Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, August, 1880

by Various

TWO PAPERS.—I.

The Kleiner Fritz and Hattie of Louisville and the Betsy D. of Cincinnati made the canoe-fleet which the Northern Pacific Railway shunted out upon its station-platform at Detroit City, Minnesota, in the early gray of last July's first Thursday. We had bargained by post with Beaulieu, a shrewd, wiry, reckless French half-breed, for transportation of ourselves, canoes, equipment and provisions to Itasca Lake, or to a point upon the Mississippi five miles below the lake, as we might elect. His assurance was that four days and forty-one dollars would carry us to our first objective point. His helpers were a lively young half-breed, son-in-law of the murdered chief Hole-in-the-Day, another big mongrel, fat, plodding and reticent, and a young Indian who could speak a few English words, but was destitute of ideas in either English or Chippewa. Their motive-power was grazing on the open prairie back of the ragged village. The Reservation Indian, denied liquor at home, reckons upon a trip out of bounds as fair opportunity for a spree, so that catching and harnessing the ponies and cattle was a tedious task that covered the hours from breakfast well on toward noon; but at last the Hattie was firmly imbedded in prairie-grass and soft luggage upon one wagon, the Fritz and the Betsy were bound together upon a second, and the men of the fleet, with the stores, filled the third.

From Detroit City to Itasca Lake is about forty miles in a straight line, but no practicable way thither approximates to a direct line, and he who would see the beautiful lake and the head of the great river must travel for seven or eight days and endure many hardships. Sixty miles were to be done on wheels. The first day's travel was to White Earth Agency, twenty-two miles across a rolling prairie which steadily rises toward its climax in the Hauteur des Terres. The soil is of rare fertility, and the unbounded fields were clothed in the greenest of green, flecked with wild flowers of every hue in luxuriant profusion. Clumps of trees gave variety to the broad and beautiful view, while scores of clear little lakes gemmed the prairie as with great drops of molten silver. The eye swept an horizon of twenty miles, and once twenty leagues were within our visual grasp. The plodding fat man went his way in a dignified walk, but the passenger vehicle and that which bore the other boats, travelling by order of Beaulieu, who had in him more Detroit whiskey than ordinary discretion, came more than half the way at a terrible gait, spite of our remonstrances and greatly to our trepidation. Examination showed that the Betsy was racked and pounded beyond all excuse, while the poor Fritz revealed a hole in its graceful side like that made by a six-pound cannon-shot—a sad beginning for so long a cruise. Thence we went on slowly to the agency, where our first task was to find a clever Vermont Yankee reputed as the man to repair the unwelcome and inexcusable damage. The ingenious and genial fellow worked through the hot Fourth of July, while we mingled with the Indians and took part in their celebration, the first ever conducted entirely by themselves.

White Earth Agency is the seat of government of three reservations which embrace the homes of all the Chippewas. White Earth Reservation is thirty-six miles square, and is peopled by nearly seventeen hundred Indians and half-breeds. These were formerly gathered upon Crow Wing River, near Brainerd, where they existed in drunkenness, barbarism and destitution. In 1868 they were removed here, and the institutions of Christian civilization were introduced. They live in comfortable cabins and bark lodges. The agent, Major C.A. Ruffee, is a gentleman of capacity and integrity. Using his authority well and wisely, he is a king throughout his dominion of thirteen hundred square miles. His happy blending of civil and military government gives satisfaction to all who are well disposed. The Chippewas deal kindly among themselves, and have no quarrels with the whites. They have a well-arranged police system, with a chief, lieutenants and sergeants, embracing sixteen men in all, and directly responsible to the agent. No liquor is allowed on the reservation. They have no pilfering, and the few locks and bolts are rarely needed. In case of trespass or disagreement the parties come or are summoned before the agent, who examines the case on its merits, weighs the facts and the equities, decides; and there the quarrel ends.

The seat of the agency is an orderless village gathered about a green-shored little lake, and includes the office of the agent, the post-office, a warehouse for supplies, a meat-shop, two trading-stores and an untidy and comfortless hotel. Near by is the neat cottage of the agent, a large and comely boarding-school, an industrial school, and the residences of the chief clerk and of the head-farmer, who teaches and aids the Indians in practical farming. Not far away to the south is the Roman Catholic church; a mile to the north is the hospital, a large and cheerful building; and near the hospital are the tasteful Protestant Episcopal chapel and the rectory of the Rev. Mr. Gilfillan, who for fourteen years has worthily occupied a parish coextensive with the Chippewa Nation. The true solution of the Indian question is being worked out at White Earth in results that augur well for the future. Each child may secure education, and the minds and morals of all ages are cared for. Their churches are well attended and their schools have outgrown present accommodations. Their religious services and schools are conducted in their own language. They have an educated Indian clergyman who can scarcely speak English, while Mr. Gilfillan speaks the Chippewa as fluently as his mother-tongue. They have few quarrels, no thieving, no drunkenness, no abject poverty. They are not more perfect than others of human kind, but according to their light and sphere they are as good as a similar average of whites anywhere. The wise purpose is to make them kind, moral, educated and industrious Indians, not make-believe white men, and the work is doing and promising well in sincere and capable hands.

The Indian Fourth-of-July celebration took place in an open, treeless prairie. The festivities centred in a series of races run in pairs by the small and wiry Indian ponies over a curved, mowed and rolled half-mile course. Nearly all the young men were betters, in stakes of from twenty-five cents to ten dollars. There were no pools, but hard running, straight betting and square paying. The chief of police was the president of the course. All were in good-humor. There was no liquor, neither was there a harsh word or a blow among the five hundred. After the races eatables, tea, coffee and ice-water were enjoyed with laughter and chat. In the evening we cruisers gave a show of rockets and Roman candles, to the great delight of the Indians, and the day closed with a dance in the large dining-hall of the boarding-school.

ACROSS THE PRAIRIE.

Our damaged boats repaired and preparations completed for three weeks' absence from civilization, we set out near mid-day of Saturday for the march to Wild Rice River, eighteen miles. Our way lay among the cabins, lodges and farms of the Chippewas, over a billowy, green immensity bordered on the east by the lines of the Hauteur des Terres, which shut us from the Mississippi Valley, and horizoned on the west by the slopes beyond the famed Red River of the North. Our day's journey terminated, in a driving rainstorm, on the banks of Wild Rice River, where are a trading-store, the cabin of the trader and a neat chapel of the Protestant Episcopal mission. Our habitation for the night was a dark, muddy, odorous storehouse, in whose nether apartment we munched a frugal supper, then climbed a ladder to beds upon the bare floor between stacks of snake-root, which had accumulated from barterings with the Indians. During the night the rainstorm grew to a gale which rocked our night's home like a ship at sea to the music of heaven's grand diapasons. Sunday morning, impelled by the expense of our large retinue and the cheerlessness of our refuge, we pushed on for the foot of Wild Rice Lake, twenty miles distant over prairies and through forests. Two miles out we were overtaken by another fierce storm, which drove us to the shelter of the last human habitation, save two others near by, that we should see for three weeks. The broad, sweeping bow of the black cloud, the peculiar detonations of thunder in that clear atmosphere, the rush of wind, rain and hail, unhindered by the treeless and trackless moor, were lessons of God's majesty and power more impressive than cathedral mass or prayer and song and psalm of men. Out of the storm's first onset we rushed unasked into the hut of an Indian family, and surprised a pair of squaws and a six-months' pappoose squatting on a dirty and rain-pooled floor in almost total darkness. In an hour the storm had gone its eastward way, the sun shone out, and we resumed our trail among spruces, pines, oaks and elms to the foot of the lake, where we were to dismiss our prairie-schooners. Monday, with the early sun, we left teams and drivers, to push on by lakes, up rivers and through the pathless wilderness beyond all roads and habitations. Our party was reduced to the barest needs for the severe work before us. Besides our three selves we had a corps of five Indians as guides and packers, each of whom was a character, and all bore themselves through four days of severe work honestly, cheerfully and helpfully. They were Henry St. Clair, a half-breed, our interpreter, to whom we could only address measured monosyllables with any hope of imparting ideas, but always faithful, frank and wise; Kewashawkonce, the guide, a man of push and a genuine wag; Kawaybawgo, a huge hunter, whose old long shot-gun has banged over almost every acre of these wilds; Metagooe, a sleepy, thick-headed fellow; and Waisonbekton, young and active, always ready for work or burden and constantly alert for new and interesting things in Nature.

At the foot of Wild Rice Lake we prepared our canoes for voyaging, and began our long paddle toward the source of the Mississippi, whence we were to descend to civilization. A brief description of our little ships and equipment will help to a better understanding of our cruise. Each voyager had a Rob Roy canoe, slightly improved as to model and built upon the incomparable plan of Mr. Rushton of Canton, New York. The canoes are fourteen feet long, ten and a half inches deep and twenty-seven inches wide, decked over except a man-hole sixteen by about thirty-six inches, and weighing, with the mast and lug sail, from fifty to fifty-six pounds. The paddle is eight feet long, bladed at each end, grasped in the middle, and drives the canoe by strokes alternating on each side. The traveller sits flat upon the boat's floor, facing the bow. The canoe is not only a vehicle, but furnishes a dry and secure bed for sleeping at night, and, with its rubber apron, is a refuge from rain and storm. Each boat was equipped with an air-pillow, rubber blanket, rubber poncho, woollen blankets, rubber navy-bag and haversack. The general outfit represented a fine double shot-gun, a small and effective rifle, a revolver, fishing-tackle for each man, compass, aneroid barometer, thermometer, folding stove, stew-pans in nests, frying-pan, broiler, table-ware, and provisions for three weeks based upon the army ration, with dried fruits, condensed milk, brandy, medicines, etc., purchased at St. Paul.

Our stores and equipment suitably divided between the canoes, we paddled up through the outlet and into the lake, followed by Metagooe and Waisonbekton in a large birch-bark canoe bearing the provisions and camp-supplies of the Indians, while their companions walked across the country.

Wild Rice Lake is about one mile by five miles in extent. It is named from the wild rice which grows up from its shallow depths over almost its whole extent. Each autumn hundreds of Indians gather upon its shores in tents and lodges to secure the crop. Two squaws pass slowly through the thick rice in a birch canoe, one paddling at the stern and the other at the bow, drawing the ripe rice over the gunwale and with a club flailing the grain out of the straw into the boat. There and thus every family upon the reservation may secure an important part of the winter's provisions.

Through and over this green and productive sea we paddled about four miles to the mouth of Wild Rice River, which flows out of Upper Wild Rice Lake, then up the narrow, deep and crooked river. At our noon rendezvous Kawaybawgo and his foot-companions came in with a fine deer, the victim of his old but effective gun. In the early afternoon our progress became slow and excessively wearying from the shallowing of the river and its wonderful crookedness. The current ran like a mill-race around hundreds of short turns, and had its own exasperating way upon our keels. Finally, we were obliged to wade and drag the canoes after us in water varying between ankle-and waist-deep. A few hours of this wore us all out, and we called a halt and camp, utterly exhausted, with not more than twelve miles to the credit of the hard day's work. The Betsy D.'s skipper rolled over dead-beaten and sick; the Hattie's captain floundered up into the deep grass, incapable of further effort; while he of the Kleiner Fritz, scarcely better off, prescribed camphor and black coffee for the one and cherry brandy for the other, discreetly mixing the prescription for himself. Medication, an hour's rest and juicy rashers of broiled venison from the Indians' generous store soon brought the expedition to its wonted cheer and vigor.

TAKING WATER, WILD RICE LAKE.

Supper over, we filled the pipes of the Indians with fine tobacco and asked for a council. We all sat around a bright fire, and soon effected a bargain with the Indians to drag our canoes on up the little river, leaving us to walk across the country with the guide. Early the following morning we started, four of our party with the canoes, and we on foot with Kewashawkonce. The guide was pantomimed by our fat man for a conservative pace becoming the hot morning and the difficult route. Ke, as we abbreviated him, strode into an unbroken forest, grown with dense underbrush, strewn with fallen trees at almost every step, diversified by swamps and thickets through which he beat his way by main strength, and now and then traversed by rivers—all streams are rivers there—into which he plunged with never an interrogation-mark, and so on briskly, up hill and down, till, with three miles of walking, wading, climbing and struggling, we were brought to bay, tired out. Half an hour's rest and some refreshing wild strawberries prepared us for such another stage. Then an hour more of this terrible strain made us drop again for rest. Another hour, and before noon, hot and jaded, we came out upon a low bluff overhanging the river, and stopped for lunch. The guide, apparently fresh and unwearied, cut a sheet of birch bark for tinder, lit a fire as defence against mosquitos, and in sixty seconds was snoring. We were not slow in following his example, and the sun was dropping over into the west when we awoke. The guide examined the river, and informed us that our wading section was yet below. Standing in mid-stream drinking from his hands, he saw a fine pickerel's graceful movements a rod away, reached out for a half-sunken bit of a tree's branch, plunged it dexterously at the fish, struck it fairly in the back, and brought it up to us with a satisfied grunt. We lounged the afternoon away, and at six o'clock Metagooe came wearily to our camp with the Fritz at his heels. Half an hour later his comrades came with the other Rob Roys, their camp-traps loaded upon the decks and upon the interpreter's back. Our inquiry as to what had become of their birch canoe brought from Henry, as he dropped his pack, the sententious answer, "Busted." Over the evening's pipes and camp-fire, less than eight miles of actual distance accomplished, we resolved to abandon the shallow river and to portage directly to Upper Wild Rice Lake. The skipper of the Betsy proposed for the three of us a joint bed: Cincinnati feet have a troublesome time under a Rob Roy's low deck. We assented, stretched our rubber blankets, spread our woollens, adjusted the Betsy's long mosquito-bar and crawled carefully under it in expectation of a glorious sleep under the stars and the pines; but the dreams of the Hattie's captain, the trombonings of the Betsy's nose, the tossings of the Fritz and the savage industry of the mosquitos drove anything but troubled sleep from our eyelids, and we welcomed the early "Ho! ho! ho!" and improvised gong of the irrepressible Kawaybawgo.

MINNESOTA MOSQUITOS.

Before we had done with our coffee, venison and slap-jacks the Indians had made yokes for carrying the canoes on their heads and shoulders, and had reduced the camp to packs. Soon we were off upon the first pose of a regular Indian portage. Each of three Indians had upon his shoulders one of the canoes, his head within its hot and darkening sides, its bow pointing forward high in the air and its stern hanging low behind his heels. The other two squatted upon heel and toe, drew the broad strap of their carrying-thongs over their foreheads, and with a plunge and a grunt sprang to their feet, each with a great hump of six score pounds. Then we plunged, in Indian file, into a trackless forest, and jogtrotted our way for three miles, when in a clump of pines, without a word or a signal, down came the boats and the packs. Three of the splendid fellows loosed their pack-thongs and took their rest in tramping back unloaded to camp for what had been left. The others, with us, rested a few moments: then we pushed on till two miles brought us out upon the low, jungled shore of a beautiful lake about one mile by two in extent. The guide, without a word, laid down his load, but not his clothes, and with a swift rush sprang far out into the lake, swam up and down, splashing, shouting and laughing, came dripping to shore, lit his smudge-fire, lay down in a sunny place, snored an hour, awoke dry and vigorous, and with a whoop he and Waisonbekton dashed into the woods to go back for their share of the luggage left behind. While they were gone we enjoyed our lunch and gave a name to the lovely lake which had rippled so long, far away from the haunts of men, without identity. We christened it Rob Roy Lake, in honor of our fleet. It lies half a mile to the south-west of Upper Wild Rice Lake, into which its waters flow, and is set down on Colton's sectional map in the township range numbered thirty-seven. Our entire party reunited, we canoeists paddled across to the lake's outlet, a narrow, miry stream which loses itself in a swamp, and that in turn merges into the Upper Wild Rice Lake. We paddled and poled down to the end of the little river, and came to a dead stand in the matted roots of the swamp-grass: then waded waist-deep in the mire and slime, each dragging his canoe with the aid of an Indian, until we came out upon the open water. Thence a paddle of two miles along the coast brought us to another little stream flowing into the lake. As we came to its mouth Kawaybawgo was feasting upon a duck he had killed and broiled, of which he offered me a portion with a smile and interrogative grunt which seemed to compassionate my wet, weary and forlorn appearance. A splendid pike, two feet long, came gracefully out of the stream and hung motionless in the clear water. I pointed him out to the Indian and the Hattie's captain, both of whom were standing near him. At the instant their eyes fell upon him he moved: then, as they started for him, he darted like a flash for deep water, pursued by the two men at the top of their speed through a sheet of water six inches deep for nearly a hundred feet out. It was a fair race, and the six-feet-three Indian made a splendid spurt, but the pike won.

THE MISSISSIPPI AT LAST!

The stream bore us upward to the floating bog out of which it flowed. We drew the canoes out upon a meadow which undulated in graceful billows at our every movement. A step would shake all the surface for a rod about us, while our combined tread sent waves of grassy earth in every direction. A sudden leap so shook the cup of cold coffee sitting by one of the Indians, six or seven yards away, that the liquid spilled over the cup's edge. The whole meadow, solid to the eye, is but one of those monster sponges that hold in abeyance waters which otherwise would sweep like a flood down the great rivers. Beyond this billowy field we came to the open water of another unnamed lake, about one mile long, fringed about with green pines, to which we gave the name of Longworth, in honor of Cincinnati's distinguished judge, and to a lovely little green island thickly grown with trees we gave the name of another canoeist left behind, Mr. Empson of Louisville. At the head of Longworth Lake, and in plain view of Empson Island, within a space cleared out of a dense jungle, we made our last camp before reaching the coveted Mississippi. Our stay here was marked in red by the most vindictive attack from mosquitos in all the cruise. No one unacquainted with the Northern Minnesota wilderness in midsummer, or with a region having a similar insect population, can at all imagine the number and fierceness of the ravenous aërial hosts that had beset us all the way from White Earth. In mid-day they keep one constantly alert, while at night they are beyond credible report. They are small, shrewd and persistent. As I lay awake their myriad voices about and above me made a great chorus, really grand and impressive, out of which for a few seconds at a time there came bursts of harmony which I could hardly separate from the idea of a vast, distant chorus of human voices. Against their voracity no ordinary bar is a bar at all. We had gone to their haunts provided with netting which at home gave immunity, but through its meshes these mosquitos inserted their bills, then their heads, then struggled through bodily, and came down upon us like demons. We were dressed in woollens, our hands were in dogskin gloves and our heads and necks in thick calico hoods and capes, but all such protections were naught when those screaming villains had a mind for blood. At one onslaught they would go into the shrinking flesh through two thicknesses of wool and two of cotton, or through a heavy dogskin glove, or through the thick and hardened skin of the hand's palm or the foot's ball, or through a buckskin moccasin and cotton hose—through any protection at our command except a cotton canopy hung wide of our heads and bodies.

Sung and stung out of all endurance by the very centre of that army of the wilderness, we were astir in the grayest of our second Thursday's dawn, and were soon in readiness for our final portage over the crests of the Heights of Land to the river, which out of our long and severe march had become to us a veritable Mecca. Our way was up a gentle range of hills, whose tops, but a few yards wide, divide the waters which flow southward to the great Gulf from those which seek their far northward trend through the Red River of the North. The first division of our party reached the Mississippi before noon with a joy born out of a week's toil and hardship, and in a trice I was drinking of and laving in its swift, bright water. We could hardly realize that in this deep, rushing brook, not more than four or five paces wide, we saw the beginnings of that majestic current which drains half a continent. Soon our second division came up, we ate our last lunch in company, and the Indians, each shaking us by the hand with a grunt and a smile, then going off into the forest with a cheer, left us alone in that vast and uninhabited wilderness. Late in the afternoon we launched our canoes into the little river, and loaded them for our journey to its head, camping about three miles above our point of embarkation.

HEAD OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

The next morning we started with light hearts upon what we supposed would be but a short journey to the river's source, to meet an exasperating disappointment. We had made a bargain for transportation from the railway to Itasca Lake or to a point five miles below, all fully diagrammed and understood by correspondence, but found ourselves set down by the employés of the rascally half-breed—who had been careful to leave us at Wild Rice Lake—in an unknown land, six days from civilization, at a point nearly or quite thirty miles below the lake, below a region of rapids and obstructions against which we had especially stipulated, and up which no craft had ever travelled. A mile's work brought us to the beginning of this second series of troubles. Lying across the river at all heights, depths and angles were the tough pine logs we had dreaded, and at every mile or two were tumbling rapids. All that long Friday we took our turns with the axe, lopping off branches that we might squeeze under or shunt over logs; climbing with our stores and boats over great log-drifts held by the grip of the rocky defiles; wading through shoals and dragging our canoes through mud and sand; plunging suddenly into holes that engulfed us to our armpits; paddling astride our decks over pools too deep for wading; chopping and wrenching logs that forbade other means of passage; fighting inch by inch up plunging gorges, down which and over whose rugged boulders the narrowed waters foamed in almost resistless fury and milky foam—on and up, rod by rod, half a mile in the hour, till we came to a weary and desolate camp not two leagues from our breakfasts. There we cooked our suppers and ate in hoods and gloves, fighting mosquitos and black flies for every morsel, speculating as to the morrow's probabilities and discussing the question of victory or defeat. We rose from the night's sleep resolved upon seeing Itasca, and until mid-afternoon fought over again the battles of yesterday, and at last came out upon a smooth, placid stream, up which we paddled with easy swing some nine miles. Then the river narrowed and shallowed, and we again took to our feet upon a beautiful gravelly bottom. At times the way was closed to sight by rushes and wild rice, and we could only beat our way through. At last the water, thickly grown with reeds, broadened and deepened, and a score of paddle-strokes carried us through the green curtain out upon Itasca's beautiful surface, over which we glided, under the shadows of the setting sun, up to Schoolcraft's Island for a Sunday's quiet.

Our heavy and restful sleep was not broken till long after the sun was glinting upon us through the trees. Our first work was given to building a lodge of underbrush and making preparations for two days' stay on the lonely island, completed by unfurling the signal of the New York Canoe Club from a high stump hard by the camp-fire. Barring the mosquitos, Sunday's rest was a pleasant and refreshing sequence to ten days of toil and struggle, and Monday found us in hearty readiness for a thorough exploration of Itasca Lake and its feeders. We took a lunch, our guns and scientific instruments, and paddled up the south-west arm of the lake to find and explore the leading tributary. We found the outlets of five small streams, two having well-defined mouths and three filtering into the lake through bogs. Selecting the larger of the two open streams, we paddled into its sluggish waters, ten feet wide and one foot deep where they enter the lake. Slow and sinuous progress of two hundred yards brought us to a blockade of logs and to shallow water. We landed, fastened the canoes, took our bearings by compass and started for a tramp through thicket and forest to Elk Lake, which we reached after a rapid walk of thirty-five minutes. This lake is an oval of about one mile in its longest diameter. It lies about half a mile in a straight line south from Itasca. Its shores are marshy, bordered by hills densely timbered. Its sources are boggy streams having little or no clearly-defined course. To all appearance, these bogs and this small lake are the uttermost tributaries to Itasca Lake, and the latter, concentrating these minor streams and sending them out as one, is the true head of the Father of Waters.

Elk Lake was a place of misadventure to us. Our struggle through the thicket and dense forest was hot and exhausting. Our scientist left there a fine aneroid barometer, which a second hot walk failed to recover. Our photographer, arrived at the lake with a grievous burden of camera, plates, tripod, etc., found that he had forgotten his lens tubes, and was compelled to double his tracks back to the canoes, then wade out into the swampy borders of the lake, waist-deep in slime, to secure a view of this highest Mississippi water, only to have his plate light-struck and ruined by an accident on the homeward journey.

While the artist was gone for his forgotten lenses our Nimrod missed a fine eagle which swept over our heads at long range. So we returned to our island camp in no very good mood, but a successful troll for lake-trout, and a good supper off two fine fellows baked under the coals in birch jackets, sent us to bed in good spirits and with no regrets save for the lost barometer.

A.H. Siegfried.

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NATIONAL MUSIC AN INTERPRETER OF NATIONAL CHARACTER.

The popular music of any people is, in a great measure, the thermometer of its physical sensitiveness and its moral sentiments; and the reason of this is evident. The shepherd tending his flock, the fisherman mending his nets, the soldier on the march, the peasant at the plough, has no inducement to sing unless his heart's emotion incite him to it. A true national music is, then, what the Germans call Volksmusik, and, springing from the hearts of the people, it is psychologically one of their best interpreters. For this reason the composers of national melodies are seldom known to fame. A national song composes itself: the musician's lyre is the musician's heart, and from the sorrow, triumph and travail of life comes the child of song.

The assertion, then, that music is a universal language is only half true: it has a great variety of dialects; and it is this very sensitiveness to human influence which makes it so universally eloquent. Let us turn first to the East, for it still retains its primitive music, and at this very hour some muezzin is calling from his minaret or some Jew intoning his Talmud in the same musical cadence with which Syrian maidens sang the hymns to Cybele.

All Oriental music is distinguished by a pathetic, long—drawn, wailing monotony quite in keeping with the stationary and contemplative character of the people. We are struck at once with its frequent repetitions of one note and its short and cautious transitions, the intervals rarely being greater than a half, or at most a full, note. The conclusion of a measure is generally a descent, and the commencement of a new one seems to be a feeble effort to rise from the dreamy apathy in which Eastern imagination delights; but it is immediately followed by the fall of the rhythmus, re-establishing its languid repose. The frequent use of half notes induces a predominance of the minor key, and this, with the constant recurrence of the rhythmical fall, imparts to Semitic and Hindoo music that melancholy, lethargic uniformity which expresses in a striking manner the benumbed energies and undeveloped spirit of the people among whom it is found. When a race has substituted habit and custom for national feeling, its music is necessarily monotonous and characterless, for the stronger the national feeling of any people, the more intense, vivid and pronounced will be its music.

Hindoo music is almost untranslatable to Western ears, but Sir W. Jones, in an essay on the musical modes of the Hindoos—to be found in the third volume of the Asiatic Researches—makes an attempt to render one of their most popular songs. The original, of which he also gives a copy, looks like a mixture of Egyptian hieroglyphics and Chinese characters, and how far our notation represents it it is impossible to say; for, though Sir W. Jones was an erudite Oriental scholar, that of itself would not render him a good translator of Hindoo music. The air is a song of love and spring, and the measure is indicated, "rapid and gay:"

Kindred to Semitic and Hindoo music, though venturing on bolder intervals, is Chinese, Persian and Arabian. The almost untranslatable airs of India assume in China something like an artless melody. Their smallest intervals are semitones, which have been in use, like everything else in China, from time immemorial. Nevertheless, in the diatonic series of seven intervals the Chinese usually avoid the two semitones by omitting the fourth and the seventh, so that their scale consists really of only five intervals, and as they regard F as their principal key (just as we regard C as ours), the Chinese scale stands thus:

CHINESE SCALE.

This scale is, however, by no means confined to China, but is met with in several Asiatic countries—Japan, Siam, Java, etc. In order to judge how it affects the character of music, I have copied the following Chinese air and Japanese song from Carl Engel's Researches into Popular Songs and Customs:

CHINESE AIR, "MOO-LEK-WHA."

JAPANESE AIR.

Arabic music, which is Asiatic in its foundation, shows decided traces of the wider civilization and greater independence of character to which this race attained. The delicate gradations of sounds are still adhered to in the form of multitudes of grace-notes, but the intervals are longer and the melodies more decided. The overloading of the melody by an excessive use of trills and grace-notes by Persians, Arabians, and even Spaniards, in their popular music, indicates some common sentiment; and it is remarkable that the European Jews preserve this same Oriental ornamentation in the vocal performances of their synagogues. Numerous examples of Arabic music may be found in Lane's Modern Egypt. This writer professes great admiration for it, and says he "never heard the song of the Mekka water-carriers without emotion," though it consists of only three notes:

The translation of the line is, "Paradise and forgiveness be the lot of him who gave you this water!" It is said that the Arabic music is a powerful exponent of the wild, fierce and yet romantic nature of that people, though it did not commend itself to Engel and other musicians at the Paris Exposition. But, however void of beauty and expression any national music is to us, it is certainly felt to possess these qualities by the people to whom it belongs; and it is very likely that our music would seem to them just as unintelligible and discordant. When the French missionary Amiot played some of Boildieu's and Rossini's melodies to a Chinese mandarin he said, with a polite shake of the head, "They are sadly devoid of meaning and expression, while the Chinese music penetrates the soul."

Both Venice and Spain show traces of Arabic influence in their national music. In Venetian airs it is only a dim memory, manifesting itself by the frequent repetition of single notes, whereas the Spanish melodies are often so Moorish in construction and sentiment that it is easy to fancy in them tones like the call of the muezzin. Thus, too, the following Spanish song, judged by its repetitions and short intervals, might easily be taken for an Arabic air:

It is to be noted that instruments of percussion are the natural exponents of such primitive music, and that, therefore, the East has its drum, gong and cymbals, Arabia its tambourine, Spain its castanets.

The Sclavs, being a pure race, have also a very decided national music. Its peculiarity is smooth, lisping, sibillating sounds, analogous to the rustling of leaves in a forest. Having no native accent in their own language, they easily imitate that of others; and this imparts to the Sclavonic races that admirable facility for speaking foreign languages which distinguishes them. This characteristic of their speech is faithfully reproduced in their music, especially in that of the southern Sclavs. It is indicated by continuous notes of the same value, and by a compass scarcely ever exceeding a fifth. Its negative peculiarities harmonize exactly with the history of the Russians. The sad, doleful monotony of their existence in the past is pathetically interpreted by their narrow, sombre, subdued melodies. They are the voice of a people whose ideas revolved in a narrow circle—of people who dwelt on vast gray plains dotted with sad brown huts, and who heard no sounds but the sighing of the wind through the dark pine forests. The "Vesper Hymn," known to every ordinary player, is a very good example of the general character of Russian melodies. The songs of the peasants are further distinguished by their frequent modulation from the major to the minor key, as if not long could they be joyful, and also by the peculiar way in which they are rendered. The tonic and the dominant are the prevalent intervals, and the intermediate notes are slurred or slightly sounded. Rochlitz found it impossible to convey this peculiarity by notation, but gives the following melody as a favorite accompaniment to the serf-songs of Northern Russia:

The Poles, members of this family, have had a great national existence, and their national music echoes its history and its character. The heartstirring strains of their mazurkas make many a bosom beat and ache as they remind the listeners of past times. Polish music is the voice of a light-minded, brave-hearted people who lived in a gay turmoil and drained with eager lips and reckless spirits the cup of glory and of joy. The Polish polkas and mazurkas, with their changing and fugitive rhythmus and their lively, uneven time, admirably embody the light and graceful spirit of this people.

In striking contrast to the character and music of the Slavic peoples are the character and music of the Hungarians. Living on the confines of the East and West, this people belong to the former by descent and to the latter by civilization. Between two elements, they have been exposed to the attacks of both, and their history records only a continual struggle for existence as a nation. This prolonged warfare has made nationality the uppermost thought in the life of the Hungarian: it is the influence controlling all his ideas, his feelings, his poetry and his art. His music embalms a thousand years of struggle for it, and every note of its wild, melancholy strains breathes tales of war and sorrow, of hope and triumph. The music interpreting such an intense nationality ought to be a peculiar one; and it is. A foreigner, having once heard it, can never mistake its sounds for those of any other national music.

But to understand the Magyar music you must apprehend the Magyar's character. He is a singular mixture of East and West, habitually passive and melancholy, yet easily roused to the wildest excitement. His step is slow, his face pensive, his manners imposing and dignified; yet when once roused he rushes forward with a furious impetuosity which his enemies have learned to estimate and dread. His eloquence is wonderful, and after success he throws aside his solemnity and gives himself up with wild abandon to the feast, the dance and the song. All this various character he has imparted to his national music: it is full of pathos and earnestness, yet often impetuous and even hilarious. The "Rákótzy" is so perfectly national that it thrills like a shout from the Hungarian heart, and it is no wonder that the Austrian government found it necessary to forbid it to be played on public occasions, and even to confiscate all printed copies of it. "When I hear the 'Rákótzy,'" said a famous Hungarian, "I feel as if I must arise and conquer the world." As my readers can easily procure a copy of it, it would be a kind of sacrilege to give so grand a march shorn of any of its noble proportions; and I can with far more justice give an example which embraces two of the most predominant traits of Hungarian songs—the Scotch catch introduced in the middle or end of the bar, instead of at the beginning as in Scotch music, and the beautiful modulations from the major to the minor key of the minor third—a change very unusual in any national music but the Hungarian:

HUNGARIAN AIR.

We cannot leave Hungarian music without noticing the fact that it has been greatly influenced by the gypsies of that country, by whom it is mainly cultivated as an art. In Hungary, indeed, there is no stately festival, no public rejoicing, no private merrymaking, without some gypsy band; and it would be impossible to find more sympathetic interpreters of its intense and passionate spirit. But if professional musicians, they are nomadic ones: they wander through all the towns and villages of Transylvania and Wallachia, and are everywhere welcome. In dance-music the life and impetuosity of their musical movements, their varying rhythms and the strange thrill of their wild dissonances are absolutely enthralling. Charles Boner, in his work on Transylvania, says that even the aged find it impossible to resist the dance when a gypsy band invites them to it. Their prelude is slow and sonorous, the music quickens, there is a rush of tones, the fantastic melody hastens on at a head-long pace—every one, old and young, is under its spell.

Many of the Hungarian gypsies are composers as well as performers. Pougrátz and Patikárus are names beloved wherever the "Czardas" is listened to; and where, in Hungary, is not the "Czardas" listened to? No one can play a "Czardas" like a gypsy, and he is often rewarded for it in the most exaggerated manner; for he soon has his audience so excited that they call for it again and again, and heap recompense on recompense, until, in their passionate delight, the last ducat, the last watch, ring, and even horse, has been bestowed. The gypsies of Hungary conclude all pieces ending in the minor key by substituting the major chord for the minor chord; for instance, a passage written thus,

they finish thus:

following instinctively a rule which we find frequently observed in the most classical compositions. The following is a martial dance of the gypsies, but the most elaborate notation would only be the skeleton of any example: the best parts of all their performances are those they improvise while playing:

It may be said that the gypsy has no nationality, and can therefore have no national music. This is hardly true. The gypsy has no country, but his sentiment of nationality is strong and persistent, and his music is as peculiar as his language and customs. It is true that he steals the music of the country in which he sojourns just as readily as he steals the poultry from the roost or the linen from the line, but he always imparts to it some echo of his far Eastern home and some flavor of the tent and the hedgerow. Twice in my life this fact has struck me in a remarkable manner. Once, on the skirts of a pine forest in the wilds of Argyleshire, I came suddenly on a gypsy-camp celebrating a wedding. The women were dancing the "Romalis" to a violin and tambourine. The music, the dance, the conical tents, the flashing swarthy faces, the careless piquant dresses, were all so Oriental in character that in spite of the mountains, the moors and the heather I found it hard to realize that I was in the heart of Scotland. Even when the most distinctive Scotch pibrochs were played I was quite conscious of an Eastern clash in them which no Scot could or would have given. Again: eighteen months ago I found a camp of English gypsies in the Rocky Mountains a little beyond Golden. One man was leaning against a tree fiddling negro melodies to the birds, but negro melodies with the flavor of the tent instead of the cabin. At my request he played "Yankee Doodle," and imparted to it a revolutionary dash, a piquant mocking defiance, which convinced me that he knew its history and was interpreting it from his own heart—a fact which a subsequent conversation confirmed. I often wonder that no musical speculator has ever organized a band of Russian, Hungarian and English gypsies. Certainly, it would give us a far more characteristic entertainment than bands of blackened "minstrels."

The Swiss love their national music as they love their mountains and their freedom; and at first sight it seems singular that a people so blended with the progress of liberty should possess a music singularly simple and pastoral. But in this fact we perceive how truly music explains character, for as early as the fourteenth century their political faith, like their mode of life, was simple and averse to display. In a few ordinary words the deputies of Appenzell said all that has since been said with infinite bombast: "We are convinced that mankind are born for order, but not for servitude—that they must have magistrates whom they themselves elect, but not masters to grovel under." The essentials of true freedom having thus early become an every-day enjoyment, a people so plain and simple sang naturally melodies suggestive of the calm pastoral life so dear to them.

SWISS SONG.

We must notice that the favorite instrument of the Swiss, the Alp-horn, has caused a predilection for a certain progression of intervals. The Alp-horn is a long tube of fir-wood having the same compass as the trumpet. But on both these instruments the upper F is not an exact F, neither is it an exact F sharp, and thus in most Alpine tunes there are passages like the following, where the notes marked × ought to be F natural, but are nearly F sharp. However, this irregular tone charms the Swiss, and is one of the peculiarities of their "Ranz des Vaches:"

But it is in the national music of the Celtic race that we find the most familiar examples of melody symbolizing character. The purest form of it is undoubtedly the Irish; and who will not bear witness that in its half-laughing and half-sobbing notes we hear the voice of the race? Its musical distinction is the emphatic and striking introduction of the sixth major, but this peculiarity is also prominent in Scotch and Welsh airs, and is a favorite termination in all mountainous countries. To a fine sensibility there is, I think, a much more peculiar trait in Irish music, whether gay or sad—a strain of longing which imparts a charm like songs of memory—a strain so subtle that my explanation can only be intelligible to those who have already apprehended it.

Kindred to the Irish is the Welsh and the Scotch music. The Welsh has a more hopeless sob, the Scotch a wilder mirth. We feel in the old Welsh tunes that terrible struggle they had, first with the Romans, and then with the Anglo-Normans; and whoever has heard the "March of the Men of Haerlech" will understand why King Edward slew the Welsh Bards.

The most striking examples of Scotch music are the pibrochs and strathspeys. These compositions generally ring with a wild laughter that is almost harassing, especially when it is enhanced by the abrupt close with the fifth instead of the keynote. The ear, which has been longing for the rest, has a sense of being teased and deluded with the rollicking strain. As exponents of the cautious, cannie Scot we should think them a satire did we not know what a wild vein of Celtic wit runs through the granite foundation of his character. If it be true that national musics embalm peculiar humanities, of no country is this so true as of Scotland, for no people and no history is so highly picturesque and so full of the broadest lights and shadows. In their earliest history we find this antithesis. They lived rudely as peasants: they fought as if possessed by the very spirit of chivalry. When they abolished the magnificence of the papacy they inaugurated the barest of churches. They were the first to betray Charles Stuart, and the last to lay down arms for the rights of his descendants. They are worldly-wise to a proverb, and yet wildly susceptible to poetry and romance.

The songs of such a people have necessarily a great variety: the color and the perfume of life are in them. Listen to the mocking, railing drollery of "There cam' a young man," the sly humor of the "Laird o' Cockpen," or "Hey, Johnnie Cope!" and you may understand one side of Scottish character. The Border ballads, that go lilting along to the galloping of horses and jingling of spurs, are the interpretation of another side. The same active influence accompanies the Jacobite songs—"Up wi' the bonnets for bonnie Dundee!" filled many a legion for Prince Charles—and the blood kindles yet to their fife-like and drum-like movements. Again, the stately rhythm and march of some of the oldest airs make them peculiarly suitable for patriotic songs; and Burns took advantage of this when he adapted "Scots wha hae" to the air of "Hey, Tuttie Taittie!" for to this spirit-stirring strain Bruce and his heroes marched to the field of Bannock-burn.

Scotch music is a good example of the fact that the favorite musical instruments of the different nations have undoubtedly caused some favorite group of notes, constituting motives of a peculiar rhythm, which are employed with evident preference. Thus, the use of the minor seventh instead of the major seventh (as in "Wha'll be King but Charlie?"), and the sudden modulation from the minor key to the major key, a whole tone below, are in exact accord with the bagpipe, and are more certain in the strathspeys, reels and dances which are universally played on that instrument; the intervals of which are

with the bass of the drone emitting A, so that A minor must be regarded as the principal key of this instrument. Indeed, Macdonald, in his Complete Tutor for the Great Highland Bagpipe, gives the odd rule that the "piper is to pay no attention to the flats and sharps marked on the clef, as they are not used in pipe-music."

In Scotch music are also continually found motives of a rhythm in which the first note has only one-fourth the duration of the second. This is known as the Scotch catch or snap, and evidently originated in the strathspeys, though it is now a distinction of many fine songs, notably so of "Roy's Wife of Aldavalloch."

That these old melodies are the voice of ancient Scotland is proved by the fact that no modern musician has been able to imitate them. Haydn tried to rearrange some of them, and failed, and Geminiani blotted quires of paper in attempting to write a second part to the "Broom o' the Cowdenknowes." No: ere we can add anything to the national music of Scotland we must restore the precise national conditions of which it was the articulate idea.

English music, until the days of the Tudors, was really French: England sang, as all Europe did, the songs of the Troubadours. But the "Chanson de Roland" and the "Complaint of the Châtelain de Courcy" were not English strains, for a national song is a winged fact. France was the legitimate successor of the Troubadours, and many of their oldest songs would serve to-day as airs de vaudeville. The French national music has mostly grown out of civil dissensions and party conflicts. What scenes do the "Carillon," the atrocious "Carmagnole" and the "Marseillaise" bring up! The "Carillon" had been Marie Antoinette's favorite tune: it pursued her from her palace to her prison, startled her on her way to her trial, and was probably the last sound she heard as she lay bound under the guillotine.

When not breathing blood and anarchy French popular music has a wonderful range: it is gallant, mocking, elegant, or full of absolute nonsense and frivolity. In fact, French music has always been so intensely national that it would have been impossible for England to have long borrowed it; and in the days of the Tudors we find English character beginning to explain itself in those admirable tunes and ballads which form a regular and successive declaration of English principles, with their sound piety, broad fun, perfect liberty of speech and capital eating and drinking. They have neither the wailing grief nor the boisterous merriment of Celtic music, and they lack entirely the monotonous tenderness of the Troubadours; but they are full of buoyant, daring independence, and have a certain homeliness which strikes in a very powerful manner some chord in the Anglo-Saxon heart.

The cosmopolitan nature of the German speaks to all the world in his music. Of all national musics it is the grandest and the most developed: we see this in the position it gives to rhythms. National musics with undeveloped rhythms are the speech of people just awakening, while music that has them strongly marked and regularly introduced belongs to people of fully-matured energies. Only in the Jodlers and Landlers of the Tyrolese, Austrian and Swiss mountains is the original Teutonic iambic preserved in its purity. In all other German music every kind of rhythm is met with, no kind being predominant. For the musical language of Germany embraces not only the few octaves of passion, but the whole keyboard of existence. It has preludes, symphonies and sonatas for every phase of life. Nothing smaller than this range would suffice to express the multiform ideas of a people so thoughtful and cosmopolitan. And though by this universal sympathy German music may have lost a purely national life, it is a most sufficing compensation to have gained the power of expressing the ideas of a whole epoch.

Musical taste in America is in progress of formation. We have no national music: we have not even a decided preference for any style. We like Beethoven and Chopin, but we also like Rossini and Donizetti and delight in Lecocq and Sullivan. In no respect is the national pride so utterly forgotten as in music. We give to all schools a fair hearing. The great German masters are household words: the national music of every land is welcome. We have been learning to like Italian opera at an insane cost; we have kindly winked at the follies of opera-bouffe; probably nowhere in the world are the intellectual depths of a German symphony and the passionate declamation of an Italian recitative more thoroughly appreciated. This is the natural musical exposition of our complex and various life. This wondrous variety, which indicates possibilities not yet revealed, pleases us without being always clear to our feelings and intellect. Still, we shall not ask, with the Frenchman, "Sonate, que veux-tu?" We are satisfied with what the present affords, and what new masters shall appear or what new instruments be invented we know not. Always the epochs will have their own interpreter. One hundred years ago who had imagined a Weber or Steinway piano, that piece of furniture with a soul in it?

It has been suggested to me while writing this paper that national melodies are in a great measure influenced by the physical features of the country in which they rise. I think very little so. It is true that the music of all mountainous countries has many points of resemblance, but it is because the people of such countries have strong mental and moral similitudes. Savages are not inspired by the most lovely scenery, and a collection of national airs from different parts of the world would not reveal to us whether they were written in valleys or on mountains or by the sounding seashore.

There are distinct ensigns by which national music may be as promptly detected as a ship by its colors. Spanish airs have in them the rapid twinkling, so to speak, of the guitar; the mountain-melodies of Switzerland recall the open notes of the Alp-horn; the Irish and Scotch musics have their marks as plainly impressed upon them as the physiognomy of the peoples is distinct, and it is nothing to the purpose to say that they have been cleverly imitated: the mark still remains a fact, and is the mysterious specialty that thrills the rich, the poor, the soldier and the churchman, the peasant and the exile. Whatever analogy exists between a country and its music is mainly with the inward character of the people themselves, and is generally too profound to be theorized upon. We only know that at every step we advance in the science of music we are deciphering what is written within us, not transcribing anything from without.

Nor as Americans are we insensible to the value of a national music. The few airs which have any claim to represent us in this capacity have done service that no money can estimate. During the late war wherever the rebel flag was raised it was necessary to silence "Yankee Doodle." Like the "Marseillaise," it was an institution before which its enemies trembled; and when we have produced or annexed something infinitely grander we shall not forget the saucy, free-and-easy, mind-your-own-business melody that carried the nation cheerfully through two great crises.

Amelia E. Barr.

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MALLSTON'S YOUNGEST.

The railroad-village of Fairfield woke up one spring morning and found a clumsy blue car, with a skylight in its roof, standing on the common near the blacksmith-shop. Horses and tongue were already removed, the former being turned into the tavern pasture and the latter stowed in the tavern barn. A small sky-colored ladder led up to the door of this artistic heaven, which remained closed long after a crowd of loungers had gathered around it.

The Fairfield loungers were famously lazy savages, though to the last degree good-natured and obliging. They wore butternut overalls and colored shirts, a few adding the picturesque touch of bright handkerchiefs and broad straw hats: there were a few coats in various stages of rags and grease, and one or two pairs of boots, but the wearers of these put on no airs over the long ankles and sprawling toes which blossomed around them. The whole smoking, stoop-shouldered, ill-scented throng were descendants of that Tennessee and Carolina element which more enterprising Hoosiers deplore, because in every generation it repeats the ignorance and unthrift branded so many years ago into the "poor white" of the South.

Those who could read traced the legend "Photographic Car" on the sides of the vehicle, and with many a rude joke each bantered the other to have his picter took for such purposes as skeerin' stock off the railroad-track or knockin' the crows stiff. Their scuffling and haw-haws waked the occupant of the car, who rose in his bunk and drew the curtain from a window. The boys saw his face and hushed. Raising the window, he scattered a bunch of handbills among them, which set them all to scrambling, and, when they had caught the bills, to struggling with large and small type which announced that an unrivalled photographer would be in that vicinity in a very few days with his beautiful travelling-car, giving everybody an opportunity of securing such tin-types and photographs as only the large cities turned out, and at the lowest possible prices.

Presently the photographer appeared at his own door and looked abroad. The tender spring morning, though it glorified surrounding woods and rich farming-lands, could do little for this dilapidated village, which consisted of one lane of rickety dwellings crossed at right angles by the Peru Railroad, a stern brick building, a wooden elevator and a mill. It was a squalid sight, though the festive season of the year and that glamourous air peculiar to Indiana brooded it. The photographer surveyed his new field with an amused sneer, and descended the steps to go to his breakfast at the tavern, a peak-roofed white frame set among locust trees—the best house on the street. Before it stood that lozenge-shaped sign on a fat post which stands before all country taverns, making a vague, lonesome appeal to the traveller.

The loungers moved in groups on the station-platform, their hands in their pockets and their necks stretched forward, eying the stranger.

Out of the blue distance on the railroad two plumes of steam rose suddenly: then a black object stood up on the track and gave two calls at a crossing. Double-shuffles were danced on the platform, as if the approaching train charged these vagabonds with some of its own strength. It screamed, and bore down upon this dilapidated station to stop for one brief minute, change mail-sacks and gaze pityingly out of its one eye at the howling crew which never failed to greet it there. People in the cars also looked out as if glad they were not stopping, and a few with long checks in their hats, who appeared to be travelling to the earth's ends, were envied by a girl approaching the post-office in the brick block.

She waited near the photographic car until the train passed, her lip curling at this blue van and the pretensions of its owner.

Later she came out of the post-office by a back hall, and, darting a fierce look at Jim Croddy, who ran against her in his performance of the double-shuffle, took her way across the common, crushing her letters in her hand. This time she scarcely looked at the photographic van, but with dilated eyes and set teeth pursued her path into the springing weeds. The photographer, who had returned, looked at her, however, and found her individuality so attractive that he watched her swift step until it took her out of sight within the doorway of a brick residence detached from the village by a meadow and long lawn.

The young man opened his car and prepared for business. His landlady was going to bring her grandchild to be photographed. A locker received his primitive couch, and he further cleared the deck for action by stowing in the back apartment where he prepared his chemicals all remaining litter. Jim Croddy and kindred spirits ventured to look in.

"See here, boys," inquired the photographer, "couldn't one of you get me a bucket of water from somewhere?"

They would all do it. The heartiest and most obliging set of idlers in the world, they almost fought for the pail, and two, taking it between them, cantered to the pump in front of the post-office. The rest were fain to enter, treading each other's bare heels as they tumbled up the steps.

"Don't you want your pictures taken?" inquired the artist, quizzically surveying his shaggy crowd.

"We ain't got no money," replied Bill Stillman, the smallest but readiest-tongued.

"You got money, Bill," retorted Leonard Price, a parchment-colored wisp of nineteen who had recently become a widower.

"I got to git clo'es with it if I hev'. There's Mallston: git him to set for his picter."

Mallston was hooted for as he came across the dewy grass on feet of brawn, shaming puny rustics by his huge physique. The photographer mentally limned him: a bushy, low-browed head and dark, reddish, full-lipped face, bearded; muscle massed upon his arms and tatter-clothed legs; a deep, prominent chest; hands large, black, powerful; the whole man advancing with a lightness which in some barbaric conqueror would have been called dignified grace.

Mallston had nothing to answer for himself. He stood folding his arms and looking in. It was said he had African blood in his veins—barely enough to stain the red of his skin, pinch up his children's hair and give them those mournful, passionate black eyes through which the tragedy of the race always looks. But so vague, so mere a hearsay, was this negro stain, if it existed at all, that he had married a white wife, and moved in society unchallenged by these very fastidious descendants of Carolina and Tennessee.

Mallston's wife had lately added a son to his family. He had two sons before, also two daughters. From any standpoint it seemed an unnecessary addition when the economist considers that he had no means of support except his big-fingered paws, and these, though very willing, depended on chance jobs and days' works given him by other men. In face of these facts the youngest was there as well as the oldest—scarcely seven; the second, scarcely five; and the third and fourth, aged three and a half and two—in his rented house of one room, containing beds in opposite corners, a table and a cooking-stove in front of the fireplace. A generous family and scant provision for it being the mode in Fairfield, however, Mallston may not have seen his desperate position, especially with summer and harvest wages coming. Just now he was out of a job, having finished a ditching contract, and his black, speculative eyes looked anxiously at the photographer.

"Come, clear now!" exclaimed that young man with some authority to his loafers: "I am going to have some sitters."

The landlady and her grandchild were already coming to take advantage of morning sunlight and the domestic lull before dinner. With them came a curious neighbor in ill-made, trailing calico and dejected sun-bonnet, who walked with her hands on her hips and puckered her upper lip, with consciousness of the loss of two front teeth, when she laughed. As they proceeded at a pace regulated by the toddling child, they encountered an old woman with no teeth at all, whose nose and chin leaned very much toward each other: her grizzled hair curled under a still more dejected sun-bonnet, and, setting down a basket of clothes, she stood panting from exertion and wiping her wan face on the bonnet cape.

"I'm a-garn to hick'ry that Bill," she exclaimed weakly. "I tole him to carry me wash-water, and here he is stannin' round thish yer car! George and John's just out, too, and so's Foster. Soon's they git the'r vittles they up and leave me to do the best I kin. Laws! who's garn to pay out money fer fortygraphs? If folks all had to work as hard as I do, they wouldn't have no money fer no such things, so they wouldn't. It 'ud stan' 'em in hand to be savin'."

"Why don't you drive off some yer good-fer-nothin' boys and make 'em do somethin', Mis' Stillman?" bantered the neighbor.

"Well, they've all been a-workin'," relented the mother. "Bill, he's as good a feller to work as ever was if he don't git with a lot of orn'ry boys. Hit hurts Fawt to work stiddy, so it does.—Bill, come here and tote these clo'es home fer me."

Bill came, ruddy and laughing from a scuffle, and walked off with the basket.

"And git the wash-water and make a fire under the kittle," called his mother.

"I'll be apt to," responded Bill.

"Come along into the daguerreyan car, Mis' Stillman," invited the landlady. "You never see the inside o' one, did you?"

"Laws! is that wher' you're garn to? I can't stop but a minute. Hit looks mighty fine. The boys said this feller was drivin' into town last night when meetin' broke. Who's garn to have their picter took?—You, Jane?"

"Me?" replied the neighbor. "Laws! no: I ain't rich."

"Oh, you'll change your minds," drawled the landlady patronizingly, as became a lady of means: "he takes 'em reel cheap."

The photographer met this group at his door and assisted them into the car, from which all his earlier visitors had dispersed except Mallston.

Mallston stood at the steps and watched the landlady's grandchild prepared for a sitting. The rabble had begun their morning business of pitching horseshoes, but his interest was held by that little child—its fresh clothes, rings of black hair and pomegranate coloring. The artist, having placed his camera, was in the farther room preparing his plate. When he came out and was in the act of closing the door he noticed Mallston, and asked, "Do you want a job?"

The barbarian did decidedly.

"Come into the back room, then, and help me."

Mallston went striding through the car, and placed himself in an obedient attitude behind the partition.

"Laws!" exclaimed Mrs. Stillman, standing between the camera, where the artist was burying his head under a black cloth, and the object to be photographed, "when we lived in Bartholomew county—'twas the year after we moved f'm Johnson county—Foster and John they was little fellers then, and I did want the'r picters that bad, so I did. But the'r pap he 'lowed it was a waste o' money. Pore man! he was a mighty hard worker: he'd go a mile'd to make a cent, and then he'd lose it all with bad management, so he would. But I had easy times them days, with everything to my han': I spun and wove all the jeans the men-folks wore, and we milked a dozen cows—"

"Will you please move aside?"

"Git out o' the way, Mis' Stillman: the man can't see through ye."

"Oh!" exclaimed the old woman, jerking herself from the photographer's line of vision, "I didn't go fer to git in the way. But this ain't doin' my washin'," she added, moving toward the entrance. Here, on a little shelf, she found some tiles and brushes, which she took up to examine and hold before the other women, who were seated awaiting the picture-taking. "What's these here things?"

"Artists' materials," replied the photographer, removing his head from under the black cloth, and that from the camera.—"Now, my little man, look straight at the hole in the box, and don't move.—That large brick house—keep perfectly quiet—across the field seems a good point to sketch from. Who lives there?"

"Harbisons," replied the landlady.

"Harbisons, eh? I suppose it was Miss Harbison I saw go past this morning?—Don't move, my little man."

"I do' know," demurred the washer-woman, whose sole recreation in life was the faculty of speech. "I ain't seen Mis' Harbison to town to-day. They's him and her and the boys. Both the boys is away f'm home now. What-fer lookin' woman?"

"It was a young lady in a wide hat."

"Oh, that's Miss Gill: she's some kin to 'em. She's a school-teacher to Bunker Hill or Peru. Laws! I hate to see anybody so proud."

"That's a good boy!" said the photographer. He removed his plate and carried it to the rear room, where he required the assistance of Mallston, who had watched the process with silent interest. Presently reappearing with the dripping negative, which he held for the women to see, he repeated incidentally, "Proud, is she, this Miss Gill?"

"Yes, she is, kind o'," testified the neighbor who was called Jane.—"It's a reel good one, ain't it?"

"If ye take as good as this all the time," cried the pleased landlady, holding off the negative and giving that excited drawl to the terminal word which may distinguish Kentuckians, for she claimed to be one, "every girl in town 'll be comin' after the'r picter-uh!"

"Except the proud Miss Gill."

The landlady, who had a moustache, bristled it over her square mouth: "I never ast much about her. She's kind o' yaller-complected, but some says she's smart. Bill Harbison was smart too, but he's all broke up now. They don't own nothin' but the house and grounds they're livin' in."

"Laws!" poured in the steady washer-woman, "I used to work fer Mis' Harbison when she was well off—I done knit socks and pieced quilts—and she was always liber'l, so she was. When we fust come here he was gittin' down with his last sickness, and we left a good place in Bartholomew county, fer his folks they kep' a-writin', 'Here's the place, Billy: this is wher' you'll find the flitter tree and the honey pond.' And it wasn't never my will, but come we must; and you orto seen Fairfield then. Why, ther' wasn't nothin' but mud, so ther' wasn't.—My soul! if thern don't go Bill, and I know he ain't carried me no wash-water."

The artist helped her down the steps and asked her to come again, which courtesy she distrusted. She 'lowed he was p'tendin'. He throwed his head up like he was big-feelin'. It ruffled her that anybody should be big-feelin' over a pore widder-woman that took in days' washin's, and had a pack o' triflin' boys that et her out o' house and home.

Still, this old woman enjoyed the fruit trees' budding promise as she patted along the railroad, and perhaps some old thrill shot again as a meadow-lark uttered his short, rich madrigal from the weather-darkened fence.

"Ho, Mis' Stillman," called Mallston's wife, standing in her door with the youngest on her arm, "le's go over and see that ther' picter car."

"I done done it," responded the old woman.

By the end of two weeks this photographic car had done good execution on the community. The artist himself appeared friendly, which greatly assisted his trade, openness to familiarity being a prime virtue in all rustic neighborhoods. Every youngster who came to the store after groceries, with a bag slung over the horse's neck in which to carry them, gave pap no peace until means were furnished for a rosy-cheeked tin-type of himself in a pink, green or purple case. The Appledore girls, handsome daughters of a rich farmer, and therefore able to sit for pictures in Kokomo, or even Indianapolis, yet put on all their chains, rings and bracelets and went to the car to test this young photographer's skill. Mrs. Stillman received money from her daughter in Ellwood, together with the written command: "You go and git your fortygraph took fer me, mother: we don't none of us never know what's a-garn to happen." So she removed her black alpaca from its peg on the wall for her adornment, and came also, explaining to the neighbors that Kit sent the money, so she did, and was makin' a pore mouth about not havin' no picter of mother. And having got the picture, she used all her past trials and present misfortunes to save half the price, which she succeeded in doing.

Every day the artist had a few sitters. It was surprising how many of the bilious, bare-legged children who collected to gaze at his framed specimens were brought to be photographed, for most of the villagers were squalidly poor and the farmers were entering their busy season. During this time he had opened the Harbison domicile to himself, being son of a friend who had sat in the State legislature with Mr. Harbison. All Fairfield knew that he went there nearly every day, and that it was not to shoot with the long-bow on the lawn. They had no idea how he loved to lounge from one empty room to another of this picturesque, half-furnished house, and how he was gratified by the fitness of the inhabitants to their abode. He liked to see Miss Gill tuck a bunch of peach-blossoms in her coil of hair, and to feel the quickening influences of spring supplemented by her electricity.

Mrs. Harbison took her earth-loving hands from garden-making and went to show the young people the ferns in the woods. She pulled her sun-bonnet over her eyes and trod out with the solid steps of a woman bred to love the soil under her feet. The photographer sketched along the way, but he finally sat down by Little Wildcat where the water boiled over boulders, and Mrs. Harbison went farther to dig ginseng. There was a joyful hurry of birds all around. That leopard of the Indiana woods, the sycamore, repeated itself in vistas.

"Sycamores always look like dazzling marble shafts blackened with patches of moss," said the young man.

"And their leaves," said the girl sitting on the log not far from him, "smell like poetry. I spread them on my face late in summer after a shower and suck up their breath. But I never can put the sensation into words."

"How's that for a sycamore?" he asked, showing a scrap.

She examined it with great satisfaction: "Why do you go about with a photographic car? Why don't you set out to be an artist?"

He laughed: "Because there is so much of the vagabond in me, I suppose. Then I never had any education in art. Folks as poor as Job's turkey."

"But a man can do so much or so little."

"Well, when I'm going about with the car I see a great many odd people, and can pick up little striking things for studies. I get a living, too, such as it is, which I shouldn't do if I set up as an artist. Look here!" He turned over his book and showed an etching of Mallston stepping across the common carrying his youngest, with the four older children at his heels. One had sprawled, and was evidently lifting a howl to the paternal ear. They both laughed at it.

"He's a good fellow," remarked the photographer, "but there's no end to the ignorance and misery such creatures bring upon the world. He couldn't take decent care of himself, and he has a wife and five children hanging on him."

"It is just so with nearly all these people," exclaimed Miss Gill in high scorn. "They have no idea of what life should be—no ambition, and scarcely a soul to divide around among them all. It smothers me!" She threw her arms out impetuously. "I want such different things—the society of the cultivated, the stimulus of great natures. Maybe I could write something that would get before the public then."

"Have you ever sent anything East?" he inquired with a Hoosier's vast respect for older civilization.

"Yes," she answered with a falling inflection of voice and head. "But it's no use: I never shall amount to anything with my surroundings."

The water gurgled over its boulders and the green landscape sent up an exquisite loamy breath. The young people, both representing the afflatus of the State, met in one tragic look which ended in a smile.

Next morning Mallston took his usual post in the car, shifting from one bare foot to the other, while the photographer lounged on his locker waiting for custom. The native frequently parted his shaggy jaws, but considered how he should offer his information. He watched his employer with real attachment, and his dark red face deepened its hue around the eyes as he broke out, "We've got a little feller t' 'r house."

"What! not another one?"

"He's two month ole," explained Mallston.

"Oh, your youngest. Why, yes, I've seen him." Mallston was evidently surprised that so humble a creature as his youngest had attracted the great photographer's notice. "He's a fine youngster," added the latter.

Mallston was then emboldened to blurt out, "We've named him."

"You have? Well, what do you call him?"

"We called him after you."

"Why, here's an honor! How did you come to name him for me?"

"I done it."

"Let me see: what can I do for him? Suppose you bring him over now while we aren't very busy and I'll take his picture."

Mallston grinned with pleasure: "My woman wanted his picter. My woman 'lowed mebby you wouldn't charge for it if you knowed he was a namesake."

"Certainly I won't. So bring him right along and we'll do our best for him."

It was some time before he reappeared, carrying his youngest in his arms, its cheeks polished and its wet hair turning over in rings, decked in its chief finery, a blue quilted cloak. The mother came along to hold her cherub in her lap. She was a long, raw-boned woman, immature in face under all her crust of care and tan, evidently distressed in her free waist by the tightness of her calico dress and in her unfenced feet by shoes.

"What are you going to do with the baby?" inquired Miss Gill kindly as she encountered this group at right angles on her return from the post-office.

"Garn with him to the man to git his picter. Come in and see him took," invited Mrs. Mallston timidly.

The young woman, ready to seize on any distraction, went in, scarcely understanding that her bruised ambition reached for healing to such homely, lowly natures as these.

The artist was glad to see her, and she sat on the locker while preparations went on. She exchanged amused glances with him when the other Mallstons flocked to the steps, bellowing in various keys for their mother, and on their being swung in by one arm and placed in a row on the opposite locker, she gazed at them in turn, wondering what the future held out to such lumps of dirt and sombre black eyes.

Mallston set his youngest on the mother's lap and looked at it with sneaking fondness. The whole tribe seemed equally dear to him, but this youngest appealed to his strength. Mrs. Mallston was not celebrated as a tender mother. She went after pails of water and left her children playing beside the railroad-track; their tattered and ludicrous appearance bespoke her unskilfulness with the needle; she was said to have scalded the eldest boy with a skilletful of hot water in which she had soaked bacon, pouring it out of the window on his head. But she probably did as well as she knew how, and Mallston did much better. The photographer watched him go back a dozen times to straighten the baby's sturdy legs, tap it under the chin with his colossal fore finger, cluck in the laughing red cavern of his mouth and change the folds of its quilted cloak with quite a professional air. What were poverty, the world's neglect, hard labor and circumscribed life to this man? That muscle which gathered and distributed the streams of his body may have been to him a heaven in which these five youngsters ministered as angels.

The young man felt moved with an emotion he resisted: "My God! can it be that this savage is right in his instincts, and I am wrong? Can some peculiar blessing of Heaven rest on the man who dares Fate for family love? Or is the poor wretch's fondness a recompense for his overburdened lot?"

The baby took a fine picture. Mallston stood by a window and gazed at the large tin-type. His full lips dropped apart and his head leaned sidewise. He turned to his wife and said with a foolish expression, "If the little feller 'ud happen to drop off now we got sumpin' to remember him by."

"My childern's kind o' sickly," remarked his wife, marshalling forth her quartette, "fer all they look so hearty."

---

The photographic car remained day after day, although sitters seldom came now, for even the loafers were helping to put in crops. The horses which should have dragged it out almost any dewy morning were not exactly eating their heads off, being turned upon pasture, but the landlord was famous for getting his entertainment's worth. As long as weekly board-bills were paid he said it was none of his business if the man stayed all summer.

On Monday the photographer resolved, "I will start on Wednesday;" on Wednesday he decided, "I will wait till Saturday;" and on Saturday, "It's too late in the week now, but I must go next Monday."

Mrs. Harbison, when interviewed about the generous portion of time he spent on her lawn with her summer visitor, answered with downrightness, "Well, what if he does like to come to our place? We know all about his folks. And if them two wants to sit and talk, they're fit company fer each other, and I reckon it won't hurt 'em. So what you going to do about it?"

The village was going to talk about it. The female population gathered at the storekeeper's house, their favorite rallying-place because the storekeeper's wife had no opinions of her own, but made a good echo to whatever was said, and there they judged that Gill girl for taking up with strangers like she done, so stuck up, and hoped it would turn out he was a married man, and wouldn't that bring her down?

Meanwhile, the photographer stretched himself on his oilcloth-cushioned locker and stared at the now fully-unfurled woods, without one mental glance at the vivid moss in its shades, its four varieties of ferns or the ruined cabin with one side thrown down, showing nickers of sunlight through the gaps of its fireplace. He called himself ill names for remaining where he was, and made a crazy picture of a photographic car seesawing along the country roads, with a figure he well knew sitting on the platform beside him as he drove. It was so absurd, but he quoted Mrs. Dalles's song of "Brave Love" while he etched:

We could not want for long,
While my man had his violin
And I my sweet love-song.

The world has aye gone well with us,
Old man, since we were one:
Our homeless wanderings down the lanes,
They long ago were done.

Then, across some chasm of indefinite time, he saw a studio and himself happy at an easel, with this devoted dark face resting against his side, reciting her work to him and quivering with joy at some sign of success. But the whole panorama dissolved at a breath.

"Now, aren't you a nice fellow," he addressed himself, "a brilliant rascal, a wise genius, to be thinking of such a thing?"

Miss Gill was returning from the woods with a full basket before the morning heat came on. A few women at the storekeeper's fence looked sidewise at each other as she paused to chat under the photographer's window.

The morning was so clear that every object stood in startling relief. A plume of steam far up the leafy railroad vista heralded the Peru express's lightning passage through the town. Scarcely a lounger was left on the platform. Mallston had a job of cleaning the cellar for the storekeeper, and at intervals appeared from its gaping doors with a basket of decayed potatoes on his shoulders. The landscape rung with bird-songs, and the girl, who had skimmed the cream off such a morning, looked up and laughed at her dejected friend. She had purple violets tucked into her coil of hair, her belt and under her collar.

"What are you doing here? Why aren't you out trying to catch the effect of day-twilight in the thick woods?"

"I've been trying," he replied without smiling, "to catch the effect of a rash action—and a woman's face."

"How solemn! Let me see it. Is it Mrs. Stillman's?"

"No, it isn't: it's my wife's."

Her half-lifted hand dropped. While her eyes met his without blenching she turned ghastly white, her face seeming to wither into sudden age.

The express-train whistled. Only a moment before its steam-plume had been her symbol of rushing success in life, and now, for some scarcely apprehended reason, she felt that the train and Fate were running her down. With intuitive resistance and a defiant sweep of her body she turned toward it and screamed aloud.

The photographer could not credit this rapid change to himself when he saw upon the track a small rough cart drawn by Mallston's oldest girl and containing his youngest stretched upon a dirty pillow. The express was coming down-grade at full speed, but at its whistle the oldest child turned off the track and tried to drag her burden across the rail. The cart upset, and the baby sprawled, crying, between the rails, while his sister fled crying toward home.

This whole occurrence was a flash: it seemed to the spectators they had barely started forward with their blood curdling, the engine had but screamed, and Mallston was merely seen dropping a basket of potatoes and leaping with upright hair and starting eyes, before the whole thing was over. The train stopped with such a recoil that many passengers were thrown from their seats: the engineer dropped from his cab, and there was a crowd.

Mallston was jammed into a heap against a tall board fence which surrounded the store-lot. The baby sprawled near him, where he had thrown it when the engine struck him.

"Are you hurt?" asked the photographer, turning him over.

He sat up, looking dazed and ludicrous: "Wher's the little feller?"

"I got him," panted the breathless mother, shaking the child from side to side as she showed it to him.

"He's all right," cried the engineer, "but I hit you. Where are you hurt?"

"I ain't hurt no place," said Mallston, crawling up on all fours, "'cept wher' my back and head hit the fence." He stood up grinning at the excited crowd, and put his sneaking, protecting fingertips under the baby's chin. The youngest had ceased to yell during the fright, but this touched him off again.

"You skeered the poor little feller," said Mallston severely, but the engineer was already mounting his cab, laughing with relief. The train passed on, people crowding the platforms.

Women felt the baby's limbs: there were no hurts except a bruise on one fat leg and a little more than the usual amount of dirt on its face.

"Are you sure you aren't injured?" urged the photographer, shaking his man.

But Mallston looked into his eyes with a preoccupied mind, and said, as to the only person present who would appreciate the depth of the remark, "I couldn't a-stood that, by jeeminy!" Tears stood in his big bovine eyes.

The group dispersed, many glad to have enjoyed such a genuine sensation, Mrs. Stillman declaring to the neighbor and the landlady she hadn't had such a skeer since the time he was took in the dead o' night with bleedin' at the lungs, and not a doctor in ten mile, and every minute like to be his last, so it was.

The artist followed Miss Gill from the spot. She picked up her basket beside the photographic car, her face so sublimated it seemed never to have known any other look.

"I didn't understand human nature," she confessed to the photographer, who had entered his car and again appeared at the window above her. "That fellow has the poetry in him that I can't write out. I'm afraid I'm going to cry."

The artist held down his sketch-book to her. Dabbing back her tears with one hand, she took it with the other and exclaimed at once, "Why, you've sketched me!"

"When a man like that dares so much for home happiness in this world, I think I can dare a little, poor, struggling dog as I am. I called that a while ago the picture of my wife; and it shall be—my woman," infusing the idiom of his native State with its primitive, tender meaning.

She handed back the book, and he took it, with her hand.

"Do you dare?" trembled the girl with a laugh, mindful that all Fairfield was out.

"I think I do," he replied, smiling also as he followed her eyes toward a group proceeding down the railroad—"even in spite of that."

Mrs. Mallston was walking beside her husband, making a display of ankle-bone under her scant calico wrapper, her sun-bonnet flapping to her nose, the four juveniles able to walk dangling from her fingers or drapery. Mallston, straight as a hickory tree, carried his youngest on his bosom, patting its cheek with his horny, potato-scented palm.

M.H. Catherwood.

---

THE EARLY DAYS OF MORMONISM.

For many years both before and after the Revolution the western part of New York was claimed by Massachusetts. The dispute was finally settled in 1786 by the latter State retaining the title to the soil westward of a meridian line extending from Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario. The line was afterward ascertained to be the meridian of Washington. It passed near Elmira, through the county of Seneca, and pierced the town of Lyons in the county of Wayne. The area of the Massachusetts claim was more than seven million acres, or about fifteen counties as they are now arranged. The entire tract was sold in 1787 to Oliver Phelps and Daniel Gorman for one million dollars. Phelps and Gorman immediately proceeded to Canandaigua and obtained the Indian title to one third of the tract. A land-office was opened in that village, the first of its kind in America. But the sales, although rapid, prevented the ruin neither of the purchasers nor of Robert Morris, the financier of the Revolution, who came forward to help them. The Holland Land Company profited by these misfortunes. The rich valleys of the Genesee and its tributaries more than made good its promises to actual settlers, as is readily proved by the waving fields of grain which greet the traveller through that section to-day.

In the year 1815 there came to the town of Palmyra, in Wayne county, a family by the name of Smith. Their former home was Sharon, Vermont. The father's name was Joseph, the mother's maiden name was Lucy Mack, and they were both of Scotch descent. Their son Joseph, afterward "the Prophet," was born on December 23, 1805. Hyrum, another son, helped his father at the trade of a cooper. Joseph, Jr., grew up with the reputation of being an idle and ignorant youth, given to chicken-thieving, and, like his father, extremely superstitious. Both father and sons believed in witchcraft, and they frequently "divined" the presence of water by a forked stick or hazel rod. Orlando Sanders of Palmyra, a well-preserved gentleman of over eighty, tells us that the Smith family worked for his father and for himself. He gives them the credit of being good workers, but declares that they could save no money. He also states that Joseph, Jr., was "a greeny," both large and strong. By nature he was peaceably disposed, but when he had taken too much liquor he was inclined to fight, with or without provocation.

The profession of a water-witch did not bring enough ducats to the Smith family; so the attempt was made to find hidden treasures. Failing in this, the unfolding flower of Mormonism would have been nipped in the bud had not Joe's father and brother been engaged in digging a well upon the premises of Clark Chase in September, 1819. Joseph, Jr., stood idly by with some of the Chase children when a stone resembling a child's foot was thrown from the well. The Chase children claimed the curiosity, as it was considered, but Joe seized and retained it. Afterward, for a series of years, he claimed that by the use of it he was enabled to discover stolen property and to locate the place where treasure was buried.

After living in Palmyra for about ten years, the Smith family moved southward a few miles and settled in Manchester, the northern town of Ontario county. Their residence was a primitive one, even for those days. William Van Camp, the aged editor of the Democratic Press at Lyons, recalls the fact that it was a log house from the following circumstance. Martin Harris, a farmer near Palmyra, visited the Smiths while he was yet in doubt concerning the doctrines of Mormonism. One night, while he was in his room, curtained off from the single large room of the interior, there appeared to him no less a personage than Jesus Christ. Harris was informed that Mormonism was the true faith, and Van Camp knows that it was a log house, although no vestige now remains, because Harris told him that his celestial visitor was lying on the beam overhead!

One mile from the Smith residence was the farm of Alonzo Sanders, now owned by William T. Sampson, commander in the United States Navy. This farm is four miles south of Palmyra, on the road toward Canandaigua. It includes a barren hill which rises abruptly to the height of one hundred and fifty feet. The ridge runs almost due north and south, and from the summit there are beautiful views of the hills surrounding Canandaigua and Seneca Lakes. It is known to the present generation as "Gold Bible Hill:" to Joe Smith it was known as "the Hill Cumorah," where the angel Moroni announced to him the presence of the "golden plates" giving an account of the fate which attended the early inhabitants of America. With these plates would be found the only means by which they could be read, the wonderful spectacles known as the "Urim and Thummim." Joe was not averse to such a revelation, for his hazel rod and his "peek-stone" had already failed him. There had been various religious awakenings in the neighborhood, and when the various sects began to quarrel over the converts Joe arose and announced that his mission was to restore the true priesthood. He appointed a number of meetings, but no one seemed inclined to follow him as the leader of a new religion. In September, 1823, an angel appeared to him, forgave his many lapses from grace and announced the golden plates.

These plates, however, were not found for several years. In the mean time the scene of Smith's operations shifted along the banks of Seneca Lake and down the tributaries of the Susquehanna to the point where that river sweeps southward into Pennsylvania past a borough of its own name, and then northward into New York, before it finally crosses Pennsylvania on its way to the Chesapeake. The borough of Susquehanna forms an important station on the Erie Railway, one hundred and ninety miles north-west of New York City. All about the locality houses are built in little groups upon the steep hillsides: even the railroad-shops could not be erected before the ground was levelled for them. When the river first cut a channel through the Appalachin Mountains it was very saving of its strength. Should anything besides the river attempt to enter this valley it must either hang against the sides or swim.

Joe Smith had paid several visits to this region when the first settlers were struggling with the wilderness. It was a much wilder country than that about Palmyra, and the inhabitants were much more credulous. Upon these people Smith practised with his peek-stone. A number of aged persons now living in that vicinity give this description of the prophet: He was six feet or a trifle over in height; of stout build, but wiry; his hair and complexion were light; his eyes were blue and mild; and "he did not look as if he knew enough to fool people so," as one old lady expresses it. When "peeking" he kneeled and buried his face in his white stovepipe hat, within which was the peek-stone. He declared it to be so much like looking into the water that the "deflection of flight" sometimes took him out of his course. On a wilderness-hill—now a part of Jacob J. Skinner's farm—his peek-stone discovered a ton of silver bars which had been buried by weary Spaniards as they trudged up the Susquehanna. An expedition for their recovery was undertaken as soon as Smith could muster enough followers to do the work. Unlike St. Paul, Joe did not work with his own hands, and he did not hesitate to be chargeable to any one. Several round excavations were made on the crown of a hill, the largest of which was about thirty-five feet in diameter and of about the same depth. The water was drained toward the south, and a shanty covered the hole from the eyes of the scoffers and the profane. The diggers had proceeded with great labor, and were just ready to grasp the silver, when the charm moved it three hundred feet to the north-east. Joe tracked it with his peek-stone to its hiding-place. It was not so far under the surface this time—only about twenty feet—and the faithful again worked with a will. The dilatory movements of the silver caused anxiety to Mr. Isaac Hale, with whom the diggers had been "boarding round." Hale was a stiff old Methodist whose business judgment told him that he was taking too much stock in this "big bonanza." For all his anxiety, the silver again flitted away, and alighted fifty feet beyond the big hole. They determined to capture it if they ran the hill through a sieve. The third hole had been sunk fifteen out of the necessary twenty feet when the treasure once more jumped to the other side of the big hole. Then the prophet had a vision: the blood of a black sheep must be shed and sprinkled around the diggings. Black sheep were scarce, and while they waited for one the faithful obtained their needed rest. At length, no sheep appearing, Joe said that a black dog might answer. A dog, therefore, was killed, and the blood was sprinkled on the ground. After that the silver never went far away. Still, it waltzed about the big hole in such a lively manner that frequent tunnelling to effect its capture availed nothing. At last the prophet decided that it was of no use to dig unless one of their number was made a sacrifice. None of the faithful responded to his call, and thus the magnificent scheme was abandoned. Oliver Harper, one of the diggers who furnished the money, was soon afterward murdered. The prophet thought this might answer for a sacrifice: he again rallied the diggers, but the charm remained stubborn and would not reveal the silver.[2]

There was, however, another object for which Smith said the Lord had sent him to Susquehanna; and that was—a wife. Until he obtained one there was no use in trying to get certain buried treasures at Palymra. A headless Spaniard guarded it with great vigilance, but would, it appeared, be driven away if Smith should shake millinery and dry-goods bills at him. Joseph stopped at the house of Isaac Hale, already noticed as having furnished board to the diggers. Mr. Hale owned a farm on the north side of the river, a mile and a half below the present borough of Susquehanna. He had three daughters, two of them already married. The second daughter, Emma, was easily persuaded to join her fortunes with those of the adventurer. The father, however, made so much opposition that they crossed over into the State of New York, and were married at Windsor, a neighboring town. This was probably early in 1826. Mr. Hale threatened to shoot his son-in-law—the "Peeker," as he called him—if he ever returned.

About these days, every other means of gaining a living without honest work having been exhausted, the prophet thought it was time to find the golden plates. Returning to the vicinity of Palmyra, Smith and his followers began to dig for the plates on the eastern side of the hill. It was announced that each one of the diggers must be pure in deed, and that no evil thought must cross his mind as he worked. One night a spade struck an iron box at the same moment that an evil thought seized one of the diggers. The box sank to lower depths amid thunder and lightning, while Smith announced that nothing could be done that night but to go home and pray. They were more fortunate, however, in leaving their evil thoughts at home on the night of September 22, 1826, for then, according to the faithful, the golden plates were taken from "the Hill Cumorah with a mighty display of celestial machinery." It is recorded that after the prize had been delivered to the prophet by angels his eyes were opened and he saw legions of devils struggling with a celestial host to keep the plates concealed. On his return to Susquehanna with a bandaged head, Smith gave out that he had had an encounter with the chief devil, and been severely wounded by a blow "struck from the shoulder."

With the golden plates were also found the Urim and Thummim, the magic spectacles or religious peek-stones, "transparent and clear as crystal," which should translate the hieroglyphics on the plates. There were three witnesses who swore by all that was sacred that the angel of the Lord laid these plates before them, and that "they were translated by the gift and power of God." The three witnesses were Oliver Cowdery, who was finally expelled from the brotherhood in Missouri; David Whitner, who abandoned the Mormons and settled in Richmond, Missouri, where he still lives; and Martin Harris, who quarrelled with Smith in the same State and returned to New York to live.

Such a precious treasure as was now in the hands of Smith was not to be "borne in earthly vessels frail." He applied to Willard Chase, a son of that Clark Chase on whose premises the original peek-stone was discovered, to make him a wooden box for the plates. The compensation was to be a share in the prospective profits from the "Gold Book." Chase's lack of faith in both the man and the book caused him to decline the work. Smith thereupon thrust his gold plates and the rings which connected them into a bag of beans and started for Susquehanna. Twenty miles above that borough lies the village of Harpersville. Here lived Benjamin Wasson, who married one of Mrs. Smith's sisters. Wasson was a cabinetmaker, and, although not a Mormon, he made a strong box for the plates. Smith announced that no one could look into the box and live, but when his father-in-law, Hale, wished to try it Smith hid the box in the woods. Hale, in his statement of 1834, declared that Smith translated the plates in his own house, "with the stone in his hat and his hat over his face," while the plates were still hid in the woods.

Fortunately for Smith, he did not have to depend upon Hale for a place in which to carry on his operations. His wife had a six-acre place in a corner of her father's farm, adjoining the farm of Joseph McKune. Upon this little strip of land Smith moved a partly-finished house, twenty-six feet broad, eighteen feet deep and fourteen feet in the posts. It is evident, from the stovepipe through the roof, that the edifice was never finished. After Smith left this region Martin Harris came from Palmyra and sold the house to McKune, whose widow lived in it for about forty years. It is now the farm-residence of her son, Benjamin McKune, high sheriff of Susquehanna county, and lies close to the track of the Erie Railway, a mile and a half west of Susquehanna Dépôt. The elder McKune strongly suspected that Smith and his gang were counterfeiters.

The prophet's original plan was that the plates should be translated by an infant son, who should perform other miracles and become his successor. But his expectations were doomed to disappointment, for in a little fern-grown cemetery near at hand is a tottering slab of black sandstone with the simple inscription, "In memory of an infant son of Joseph and Emma Smith, June 15, 1828." Hence the magic spectacles were very opportunely found with the plates. The little low chamber in Smith's house was used as a translating-room. The prophet and his plates were screened even from the sight of his scribes, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery and Reuben Hale, by blankets secured with nails. While the translation was going on the neighbors frequently called to discuss the forthcoming book, which, it was alleged, would make the Hale family very rich. Occasionally a visitor was allowed to feel the thickness of the Golden Book as it reposed within a pillow-case, but no one was permitted to see it.[3]

The "celestial machinery" for the translating process was very simple. A copy of the hieroglyphics was taken, and then Smith either wrote his translation on a slate or dictated for others to write on paper. Martin Harris having taken a scroll containing some of the hieroglyphics to Professor Anthon, the characters were pronounced to be partly Greek, partly Hebrew and partly Roman inverted, with a rude copy of Humboldt's Mexican calendar at the end. That the prophet was not well advanced either in Greek or English appears from a story related by the Rev. Henry Caswall, who visited Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1842. He had with him a copy of the Psalter in Greek, which he handed to the prophet and asked him to explain its contents. Smith looked at it a few moments, and then replied, "No, it ain't Greek at all, except perhaps a few words. What ain't Greek is Egyptian, and what ain't Egyptian is Greek. This book is very valuable: it is a dictionary of Egyptian hieroglyphics." Pointing to the capital letters at the beginning of each verse, he said, "Them figures is Egyptian hieroglyphics, and them which follows is the interpretation of the hieroglyphics, written in the reformed Egyptian. Them characters is like the letters that was engraved on the golden plates." Upon this the Mormons began to congratulate Mr. Caswall on the information he was receiving. "There!" they said, "we told you so: we told you that our prophet would give you satisfaction. None but our prophet can explain these mysteries." The prophet then attempted to buy the book, on the ground that it could be of no use to Caswall, because he did not understand it! Refusing to sell, Caswall inquired the meaning of certain of the hieroglyphics on the papyrus of the prophet. When cornered the prophet slipped out of the room, and Caswall saw him no more.

Mrs. McKune relates the particulars of an incident which took place early in 1828. Martin Harris had advanced so much money to Smith that his wife came from Palmyra in great alarm to arrest the destruction of property and to reclaim her husband if possible. Harris showed her the sacred writings, already nearly completed, as an inducement for her to hold her peace. She found where the manuscript was concealed, and at once secured it. When asked to return it she replied, "Joe Smith may peek for it." This he attempted to do, but accused her of unfairly removing the manuscript whenever the attendants had almost reached it. After waiting a little time, she produced a portion of the roll and declared Smith to be a fraud. The remainder of the manuscript she retained, and finally burned it, with the remark, "If it cannot be found there will be an end to the partnership between Joe Smith and my husband." Joe never undertook to use his wonderful spectacles for a second translation of the matter in the missing manuscript: he feared that Mrs. Harris might produce a totally different Bible consisting of his first translation.

Mrs. Squires and Mrs. McKune agree in saying that no converts were made by Smith and Harris in the vicinity of Susquehanna. The scene of the Mormon endeavors was suddenly moved along the beautiful valley of the Susquehanna to a point north of the Appalachin Mountains and just within the borders of New York. In the locality of Harpersville and Nineveh a broad plain had been settled by a colony of emigrants called "the Vermont Sufferers," from their having formerly occupied land which was claimed by both Massachusetts and New York. Three miles above Nineveh lies Afton, just on the edge of Chenango county, and a short distance above are Sidney, in Delaware county, and Otego, in Otsego county. Smith and his followers operated with the peek-stone in this part of the valley, where he was a comparative stranger. George Collington, one of the most substantial farmers in Broome county, was then a lad of sixteen. One evening, at twilight, he discovered Smith, Joseph Knight, William Hale (uncle of Smith's wife) and two men named Culver and Blowers in the act of dodging through the woods with shovels and picks upon their shoulders, their object being to discover a salt-spring by the agency of the peek-stone. He followed them, under cover of the brush, to a point where they stopped for consultation and finally decided to dig the next day. Noticing that Bostwick Badger, who then owned the farm now occupied by Collington, had felled an oak near the place, and that he had drawn out the timber, Collington obtained permission to cut the top for wood. Collington's axe and the prophet's diggers began operations about the same time on the following morning. Out from the treetop came Collington and asked what they were doing. They told him to mind his business, which he did by thoroughly publishing them about the neighborhood—a proceeding that brought them a number of unwelcome visitors in the place of one. Frederick Davenport furnished young Collington with a half bushel of salt to be deposited in the hole at night. By morning the water had dissolved the salt and retained its briny flavor. Bottles were filled for exhibition, and the stock of the converts in the peek-stone ran high until the trick was discovered. It was claimed that the peek-stone also pointed out an extensive silver-mine on the farm of Abram Cornell at Bettsburg, nearly opposite Nineveh. No silver was found except that furnished by Josiah Stowell, a not over-bright man whose little all went into the pocket of Smith.

However much he might fail in discovering material treasures, Smith's hold upon the religious infatuation of his followers grew more and more strong. John Morse, an aged convert to Mormonism, had recently died, and Smith was sent for to restore him to life. After looking at him Smith declined, because it would be a pity to have him suffer rheumatism and die again so soon! This was something like Brigham Young's refusal to restore a lost leg to one of his Mormons, on the ground that if he did it the man would be obliged to walk on three legs all through eternity!

Mrs. Marsh says that Joseph Knight and his sons were on one occasion in her husband's hay-field, and boldly declared that Smith could perform miracles. On being challenged for an example, Joseph Knight said, "The prophet cast the Devil out of me. He looked like a black cat; and he ran into a pile of brush." The prophet prayed for a deceased shoemaker in Greene, Chenango county. This man had joined their Church, and the Mormons needed his property to help them in leaving the country. The widow refused to sign the property over until the prayers had been offered for the return of her husband. The prayers having availed nothing, the executor sought to recover the property. Thomas A. Johnson, then a law-student and a brother of Mrs. Marsh, was sent to Harpersville to get possession. Smith's followers were encamped in the barn of Joseph Knight, and they threatened to shoot. By the advice of friends Johnson compromised the matter by taking a valuable horse.

All accounts agree that Smith drank freely, both in the Susquehanna and in the Harpersville neighborhoods. Mrs. McKune relates that one night Smith volunteered to pray the frost away from the corn-field of his brother-in-law, Michael Morse. The field was not saved, probably because it had an exposure toward the north and the west. A number of witnesses in the vicinity of Nineveh remember that the prophet set a day for that village to sink, but that he afterward repented and withdrew his curse. He did, however, announce that on a certain evening, about twilight, he would walk on the water. The place of his selection was watched by Gentile boys until one of Smith's followers was seen to construct a bridge of planks just under the surface. Watching their opportunity, the boys removed the outer planks. Before the prophet made the attempt to walk he exhorted his followers to have strong faith. When his bridge suddenly gave way he swam ashore and said, "Woe unto you of little faith! Your faith would not hold me up."

There were other boys in the neighborhood who thought it rare sport to annoy the Mormons. The same Joseph Knight who has already figured in this narrative owned a small farm on which he had built a combined grist- and carding-mill. The power was obtained by means of a small stream, the outlet of Perch Pond to the Susquehanna River, opposite Harpersville. This stream was dammed, so that the Mormon converts might be baptized by immersion. The day for the ceremony was fixed, but the boys so persistently destroyed the dam that the Mormons did not attempt to rebuild it till the night before, and then they were obliged to stand guard until the hour for the baptism had arrived. Knight's barn was a rude structure of about forty by thirty feet, but it served the purpose of a tabernacle in the wilderness for a number of months. The prophet himself was not a very successful preacher, but the versatile Sidney Rigdon more than made up for his defects. Smith Baker gives Rigdon the credit of being "a decent speaker, as preachers averaged in those days."

A semblance of persecution having strengthened the Church, the Gentile inhabitants of the Susquehanna Valley were glad when a "revelation" caused the sixty Mormons to pack their traps and move westward. Some of the followers were moved by a spirit of adventure, while others placed their property in the common lot and determined to accompany the prophet to his earthly as well as to his heavenly kingdom. Smith Baker was one of the teamsters, and reports that the train consisted of three baggage- and eleven passenger-wagons. The exodus was along the old State road, north of Binghamton, to Ithaca, and thence, across Cayuga Lake, to Palmyra.

The Saints in the region about the Gold Bible Hill had not been idle while these things were occurring in Susquehanna. William Van Camp relates that he and all the other boys believed Hen Pack Hill, a mile east of Palmyra, would open to allow a giant to step forth and place his foot upon Palmyra to crush it. This would be the end of all disbelievers in Mormonism, and the Saints would at once be gathered together in that vicinity. "I did not know then," says Mr. Van Camp, "how easy it is for men to lie."

Mr. Van Camp is about seventy years old, and Major John H. Gilbert, who still resides in Palmyra, is about seventy-six. Both of these gentlemen were working in the office of the Wayne Sentinel, E.B. Grandin proprietor, during the months from September, 1829, to March, 1830, the time during which the Book of Mormon was in process of printing. The office was in the third story of a building now known as "Exchange Row," in the principal street of Palmyra. The foreman was Mr. Pomeroy Tucker, who afterward published a work on Mormonism. Major Gilbert was a compositor and also a dancing-master. His duties in the latter calling took him away from his "case" so frequently that Van Camp "distributed" in order to give him a chance to work the next day. The "copy" was on ruled paper—an expensive thing in those days—and the letters were so closely crowded together that words like and or the were divided at the end of the line. The copy was in Cowdery's handwriting, but it was produced from a tightly-buttoned coat every morning by Hyrum Smith. One day's supply only was given at a time, and even this was carefully taken away at night, there being but one occasion when permission was given to Major Gilbert to take it away from the office. Major Gilbert and others say that David Whitner of Richmond, Missouri, has this manuscript copy; and it has been stated recently that he has been called upon by officials from Salt Lake City to produce it, and refused.[4]

There were no marks of punctuation in the copy—a sore trial to both Tucker and Gilbert in "reading proof." At such times Cowdery occasionally "held the copy." In the absence of Cowdery the proof-readers often resorted to the orthodox Bible to verify some foggy passage. The "matter" was "paged" so that thirty-two pages could be printed at a time on one of Hoe's "Smith" six-column hand-presses. After the sheets had been run through once and properly dried, they were reversed and printed on the other side. The bookbinder then folded them by hand, and severed them with an ivory paper-cutter. The result was that the twenty-five hundred large sheets made five thousand small sheets, with sixteen pages printed upon each side. Major Gilbert has an unbound copy of the book, which he saved, sheet by sheet, as it came from the press.

Martin Harris furnished the funds for printing the book by a mortgage of three thousand dollars on his farm. He celebrated the completion of the work by inviting all the printers to his house. Mrs. Harris (the same who secreted the manuscript at Susquehanna) had not signed the mortgage. Harris brought his guests within the door—as Van Camp relates it—and introduced them to his wife, who bowed coldly and took no pains to welcome them. At length Harris asked for the cider-pitcher, and went to the spot indicated by his wife. Returning with it in his hand, he showed a large hole in the bottom. "Well," said Mrs. Harris, "it has as much bottom as your old Bible has." There was enough bottom to the Bible, however, to give a comfortable sum of money to "Joseph Smith, Jr., Author and Proprietor." Orlando Sanders, son of Alonzo Sanders before mentioned, says that the Smiths made too much money to walk any longer: he sold them a horse, and he now has a Bible which he took in payment for a bridle.

The most reasonable theory of the origin of the Book of Mormon connects the work directly with Solomon Spalding, a soldier of the Revolution from Connecticut and a graduate from Dartmouth in the class of 1785. Failing health induced Spalding to leave the ministry and to join his brother in a mercantile life at Cherry Valley and Richfield, New York. In 1809 he removed thence to Conneaut, in Ashtabula county, the extreme north-eastern corner of Ohio. Next west of Ashtabula is Lake county, wherein is located Kirtland—a place of great historic interest to the Mormons, as will appear before our narrative closes. While Spalding was in Conneaut he wrote a few novels of so unmeritorious a nature that no one would publish them. At length the opening of an Indian mound gave him a basis of facts upon which he built a story relating to the Indian population of America and its descent from the Lost Tribes of Israel. He announced that the title of his novel would be The Manuscript Found, and that he proposed to publish a sensational story of its discovery in a cave in Ohio. Spalding frequently read extracts to his friends, and one of them furnished him with money, so that he could proceed to Pittsburg and have the novel printed. The manuscript remained in the office of Patterson & Lambdin in that city for some time, but it was never published. It is probable that it was taken away by Spalding, who died shortly after (in 1816) at Amity, Washington county, near Pittsburg. While it was in the office it is believed that Sidney Rigdon, a young printer, was so pleased with the novel that he took a copy for future use. Rigdon was born in Alleghany county, Pennsylvania, February 19, 1793. He received a fair English education, and in 1817 became an orthodox Christian preacher. He soon gave forth strange doctrines, which were founded on the manuscript in his possession, and then he abandoned preaching for a number of years "to study the Bible," as he expressed it. Moving into Lake county, Ohio, he prepared the minds of his followers for some new ism. It cannot be accurately stated just when, where and how he met Joseph Smith and added his religious enthusiasm to the humbuggery of the Peeker. But that such a union was formed appears from the talk of Smith regarding the gold plates, and from the actual finding of them in the manner proposed by Spalding fourteen years before. The union is still more evident when we listen to witnesses who had heard Spalding's readings, and who afterward recognized them in the Book of Mormon, with additions of a religious nature. These witnesses noted certain inconsistencies in the Book of Mormon which they had formerly discovered in Spalding's novel. History records that the widow of Spalding sent the manuscript to Conneaut, where it was publicly compared with the printed book and the fraud exposed. Soon afterward the manuscript was spirited away from Mrs. Spalding, probably to avoid the certainty of a still more convincing disclosure. Major Gilbert testified that Rigdon dogged Smith's footsteps about Palmyra for nearly two years before the Bible was printed. He is of opinion that Rigdon was among those who listened to Spalding in Conneaut, and took notes on those occasions. The Bible itself is full of the religious questions which stirred the people of Western New York in those days—a most strange thing in a celestial work of such great antiquity.

Immediately after the publication of the Book the Church was duly organized at Manchester. On April 6, 1830, six members were ordained elders—Joseph Smith, Sr., Joseph Smith, Jr., Hyrum Smith, Samuel Smith, Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Knight. The first conference was held at Fayette, Seneca county, in June. A special "revelation" at this time made Smith's wife "the Elect Lady and Daughter of God," with the high-sounding title of "Electa Cyria." In later years this lady became disgusted with her husband's religion, and refused after his death to leave Illinois for Utah. She remained in Nauvoo, and married a Gentile named Bidamon. For a long time she kept the Mansion House in that place, where she died April 30, 1879.

Another revelation was to the effect that Palmyra was not the gathering-place of the Saints, after all, but that they should proceed to Kirtland in Ohio. Consequently, the early part of 1831 saw them colonized in that place, the move being known as "The First Hegira." Still another revelation (on the 6th of June) stated that some point in Missouri was the reliable spot. Smith immediately selected a tract in Jackson county, near Independence. By 1833 the few Mormons who had moved thither were so persecuted that they went into Clay county, and thence, in 1838, into Caldwell county, naming their settlement "Far West." The main body of the Mormons, however, remained in Kirtland from 1831 till they were forced to join their Western brethren in 1838. Brigham Young, another native of Vermont, joined at Kirtland in 1832, and was ordained an elder. The conference of elders on May 3, 1833, repudiated the name of "Mormons" and adopted that of "Latter-Day Saints." The first presidency consisted of Smith, Rigdon and Frederick G. Williams. In May, 1835, the Twelve Apostles—among them Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and Orson Hyde—left on a mission for proselytes. During the same year Rigdon's Book of Doctrine and Covenants and his Lectures on Faith were adopted. A professor of Hebrew also joined them, and all the male adults entered upon the study of that language with a will.

Rigdon was by far the ablest man in the band. His earlier religious affiliations were with the Campbellites, now called Disciples. At the time of the Mormon advent he lived in Mentor, the next town to Kirtland, but he had no farm or any other property to offer them, as has been frequently stated. Those of his followers whom he found in Kirtland frequently remarked that they "had a good time before Joe Smith came." A very clear idea of his religious power may be gained by the following statement of Judge John Barr, ex-sheriff of Cuyahoga county, Ohio, and a most excellent authority on the history of the Western Reserve. The statement has never been made public hitherto: "In 1830 I was deputy sheriff, and, being at Willoughby (now in Lake county) on official business, determined to go to Mayfield, which is seven or eight miles up the Chagrin River, and hear Cowdery and Rigdon on the revelations of Mormonism. Varnem J. Card, the lawyer, and myself started early Sunday morning on horseback. We found the roads crowded with people going in the same direction. Services in the church were opened by Cowdery with prayer and singing, in which he thanked God fervently for the new revelation. He related the manner of finding the golden plates of Nephi. He was followed by Rigdon, a famous Baptist preacher, well known throughout the eastern part of the Western Reserve and also in Western Pennsylvania. His voice and manner were always imposing. He was regarded as an eloquent man at all times, and now he seemed fully aroused. He said he had not been satisfied in his religious yearnings until now. At night he had often been unable to sleep, walking and praying for more light and comfort in his religion. While in the midst of this agony he heard of the revelation of Joe Smith, which Brother Cowdery had explained: under this his soul suddenly found peace. It filled all his aspirations. At the close of a long harangue in this earnest manner, during which every one present was silent, though very much affected, he inquired whether any one desired to come forward and be immersed. Only one man arose. This was an aged 'dead-beat' by the name of Cahoon, who occasionally joined the Shakers, and lived on the country generally. The place selected for immersion was a clear pool in the river above the bridge, around which was a beautiful rise of ground on the west side for the audience. On the east bank was a sharp bluff and some stumps, where Mr. Card and myself stationed ourselves. The time of baptism was fixed at 2 P.M. Long before this hour the spot was surrounded by as many people as could have a clear view. Rigdon went into the pool—which at the deepest was about four feet—and after a suitable address, with prayer, Cahoon came forward and was immersed. Standing in the water, Rigdon gave one of his most powerful exhortations. The assembly became greatly affected. As he proceeded he called for the converts to step forward. They came through the crowd in rapid succession to the number of thirty, and were immersed, with no intermission of the discourse on the part of Rigdon. Mr. Card was apparently the most stoical of men—of a clear, unexcitable temperament, with unorthodox and vague religious ideas. He afterward became prosecuting attorney for Cuyahoga county. While the exciting scene was transpiring below us in the valley and in the pool, the faces of the crowd expressing the most intense emotion, Mr. Card suddenly seized my arm and said, 'Take me away!' Taking his arm, I saw that his face was so pale that he seemed to be about to faint. His frame trembled as we walked away and mounted our horses. We rode a mile toward Willoughby before a word was said. Rising the hill out of the valley, he seemed to recover, and said, 'Mr. Barr, if you had not been there I certainly should have gone into the water.' He said the impulse was irresistible."

Kirtland is on the Kirtland branch of the Chagrin River, so named from the disappointment of a party of early surveyors, who thought they were in the valley of the Cuyahoga, the first river to the westward. The village is nine miles west of Painesville, three from Willoughby and twenty-two from Cleveland. Mentor is the nearest station on the Lake Shore Railway. Besides the Temple, the Mormons erected a number of substantial buildings, which show that they expected to remain in Kirtland. The residences of Smith and Rigdon are almost under the eaves of the Temple, and the theological seminary is now occupied by the Methodists for a church. A square mile was laid out in half-acre lots, and a number of farms were bought—the "Church farm" being half a mile down one of the most beautiful valleys which it is possible to conceive in a range of country so uniformly level.

Many an interesting story is told regarding the Mormon methods of carrying on business with the merchants of Cleveland. A bank was started, like other "wild-cat" banks of that period, without a charter from the State of Ohio. The institution was called "The Kirtland Safety Society Bank." A number of its bills of issue may be seen at the rooms of the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland. An examination of these bills shows that early in 1837 Smith was cashier and Rigdon was president, Two or three months later either Rigdon or Williams was secretary, and Smith was treasurer. Thus the process of inflation must have been both easy and rapid. Richard Hilliard, a leading merchant of Cleveland, received their bills for a few days, and then took possession of all their available assets. They were also in debt for their farms and for goods bought in New York. The bubble burst, and many in the vicinity of Kirtland were among the sufferers. Smith and Rigdon fled to Far West, after having been tarred and feathered for their peculiar theories of finance.

The Mormons were driven from Missouri by Governor Boggs's "Extraordinary Order," which caused them to gain sympathy as having been persecuted in a slave State. They moved to Hancock county, Illinois, in 1840, and built up Nauvoo by a charter with most unusual privileges. Smith here announced a new revelation, sustaining polygamy, which was supplemented by Young in 1852. His rebellious followers started a paper, which he promptly demolished. He was under arrest by the State authorities when a mob shot him on the 27th of June, 1844. On his death Brigham Young tricked the expectant Rigdon out of the successorship. Rigdon then refused to recognize Young's authority, and for this contumacy he was excommunicated and delivered to the Devil "to be buffeted in the flesh for a thousand years." Returning to Pittsburg, Rigdon led a life of utter obscurity, and finally died in Friendship, Allegany county, New York, July 14, 1876. Cowdery, Whitner and Harris either deserted or were cut off. The Legislature of Illinois repealed the charter of Nauvoo in 1845. Most of the Mormons gathered at Council Bluffs, Iowa, in June, 1846. Those who were left in Nauvoo were driven out at the point of the bayonet. Early in 1847 pioneers crossed the Plains to Salt Lake Valley, whither Young followed them in July. A crop was raised that year. In 1848 the main body of the Mormons were safely lodged within the confines of Utah.

By far the most important and enduring monument left by the Mormons in Kirtland is their Temple. The advent of several hundred strangers into the midst of the insignificant hamlet was an event of considerable importance, but when they selected a most commanding site, of easy access to the public highway, and commenced the building of a church, all Northern Ohio looked on in wonder. A structure of such pretensions would be a tax upon a goodly-sized town of this generation, but the several hundred Mormons who built it gave cheerfully each one his tenth in labor, materials or money for the four years from 1832 to 1836, the entire cost being estimated at forty thousand dollars. The visitor, come from whatever direction he may, has the Temple constantly in view as a reminder of the quainter style of "meeting-houses" in New England. Its architectural superiority over the meeting-houses is probably due to the fact that Smith had a "revelation" which gave him the exact measurements and proportions. The size upon the ground is eighty feet by sixty, and the eastern gable runs up into a square tower, surmounted by a domed belfry, to the height of one hundred and twenty-five feet. Two lofty stories above a low basement are covered by a shingled roof pierced with dormer windows. Large Gothic windows of the Henry VIII. shape are filled with seven-by-nine glass, and afford relief to the solid walls of stone and stucco that have so well survived the ravages of nearly half a century, though the iron rust streaking the exterior, the moss-grown shingles, the wasps' nests under the eaves, and the two immense chimneys already tottering to their fall, give evidence of approaching ruin.

As much as this even the careless passer-by cannot well avoid seeing. The more patient and accurate visitor may readily repeat my own experience as I went in search of the key on a bleak day in December. "The people ought to fix it up," said one informant: "it is a good thing for Kirtland;" the force of which remark I did not realize till I called upon an old Mormon woman who was said to have the keys. Inquiry at her little cabin resulted in my being directed to "go to Electy Stratton's." The latter personage, my cicerone, stated that her parents were Mormons—that her father had spent several hundred dollars in the cause; and so "it was thought best that their family should have the keys for a while now." The small fee for visiting the Temple was the "good thing for Kirtland," and the custody of the keys was not to remain long in one family. Opening a rickety gate, we entered the churchyard. High aloft, just under the pediment, I could read this inscription in golden letters upon a white tablet: "House of the Lord, built by the Church of Christ, 1834." Instead of the words "of Christ" the original inscription read "of the Latter-Day Saints." The Temple faces the east. Solid green doors, with oval panels, open into a vestibule extending across the entire front, and terminating on either hand in a semicircular stairway. The ceiling is cut away from the front wall to allow a flood of light to enter from a huge square window above, and the open space is railed off like a steamer's cabin. At the right, under the stairway, is the "Temple Register Room," containing a record of visitors. On the left is the "Library," with a curious collection of whale-oil chandeliers. On the left of the wall, parallel with the front, is the "Gentlemen's Entrance:" on the right is the "Ladies' Entrance." Between these doors are the inscriptions: "Laus Deo," "Crux mihianchora," "Magna veritas, et prevalebit." The auditorium occupies all the rest of the first story, but one could wish that the wall which divided it from the vestibule need not have spoiled one of the beautiful windows at either end, thus leaving an ungainly half window in the auditorium. A row of wooden pillars on either side gives the effect of galleries as the room is entered, but a closer view shows that the space between the rows is arched toward the centre of the ceiling. One of the pillars contains a windlass, which in former times controlled the heavy canvas curtains from above. The larger curtain fell into grooves between the high-back pews in such a manner as to separate the men from the women: the smaller curtains, at right angles to the other, divided both the men and the women into separate classrooms. Thus the audience was quartered or halved at pleasure, and the whole audience was enabled to face either westward or eastward by simply changing the movable benches from one side of the pews to the other. Clusters of richly-carved pulpits, rising by threes, in three tiers, fill up either end of the room. The eastern cluster is devoted to the Aaronic Priesthood, which also includes the Levitical Priesthood, and administered the temporal affairs of the Church. Each of the three pulpits in the upper tier has upon the front the letters "B.P.A.," meaning Bishop Presiding over Aaronic Priesthood; the middle tier has the letters "P.A.P.," Presiding Aaronic Priest; the lower tier has the letters "P.A.T.," Presiding Aaronic Teacher; a smaller pulpit below is labelled "P.A.D.," Presiding Aaronic Doorkeeper. The pulpits against the western end are built up against an outer window, with alternate panes of red and white glass in the arched transom. These pulpits were occupied by the spiritual leaders, or the Melchisedec Priesthood, Joe Smith's seat being in the highest tier. This tier of pulpits is marked "M.P.C.," Melchisedec President of Counsellors; the middle tier is marked "P.M.H.," Melchisedec Presiding High Priest; the lower tier is "M.H.P.," Melchisedec High Priest. Curtains from above were arranged to come down between the different tiers of the priesthood, but so arranged that while those of one degree might shut themselves away from the audience "for consultation," they could not hide themselves from their superiors in ecclesiastical rank. Strings and nails in the ceiling are the only remnants of these remarkable partitions. A simple desk below the Melchisedec pulpit bears the title "M.P.E.," Melchisedec Presiding Elder. The letters are in red curtain-cord, and the desk itself, like all the pulpits above, is covered with green calico. In the days of the Temple's glory rich velvet upholstery set off all the carved work of the pulpits, and golden letters shone from spots which are now simply marked by black paint. The gilt mouldings which formerly set off the plain white finish of the woodwork were first despoiled by the vandals, and then entirely removed by the faithful to prevent further destruction. These mottoes still remain upon the walls: "No cross, no crown;" "The Lord reigneth, let His people rejoice;" and "Great is our Lord, and of great power." Over the arched window behind the ten Melchisedec pulpits, and just beneath the vertical modillion which forms the keystone of the ornamental wooden arch, is the text, "Holiness unto the Lord."

Such is the auditorium to-day—a room which will comfortably hold six hundred people, but which was often packed so full that relays of worshippers came and went during a single service. The high pews in the corners were for the best singers in Israel; and in one of these pews, the natives assert, an insane woman was in the habit of rising and tooting on a horn whenever the sentiments of the officiating minister did not meet with her approval. Smith was in the habit of announcing from his lofty pulpit, "The truth is good enough without dressing up, but Brother Rigdon will now proceed to dress it up."

Over the auditorium is a similar room with lower ceilings and plainer pulpits, each marked with initials which it would be tiresome to explain. This hall was used as a school of the prophets where Latin and Hebrew were taught. Marks of the desks remain, but the desks themselves have long since been carried away, and the hall has been used for an Odd Fellows' lodge and for various social purposes. On one of the pillars is this remarkable announcement: "The Salt Lake Mormons.—When Joseph Smith was killed on June 27, 1844, Brigham Young assumed the leadership of the Church, telling the people in the winter of 1846 that all the God they wanted was him, and all the Bible they wanted was in his heart. He led or drove about two thousand people to Utah in 1847, starting for Upper California and landing at Salt Lake, where, in 1852, Brigham Young presented the Polygamic Revelation(?) to the people. The True Church remained disorganized till 1860, when Joseph Smith took the leadership or Presidency of the Church at Amboy, Illinois. We (thirty thousand) have no affiliation with the Mormons whatever. They are to us an apostate people, working all manner of abomination before God and man. We are no part or parcel of them in any sense whatever. Let this be distinctly understood: we are not Mormons. Truth is truth, wherever it is found."

In the vestibule of the Temple there is a photograph of Joseph Smith, Jr., and over it is the inscription, "Joseph Smith, Jr., M.P.C. President of the Re-organized Church of J.C. of L.D.S. He resides at Plano, Kendall county, Illinois." Mr. Smith, who is a son of the prophet, was born in Kirtland November 6, 1832. He removed with his parents to Missouri and Illinois, and was in his twelfth year when his father was killed at Nauvoo. He was a farmer, a school-director and justice of the peace. Removing to Canton, Illinois, he studied law, and has held various city offices. In 1860 he began to preach Mormonism according to the notice nailed on the pillar of the Temple. In 1866 he removed to Plano to take charge of The Latter-Day Saints' Herald, a position which he still retains, in connection with the presidency of the Church. Under date of December 23, 1879, Mr. Smith writes: "I am now pretty widely recognized as the leader of that wing of the Mormon Church declaring primitive Mormonism, but denying and opposing polygamy and Utah Mormonism.... We hope they [the Utah Mormons] are waning in power. We are maintaining an active ministry in Utah, striving to show the people there their errors.... It is not my province to state whether the Church will return to Kirtland or not."

From Mr. Smith's further statements it seems that the various sects—such as Rigdonites, Strangites, etc.—into which the Mormons were broken after leaving Kirtland are very few in numbers and very widely scattered. His reformed Church believes in the Trinity, future punishment, the laying on of hands, an organization like the primitive Church, continued revelations, single marriages, and the creed of most orthodox churches relating to the atonement and the ordinances of the gospel. The title to the Church property at Kirtland is now in Mr. Smith and a Mr. Forscutt, who derived their title through a Mr. Huntley, the purchaser under a mortgage sale against the prophet. Proceedings to remove the cloud from the title are now in the Ohio courts. "It is believed," writes Mr. Smith, "that the real title is in the Church, and not in Joseph Smith as an individual nor in his legal heirs or assignees."

The space under the roof is utilized by a series of school-rooms, each with falling plastering and "ratty" floors. Here the young Mormons were taught to ascend the Hill of Science by trudging up some scores of steps several times a day. Strange and dark cubbyholes stare at the visitor from all sides. In one of these was kept the body of Joseph, the son of Jacob, known by a roll of papyrus which was found in his hand. Joe Smith translated the characters on the roll, being favored with a "special revelation" whenever any of the characters were missing by reason of the mutilation of the roll.

Still up the stairway within a small square tower, now without a bell, I thrust my way until a little trap-door allowed an egress. But the railing had gone, and I clung to the belfry-blinds while I surveyed the cold waters of Lake Erie on the north, the rise of Little Mountain on the south, and, between them the broad tract of rolling country divided by the Chagrin River. I descended through labyrinthine passages, and came again to the ground and to the outer air with a sense of relief after my two hours' sojourn within the Mormon Temple.

Frederic G. Mather.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] On a scorching day in July I visited Susquehanna to obtain an authentic narrative from several parties who were eye-witnesses of the events which they related. At the residence of Mrs. Elizabeth Squires I found both herself and Mrs. Sally McKune, the widow of Joseph McKune. Mrs. Squires is considerably over seventy, and Mrs. McKune is about eighty, years of age. Both these ladies lived in the neighborhood at the time of the Smith manifestations. The statement given above with regard to the digging for treasure is that of Mrs. McKune, supplemented by Mrs. Squires. Jacob J. Skinner, the present owner of the farm, was about sixteen years old at the time of the search. For a number of years he has been engaged in filling the holes with stone to protect his cattle, but the boys still use the north-east hole as a swimming-pond in the summer.

[3] Among the callers was Samuel Brush, now a vigorous man of seventy-five, who carries on a large farm and a lumber-mill three miles south-west of Susquehanna. At the time of the translation he often called Reuben Hale away from his work, and the pair went for a walk. Reuben also explained the phenomenon of the peek-stone on the theory of "deflected light." Mr. Brush declares that Martin Harris was a believer in "second sight," and that "Smith was a good and kind neighbor"—testimony which is also given by Mrs. McKune, Mrs. Squires and Mr. Skinner.

[4] A note of inquiry has elicited from this sole survivor of the original "three witnesses" the information that he has this manuscript. Perhaps he may yet startle the Mormon world by publishing a facsimile edition of the original "translation."

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A VENGEANCE.

From savage pass and rugged shore
The noise of angry hosts had fled,
The bitter battle raged no more
Where fiery bolts had wrought their scars,
And where the dying and the dead
In many a woeful heap were flung,
While night above the Ægean hung
Its melancholy maze of stars.

One boyish Greek, of princely line,
Lay splashed with blood and wounded sore;
His wan face in its anguish bore
The delicate symmetry divine
Carved by the old sculptors of his land;
A broken blade was in his hand,
Half slipping from the forceless hold
That once had swayed it long and well;
And round his form in tatters fell
The velvet raiment flowered with gold.

But while the calm night later grew
He heard the stealthy, rustling sound
Of one who trailed on laggard knees
A shattered shape along the ground;
And soon with sharp surprise he knew
That in the encircling gloom profound
A fierce Turk crawled by slow degrees
To where in helpless pain he lay.
Then, too, he witnessed with dismay

That from the prone Turk's rancorous eye
Flashed the barbaric lurid trace
Of hate's indomitable hell—
Such hate as death alone could quell,
As death alone could satisfy.

Closer the loitering figure drew,
With naked bosom red from fight,
With ruthless fingers clutching tight
A dagger stained by murderous hue,
Till now, in one great lurch, he threw
His whole frame forward, aiming quick
A deadly, inexorable blow,
That, weakly faltering, missed its mark,
And left the assassin breathing thick,
Levelled by nerveless overthrow,
There near the Greek chief, in the dark.

Then he that saw the baffled crime,
Half careless of his life's release,
Since death must win him soon as prey,
Turned on his foe a smile sublime
With pity, and the stars of Greece
Beheld him smile, and only they.

All night the two lay side by side,
Each near to death, yet living each;
All night the grim Turk moaned and cried,
Beset with pangs of horrid thirst,
Save when his dagger crept to reach,
By wandering, ineffectual way,
The prostrate Greek he yearned to slay,
And failure stung him till he cursed.

But when soft prophecies of morn
Had wrapped the sea in wistful white,
A band of men, with faces worn,
Clomb inland past a beetling height
To find the young chief they adored,
Sought eagerly since fall of sun,
And now in ghastly change restored....
One raised a torch of ruddy shine,
And, kneeling by their leader, one
Set to his mouth a gourd of wine.

Then the young Greek, with wave of hand,
Showed the swart pagan at his side;
So, motioning to the gathered band,
That none could choose but understand,
"Let this man drink," he said, and died.

Edgar Fawcett.

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STUDIES IN THE SLUMS.