USA > Kansas > Emigrant life in Kansas > Part 10
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AFTER THE STORM.
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ANOTHER CHANGE.
One evening about this time I saw a herd of horses run into by the train, and five of them were killed or so badly hurt that they had to be shot. The railroad track ran across the valley a little way below our farm, and the cattle and horses used to feed around there often; and on this occasion a bunch of horses got on it, and did not go off when the train came along. As
it approached, the driver blew his whistle and rang his bell, but the horses, instead of getting . off, ran along the track for some distance, until they drew near to a trestle bridge across a ravine.
By this time they could not get down off the track, as it had risen on a high embank- ment; they could not go back because of the train following them, nor could they cross the bridge. The driver did not attempt to slack down, but dashed on to the helpless drove, who stood huddled together quaking with fear. In a second the engine was upon them, and the powerful cow-catcher in front flung them right and left and sent them rolling down the embankment on to the stones below.
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The train passed on without a pause to see what damage was done, and was soon out of sight. I galloped up, and found three of the
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poor things quite dead, and the other two with their legs broken and otherwise injured. I knew who they belonged to, and rode up to tell the owners, who came down and shot them.
Such things occur occasionally, for the drivers very seldom trouble to stop their engines for cattle on the track. The farmer, however, usually gets compensation from the railway company.
During the summer, I attended the funeral of a young lady, the daughter of a neighbour- ing. farmer, who had died under somewhat painful circumstances.
Miss Dora Shepherd was a very beautiful girl, and as lively and gay as she was pretty. Her death was caused by dancing when she had something the matter with her foot, which would probably have got right with a little rest, but being of a very lively disposition, she per- sisted in going to the dance, and the conse- quence was that her foot and leg became very bad.
After a while she was taken east to St. Louis, Missouri; and here it was eventually decided that amputation was necessary. This was carried into effect, but she died shortly
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after the operation, and was brought home to be buried.
All the Methodist community looked upon her death as being a judgment for dancing, and never lost an opportunity of bringing it up as an example.
The funeral was very simple, but impressive, and took place in the ground attached to the school-house. The coffin was carried by several young girls, her former companions, and was completely smothered in flowers. There was a glass panel over the face, and the corpse was dressed in her best clothes, and looked very beautiful when we all passed round to take the last look.
This was the only funeral that I ever saw in our parts ; they seemed to be rare occurrences. The district was certainly very healthy, though I don't think that we were quite like the town out west, which Mark Twain described as being "so beastly healthy that they had to kill a man to start a cemetery."
Whiteman's farm was certainly one of the best I have seen. 'It was splendidly situated near the banks of the' Kansas River, in the fertile Eureka Valley, which was enclosed by
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high bluffs, which helped to make the fine rich bottom land for which the valley was noted, the fine loam washing down by the heavy rains, and leaving the big limestone · rocks behind. A short distance from the farm was the Eureka Lake, one of the most beautiful places imaginable. It was of irre- gular winding shape, and nestled down among steep banks, clad with trees almost tropical in their luxuriance. A large island stood in the middle, and here the vegetation was magni- ficent. Great cottonwood trees towered up, festooned with Virginia creeper and wild grape- vines, while over the smaller trees and under- growth the wild hops, cucumbers, and gourds cast their brilliant green network, making it most difficult to force a passage through. Here flourished the coffee-bean tree, which in the springtime is covered with large clusters of pink and white flowers, something like the horse-chestnut, but giving out a most powerful and sweet perfume, scenting the air for a long distance around ; also the black locust tree, with its great - prickles a foot or eighteen inches long, bristling from its otherwise clean smooth bark.
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Again, in the early spring, before the leaves were on the trees, the iron-wood tree decked the landscape with its bright pink blossoms, similar to the Japanese almond, and in the autumn the woods were gay with the waw- hoo's brilliant scarlet and orange berries, in addition to the splendid colours of the dying leaves.
Besides these more conspicuous trees there were numberless other varieties, as the hickory, hackberry, black-walnut, the black, white, live, and scrub oak, the white, red, wych, and water elm, ash, yew, cedar, mulberry, and the stately plane tree. The undergrowth was a tangle of gooseberry bushes, raspberry and blackberry canes, vines and creeping plants, dog-wood, box-elder, wild plum trees, pawpaws, cherries, withes, reeds and rushes, all growing in the most dense, picturesque, and wild confusion.
As the island was not often visited, owing to the difficulty of access without a boat, game was very plentiful, but during the winter, when the lake was frozen over, the young fellows crossed and shot and hunted a good deal.
The lake teemed with sun-fish, cat-fish, bass
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suckers, and turtles, and we often spent an hour of an evening practising the gentle art; frequently with good results. .
When Whiteman returned from Philadelphia, we set to work. thrashing out the small grain, and had a fine time of it. He had several stacks, and the work was mostly done on the same principle as the harvesting, that is, the neighbours came and helped, and Whiteman worked for them in return, either himself, or by sending a substitute, so that, as nearly all the grain in the valley was thrashed at the same time, it kept us busy for a while. The thrashing machine, and some of the horses in use, belonged to one or two parties, who make it a business of going about the country working either for cash, or taking a part of . the grain thrashed .. The farmer whose grain is being thrashed finds the other horses necessary for turning the gear, as well as the majority of the hands required, and boards and lodges the men for as long as they stay on his farm. It is nice, lively work, though some positions. are fearfully dirty, notably the straw-stack, and this position was usually mine.
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At Whiteman's I built a tremendous straw- stack, the largest in the valley, and it was so straight and substantial, that I was almost invariably selected for stacking at the neighbours' places when their thrashing came round.
The feeding of the machine was very dirty work, too, and, in fact, we nearly all looked like niggers by the time we quitted work. ' There were usually about twelve men employed, one on the wheat-stack, who pitched the sheaves to another, who laid them on a table with the ears towards the machine, where the band was cut by a third man armed with a blade from a reaping machine, set in a handle. He passed the now loose wheat to the feeder, who guided it into the drum. The grain then ran out at the side of the machine and employed three more men, measuring, sacking, and carrying away, while the straw went up the elevator and gave employment to two, or sometimes, when the stack was high, three more hands, and then there was a man or boy on the platform, over the horse-gear, to keep the horses going at the right rate.
Thrashers always live on the fat of the land,
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and the quantity of fried chicken and pumpkin pie consumed is pretty considerable. The principal meal is supper, about six or seven at night, after the regular day's work is done ; but the other two meals, breakfast and dinner, are also substantial ones. There is no tea, only three meals. Of course tea is drunk, but coffee is the principal drink out there.
The men travelling with the machine, and some of the farmers living a little distance away, sleep on the place, mostly out of doors, about the waggons or the stacks.
It was getting late in the autumn now, and it was rather cold to wake up of a morning with white frost all over one. By the time thrashing was over, the corn was ripe, and we then started gathering it, and this kept White- man, Dick, and me engaged for some time, for there was a big patch to do.
I was out on one of the neighbouring farms at one time, with some more young fellows, where there was a fine orchard, and I guess we didn't go to sleep until we had sampled their fruit to a considerable extent.
There was a panther, or perhaps, more cor- rectly speaking, a jaguar, killed just across
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the river during the autumn. For some time it was known to be in the neighbourhood, and it at length attacked a man and pretty badly damaged him. The settlers then got up a hunt, and after a little time found him in the woods and managed to shoot him.
Such things are now remarkably scarce, that one was the only one heard of for several years, and it caused a considerable scare on the river.
While here I received another offer of adop- tion. This made the third offer I had had, for while at Anderson's I was asked by old Hockley to take up my abode with him and his wife, but I could not quite see it, they were such a disgustingly dirty lot. This time, however, the circumstances were rather differ- ent.
Living with Whiteman's family was an old maiden lady, Miss Avarilla Goodwin, a retired "school-marm." She owned a first-rate farm, which she was obliged to let out, having no one to attend to it, and so proposed to adopt me. She was a very nice old lady, and much liked by all who knew her, and I have not the slightest doubt but that we should have
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agreed very well, but as I was even then on my way home to my mother, I could scarcely fall in with the arrangement.
She had a niece though, in Manhattan, who came to see her sometimes, one of the pretti- est girls I have ever seen, which might have been a powerful argument, if I had been at all inclined to stay in the country.
When the husking was done, we spent a while hauling corn to town for sale, and then, my six months' agreement being completed, I left Whiteman's and arranged to go back to old England.
Whiteman paid me up all right, though he wanted me to take out as much as I could in store goods, that is, he gave me an order on a store-keeper in town to get anything I wanted, for which he paid in corn, and he would get a higher price for his corn in this way than he would if he sold for cash.
I got a suit of clothes, a pair of boots, and a few small necessaries, but as I was going a long journey, of course I wanted cash and not goods, and so could not oblige him much in that respect.
All being squared up between us, I said
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good-bye to Whiteman's family, and went to stop a few days with Tom Crofter, who had made another move, and was living up the Blue River, about two miles from Manhat- tan.
· I stayed with him while I arranged what ship I should go by, and then went east. While with him I bought his watch, and the trading instinct being strong with him, I gave him six dollars and exchanged pocket knives. It was a very good little silver watch, of English make, and although a former owner had been out of his mind and taken it apart and put it together again, it still went very well.
CHAPTER XII.
CONCLUSION.
Good-bye to Kansas .- On the ice at Quincy .- Philadelphia. -The man's thumb .- The sharper .- On board the Pennsylvania .- Stuck in the ice .- Christmas and New Year on the sea. - Home again -- Ashtabula Bridge .- A few words of advice.
I LEFT Manhattan by the eastward-bound train about nine o'clock in the morning, the only train in that direction during the day. I was a little late in starting, and how I scuttled down the road from Tom's house, in case I should miss the train ! for missing it meant losing a day, and thereby being too late for the sailing of the ship I had a ticket for. But I was in good time, as the train came from away up in Colorado, and I took my seat in the cars for the first time in six years, and soon left the well-known scenes behind me. I passed by the farm where I had first joined Anderson and
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Tom Crofter, and then was whirled away into a region quite unknown to me, though, of course, it was the same route I had travelled .over in going out from England.
I reached Kansas City the same night, changed cars, and then resumed the journey, sleeping in the cars, which were very comfort- able, until we arrived at Quincy, Illinois, which : city we reached at three o'clock on Sunday morning. Here we had to put up for twenty- four hours.
I had struck up an acquaintance with the conductor, and went home with him to spend the remainder of the night at an hotel kept by a relation of his, and was made very comfort- able. In the morning I had a walk around the town, which seemed a large thriving place. It is situated on the Mississippi River, and I went to have a look at the mighty stream. It
was now frozen over, and was alive with people skating, sliding, and sleigh-driving on its broad surface. The ice was three feet thick and without a flaw, and I saw a place where on week days they drove great waggon loads of wood across, while the fine large Mississippi steamers were all frozen in for the winter. It
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was a grand sight,-the wide-reaching field of ice,-the river here being a mile wide.
I paid my hotel bill overnight, and retired to. bed rather early, as the train started eastwards again at three o'clock on Monday morning. I was asked if I would be called at that time, but I told them I guessed I should get up without calling, trusting to my early rising experiences at old Blake's, and, sure enough, I woke at half-past two, then dressed, and got to the train in good time.
I believe that one can wake up at almost any time, if the mind be made up over night.
From Quincy we passed on to Chicago, where I had to change again, and then on to Pittsburgh, and then at length arrived at Philadelphia, from whence I had arranged to sail instead of from New York. I spent the night at an hotel near the docks; I forget the name of it, but I remember it had a peculiar relic in the coffee room; it was a man's thumb,-the proprietor's,-and was shot off at the battle of Vicksburg. It was preserved in a bottle on the mantelshelf, and formed a highly edifying object of contemplation.
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Early in the morning I changed my American greenbacks for good old English gold, which, later in the day, I guess I came near losing. I had gone on board in good time and made my bunk comfortable, and after leaving my belongings down below, was stand- ing around on the quay waiting for the ship to sail, when I was accosted by a spruce, well- dressed, gentlemanly-looking man. He entered into a casual kind of conversation ; he said he was going over to England on business con- nected with his firm, Messrs. So-and-So, of Philadelphia, and such a street, London,-of course, a sham address-and hoped we should have a pleasant voyage, with other small talk. He asked a few questions, as most Americans can, and then said he must go and fetch his portmanteau, and turning to go said we should meet again on board.
A minute later he returned. "My portman- teau is a little heavy, perhaps you wouldn't mind stepping up a couple of blocks, and giving me a lift." There was plenty of time to spare, so I went along. "By the way," said he, presently, "I want to square an account up the street here, before I leave; can
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you lend me some money till I get my port- manteau ? "
" I've got nothing but English gold," said I.
" Oh ! my friend will take that-how much have you got ? "
" Four pounds."
" That's all right ; if you'll lend me that, I'll just step in here, pay my account, and then give it you back, when I get my trunk."
Like a fool I handed him the money.
" Thanks, I shan't be a minute," as he dis- appeared in the doors of the store. At that very instant it struck me that all was not right, and I determined not to let him out of my sight, so I followed into the store.
Here my suspicions were confirmed, for he did not attempt to pay any bill, but finding that I was watching him, he bought some trifling article, and went out.
" Oh! the man's not in that I wanted to see," said he.
" All right, let's go and get the bag then."
Well, he walked round the stores and about the streets a bit, and seemed to be wanting to give me the slip, but I had determined
CONCLUSION. 225
to stick to him like a leech now. At last he said,-
" Ain't you afraid you'll lose the ship ? "
" Well, ain't you ? "
" Oh, I guess I won't go by this one."
" Well, I guess I'd rather lose the ship than my money," said I; " so pass it over, please.
" All right, here it is," said he, handing me some coins.
"Here, these are not what I gave you "- for they were just some gilt tokens or Hanover · sovereigns ; " these are not worth a cent."
" They are what you gave me."
By this time I had found out the sort of man I had to deal with, so I put on a bold front.
" Look here, Mr. Sharper, if you don't hand over my coins in about two shakes, I'll let daylight into you," at the same time putting my hand into a hip pocket, as.though I had a revolver; " and see, there's a policeman coming yonder, so you'd better shell out . quietly."
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This he accordingly did, though sorely against his will, judging from the language he indulged in.
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It was certainly a narrow squeak, for if I had not been on my guard he might easily have slipped away out of sight. Of course it was exceedingly foolish of me to have let the money out of my hands. I suppose that I ought to have given him in charge of the policeman that I saw, but had I done so I must have stopped in Philadelphia to prosecute, which I did not choose to do; so he escaped justice for that time.
Moral .- Don't be disobliging to strangers, but don't lend them money.
I reached my ship, the Pennsylvania, of the "American " line, just in time, and started down the Delaware River at eleven o'clock.
It was fearfully cold weather, for it was now the middle of December, and the Delaware was full of ice, through which the steamer passed with great difficulty. As we got lower down near the sea, the ice became thicker still, until at last our great ocean-going vessel stuck fast in it. The engines were reversed and she backed out, and then rushed at the ice again to attempt to force a passage through, but in vain ; there was a crash and a mighty shock that nearly sent every one off their feet,
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and then we were fast again. This was tried two or three times without a way being opened, and then we had to back out and lay by while ice-boats came and cut a passage for us.
These boats were little sharp-prowed vessels, which worked in pairs at some distance apart, ramming away and chipping the ice away in great lumps.
In two or three hours we were able to pass through, and out on to the open sea. .
The ship was very empty as regards passen- gers, and I had a much more comfortable time than I had had on the outward voyage. There were only forty steerage passengers on the Pennsylvania against nine hundred on the City of Brooklyn, but the ship was full of beef, butter, and cheese.
I spent Christmas on the sea, and though perhaps not the most enjoyable one within my remembrance, still we managed to make ourselves pretty comfortable.
Profiting by my former experiences, I had taken a few things on board with me, such as Swiss milk, canned fruit, etc., which with the regulation roast beef and plum pudding made quite a respectable Christmas dinner.
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We had some rough, stormy weather, but arrived safely in sight of the Irish coast on New Year's Eve. At midnight all the crew came on deck and made a fearful racket to welcome in the New Year. They rang bells, blew horns and whistles, beat gongs and cans, and shouted themselves hoarse until we reached Cork Harbour.
The weather was still rough, but not so bad as it had been, and it was said that had we been a day earlier, we could never have got in the harbour, the entrance being rather narrow. I suppose, though, that when once in, it is one of the finest harbours in the world.
WVe left the mails and a few Irish passen- gers, and then started for Liverpool, which we reached at nine o'clock at night on the Ist of January.
We were not allowed to land, however, until morning, when the Customs' Officers examined our luggage. I started off for London as soon as possible, and though travelling with a lot of half-drunken sailors, who were singing, or quarrelling all the way, I arrived there in safety, and the same night reached my old · home.
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I guess that on my return journey I had had a rather narrow escape on the railway, for on my arrival at home I read in the newspapers of · the fall of the bridge of Ashtabula, Ohio,-a bridge which I had passed over a very short time before. The whole structure caved in and let a passenger train through on to the ice below, and the unfortunate people, who did not go through and get drowned, were burned to death by the wreck taking fire. This always takes place if a train is upset, owing to the big red-hot stoves in each car.
In conclusion I should like to give a few words of advice to any one about to emigrate.
Well, of course in the first place, if you have made up your mind to go, you must also make up your mind to rough it. You must cultivate the habit of sleeping in any kind of surround- ings; on a board and without a pillow, indoors or out. I have been to sleep on horseback before now.
You must be prepared to cook your own dinner if needs be, and wash and mend your own clothes, and darn your socks if you wear them, and think yourself fortunate if you are
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not reduced to the position of a man I knew, who lay in bed while his wife mended his only pair of trousers.
You must not care much for appearances, and be reconciled to seeing patches on your clothes, and again think yourself lucky if they are of the same colour. I have seen brown overalls, with patches of flour-sacking, with the brand and description of the flour in blue letters still on,-and quite a novel and startling pair of pants this combination makes.
. You must be prepared to withstand extreme heat and extreme cold, and become indifferent to getting wet through to the skin at intervals, and, above all, you must make up. your mind to work, and to work hard.
You must accustom yourself to early rising ; for though you may not fall in with a Zedekiah Blake, still in summer, at least, every farmer · starts work pretty early in the morning.
If when you arrive you have any capital, don't immediately invest it in land, or cattle, or horses-you don't know the value of such things in the States yet, even if you did in the old country-but put your money away in a good bank, and hire yourself out to a farmer
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· for a year or so, until you have got an insight into the habits and customs of the country, the kind of work you will have to do, and the climate you have to prepare for.
You may not be able to get very high wages, if you are inexperienced, but in the end it will pay you, if you even work for awhile for only your board and lodging. You will gain so much knowledge, and be so much better able to start a farm on your own account, that the year so spent will never be regretted or looked upon as wasted.
Let me here caution you against the adver- tisements one sees in the papers, "Farming taught, etc., premium Ten to FiftyPounds," as the case may be. This is a gross swindle ; for a man, no matter how green he may be in farming matters, is always worth his food and lodging.
Learn to ride as soon as you possibly can ; a man or boy who cannot ride is, in a new country, about as valuable as a clerk who cannot write in a city office. I could not ride at all when I first went out, but soon learned, and with the continued practice that I had, I became almost a centaur. I used sometimes
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to ride at a gallop, standing up on the horse's back.
You must learn to handle an axe well; an ordinary American can do about as much with his axe as many an Englishman can do with a whole tool-chest.
Show yourself willing to be taught, and you . will find the settlers always ready to help you on.
On starting a place of your own, don't make the mistake we made, but build your cattle- sheds, etc., on the hillside facing the south, and be careful about selecting the site for your house ; you will find plenty to keep you employed, without having to undo work already done.
Take due precautions against prairie fires ; you cannot tell at what minute one may come along; and don't place too much reliance upon any natural advantages you may seem to have. To burn the grass of a strip of land between two furrows thirty yards apart does not take · long, and this simple precaution may save you hundreds of dollars.
You must be content to see very few people at times, and those, perhaps, not altogether of
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the kind you would have associated with in England, though you will find that the majority improve very much when they become their own masters and get a home they can call their own. .
You must leave all idea of luxuries behind you ; comforts are as much as you can expect, and indeed you may at some time have to consider yourself fortunate if you get the barest necessaries of life, as, for instance, during the grasshoppers' visit, of which I have spoken.
Still, all things considered, if you are not happy in the old country, and are dissatisfied with your position and see no chance of bettering it, you might do worse than go west. This fact remains, that if you are willing to work, you need never despair of getting a livelihood, which does not always follow in this country.
I know that if at any time I found that I could not get along here, I should at once return to the States, feeling convinced that, having got my own living since I was thirteen, I could surely do the same again.
The. principal thing, however, for the emi-
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grant to bear in mind is, that he must follow old Horace Greeley's advice, and " Go west, young man, go west!" It is no use stopping about New York, or any other big cities, on the look-out for work, as things are pretty much the same there as in London.
With regard to climate, I think that the American's remark as to his having seen no weather in England, only a lot of samples, applies equally well to this part of the world, though perhaps the samples did not follow each other quite as quickly. The ranges of the thermometer are certainly much greater.
During the winter, the cold weather-and it was cold, too-usually lasted several weeks without a thaw, and during the summer we sometimes went for a very long time without seeing a sign of a cloud, and the sun was hot enough to raise blisters on one's arm even through a shirt. When it rains, it usually pours, and as the little ravines and creeks mostly drained a large surface of land, they were often swollen beyond bounds.
Our nearest ravine once overflowed and . carried a rare lot of stuff away, and after the water had subsided, we had to spend a day
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down the creek collecting our property, as we found it deposited on the brush heaps; there were planks, wheelbarrows, pitchforks, pails, barrels, etc.,-all in the wildest confusion, together with the majority of our fire-wood. At the same time, the water entered our milk- house and spoiled the milk and cream that was there, but the crocks and pans, though floating around, could not get out, as there was a door to the place.
Sometimes we had a heavy rain at the beginning or ending of winter, which froze as it fell until everything was encased in ice. This was dreadfully. hard on the cattle, especially when they were weak and poor, after a long, cold winter.
We were also subject at times to terrific hail- storms, during which the stones were often of a tremendous size. I have heard old Blake say that once he was driving to the fort with a lot of garden truck for salad, etc., when a storm came on and the hailstones were as big as hens' eggs, and they rattled down upon him so hard that he had to empty his produce out of the big wooden tub it was packed in, and get underneath it himself. He may have
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exaggerated the size a little, but anyhow, when I was at Anderson's, we had a storm, when, without the slightest exaggeration, the stones were larger than walnuts, and damage was done to glass windows, etc., in Manhattan to the extent of several hundred dollars.
Now and then we were visited by very high winds, almost hurricanes, which did con- siderable damage. I have seen haycocks lifted from the ground and carried high in the air, while chips of wood, boards, and other bodies would often be carried some distance.
The roofs of all stables and outhouses are always kept down with ropes with a big stone on either end.
While I. was at Blake's, a prairie settler's house was blown over and demolished, and the boards carried several hundred yards. It was reported in the local papers that during one storm a sow was carried right across the Smoky River. This I can only give as I read it, I did not see the occurrence myself.
After I left I heard that a railway bridge across the Blue River was wrecked.
If my few remarks are acted upon on your
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arrival in " Sunny Kansas " or the neighbour- ing States, I am convinced that you will not regret it, and I shall be glad to think that these reminiscences have not been written in vain.
Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
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