Children of the Market Place | Page 9

I seemed to be growing more listless. But I could
not help but note the prairie: the limitless expanse of heavy grass, here
and there brightened by brilliant blossoms. All the houses along the
way were built of logs. The inhabitants were a large breed for the most
part, tall and angular, dressed sometimes in buckskin, coonskin caps.

Now and then I saw a hunter carrying a long rifle. The wild geese were
flying....
Some of the passengers were dressed in jeans; others in linsey-woolsey
dyed blue. As we stopped along the way I had an opportunity to study
the faces of the Illinoisians. Their jaws were thin, their eyes, deeply
sunk, had a far-away melancholy in them. They were swarthy. Their
voices were keyed to a drawl. They sprawled, were free and easy in
their movements. They told racy stories, laughed immoderately,
chewed tobacco. Some of the passengers were drinking whisky, which
was procured anywhere along the way, at taverns or stores. The stage
rolled from side to side. The driver kept cracking his whip, but without
often touching the horses, which kept an even pace hour after hour. We
had to stop for meals. But the heavy food turned my stomach. I could
not relish the cornbread, the bacon or ham, the heavy pie. When we
reached La Salle, where I was to get the boat, I found myself very
fatigued, aching all through my flesh and bones, and with a dreamy,
heavy sensation about my eyes.
The country had become more hilly. And now the bluffs along the
Illinois River rose with something of the majesty of the Palisades of the
Hudson. The river itself was not nearly so broad or noble, but it was not
without beauty.... More oblivious of my surroundings than I had been
before, I boarded _The Post Boy_, a stern wheeler, and in a few
minutes she blew the most musical of whistles and we were off....
The vision of hills and prairies around me harmonized with the dreamy
sensations that filled my heavy head and tired body. I sat on deck and
viewed it all. I did not go to the table. The very smell of the food
nauseated me. I do not remember how I got to bed, nor how long I was
there. I remember being brought to by a negro porter who told me that
we were approaching Bath where I was to get off. I heard him say to
another porter: "That boy is sure sick." And then a tall spare man came
to me, told me that he was taking the stage as I was, and was going
almost to Jacksonville, and that he would see me through. He helped
me in the stage and we started. I remember nothing further....
I became conscious of parti-colored ribbons fluttering from my body as

if blown by a rapid breeze from a central point of fixture in my breast.
Was it the life going out of me, or the life clinging to me in spite of the
airs of eternity? My eyes opened. I saw standing at the foot of the bed,
an octoroon about fourteen years of age. She was staring at me with
anxious and sympathetic eyes, in which there was also a light of terror.
I tried to lift my hands. I could not. I was unable to turn my body. I was
completely helpless. I looked about the room. It was small, papered in a
figure of blue. Two windows stared me in the face. "Where am I?" I
asked. "Yo's in Miss Spurgeon's house ... yo's in good hands." At that
moment Miss Spurgeon entered. She was slender, graceful. Her hair
was very black. Her eyes gray and hazel. Her nose delicate and
exquisitely shaped. She put her hand on my brow and in a voice which
had a musical quaver, she said: "I believe the fever has left you. Yes, it
has. Would you like something to eat?" I was famished and said: "Yes,
something, if you please." She went out, returning with some gruel.
Turning to the octoroon she said: "Will you feed him, Zoe?" And Zoe
came to the chair by the bed and fed me, for I could not lift a hand.
Then I fell into a refreshing sleep. I had been ill of typhoid. Had I
contracted it from the oysters, or from food on the steamer? But I had
been saved. Miss Spurgeon had refused to let the doctor bleed me. She
believed that careful nursing would suffice, and she had brought me
through. But I had a relapse. I was allowed to eat what I craved. I
indulged my inordinate hunger, and came nearer to death than with the
fever itself. But from this I rallied by the