CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
DRIVING ON TO THE CAPITAL
After passing the Missouri, and leaving the trail behind me, I somehow had a foreboding that I might be mistaken for a faker and looked upon as an adventurer, and I shrank from the ordeal. My hair had grown long on the trip across; my boots were somewhat the worse for wear, and my old-fashioned clothes (understood well enough by pioneers along the trail) were dilapidated. I was not the most presentable specimen for every sort of company. Already I had been compelled to say that I was not a "corn doctor" or any kind of doctor; that I did not have patent medicine to sell; and that I was not soliciting contributions to support the expedition.
The first of March, 1907, found me on the road going eastward from Indianapolis. I had made up my mind that Washington should be the objective point. For my main purpose—to secure the building of a memorial highway—Congress, I felt, would be a better field to work in than out on the hopelessly long stretch of the trail, where one man's span of life would certainly pass before the work could be accomplished. But I thought it well to make a campaign of education to get the work before the general public so that Congress might know about it. Therefore a route was laid out to occupy the time until the first of December, just before Congress would again assemble. The route lay through Indianapolis, Dayton, Cleveland, Columbus, Buffalo, Albany, New York, Trenton, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, to Washington.
For the most part I received a warm welcome all along the route. Dayton treated me generously. Mayor Badger of Columbus wrote giving me the freedom of the city; and Mayor Tom Johnson wrote to his chief of police to "treat Mr. Meeker as the guest of the city of Cleveland," which was done.
At Buffalo, a benefit performance for one of the hospitals, in the shape of a circus, was in preparation. A part of the elaborate program was an attack by Indians on an emigrant train, the "Indians" being representative young men of the city. At this juncture I arrived in the city, and was besought to go and represent the train, for which they would pay me.
"No, not for pay," I said, "but I will go."
So there was quite a realistic show in the ring that afternoon and evening, and the hospital received more than a thousand dollars' benefit.
Near Oneida some one said that I had better take to the towpath on the canal to save distance and to avoid going over the hill. It was against the law, he added, but everybody did it and no one would object. So, when we came to the forks of the road, I followed the best-beaten track and was soon traveling along on the level, hard, but narrow way, the towpath. All went well that day.
We were not so fortunate the next day, however, when a boat with three men, two women, and three long-eared mules was squarely met, the mules being on the towpath. The mules took fright, got into a regular mixup, broke the harness, and went up the towpath at a two-forty gait.
As I had walked into Oneida the night before, I did not see the sight or hear the war of words that followed. The men ordered Marden to "take that outfit off the towpath." His answer was that he could not do it without upsetting the wagon. The men said if he couldn't they would do it quick enough. They started toward the wagon, evidently intent upon executing their threat, meanwhile swearing at the top of their voices while the women scolded in chorus, one of them fairly shrieking.
My old muzzle-loading rifle that we had carried across the Plains lay handy. When the men started toward him, Marden picked up the rifle to show fight and called on the dog Jim to take hold of the men. As he raised the gun to use it as a club, one of the boatmen threw up his hands, bawling at the top of his voice, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" He forgot to mix in oaths and slunk out of sight behind the wagon. The others also drew back. Jim showed his teeth, and a truce followed. With but little inconvenience the mules were taken off the path, and the ox team was driven past.
The fun of it was that the gun that had spread such consternation hadn't been loaded for more than twenty-five years. The sight of it alone was enough for the three stalwart braves of the canal.
It took New York to cap the climax—to bring me all sorts of experiences, sometimes with the police, sometimes with the gaping crowds, and sometimes at the City Hall.
Brown Bros.
Mayor McClellan was not in the city when I arrived; but the acting mayor said that while he could not grant me a permit to come in, he would have the police commissioner instruct his men not to molest me. Either the instructions were not general enough, or else the men paid no attention; for when I got down as far as 161st Street on Amsterdam Avenue, a policeman interfered and ordered my driver to take the team to the police station, which he very properly refused to do.
It was after dark and I had just gone around the corner to engage quarters for the night when this occurred. Returning, I saw the young policeman attempt to move the team, but as he didn't know how, they wouldn't budge a peg, whereupon he arrested my driver and took him away.
Another policeman tried to coax me to drive the team down to the police station. I said, "No, sir, I will not." He couldn't drive the team to the station, and I wouldn't, and so there we were. To arrest me would make matters worse, for the team would be left on the street without any one to care for it. Finally the officer got out of the way, and I drove the team to the stable. He followed, with a large crowd tagging after him. Soon the captain of the precinct arrived, called his man off, and ordered my driver released.
It appeared that there was an ordinance against allowing cattle to be driven on the streets of New York. Of course, this was intended to apply to loose cattle, but the policemen interpreted it to mean any cattle, and they had the clubs to enforce their interpretation. I was in the city and couldn't get out without subjecting myself to arrest, according to their view of the law; and in fact I didn't want to get out. I wanted to drive down Broadway from one end to the other, and I did, a month later.
All hands said nothing short of an ordinance by the board of aldermen would clear the way; so I tackled the aldermen. The New York Tribune sent a man over to the City Hall to intercede for me; the New York Herald did the same thing. And so it came about that the aldermen passed an ordinance granting me the right of way for thirty days, and also endorsed my work. I thought my trouble was over when that ordinance was passed. Not so; the mayor was absent, and the acting mayor could not sign an ordinance until after ten days had elapsed. The city attorney came in and said the aldermen had exceeded their authority, as they could not legally grant a special privilege.
Then the acting mayor said he would not sign the ordinance; but if I would wait until the next meeting of the aldermen, if they did not rescind the ordinance, it would be certified, as he would not veto it. Considering that no one was likely to test the legality of the ordinance, he thought I would be safe in acting as though it were legal. Just thirty days from the time I had the bother with the policemen, and having incurred two hundred and fifty dollars of extra expense, I drove down Broadway from 161st Street to the Battery, without getting into any serious scrape, except with one automobilist who became angered, but afterwards was "as good as pie."
Thirty days satisfied me with New York. The crowds were so great that congestion of traffic always followed my presence, and I would be compelled to move. One day when I went to City Hall Park to have my team photographed with the Greeley statue, I got away only by the help of the police, and even then with great difficulty.
In Wall Street, New York City.
A trip across Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn was also made, and then, two days before leaving the city, I came near to meeting a heavy loss. Somehow I got sandwiched in on the East Side of New York in the congested district of the foreign quarter and at nightfall drove into a stable, put the oxen in the stalls and, as usual, the dog Jim in the wagon. The next morning Jim was gone. The stableman said he had left the wagon a few moments after I had and had been stolen. The police accused the stablemen of being parties to the theft, in which I think they were right.
Money could not buy that dog. He was an integral part of the expedition: always on the alert; always watchful of the wagon during my absence, and always willing to mind what I bade him do. He had had more adventures on this trip than any other member of the outfit. First he was tossed over a high brush by the ox Dave; then, shortly after, he was pitched headlong over a barbed wire fence by an irate cow. Next came a fight with a wolf; following this, came a narrow escape from a rattlesnake in the road. Also, a trolley car ran on to him, rolling him over and over again until he came out as dizzy as a drunken man. I thought he was a "goner" that time for sure, but he soon straightened up. Finally, in the streets of Kansas City, he was run over by a heavy truck while fighting with another dog. The other dog was killed outright, while Jim came near to having his neck broken. He lost one of his best fighting teeth and had several others broken. I sent him to a veterinary surgeon, and curiously enough he made no protest while having the broken teeth repaired or extracted.
There was no other way to find Jim than to offer a reward. I did this, and feel sure I paid twenty dollars to one of the parties to the theft. The fellow was brazen enough, also, to demand pay for keeping him. That was the time when I got up and talked pointedly.
But I had my faithful dog back, and I kept him more closely by me while I was making the rest of my tour. Six years later it chanced that I lost Jim. While we were waiting at a station, I let him out of the car for a few minutes. The train started unexpectedly and Jim was left behind. A good reward was offered for him, but nobody ever came to collect it.
Welcomed by President Roosevelt at the Capitol.