Part 6 (1/2)

But affection has displayed itself in another form. Not a few of the graves are enclosed by a little fence, painted beautifully white, and the graves are adorned with wild roses which scatter their fragrance and leaves over the place where rests the mouldered dust beneath. When I first entered this sacred enclosure, and trod through the high tangled gra.s.s that grew here, I felt at each step that I was treading on holy ground. I was led to a spot where rested the mortal part of one whose image came up before me with the vividness of living reality. The long gra.s.s had grown, and become matted over her grave! Fifteen years had elapsed since I had looked upon that dear form, that rested in unbreathing stillness below. During this period I had pa.s.sed through many trying scenes and often drank deep into the cup of sorrow. And now with the image of this dear departed one, all of ”life's troubled dream” rose up before me with a power that paralyzed every effort I made to subdue or control my feelings. I then _felt_ and wept like a child. Why should I not have done so? I was standing on the grave of the sister of my childhood, whose existence and mine for many years had run along together as though our being had been woven in the same web. I remembered how when I was but a very little child, she led me to the country school--how we wandered together in playful glee on the green bank of the Housatonic, and her hand gathered for me the wild flowers that grew there. I remembered how in the wild buoyancy of childhood we strolled together through the orchard, and gathered fruit from a favourite tree?

With what kind looks and affectionate greeting our dear mother met us when we returned from such a ramble. And could I then fail to remember the sad hour when that dear sainted mother gasping in the agonies of death bade us all a long farewell? When a mother's kind eye no longer gazed upon me, was it not natural that my heart should turn with deeper and stronger affection to the sister of my childhood? But where was she? She no more came, bounding along with sparkling eyes, and flowing locks, and animated features at the call of her brother. There she lay sleeping, oh how silently, how profoundly in the grave! The solitude and stillness of the mighty prairie were around me. No mortal was present to witness or intermeddle with the feelings or overflowings of my heart, save him who recognised in this heaped hillock of earth the resting place of the loved one of his heart--the wife of his youth--the mother of his children.

Together we bowed down there in silent grief? Our hearts were so full that we could do nothing but mingle our tears together over that sacred spot, which I would again travel all the way from the Atlantic to the Mississippi to look upon! A thought full of light and glory, however, darted across my mind as I bent over that grave. I remembered that this dear sister had closed her eyes upon this mortal scene, full of faith, full of trust in Christ, and of calm resignation to his blessed will. I recollected the words of my Saviour, and his promise to raise the dead. This recollection chased away my tears, and brought a flood of heavenly radiance down upon that grave. I said, ”my sister shall rise again.” ”The Lord Jesus will bring her with him.” This is his promise.

The last time I visited this grave, I brought away a little flower that bloomed on it. It has already faded--but that glorious body which Christ will give to that dear mouldered form will never fade, but bloom on in immortal youth, through the unending ages of eternity. Oh, how happy shall we be, when we have pa.s.sed all these gloomy scenes that now surround us, and stand in the midst of that ”land where the inhabitants no more say I am sick”--when we shall have done with sin, and behold the Redeemer in all his glory! May the Lord safely bring us there.

CHAPTER X.

ILLINOIS AND THE LAKES.

Lead mines--Indian treaty--Ride to Chicago--Vast prairies--The stricken family--Amusing Adventures--Chicago--Milwaukie--Mackinaw--Indian encampment.

We spent one day during the present week in pa.s.sing through the mining country to visit several of the diggings in Wisconsin, and around Galena, and also the smelting furnaces, where the mineral is extracted from the ore and cast into pigs. The country through which we pa.s.sed was one continued series of rolling prairies. It was perfectly enchanting to see what a perfect flower garden was before us wherever we went.

We descended a mine which had been sunk about one hundred feet. The lead runs in veins either due north and south, or west and east. Veins frequently cross each other at right angles. If it is a north and south vein, and a good one--and crosses an east and west vein, it becomes inferior from that point, and the other a.s.sumes a superior character, and usually is the best lead. The way the miners dig the lead is to pierce down perpendicularly till they get to the bottom of the sheet--then take the base out and dig upwards. The lead is usually wedged in between two ledges of rocks, filling up the crevice, which runs down from fifty to one hundred feet. It is frequently wedged in so tight that the rocks have to be blasted to loosen it. I went down about fifty feet where they were at work, and then pa.s.sed along in a horizontal direction, about eighty feet, where the miners were knocking out the lead in the fissures in the rocks over their heads. We loitered around the mines till the decline of day. The shades of evening gathered over us before we had crossed the last prairie on our way to Galena. The moon was just climbing above the horizon, when a prairie wolf darted across our path, as though scared by the sound of our carriage wheels, but having run a few rods, turned around to look to see who were the intruders upon his domain.

An Indian treaty is about negotiating at St. Peters, and a steamer started from here a few days since to carry up a party who desire to be present at this gathering of the wild men, and to visit the majestic and stupendous scenery around St. Anthony's Falls. I had fully intended to have been one of the party, but on the eve of starting I felt myself forced for want of time to forego the excursion.

_The Steamer James Madison, Wednesday Evening, June 19th._

At early dawn, on Monday last, we crossed Fevre river, and started for Chicago in an open lumber wagon, 'ycleped a stage. Taking our trunks for seats, we determined we would make the best of every thing, and if possible keep up good spirits, while we learned the manner in which people travel through new countries. Our journey, though attended with no little fatigue, was like a walk over the rosied path of pleasure, compared with a jaunt of which Bishop Kemper gave me an account. He had made an appointment somewhere in the interior of Indiana, where it was necessary for him to be at a given day, and had undertaken to pa.s.s over Illinois from St. Louis to that point by land. He was overtaken by rain which continued a day or two: the streams became swollen, and the roads, often for miles, completely overflown. All this time he was obliged to ride in an open wagon, the bottom boards of which were loose, and often slipping out, rendering it necessary for him every now and then to get out, and stand in the mud and water, till the rickety wagon could be again brought into a state of temporary order. During the last part of his journey he rode all night with the rain pouring down upon him, and the horses sometimes fording deep creeks--sometimes plunging into sloughs, and then wading for miles through the water which had overflowed the road. The office of a missionary Bishop at the west, if he does his duty, and throws himself with all his heart into the work, is no sinecure.

Our course from Galena, for the first thirty miles, was through beautiful oak openings, and over a rolling prairie. After this, on nearly to Chicago, our path lay through a magnificent, level prairie country. The wide sea of gra.s.s around us was now and then broken by a grove, springing up with luxuriance and beauty amid the treeless tract of country that stretched around on every side. These groves are points of great interest, and are spoken of by the spa.r.s.ely scattered inhabitants of northern Illinois, as we speak of cities and towns. The most beautiful of those which we pa.s.sed were Buffalo, Inlet, and Paw Paw groves, around or near which were scenes of ma.s.sacre and slaughter during the Black Hawk war.

As no one can conceive the sensation awakened by being out of sight of land at sea, till he actually stands on the deck of a vessel, that is ploughing her way through the trackless world of waters that stretch interminably around him, and strains his eye in vain to catch a view of one single fading outline of the far off sh.o.r.e--so no one can conceive the emotion that rises up in the bosom of the traveller as he stands on the broad prairie, and sees the horizon settling down upon one wide sea of waving gra.s.s, and can behold around him neither stone, nor stump, nor bush, nor tree, nor hill, nor house. These vast prairies, though bearing a luxuriant growth of gra.s.s, would impress one with a sense of desolateness, were they not beautified with flowers, and animated with the songs and the sight of the feathered tribes. The view of the prairie, as it stretches off before you, often appears like a perfect flower garden. Though we were too late to see these productions in their rich vernal beauty, yet often they stood strewn around us on every side as far as the eye could reach, spreading out their rich and brilliant petals of every colour and hue. An intelligent lady told me that in a single walk over the corner of a prairie, she gathered for a bouquet forty different kinds of flowers; and another informed me that she had been able to gather one hundred and twenty different kinds. Though the music wafted along over these luxuriant expanses of earth be usually not so melodious nor varied as that to which the woodlands echo, there is something very animating in the wheeling of the plover, the chirping of the robin, and the fluttering of the wings of a flock of prairie hens, started up at every half mile of your journey. And then occasionally we saw n.o.ble herds of cattle feeding over these vast plains. Such large, and fat, and n.o.ble-looking oxen and cows, I never before beheld, as I saw grazing amid the luxuriant prairies of Illinois.

There is no fence to stay them in their course:--they range where they choose amid the ten thousands of acres that stretch unenclosed around them.

I have already intimated that this part of Illinois is as yet but thinly populated. It is rapidly filling up but for some years the first settlers will have to endure many hards.h.i.+ps, and submit to many privations and sacrifices, of which we can scarcely form an idea. The following fact will serve to ill.u.s.trate this remark. While on our way to Chicago, as we stopped on one occasion to change horses, I went in and sat down in the only house in the place. It was a comfortable log-cabin, and all nature looked so bright and sunny without, I was hardly prepared for demure and melancholy looks within: and yet the moment I entered, I saw in the countenance of the good lady of the cabin that her heart was ill at ease. She looked so forlorn and full of gloom, I determined to enter into conversation with her and if possible elicit the cause of her depression. After a variety of inquiries, she was drawn out to give the following sketch of herself, which I will put down as nearly as possible in her own words.

”We came into this country from western New York several years since. We have never failed to be amply remunerated for our cultivation of the soil.

In a temporal point of view we have increased in goods. But our children have never been to school a day since we have been here. We used to go to meeting every Sabbath, but here often for months there is no such thing known as public wors.h.i.+p. A while ago, there was a minister that used to come once in three weeks, and preach about four miles from this. But now he is dead, and we have no preaching at all. We have no ministers and no physicians. What made me more contented to reside here, was that my oldest daughter was married and lived my nearest neighbour, about two miles from this. She had three lovely and promising children, in whom all our hearts were bound up. But the grave now covers them! They were all cut down one after another about six months ago by the scarlet fever. We could'nt get any physician to see them, and they all died within ten days of each other.

And then we had to carry them ourselves to the grave. We put them into the ground in silence. There was no one to lift up the voice of prayer.”

Here the good woman seemed choked in her utterance. She wiped her eyes and ceased speaking for a moment. I remained silent, and soon she proceeded.

”My daughter laid her loss very much to heart. She never after the death of her babes wore a bright countenance. About ten days ago she was confined.

Herself and her infant are dead! We buried them about three days since. She had no physician to attend upon her, for there was none within _thirty_ miles. She had no minister to speak to her words of heavenly consolation, for there are none near here. Her husband has a good farm, and the crops look well; but what is all this to him, now that his wife and children are all gone? He appears desolate and broken-hearted.”

Having listened to this touching story, I could well understand why the aspect of gloom sat upon her countenance, and while I endeavoured in a few words to direct her thoughts to Him who was ”appointed to bind up the broken-hearted, and to comfort all that mourn,” I was led to think of the unnumbered blessings and privileges that we who live on the Atlantic border enjoy, for which we feel little or no emotions of grat.i.tude. How unspeakable are our religious privileges! And yet how little are they appreciated by the great ma.s.s of the people! Will not G.o.d one day visit for these things?

In our journey we had some singular and rather amusing adventures. We found all along at our log inns, for our refreshment, substantial food, bacon and beans, or fried pork and potatoes, and if we were too dyspeptic to eat these, we could fast, which is sometimes useful. But at night we frequently found ourselves placed under more embarra.s.sing circ.u.mstances. A single instance will serve to ill.u.s.trate a number of a.n.a.logous cases. I select the second night after leaving Galena. It is after nine o'clock. The strip of moon that is visible emits a few feeble rays. The stars, half obscured, glow faintly in the heavens. Our course is still onward through the boundless prairie. In the distance may be seen the faint outline of a grove. We hope to find there a resting place for the night. As we approach it, we find it is a cl.u.s.ter of trees that grow on either side of Somonauk Creek. Our driver has already plunged his horses into the cool waters of the creek. The farther bank is gained. Our course now is beneath the n.o.ble elms that hang drooping over the creek, and spread abroad their branches forming a thick and dark shade over the road. We see in the distance the smoke eddying up amid the trees. It is the place where we are to spend the night--a log cabin, before the door of which is kindled a fire, half smothered with dirt and chips, whose eddying currents of smoke as they are swept into the house by the evening breeze expel the swarms of musquitoes that for several hours had been making acquaintance with us.

When the weary traveller reaches his resting-place for the night, it is a great comfort to have a bed and room by himself to which he can retire and seek repose. But this is a luxury not to be expected usually by the western traveller. They have here what is playfully called ”_The Potter's field_,”

a place in these log taverns in which they put strangers--a room designed as a dormitory, in which all travellers, men, women and children are placed to lodge! The house which we had reached at Somonauk Creek had a place of this sort. It was the only room in the house save the kitchen. Two stage loads had already arrived, and other travellers were coming in. I told my friend B---- that we must try to secure a bed while we could. In this Potter's field they gave us a comfortable corner with a straw bed on which to stretch ourselves. We were among the earliest to seek our repose.

Fortunately, there was one bed enshrouded with curtains, which was a.s.signed to a gentleman from Vermont and his newly married bride, whom he was bringing to reside at the west.--They went on stowing the beds with occupants, and spreading the floor with couches, till _fourteen_ persons were disposed of, and then they found that every foot of ground was occupied. The landlord appeared to be full of the milk of human kindness.