FOURTH LETTER.
THE LAND OF THE WINNEBAGOES.
Appleton, Wis., June 10, 1887.
My dear W——: We had a late start to-day from Oshkosh. It was half-past nine o'clock by the time we had reloaded our traps, pushed off from the railway embankment, and received the God-speed of M——, who had come down to see us off. The busy town, with its twenty-two thousand thrifty people, was all astir. The factories and the mills were resonant with the clang and rattle of industry, and across the two wagon-bridges of the city proper there were continual streams of traffic.
I suppose that Oshkosh is, in its way, as widely known throughout this country as almost any city in it. The name is strikingly outlandish, being equaled only by Kalamazoo, and furnishes the butt of many a newspaper joke and comic rhyme. Old chief Oshkosh, whose cognomen signifies "brave" in Menomonee speech, was the head man of his dusky tribe, a half-century ago. He was a doughty, wrinkled hero, o'er fond of fire-water, and wore a battered silk hat for a crown. About 1840, when the settlement here was four years old, the Government offered to establish a post-office if the inhabitants would unite on a name for the place. The whites favored Athens, but the Indians, half-breeds, and traders round about Butte des Morts, wanted their friend Oshkosh immortalized, so they came down to the new settlement in force, and the election being a free-for-all, carried the day. It is said that the Grignons were so anxious in behalf of the Menomonee sachem that they had a number of squaws array themselves in trousers and cast ballots like the bucks. And it was fortunate, as events proved, that the election turned out as it did, for the oddity of the name has been a permanent advertisement for a very bright community. Oshkosh, as hackneyed "Athens," would have been lost to fame. Nobody would think of going to "Athens" to "have fun with the boys."
The morning air was as clear as a bell,—a pleasant northeast zephyr, coming in off the body of the lake, slightly ruffling the surface and reducing the temperature to a delightful tone. The wind not being fair, the sail was useless, so we paddled along through the broad river, into the lake and northward past a fishermen's colony, rows of great ice-houses, the water-works park, and beautiful lake-shore residences, to Garlic Island. It was half-past twelve, P.M., when we tied up at the crazy pier which projects from this islet of the loud-smelling vegetable. A half-century ago Garlic Island was the home of Iowatuk, the beautiful aboriginal relict of a French fur-trader,—an Indian princess, the old settlers called her; at all events, she is reputed to have been a most exemplary person, well-possessed of this world's goods, as well as a large family of half-breed children. The island is charmingly situated, a half-mile or more out from the main land, opposite the Northern Insane Hospital; it is a forest of ancient elms, surrounded by a bowlder-strewn beach of some three quarters of a mile in length, and occupied by a summer-hotel establishment. The name "Garlic Island" does not sound very well for a fashionable resort, so the insular territory has been dubbed "Island Park" of late; but "Garlic" has good staying qualities, and I doubt if they can ever efface the objectionable pioneer title.
We had our dinner on the sward near the pier, convenient to a pump, and were entertained by watching the approach of a little steam-launch, loaded with a party of "resorters" who had doubtless been shopping in Oshkosh, the smoke from whose chimneys rose above the tree-tops, five miles to the southwest. There were some of the usual types,—the languid Southern woman, with her two pouting boys in charge of a rather savage-looking colored nurse, who dragged the little fellows out over the gang-plank, one in each hand, as though they had been bags of flour; a fashionable dame, from some northern metropolis, all ribbons and furbelows, starch and whalebones, accompanied by her willowy daughter of twenty, almost her counterpart as to dress, with a pert young miss of fourteen, in abbreviated gown and overgrown hat, bringing up the rear with the family pug; a dawdling young Anglo-maniac sucked the handle of his cane and looked sweetly on the society girl, whose papa, apparently a tired-out broker, in a well made business costume and a wretched straw hat, stayed behind to treat the skipper to a prime cigar and arrange for a fishing excursion.
There is a fine view from the island. The hills and cliffs of Calumet County, a dozen miles to the east, are dimly visible. Toward Fond du Lac, on the south, the horizon is the lake. South-southwestward, Black Wolf Point runs out, just over the verge, and the tops of the tall trees upon it peep up into view, like shadowy pile-work. Westward are the well-kept hospital grounds, fringed with stately elms overhanging the firm, gravelly beach, studded with ice-heaved bowlders, which extends northward to Neenah. The view to the north and northeast is delightfully hazy, being now dark with delicate fringes of forest which cap the occasional limestone promontories, and again losing itself in a watery sky-line.
We had two pleasant hours at this island-home of the lovely Iowatuk, walking around it on the bowldered beach, and reveling in the shade of the grand old elms. By the time we were ready to resume our voyage, the wind had died down, the lake was as smooth as a marble slab, and the sun's rays reflected from it converted the atmosphere to the temperature of a bake-oven. No sooner had we pushed out beyond the deep shadows of the trees than it seemed as though we had at one paddle-stroke shot into the waters of a tropic sea. The awning was at once raised, and served to somewhat mitigate our sufferings, but the dazzling reflection was there still, to the great discomfort of our eyes.