The Real America in Romance, Volume 10 | Page 6

The shoes were in a box and finally
brought out.
A great disappointment was in store for Fernando. His shoes were too
small. The father had lost the string and purchased the shoes "by
guess." Fernando tried hard to squeeze his foot into the little green
coverings; but they were so small and there was danger of bursting
them. Father had to go back to the land office in a day or two and
would exchange them. He rode off on the white mare, "old Betts," and
on his return had a pair of shoes large enough for Fernando.
They were awkward at first and cramped, pinched and galled his feet.
His mother made him a suit of clothes of "blue drilling" and next
Sabbath the whole family got into the wagon and drove off eight miles
to Bear Creek to "meeting."
The people of the west were as thorough a combination and mixture of
all nations, characters, languages, conditions and opinions as can well
be imagined. Scarcely a nation in Europe, or a State in the union, that
did not furnish emigrants for the great west. The greater mass from
Europe were of the humble classes, who came from hunger, poverty
and oppression. They found themselves here with the joy of
shipwrecked mariners cast on the untenanted woods, and instantly
became cheered with the hope of being able to build up a family and a
fortune from new elements.

The Puritan and the planter, the German, the Briton, the Frenchman,
the Irishman and the Swede, each with his peculiar prejudices and local
attachments, and all the complicated and interwoven tissue of
sentiments, feelings and thoughts, that country, kindred and home,
indelibly combined with the web of youthful existence, settled down
beside each other. The merchant, mechanic and farmer found
themselves placed by necessity in the same society. Men must cleave to
their kind and must be dependent upon each other. Pride and jealousy
give way to the natural yearnings of the human heart for society. They
began to rub off mutual prejudices. One took a step and then the other.
They met half way and embraced; and the society thus newly organized
and constituted was more liberal, enlarged, unprejudiced, and of course
more affectionate and pleasant than a society of people of like birth and
character, who would bring all their early prejudices as a common
stock, to be transmitted as an inheritance to posterity.
Depending only on God and nature, the simple backwoodsman came to
regard God as his only master and, like the Swiss patriot, would bow
his knee to none other. Men were left free to adopt such religious views
and tenets as they chose, and the generous laws protected every man
alike in his religious opinions. Ministers of the gospel and priests,
being presumed to be devoted to humanity, charity and general
benevolence, were precluded by many State constitutions from any
participation in the legislative authority, and their compensation
depended wholly upon the voluntary aid of those among whom they
labored in charity and love. In the wide district where the Stevens lived,
the country was too sparsely settled to support a stationed minister, and
"preaching" was a luxury. Unsustained by the rigid precepts of law in
any privileges, perquisites, fixed revenue, prescribed by reverence or
authority, except such as was voluntarily acknowledged, the clergy
found that success depended upon the due cultivation of popular talents.
Zeal for the great cause mixed, perhaps, with a spice of earthly
ambition, the innate sense of emulation and laudable pride, a desire of
distinction among their cotemporaries and brethren, prompted them to
seek popularity, and to study all the arts and means of winning the
popular favor.

Travelling from month to month through dark forests, with such ample
time for deep thought, as they ambled slowly along the lonesome horse
path or unfrequented roads, they naturally acquired a pensive and
romantic turn of thought and expression, which is often favorable to
eloquence. Hence their preaching was of the highly popular cast, such
as immortalized Peter Cartwright. The first aim was to excite the
ministers; hence, too, excitement, or, in religious parlance,
"awakenings," or "revivals" became common. Living remote from each
other, and spending much of their time in domestic solitude in vast
forests or wide spreading prairies, the "appointment" for preaching was
looked upon as a gala-day, or a pleasing change, which brought
together the auditors from remote points, and gratified a feeling of
curiosity, which prompted the pioneers to associate and interchange
cordial congratulations.
As yet no meeting house had been erected in all the region where the
Stevens lived. The meeting on Bear Creek was at the home of Mr.
Moore, who was the happy possessor of a "double log cabin." One
cabin or room was cleared of