Raymond Evelyn
The Sun Maid: A Story of Fort Dearborn
CHAPTER XXII.
GROWING UP
“Well, I’m beat! I don’t know what to do with myself. Out there to the clearing I was just crazy wild to get back to town; and now I’m here I’m nigh dead with plumb lonesomeness. My, my, my! Indians licked out of their skins, about, and cleared out the whole endurin’ State. Old Black Hawk marched off to the East to be shown what kind of a nation he’d bucked up against, the simpleton! And Osceolo takin’ himself and his pranks, with his tribe, clear beyond the Mississippi; an’ me an’ ma lived through watchin’ them little tackers of Kit’s – oh, hum! I’d ought to take some rest; but somehow I ’low I can’t seem to.”
Mercy looked up from the unbleached sheet she was hemming and smiled grimly.
“Give it up, pa. Give it up. I’ve been a-studyin’ this question, top and bottom crust and through the inside stuffin’, and I sum it this way: It’s in the soil!”
“What’s in the soil? The shakes? or the homesickness when a feller’s right to home? or what in the land do you mean?”
“The restlessness. The something that gets inside your mind and keeps you movin’. I’ve noticed it in everybody ever come here. Must be doin’; can’t keep still; up an’ at it, till a body’s clean wore an’ beat out. Me, for one. Here I’ve no more need to hem sheets than I have to make myself a pink satin gown, which I never had nor hope to have even – ”
“The idee! I should hope not, indeed. You in a pink satin gown, ma; ’twould be scandalous!”
“Didn’t I say I wasn’t thinkin’ of gettin’ one, even so be I could, in this hole in the mud? I was talkin’ about Chicago. It ain’t a town to brag of, seein’ there ain’t two hundred left in it after the ravagin’ of the cholera; an’ yet I don’t know ary creature, man, woman, or child, ain’t goin’ to plannin’ right away for something to be done. I’ve heard more talk of improvements and hospitals and schools an’ colleges and land knows what more truck an’ dicker – Pshaw! It takes my breath away.”
“It does mine, ma.”
“Well, —that’s Chicago! You can always tell by a child when it’s a baby what it’s goin’ to be when it’s a man. Chicago’s a baby now, an’ a mighty puny one, too; but it’s kickin’ like a good feller, an’ it’s gettin’ strong; an’, first you know, folks will be pourin’ in here faster ’n the Indians or cholera carried ’em off, ary one.”
“Them ain’t your own idees; they’re Gaspar’s and Kit’s. He’s gone right to work, an’ so has she; layin’ out buildin’ sites an’ sendin’ East for any poor man that’s had hard luck and wants to begin all over again. Say – do you know – I – believe – that our Gaspar writes for the newspapers. Our Gaspar, ma! Newspapers! Out East!”
“Well, I don’t know why he shouldn’t. Didn’t I raise him?”
“Where do I come in, Mercy?”
“Wherever you can catch on, Abel. The best place I can see for you to take hold is to start in an’ build a new tavern, – a tavern big enough to swing a cat in. Then I’ll have a place to keep my sheets an’ it’ll pay me to go and make ’em.”
“How’d you know what was in my mind, Mercy?”
“Easy enough. Ain’t I been makin’ stirabout for you these forty years? Don’t I know the size of your appetite? Can’t I cal’late the size of your mind the same way? Why, Abel, I can tell by the way you brush your wisps – ”
“Ma, I’ll send East an’ buy me a wig. I ’low when a man’s few hairs can tattle his inside thoughts to the neighbors, it’s time I took a stand.”
“Well, I think you might ’s well. I think you’d look real becomin’ in a wig. I’d get it red and curly if I was you; and you’d ought to wear a bosomed shirt every day. You really had.”
“Mercy Smith! Are you out your head?”
“No. But when a man’s the first tavern-keeper in this risin’ town he ought to dress to fit his station. I always did like you best in your dickeys.”
“Shucks! I’ll wear one every day.”
“I’m goin’ to give up homespun. Calico’s a sight prettier an’ we can afford it. We’re real forehanded now, Abel.”
“Hello! Here comes Kit. Let’s ask her about the tavern. She’s got more sense in her little finger than most folks have in their whole bodies. She’s a different woman than she was before Wahneeny died. I shall always be glad you an’ her was reconciled when you parted. Hum, hum. Poor Wahneeny! Poor old Doctor! Well, it can’t be very hard to die when folks are as good as they was. Right in the line of duty, too.”
“Yes, Abel; but all the same I’m satisfied to think our duty laid out in the woods, takin’ care Kit’s children, ’stead of here amongst the sickness. Wonderful, ain’t it, how our girl came through?”
“She’ll come through anything, Sunny Maid will; right straight through this open door into her old Father Abel’s arms, eh? Well, my dear, what’s the good word? How’s Gaspar and the youngsters?”
“Well, of course. We are never ill; but, Mother Mercy, I heard you were feeling as if you hadn’t enough to do. I came in to see about that. It’s a state of things will never answer for our Chicago, where there is more to be done than people to do it. Didn’t you say you had a brother out East who was a miller?”
“Yes, of course. Made money hand over fist. He’s smarter ’n chain lightning, Ebenezer is, if I do say it as hadn’t ought to, bein’ I’m his sister.”
“Well, I’d like his address. Gaspar wants him here. We must have mills. The idea of our using hand-mills and such expedients to get our flour and meal is absurd for these days.”
“Pshaw, Kit! ’Tain’t long since I had to ride as far as fifty miles to get my grist ground, and when I got there there’d be so many before me, I’d have to wait all night sometimes. ‘First come first served’ is a miller’s saying, and they did feel proud of the row of wagons would be hitched alongside their places. I – ”
“Come, Abel, don’t reminisce. If there’s one thing more tryin’ to a body’s patience than another, it’s hearin’ about these everlastin’ has-beens.”
Abel threw back his head and laughed till the room rang.
“Hear her, my girl! Just hear her! That’s ma! That’s Mercy! She’s caught the fever, or whatever ’tis, that ails this town. She’s got no more time to hark back. It’s always get up and go ahead. What you think? She’s advising me to build a new tavern. Me! Mercy advising it! What do you think of that?”
“That it’s a capital idea. We shall need it. We shall need more than one tavern if all goes well. And it will. Now that the Indians are gone forever,” – here Kitty breathed a gentle sigh, – “the white people are no longer afraid. They have heard of our wonderful country and our wonderful location, – right in the heart of the continent, with room on every side to spread and grow eternally, indefinitely.”
“Kitty, I sometimes think you an’ Gaspar are a little off on the subject of your native town; for ’twasn’t his’n; seein’ what a collection of disreputable old houses an’ mud holes an’ sloughs of despond there’s right in plain sight. But you seem to think something’s bound to happen and you two’ll be in the midst of it.”
The Sun Maid laughed, as merrily as in the old days, and answered promptly:
“I’ve never found any sloughs of despond and something is bound to happen. Katasha’s dreams, or prophecies, whichever they were, are to come true. There is something in the very air of our lake-bordered, wind-swept prairie that attracts and exhilarates, and binds. That’s it, —binds. Once a dweller here by this great water, a man is bound to return to it if he lives. Those soldiers who have gone away from us, a mere handful, so to speak, will spread the story of our beautiful land and will come again – a legion. It is our dream that this little pestilence-visited hamlet will one day be one of the marvels of the world; that to it will assemble people from all the nations, to whom it will be an asylum, a home, and a treasure-house for every sort of wealth and wisdom. In my fancies I can see them coming, crowding, hastening; as in reality I shall some day see them, and not far off. And in the name of all that is young and strong and glorious – I bid them welcome!”
She stood in the open doorway and the sunlight streamed through it, irradiating her wonderful beauty. The two old people, types of the past, regarded her transfigured countenance with feelings not unmixed with awe, and after a moment Abel spoke:
“Well, well, well! Kitty, my girl. Hum, hum! You yourself seem all them things you say. Trouble you’ve had, an’ sorrow; the sickness an’ Wahneeny; an’ growin’ up, an’ love affairs; an’ motherhood, an’ all; yet there you be, the youngest, the prettiest, the hopefullest, the courageousest creature the Lord ever made. What is it, child; what is it makes you so different from other folks?”
“Am I different, dear? Well, Mother Mercy, yonder, is looking mystified and troubled. She doesn’t half like my prophetic moods, I know. I merely came, for Gaspar, to inquire about the miller. But I like your own idea of the new tavern, and you should begin it right away. Gaspar will lend you the money if you need it; and if you have time for more sheets than these, Mercy dear, I’ll send you over some pieces of finer muslin and you might begin on a lot for our hospital.”
“Your hospital? ’Tain’t even begun nor planned.”
“Oh, yes, it is planned. From my own experience and from books I can guess what we will need. But there are doctors and nurses coming after a time – There, there, dear. I will stop. I won’t look ahead another step while I’m here. But – it’s coming – all of it!” she finished gayly, as she turned from the doorway and passed down the forlorn little street.
Was it “in the air,” as the Sun Maid protested, that indomitable courage and faith to do and dare, to plan, to begin, and to achieve? Certain it is that in five years from that morning when Kitty Keith had lingered in Mercy’s doorway foretelling the future some, at least, of her prophecies had materialized. Where then had been but two hundred citizens were now more than twenty times that number. The “crowding” had begun; and there followed years upon years of wonderful growth; wherein Gaspar’s cool head and shrewd business tact and ever-deepening purse were always to the fore, at the demand of all who needed either. In an unswerving singleness of purpose, he devoted his energy and his ambition toward making his beloved home, as far as in him lay, the leading home and mart of all the civilized world.
And the Sun Maid walked steadfastly by his side, adding to his efforts and ambitions the sympathy of her great heart and cultured, ever-broadening womanhood.
Thus passed almost a quarter-century of years so full and peaceful that nothing can be written of them save the one word – happy. Yet at the end of this long time, wherein Abel and Mercy had quietly fallen on sleep and “Kit’s little tackers” had grown up to be themselves fathers and mothers, the Sun Maid’s joy was rudely broken.
Not only hers, but many another’s; for a drumbeat echoed through the land, and the sound was as a death-knell.
Kitty looked into her husband’s face and shivered. For the first time in all his memory of her the Unafraid grew timid.
“Oh, Gaspar! War? Civil War! A family quarrel, of all quarrels the most bitter and deadly. God help us!”
CHAPTER XXIII.
HEROES
The Sun Maid’s gaze into her husband’s face was a prolonged and questioning one. Before it was withdrawn she had found her answer.
There was still a silence between them, which she broke at last, and it touched him to see how pale she had become and yet how calm.
“You are going, Gaspar?”
“Yes, my love; I am going. Already I have pledged my word, as my arm and my purse.”
“But, my dear, do you consider? We are growing old, even we, who have never yet had time to realize it – till now. There are younger men, plenty of them. Your counsels at home – ”
“Would be empty words as compared to my example in the field. The young of heart are never old. Besides, do you remember that once, against my stubborn will, you resisted for duty’s sake? We have never regretted it, not for a day. More than that, when our first-born came to us, do you remember how we clasped his tiny hand and resolved always to lead it onward to the right? Lead it, sweetheart. We vowed never to say to him: ‘Go!’ to this or that high duty; but rather, still holding fast to him, say: ‘Come.’ There is such a wide, wide difference between the two.”
Then, indeed, again she trembled. The mother love shook her visibly and a secret rejoicing died a sudden death.
“‘Come,’ you say. But they are not here, in our own unhappy land. Gaspar in Europe, Winthrop in South America, and Hugh in Japan. They are better so.”
“Are they better there? You will be the first to say ‘no’ when this shock passes. A telegram will summon each as easily as we could call them from that other room – supposing that they, your sons, wait for the call. But they’ll not. I know them and trust them. They are already on the railways and steamships that will bring them fastest; and it will truly be the ‘Come with me!’ that we elected, for we shall all march together.”
So they did; and it was the Sun Maid herself, standing proudly among her daughters and daughters-in-law, yet more beautiful than any, who fastened the last glittering button over each manly breast and flicked away an imaginary mote from the spotless uniforms. Then she stood aside and let them go; two by two, “step,” “step” – as if in echo to the first sound which had greeted her own baby ear.
But as they passed out of sight, transgressing military discipline Gaspar turned; and once more the black eyes and the blue read in each other’s depths the unfathomable love that filled them. Then he was gone and the younger Gaspar’s wife lifted to her own aching bosom the form that had sunk unconscious at her feet. For the too prescient heart of the Sun Maid had pierced the future and she knew what would befall her.
Yet before the gray shadow had quite left her face she rallied and again smiled into the anxious countenances bending over her.
“Now, my dears, how foolish I was and how wasteful of precious time! There is so much to be done for them and for ourselves. Gaspar’s business must not suffer, nor Son’s (as she always called her eldest), nor his brothers’. There are new hospitals to equip and nurses to secure. Alas! there should be a Home made ready, even so soon, for the widows and orphans of our soldiers. Let us organize into a regular band of workers; just ourselves, as systematically as your father has trained us to believe is best. There are six of us, a little army of supplies and reinforcements. Though, Honoria, my daughter, shall I count upon you?”
“Surely, Mother darling, though not here. Thanks to the hospital course you let me enjoy, I can follow my father and brothers to the front. I am a trained nurse, you know, and some will need me there.”
The Sun Maid caught her breath with a little gasp. Then again she smiled.
“Of course, Honoria; if you wish it. It is only one more to give; yet you will be in little danger and your father in so much the less because of your presence. Now let us apportion the other duties and set about them.”
This was quickly done; and to the mother herself remained the assumption of all monetary affairs in her husband’s private office in their last new home; where, when they had removed to it, she had inquired:
“Why such a palace, Gaspar, for two plain, simple folk like you and me? It is big enough for a barrack, and those great empty ‘blocks’ on every side remind me of our old days in Mercy’s log cabin among the woods.”
“I like it, dear. There will be room in this big house to entertain guests of every rank and station as they should be entertained in our dear city. These empty squares about us shall keep their old trees intact, but the grounds shall be beautified by the highest landscape art, to which the full view of our grand lake will give a crowning charm. When we have done with it all we will give it to the little children for a perpetual playground. Even the proposed new enlargement of the city limits will hardly encroach upon us here.”
“But it will, Gaspar, it surely will! When I hark back, as Abel used to say, I find Katasha’s prophecies and my old dreams more than fulfilled. But the end is not yet, nor soon.”
Now that her daughters were scattered to their various points of usefulness and the Sun Maid was left alone with Hugh’s one motherless child – another Kitty – the great house seemed more empty than ever; and its brave mistress resolved to people it with something more substantial and needy than memories. So she gathered about her a host to whom the cruel war had brought distress of one form or another; while out among the trees of the park she erected a great barrack, fitted with every aid to comfort and convalescence. This, like the mansion, was speedily filled, and the “Keith Rest” became a household word throughout the land.
The war which wise folk augured at its beginning, would be over in a few days dragged its weary length into the months, and though for a time there were many and cheerful letters, these ceased suddenly at the last, giving place to one brief telegram from Honoria: “Mother, my work here is ended. I am bringing home your heroes – four.”
Upon the hearth-rug, Kitty the younger, lay stretched at her ease, toying with the sharp nose of her favorite collie. She had the Sun Maid’s own fairness of tint and the same wonderful hair; but her eyes were dark as her grandsire Gaspar’s and saw many things which they appeared not to see; for instance, that one of the numerous telegrams her busy grandmother was always receiving had been read and dropped upon the floor. Yet this was a common circumstance, and though she felt it her duty to rise and return the yellow paper to the hand which had held it, she delayed a moment, enjoying the warmth and ease. Then Bruce, the collie, sat up and whined, – dolefully, and so humanly, it seemed, that the girl also sprang up, demanding:
“Why, Bruce, old doggie, what do you hear? What makes you look so queer?”
Then her own gaze followed the collie’s to her grandmother’s face and her scream echoed through all the house.
“Grandmother! My darling Grandmother! Are you – are you dead – dying – what – ”
She picked up the telegram and read it, and her own happy young heart faltered in its rhythm.
“Oh! awful! ‘Bringing’ – those precious ones who cannot come of themselves. This will kill her. I believe it will kill even me.”
But it did neither. After a space the rigidity left the Sun Maid’s figure and her staring eyes that had been gazing upon vacancy resumed intelligence. Rising stiffly from her seat, she put the younger Kit aside, yet very gently and tenderly, because of all her race this was the dearest. Had not the child Gaspar’s eyes?
“My girl, you will know what to do. I am going to my chamber, and must be undisturbed.”
Then she passed out of the cheerful library into that “mother’s room,” where her husband and her sons had gathered about her so often and so fondly and in which she had bestowed upon each her farewell and especial blessing. As the portiere fell behind her it seemed to her that already they came hurrying to greet her, and softly closing the door she shut herself in from all the world with them and her own grief.
For the first time in all her life the Sun Maid considered her own self before another; and for hours she remained deaf to young Kitty’s pleading:
“Let me come in, Grandmother. Let me come in. I am as alone as you – it was my father, too, as well as your son!”
It was the dawn of another day before the door did open and the mourner came out. Mourner? One could hardly call her that; for, though the beautiful face was colorless and the eyes heavy with unshed tears, there was a rapt, exalted look upon it which awed the grandchild into silence. Yet for the first time she was startled by the thought:
“We have lived together as if we were only elder and younger sister, for she has had the heart of a child. But now I see – she is, indeed, my grandmother – and she is growing old.”
“Let all things be done decently and in order when Gaspar and the boys come home,” was all the direction the Sun Maid gave, and it was well fulfilled. Yet, because she could not bear to be far apart from them, she sat out the hours of watching in the little ante-room adjoining the great parlor where her heroes lay in state, while all Chicago gathered to do them reverence.
There was none could touch her grief, not one. It was too deep. It benumbed even herself. Perhaps in all the land, during all that dreadful time, there was no person so afflicted as she, who had lost four at a blow. But she rose from her sorrow with that buoyant faith and hopefulness which nothing could for long depress.
“There is unfinished work to do. Gaspar left it when he went away, knowing I would take it up for him if he could never do it for himself. There is no time in life for unavailing sorrow. Come, Kitty, child. Others have their dead to bury, let us go forth and comfort them.”
Obedient Kitty went, her thoughts full of wonder and admiration:
“By massacre, famine, pestilence, and the sword! How has my dear ‘Sun Maid’ been chastened, and how beautifully she has come through it all! She could not have been half so lovely as a girl, when Grandfather met and wooed her that morning on the prairie. I wonder have her trials ended? or are there more in store before she is made perfect? I cannot think of anything still which could befall her, unless I die or her beloved city come to ruin. Well, I’ll walk with her, hand in hand, and if I live, I’ll be as like her as I can.”
