Dan and father were down to the Tremont playing cards and talking politics. Andrew Jackson was still President, a man who had warm partisans and bitter enemies. Then, too, Chicago was beginning to feel the birth throes of a city.
We were up early the next morning. Dan was employed in one of the trading companies, father at the mill, and they were off by six in summer. It was true that I partly did a girl's work helping mother, being deft and light-handed for a boy. I ran out to the stable to see if I had dreamed this wonderful event of the night before. No, there were the horses, who greeted me with a cheerful whinny, and there was the wagon with its patched cover.
Ruth Gaynor was as sweet and charming in the morning as she had been at night. Soon after breakfast they prepared to leave. My mother would accept nothing for her hospitality except a promise that Ruth should come over and visit us. The three younger ones stared at her with boyish bashfulness, and she did not seem to be inclined to make friends with them. I was selfishly glad of it.
I was to pilot them over. Everything has changed so now that it is difficult to find an old landmark. There had been great changes even in my remembrance. Gurdon Hubbard had moved his business to Chicago and erected a brick building on the corner of South Water and LaSalle streets, the first in the town. Then he had built a warehouse on Kinzie Street and was doing a flourishing commission and forwarding business with vessels plying between Buffalo and the upper lakes, the Eagle line. Back of this a little was the space a block square that Towner had traded for the Massachusetts farm near a thriving city. Then, still farther away, was the tract of prairie.
The house we found in a poor condition. But as if Mr. Gaynor's luck was to begin at once, some parties wished to buy half of this plot and a bargain was struck. That would leave him the house and a garden. There was such a little money that trade and barter was often resorted to, and through a third party he could have lumber enough to build two new rooms on the house and repair the other. There was a tolerable barn and stable.
We cleared up the best room. It was astonishing to see the useful articles and bedding that were stored in the great wagon. We found some second-hand furniture, and by night they were fairly comfortable. It was still pleasant, but we built a roaring fire in the old fireplace to drive away the dampness.
What a day it was to me! How fascinating the Little Girl was in every movement, in her shrewd sayings, her wisdom that seemed much too old for her years, yet she was such a frank, eager child.
"Must you go home?" she asked pleadingly. "Your mother has other boys. Can't some of them help her?"
"I suppose they could be trained to. They have always kept together and are so full of play."
"And do you work all the time?"