Children of the Market Place | Page 8

through me. Was this new-found acquaintance before me
a friend of my father's? It turned out to be so. But why "poor fellow"?

Clayton was not over thirty-two, therefore my father's junior by some
years. How well had they known each other? We went to dinner
together. We were served with bacon and greens, strong coffee, apple
pie. It was all very rough and strange. But Clayton told me many things.
He knew the lawyer Brooks who had written me. Brooks was a reliable
man. But when I pressed Clayton for details about my father he grew
strangely reticent. I began to feel depressed, overcome by a foreboding
of wonder.
After dinner we separated. Clayton had errands to do preparatory to
leaving and I went forth to see the town. What a spectacle of undulating
board sidewalks built over swales of sand, running from hillock to
hillock! What shacks used for stores, trading offices, marts for real
estate! Truly it was a place as if built in a night, relieved but little by
buildings of a more substantial sort.... Drinking saloons were
everywhere. I heard music and entered one of these resorts. There was
a barroom in front and a dancing room in the rear. The place was filled
with sailors, steamboat captains and pilots, traders, roisterers, clerks,
hackmen, and undescribed characters. Women mingled with the men
and drank with them. They dressed with conspicuous abandon, in loud
colors. Their faces were rouged. They ran in and out of the dance room
with escorts or without, stood at the bar for drinks, entwined their arms
with those of the men. In the dance room a band was playing. A man
with a tambourine added to the hilarity of the music. It was a wild
spectacle, unlike anything I had ever seen. No one accosted me. I could
feel a different spirit in the crowd from that I had seen on the boats or
in New York. There was no talk of politics, negroes, force bills. They
did not seem to know or to care about these things. It was a wild
assemblage, but without meanness or malice. They were occupied
solely with a spirit of carnival, of dancing, drinking, of talk about the
arrival of the _Illinois_; about the price of land and the great future of
Chicago. "It's as plain as day," said a man at the bar. "Here we are at
the foot of the lake. The trade comes our way. The steamboats come
here from the East. Look at the country! No such farm country in the
world! Why, in twenty years this town will have a population of 20,000
people. It's bound to." How could it be? How could such a locality ever
be the seat of a city? So far from the East. And nothing here but wastes

of sand!
I left the place unnoticed and returned to the hotel. I sat down drearily
enough. The feeling that I was far from home, far even from the
civilization and the charm of New York came over me with depressing
effect. I began to wish that Clayton would appear. I had not decided to
accept his kindly offer. I must be off to-morrow. The air seemed
oppressive. Was it so warm? I put my hand to my brow. It was hot.
Perhaps I was not well. The trip I had just ended was after all
wearisome. I had not slept well some nights. I sensed that I was
fatigued. What would a ride of more than 200 miles on a pony do to me?
But on the other hand I had the alternative of 90 miles by stage. For the
first time I began to feel apprehension about the days ahead.
While I was thinking these matters over Clayton came in. He
supplemented my doubts by telling me that if I was not used to riding, a
journey of such length would make me lame; at least a little. I then
decided that I would take the stage, and the boat. The next morning,
promising to see me in Jacksonville and offering to befriend me in any
way he could, Clayton bestrode his pony and was off. In an hour I was
rolling in the stage toward the Illinois River....

CHAPTER VI
We were some hours getting through the sand. Then we came to hilly
country overgrown with oaks and some pines. Later the soil was rocky.
We skirted along a little river; and here and there I had my first view of
the prairie. The air above me was thrilling with the song of spring birds.
I did not know what they were. Some of them resembled the English
skylark in the habit of singing and soaring. But the note was different.
My head felt heavy.