The Sun Maid: A Story of Fort Dearborn

“Well, —that’s Chicago! You can always tell by a child when it’s a baby what it’s goin’ to be when it’s a man. Chicago’s a baby now, an’ a mighty puny one, too; but it’s kickin’ like a good feller, an’ it’s gettin’ strong; an’, first you know, folks will be pourin’ in here faster ’n the Indians or cholera carried ’em off, ary one.”

“Them ain’t your own idees; they’re Gaspar’s and Kit’s. He’s gone right to work, an’ so has she; layin’ out buildin’ sites an’ sendin’ East for any poor man that’s had hard luck and wants to begin all over again. Say – do you know – I – believe – that our Gaspar writes for the newspapers. Our Gaspar, ma! Newspapers! Out East!”

“Well, I don’t know why he shouldn’t. Didn’t I raise him?”

“Where do I come in, Mercy?”

“Wherever you can catch on, Abel. The best place I can see for you to take hold is to start in an’ build a new tavern, – a tavern big enough to swing a cat in. Then I’ll have a place to keep my sheets an’ it’ll pay me to go and make ’em.”

“How’d you know what was in my mind, Mercy?”

“Easy enough. Ain’t I been makin’ stirabout for you these forty years? Don’t I know the size of your appetite? Can’t I cal’late the size of your mind the same way? Why, Abel, I can tell by the way you brush your wisps – ”

“Ma, I’ll send East an’ buy me a wig. I ’low when a man’s few hairs can tattle his inside thoughts to the neighbors, it’s time I took a stand.”

“Well, I think you might ’s well. I think you’d look real becomin’ in a wig. I’d get it red and curly if I was you; and you’d ought to wear a bosomed shirt every day. You really had.”

“Mercy Smith! Are you out your head?”

“No. But when a man’s the first tavern-keeper in this risin’ town he ought to dress to fit his station. I always did like you best in your dickeys.”

“Shucks! I’ll wear one every day.”

“I’m goin’ to give up homespun. Calico’s a sight prettier an’ we can afford it. We’re real forehanded now, Abel.”

“Hello! Here comes Kit. Let’s ask her about the tavern. She’s got more sense in her little finger than most folks have in their whole bodies. She’s a different woman than she was before Wahneeny died. I shall always be glad you an’ her was reconciled when you parted. Hum, hum. Poor Wahneeny! Poor old Doctor! Well, it can’t be very hard to die when folks are as good as they was. Right in the line of duty, too.”

“Yes, Abel; but all the same I’m satisfied to think our duty laid out in the woods, takin’ care Kit’s children, ’stead of here amongst the sickness. Wonderful, ain’t it, how our girl came through?”

“She’ll come through anything, Sunny Maid will; right straight through this open door into her old Father Abel’s arms, eh? Well, my dear, what’s the good word? How’s Gaspar and the youngsters?”

“Well, of course. We are never ill; but, Mother Mercy, I heard you were feeling as if you hadn’t enough to do. I came in to see about that. It’s a state of things will never answer for our Chicago, where there is more to be done than people to do it. Didn’t you say you had a brother out East who was a miller?”

“Yes, of course. Made money hand over fist. He’s smarter ’n chain lightning, Ebenezer is, if I do say it as hadn’t ought to, bein’ I’m his sister.”

“Well, I’d like his address. Gaspar wants him here. We must have mills. The idea of our using hand-mills and such expedients to get our flour and meal is absurd for these days.”

“Pshaw, Kit! ’Tain’t long since I had to ride as far as fifty miles to get my grist ground, and when I got there there’d be so many before me, I’d have to wait all night sometimes. ‘First come first served’ is a miller’s saying, and they did feel proud of the row of wagons would be hitched alongside their places. I – ”

“Come, Abel, don’t reminisce. If there’s one thing more tryin’ to a body’s patience than another, it’s hearin’ about these everlastin’ has-beens.”

Abel threw back his head and laughed till the room rang.

“Hear her, my girl! Just hear her! That’s ma! That’s Mercy! She’s caught the fever, or whatever ’tis, that ails this town. She’s got no more time to hark back. It’s always get up and go ahead. What you think? She’s advising me to build a new tavern. Me! Mercy advising it! What do you think of that?”

“That it’s a capital idea. We shall need it. We shall need more than one tavern if all goes well. And it will. Now that the Indians are gone forever,” – here Kitty breathed a gentle sigh, – “the white people are no longer afraid. They have heard of our wonderful country and our wonderful location, – right in the heart of the continent, with room on every side to spread and grow eternally, indefinitely.”

“Kitty, I sometimes think you an’ Gaspar are a little off on the subject of your native town; for ’twasn’t his’n; seein’ what a collection of disreputable old houses an’ mud holes an’ sloughs of despond there’s right in plain sight. But you seem to think something’s bound to happen and you two’ll be in the midst of it.”

The Sun Maid laughed, as merrily as in the old days, and answered promptly:

“I’ve never found any sloughs of despond and something is bound to happen. Katasha’s dreams, or prophecies, whichever they were, are to come true. There is something in the very air of our lake-bordered, wind-swept prairie that attracts and exhilarates, and binds. That’s it, —binds. Once a dweller here by this great water, a man is bound to return to it if he lives. Those soldiers who have gone away from us, a mere handful, so to speak, will spread the story of our beautiful land and will come again – a legion. It is our dream that this little pestilence-visited hamlet will one day be one of the marvels of the world; that to it will assemble people from all the nations, to whom it will be an asylum, a home, and a treasure-house for every sort of wealth and wisdom. In my fancies I can see them coming, crowding, hastening; as in reality I shall some day see them, and not far off. And in the name of all that is young and strong and glorious – I bid them welcome!”

She stood in the open doorway and the sunlight streamed through it, irradiating her wonderful beauty. The two old people, types of the past, regarded her transfigured countenance with feelings not unmixed with awe, and after a moment Abel spoke:

“Well, well, well! Kitty, my girl. Hum, hum! You yourself seem all them things you say. Trouble you’ve had, an’ sorrow; the sickness an’ Wahneeny; an’ growin’ up, an’ love affairs; an’ motherhood, an’ all; yet there you be, the youngest, the prettiest, the hopefullest, the courageousest creature the Lord ever made. What is it, child; what is it makes you so different from other folks?”

“Am I different, dear? Well, Mother Mercy, yonder, is looking mystified and troubled. She doesn’t half like my prophetic moods, I know. I merely came, for Gaspar, to inquire about the miller. But I like your own idea of the new tavern, and you should begin it right away. Gaspar will lend you the money if you need it; and if you have time for more sheets than these, Mercy dear, I’ll send you over some pieces of finer muslin and you might begin on a lot for our hospital.”

“Your hospital? ’Tain’t even begun nor planned.”

“Oh, yes, it is planned. From my own experience and from books I can guess what we will need. But there are doctors and nurses coming after a time – There, there, dear. I will stop. I won’t look ahead another step while I’m here. But – it’s coming – all of it!” she finished gayly, as she turned from the doorway and passed down the forlorn little street.

Was it “in the air,” as the Sun Maid protested, that indomitable courage and faith to do and dare, to plan, to begin, and to achieve? Certain it is that in five years from that morning when Kitty Keith had lingered in Mercy’s doorway foretelling the future some, at least, of her prophecies had materialized. Where then had been but two hundred citizens were now more than twenty times that number. The “crowding” had begun; and there followed years upon years of wonderful growth; wherein Gaspar’s cool head and shrewd business tact and ever-deepening purse were always to the fore, at the demand of all who needed either. In an unswerving singleness of purpose, he devoted his energy and his ambition toward making his beloved home, as far as in him lay, the leading home and mart of all the civilized world.

And the Sun Maid walked steadfastly by his side, adding to his efforts and ambitions the sympathy of her great heart and cultured, ever-broadening womanhood.

Thus passed almost a quarter-century of years so full and peaceful that nothing can be written of them save the one word – happy. Yet at the end of this long time, wherein Abel and Mercy had quietly fallen on sleep and “Kit’s little tackers” had grown up to be themselves fathers and mothers, the Sun Maid’s joy was rudely broken.

Not only hers, but many another’s; for a drumbeat echoed through the land, and the sound was as a death-knell.

Kitty looked into her husband’s face and shivered. For the first time in all his memory of her the Unafraid grew timid.

“Oh, Gaspar! War? Civil War! A family quarrel, of all quarrels the most bitter and deadly. God help us!”

CHAPTER XXIII.

HEROES

The Sun Maid’s gaze into her husband’s face was a prolonged and questioning one. Before it was withdrawn she had found her answer.

There was still a silence between them, which she broke at last, and it touched him to see how pale she had become and yet how calm.

“You are going, Gaspar?”

“Yes, my love; I am going. Already I have pledged my word, as my arm and my purse.”

“But, my dear, do you consider? We are growing old, even we, who have never yet had time to realize it – till now. There are younger men, plenty of them. Your counsels at home – ”

“Would be empty words as compared to my example in the field. The young of heart are never old. Besides, do you remember that once, against my stubborn will, you resisted for duty’s sake? We have never regretted it, not for a day. More than that, when our first-born came to us, do you remember how we clasped his tiny hand and resolved always to lead it onward to the right? Lead it, sweetheart. We vowed never to say to him: ‘Go!’ to this or that high duty; but rather, still holding fast to him, say: ‘Come.’ There is such a wide, wide difference between the two.”

Then, indeed, again she trembled. The mother love shook her visibly and a secret rejoicing died a sudden death.

“‘Come,’ you say. But they are not here, in our own unhappy land. Gaspar in Europe, Winthrop in South America, and Hugh in Japan. They are better so.”

“Are they better there? You will be the first to say ‘no’ when this shock passes. A telegram will summon each as easily as we could call them from that other room – supposing that they, your sons, wait for the call. But they’ll not. I know them and trust them. They are already on the railways and steamships that will bring them fastest; and it will truly be the ‘Come with me!’ that we elected, for we shall all march together.”

So they did; and it was the Sun Maid herself, standing proudly among her daughters and daughters-in-law, yet more beautiful than any, who fastened the last glittering button over each manly breast and flicked away an imaginary mote from the spotless uniforms. Then she stood aside and let them go; two by two, “step,” “step” – as if in echo to the first sound which had greeted her own baby ear.