THE SETTLERS AT HOME.
A wide, shallow river, whose turbid waters were yellow with the freshets of early summer, shadowed by tall and sweeping cottonwoods and water-maples; shores gently sloping to the current, save where a tall and rocky bluff broke the prospect up stream; thickets of oaks, alders, sycamores, and persimmons––this was the scene on which the Illinois emigrants arrived, as they journeyed to their new home in the far West. On the north bank of the river, only a few hundred rods from the stream, was the log-cabin of Younkins. It was built on the edge of a fine bit of timber land, in which oaks and hickories were mingled with less valuable trees. Near by the cabin, and hugging closely up to it, was a thrifty field of corn and other garden stuff, just beginning to look promising of good things to come; and it was a refreshing sight here in the wilderness, for all around was the virgin forest and the unbroken prairie.
Younkins’s wife, a pale, sallow, and anxious-looking woman, and Younkins’s baby boy, chubby and open-eyed, welcomed the strangers without 86 much show of feeling other than a natural curiosity. With Western hospitality, the little cabin was found large enough to receive all the party, and the floor was covered with blankets and buffalo-skins when they lay down to sleep their first night near their future home in the country of the Republican Fork. The boys were very happy that their journey was at an end. They had listened with delight while Younkins told stories of buffalo and antelope hunting, of Indian “scares,” and of the many queer adventures of settlers on this distant frontier.
“What is there west of this?” asked Charlie, as the party were dividing the floor and the shallow loft among themselves for the night.
“Nothing but Indians and buffalo,” said Younkins, sententiously.
“No settlers anywhere?” cried Sandy, eagerly.
“The next settlement west of here, if you can call it a settlement, is Fort Kearney, on the other side of the Platte. From here to there, there isn’t so much as a hunter’s camp, so far as I know.” This was Younkins’s last word, as he tumbled, half dressed, into his bunk in one corner of the cabin. Sandy hugged his brother Charlie before he dropped off to sleep, and whispered in his ear, “We’re on the frontier at last! It’s just splendid!”
Next day, leaving their cattle and wagon at the Younkins homestead, the party, piloted by their 87 good-natured future neighbor, forded the Fork and went over into the Promised Land. The river was rather high as yet; for the snow, melting in the far-off Rocky Mountains as the summer advanced, had swollen all the tributaries of the Republican Fork, and the effects of the rise were to be seen far down on the Kaw. The newcomers were initiated into the fashion of the country by Younkins, who directed each one to take off all clothes but his shirt and hat. Then their garments were rolled up in bundles, each man and boy taking his own on his head, and wading deliberately into the water, the sedate Younkins being the leader.
It seemed a little dangerous. The stream was about one hundred rods wide, and the current was tolerably swift, swollen by the inrush of smaller streams above. The water was cold, and made an ominous swishing and gurgling among the underbrush that leaned into the margin of the river. In Indian file, Mr. Howell bringing up the rear, and keeping his eyes anxiously upon the lads before him, they all crossed in safety, Sandy, the shortest of the party, being unable to keep dry the only garment he had worn, for the water came well up under his arms.
“Well, that was funny, anyhow,” he blithely remarked, as he wrung the water out of his shirt, and, drying himself as well as he could, dressed and joined the rest of the party in the trip toward their future home. 88
Along the lower bank of the Republican Fork, where the new settlers now found themselves, the country is gently undulating. Bordering the stream they saw a dense growth of sycamores, cottonwoods, and birches. Some of these trees were tall and handsome, and the general effect on the minds of the newcomers was delightful. After they had emerged from the woods that skirted the river, they were in the midst of a lovely rolling prairie, the forest on the right; on their left was a thick growth of wood that marked the winding course of a creek which, rising far to the west, emptied into the Republican Fork at a point just below where the party had forded the stream. The land rose gradually from the point nearest the ford, breaking into a low, rocky bluff beyond at their right and nearest the river, a mile away, and rolling off to the southwest in folds and swales.
Just at the foot of the little bluff ahead, with a background of trees, was a log-cabin of hewn timber, weather-stained and gray in the summer sun, absolutely alone, and looking as if lost in this untrodden wild. Pointing to it, Younkins said, “That’s your house so long as you want it.”
The emigrants tramped through the tall, lush grass that covered every foot of the new Kansas soil, their eyes fixed eagerly on the log-cabin before them. The latch-string hung out hospitably from the door of split “shakes,” and the party entered without ado. Everything was just as Younkins 89 had last left it. Two or three gophers, disturbed in their foraging about the premises, fled swiftly at the entrance of the visitors, and a flock of blackbirds, settled around the rear of the house, flew noisily across the creek that wound its way down to the Fork.
The floor was of puncheons split from oak logs, and laid loosely on rough-hewn joists. These rattled as the visitors walked over them. At one end of the cabin a huge fireplace of stone laid in clay yawned for the future comfort of the new tenants. Near by, a rude set of shelves suggested a pantry, and a table, home-made and equally rude, stood in the middle of the floor. In one corner was built a bedstead, two sides of the house furnishing two sides of the work, and the other two being made by driving a stake into the floor, and connecting that by string-pieces to the sides of the cabin. Thongs of buffalo-hide formed the bottom of this novel bedstead. A few stools and short benches were scattered about. Near the fireplace long and strong pegs, driven into the logs, served as a ladder, on which one could climb to the low loft overhead. Two windows, each of twelve small panes of glass, let in the light, one from the end of the cabin, and one from the back opposite the door, which was in the middle of the front. Outside, a frail shanty of shakes leaned against the cabin, affording a sort of outdoor kitchen for summer use. 90
“So this is home,” said Charlie, gazing about. “What will mother say to this––if she ever gets here?”
“Well, we’ve taken a heap of comfort here, my old woman and me,” said Younkins, looking around quickly, and with an air of surprise. “It’s a mighty comfortable house; leastways we think so.”
Charlie apologized for having seemed to cast any discredit on the establishment. Only he said that he did not suppose that his mother knew much about log-cabins. As for himself, he would like nothing better than this for a home for a long time to come. “For,” he added, roguishly, “you know we have come to make the West, ‘as they the East, the homestead of the free.’”
Mr. Younkins looked puzzled, but made no remark. The younger boys, after taking in the situation and fondly inspecting every detail of the premises, enthusiastically agreed that nothing could be finer than this. They darted out of doors, and saw a corral, or pound, in which the cattle could be penned up, in case of need. There was a small patch of fallow ground, that needed only to be spaded up to become a promising garden-spot. Then, swiftly running to the top of the little bluff beyond, they gazed over the smiling panorama of emerald prairie, laced with woody creeks, level fields, as yet undisturbed by the ploughshare, blue, distant woods and yet more distant hills, among which, to the northwest, the broad river wound and disappeared. Westward, nothing was to be seen but the green and rolling swales of the virgin prairie, broken here and there by an outcropping of rock. And as they looked, a tawny, yellowish creature trotted out from behind a roll of the prairie, sniffed in the direction of the boys, and then stealthily disappeared in the wildness of the vast expanse.
The Settlers’ First Home in the Deserted Cabin.
“A coyote,” said Sandy, briefly. “I’ve seen them in Illinois. But I wish I had my gun now.” His wiser brother laughed as he told him that it would be a long day before a coyote could be got near enough to be knocked over with any shot-gun. The coyote, or prairie-wolf, is the slyest animal that walks on four legs.
The three men and Charlie returned to the further side of the Fork, and made immediate preparations to move all their goods and effects to the new home of the emigrants. Sandy and Oscar, being rather too small to wade the stream without discomfort, while it was so high, were left on the south bank to receive the returning party.
There the boys sat, hugely enjoying the situation, while the others were loading the wagon and yoking the oxen on the other side. The lads could hear the cheery sounds of the men talking, although they could not see them through the trees that lined the farther bank of the river. The flow of the stream made a ceaseless lapping against the brink of the shore. A party of catbirds quarrelled 92 sharply in the thicket hard by; quail whistled in the underbrush of the adjacent creek, and overhead a solitary eagle circled slowly around as if looking down to watch these rude invaders of the privacy of the dominion that had existed ever since the world began.
Hugging his knees in measureless content, as they sat in the grass by the river, Sandy asked, almost in a whisper, “Have you ever been homesick since we left Dixon, Oscar?”
“Just once, Sandy; and that was yesterday when I saw those nice-looking ladies at the fort out walking in the morning with their children. That was the first sight that looked like home since we crossed the Missouri.”
“Me, too,” answered Sandy, soberly. “But this is just about as fine as anything can be. Only think of it, Oscar! There are buffalo and antelopes within ten or fifteen miles of here. I know, for Younkins told me so. And Indians,––not wild Indians, but tame ones that are at peace with the whites. It seems too good to have happened to us; doesn’t it, Oscar?”
Once more the wagon was blocked up for a difficult ford, the lighter and more perishable articles of its load being packed into a dugout, or canoe hollowed from a sycamore log, which was the property of Younkins, and used only at high stages of the water. The three men guided the wagon and oxen across while Charlie, stripped to his 93 shirt, pushed the loaded dugout carefully over, and the two boys on the other bank, full of the importance of the event, received the solitary voyager, unloaded the canoe, and then transferred the little cargo to the wagon. The caravan took its way up the rolling ground of the prairie to the log-cabin. Willing hands unloaded and took into the house the tools, provisions, and clothes that constituted their all, and, before the sun went down, the settlers were at home.
While in Manhattan, they had supplied themselves with potatoes; at Fort Riley they had bought fresh beef from the sutler. Sandy made a glorious fire in the long-disused fireplace. His father soon had a batch of biscuits baking in the covered kettle, or Dutch oven, that they had brought with them from home. Charlie’s contribution to the repast was a pot of excellent coffee, the milk for which, an unaccustomed luxury, was supplied by the thoughtfulness of Mrs. Younkins. So, with thankful hearts, they gathered around their frugal board and took their first meal in their new home.
When supper was done and the cabin, now lighted by the scanty rays of two tallow candles, had been made tidy for the night, Oscar took out his violin, and, after much needed tuning, struck into the measure of wild, warbling “Dundee.” All hands took the hint, and all voices were raised once more to the words of Whittier’s song of the 94 “Kansas Emigrants.” Perhaps it was with new spirit and new tenderness that they sang,––
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“No pause, nor rest, save where the streams That feed the Kansas run, Save where the pilgrim gonfalon Shall flout the setting sun!” |
“I don’t know what the pilgrim’s gonfalon is,” said Sandy, sleepily, “but I guess it’s all right.” The emigrants had crossed the prairies as of old their father had crossed the sea. They were now at home in the New West. The night fell dark and still about their lonely cabin as, with hope and trust, they laid them down to peaceful dreams.