What Norman Saw in the West

by Julia M. Olin

Seated in the cars, Norman saw the sun set for the last time on the great river that had become to him a familiar friend; saw the Rock River gleam in the moonlight; and soon after the welcome lights of his uncle’s home.

Norman had a great deal to tell his uncle and aunt about the Mississippi, and Minnehaha, and the boats, and the little incidents of their journey, and the week he was to spend at Dixon passed rapidly away.

One day Norman’s aunt took Mrs. Lester to see Father Dixon, the patriarch of the place to which his name is given. The hotel also bears the name given to him by the Indians, Nachusah, or the White Haired. His long flowing white hair makes him look very venerable; and there is an expression of gentleness in his delicate features that wins the love of the children of the town, who all call him Grandpapa. He established a ferry over the Rock River thirty years ago, when there were no white people in all the country round, and lived here in his solitary dwelling by the river side.

He lives there still; and Mrs. Lester was very much interested in her visit to him, and in his accounts of the Indians who formerly roamed over these prairies, now the fruitful farms of the white men.

One day a gentleman, who lived on the opposite side of the river, sent his two carriages over for Norman’s uncle and aunt, his mother and himself. As Norman was in the woods with Herbert Waldorf, they went without him. The bridge had been carried away by the flood, so they crossed by the rope ferry. A very stout wire rope was stretched across the river, and a scow was fastened to this by a rope which slipped by a wheel along the iron cable. When they drove on the scow, the man turned the prow of the boat up the current, which at once urged the boat onward. It is a very pleasant and rapid way of crossing the river, allowing one to have a near look of the swiftly flowing waters.

Mr. Dexter had a pretty cottage and fifty acres of prairie land just on the edge of the town. Mrs. Lester went up stairs to see the extensive view of prairie from Ernest Dexter’s window, and then she looked at a cabinet of fossils, most of which he had collected himself in Illinois. There were some very fine specimens, and he was kind enough to give Mrs. Lester a number of them.

The music of the piano called forth the rival notes of the mocking bird, and, accompanied by several canaries, he made the air vocal with sweet sounds. Mrs. Lester forgot what she was playing, so charmed was she with these delicious songsters. Strawberries and ice-cream were fully appreciated after the music, and the evening’s entertainment concluded with a magnificent sunset on the prairie. Golden clouds were penciled softly on the clear amber sky, while rugged wild clouds towered up in stern contrast with this calm serenity. One could imagine the cliffs of Sinai in those gray clouds, so bold and lofty, while through a torn rift gleamed the soft blue sky. It was a memorable sunset even in the West, where they claim for their sunsets a peculiar beauty.

Norman was very sorry when he heard how much he had missed, especially as Mr. Dexter had been kind enough to send over twice for him. So he told Harold Dexter, when he saw him at church the next day, that he would walk over with Herbert Waldorf on Monday morning.

After breakfast Norman and Herbert walked over to Mr. Dexter’s, where they found the boys waiting for them. After a careful survey of Ernest’s treasury, and of a smaller cabinet belonging to Harold and his brother, they set off, with baskets and hammers, in search of minerals. They went to a quarry and found a very fine fossil, a portion of a petrified snake. They hammered at this for a long time, but they broke it all to pieces in endeavoring to get it out. Harold found, however, a large stone filled with petrified shells, which he kindly gave to Norman, who came home in the afternoon with his basket filled with pieces of rock.

One afternoon Norman saw three “prairie schooners” in the street before his uncle’s door. These are the emigrant wagons with their white tops, which look not unlike sails as you see them quietly moving on over the far reaches of the prairie. A number of horses and boys were standing near them. The party were hesitating as to their course; wishing to cross the river, and seeing no bridge but the railroad bridge, they were making their way to that, when they found they could not cross it. Hence the halt and the consultation.