CHAPTER XXII.
GROWING UP.
"Well, I'm beat! I don't know what to do with myself. Out there to theclearing I was just crazy wild to get back to town; and now I'm hereI'm nigh dead with plumb lonesomeness. My, my, my! Indians licked outof their skins, about, and cleared out the whole endurin' State. OldBlack Hawk marched off to the East to be shown what kind of a nationhe'd bucked up against, the simpleton! And Osceolo takin' himself andhis pranks, with his tribe, clear beyond the Mississippi; an' me an'ma lived through watchin' them little tackers of Kit's--oh, hum! I'dought to take some rest; but somehow I 'low I can't seem to."
Mercy looked up from the unbleached sheet she was hemming and smiledgrimly.
"Give it up, pa. Give it up. I've been a-studyin' this question, topand bottom crust and through the inside stuffin', and I sum it thisway: _It's in the soil!_"
"What's in the soil? The shakes? or the homesickness when a feller'sright to home? or what in the land do you mean?"
"The restlessness. The something that gets inside your mind and keepsyou movin'. I've noticed it in everybody ever come here. Must bedoin'; 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 Ihave to make myself a pink satin gown, which I never had nor hope tohave 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, inthis hole in the mud? I was talkin' about Chicago. It ain't a town tobrag 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, orchild, 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 mybreath away."
"It does mine, ma."
"Well,--_that's_ Chicago! You can always tell by a child when it's ababy 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'sgettin' strong; an', first you know, folks will be pourin' in herefaster '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 goneright 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 overagain. Say--do you know--I--believe--that our Gaspar writes for thenewspapers. _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 totake hold is to start in an' build a new tavern,--a tavern big enoughto swing a cat in. Then I'll have a place to keep my sheets an' it'llpay 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 ofyour mind the same way? Why, Abel, I can tell by the way you brushyour wisps----"
"Ma, I'll send East an' buy me a wig. I 'low when a man's few hairscan tattle his inside thoughts to the neighbors, it's time I took astand."
"Well, I think you might 's well. I think you'd look real becomin' ina wig. I'd get it red and curly if I was you; and you'd ought to weara 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 heought to dress to fit his station. I always did like you best in yourdickeys."
"Shucks! I'll wear one every day."
"I'm goin' to give up homespun. Calico's a sight prettier an' we canafford it. We're real forehanded now, Abel."
"Hello! Here comes Kit. Let's ask her about the tavern. She's got moresense in her little finger than most folks have in their whole bodies.She's a different woman than she was before Wahneeny died. I shallalways 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 diewhen 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 laidout in the woods, takin' care Kit's children, 'stead of here amongstthe sickness. Wonderful, ain't it, how our girl came through?"
"She'll come through anything, Sunny Maid will; right straight throughthis 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 youwere feeling as if you hadn't enough to do. I came in to see aboutthat. It's a state of things will never answer for our Chicago, wherethere is more to be done than people to do it. Didn't you say you hada brother out East who was a miller?"
"Yes, of course. Made money hand over fist. He's smarter 'n chainlightning, Ebenezer is, if I do say it as hadn't ought to, bein' I'mhis sister."
"Well, I'd like his address. Gaspar wants him here. We must havemills. The idea of our using hand-mills and such expedients to get ourflour and meal is absurd for these days."
"Pshaw, Kit! 'Tain't long since I had to ride as far as fifty miles toget my grist ground, and when I got there there'd be so many beforeme, I'd have to wait all night sometimes. 'First come first served' isa miller's saying, and they did feel proud of the row of wagons wouldbe hitched alongside their places. I----"
"Come, Abel, don't reminisce. If there's one thing more tryin' to abody'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'scaught the fever, or whatever 'tis, that ails this town. She's got nomore time to hark back. It's always get up and go ahead. What youthink? She's advising me to build a new tavern. _Me! Mercy_ advisingit! What do you think of that?"
"That it's a capital idea. We shall need it. We shall need more thanone tavern if all goes well. And it will. Now that the Indians aregone forever,"--here Kitty breathed a gentle sigh,--"the white peopleare no longer afraid. They have heard of our wonderful country and ourwonderful location,--right in the heart of the continent, with room onevery side to spread and grow eternally, indefinitely."
"Kitty, I sometimes think you an' Gaspar are a little _off_ on thesubject of your native town; for 'twasn't his'n; seein' what acollection of disreputable old houses an' mud holes an' sloughsof despond there's right in plain sight. But you seem to thinksomething'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 answeredpromptly:
"_I've_ never found any sloughs of despond and something _is_ boundto happen. Katasha's dreams, or prophecies, whichever they were, areto come true. There is something in the very air of our lake-bordered,wind-swept prairie that attracts and exhilarates, and binds. That'sit,--_binds_. Once a dweller here by this great water, a man is boundto return to it if he lives. Those soldiers who have gone away fromus, a mere handful, so to speak, will spread the story of ourbeautiful land and will come again--a legion. It is our dream thatthis little pestilence-visited hamlet will one day be one of themarvels of the world; that to it will assemble people from all thenations, to whom it will be an asylum, a home, and a treasure-housefor every sort of wealth and wisdom. In my fancies I can see themcoming, 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 andglorious--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 thepast, regarded her transfigured countenance with feelings not unmixedwith awe, and after a moment Abel spoke:
"Well, well, well! Kitty, my girl. Hum, hum! You yourself seem allthem things you say. Trouble you've had, an' sorrow; the sickness an'Wahneeny; an' growin' up, an' lov
e affairs; an' motherhood, an' all;yet there you be, the youngest, the prettiest, the hopefullest, thecourageousest creature the Lord ever made. What is it, child; what isit makes you so different from other folks?"
"Am I different, dear? Well, Mother Mercy, yonder, is lookingmystified and troubled. She doesn't half like my prophetic moods, Iknow. I merely came, for Gaspar, to inquire about the miller. But Ilike your own idea of the new tavern, and you should begin it rightaway. Gaspar will lend you the money if you need it; and if you havetime for more sheets than these, Mercy dear, I'll send you over somepieces 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 canguess what we will need. But there are doctors and nurses coming aftera time--There, there, dear. I will stop. I won't look ahead anotherstep 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 littlestreet.
Was it "in the air," as the Sun Maid protested, that indomitablecourage 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 Keithhad lingered in Mercy's doorway foretelling the future some, at least,of her prophecies had materialized. Where then had been but twohundred citizens were now more than twenty times that number. The"crowding" had begun; and there followed years upon years of wonderfulgrowth; wherein Gaspar's cool head and shrewd business tact andever-deepening purse were always to the fore, at the demand of all whoneeded either. In an unswerving singleness of purpose, he devoted hisenergy and his ambition toward making his beloved home, as far as inhim lay, the leading home and mart of all the civilized world.
And the Sun Maid walked steadfastly by his side, adding to his effortsand ambitions the sympathy of her great heart and cultured,ever-broadening womanhood.
Thus passed almost a quarter-century of years so full and peacefulthat nothing can be written of them save the one word--happy. Yet atthe end of this long time, wherein Abel and Mercy had quietly fallenon sleep and "Kit's little tackers" had grown up to be themselvesfathers and mothers, the Sun Maid's joy was rudely broken.
Not only hers, but many another's; for a drumbeat echoed through theland, and the sound was as a death-knell.
Kitty looked into her husband's face and shivered. For the first timein all his memory of her the Unafraid grew timid.
"Oh, Gaspar! War? Civil War! A family quarrel, of all quarrels themost bitter and deadly. God help us!"