and gave it a 
 second reading. It had been written on an 
 east-bound train, and sent from a station in 
 Indiana. It dared me to let her plunge 
 again into that life from which she had 
 
ON THE SOUTH SIDE. 75 
 
 recoiled. It was desperation, defiance, chal 
 lenge. Her father and mother, ignorant 
 of her change of destination, would not be 
 able to check her. I clenched the telegram 
 and threw it across the room. Very well. 
 Let her go. What affair was it of mine ? 
 It had now become her father s affair. Let 
 him see to her I would telegraph and 
 warn him. But how could I open commu 
 nication with him? The whole business 
 turned me sick. How bitter it is to feel 
 responsibility and loathing ! To what good 
 did it tend, this appalling tangle of human 
 lives? 
 
 I had never been in the house at that time 
 of day before. It seemed very still, like a 
 sanctuary, from which Mrs. Jutberg must 
 be eliminated on some errand. Presently 
 a singing voice sought through the lower 
 rooms, for what I know not ; but it found 
 me and turned me as soft as a child, so that 
 I wept face downward on the table. A man 
 in my position could never meddle with that 
 crystal simple spirit called Kate Keene. 
 
76 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 She who had stood in a large transfiguration 
 like the spread of wings, with a community 
 at her feet, was now moving about the house 
 again in her short black dress, forgetting her 
 power in domestic service for us. Meaner 
 women would have been posing for homage, 
 but she served, served always. 
 
 Oh, I had made a mess in my boyish 
 folly, cutting myself off from the real 
 things, and mixing with lives I had no war 
 rant to touch. My wife s case against me 
 was as bad as my case against her. If that 
 telegram had come from Kate Keene, I 
 would have followed her on my hands and 
 knees. 
 
 Sitting down calmly at my office desk 
 again, I told Sam I should not want that 
 hundred dollars. 
 
 " But I ve got it ! " he exclaimed, elated. 
 
 "Take it back, then. And thanks, old 
 fellow, for your promptness. But I m not 
 going. 
 
 " What was the row, anyway ? " 
 
 I opened the telegram, which I had picked 
 
ON THE SOUTH SIDE. 77 
 
 up to destroy, and, smoothing creases, passed 
 it over to him. 
 
 He whistled, and tore it into the waste- 
 basket. " I should think not. Were you 
 such a fool as to want to run after her? 
 Where do you expect to land ? " 
 
 " She was my wife and is yet." 
 
 " She 11 get unhooked from you easy 
 enough. That kind always do. They 11 
 have their way if it bursts up the universe. 
 Let her go and be hanged. Blast such busi 
 ness ! " 
 
 I looked up at Sam, and he dropped the 
 subject, fingering some bank-notes which he 
 took out of his vest-pocket. His quizzical 
 smile dwelt on me. 
 
 "Like to know who I held up? Old 
 Billy, the coroner. He was flush, and going 
 to deposit when the bank opened. I touched 
 him about the boost we gave him in elec 
 tion. Say, Seth, my mouth has been water 
 ing for one of these new sewing-machine- 
 looking things they call typewriters. Think 
 what an attraction and boom it would be 
 
78 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 in this office. The fellows over at Caxton 
 would lie down and die if they heard we 
 had one." 
 
 " But we have n t the money for it. * 
 
 " Yes, we have ; here it is. I fixed old 
 Billy up with a note for sixty days, at legal 
 rates ; and money loans outside at ten now. 
 We re solid with old Billy. It was an ac 
 commodation, but he said he would n t want 
 it until the note comes due." 
 
 " We have another payment to make on 
 our press in sixty days." 
 
 " But our circulation s growing. If we 
 get hard up, I 11 renew old Billy." 
 
 It therefore resulted that we soon had a 
 typewriting machine in the office, a thing of 
 wonder, which Sam manipulated and streams 
 of farmers came to see. He showed its paces, 
 rattling the types and jingling the little bell 
 in endless lines of senseless printing, while 
 I worked double, making up the paper. 
 Our friend Billy came, also ; but when the 
 novelty of the typewriter had worn off, his 
 attitude used to disturb us. He would sit 
 
ON THE SOUTH SIDE. 79 
 
 leaning forward, with his arms on his knees, 
 gazing pensively at Sam. 
 
 " Confound it, what does ail you ? " Sam 
 once burst out. 
 
 Billy shook his head. " I have n t said 
 anything." 
 
 " No, but you wear a man out looking at 
 him. What did you lend your money for, 
 if you wanted it yourself ? " 
 
 " I have n t asked you to take up the 
 note." 
 
 " No, but you come and sit on it right 
 here in the office. Now will you go before 
 I mash you with this letterpress ? " 
 
 Billy sat still, leaning on his arms and look 
 ing at Sam, waiting for his note to mature. 
 
 " Blast an accommodating man that re 
 pents ! Go out and wreck a train, Seth, 
 and give the old fool something to do." 
 
 Then Sam would put on a stoic front, and 
 fix Billy with fishlike glassiness between in 
 tervals of work. 
 
 So it came to pass that at the end of sixty 
 days we renewed other notes, but paid old 
 
80 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 Billy s, though with the unflinching frater 
 nity of Western men he and Sam remained 
 in that state of mutual affection which they 
 called " solid " with each other. 
 
 It was not so easy to keep solid with the 
 social element of Trail City, for we had 
 started our daily, and were obliged to watch 
 with incessant vigilance all municipal ebb 
 and flow. While no hostess wanted to blazon 
 her social functions, and affected much reti 
 cence toward the press, each was indignant 
 and sometimes revengeful if not blazoned 
 according to her full merit. I learned also 
 that there is no stickler for etiquette like 
 your small-town woman who has read and 
 not traveled. It came to me like another 
 revelation that rich men are really the scape 
 goats of the poor. I saw the financial sins 
 of a whole community piled again and again 
 on the few who were able to bear them. 
 
 " Confound the unsuspecting beef I " 
 growled our banker, Mr. Babcock, who took 
 me for a confidant in his municipal troubles. 
 " They 11 vote for a measure that will take 
 
ON THE SOUTH SIDE. 81 
 
 the very hide off of them. Then as soon as 
 it begins to hurt they bellow and lie down ; 
 and we other fellows, we have to step up 
 and do the pulling." 
 
 The beef, on their part, were wise in the 
 use of money not their own, and full of sug 
 gestions to those who had it. "Babcock 
 and York," remarked one of these small tax 
 payers, " is belly-achin and chawin the rag 
 about somethin the whole time. If I had 
 as much as they have, I d make a handsome 
 gift to the town, f rinstance a lib ary." 
 
 Sam showed his athletics in our local col 
 umn, and polished off items in the prevail 
 ing manner. We chronicled the visits of 
 Miss Callie Van Voris, one of Trail City s 
 fairest daughters, to Veedersburg, or the 
 arrival of a lovely brick-top blonde from 
 Caxton. And we announced that Mr. Blue 
 Thompson had accepted a position in Davis s 
 drug -store, when everybody knew he had 
 been hanging around all winter for a job. 
 In the same spirit, a few weeks later, Mr. 
 Blue Thompson being kicked out of the 
 
82 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TO WN. 
 
 drug-store for incompetency, and obliged to 
 fall back on his relations, we said he had 
 severed his connection, and would visit a few 
 weeks at his grandfather s, to recuperate his 
 health. Nobody but a political aspirant of 
 the wrong party had the truth printed about 
 him. We chronicled Christmas trees in the 
 various churches, and Reverend Spindle s 
 apt remarks to a giggling school on the 
 difficulty of Santa Claus s making a way 
 through drifts that year. 
 
 As spring opened, every stick or stone of 
 improvement which took shape in Trail City 
 we duly recorded, with glorification of the 
 public-spirited improver. At the same time, 
 having our yearly railroad passes in the 
 bottoms of our pockets, we performed that 
 gymnastic feat which Sam called jumping 
 on the companies with both hoofs, demand 
 ing suitable station buildings for our grow 
 ing town. The penurious policy of sticking 
 old sheds together with new paint was held 
 up to Trail City s delighted ridicule. 
 
 This applause, however, was the last unan- 
 
ON TEE SOUTH SIDE. 83 
 
 imous voice heard in Trail City that spring ; 
 for we of the North Side were growing bit 
 terly jealous of the South Side. It blos 
 somed, and throve, and flaunted. We 
 sneered, and called it the Capitol and Nob 
 Park ; while it retorted jauntily by giving 
 us the name of Chew-the-Kag or Grumblers- 
 ville. But none of these little localisms 
 crept into the paper. On the contrary, Trail 
 City s daily organ trumpeted the vigorous 
 solidarity which was making us the envy of 
 all less prosperous towns. 
 
 Then the first warm day of spring, like a 
 stroke of summer, prostrated us. One hour 
 it was March, bleak and howling, mud from 
 bottomless slews smearing revolving spokes 
 to a semblance of chariot wheels ; and al 
 most at once the earth was fleeced with grass, 
 it was April, the air ringing with bird-songs. 
 
 The blood started anew with longing which 
 was harder to starve down than it had been 
 during hibernating winter. I was in a pas 
 sion of aching, and used to sit with hands 
 clasped behind my head in the spring twi- 
 
84 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 lights, secretly demanding my own and the 
 life I had a right to live with her. Per 
 haps because the riot of youth had turned 
 to loathing, I put my idol on a pedestal 
 and adored her, with nunlike hiding and 
 cherishing of celestial passion. How many 
 times I watched Kate in the April and May 
 evenings of that spring, standing, the centre 
 of assemblies, raying her power in almost 
 visible streams in every direction to the re 
 motest soul. It seemed impossible for her to 
 imagine malice even in her aunt. Through 
 Sam I learned that Teresa Babcock and 
 Lucia York were always quarreling. When 
 Teresa s betrothed from a distant State ap 
 peared to claim his rights, and Sam s engage 
 ment to Lucia duly followed, these girls 
 agreed worse than ever. Kate used to stand 
 between them, a golden medium through 
 which their spiteful speeches passed gilded 
 and refined. While they fought for social 
 leadership, she easily led both them and 
 their partisans, because she did not care to 
 rule and had every one s love. 
 
ON THE SOUTH SIDE. 85 
 
 Her lonesomeness was known only to 
 me, who drew near her in the same need. 
 " When people see you lucky and glad," 
 said Kate, in one of our brief talks, " they 
 think the world must be a glad and lucky 
 place, and are ashamed they have n t found 
 it out for themselves. I never tell the girls 
 my troubles. What good would it do? 
 They could not help me. I m not going to 
 make any fuss. My father said that s what 
 strengthens us, bearing strains by our 
 selves. I love to kneel and keep still. There 
 must be such a racket of prayers in God 
 Almighty s ears, especially in the winter 
 when some churches have revivals, that 
 heaven resounds like a factory." 
 
 During this resurrecting spring she kin 
 dled ambition in me once more, and I began 
 to work in that line which has since become 
 my absorbing occupation. Kate was my 
 critic. We were not often together, but I 
 passed her my manuscript, and she set down 
 her opinion on a separate slip of paper. It 
 had salt sense, and was gently merciless with 
 
86 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TO WN. 
 
 my faults. And no praise that ever comes 
 again to me in this world will bring such 
 rapture as her large-lettered " Right " pen 
 ciled beside a paragraph. We sometimes 
 disagreed and argued from our points of 
 view, her eyes looking straight into mine 
 with human love and experience and patience, 
 old as the Pyramids, wise as the Sphinx. 
 She was like primeval air blowing across the 
 prairies, her very flesh seeming to exhale 
 fragrance. 
 
 Clara had sent me notice of divorce pro 
 ceedings from Paris. She would sometime 
 be able to rehabilitate herself and take the 
 place she was fitted for. Clara was one of 
 those people who get anything they want 
 by simply taking it at any cost. I may set 
 down here that she finally married her friend, 
 whose wealth was boundless, and now queens 
 it in a certain American circle in Paris, and 
 no doubt looks back with contempt on her 
 advances toward me. These established facts 
 have become a moral stay to me. 
 
 The animal instinct to better herself with- 
 
ON THE SOUTH SIDE. 87 
 
 out retrospective pangs, which Clara had, 
 was not understood by Kate. I left the 
 French paper containing notice of matrimo 
 nial dissolution on my table, marked and 
 conspicuous, secure in the knowledge that 
 Mrs. Jutberg read nothing but her mother 
 tongue. My child was very tender with me 
 afterwards, not failing to call me father 
 when we spoke together alone. She thought 
 I cared because divorce was to be added to 
 my other griefs. Though this sweet imper 
 sonal kindness might have been shown as 
 well to Sam, I lived on it. 
 
 Oh, what sunsets there were, flashing 
 across emerald plains; and twilights, be 
 ginning before the sun went down, and lin 
 gering with the smell of grass quite into 
 the night ! The thunder-pumper began his 
 suction - note again in the distance, and as 
 days warmed and the birds thickened, like a 
 dream-note far out on the prairie you heard 
 the prairie-chicken s " bum-bum-boo. * How 
 cunning was that lowly home-maker ! I have 
 seen the mother hen fall, dragging her wing 
 
88 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 and limping, to draw the sportsman away 
 from her nest ; and, this accomplished, rise 
 in the air like a dart. Listening, I can hear 
 again, across years, the six dove cadences 
 which came incessantly from the cemetery 
 up the slope : 
 
 
 "Wo-o, Wo-o, Wo - o!" 
 
 Not the least wistfulness stirred in Kate 
 as she saw other girls pairing off, and heard 
 their talk about wedding-clothes. She had 
 to keep clear of such entanglements. Sam, 
 elated by alliance with a leading house, really 
 congratulated himself on putting Kate like 
 a temptation out of his mind. He told me 
 broadly her father had furnished her all the 
 shade she could stand. What Kate Keene 
 now required was a rich, indulgent, and 
 powerful husband, a man politically estab 
 lished, who would give full play to her tal 
 ents in a diplomatic way. 
 
 " I would like to see her in Washington," 
 declared Sam. "Confine her powers to a 
 
ON THE SOUTH SIDE. 89 
 
 drawing-room, and let her work for a pur 
 pose ; she could move the government." 
 
 I told Sam broadly that an engaged man 
 would be better employed turning his face 
 toward the charms he meant to admire in 
 the future instead of back to the charms he 
 had admired in the past ; upon which he be 
 gan a resentful and baffled eulogy of Lucia. 
 
 " You know Lucia is exactly the girl for 
 me. I ve got my way to make. I don t 
 expect the old colonel to take me in out of 
 the wet, though a quarter section as a starter 
 won t go bad. Lucia York is n t one of your 
 fair-weather girls, either ; she 11 come out 
 best under hardship/ 
 
 " And you re just the man for her. You 11 
 keep her in hardship enough to develop all 
 her virtues." 
 
 " There are times," my partner said con 
 temptuously, " when I would like to turn in 
 and be a hog myself. But there s never 
 any chance ; the other member of the firm 
 has a permanent job of it." 
 
 I pointed out to Sam how often we vio- 
 
90 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 late conscience and self-respect by smiling 
 at our friends horse-play, and suffering in 
 accepting it as humor. But a man like Mr. 
 Jutberg never distorted one by this passion 
 of sympathy. He put himself sincerely into 
 what he said, and the restricted alphabet of 
 his native tongue drove the few words he 
 used home in the memory. 
 
 He was smoking his pipe when an alter 
 cation took place between his wife and Mrs. 
 York at the gate. Mrs. York, gentle to 
 tremulousness, always fluttering about her 
 children, apprehensive of some change in 
 their health, must have thought of the dom 
 iciliary interest this formidable neighbor 
 ought to have in Lucia s affianced husband. 
 With nagging love she would coo, " How 
 do you feel, Alice ? Does your head ache ? " 
 
 " No, mamma," the impatient girl would 
 answer. 
 
 " But, Lucia dear, your poor stomach, 
 how is your poor stomach to-day ? " 
 
 "Oh, mamma," the girls would groan, 
 " do let our heads and backs and stomachs 
 alone." 
 
ON THE SOUTH SIDE. 91 
 
 So, feeling her family ties extended, Mrs. 
 York braved the tricks which fierce sky 
 light plays with the human countenance, 
 and dared the encounter : 
 
 "How are you to-day, Mrs. Jutberg? 
 How is your face ? " 
 
 " I m well, * answered Mrs. Jutberg, 
 unmasking that face like a battery, "and 
 likelier to stay well than folks that spend 
 their nights dancing." 
 
 " Yes, I know you don t approve of it. 
 But boys and girls," pleaded Mrs. York 
 weakly, "always love the harmless amuse 
 ment." 
 
 " Do you call yourself a boy or a girl ? " 
 
 "Well, not exactly," hedged the gentle 
 sympathizer. " But they like to have their 
 fathers and mothers occasionally take a turn 
 with them. Indeed, I feel it is only due to 
 the girls." 
 
 " I Ve been wanting to ask you a ques 
 tion this long time," said the burden-bearer, 
 coming nearer the fence and looking her 
 apprehensive listener down. 
 
92 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 "Have you?" faltered Mrs. York. 
 " What is it ? I shall be glad to answer 
 anything I can answer." 
 
 " The question is this : What is a man 
 thinking about," demanded Mrs. Jutberg, 
 chopping her words fiercely, "when he is 
 dancing with you ? " 
 
 The expression of the matron outside 
 changed at once from puzzled pondering of 
 a conundrum to alarm and swift aversion, 
 as she saw the other begin to gasp and chew 
 air with inarticulate sounds. 
 
 "The man that danced with you would 
 have enough to think about," she returned, 
 with a tardy but effectual asperity, escaping 
 as Mr. Jutberg sauntered to the fence and 
 performed his usual surgery. 
 
 In a culmination of soft Swedish wrath 
 he swore : " By Vashin tons ! I never put 
 this yaw up again no more if it vag at 
 every neighbor that go past. By Yack- 
 sons ! I could get me plenty voman that 
 not come unyointed at all." 
 
 Then the woman pulled her sunbonnet 
 
ON THE SOUTH SIDE. 93 
 
 over her face, slammed the gate, and set 
 forth on one of her hag-ridden walks, and 
 her husband looked after her, relenting. 
 " She vas the finest cook in Trail City." 
 
 I cannot recall a word of love that was 
 spoken by me to Kate. Yet if she came 
 unexpectedly near, the blood jumped in my 
 heart. Sometimes our eyes met in silence, 
 and she was puzzling with a beneficence 
 that for the first time held pain. 
 
 Heats like burning blasts of the desert 
 swept those prairies in the very greenness 
 of May. Before we could well bear the 
 renewed tingle of life which the spring 
 brought, that unspeakable longing for 
 things unfulfilled, the passion of lava fires 
 was in the air. 
 
 On a hot May night, as I came down 
 stairs, I saw Kate in the unlighted hall. 
 Her hand was on the newel where I had 
 rested the lamp the first night I looked 
 upon her face. She stood thinking, and 
 turned mutely to give me through the dusk 
 the smile of general good will, her potent 
 
94 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 benediction on all men. I dared to slide 
 my hand down the rail, so near that my 
 finger-tips kissed her dear wrist, lingering, 
 taking joy of the touch. The strong cur 
 rent of her life shocked through me. The 
 cool firm surface of flesh drove my blood 
 like mad waters. Her hand turned and 
 clung around mine, understanding ; and 
 then remembering, wrung itself away. Her 
 breath was caught with a gasp. She left 
 me, and I went out to the limits of the 
 town, and walked and walked, feeling as 
 if I could take the stars out of the sky 
 and handle them one by one. How high 
 life rose in that touch ! 
 
 The afternoon of the next day, about 
 three o clock, night swept suddenly through 
 the office. Our windows looked north. I 
 was hard at work, oblivious to time, and 
 rose for matches to light the chandelier. 
 Then I heard a stampede of feet on the 
 pavements below. Little pillars of dust 
 walked like phantoms. The air which had 
 been sultry turned deadly cold, and yet you 
 
ON THE SOUTH SIDE. 95 
 
 could not breathe it in that strange vacuum. 
 It was as if air had been withdrawn, and a 
 stifling odorless gas substituted. It rasped 
 all objects with a whistling scream. I saw 
 the sky dragging on the opposite roofs, 
 rising and rebounding; and running down 
 into the eclipsed streets, I joined men stand 
 ing on a crossing, holding their hats on. 
 My head was bare, and I had a sensation 
 of having my hair pressed into my skull. 
 Northward, vapor bounded along the sur 
 face of the earth at right angles to a moving 
 wall of blackness coming out of the south 
 west. Ragged lights of bird s-egg green 
 zigzagged in this wall, and the faces of all 
 around me were dim and ghastly. We 
 smothered in an icy river of exhausted air, 
 and the wall came on with a million loco 
 motive roars, crashes and screams rising in 
 its course. I remember Sam shouting at 
 my ear, but his voice was blown away, and 
 so seemed the people, running to cellars in 
 that earthquake darkness. The most dis 
 tinct object in the world to me was Kate, 
 
96 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 two or three blocks to the south, driven like 
 a leaf. 
 
 Sometimes I dream now of swimming 
 against eternity, clutching for the dear lithe 
 shape I could not, could not find. The 
 wind which drowned my voice brought hers 
 to me. She called me. My child, my 
 mate, mine by the kinship nothing can 
 break if I ever strained body and soul 
 until blood broke through the pores, that 
 was my instant of sinew - cracking agony. 
 If I had found her, heaven would have 
 made a white spot in that whirling hell. 
 
 The next thing I knew there was rain 
 pouring down windows. I heard it hiss. 
 Then the smell of drugs surrounded me ; 
 and I looked up into a physician s face, and 
 at Sam supporting me, and at the ceiling of 
 Mrs. Jutberg s back parlor. So tyrannical 
 are the trivial things of life, I thought first 
 of her anxious care about the carpets, and 
 wondered what had happened to sink them 
 below humanity. 
 
 Then I noticed that I was dressed for 
 
ON THE SOUTH SIDE. 97 
 
 bed, and had perhaps lain some time in the 
 folding couch which held me. Mrs. Jut- 
 berg was behind my head, for she moved 
 into sight as she came into my mind, look 
 ing chastened. But I had no further inter 
 est in her. It flashed across me that the 
 cyclone was over, and I did not see Kate. 
 
 " Where is she ? " I demanded. 
 
 " You re all right now," said Sam. 
 
 " Did any one bring Kate in ? " 
 
 " Oh yes," soothed the doctor, " Kate was 
 brought in." 
 
 "Was she hurt?" 
 
 "She swell." 
 
 " I want to see her," I explained to the 
 bland stupidity of the man. "I want to 
 see Kate Keene. She was out in the storm. 
 Did you bring her in yourself, Sam ? " 
 
 "I helped," answered Sam. "Shut up, 
 sonny, and take your medicine. You were 
 a pretty spectacle when we brought you in ; 
 must have been blown through a tree-box. 
 What little sense you ever had has been 
 knocked out of you for a week." 
 
98 TEE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 After swallowing what they gave me, I 
 did not fully awake until it was night, and 
 I saw the water still rushing down black 
 panes. Sam was with me, reading beside 
 a shaded lamp. 
 
 " Is it ever going to quit raining ? " I 
 inquired. 
 
 He put his book down, and sat on the edge 
 of my bed. " We have had a pretty wet 
 spell since the cyclone. How do you feel? " 
 
 I tried to move a body stiff and weighted. 
 
 " A few broken ribs," exaggerated Sam, 
 " and a few pieces of skull jammed in." 
 
 I looked at him closely : he showed rav 
 ages himself. " Was Kate hurt ? " 
 
 He twisted uneasily, and I saw he was 
 preparing a tale for me, and gripped him 
 by the lapels of his coat. My arms had not 
 been broken. " Sam, you are a great fraud 
 in some ways, but you are not a good liar. 
 Tell me the truth." 
 
 "You idiot!" he blustered. "When 
 half the South Side was wrecked, would 
 anybody outside a cellar escape a whirl? 
 
ON THE SOUTH SIDE. 99 
 
 The storm cut a track of a hundred yards as 
 clean as if a mowing-machine had done it." 
 
 " Who suffered on the South Side ? " I 
 asked craftily. 
 
 "Babcocks; everybody. But you ought 
 to have seen how the North Side turned out 
 to clear the wreck and house the homeless, 
 and the food and clothes and household 
 stuff and money they poured over the Cap 
 itol to get the nobs on their feet again. 
 Trail City is the best neighbor in this State. 
 There s no north, no south, no west, now ; 
 nothing but one united town." 
 
 " Was any one kiUed, Sam ? " 
 
 " Yes : Esther s little chap, that she car 
 ried around with the crane, was blown 
 across the prairie and picked up dead. But 
 the crane survived." 
 
 " Poor old Esther ! What did Kate say 
 to her?" 
 
 Sam looked at me, startled. 
 
 "Kate would say something to comfort 
 Esther." 
 
 " Well, these things have been so sudden, 
 
100 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 none of us know how to take hold of them 
 
 yet." 
 
 " She would come in here and see me, too. 
 I want you to call her." 
 
 "I can t call her in the night, Seth. 
 Have a little consideration." 
 
 With mad abandonment of all self-con 
 trol I caught him around the neck, and 
 pleaded by every kind memory there was 
 between us, by every prospect he had of 
 joy for himself, that he would have mercy 
 on me and tell me where Kate was. 
 
 " I know she would at least come and 
 look at me," I said. " She had love and 
 a kind word for every human creature. If 
 you tell me she is dead, I must bear it. 
 But if she has forgotten me my God ! 
 then I am forsaken." 
 
 With a blubbering cry Sam broke down 
 and hugged me like a mother. I knew that 
 she was dead. The pungent odor of cam 
 phor offended my nostrils, and my eyes 
 stared at him. 
 
 " But what have they done with her ? " 
 
ON THE SOUTH, SJDK. ; > , ; 10} 
 
 "Bear it, my boy, bear it. She was 
 taken out of this house four days ago." 
 
 I tried to climb from the couch. Had I 
 lain there a dead log and never looked my 
 last on her sweet face? My partner had 
 no need to force me back. I fell. 
 
 " You know how it is with me, Sam." 
 
 " Yes, I know. I ve seen it all along." 
 
 " God Almighty ! Sam, can you pray ? " 
 
 " No, Seth, I can t." 
 
 " But you must." 
 
 " Wait till I call Jutberg ; he 11 fetch a 
 preacher." 
 
 " No pray quick. I learned one that 
 wiU do. Thank God Almighty." 
 
 " What for ? " 
 
 " For everything." 
 
 " Well, that s a fine prayer ! " 
 
 " It s a prayer to love. Say it." 
 
 " Thank God Almighty for everything." 
 As he spoke it, I said, " For everything," 
 like one who lies in the trough of the sea 
 and watches unattainable cloud mountains 
 rush overhead. 
 
1()2 ; THE- SPIRIT QF AN ILLINOIS TO WN. 
 
 " For everything." Kate s body was 
 underground. " For everything." Yes, for 
 that touch of her hand. Yes, for that cry 
 in the storm. Yes, for the stainless love 
 of my stainless girl. A peace came on me 
 that passed understanding. Sam was wip 
 ing the cold sweat from my face. 
 
 " Seth ! are you dying ? " he whispered. 
 " Seth, are you in a trance ? Why, man, 
 what ails you? Your face is like a spir 
 it s." 
 
 He could do nothing but bathe my face 
 and fan me. And as he fanned and his ap 
 prehension settled, he poured out, unasked, 
 that chivalrous worship which men cannot 
 withhold from their ideals. I heard his 
 voice away in the distance, or it buzzed 
 close in my ears. The facts struck, and I 
 put them one by one in a vivid row. 
 
 " She was the grandest sight under white 
 flowers that you ever saw lying with the 
 frozen smile. The women say there was n t 
 a bruise on her, and I don t believe she 
 knew she was hurt. She was just caught 
 
ON THE SOUTH SIDE. 103 
 
 up in the fiery chariot like old Elijah or 
 was it Abraham, or Moses ? 
 
 " I said to myself again and again, as I 
 looked at her, The Spirit of this Illinois 
 town ! Sprung out of hardship, buoyant 
 and full of resources, big-hearted, patient, 
 great, how mightily she did express the 
 soul of the West ! 
 
 "Oh, this house has seen mourning. 
 That room was crowded with girls on their 
 knees, as if they surrounded a shrine. And 
 then came the young men, fathers and mo 
 thers and children. She lay in state like a 
 queen. Near you, not ten feet from those 
 closed doors, the pageant went on. The 
 room was sweet with wild flowers. 
 
 " Poor old Billy and his coroner s jury, 
 when she was first brought in, made a ring 
 of crying men around her. I never saw 
 such a sight before. Every fellow put his 
 face in his handkerchief, or, if he did n t 
 have a handkerchief, in his hat, and 
 shook. To see her lying there with the 
 dust in her hair, who had been our pride, 
 
104 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 her face, that had always lighted up at 
 meeting us, white and holy-looking 
 
 " Billy blew his nose, and said to them, 
 This is the hardest way to earn a living 
 that I ever tried, boys. I m doing some 
 kicking now myself. 
 
 44 The Spirit of this town, that s what 
 she was; just as a beautiful ideal woman 
 expresses the Goddess of Liberty. Pluck 
 and genius and humility, boundless energy 
 and vision, and a personal power that car 
 ried everything before it, all these cov 
 ered with the soft flesh of a child just 
 turning woman, that was Kate. 
 
 " Esther s been in to see you, Seth. She 
 stood here, her big coarse Madonna breast 
 heaving. She s cried her face shapeless. 
 To top all, her brother s widow has taken 
 the remaining children and moved back 
 home to Indiana. She took everything, 
 says Esther. She did n t even leave me 
 the crane. 
 
 "We ve had hard luck, too, Esther, 
 says I. But I hope we 11 save our 
 
ON THE SOUTH SIDE. 105 
 
 Before the rising sun leaped above the 
 prairie edge far northeastward, I was wak 
 ened. Sam slept. He was not near me 
 and could not have touched me. I was 
 wakened by the invisible dear hand of her 
 I love. It touched and turned and clung 
 around mine, and the thrill of our mar 
 riage went through me, a rising tide of 
 life. 
 
 Two or three years ago I encountered in 
 New York a man whom I had known as 
 a hard drinker abroad. We renewed our 
 acquaintance, he appearing the chastened 
 angel of his former self. There was some 
 attraction between us during the brief 
 time we spent together, and I made bold to 
 bridge years and inquire what had changed 
 him. His name has nothing to do with 
 this story, which, if he reads it, will fore 
 stall his pardon for setting down his secret 
 here. I have never repeated it with my 
 lips. 
 
 He turned himself squarely and looked 
 
106 THE SPIRIT OF AN ILLINOIS TOWN. 
 
 me in the eye. "Do you believe in what 
 is called Spiritualism ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Neither do I. But do you believe it 
 is impossible for departed souls to come 
 back?" 
 
 "I didn t say that. I only meant to 
 assert that I have no interest in spiritists, 
 in people who live by a presumed traffic 
 with the other world." 
 
 "Neither have I. But this queer thing 
 happened to me. When I was at my worst, 
 I went one night with some fellows to what 
 they called a seance, and the woman fakir 
 told me there was a young girl at my 
 shoulder, and that girl made signs that she 
 had come to be my guardian angel. The 
 woman described her, and, my friend, I re 
 membered the girl. She was a lovely child 
 who died when she was about sixteen, in 
 my native town. I don t know what inter 
 est she had in me ; I was older than she 
 was. I couldn t get rid of it. I know 
 she is with me, watching everything I do. 
 
ON THE SOUTH SIDE. 107 
 
 Well I would n t give up that conviction 
 for money." He turned his cigar in his 
 fingers and laughed. 
 
 "She takes good care of me. She 
 doesn t let me make a dog of myself any 
 more. I wouldn t go where she oughtn t 
 to, I wouldn t let her eyes rest on what 
 wasn t fit for them to see, for anything 
 that could be offered me. Now that is 
 what has changed me : I m trying to live 
 up to her. But I never have talked about 
 it. She s more to me than any living 
 woman. Did you ever hear of such a case ? 
 Do you understand ? " 
 
 I told him I understood." 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 AN EPISODE OF TONTY S LIFE IN THE 
 ILLINOIS COUNTRY. 
 
 " And a Parisian youth named fttienne Renault." 
 
 PARKMAN. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE tenth of September of the year 1680 
 was a day of sunshine and languor in the 
 great village of the Illinois. Lodges shaped 
 like the covers of modern emigrant wagons, 
 but colossal in size, and having an opening 
 left along the top for smoke, filled a wide 
 plain between river and northern bluffs. 
 
 In one of these lodges the central row 
 of half a dozen fires had all died down 
 to ashes except one pile of pink embers. 
 Above it the air reeled with that tipsy 
 tremulousness which heat imparts. An old 
 Indian woman sat on the side occupied by 
 the blankets of her family, and her fingers 
 flew like dark streaks among rushes which 
 
112 THE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 she was braiding into a mat the gray- 
 green shingle of every Illinois wigwam. 
 A French lad stood beside her ready to go 
 out into the open air. 
 
 "My mother," said he, using the name 
 as a title of respect, " you have shown me 
 how to bind an arrowhead to the shaft; 
 now I will show you how to dance." 
 
 The squaw, half understanding his imper 
 fect use of her language, looked up, smiling 
 with many wrinkles, willing to be amused 
 by a pretty creature who avoided Indian 
 girls and came for counsel and chat to an 
 old woman. 
 
 He flung himself back, brandishing the 
 finished arrow, and, turning on one foot, 
 spun around and around at the very verge 
 of the fires. It was like the wheeling flight 
 of a thistle plume through the open lodge 
 end. Outside he still whirled and sprung, 
 keeping a tune in his throat. 
 
 Some lazy old braves were gambling with 
 cherry stones, having spread a blanket 
 where a wigwam shielded them from the 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 113 
 
 afternoon sun. One of them shot a cherry 
 stone after the flying, singing boy, and they 
 all grinned with good humor at his merry 
 defiance. 
 
 Naked children rolled on the ground, 
 stirring up with kicks puppies as fat as 
 themselves. 
 
 The lad skipped past a small arbor of 
 bark wherein sat an Illinois girl and her 
 silent lover. He checked his steps, and 
 glanced back at them with that wistful, half- 
 contemptuous curiosity of youth; and as 
 he walked on lightly his flying curls settled 
 to thick, black clusters around his neck. 
 He had an exquisite feminine throat and 
 face, and small, sunburnt hands. His dress 
 was the buckskin suit of frontiersmen, yet 
 it outlined a figure of undulations, unlike 
 the square and masculine build of a man 
 standing in the lodge door of the French. 
 
 He also was young, though his face had 
 grown thin and his high temples sunken 
 during his two years exposure in the wil 
 derness with the explorers La Salle and 
 Tonty. 
 
114 THE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 This Frenchman could see the whole 
 Illinois town and the bluffs across the river. 
 A mile or more up-stream one bold prom 
 ontory jutted into the water, its glistening 
 ribs of sandstone half clothed with cedars. 
 This was the Rock of St. Louis, which La 
 Salle had ordered his lieutenant Tonty to 
 fortify. It stood waiting then, as it stands 
 waiting to-day, for any human life which 
 may briefly swarm over it and disappear. 
 
 Patches of cornfield around the outskirts 
 of the Indian town had each its attendant 
 squaw with her brood of children, driving 
 off crows from the ripening maize. Farther 
 away was the tribe s burial-place. Some 
 of the sleepers were hidden from sight in 
 the ground ; but many were lifted high on 
 platforms, with skins or blankets for their 
 motionless palls, in sun and dew and rain, 
 the voices of children and the monotone of 
 the river forever sounding below them. 
 The whole country was mellow with that 
 afternoon light of the year which we call 
 autumn haze. 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 115 
 
 " Runaway," said the man in the lodge 
 door, smiling at the sauntering lad, " where 
 hast thou been idling ? " 
 
 "In the old mother s lodge, learning to 
 set arrowheads. Has Monsieur de Tonty 
 yet returned, Sieur de Boisrondet ? " 
 
 " He is coming yonder with L Esperance. 
 The fathers are now settled in their retreat. 
 I saw no hint of a monk s hood in the canoe 
 as it came down." 
 
 As the boy turned towards the river Bois 
 rondet detected on his face the sweet eager 
 ness which sometimes moulds the features of 
 a young girl. 
 
 Henri de Tonty was already striding up 
 the bank, while L Esperance pulled ashore 
 the canoe they had used. 
 
 La Salle s lieutenant had at that time 
 much to depress him. With only five fol 
 lowers, including two priests, he was hold 
 ing ground in the midst of a suspicious 
 savage tribe until La Salle could return 
 from Fort Frontenac with new supplies and 
 more men for their western venture. 
 
116 THE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 Fort Crevecoeur below that expansion 
 of the Illinois Kiver called the Lake of 
 Pimitoui had been destroyed by insur 
 gents and deserters, its stores stolen, its 
 magazine emptied, and a half-finished ship 
 left to rot. Only the seed of future enter 
 prises seemed saved in this Illinois town 
 where Tonty was waiting on the explorer s 
 order to fortify that great rock jutting into 
 the river. He had first thought of pitching 
 his camp on the natural stronghold, and 
 setting up palisades. It could be ascended 
 at one corner only, and might be held by 
 the smallest garrison. But that would 
 rouse distrust in Indian neighbors whom 
 the French could never spare. He there 
 fore built his lodge like any other wigwam 
 in the midst of the town. 
 
 " You stopped at the Rock again, as you 
 passed it, Monsieur de Tonty?" inquired 
 Boisrondet. 
 
 " Yes," replied Tonty. A line of anxiety 
 stood upright between his black eyebrows. 
 His face was flushed with heat, and his cap 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 117 
 
 and clustering hair were pushed back from 
 his forehead. The ends of his mustache 
 swept down his face. The frontier dress 
 adorned his large presence, for Tonty un 
 consciously carried with him always the air 
 of courts and battlefields. 
 
 He struck dust off the stiff right gauntlet 
 which covered his metal hand. 
 
 "Never mind, Boisrondet. We will be 
 gin our fortification the moment Monsieur 
 de la Salle arrives. The severest discipline 
 in any campaign is waiting for reinforce 
 ments. On that rock you can see the coun 
 try as from a cloud, except the prairie south 
 and eastward beyond the ravine and the 
 woods. If the fathers were of my mind 
 they would be making their retreat on the 
 Rock." 
 
 "And what spot have they selected for 
 their retreat?" 
 
 "A place about a league from here, not 
 distant from the sulphur spring. L Espe- 
 rance helped them build their lodge, and we 
 stocked it well for them. They themselves 
 
118 THE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 made a cross of two unhewn limbs, and 
 planted it beside their door." 
 
 " I do congratulate them," laughed Bois- 
 rondet, " that they are able to make a reli 
 gious retreat from these tiresome heathen. 
 There were never two priests more disgusted 
 with missionary work than Father Membre 
 and Father Eibourde." 
 
 The peasant L Esperance, stooping in gait 
 and grizzled around the temples, flung some 
 feathered game past Tonty s back at the 
 listening French lad. 
 
 "Thou art young, thou little Kenault," 
 he called, " and I am old and tired. Dress 
 these birds for the commandant s supper." 
 
 " How many times have I told thee, L Es 
 perance," exclaimed Tonty, turning on him, 
 "not to be constantly shirking upon the 
 little Kenault." 
 
 " But I will dress them," cried the little 
 Renault, snatching up the task. " It is 
 nothing for me to do, Monsieur de Tonty." 
 
 " I am tired," repeated L Esperance in a 
 mutter. " The lad is ever as full of spring 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 119 
 
 as a grasshopper, yet must I bear all the 
 wood, and dress all the game, and be the 
 squaw of the camp, and take revilings if he 
 lifts a finger to be of use." 
 
 " Growler," laughed the little Renault, 
 striking at the old man with the birds, " go 
 into the lodge and lie down to sleep." And 
 L Esperance trotted in willingly, while 
 around the lodge side, with the hunting 
 spoil, trailed that youthful treble which had 
 so often waked Tonty and Boisrondet early 
 in dewy mornings. 
 
 The two men looked at each other with 
 silent intelligence, and forbore to interfere. 
 Neither ever spoke to the other about the 
 little Eenault as a girl, though Boisrondet 
 had been present when her father put her 
 in Tonty s charge at Fort Crevecceur. The 
 father was a sickly and despondent Parisian 
 of the lesser nobles who had wedded and 
 survived a peasant censitaire s stout daugh 
 ter, and roved from trading-post to trading- 
 post, putting his orphan into boy s attire 
 that he might keep her with him through 
 
120 THE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 all experiences. His selfish life ending at 
 Fort Crevecceur, he desired to send his little 
 Renault home to Paris, and Tonty, in con 
 sternation, took charge of her jointly with 
 the priests. 
 
 To Tonty she was never a girl. She was 
 a free and vivid spirit pinkly clothed in 
 flesh, perhaps, and certainly looking through 
 happy black eyes, but having above every 
 thing else a tiptoe facility in dancing over 
 dangerous spots. 
 
 Crowded among men at Creveccaur, she 
 never seemed to hear any brutal jest. The 
 chastening presence of priests made safer 
 such a place for a young girl ; yet there was 
 in her a boyish quality which deceived all 
 but her father s confidants. She had been 
 born to the buckskin. She had never worn 
 women s drapery ; her round childish limbs 
 spurned any thought of it. The beautiful 
 fire of virgin youth seemed to flash from 
 her person. In an age when women were 
 pretty toys or laden beasts she lived the life 
 of a bird in the wilderness. The license of 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 121 
 
 a savage camp in no way touched her. She 
 had never suffered deeply, for the early teens 
 are kind to natural sorrow ; and all visible 
 things around her she mingled in her mind 
 with invisible saints. 
 
 Tonty lay down on the grass, but Boisron- 
 det still stood in the lodge door. 
 
 " It fills me with envy to see you so tired, 
 monsieur," said the younger man. 
 
 " It was necessary that one of us should 
 stay and guard our lodge and the little Ke- 
 nault," replied his commandant. " But this 
 lying like lazy, voiceless dogs at a lodge 
 door doth unman us. Nothing has happened 
 since our setting forth at daybreak ? " 
 
 " Nothing, except that the cry of insects 
 in the grass never seemed so loud before." 
 
 Tonty smiled, finding in himself full re 
 sponse to this impatient restlessness. But 
 even men who were waiting in the midst of 
 negative dangers might take some delight 
 in that mellow picture of savage life. 
 
 The river was cut by a single canoe dart 
 ing from the farther bank across to the 
 
122 THE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 town with impetuous rush like a water-fly. 
 Boisrondet noted it, and thought idly that 
 some hunter must be returning empty- 
 handed and sullen. 
 
 The little Renault could be heard carol 
 ing at the other end of the lodge while she 
 plucked birds. Their lodge was divided 
 into three apartments by stretched blan 
 kets, and hers was the central shrine. 
 Tonty and Boisrondet occupied one end, and 
 the other held L Espe*rance, a forge, and 
 some tools saved from the pillage of Creve- 
 co3ur. The servant readily yielded his fire 
 to the necessity of cooking, but it vexed him 
 daily to have a mere boy the little Re 
 nault, in fact set apart as if more rev 
 erend than a priest. The priests, look you, 
 had not been above sleeping and teaching 
 in the lodges of the very Illinois. 
 
 Tonty lay with his head in the grass, let 
 ting the sun dazzle his half-shut eyes, while 
 he piled up visions of this Illinois country 
 like those transparent clouds pinnacled in 
 the zenith. His two years in the wilderness 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 123 
 
 with La Salle had been a constantly rising 
 tide of misfortune. But tides are obliged 
 to ebb, and this silence must be the turn. 
 La Salle had started to Fort Frontenac in 
 March. He was surely retracing the five 
 hundred leagues with supplies. La Salle 
 could outmarch any man of New France. 
 
 They would soon fortify the Rock and 
 make it a feudal castle to these timid sav 
 ages. Neighboring tribes would gather 
 close and help to form a strong principal 
 ity. It would be easy from this vantage- 
 point to penetrate that unexplored river 
 called the Mississippi. 
 
 But a yell rent this structure of thought 
 like a tongue of lightning, and Tonty 
 bounded to his feet. Calls and cries 
 streamed in every direction, as if the whole 
 Indian town had become a shower of me 
 teoric voices. The women started from 
 their cornfields, wailing in alarm, and 
 naked children sprawled and uttered the 
 echo of woe. Cherry stones and the stakes 
 won thereby were forgotten. The hunter 
 
124 THE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 who had crossed the river was surrounded 
 with lamentation. 
 
 Tonty found his followers at his side al 
 most as soon as the yell broke out. They 
 had lived so long on the edge of peril that 
 union was their first instinct. L Esperance 
 was wide awake. Tonty put the little Re 
 nault between Boisrondet and himself, and 
 as the savage mob surrounded them he un 
 consciously held her with his sound arm. 
 Little Renault s curls were full of bird 
 down, but her black eyes were full of cour 
 age. 
 
 " What is the matter ?" demanded Tonty 
 in imperfect Illinois. 
 
 " The Iroquois are coming ! The Iro- 
 quois are marching here to eat us up." 
 
 " The Iroquois," screamed a wrinkled 
 old warrior, " are your allies. They are at 
 peace with all the French. They are your 
 friends. But you are no friends of ours. 
 Children, these Frenchmen have come here 
 to betray us. They have brought the Iro 
 quois upon us." 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 125 
 
 Out came the knives, Tonty with iron- 
 handed arm pushing them back persuad 
 ing, shouting. The Indians drowned his 
 voice with yells. The very squaws ran 
 with firebrands. Some of the furious mul 
 titude fell upon the French lodge, and its 
 mats flew in every direction. From the 
 midst of falling poles ran sinewy red-bodied 
 fellows dragging the tools and heavy forge 
 which Tonty and his men had brought with 
 such pains through the wilderness. The 
 splash of the clinking mass in the river tes 
 tified to their final use. 
 
 The lives of the Frenchmen standing back 
 to back were scarcely a breath long. Ton- 
 ty s stiff gauntlet kept the knives off, and he 
 made his voice heard through the howling. 
 
 " If you kill us you kill yourselves. I 
 tell you we are your friends. If you kill 
 us your French father will not leave a man 
 of you alive. We brought no invaders to 
 your country. We know nothing about the 
 Iroquois. But since they have come, I tell 
 you we will go with you to fight them." 
 
n. 
 
 " FULL of intelligence and courage," as a 
 priest has described Tonty in this strait, his 
 imperfect Illinois made the Indians slow to 
 understand him. But as they understood, 
 their tense threats relaxed ; and with con 
 tinued lamentation they turned to break up 
 the camp. 
 
 The canoes were pushed out and filled 
 with women, children, and provisions. 
 Nearly all the young braves were away in 
 a war-party in the northwest. The three 
 or four hundred remaining were the oldest 
 or youngest warriors. The Illinois Indian 
 at his best estate was no model of courage. 
 About sixty men accompanied the retreat 
 ing town to a flat, wooded island down the 
 river, where temporary lodges could be set 
 up and defended. 
 
 The remainder at once began to prepare 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 127 
 
 for battle. They brought wood and built 
 great fires along the shore. Weapons were 
 made ready, bodies greased and painted, 
 and a kind of passover meal eaten. 
 
 The sun went down, and mists brooded 
 on the river, but there was no silence all 
 that night. The Illinois sang war-songs 
 and danced war-dances under the slow and 
 majestic march of the stars. Their fires 
 shone on the water, and their dark, leaping 
 bodies threw shadows across the deserted 
 town. 
 
 Tonty and Boisrondet sat apart, also 
 sleepless, taking counsel together. L Espe*- 
 rance had been missing since the tumult of 
 embarking. He, also, had taken a canoe 
 and slipped away. Both masters were se 
 vere on him until they found next forenoon 
 that he only went to bring the priests back, 
 lest some of his faith should die without 
 absolution. 
 
 Boisrondet had brought some of the scat 
 tered mats for the little Kenault, and she 
 hid in them as in a nest from the growing 
 
128 THE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 chill of night, sleeping like some sylvan 
 creature reliant on the power that sheltered 
 it. 
 
 Scouts sent out in darkness came back at 
 early morning with news. They had seen 
 the army of Iroquois creeping under cover 
 of woods, armed with guns and pistols, and 
 carrying rawhide bucklers. They had seen, 
 they said, scowling aside at the French 
 men, La Salle himself leading the in 
 vaders. And at that the whole camp again 
 rushed to take Tonty and his followers by 
 the throat. 
 
 " If all the Iroquois had stolen French 
 clothes you would believe there were many 
 Monsieur de la Salles coming to fight you," 
 declared Tonty. "He does not turn upon 
 his brothers as you do. I tell you we will 
 go with you to fight the Iroquois." 
 
 The frenzied tribe at once threw them 
 selves into their canoes with these allies and 
 crossed the river. 
 
 It seemed to both guardians that nothing 
 could be done with the little Renault except 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 129 
 
 to carry her into the action. Boisrondet 
 gave a bitter thought to the selfishness of 
 her father, and Tonty regretted not sending 
 her with the priests. But life in her rose 
 to the occasion. Her moccasins moved in 
 swift unison with Tonty s and Boisrondet s 
 up the wooded hill and across a tangled 
 ridge. Her buckskin blouse was scratched 
 by briars, but she herself went laughing 
 and rose - lipped like Diana, carrying a 
 weapon and eager for game. It seemed 
 to Boisrondet the cruelest thing ever done, 
 this shouldering a child into battle with 
 wolfish men. 
 
 Few of the Illinois Indians had guns. 
 They were armed with bows and arrows. 
 They swarmed out on the prairie to attack 
 the Iroquois, who came from covert with 
 whoops and prancings, and roar of firearms 
 and low song of flying shaft mixed with 
 savage battle-cries. 
 
 At the instant of encounter Tonty saw 
 how it must go with his allies. They were 
 no match for the Iroquois with all forces 
 
130 THE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 mustered, and this fragment of them began 
 to give back even in the fury of onset. 
 
 He offered to carry a wampum belt to the 
 Iroquois and to try to stop the fight, and 
 the leaders gladly gave him the flag of truce 
 and sent a young brave with him. 
 
 Tonty started out across the open field 
 towards the smoking guns of the Iroquois 
 with this Indian at his right side. He felt 
 a touch on his left elbow, and turned his 
 eyes to find little Eenault and Boisrondet 
 keeping abreast of him. He stopped and 
 commanded : 
 
 " Go back both of you. Boisrondet, 
 your orders were to take care of the lad." 
 
 " Monsieur," said Boisrondet, to the spat 
 of Iroquois bullets on the prairie sod all 
 around them, " the little Renault would not 
 be kept back." 
 
 " Monsieur de Tonty, we go with you," 
 she said. 
 
 " You will go back," repeated Tonty, 
 meeting the living light of her eyes with 
 military decision. "Boisrondet, pick up 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 131 
 
 the lad and carry him back. Your duty as 
 a soldier and a gentleman is to keep him 
 out of this danger." 
 
 Boisrondet seized and lifted the little Ke- 
 nault in his arms. She struggled with all 
 an untamed creature s physical repugnance 
 to handling, and with all a woman s despair 
 at being dragged from the object to which 
 she clings. In her frenzy she struck Bois 
 rondet upon his bulging forehead with no 
 unmuscular fist. 
 
 " Go back with them," said Tonty to the 
 willing young Indian. And running on 
 alone, he did not see the Iroquois arrow 
 which stooped, jarred, and stood upright in 
 the girl s shoulder. 
 
 The young Indian alone saw it, and 
 pulled it out as he hurried at the heels of 
 Boisrondet, who felt his load relaxing while 
 he panted and trampled through resin weed 
 and yellow flowers back to the Illinois lines. 
 
 Tonty had left his gun when he took up 
 the belt of peace. He held the wampum 
 strip as high as his arm could reach, and 
 
132 THE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 rushed directly upon the muzzles pointed 
 at him. His dark skin and frontiersman s 
 dress scarcely distinguished him from the 
 savage mob which closed around him, and 
 before he could speak one of the Iroquois 
 warriors stabbed him in the side. The 
 knife struck a rib, and made only a deep 
 gash instead of killing him. He half fell, 
 but caught himself, and opened lips from 
 which blood, not words, gushed first. He 
 held up and shook the wampum belt, and 
 an Iroquois chief shouted that he must be a 
 Frenchman, since his ears were not pierced. 
 This brought some about him who opened 
 his shirt and tried to stop the wound. But 
 the great howling multitude which an 
 Indian army must become before it can act 
 as an engine of war was for finishing 
 him. 
 
 Tonty spat the blood from his mouth, 
 and declared to them that the Illinois were 
 under the protection of the French king 
 and governor. He demanded that they 
 should be let alone. 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 133 
 
 One of the braves snatched Tonty s cap 
 and waved it high on a gun. At that the 
 half - suspended firing broke out more 
 fiercely than ever. He urged and de 
 manded with all his strength. A cry rose 
 in front that the Illinois were advancing, 
 and that instant Tonty felt a hand grasp 
 and twist his scalp-lock. He looked over 
 his shoulder at the fierce face of a Seneca 
 chief ; but an Onondaga knocked the scalp 
 ing knife from the Seneca s hand. 
 
 Tonty was spun in a whirlwind of clamor 
 and threats, putting his own shout against 
 the noise of savage throats, and proclaiming 
 that the Illinois had countless Frenchmen 
 to fight with or to avenge them. 
 
 No one ever worked with imperious cour 
 age more successfully on the temper of In 
 dians. The quarrel sank to his demands. 
 Old men ran to stop the young braves from 
 firing. 
 
 The little Kenault had been docile, and 
 walked willingly up the ridge with Bois- 
 rondet. She told him she was a shamed of 
 
134 THE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 her behavior and of keeping him out of the 
 action. But she said nothing about her 
 wound to a man who would insist upon 
 examining it. The arrow stab in her buck 
 skin blouse gave no vent to the blood, for 
 that had taken to moving in a slow trickle 
 down her back. Boisrondet, trembling be 
 twixt chagrin and rapture, said little, but 
 kept his gaze upon her and around her like 
 an atmosphere of protection. 
 
 She sat down facing the firing, and Bois 
 rondet stood by her, on his part seeing 
 neither smoke nor moving figures, neither 
 dew on the turf nor distant blue strips of 
 forest. 
 
 Two Recollet capotes moved down among 
 the waiting Illinois, for L Esperance had 
 not tarried about bringing the priests. 
 They hurried to meet Tonty. He came 
 staggering back across the open prairie, 
 holding up an Iroquois wampum belt as 
 the sign of his success. 
 
 The little Renault let her restrained 
 breath escape in a sob. 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 135 
 
 " He is safe ! But lie is pitching for 
 ward ! He is wounded, monsieur ! They 
 have hurt him ! " 
 
 She herself reeled as Tonty did before 
 the priests received him in their arms ; and 
 a deadly sickness, the like of which the 
 little Eenault had never felt before, brought 
 her head down among the knotty herbage 
 of the hill. 
 
III. 
 
 THE clear September morning seemed to 
 stream around Tonty s eyes in long pennons 
 of flame as Father Ribourde and Father 
 Membre helped him to reach his allies. 
 He was still under a nightmare, and strug 
 gled for speech to warn his weak people of 
 the treacherous enemy who were checked 
 only by his threats. He held up the wam 
 pum belt and told the Illinois that it was an 
 Iroquois peace, but it would be wisdom on 
 their part to retreat from an Iroquois peace. 
 If they and their families withdrew down the 
 river, leaving some of their wise men in sight 
 of signals, he would treat with the invaders 
 and try to induce them to leave the country. 
 
 The small army which had escaped de 
 feat could indeed see nothing better to do. 
 They recrossed the river to their town, and 
 set the lodges on fire, thankful for any 
 chance of saving their national life. 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 137 
 
 An Indian might have little sentiment 
 about his lodge, which was only a shelter, 
 and never contained very much besides the 
 row of fires. If destroyed, it could be re 
 built anywhere with new poles and mats. 
 But his dead, on platform or in earth, were 
 sacred relics to him. In the fleet of canoes 
 retreating down the Illinois Kiver many a 
 shaven, dusky head was turned, many a 
 mournful eye rested on that spot which 
 could be no longer kept, and might soon be 
 desecrated by a wolfish enemy. 
 
 Boisrondet and L Esperance, with the 
 Recollet friars, set to work to repair their 
 own lodge, which the Illinois had torn down. 
 Here the priests gave Tonty s wound a 
 better dressing than that of his wild sur 
 geons, and the little Renault lay on her 
 blanket at a distance from him, seeking 
 no remedy for her stiff hurt except to keep 
 him in her sight. 
 
 Tonty had made the Iroquois pause ; but 
 they promptly crossed the river and prowled 
 over that great field of smoking lodges. 
 
138 THE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 They took such poles and posts as had not 
 burned, and built themselves a rough fort 
 in the midst of the abandoned town. 
 
 Boisrondet found some blankets which he 
 hung around the little Renault when night 
 came. But she needed no privacy for sleep. 
 He thought the prowling and yelling of 
 the Iroquois made her toss, and draw her 
 breath in tremulous starts. In the morn 
 ing he was careful to get food for her, 
 while he let L Esperance serve Tonty and 
 the priests. The Illinois had carried away 
 much of their corn from the underground 
 storehouses, but their ungathered fields still 
 stood ; and while the invaders trampled the 
 crop, L Esperance found some supplies for 
 the inmates of Tonty s lodge. The little 
 Renault awoke with fever, but that day was 
 so full of effort and danger that the men, 
 her guardians, overlooked her state. 
 
 They were called to a council by the 
 savages. Tonty rose up and went with his 
 followers into the sapling fort. 
 
 On the girl s fever-swimming eyes the 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 139 
 
 circle of hideous Iroquois faces and half- 
 naked bodies made grotesque impression. 
 
 Tonty sat in front of her, on each side of 
 him a priest. When he had to rise they 
 helped him ; but on his feet he was like 
 the cliff across the river. His voice kept 
 respect hovering in all those glittering and 
 restless eyes, though a chief began the coun 
 cil by asking him insolently where were all 
 the Illinois warriors he had boasted of, and 
 the army of French who would keep the 
 Iroquois braves from eating the flesh of a 
 worthless tribe. 
 
 Tonty repeated the threats and demands 
 he had before made. Six packs of beaver 
 skins were laid before him. A chief prof 
 fered them piecemeal. Two were to prom 
 ise that the Iroquois would not eat the 
 children of the French those cowardly 
 Illinois ; a third was the plaster which must 
 heal Tonty s wound ; the fourth was oil for 
 anointing all French joints present at the 
 council; the fifth said the sun was bright, 
 and it was a good day to begin a journey ; 
 
140 TEE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 and the last ordered the French to arise and 
 leave the Illinois country. 
 
 Tonty again came to his feet, and 
 thanked his red brothers for their gift. 
 But he desired to know when they them 
 selves meant to leave the Illinois country. 
 
 Every copper-hued face turned darker; 
 every guttural voice broke out, in presence 
 of the pledge just made, with a declaration 
 that their tribe would eat Illinois flesh be 
 fore they went. 
 
 Tonty kicked the pack of beaver skins 
 from him. It was their own method of 
 expressing contempt for a one-sided treaty. 
 
 The Indians sprang up and drove his 
 party out with drawn knives. The little 
 Kenault, hurried by Boisrondet, turned to 
 see Tonty come last from the palisade, still 
 restraining the savages by the threat they 
 dared not disregard. He was determined 
 to stand to the last risk between them and 
 the tribe they had invaded. 
 
 During that day L Esperance felt that he 
 was throwing his scalp at the Iroquois by 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 141 
 
 the frequent trips he made to the river, and 
 all on account of that lad pampered among 
 blankets, who would be constantly laving, 
 and bathing, and drinking, for lack of other 
 amusement. 
 
 Clean as a flower at all times, the little 
 Renault was appalled to discover something 
 like infection in her flesh, which she could 
 not soak out. As the day wore to a close, 
 her illness so increased that she was forced 
 to look around the blanket with glittering 
 eyes, and whisper for the help of Father Ri- 
 bourde. As shy of handling as a fawn, aver 
 sion even to his touch made her face piteous. 
 
 " Father, I cannot endure any longer to 
 be filled with sickness from an arrow 
 wound," she pleaded in excuse for the at 
 tendance craved. " There is something 
 foul in my shoulder which I cannot wash 
 away." 
 
 The buckskin was drawn partly off ; and 
 though she had covered herself, the stain 
 of shame deepened the pink of her angelic 
 flesh as she submitted to the surgeon. 
 
142 THE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 " Why did you not speak of a wound 
 before ? " demanded Father Ribourde. 
 
 " My father, I could not." 
 
 The priest s outcry brought his brother 
 Recollet and Tonty behind the blanket, and 
 jealously, though reluctantly, at their heels, 
 Boisrondet. He took note of the cower 
 ing, blush-burned girl ; but Tonty saw only 
 the green-rimmed wound on the little lad s 
 shoulder. 
 
 " It was a poisoned arrow," pronounced 
 Father Membre. 
 
 At that Boisrondet wheeled and rushed 
 into the open air cursing himself, and Fa 
 ther Membre followed close by his ear re 
 buking him. In many a victim the wound 
 must have worked death within the time 
 she had suffered, but her strong health and 
 wholesome blood resisted. No medicine, no 
 surgeon s skill, could now take the burning 
 foulness out. The poison was in her eyes ; 
 it beat in her wrist and hammered in her 
 brain. 
 
 " Poor little lad ! " groaned Tonty. " I 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 143 
 
 wish I could take this from thee and add it 
 to my dagger cut. We have all been bad 
 guardians. The boy would not be sacrificed 
 thus if Monsieur de la Salle had been 
 here." 
 
 " Must I die, father ? " inquired the little 
 "Renault, lifting her eyes to the priest s sor 
 rowful face when Tonty no longer stood by. 
 
 " The lives of all of us are in the hands 
 of God," he answered. But while he 
 dressed the gangrened spot he examined 
 her conscience, and finished by giving her 
 absolution. 
 
 " The only penance I shall lay upon thee, 
 my daughter," murmured on his priestly 
 monotone, " is to bear with patience such 
 suffering as may result from this misfor 
 tune." 
 
 He added tales of martyrs and trium 
 phant saints to keep from her ear the stormy 
 agony of Boisrondet and Father Membre s 
 remonstrances outside the lodge. 
 
 The Iroquois allowed another night to 
 pass, and then ordered the French to be 
 
144 THE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 gone, giving them a leaky canoe for their 
 voyage. 
 
 Tonty had done all he could to protect 
 the timid tribe in retreat. He saw that he 
 must now set off up-river, so the boat was 
 provided with some corn and blankets and 
 the guns of his men. Already the Iroquois 
 were busy tearing down the scaffoldings of 
 the dead. The plain, so lately a peaceful 
 barbarian city, smouldered in little heaps. 
 Groups of Iroquois paused in their work of 
 desecration to howl a derisive adieu to the 
 voyagers. 
 
 As the canoe passed the foot of the Eock, 
 Tonty looked up its height, hopeless so 
 poorly do we gauge the future of ever 
 planting the French flag on its summit. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE canoe was so leaky that it had to be 
 pulled ashore when Tonty s party had rowed 
 up-stream about twenty-five miles. They 
 camped early in the afternoon. The two 
 priests built a fire, while Boisrondet and 
 L Espe*rance cut branches, and with these 
 and blankets made a couple of knotty mat 
 tresses on which Tonty and the little Re 
 nault could rest with their feet towards the 
 blaze. Tonty s wound was again bleeding. 
 After efforts to mend the boat he dropped 
 upon his pallet in deadly sickness, and lay 
 there while the autumn afternoon dimmed 
 and faded out as if the smile of God were 
 being withdrawn from the world. 
 
 Father Ribourde and Father Membre 
 tended both patients with all their mon 
 astic skill. The little Renault was full of 
 delirious laughter. L Esperance, while he 
 
146 THE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 labored on the boat with such calking as the 
 woods afforded, groaned over the lad s state 
 and reproached himself for ever grudging 
 the child service. Boisrondet worked at 
 dragging fuel as if his one desire was to ex 
 haust himself and die. As night came on 
 he piled a fire of huge size, though it was a 
 dangerous beacon, for they were camped on 
 a flat and wooded strip some distance from 
 sheltering bluffs, and their light perhaps 
 drew other prowlers than the Iroquois. 
 During the night there were stirrings in 
 thickets, and once a soft dip or two in the 
 river, as if a canoe paddle had incautiously 
 lapsed to its usual motion. 
 
 After a meagre supper Father Membre 
 and L Esperance lay down to sleep while 
 Father Bibourde and Boisrondet kept 
 guard. The weather was changing, and a 
 chill wind swept along the river valley. It 
 continually scattered the little Renault s 
 curls over her fever-swollen face, and Bois 
 rondet, unable to endure this, built up a 
 screen of brush. He sat on the ground 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 147 
 
 beside her pallet, and Father Ribourde sat 
 at the other side, though the priest rose at 
 intervals and examined Tonty. 
 
 The whole pile of burning logs was 
 heaped between the little Renault and 
 Tonty. He lay opposite her, with his feet, 
 also, to the fire, sleeping as only exhausted 
 frontiersmen can sleep. Nothing in woods 
 or stooping clouds, or in the outcry of spir 
 its around him, reached his consciousness 
 all that night. He was suspended from the 
 world in a swoon of sleep. His swarthiness 
 was so blanched by loss of blood that his 
 black hair and mustache startled the eye. 
 Father Ribourde listened for his breath, 
 into such deep recesses had his physical 
 life made its retreat. 
 
 But the girl on the opposite side of the 
 fire brought echoes from the darkness. 
 She sang. She thought she was dancing 
 in a whirl along peaks, or fishing in the 
 river with L Esperance, or shooting arrows 
 at a mark with young Indians, or moving 
 across the prairie with Tonty on his errand 
 
148 THE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 to the Iroquois. Through every act ran 
 gladness. She exulted upward through the 
 fire-gilt branches. 
 
 " O Mother of God, what joy thou hast 
 given me! If there had been no Mon 
 sieur de Tonty think of that ! Then I 
 should have crouched like fields blackened 
 in frost. Then I should not know what life 
 is. How desolate to be without Monsieur 
 de Tonty ! The savages, and the wretches 
 at Crevecceur, they are all like grasshoppers 
 beside him. I would rather have him call 
 me his little lad than be queen of France." 
 
 The priest s soothing had no effect on 
 her fever-driven imagination. She drank 
 when he held a cup to her mouth, and stared 
 at him, still laughing. But during several 
 hours there was scarcely a pause in her talk 
 of Tonty. 
 
 Boisrondet sat behind her back for she 
 lay upon her sound shoulder and endured 
 all this. The flower of martyrdom and the 
 flower of love bloomed there before the 
 priest in the dank woods beside the collaps- 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 149 
 
 ing camp-fire. The lonesome, low wail of 
 wind was contradicted by the little Re- 
 nault s glad monotone. All the innocent 
 thoughts which a girl pours out to her 
 mother this motherless girl poured out to 
 Tonty. It was a confession more sacred 
 than any made to a priest. Boisrondet put 
 his hands upon his ears. 
 
 Ruddy embers shone on Father Membre 
 and L Espe rance, Recollet s capote and ser 
 vant s shaggy dress rising and falling in 
 unison throughout the night ; for the watch 
 ers did not wake them at all. 
 
 When Father Bibourde rose up again 
 to look at Tonty, Boisrondet crept to his 
 place and sat by the delirious girl s head. 
 The priest said nothing, and accepted the 
 change. It became his care to keep the 
 little Renault from jarring her wound with 
 her groping hands. 
 
 Boisrondet s eyes may have pierced the 
 floating veil of delirium to her consciousness. 
 The smile of vague happiness which she gave 
 the priest turned to a look of solicitude. 
 
150 THE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 " Sieur de Boisrondet, did I hurt you? " 
 she cried. 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " Forgive the blow." 
 
 "I was grateful for it," muttered Bois 
 rondet. 
 
 Still his heart-broken eyes pierced the 
 pavilion of her gladness, and she cried out 
 again : 
 
 " Sieur de Boisrondet, did I hurt you ? " 
 
 " No, no, no ! " 
 
 " Forgive the blow." 
 
 " O saints in heaven ! " the man groaned, 
 holding his head in his hands. 
 
 "How good is God," said the little Re 
 nault, returning to her heights, " who made 
 all his creatures so happy ! My Monsieur 
 de Tonty, my Monsieur de Tonty " So 
 she moved on through the clouds. 
 
 Tonty awoke at daybreak and stood up 
 weak and giddy, looking first at the pallet 
 on the other side of the sylvan hearth. 
 A stiff small figure was covered there, 
 and Boisrondet was stretched beside it face 
 downward on the ground. 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 151 
 
 " The poor little lad ! " groaned Tonty, 
 coming down on one knee and lifting a 
 blanket edge. "When did he die, Bois- 
 rondet ? " 
 
 Without moving Boisrondet said from 
 the ground : 
 
 " She died not long after midnight." 
 
 Her face in its pillow of black curls was 
 a marble dream of gladness. She had the 
 wonderful beauty of dead children, and 
 Tonty saw her as a dead child rather than 
 as a woman triumphant in flawless happi 
 ness, whose uninhabited face smiled on at 
 her wondrous fate. She had seen her hero 
 in his splendor without man-cruelty and pet- 
 tiness. The world had been a good place to 
 the little Eenault. 
 
 Father Ribourde had no candles to put 
 at her head and feet, but he knelt saying 
 prayers for her peace. 
 
 The day was chill and sullen, and occa 
 sional spatters of sleet glazed twigs and 
 grass tufts. Father Membre and L Espe- 
 rance silently took the labors of the camp 
 
152 TEE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 upon themselves. They dug roots to add 
 to the scant breakfast, and brought fuel. 
 Boisrondet made no response to priest or 
 commandant, but lay on the ground without 
 eating until the slate-gray afternoon began 
 to thicken. 
 
 " Boisrondet," then said Tonty, stooping, 
 and taking his subaltern by the shoulder, 
 " the Indians left us not a tool, as you 
 know. We cannot hollow out any grave 
 which would be deep enough to keep the 
 little lad from the wolves. * 
 
 Boisrondet shivered as if he were begin 
 ning to feel the sleet in his hair and on the 
 little Renault s blanket. 
 
 " We shall have to sink him in the river, 
 Boisrondet. Be a man." 
 
 Boisrondet rose directly, with fierce readi 
 ness to do the thing at once if it must be 
 done. He did not look at her again, but 
 sat under a tree with his back turned while 
 preparations were made. 
 
 L Esperance brought many stones, and 
 the priests ballasted and wound the body in 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 153 
 
 the best blankets the camp afforded, tying 
 the packet well with buffalo thongs. They 
 placed it in the canoe, and Tonty called 
 Boisrondet. 
 
 Both Recollets stood on the bank repeat 
 ing prayers while Tonty and Boisrondet 
 pulled up against the current. The river 
 was a dull monster, but a greedy one, reach 
 ing for its prey through the boat s seams. 
 
 "Will this do, Boisrondet?" appealed 
 Tonty. 
 
 44 Pull a little farther, monsieur. I can 
 not bear it yet." 
 
 Tonty with his single-handed stroke con 
 tinued to help hold their boat against the 
 current. 
 
 Three times they pulled up-stream and 
 floated down past the friars. 
 
 " Will this do, Boisrondet ? " twice re 
 peated Tonty. Twice the answer was : 
 
 " Monsieur, I cannot bear it yet." 
 
 The commandant avoided gazing at Bois 
 rondet s misery. His fraternal gaze dwelt 
 on the blanket chrysalis of the little Ke- 
 
154 THE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 nault. He would have given his remain 
 ing hand which meant his future career 
 to bring back the boy s life, but even to 
 his large sympathy Boisrondet s passion was 
 like a sealed house. It had been impossible 
 for him to grasp the feminine quality in 
 that lad s black curls and flower-fresh face. 
 
 " My poor Boisrondet," he urged, " we 
 must have the courage to lift the little lad 
 and do for him what he would do for us." 
 
 " Lad ! lad ! " burst out the other with 
 scoffing. " Always lad to you the sweet 
 est woman that ever drew breath ! " His 
 voice broke down, and he distorted his face, 
 sobbing aloud. 
 
 Tonty broke down and sobbed with him. 
 They arose with a desperate impulse to 
 gether, the man she loved and the other 
 man who loved her, lifted their heavy bur 
 den, poised, swung, and threw it out upon 
 the water. It smote the river and sank, 
 and their canoe reeled with the splashing 
 and surging of a disturbed current. Tonty 
 staggered and sat down gripping the sides 
 
THE LITTLE RENAULT. 155 
 
 of the boat, feeling his wound start afresh. 
 Nature s old sigh swept across the wind- 
 harp of treetops. The river composed 
 itself and again moved steadily, perhaps 
 rocking the packet in some pebbly hollow, 
 perhaps passing it on towards the Missis 
 sippi, And the priests voices concluded 
 their monotone for the dead. 
 
 " Heaven give him sweet rest in this 
 river of the Illinois ! " uttered Tonty. But 
 Boisrondet said nothing more. 
 
 When the canoe touched the bank Bois 
 rondet took his gun and hurried into the 
 woods. He did not come back at night 
 fall or in the morning. The others at first 
 respected his quest after comfort. Then 
 they searched for him, discharging their 
 guns, and calling. Yet one more day they 
 waited for him, the weather s increasing 
 bitterness threatening instant winter. 
 
 When they finally broke camp the worth 
 less boat had to be abandoned. Each man 
 made up his little pack of necessaries. The 
 little Eenault lay in the Illinois. Either 
 
156 THE LITTLE RENAULT. 
 
 Boisrondet s scalp hung before some savage 
 wigwam, or he had hidden himself to die in 
 the depths of the wilderness. They could 
 only take their fate in their hands as we 
 must all do and toil on towards the great 
 lake. 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY