Wau-Bun: The Early Day in the Northwest

by Mrs. John H. Kinzie

The most amusing part of our experience was yet to come. I had been speculating, as evening approached, on our prospects for the night's accommodation. As our pale, melancholy-looking landlady and her fat baby were evidently the only specimens of the feminine gender about the establishment, it was hardly reasonable to suppose that any of the other cabins contained wherewithal to furnish us a comfortable lodging, and the one in which we were offered nothing of the sort to view, but two beds, uncurtained, extended against the farther wall. My doubts were after a time resolved, by observing the hostess stretch a cord between the two, on which she hung some petticoats and extra garments, by way of a partition, after which she invited us to occupy one of them.

My only preparation was, to wrap my cloak around me and lie down with my face to the wall; but the good people were less ceremonious, for at the distance of scarcely two feet, we could not be mistaken in the sound of their garments being, not "laid aside," but whipped over the partition-wall between us.

Our waking thoughts, however, were only those of thankfulness for so comfortable a lodging after the trials and fatigues we had undergone; and even these were of short duration, for our eyes were soon closed in slumber.

The next day's sun rose clear and bright. Refreshed and invigorated, we looked forward with pleasure to a recommencement of our journey, confident of meeting no more mishaps by the way. Mr. Hamilton kindly offered to accompany us to his next neighbor's, the trifling distance of twenty-five miles. From Kellogg's to Ogie's Ferry, on the Rock River, the road being much travelled, we should be in no danger, Mr. H. said, of again losing our way.

The miner who owned the wife and baby, and who, consequently, was somewhat more humanized than his comrades, in taking leave of us "wished us well out of the country, and that we might never have occasion to return to it!"

"I pity a body," said he, "when I see them making such an awful mistake as to come out this way; for comfort never touched this Western country."

We found Mr. Hamilton as agreeable a companion as on the preceding day, but a most desperate rider. He galloped on at such a rate that, had I not exchanged my pony for the fine, noble Jerry, I should have been in danger of being left behind.

Well mounted as we all were, he sometimes nearly distanced us. We were now among the branches of the Pickatonick, and the country had lost its prairie character and become rough and broken. We went dashing on, sometimes down ravines, sometimes through narrow passes, where, as I followed, I left fragments of my veil upon the projecting and interwoven branches. Once my hat became entangled, and, had not my husband sprung to my rescue, I must have shared the fate of Absalom, Jerry's ambition to keep his place in the race making it probable he would do as did the mule who was under the unfortunate prince.

There was no halting upon the route, and, as we kept the same pace until three o'clock in the afternoon, it was beyond a question that when we reached "Kellogg's" we had travelled at least thirty miles. One of my greatest annoyances during the ride had been the behavior of the little beast Brunet. He had been hitherto used as a saddle-horse, and had been accustomed to a station in the file near the guide or leader. He did not relish being put in the background as a pack-horse, and accordingly, whenever we approached a stream, where the file broke up to permit each horseman to choose his own place of fording, it was, invariably the case that just as I was reining Jerry into the water, Brunet would come rushing past and throw himself into our very footsteps. Plunging, snorting, and splashing me with water, and sometimes even starting Jerry into a leap aside, he more than once brought me into imminent danger of being tossed into the stream. It was in vain that, after one or two such adventures, I learned to hold back and give the vexatious little animal the precedence. His passion seemed to be to go into the water precisely at the moment Jerry did; and I was obliged at last to make a bargain with young Roy to dismount and hold him at every stream until I had got safely across.

"Kellogg's"[16] was a comfortable mansion, just within the verge of a pleasant "grove of timber," as a small forest is called by Western travellers. We found Mrs. Kellogg a very respectable-looking matron, who soon informed us she was from the city of New York. She appeared proud and delighted to entertain Mr. Hamilton, for whose family, she took occasion to tell us, she had, in former days, been in the habit of doing needle-work.