Children of the Market Place

by Edgar Lee Masters

On that ride back to Springfield he talked to me of many things that gave me an insight into the workings of his mind. For the dreamer, the visionary, he had no patience; he felt contempt for the agitator and the radical. In a theory preoccupying the human mind he saw something akin to madness. Mormonism, abolitionism, all the various forms of propaganda which made American life so clamorous, found a common classification in his tabulation of men. What was really before the country? Truly, the conquest of the wilderness, the production of wealth, the development of national power; but always the rule of the people too. "There are two things in my life," he said to me. "One is the fact that I got mad at my uncle, and the other is the inspiration that I get out of these prairies. Add to these what mind I have, and the sum is myself."

When we parted in Springfield, and I was about to return to my farm in Jacksonville, he could not thank me enough for what I had done for him. But I was his friend, and why not? I saw him later when a dinner was given at Quincy in honor of the Democratic governor-elect whose success Douglas had done so much to bring about. All the speakers paid tribute to Douglas amid storms of applause. They assured him that his firm integrity, the high order of his talent had endeared him to the people; and that he would be remembered in two years with another nomination.

As soon as I saw Reverdy I told him that I had found Zoe and all the circumstances and about Fortescue. Reverdy thought that I should send Zoe money for living expenses on the first of each month; and so I began.

But neither Reverdy nor myself could work out any permanent program for Zoe. After all, what was humanly possible? Zoe was now about nineteen. If she was dealt with justly as to her property what more could I do? If there was danger from Fortescue, or any one else, I was powerless to prevent it. Since she did not wish to live with me, I had no power to make her do so.

In November Reverdy and I went to Meredosia to see the locomotive which had been shipped from Pittsburgh for Illinois' first railroad. All of the horses and oxen of the neighborhood were required to pull the huge iron thing up the banks of the river; and scores of men in ant-like activity worked about it to place it upon the rails. Douglas was in the crowd, happy and enthusiastic. He joined the party, headed by Governor Duncan, in the first journey that a steam train ever made in the state. He tried to make a place for Reverdy and me; but the Governor had filled all the seats with his friends: so we stood as spectators, while the new wonder moved on its way, pulled by the queer locomotive, amid the shouts of the crowd, responded to by the calls of those on board.

Going back to Jacksonville I ventured to talk to Reverdy about Dorothy. He knew well enough what my feeling was for her. He knew the story; he knew her attitude. He did not share in her fears, in her feeling about Zoe. He was frank to say that Zoe could do nothing, could be nothing that need affect my life in any way more serious than if her skin was white. But he explained that Dorothy had the southern view; and if I wished to wait and see if she could work herself out of doubts, well and good; and if I could not further hope he could understand that too. I wanted to write to Dorothy to tell her that Zoe was still away and that I thought she would never return. But perhaps after all Dorothy's attitude was founded in an innate prejudice against the relationship to which she would make herself a party by marrying me. Was this not perfectly unreasonable? It made me distrust Dorothy's nature at times. What was she after all? Finally, however, I wrote to Dorothy as best I could and after many ineffectual trials at expressing myself. Promptly enough a letter came back. It was not lacking in kindness, but it offered no hope. Hurt and listless I tried to turn my thoughts to other things. There were always my growing enterprises—and yet to what end? To be rich, to be richer.

When December came I had a letter from Miss Walker. She was in Springfield at the Ridgeway mansion for a visit through the holidays. There were to be parties and dances. Why did I not come over? And I went.

I looked up Douglas at once. He was making some headway at the practice of law, but his energies, for the most part, were absorbed in perfecting the organization of his party. He was putting together a compact machine. He was on the very edge of being the leader of the Illinois Democracy. What infinite details there are to any given end! If it is the building of a house, tools must be bought, trees felled, foundations dug. A carpenter's finger must be bandaged so that he can go on with the work. Cloth must be found for the bandage and a string with which to tie it. And so Douglas was engaged in infinite talks on the corners, at the newspaper office; he was making short trips; he was writing dozens of letters, he was inserting editorials in the newspapers. But he had time for the gayeties of the season.

He was always the gallant, the amusing wit, the ready raconteur. We were such friends! Again Miss Walker had both of us for attendants; but upon such widely different footing. I was a suitor with many doubts. Douglas was not a suitor at all. He came to her to enjoy the keenness of her mind.

But as I was English, and as Miss Walker thought herself the next thing to it, she took me aside as an understanding confidant as to the life around us. Springfield was almost a mudhole. She was offended by it, but also she found much in it to make her laugh. There were the gawks; the sprawling ill-bred men; the illiterate young women; the mushroom life; the haste, the crudities of living; the ugliness and the disorder; the unsettled, ever restless, patchy catch as catch can existence; the attempt, in a word, to make life, to build a town, a capital. All this shocked or amused her. Did I not see it with English eyes used to tranquillity and order? She wondered why Douglas had left the East. He could have risen there in time; and when he should have done so it would have been an eminence. Had he not acquired brusqueness, vulgarity since coming west? A man of undoubted gifts, she conceded—yet. Perhaps I was her favorite after all.