A kind of calmness came over me as I read the last word. There are anxiety and fear, and stir and ministration while the sick are alive. But with death there is quiet in the house. Calmness comes to those who have striven to heal and to save. And with the words "farewell" before my eyes a dumb resignation came into my heart. Dorothy was gone from me and forever! But here was my life left to me to work out, and my ambition to pursue. I grew suddenly strong and full of will. I walked to the door and gazed for some minutes over the prairie. Then I saddled a horse and went to find Reverdy.

It was something to see the brother of the woman I loved; but I must find Zoe if possible.

Reverdy was off somewhere with Douglas. Douglas was working upon the plan of introducing the political convention system in Illinois, as it prevailed in New York. He wished to step from the state's attorneyship into the legislatureship. He had newspaper supporters; he had many friends, as well as many foes. But he was fighting his way.

I talked with Sarah of my trip to New Orleans and played with little Amos. I asked Sarah at last about Zoe. Reverdy had already done all he could to trace her. The stage driver had been questioned, but knew nothing. Some one had seen a girl, probably Zoe, walking north from town. Outside of that nothing had been heard. The facilities for finding her were so primitive. How could posters be sent around, how phrased? How could constables and sheriffs in the surrounding counties be notified? And if an advertisement should be published in the local newspaper where would it reach? Upon what basis could I seek to regain Zoe, if she did not wish to return? Sarah and I discussed these problems. But if she had met foul play how could that be discovered? I seemed quite helpless, yet since it was the best I could do I placed an advertisement with the newspaper. Then telling Sarah that I wished to see Reverdy, I returned to the farm.



CHAPTER XX

I had much to do, and work kept me from brooding. It was three days after I had gone to find Reverdy that he came to see me, bringing Douglas. My first words to Reverdy were concerning Zoe; but Douglas at once took a hand in that subject. She would either turn up after a little wandering about the country or she was gone for good. If she had met her death it would be known by now, in all probability. I could be sure that she knew better than to go south. Her likely destination was Canada, or northern Illinois. There was much going on in Chicago to attract an adventurous girl. Should I not go there for her? But it was only a chance that I would find her. What of her property, her interests? Let them rest until an emergency arose.

In truth Reverdy and Douglas had not come to see me about Zoe, but to enlist my support in Douglas' ambition to go to the legislature. Douglas was now twenty-three years of age. He had been in Illinois just three years. During that time he had become a lawyer, had had the law changed so as to be appointed state's attorney. He had only held that office from February to April of this year, when he had organized a convention at Vandalia to choose delegates to the national convention for next year. He had fought down opposition to the convention system; he had successfully managed a county convention in which he had been nominated for the legislature. Now he was out upon the stump, speaking in behalf of state policies like canals and railroads; and there was the question too of removing the state capital from Vandalia to Springfield, which might constitute a leverage for a vote for internal improvements. Douglas was in favor of both. While slave interests were seeking land for cotton, the agrarian interests in Illinois were awake to the need of transportation facilities and markets. As I had wheat and corn to sell besides cattle and hogs, and would have them in increasing quantities, I should use my influence in behalf of these measures and in behalf of Douglas, who had a vision of their need and a practical mind for securing them. Douglas did not hesitate on the matter of internal improvements. He believed that they should be made by the state. That obviated the centralization flowing from national aid. Let Illinois use its own resources for building canals and railroads. Let the state's credit be pledged. What state had greater natural riches? The Illinois and Michigan canal must be completed. The rivers must be made navigable. At least two railroads must be constructed, which should cross the state from north to south, and from east to west. The credit of the state must be pledged for a loan of money; and the interest on the loan should be paid by the sales of the land, which Illinois had been granted by the Federal government for the canal.

Douglas was full of youthful enthusiasm for this work of building up the state. I could see his great energies moving like a restless tide through them as he talked these projects over with Reverdy and me. I was only too glad to lend him my help. It was to my interest. I trusted his judgment, too. I saw moderation and wisdom in his policies.

Already it was apparent that Douglas stood upon no idealistic immovability when the main thing was at stake. And hence, when the bill which was brought in on the subject of railroads, appropriated the money for eight railroads instead of Douglas' two, and bestowed consolations here and there to counties in order to get their support, Douglas showed his reluctance, but gave his vote. The state capital was moved to Springfield as a part of the give and take of logrolling.

But on the occasion of this call Douglas stood for a very moderate program, as I have already said. When he was elected and had legislative power he surrendered his moderation in order to get the railroads. In fact the people were moving in this direction; there was much magnificent dreaming and hazardous experimentation and the general result could not be prevented.

I had gone to see Reverdy, partly to inquire about Zoe, partly with the hope that I could gain help as to Dorothy. Now he had come to me with Douglas; and all the talk was of politics, with no chance to draw Reverdy aside for a private word. When they arose to leave Reverdy took my hand. His eyes grew wonderfully deep and sympathetic. Then with a slap upon my back and a congratulation that I would help Douglas, the two departed.

Then I began to think whether I should write Dorothy. Yes, her letter demanded some reply. As I sat down to write, Dorothy's view became mine in a flood of emotion of love's willingness to sacrifice. And I wrote:

"Dear Dorothy: The only thing I can say in my own behalf is that I found myself suddenly placed in this position as Zoe's brother, without understanding, or only understanding gradually what it meant to me, or would mean to any one else. I have been learning all of these things; and your letter makes them clear to me. I did not come straight home but went to New Orleans; and your letter had been here some days when I returned. I must tell you that Zoe disappeared in my absence. I don't know where and cannot learn. I am fearful for her; and there are many possible complications. But I am powerless to do anything at this time. She may never return. She may fall into strange hands and make some new relations which will come back upon me and upon any one I cared for with embarrassing results. I am in a position where I can make no assurances. I feel like asking you to forgive me for causing you any suffering or anxiety. I should not have asked you to marry me. It was thoughtless; but I could not with my experience and knowledge of things understand all that my request might mean. As you are Reverdy's sister I can't help but feel a tender and protecting interest in you, whatever may come of it. And I hope life may deal with both of us in such a way that any harm I have done you will be overcome by some good that I may be to you. And without asking to see you again I still keep the hope that fate will be good enough to let me meet you sometime when a clasp of the hand will be welcome to you and with no consequences that are not pleasant."

And then I sealed the letter for mailing and retired; but not to sleep, rather to turn restlessly for some hours in the night.



CHAPTER XXI

Fortunately for my peace of mind I had much to do and much to interest me. The country was developing rapidly under my eyes. Thousands of farms were coming into cultivation. The prairie grass was vanishing before the corn. Villages were springing up everywhere. Jacksonville was growing. A furor of land selling, the selling of lots and blocks in the newly formed towns, swept over the state. And my own farm had increased in value, both because of the care I had given it and because of the growing population. For in truth, while Illinois had about 160,000 inhabitants when I came to it, now as we approached the year 1837 it was estimated that there were nearly 400,000 souls within its borders.

Douglas had no sooner become a member of the legislature, as it seemed to me, than he resigned to take the office of register of land in Springfield, which was now the capital of the state. He was reported to me to be making a great deal of money now, sometimes as much as $100 a day. I saw him in the summer. He was a figure of dash, self-possession, energy and clear-headedness. He confided to me that he intended to run for Congress. He was now twenty-four, a political leader in his party, fearless, dreaded, and resourceful.

Douglas had advised me to read political history. Accordingly, during the long evenings at the farm, I had gone through Elliott's Debates and the Federalist. My grandmother sent me De Tocqueville's De la Democratie en Amerique, which I read in French.

But now I began to see that abolition sentiment was growing. Societies were being formed and had been for about two years in the northern part of the state. Here in Jacksonville the agitation of the slavery question was frowned upon; but it was fermenting under the surface of southern sentiment.

I was now treated to an American panic, and times were hard. The East wanted a tariff to protect its manufacturers; the South wanted land and slaves. Texas had been filling up with Americans since 1820. She seceded from Mexico and declared her independence now; and General Houston, a Virginian by birth, a Tennesseean by residence, had taken command of the Texas troops, and after the Alamo massacre, had defeated the Mexicans with terrible slaughter in the battle of San Jacinto. The New England conscience excoriated these things and attributed them to the machinations of the slavocracy. But while Douglas had no mastery of the tariff question in its details, his mind shot through to the general philosophy of it. He often said to me that books and works of art should be admitted free of duty. He was wont to laugh at the New England conscience which could swallow the tariff and the growing factory system, and yet reject with such holy loathing cotton and slavery. He could not handle statistics, but he was a master of principles.

As my grandmother was writing me regularly of affairs in England, of the progress of events, of the building of railroads, of Charles Wheatstone's electric telegraph, and of the new books of moment, I on my part was attempting to keep her informed of my life, and of the swiftly moving panorama of Illinois life. And here I insert one of my letters to her because it covers so much of the ground of this time of my life.

"Dear Grandmama: I have before written you of my friend Mr. Douglas who came to Illinois just a little while before I did, and who has had such a phenomenal rise in life in this new country. He is now making ready to go to Congress, and I am to be one of the delegates to the convention which is expected to nominate him. Having resigned a very lucrative post in the Land Office, he has gone into the practice of law and the pursuit of politics. For the latter he has a positive genius, as his whole mind is taken up with visions and plans for the development of the country, and for the aggrandizement of the United States. He is honest and outspoken, courageous even to audacity; but he is sometimes accused of devious ways, and of taking up anything that has a stomach in it. But no one can say that he changes his principles; rather he avails himself of opportune conditions, which are many, to advance himself and the things he believes in. The country has no truer friend. Though I am an alien I am a resident, and therefore I can participate in political affairs and help him without being naturalized. At the present time Douglas is in Springfield, and is much in the office of one of the newspapers there, to which he contributes editorials sometimes. Recently the office was attacked by some men who had been accused of trickery of some sort by the newspaper. Douglas was present; and, though he is a little fellow, he helped to beat off the attacking parties; and in the general assault the sheriff was stabbed by one of the editors; but the matter has all blown over.

"My own unfortunate affair has the appearance now of dying down.

"A very terrible thing has happened in the killing the Reverend Lovejoy at Alton, a town not far from Jacksonville. He was running an abolition newspaper which was offensive to the slave interests or the peace interests, if you want to call them that. And persisting in his agitation of the slave question they undertook to destroy his press. In the altercation Lovejoy was shot. There is great feeling over the matter.

"It is impossible for me to convey to you the intellectual atmosphere of the country. It is so full of contradictions and cross currents. For example, you come to believe that a Whig is against slavery. Then some one comes forward to propose a certain General Harrison, a leading Whig, for President in 1840; and some one arises to show that when he was Governor of Indiana, when it was a territory, he tried to introduce slavery, contrary to the Ordinance of 1787. I wrote you of this Ordinance before. Then there are the most numerous groups of people of every sort of weird convictions; some organized to oppose Masonry; others to curb the Irish and the Catholics; others to prohibit the use of wine and all intoxicants; others to advance the cause of free love; others to socialize the state. There are also religious societies here of every description, such as the Millerites who are now preparing for the Second Advent of Christ which they believe will take place in 1843. They are already making ready to leave their business, get their white robes, and await the Epiphany. In this state, at Nauvoo, a group called Mormons, who came here from Missouri, founded their faith upon a new revelation brought to light by two miraculous stones, said to have been discovered by a man named Joseph Smith. They practice polygamy, as in patriarchal times. They are already stirring up opposition to themselves, for where every one is so good and in his own peculiar way, hostility must result. And in this Democracy, so-called, all the really good people are in the business of forcing others to their own way of thinking. I must tell you also of a branch of the Presbyterian church which separated from the old church on the question of predestination and infant damnation. Of Baptists, Methodists, and others there are numerous sects, which in England would be frowned upon as various forms of ludicrous non-conformism. De Tocqueville's book, for which my thanks to you, dear grandmama, will preserve a very faithful picture of America of this day.

"And it is refreshing, strengthening to the mind and clearing to the eye, to see Douglas and to hear him talk about all these things. He stands so clear, so pure of stock so to speak, amid all this variegated growth of political and social heresy. The other day when I was in Springfield I looked him up. Here he was talking of the Lovejoy matter, which led him into a cataloguing of the abolitionists, the anti-Masons, the Spiritualists, the Mormons, free lovers, old centralists, with the Whigs. I think he is proud that he has no hobby in the way of an ideal or ism. He seems unmagnetic to all such things. If he does not look with suspicion upon the reformer and accuse him of masking some selfish purpose, he is likely to think that the reformer is something of a fool. He gazes with an eagle's eye over the whole of American activity; he sees the South interested in cotton, the North concerned with its growing factories. Steam, iron, coal, and land figure in his deductions. He sees the country rising to power on them. And he sees men—whatever their professions—trying to advance their own interests. Hence he laughs down these queer political and religious groups; and while he deplores the death of Lovejoy, he takes it as a matter of course; the wringing of the nose brings forth blood. He is kindly and most loyal, fearless, clear-minded, and powerful; but he is unmoral. He sees the play of life. He sees the stronger getting more, Texas coming eventually to the United States, though blood be shed. The drift of things is impelled by great forces of ancient and world-wide origin. He believes with all his soul in the superiority of the white race, and that it must rule. At the same time Democracy is the thing, but Democracy let loose only after the philosophical channels have been cut. Notwithstanding his laughter at Mormonism, for example, he would not suppress it. He would let it work out its own fate. Free thought and free speech will kill it, or it will survive in spite of them because of its inherent strength, if at all. All together Douglas is very admirable to me. I think he is a genius; one of those human beings who was born old but who will always be young. And here he is in a country that is changing and growing like a village crowd upon a stage. Already Chicago has more than 4,000, and we are soon to have canals and railroads, thanks to Douglas more than to any other man in Illinois. 'The Great Northern Cross,' a railroad, is soon to be built starting at Meredosia on the Illinois River and running to Jacksonville.

"As to my own affairs, dear grandmama, I have nothing to wish for in the way of material progress. Upon my return from New Orleans, whither I went in order to think down an unfortunate love affair, I found that Zoe had run away. I do not know where she is, and cannot learn by any means at my present command. Though, if Douglas is nominated for Congress, I mean to go about with him through the state. That will give me opportunity to search for her, particularly if we go to Chicago. Do write when you can, as letters are especially welcome to me from you here in this somewhat lonely life."



CHAPTER XXII

Because of the gossip concerning Zoe, and the fact that I had killed Lamborn, opposition was made to me as a delegate to the Congressional convention. I was an alien too; but that did not count. I was a resident and a large land owner.

Though Douglas was but twenty-four years of age, he was already a giant. Opposition gave way before him; he stepped on his foes; he brushed tangles aside. A Mr. May, who was now in Congress, wanted to return. But he found he could not simply assume the nomination and place the responsibility for the assumption upon the request of "many friends"—a vague and specious way of covering up his own seizure of the honor. He had to face the convention system which Douglas had introduced into Illinois politics. And Douglas had Morgan County, his first home in Illinois, back of him; and Sangamon County, his home since he had gone into the legislature and the Land Office. Douglas was nominated.

A cry went up. An experienced Congressman, Mr. May, had been ruthlessly put aside for the sake of an ambitious stripling! The Whigs rejoiced and said that no nomination than that of Douglas could suit them better. And the Whigs were powerful enough. They were coquetting with the Abolitionists; and they stood for the tariff and the bank. Besides, times were hard. It had been said that Jackson had set the tide of money scarcity to flowing; Van Buren had increased it. There were also disgruntled factions because of Douglas' so-called high-handed tactics in capturing the nomination.

Then to make things worse the Democrats nominated a state ticket upon which two of the candidates had been in the Land Office. So had Douglas. Hence the cry: the Land Office Ticket. Douglas had made money, therefore down with him! Only poverty and humility deserved honor.

I not only opened my purse to Douglas, for he was not in fact affluent; but I decided to travel with him in the campaign. True to his courage and his self-confidence he met his Whig opponent, Major Stuart, face to face in joint debate at Springfield. I was greatly thrilled with this contest. Major Stuart was very popular, an old resident, an officer in the Black Hawk War, and a brave one, Reverdy told me. He was of powerful physique, standing more than six feet, and equal to an arduous campaign. At Springfield Stuart and Douglas came to blows. Stuart tucked Douglas' head under his arm and carried him around the square; meanwhile Douglas bit Stuart's thumb almost in two. As a debater and campaigner Douglas was his superior. He made friends by the hundreds everywhere. He went down among the gay and volatile Irishmen who were digging the Illinois and Michigan canal, and won them to his cause. I was with him, watching his methods, marveling at his physical resources, his exhaustless oratory, the aptness and quickness of his logic.

In the midst of the summer we decided to go to Chicago. Douglas' clothes, his boots, his hat, were worn almost to pieces. We were driving a single horse hitched to a buggy. The horse was weary; the harness was a patch of ropes. We could have made these things good with purchases along the way, but Douglas put off the day. At last we decided to make them in Chicago. He was loath to let me use my money for such needs as these, seeing that I had already contributed so much to campaign expenses. But I overbore his wishes.

We were a comical pair driving into the hurly burly of the new city of Chicago. It had recently received a charter. But what a motley of buildings it was! Frame shacks wedged between more substantial buildings of brick or wood. Land speculators swarmed everywhere; land offices confronted one at every turn; lawyers, doctors, men of all professions and trades had descended upon this waste of sand and scrub oaks about the lake. Indians walked among the whites; negroes as porters, laborers, bootblacks, were plentiful; there were countless drinking places and new hotels; there were sharpers, adventurers, blacklegs, men of prey of all description, prostitutes, the camp followers of new settlements, houses of vice, restaurants, gardens. And with all the rest of it evidences of fine breeds, and civilizing purposes in some of the residences and activities. After all a city was to be built.

And here we were—a sorry pair indeed! Douglas, worn from his campaigning, battered and frayed; myself, dusty and unkempt, entering Chicago behind a horse dragging its body harnessed in patches to a rattling buggy. We laughed at ourselves.

Douglas and I went to a clothing store where I insisted upon fitting him out with a suit and a hat. We bought a new harness for the horse. Then we set forth for meals and drinks.

Somehow I felt that Zoe might be in some concert hall singing for the means of life. A darker idea crossed my mind, but I put it away. I told Douglas that I meant to find Zoe, if I could. After our meal we went from place to place in this quest. Douglas did not try to dissuade me, but he looked at me keenly as if he wondered why I wished to find Zoe. Why, after all? As years elapsed I would be rid of all associated memory of her in Jacksonville. Might not Dorothy come back to me if she knew that Zoe had wholly vanished from my life? Yet something of a sense of responsibility, and something of an affection for Zoe kept my mind fast to the idea of finding her. Up and down the streets of Chicago Douglas and I walked, looking for Zoe.

Once I heard a woman's voice singing "Annie Laurie." I rushed into the place whence the voice came, followed deliberately and patiently by Douglas. There stood a woman on a sort of platform. She was garishly dressed. There were idlers and drinkers at the table. When we came out Douglas said that the search was useless; that if Zoe was in Chicago she might be in a place so secret that I would never find her, except by chance. Yes, I understood. And if it had come to that, what could I do with Zoe, if I found her?

Chicago was not long in discovering that Douglas, the marvelous boy, was in their midst. He must make an address. They erected a platform and billed the town. I stayed near until Douglas rose to speak. He looked fresh and tidy in his new suit, and with freshly shaven face. I heard his great voice roll out over the large crowd collected to hear him. I heard the applause that welcomed him, that responded to the first thrill of his fluent eloquence. Then I stole away to look for Zoe.

I walked up and down the streets. I stood in drinking places. I entered a few places of vice. I stopped at the rear of a hotel, where the maids were gathered together resting and talking after the day's work. But no Zoe.

At last I went down to the shore of the lake, rather to the shore of the sluice through which the Chicago River widened into the lake in a southerly direction. I sat here on a rude settee. The air was warm. There were sounds and voices floating over me from the town. Occasionally I could hear the organ music of Douglas' oratory, as it drifted indistinguishably to me. I was thinking, wondering about my own life; enthralled at the vision of this new country, which I could see taking form before my own eyes. Then I became conscious of a couple on a settee near. I had not noticed them before. I got up and walked past them. And there was Zoe!

It was dusk, but she knew me. She gave a quick start, put her hand to her mouth. The man was silent, looking at her, unconscious of my presence. I divined that she did not want me to speak to her. I heard her say to her companion: "Go back. Leave me here awhile, I want to be alone. I will return soon."

I walked on a distance of a hundred yards or more. Then I looked back. I thought some one, Zoe, or both of them were still on the settee. I could not be sure. I retraced my steps. When I came to the settee the man was some distance away, going toward the town. Zoe motioned to me to walk the way I had come. I did so; loitered and returned. Zoe was now alone. I sat down beside her; Zoe took my hand.

My first thought was who was the man. Zoe proceeded to tell me that she was working as a domestic, that this man was a voice teacher who had recently arrived in Chicago from New York. I looked at Zoe, as if to ask her what was the nature of the intimacy that would lead her into this association at night in this secluded place by the lake. I followed this by asking: "Are you very good friends?" "He is kind to me," Zoe said. "He teaches me and we walk out together and talk."

Well, were there not then the usual consequences? Zoe was remarkably beautiful; Zoe's morale had been broken by a terrible experience. She had gone through the disintegration natural to my own difficulties, of which she was the occasion; the killing of Lamborn, the whole condition at Jacksonville. And now, what was Zoe? I could not penetrate her reserve. She stroked my hands affectionately. The tears started from her eyes.

I changed the key by bringing up her interests. "Reverdy is your guardian and I am putting your property in his hands. Don't you need money? Why haven't you sent for money?" "Because," Zoe answered, "I meant to go out of your life, and stay out of your life. Now that you have found me it does not matter. All I could do would be to run off again. But why? This is a wonderful place. I love the excitement, the stir here. And I am in no danger here from being kidnapped. I don't want to go into the country again. I will be all right, James, be sure. But if you want to send me some money I will be glad. Only don't come for me; don't have me known in your life again. I am out of it now. You can't do for me what you could if I was white. Why try? Facts are just what they are. I will be all right here. I am learning to sing. Mr. Fortescue says that I have a voice. That's his name. He is a good man, you can be sure." "He loves you?" I interrupted. Zoe did not answer. "He wants to marry you?" I said, half interrogatively. "I don't believe I am made for marriage," said Zoe. "Where do you work?" I asked.

Zoe was silent for some seconds, as if thinking. I repeated the question. "Don't ask me that, Mr. James, don't," she said. "I know where you are, I know where to find you. And if you need me I will come to you if I can; but don't ask me where I am." "How can I send you money?" "Send it to the post office. Send it to Laurette Toombs. That's my name here. But don't try to find me again. I just pray God all the time that I may never be of any trouble to you; and I am afraid all the time I may." "Why?" I asked quickly. "Oh, I don't know; just because things are what they are. I have already made you a world of trouble. And you have been just as good to me as a brother could be. I just pray God not to make you any more trouble. I must go." Her voice had grown full of pathos. "Where?" I asked. "Don't follow me, Mr. James, just let me go. I am a grown woman. I must lead my own life. Just be good to me as you have been—don't you understand? I grieve. So be good to me, let me manage myself and manage our meetings, whatever they are. Sit here now while I steal away. Promise me."

Zoe got up, stretched her hands to me, then hurried through the darkness to the town. I followed her with my eyes until she was lost to view. The voice of Douglas by a sudden swell of the air was borne to me. One articulate word fell upon my ears. It was "slavery." His voice lapsed into the silence of the receding breeze. I sat alone for a few minutes. Then I arose, and went to the place where Douglas was speaking.

He was just finishing. In a burst of impetuous and impassioned eloquence he was pointing to the future glory of the United States, when Great Britain would own no foot of soil from the North Pole to the Gulf. The audience applauded tumultuously. Douglas stepped from the rude platform into the arms of bewitched admirers. He freed himself and came to me. He brought with him a Mr. DeWitt Williams who had prevailed upon Douglas to accept his hospitality for the night. As Douglas' traveling companion, I was invited to share in the entertainment.



CHAPTER XXIII

I had no opportunity now to tell Douglas that I had found Zoe. Her own injunctions to keep her whereabouts a secret appealed to me. Perhaps her going away, the changing of her name, her determination to keep her life free from mine, made for a real solution. Perhaps she could continue in this way for years, taking from me what I might send her. Perhaps I could marry Dorothy eventually. Perhaps all would be well. Perhaps!

When we were driving toward Springfield the next day I was on the point several times of telling Douglas that I had found Zoe. I wanted to discuss the possibilities with some one. Prudence, however, dictated silence—and silence I kept.

Mr. Williams was a prospering lawyer and land speculator. He had been in Chicago for two years. His household consisted of Mrs. Williams and two children, and a Miss Walker from Connecticut, a sister of Mrs. Williams. The house was new and of some architectural pretentions, of brick, in the style of the houses I had seen in New York. It was well furnished. There were two servants; altogether an air of elegance about the establishment.

We had a gay hour at breakfast, for Douglas was in one of his most engaging and talkative moods. Mr. Williams was a man in the middle forties, and seemed colorless and unschooled in comparison with Douglas. He shared Douglas' political opinions, looked upon him with a certain awe; while Mrs. Williams and the children kept a reverential silence.

But Miss Walker! I saw that she was disposed to match wits with Douglas. She was exceedingly fair of complexion, with lovely brown hair and gray-blue eyes, which had a way of fixing themselves in an expression of intense concentration. Like sudden spurts of flame they lighted quickly upon the barely suggested point of a story or an argument. She laughed freely in a musical voice that encouraged Douglas to multiply anecdotes. Douglas enjoyed this admiration. But after all his attitude toward women was wholly conventional. He did not use his gifts to win them. The idea of making conquests, even through his growing celebrity, did not enter into his speculations. He was a man's man. If he was ever to be interested in a woman it would be in the practical way of making her his wife. He could be a husband, never a lover. His genius, though fed by passion and virility, entertained no visions of romantic ecstasy. His instinct was for the laws.

Miss Walker was to Douglas only a delightful auditor, an apt interlocutor. She looked Douglas through and through. She dropped words of dissent. She expressed her abhorrence of slavery and the South. In referring to South Carolina's attempted nullification of the tariff law, she said that if they ever attempted to secede they should be pushed out of the door and not held. I thought her critical of Douglas, in spite of the amazement which her eyes betrayed for his conversational gifts, his self-assurance and brilliancy. Once she said that there was a right and wrong about everything. And when Douglas glanced up at her quickly, her eyes fixed him steadily. Douglas took up this challenge by saying: "Yes, but who is to decide what is right and what is wrong; or what is to decide it? The progress of the country or the opinions of fanatics?" "The minds of big men," retorted Miss Walker. "And since you have spoken of a great territory for the United States let me bespeak big men for it instead. Persia you know was a big country." "Why make the two inconsistent?" asked Douglas. "You can have both." "No, not where you make material progress the never-ending thought of every one."

Mr. Williams had many things on his mind, that was apparent. His haste in eating, his self-absorption showed that. Yet after breakfast he lingered for half an hour; and during this time Miss Walker, who had noticed me no more up to now than as one of the persons at the table, came to a seat near me in the living room. She was lovely to look at, but in a way half prim. The whiteness of her forehead, the fineness of her hands, her air of clear and quick intellectuality, made her a person to inspire something of deference. And yet I felt myself captivated by her. Surely in every thinking man's heart there is a biological groping toward a woman of mind. Shadowy forms rise undistinguished before him. They are the children that such a woman can bear. He does not know that this is the urge; but nature knows. On Miss Walker's part, I saw her appraising me. She had come west where life was luxuriant and the accidents of fortune abundant and men were strong. She had now overstayed her visit with Mrs. Williams. Was to-day her day of destiny? Here before her were the rising statesman of Illinois and a man who had increased a fortune.

She was coming to Springfield shortly to visit. Would I be there? Did I know the Ridgeway family there, of which Edward Ridgeway, the founder, had been prominent in the affairs of Illinois, now dead some five years? If I came to Springfield she would be glad to have me call upon her. Well, perhaps she liked me and did not like Douglas after all. Was I drawn to her? I felt some definite interest in her, that was sure. But I was not forgetting Dorothy. Dorothy could not be obscured by a light as white as Miss Walker's. And yet I had to confess that I was thinking of Miss Walker in a half serious way.



CHAPTER XXIV

Douglas' hard campaign was ended when we arrived in Springfield. His humorous remark was that he had the constitution of the United States. He was never so wholly fatigued that a drink or a meal would not pull him up to a zest and a capacity for a further task. A little sleep restored him to a new exuberance. Truly, he was one of the most vital men who come into the world for a restless career.

On the way back we noted how rapidly the country was changing. The influx of settlers was very great. Villages, towns were springing up everywhere. Farmhouses were multiplying. Douglas was enthusiastic over the great prosperity which was evident. As an empire builder his imagination was stirred. If he was not elected to Congress he would have to go back to the practice of law. At this period of his life he was the eager and ambitious youth pressed in the matter of money. I saw his career influenced, if not largely shaped, by material necessity. And as it turned out in the election in August he was defeated by thirty-five votes in a total poll of 36,000. We did not know the result of the election until several weeks later, due to the tardy facilities for communicating news.

He had fought against an able and experienced campaigner. He had the handicap of extreme youth. He had to meet the slurs of "interloper," and the charge of being a pushing newcomer. And yet he was almost elected. There were discrepancies in the count, too. He was urged to contest the election. But the expense was too great. He was poor.

There was much about Douglas to remind one of Napoleon: drive, will, resourcefulness, exhaustless energy. Too bad to remit such a man to the business of getting clients. He was not a plodder. He was a mind who saw men in large aggregations bound to each other by policies and interests. He knew how to handle them as material in empire building.

On that ride back to Springfield he talked to me of many things that gave me an insight into the workings of his mind. For the dreamer, the visionary, he had no patience; he felt contempt for the agitator and the radical. In a theory preoccupying the human mind he saw something akin to madness. Mormonism, abolitionism, all the various forms of propaganda which made American life so clamorous, found a common classification in his tabulation of men. What was really before the country? Truly, the conquest of the wilderness, the production of wealth, the development of national power; but always the rule of the people too. "There are two things in my life," he said to me. "One is the fact that I got mad at my uncle, and the other is the inspiration that I get out of these prairies. Add to these what mind I have, and the sum is myself."

When we parted in Springfield, and I was about to return to my farm in Jacksonville, he could not thank me enough for what I had done for him. But I was his friend, and why not? I saw him later when a dinner was given at Quincy in honor of the Democratic governor-elect whose success Douglas had done so much to bring about. All the speakers paid tribute to Douglas amid storms of applause. They assured him that his firm integrity, the high order of his talent had endeared him to the people; and that he would be remembered in two years with another nomination.

As soon as I saw Reverdy I told him that I had found Zoe and all the circumstances and about Fortescue. Reverdy thought that I should send Zoe money for living expenses on the first of each month; and so I began.

But neither Reverdy nor myself could work out any permanent program for Zoe. After all, what was humanly possible? Zoe was now about nineteen. If she was dealt with justly as to her property what more could I do? If there was danger from Fortescue, or any one else, I was powerless to prevent it. Since she did not wish to live with me, I had no power to make her do so.

In November Reverdy and I went to Meredosia to see the locomotive which had been shipped from Pittsburgh for Illinois' first railroad. All of the horses and oxen of the neighborhood were required to pull the huge iron thing up the banks of the river; and scores of men in ant-like activity worked about it to place it upon the rails. Douglas was in the crowd, happy and enthusiastic. He joined the party, headed by Governor Duncan, in the first journey that a steam train ever made in the state. He tried to make a place for Reverdy and me; but the Governor had filled all the seats with his friends: so we stood as spectators, while the new wonder moved on its way, pulled by the queer locomotive, amid the shouts of the crowd, responded to by the calls of those on board.

Going back to Jacksonville I ventured to talk to Reverdy about Dorothy. He knew well enough what my feeling was for her. He knew the story; he knew her attitude. He did not share in her fears, in her feeling about Zoe. He was frank to say that Zoe could do nothing, could be nothing that need affect my life in any way more serious than if her skin was white. But he explained that Dorothy had the southern view; and if I wished to wait and see if she could work herself out of doubts, well and good; and if I could not further hope he could understand that too. I wanted to write to Dorothy to tell her that Zoe was still away and that I thought she would never return. But perhaps after all Dorothy's attitude was founded in an innate prejudice against the relationship to which she would make herself a party by marrying me. Was this not perfectly unreasonable? It made me distrust Dorothy's nature at times. What was she after all? Finally, however, I wrote to Dorothy as best I could and after many ineffectual trials at expressing myself. Promptly enough a letter came back. It was not lacking in kindness, but it offered no hope. Hurt and listless I tried to turn my thoughts to other things. There were always my growing enterprises—and yet to what end? To be rich, to be richer.

When December came I had a letter from Miss Walker. She was in Springfield at the Ridgeway mansion for a visit through the holidays. There were to be parties and dances. Why did I not come over? And I went.

I looked up Douglas at once. He was making some headway at the practice of law, but his energies, for the most part, were absorbed in perfecting the organization of his party. He was putting together a compact machine. He was on the very edge of being the leader of the Illinois Democracy. What infinite details there are to any given end! If it is the building of a house, tools must be bought, trees felled, foundations dug. A carpenter's finger must be bandaged so that he can go on with the work. Cloth must be found for the bandage and a string with which to tie it. And so Douglas was engaged in infinite talks on the corners, at the newspaper office; he was making short trips; he was writing dozens of letters, he was inserting editorials in the newspapers. But he had time for the gayeties of the season.

He was always the gallant, the amusing wit, the ready raconteur. We were such friends! Again Miss Walker had both of us for attendants; but upon such widely different footing. I was a suitor with many doubts. Douglas was not a suitor at all. He came to her to enjoy the keenness of her mind.

But as I was English, and as Miss Walker thought herself the next thing to it, she took me aside as an understanding confidant as to the life around us. Springfield was almost a mudhole. She was offended by it, but also she found much in it to make her laugh. There were the gawks; the sprawling ill-bred men; the illiterate young women; the mushroom life; the haste, the crudities of living; the ugliness and the disorder; the unsettled, ever restless, patchy catch as catch can existence; the attempt, in a word, to make life, to build a town, a capital. All this shocked or amused her. Did I not see it with English eyes used to tranquillity and order? She wondered why Douglas had left the East. He could have risen there in time; and when he should have done so it would have been an eminence. Had he not acquired brusqueness, vulgarity since coming west? A man of undoubted gifts, she conceded—yet. Perhaps I was her favorite after all.

To test her out, I put my own story around the life of a friend, telling her of a man who had married an octoroon, leaving a daughter of color and a son by a previous marriage with a white woman; also describing the consequences that had ensued. Miss Walker heard me with interested attention. She admitted that the complications were serious. Undoubtedly, many women in the West would care nothing about such a relationship, there was so much indifference here to form and breeding; anything for a husband, anything to get along in the world. Well, if Miss Walker from Connecticut could see my relationship to Zoe in such a light, could I blame Dorothy from Tennessee for judging it more seriously? Perhaps after all this was a woman's reaction to my story.

Later I had a party at my house, inviting all the young crowd of Springfield to come over. Douglas came too, and Reverdy and Sarah and Mr. and Mrs. Sturtevant. It was just after Christmas. We had a roaring fire in the fireplace. We popped corn and pulled candy. I brought in my old fiddler from the woods to play for us. We danced. These festivities were in honor of Miss Walker, and she entered into the fun with great zest. Day by day we were better friends. When she came to go back to Springfield she was no longer Miss Walker to me, she was Abigail. I was not in love with her—there was Dorothy still in my heart. Yet I was very fond of her. I thought she approved of me. As we parted she asked me why I did not come to Chicago. It was fast growing into a city. What better field for making money? Vaguely the idea entered my mind and began to mature.



CHAPTER XXV

The truth was that the loneliness in my life was depressing me; it was in a sense work without hope—only the hope of being rich. While I could not doubt Abigail's fitness as a mate for me, and though I was in desperate need of a companion, Dorothy would not out of my mind and my heart. My indomitable will had asserted itself in the pursuit of Dorothy. Even if my judgment had favored Abigail I could not have given up Dorothy. To surrender the hope of Dorothy was to leave something in my life unfinished; and that was contrary to my tenacious purpose. I could not hear Abigail's voice without comparing it to the softer modulations of Dorothy's. I could not be in the presence of Abigail without feeling that there was something more kindred to me in the personality of Dorothy. And yet I had to confess on reflection that I was not sure of this. Dorothy wrote to me on occasion, but there was really nothing in her letters to keep hope alive. All the while my life was going on in labor, in planning, in building, with Mrs. Brown to keep my house. Even Zoe did not write to me. I knew that she was receiving the monthly allowance from the fact that my letters were not returned. However, at last one was sent back to me.

Then in the late winter I was surprised one day by the visit of a stranger—and a strange character he was too. He introduced himself to me as Henry Fortescue of Chicago—and as Zoe's husband! I remembered; he was the voice teacher with whom Zoe was sitting on the lake front. He began by saying that he had come with very unwelcome news and upon a sorrowful mission. Zoe was dead! Zoe had met her death by foul play. She had been found strangled to death in her bed.

I glanced in horror at this unknown character. He went on to tell me that suspicion had fastened itself upon a half-breed who came to the house where Zoe lived. He had been arrested, was soon to be tried. As to Fortescue's visit here, he had come to see about Zoe's land and interests. He had married Zoe some weeks before her death. Without knowing much about such matters I went at once to the point.

I asked Fortescue what proof he had of the marriage. I began to suspect Fortescue of being the murderer himself. So many desperate deeds were done in this country; so many dishonest expedients resorted to for money, for land. My question gave Fortescue embarrassment. He stammered, colored a little, then went on to say that he had witnesses to the marriage; that the ceremony was not performed by a minister, but that he and Zoe had entered into a common-law marriage. I did not know exactly what this was and at once determined to see Douglas about it.

Meanwhile I was compelled to suffer Fortescue to wander over the farm. He took it upon himself to do so; and I scarcely knew how to forbid him. I did stay him, however, from looking through my house. I saw that he was a hungry dog, an impoverished wanderer who had fallen into means, if, indeed, he was Zoe's husband.

The question now was, how to get him away; how, without denying he had any rights, to keep him from assuming an attitude of proprietorship. I thought it best to go with him. Accordingly, as I had proposed that we go to Springfield at once, we rode partially across the farm in going to Jacksonville. I told Fortescue frankly that I would have to look into his proofs, and that I meant to go to Chicago, and that it was my duty to see to it that Zoe's murderer was punished.

I stopped a few minutes to talk to Reverdy and Sarah. Reverdy was all sympathy and wondered what misfortune would befall me next. Sarah wept for Zoe's fate and for the trouble that it involved me in. She went to the window and looked out. There was Fortescue waiting for me, apparently glowing for the good fortune that had come to him. And here was I in the house of Dorothy's brother and unable to put out of mind the hope that Zoe's death would change Dorothy's decision, even while I was grieving for Zoe. Like a spider at its door Fortescue was waiting for me. Whether he or I should be more benefited by Zoe's death remained to be seen. As I left I asked Reverdy to write Dorothy and tell her what had happened to Zoe.

When we got to Springfield I left Fortescue to his own ways. I looked up Douglas and asked his advice. As always, he was busy in politics. He was now master of his party's organization. But as I had tortures because of my position he had anxieties because of the lack of means. The law business did not bring him a great deal; it could not, for his mind was on other things. He was trying to be secretary of state in order to supplement his earnings as a lawyer. He was catching at whatever offered to float himself along. His life was, therefore, patchy. Would it ever be a whole, well-fitting garment to his great genius?

I took up with him at once the matter of Zoe's common-law marriage. There was first the question whether Zoe could enter into any marriage with a white man. But I had settled that with Mr. Brooks, when going into that matter of my father's marriage with Zoe's mother. Zoe was not a negro, not a mulatto; she had less than one fourth negro blood. Therefore, she did not fall under the inhibitions of the Illinois law forbidding marriages between persons of color, negro or mulatto, with a white person. Douglas confirmed what Mr. Brooks had told me; and he gave me the opinion that a common-law marriage was legal, but that Fortescue would have to bring witnesses to Jacksonville to testify that he and Zoe had taken each other as husband and wife; and that this had been followed by an assumption of the marriage relation.

Douglas advised me to look carefully into the proofs. Well, why should he not return to Chicago with me and help with the investigation? He was willing. Meanwhile Fortescue was waiting for me. When I told him that I was coming to Chicago with a friend he looked suspicious, as if he thought that I was trying to evade him. As he began to press me then, saying that we could all travel together, I forgot myself for the moment in a rise of temper. "The land can't get away; nothing can run away; and you can't get anything until you prove your case. I am going to Chicago with a friend. I will see you there. You can go your own way." Fortescue acquiesced apologetically; and having done with him for the time, I turned again to visit with Douglas.

I had never seen him in a more interesting mood. He wished for good fortune to befall him so that he could do something for the education of the young, since his own opportunities had been limited. In this connection he spoke of the grants of land which had been made to Illinois for institutions and schools of higher learning. And while talking of the Louisiana territory which Napoleon had granted to America, and of Texas whose recent independence the United States had recognized, his imagination glowed before the future power and glory of the country. He was delighted that so many Germans and Irish, fleeing from disorder and oppression in Europe, were seeking freedom and opportunity here, and filling up the new lands. But while my inheritance of a few thousand acres was already perplexing me, Douglas was still free of the great calamity that would befall him because of the new domains! If Zoe as one of the numerous persons of color had already involved my life, how terribly would the curse pronounced upon the descendants of Ham fall upon this Titan, this nation builder! Douglas indulged his satirical talent in an amusing description of General Taylor who was now talked of by the Whigs for President. He charged the Whigs with cunningly picking rough and ready characters, pioneer types, for their appeal to the plain people—pioneer types who really entertained monarchistic principles. There was already much talk that Texas was being drawn toward the United States by the slavocracy. Well, what of it? The main thing was to get Texas. What is this sanctimonious talk in prose and verse in England about Texas? Douglas was very contemptuous of all of this.

Fortescue took his way somehow to Chicago. Douglas and I traveled together. The first thing that Douglas sought to do was to look into the evidence as to the murder of Zoe, and this with reference to Fortescue's possible part in it. To this end Douglas sought the assistance of Mr. Williams. Though he kept a law office, his larger interests were real estate dealings. But he dropped everything to assist Douglas and me in arriving at the truth. We went to the jail and saw the half-breed who was charged with killing Zoe. The state's attorney had the half-breed's confession. Though he was half insane from drink when he did the deed, the prosecutor intended to ask for the death penalty. He was a half-breed!

We intended to look up the witnesses, to learn from them the circumstances which attended the murder. The prosecutor, however, was disinclined to let us do this, and refused to give us their names. He stood on a matter of pride that he had the case in hand himself and had procured the confession. Douglas seemed to think it was unnecessary to pursue the matter, and that was Mr. Williams' attitude. In the hurry of these hours, dinner time having arrived too, we got into a haze—at least I did—about getting anything more definite. Douglas thought that the real question was the common-law marriage. If I wanted to prosecute Fortescue for the murder I could do it any time. In the meanwhile Fortescue would have to prove the marriage in order to derive any benefit from Zoe's death.

We asked Fortescue what evidence he had of this marriage. "For one thing this," he said, bringing forth a ring which had the words, "to my husband Henry from Zoe" and the date engraved in it. Douglas wished Fortescue to produce the witnesses who were present at the marriage. This Fortescue refused to do. He became suddenly stubborn, almost sullen. In a bold way he said to us: "If you are not satisfied with this, I'll prove my case." "You will have to do that anyway," said Douglas, "and perhaps as this matter goes on you will not be so confident." Saying that he would come to Jacksonville with his proofs Fortescue left us and disappeared.

Then Douglas turned to the talk of politics with his friends. Mr. Williams went to his office. I was left alone. Had we accomplished anything? I went back to see the state's attorney by myself, and asked him if he did not suspect Fortescue. The state's attorney said that the case was perfectly clear against the half-breed; that my only interest in the matter was the marriage and to go back and defend that if I chose, though he felt sure that Fortescue would amply prove that he had married Zoe. I dropped the whole thing and called upon Abigail.

She began at once to urge me to come to Chicago. This was to be a city. The opportunities here were infinitely rich. The life was increasingly more interesting. She knew of my troubles, knew of the murder, for it had been the talk of the town. She urged upon me a new life. I did not need to sell my farm—leave it. Come to Chicago where fortunes were being made and where greater fortunes would come to men of vision and energy. We took a walk by the lake, which in reality only came to the shore far south of the town—south of the mouth of the river. Here the waves rolled upon the sand. What purity and blueness in the sky! To our right as far as we could see wastes of yellow sand, dunes, brush, small oaks and pines! Back of us a ragged and wild landscape being broken or leveled by builders, by the opening of streets and roads.

Abigail was truly my friend, wise and sympathetic. Her clear-cut thinking sheared away accidental things, fringes of irrelevancy. I was so glad to get her opinion on the various things that perplexed me. She advised me to make the best fight I could against Fortescue. After that come to Chicago whatever the result. We parted with a clasp of the hand. Then I went to find Douglas.



CHAPTER XXVI

At times afterward I reproached myself for not doing more to fix the guilt of Zoe's death upon Fortescue. Particularly as it became clear to me that his freedom from that responsibility energized his descent upon me for Zoe's interest in the farm. What had my generosity, foolish and boyish, come to after all?

But on this trip to Chicago, whatever our resolutions were on the way, they melted or scattered when we found the half-breed had confessed; also when we talked to the witnesses. Douglas, too, though he had not slackened his interest in my behalf, had politics to occupy his mind. The presidential campaign was on. He was the leader of his party in Illinois; and his presence in Chicago was opportune.

The half-breed was quickly tried, convicted, and hanged. And before I was scarcely ready Fortescue had come to Jacksonville with his witnesses to prove the marriage. I tried to engage Douglas as my counsel, but he was deep in campaigning. Accordingly I turned again to Mr. Brooks. There was nothing left of defense to us but the cross-examination of these unknown persons who came to swear that they were witnesses to the wedding. That Zoe and Fortescue had lived together as husband and wife there was little doubt. Had I not seen them together on the lake front in Chicago? Had not Zoe then hidden herself behind a suspicious reticence? These things corroborated the witnesses.

Mr. Brooks' cross-examination was not very acute. Perhaps there was not much to ask. But we had no witnesses with whom to rebut Fortescue's claim. I could not conceive how I could find any such witnesses; but I had gone to Chicago and left without trying to do so. And neither Douglas nor Mr. Williams had suggested it.

If some six men and two women were willing to swear that they were present to hear, and did hear, Zoe and Fortescue pledge themselves to each other, what could break the evidentiary effect? Fortescue had paid the expenses of these witnesses to Jacksonville; there was no attempt to hide that. But why not a formal marriage? They did not wish it that way. Was not this marriage as valid as any? To be sure. Then the ring! We made little of a defense. Mr. Brooks seemed overcome by the emphatic answers. We lost. And Fortescue came into my life as a co-tenant, a brother-in-law.

Of course I inherited from Zoe too; but here was Fortescue, sharing in every acre, in every piece of timber in my house. Only a division by a court could set off to him his share and leave me in individual possession of mine.

He came to Jacksonville to live. He went into possession of the hut. Whether I would or no, I had to confer with him about various things, fences, taxes, road service. He knew nothing of farming. He often came to ask me what to do, and I could not rebuff him. He brought strange characters about him, particularly some of the witnesses who had helped him to sustain his claim. He sent to borrow utensils, household necessities. He visited with my workmen, wasting their time, putting disturbing ideas into their minds. He was a consummate nuisance. And as usual I had much to do and to think of, and I spent lonely evenings when I did not see Reverdy and Sarah or the old fiddler.

It was now left to me to institute a partition suit to divide the land between me and Fortescue. Mr. Brooks managed this admirably for me. There was danger that Fortescue might compel a sale of the whole farm and a division of the proceeds. There was my house, the attractive improvements around it, bright to the envious eye. Fortescue only had the hut. But at last acres were set off to him. I kept my house and the remainder of the land. And this was ended.

But nevertheless I thought more and more of selling the farm, of moving to Chicago. Fortescue was an impelling cause to this step. I should in that event leave Reverdy and Sarah and little Amos. I should see less of Douglas. But I began to be desperately annoyed by my situation. I could not wholly live down the killing of Lamborn. There was the memory of Zoe. There was now Fortescue. And in Chicago there was Abigail, to whom I was writing. She had become a very close friend. She was urging me constantly to take up my residence in Chicago. But I could not leave without selling the land. I did not wish to sacrifice it. I did not think it wise to rent it. Indeed I could not rent it and derive the same income from it that I could by working it myself. I had not yet found a purchaser who would pay what it was worth.

It was now the autumn of 1840. Sarah had two children beside little Amos, a boy born in August whom they had named Jonas. Dorothy had come from Nashville to help Sarah with the heavy household burdens that were now upon her.

I saw a good deal of Dorothy at Reverdy's; she came to my house on occasions when I entertained. She was as lovely as ever, but she did not have Abigail's mind. She was luxurious in her temperament, aristocratic in her outlook and tastes. She did not stimulate me as Abigail did, but she involved my emotional nature more powerfully. Something of resentment fortified my present neutral attitude toward her. Why, after all, need Zoe have affected her so profoundly? Perhaps my own thinking was toughened by my experiences. I had killed a man for Zoe; I had been through a trial with Fortescue. Surely if there had been any bloom on me it had been rubbed off. Why had not Dorothy seen in me a practical, courageous heart, who took his fate and made the best of it? Was there something lacking of depth, of genuineness, in Dorothy's nature?

There was much stirring now in the country due to the campaign. The log cabin was apotheosized; hard cider was the toast to America's greatness. The hero of Tippecanoe, the pioneer soldier, Indian fighter, the plain man, the Whig, was pitted against the well-groomed and resourceful Van Buren. Reverdy, because of his admiration for Douglas, was for Van Buren; and Dorothy had no thought of any other allegiance. We made up parties to attend the rallies, to see the marching men, to hear the speeches. Douglas, who was campaigning with tireless energy, came to Jacksonville to address the people. He was now twenty-seven and a master. He controlled the party's organization in Illinois. Practice had given solidity and balance to his oratory. He moulded the materials of all questions favorably to his side. Audiences rose up to him as if hypnotized. He swept Illinois for Van Buren. But Harrison and Tyler were elected. The vote of Illinois was a personal triumph for Douglas.



CHAPTER XXVII

A few days before Dorothy returned to Nashville we spent an evening together, first at Reverdy's home, later in a walk through the country. It was moonlight of middle November, and the air was mild with a late accession of Indian summer. I sensed in Dorothy a complete erasure of everything in my life that had stayed her coming to me as my bride. It was not so much what she said as it was her attitude, her tone of voice, her whole manner. But my own troubles had formed a nuclear hardness of thinking in me, which like a lodestar attracted what was for me, and left quiet and at a distance what was not mine.

I was delighted to be with Dorothy, but I did not stand with her on the basis of my former emotional interest. In a way she symbolized the false standards, the languorous aristocracy of the South. She was a presence of romantic music, a warmth that produces dreams. She was not the intense light that shone around Abigail. I had a letter from Abigail in my pocket. Parts of it wedged themselves through Dorothy's words as she rattled on more and more. I might as well have been thinking of my troubles; but in point of fact it was of Abigail.

Dorothy was not like Reverdy, nor was she like Sarah. If she had only been! A pathos was on me in this walk. The wind was blowing. The forest trees murmured like agitated water. The moon sailed high, and Dorothy walked by my side and talked. There was an evident struggle in her to bring me to her, to evoke the old ardor which had reached for her. But we returned to Reverdy's at last, and there had been no touch of hands, no tenderness. She stood momentarily at the gate. I gave her my hand, and with an impassive goodnight, she turned to the door and I went my way.

Then regret came over me. Had I wounded her? And if I had, could I win her back? Did I wish to? I could not entirely bring myself to relinquish Dorothy for good. But did I really care for Abigail? I took out her letter and began to read it again in order to clear my thoughts: "Dear James: You must be beginning to perceive that day by day you are accomplishing certain things and thus forming your life. I admire greatly the way you took hold of the farm and the success that you have had with it; and I admire too the loyalty with which you have stood by your duty. Now I cannot help but urge you to come to Chicago. I feel something of a draw at times to return to the East; but, on the other hand, this growing town has an increasing fascination for me. It is already enlivened and bettered by many eastern people; and you would find a more interesting atmosphere than where you live now. I think some of the southern people who have settled middle Illinois are as fine as any one I have ever known; but I do not like the habits and the principles that go along with the southern institutions. If you could sell the farm you could use the money to make a very large fortune in Chicago. The campaign has interested me very greatly; it has been riotous and colorful and full of extravagance. There is no real truth in all this business. It is the lesser reality of deals and bargains, wheedling, persuasion, and vote-getting. And no one has the gift of specious logic and stump hypnotism better than Douglas. To me he is one of the greatest of small men. Have you read Emerson or Lowell yet? Here are new men of real thoughtfulness whose minds are upon the truth which does not fade with passing events. These questions about Texas and Oregon, about tariffs, about Whigs and Democrats, what are they but the cackle of the moment? And yet there is something pathetic about Douglas. Why does he not settle to the solid study and experiences of the law? Why this catching at this and the other opportunity? Mr. Williams says that Mr. Douglas has just accepted the Secretary of Stateship for Illinois. What an absurd thing for a lawyer to do! His career is so changeable, so flashy. He leaves himself open to the charge of scheming, grabbing, all sorts of things, though all the while he may be doing the best he can. Forgive my opinions, I love to express them to you. I look upon you as a fresh mind who can value the truth of things about it. Douglas may become a very great figure; but I can't help but believe that his restless life may bring him to disaster. Let us hope it won't. Meantime I wish for happiness for you. Your letters are very interesting and I am always glad to get them. Write me as often as you can, give me pictures of your life, the people. And do move to Chicago. Your friend, Abigail."

I read this letter over more than once with reference to its characterization of Douglas. I could not share her opinions. Why could she not see that Douglas had always done his best? After all, what of the law? Douglas could not be patient with the rules that related to a land title while his thoughts were far afield in plans for the territorial greatness of his country. Meantime he had to earn his bread. He had never stooped to dishonor, to chicanery. He had caught at the driftwood of supporting offices in his swimming of the new stream of primitive life. He was poor. He had enemies. His eye was upon an eminence. He had to make the best of the materials at hand.

I understood Douglas' difficulties because I had had difficulties of my own. I had not faced the world with poverty. But I had faced it with Zoe. I had not battled in issues which were influenced by the negro, but I had a social experience which Zoe had made and complicated for me. If Douglas was now in an office that belittled him, I was sorry, for I was his friend in all loyalty.



CHAPTER XXVIII

Scarcely had Douglas settled as Secretary of State, when he resigned the office to become Justice of the Supreme Court of Illinois. Abigail wrote me a most amusing and ironical letter on this sudden shift of his activities. "What do you think now?" was her query. "I think he is as well fitted to be judge as to be Secretary of State, which is not at all."

When I wrote to Abigail I had news to tell her with reference to the farm. I believed I had found a purchaser in Springfield; and my trading talks with Washburton, for that was his name, had taken me over there a number of times. On one of these occasions I saw Douglas. He had been presiding over a proceeding that had something to do with the Mormons, in which he favored them. He was charged with placating their interests to win them to his political fortunes. "It was nothing of the sort," said Douglas. "I only did my duty. What have I to gain by favoring them? There are a great many more people who hate them than those who have any use for them. Even my enemies know that. Do you know they say, Jim, that I grabbed this judgeship by some high-handed method. It's all a lie. I can do nothing to please some people. They don't like my conduct on the bench. You know how crude things are here. My throne is a platform with a table; and the audience sits so close to me that I can almost touch them. The other day I walked off the platform and sat for a moment with one of the spectators, an old friend. Somebody wrote this up for the newspaper and made a terrible fuss about it. I cannot please some people, no matter what I do."

It was the winter and spring of 1841 that I was visiting Springfield about the sale of my farm. President Harrison had died after a month in office, and John Tyler had become President. Douglas was elated over this. "Tyler is a Democrat," said Douglas. "And we have taken victory out of defeat after all. He has vetoed the new bank bill true to the principles of Jackson; and he has been read out of the Whig party for doing so. Every member of his Cabinet but Webster has resigned, you know. The Whigs are getting nothing out of the triumphs of log cabins and hard cider. They are all a humbug. Their sins are finding them out. We will put in a thorough-going Democratic party in 1844."

Douglas was talking the annexation of Texas. "Think of it," he said. "A territory 750 miles broad added to the domain of this country! The whole continent by right belongs to us. Do you think, if we once get it that there will be any whining that we should give it up? You have seen Illinois filling up; you have seen canals and railroads make their beginning here. Let's do the same for Oregon. I want you to rid yourself of any feeling for Great Britain, and use your English will to the making of America. Do for America what you would do for England, if you were living there. She would take the whole earth if she could get it. Let us take all of North America.

"I am planning to run for Congress again. I am stifled in this little life. There is not enough for me to do here. I am restless to get out and help build up the West."

I asked Douglas if I should move to Chicago. His eyes brightened. "Yes," he said in his quick way. "That is a place of great opportunity. Go there, Jim. I will be there myself, eventually. You can become very rich there with the capital that you have for a start."

Then I told him that I was trying to sell the farm; that I had about matured my plans to move. He was delighted. "I'll miss you here, but a friend is a friend to me, even up there. Go and build. You can help make a city. I want to see this state come into its own. I want to see schools everywhere, giving the advantages to the young which were denied to me. This is the most wonderful of states. Be glad that your destiny brought you here. At the present rate of immigration the population of Illinois will soon be a million. When you came here the population of the United States was about twelve million; now it is about seventeen million; it will soon be twenty million. Do you appreciate these figures? Look at the New Englanders, the Irish, the Germans that have poured into Illinois. Some of them come here with ideas that I find hostile to my ambitions. I have to win them to the liberty of the Democratic party, and keep them from stopping halfway, contented with the fraudulent liberty of the Whigs. I take them in hand at political gatherings; I love to persuade and shape them. I will fill this population of Illinois with love of Democratic ideas. What have the Whigs to offer? Look at the mixed blood of the Whigs, at their tainted ancestors. I take the greatest pleasure in exposing them. It is my fun and my work."

With all this intellectual activity, Douglas was not a reader. I had found Emerson through Abigail; I read the North American Review, and Cooper's novels as they appeared. But Douglas had contempt for the moral idealism of New England. He thought it impractical. "You can't have a brain without a body," said Douglas. "Let the country develop its bones, its muscles, attain its stature. These men think the world is run by righteousness, especially if you let them prescribe the righteousness. But it isn't. It is run by interests. Roofs, clothing, and food must be taken care of; then cities. These men get preconceived ideas of God, and then want to force them on the great impulses of life. But they can't do it."

I ventured to say that the two ran together. His reply was that nothing of idealism counted that did not harmonize with material interests. There would always be war so long as interests conflicted. The lesser had to give way to the larger. War was a factor in the game of supremacy, of life. If Great Britain stood in our way, fight her. If Mexico made trouble about Texas, conquer her. War is the execution of the law of progress. Reason can go only so far, and then the sharpness of the sword is necessary.



CHAPTER XXIX

I sold the farm at last and moved to Chicago. It was with sorrow that I broke up my association with Reverdy and Sarah, and their little family. But I was much relieved to be out of the situation that had been so full of annoyance to me. I had friends to be sure, but I was English; I was a little reserved even yet; I was a driver, a money maker. Then there had been Zoe and Lamborn. Besides, the life on the farm was monotonous. The end of the day marked lonely hours for me. And I was looking forward to much association with Abigail.

I saw her frequently now that I was in Chicago. She was teaching school. Mr. Williams, his wife, their children, were my first friends, the beginning of my new associations.

I began at once to speculate in real estate. Mr. Williams proved an invaluable counsel in these ventures. I made money faster than I could ever have believed it possible to me. I was now very well off at twenty-seven. But was life nothing but money making?

As I had sold the farm on partial payments I was compelled to make frequent trips to Springfield to collect the purchase money notes; and I always saw Douglas unless he was away campaigning. By the new census of 1840 Illinois was entitled to seven Congressmen instead of the four which it had hitherto been allowed. A legislature had reapportioned the state in such a way as to give Douglas a chance to be elected. Douglas' friends had called a convention. The re-apportionment of the state was charged to be arbitrary; the convention was styled "machine-made" with a view to Douglas' nomination. Had he had a hand in this—the young judge of the Supreme Court? If so, many others had had a hand in it.

In the convention Douglas' friends rode roughly over the other aspirants; and when he received the prize they withdrew and accorded him their support. All of this was the perfection of party organization, to which Douglas, with a leader's genius, had directed his party from the moment he had set foot in Jacksonville. Douglas found an opponent in a Whig of Kentucky birth. A Democrat from Illinois, a Whig from Kentucky—such was the anomalous situation. And both agreed about taking over the Oregon territory. But Douglas was the better campaigner, the more winning personality, the more indefatigable worker. Like Napoleon, his sleep was intermittent, his meals eaten on the run. He made speeches for more than a month of successive days. And he was elected. A member of Congress at thirty!

I could see that the hard life was wearing upon him. Perhaps he was too convivial. There was hard drinking everywhere about him; and he did not abstain. He had supreme confidence in the lasting character of his own vitality. He might be ill for a few days occasionally, but he was soon up and actively at work again. His "integrity is as unspotted as the vestal's flame—as untarnished and pure as the driven snow," said a local newspaper when his methods were assailed, and no one could face him without believing that he had courage that would have its way without stooping to meanness, and vision that saw its objective through the hesitant dreams and sickly qualms of lesser strength.

When I went to Springfield in the fall about my farm I found that Douglas had been seriously ill for some weeks. The campaign had exhausted him. There was more gentleness in his manner now than was his wont. He held my hand warmly and was visibly grateful that I had come. He was heartened by this fresh evidence of my affectionate interest. He talked of his plans. He wished to visit his mother in New York State as soon as he could be about. He said that he was entering upon a new stage of his life—upon the beginning of his real career. He wished to have his mother's blessing before taking his seat in Congress.

When I next went to Springfield I found him gone. The place was lonely to me. I collected my note and wandered about idly; passed the Ridgeway mansion where I had met Abigail; went through the new state house. The years between seemed so brief but so full of events. I was twenty-eight, Douglas was thirty; Reverdy had passed forty; Zoe was dead. My farming days were over. It all seemed a dream. My grandmother in England was now in the middle sixties. There were steamships crossing the Atlantic, the first one four years before. Great forces here and in Europe, movements of peoples, and interests were flowing to carry Douglas along for some years, and to carry me and all others in their sweep. I was lonely in Springfield on this trip. Douglas was gone! His career here seemed finished, as if he were dead. Like a camper he had foraged upon the country, made his tent and taken it down. And now he was gone! Everywhere there was talk of war with Mexico. Had Douglas gone forth to bring this about in realization of his dream of America's greatness? A man must be made president who would annex Texas. If there should be war let it come. The land is ours. Our people have gone there. We must seize the whole continent north of the Gulf.

Now that I was separated from him how should I follow him day by day? I got Niles' Register in order to keep in touch with him.



CHAPTER XXX

Large mercantile establishments were building in Chicago. Elevators and pork-packing plants fronted the Chicago River. The harbor was being improved by the Federal government. The population had risen to more than ten thousand people. Great labor was necessary to keep the facilities of life equal to the growing demands upon it. The first water works had been installed at a cost of $95.50, and consisted of a well alone. Now the city purveyed water through wooden pipes, laid under the ground. The Illinois and Michigan canal, which Douglas had done so much to originate, was nearing completion. The thousands of Irish laborers engaged upon the work added to the liveliness and colorfulness of the city life. We had excellent mail service. Long since the drygoods box had disappeared which had served as the only depository of mail. The hogs had been barred from the main streets, so that in my boarding place at Michigan Avenue and Madison Street I was no longer disturbed by grunts and squeals as they fed and wandered through the city.

Mr. Williams and I had formed a real estate and brokerage partnership, and we were making money at a phenomenal rate. The air was vibrating with the ring of the trowel and the hammer. Gardens and roadhouses had appeared in the pleasanter places out of town. Everywhere in the central part of the city were livery stables, restaurants, saloons. The harbor was full of sailing craft. Every day saw the tides of emigration pour upon this hospitable shore. I felt the stir of the new life, the growing city. I was fascinated with the money making. I had found new friends. My change of life had brought me happiness.

Abigail and I saw much of each other and we talked of many things, and much of Douglas. I saw him as the symbol of this intense life, this miraculous development. He seemed to me the man of the hour, the man even of the age.

No sooner was he sworn in as a Congressman than he proceeded to make his presence felt. He did precisely what he had done in Illinois when he came to Winchester, penniless and unknown: he seized an opportunity. He admired Andrew Jackson with an almost unqualified heart, and he rose to Jackson's defense in Congress.

I have said that I was reading Niles' Register. Through it I was able to follow Douglas' career in Congress from the beginning.

Abigail had made friends with a certain Robert Aldington, who had also come west to teach school. And when we met at the Williams' residence of evenings there were sharp exchanges of opinion between us about life, books, the new city of Chicago, the destiny of America, and Douglas. Aldington was keeping abreast with all the new books in America and England as well. He too had read De Tocqueville; but he was also familiar with Rousseau, Voltaire, the French Encyclopaedists; with Locke. And he assured me that Calhoun, the Senator from South Carolina, had written a treatise on the philosophy of government which for depth and dialectic power, was a match for Locke. He also knew the poets Shelley and Byron. He had studied the French Revolution. He was watching the feverish developments of Italy and Germany. The tide of emigration into Chicago and Illinois furnished him material for infinite speculation. What would this hot blood, seeking opportunity and freedom from old world restraints, do for the new country? He admired Douglas to a degree, but he disliked what he sensed in him as materialism.

We were reading together the proceedings in Congress concerning the fine which had been imposed by court upon Jackson at New Orleans when he was in military charge of the city in 1812. Douglas had taken this as his occasion to make himself known to the House and to the country at large. He was nothing in Congress because of his achievements in Illinois. He had to win his spurs. He had contended with great force and brilliancy that Jackson, in declaring martial law, had not committed a contempt of court; that if Jackson had violated the Constitution in declaring martial law the matter was not one of contempt or for a local court to judge. "Do you see," said Aldington, "his mind runs in a channel of pure legalism, and then it escapes between freer shores." Aldington continued: "The trouble with Douglas is that he does not see that idealism is as real as realism. Douglas is something of a sophist. I do not mean to disparage his value to the country. But he is a genius in making the course of Jackson consistent. He has applied the same art to justify his own conduct. He will always prove an elusive debater; and you see, after all, this makes against his candor. This is not the sort of stuff of which a thinker is made. There are men who will not trifle with facts. They are your Shelleys, your Emersons. These men make the brain of a nation. Douglas may make its body, if you can make a body without making a brain."

"That's exactly it," said Abigail. "But it is not possible to have a statesman as clear in his logic as Emerson, though dealing with coarser material than philosophy's. Surely there is a chance now for some mind of deep integrity, of real spirituality, to do something for this chaotic, vulgar mass of humanity that is grabbing, feeding, trying to foment war with Mexico. I am sure of it. Why this contempt of his for the idealist, the reformer? He classes all sorts of grotesque, half-insane people with the high-minded thinkers of the East. And now that he is in Congress, and will have to face some of them, Adams for example, I expect him to find a match."

I tried to have my friends understand Douglas, as I understood him. What was he doing in Congress now? Trying to get appropriations for the rivers and harbors of Illinois. "Won't that ensure his reelection?" asked Abigail. "Yes, but do we not need the harbors?" I replied. "Why pursue Douglas with arguments like these?"

Abigail's argumentativeness made me turn to Dorothy. Did I want a wife who had such definite opinions about masculine questions such as these? But now how to find Dorothy again? She had been back and forth between Nashville and Reverdy's. We had exchanged only a few letters, with long silences between. I began to depreciate myself for allowing Zoe or anything connected with her to thwart my will with reference to Dorothy. These meetings with Abigail and these conversations and arguments had clarified my mind both as to Dorothy and as to Abigail. I wanted Dorothy and I did not want Abigail. This being the case why should I not go to Dorothy and tell her so? If I went to her with the same will that I took up the matter of the farm, could I not win her?

It was not many days before I had the rarest opportunity in the world to go to Nashville upon an interesting mission. Douglas suddenly appeared in Chicago. The session of Congress was over. He was going to Nashville to see Andrew Jackson. He asked me to go with him; and I took this opportunity to see Dorothy.



CHAPTER XXXI

I had heard much of Jackson and all his works of wonder: as the victor at New Orleans, the greatest hater of England, as the firm friend of the Union against the rebellion of South Carolina, as the foe of the bank, as the most picturesque figure in America. He was living in retirement at Nashville. And to see this man! To see Douglas with him! Abigail laughed at me for my enthusiasm. But also I was to see Dorothy, and to make up my mind once for all—rather, to get Dorothy to do so.

When we arrived in Nashville, making arrangements so that I should not miss the visit to Jackson's house and the meeting between Douglas and Jackson, I went to see Dorothy. Mrs. Clayton met me at the door. She was greatly surprised. But there was wonderful cordiality in her manner. Dorothy was out for the time but would soon return. In the meanwhile Mrs. Clayton was eager to hear about my life and about Chicago. I told her more or less in detail the circumstances which had forced me to sell the farm. As to Douglas, she was devoted to him for his defense of Jackson. Jackson was a demigod to her and to the people of Tennessee. She wished she could be present to see Douglas and Jackson meet. Why could it not be arranged and for Dorothy too? They all knew the General very well. He had been a friend of Mr. Clayton's. Where was I stopping? Would I like to come to their house? My visit to Nashville was to be brief; besides I wished to be with Douglas. She would like to entertain him too. And thus we talked until Dorothy came in.

Dorothy knew before many minutes that I had not come especially to see her. She had heard of Douglas' arrival, of Douglas' mission. Between her mother's recapitulation of our talk and my own additions in her presence, she learned of the events of my life that she did not already know. I could see that she was very happy. And for myself it was an easy reunion.

She too wished to see Douglas and be present at the "Hermitage." Why not? She and her mother could easily presume upon the General's hospitality. Still, would I not be kind enough to arrange it? I stayed to the noonday meal with Dorothy and her mother. Then I went to the hotel to tell Douglas that I would come to the "Hermitage" with them. I did not find him at first. He had gone to pay a call upon Mr. Polk, who had been nominated for the Presidency as a young hickory to Jackson's "Old Hickory." He returned soon and was glad to have Mrs. Clayton and Dorothy come to the "Hermitage." Then I went back to spend the intervening time with Dorothy. She was truly lovely to me now. Her hair was more glistening and more golden; her eyes more elfin; the arch of her nose more patrician. She was gentle and tender. It seemed that all misunderstandings between us had dissolved. We did not mention any of the disagreeable things of the past. We communicated with each other against a background of Zoe being dead, of my being gone from the farm. Chicago, its growth, its color, its picturesque location by the great lake, made her eyes dance. She could not hear enough of it. She had outgrown the Cumberland hills. Her life was monotonous here. As I talked to Dorothy I had a clearer vision of Abigail. I felt sure now that Abigail had no magnetism for me. At the same time I began to recall what I had thought of Dorothy: her southern ways, her aristocratic ideas, her leisurely life, her cultural environment making for the lady, for the Walter Scott romanticism. Chicago had blown the mists from my eyes. I had lived under a clear sky, breathed rough and invigorating breezes. Yet I was drawn to Dorothy. My mind was poised in a delicate balance. And as I had impulsively given Zoe half the farm, I now suddenly proposed to Dorothy while turning from Dorothy to Abigail and from Abigail to Dorothy.

The afternoon was warm. The soft breeze was stirring the great trees, the flowering bushes on the lawn. A distant bird was calling. The Cumberland hills were dreaming beyond the river. And Dorothy suddenly looked at me with eyes in which supernatural lights were burning brightly. It was the look which in a woman comprehends and accepts the man who is before her; it was the secret and sacred fire of nature illuminating her vision and asking my vision to join hers in an intuition of a mating. With that look I asked Dorothy to be my wife.

Her hands were lying loosely clasped in her lap. Her head was leaning gracefully against the tree back of the settee. She closed her eyes; gave my hand a responding clasp. "Be my wife, Dorothy," I repeated. "Do you really love me?" she asked. "With all my heart," I said. And I did. It had come to me in that moment. "Do you love me?" I asked. "I have always loved you," she replied. "I have always admired you. I have waited for you. I did not expect you to come. You see I am now twenty-seven. I have not been able to care for any one else. I could not marry you before; and I could not marry any one else in the interval. Now I am very happy that you really love me." "I do love you, yes, Dorothy, I have always loved you."