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Children of the Market Place, a novel by Edgar Lee Masters |
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Chapter 10 |
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_ CHAPTER X This is the letter that I wrote: "Dear Grandmama: I cannot describe to you the conditions that surround me. The boundless extent of the country, the wildness and beauty of the prairies, the roughness of this frontier town, above all the people themselves. The house I am living in is unlike anything you ever saw; but yet it is very comfortable. And my hostess, Mrs. Spurgeon, as well as her granddaughter, have treated me with all the consideration that my own kindred could do. I was very dangerously ill and they took care of me with wonderful solicitude; particularly Zoe, who nursed me and scarcely left my side. Now I am well, or nearly so, and they insist on my living with them. I pay two dollars a week, or about eight shillings. And everything is clean and nice; the food very good, delicious bacon smoked with hickory wood; but altogether the diet is unlike what I was accustomed to in England. It all seems like a story, first that I should meet Reverdy Clayton when I landed in Chicago from the steamboat which had brought me from Buffalo. He offered to bring me here on his Indian pony. But I was afraid to risk so long a ride, especially as at that time I was beginning to feel very badly. Then it is strange that I should get here and awake from an illness so serious in the house of Mrs. Spurgeon, whose granddaughter Sarah is going to marry Reverdy ... one never knows whether to attribute these things to Providence or to the accidents of life.... Perhaps you were right never to tell me about my father's marriage to the octoroon girl; but you must have known that I would find it out on arriving here. It has caused me much thought, if not disturbance of mind; but I have worked out my problems, perhaps impulsively, but still to my own satisfaction. Zoe is about the color of an Indian from Bombay. She is a beautiful girl, and shows her English blood in her manner and her active mind. I do not believe that there was the slightest danger that she would have attacked the will; but many considerations moved me to divide the estate with her equally. She took care of me with the most affectionate interest when I was ill. Besides, the land is not worth so very much, and one half of it will give her no fortune to mention. She is in danger even now, and the future for her is not reassuring. Illinois is supposed to be free territory, but it is not so many years ago that a vote was taken in Illinois to have slavery here, and it was defeated by no very great majority. And now the Illinois laws are rather strict as to colored people. The country is beginning to be feverish about the slavery question. I saw evidence of this in New York and on the way here; though just in this place the matter is not so much agitated. Yet the other day a copy of a periodical arrived here called _The Liberator_, and it made much angry talk. I will not tire you with this subject, dear grandmama, but only say that the effort here and everywhere in America seems to be directed toward hushing the matter up. But to return to Zoe: if her mother's father wished to secure the mother against misfortune by bringing her north and marrying her to a white man (my father, as it turned out) why should not I, her half-brother, try to protect her against the future that her mother might have incurred? I reason that I have taken the place of Zoe's grandfather, and must do for her what he tried to do for Zoe's mother. This inheritance of duty comes to me as the land comes to me, without my will. Zoe's grandfather gave my father his start, gave him the $2500 bonus to marry Zoe's mother. I think, in considering what share of the estate Zoe should have, these things cannot be ignored. Of course I don't know exactly how much of the $2500 went into this land. From things I have heard I think my father spent money freely; he went about a good deal and was not as temperate as he should have been for his own health and prosperity. Something was evidently preying upon his mind. Anyway, I have decided the matter, and I hope you will approve of me. I went to father's grave this morning, and it made me sad. Afterwards Mr. Brooks, the lawyer, drove me to the farm and around most of it. I am going to take hold of it at once. This country is growing rapidly, and I mean to do what my father didn't exactly. I am going to be rich; that is my ambition. And I must think and work. I am well again, or nearly so, and full of hope and plans, though sometimes lonely for you and for England. Some day I shall come back to see you. My love to you, dear grandmama. And do write me as often as you can. "Affectionately, James." And that evening Douglas came. He was of the smallest stature, but with a huge chest and enormous head. His hair was abundant and flowing, tossed back from his full forehead like a cataract. His eyes were blue and penetrating, but kindly. His face rather square. His voice deep and resonant. His words were clearly spoken, and fell from his lips freely, as if he were loosening them into a channel worn by long thinking. His ideas were clearly envisioned. He had read books of which I had never heard. But apart from books his sallies of wit, the aptness of his stories and allusions quite dazzled me. Though he was but two years my senior, I felt like a boy in his presence. His maturity and self-possession and intellectual mastery of the hour kept me silent. He recalled what he had done to bring me to the comforts of Mrs. Spurgeon's house when I arrived in Jacksonville, ill and helpless. After that he did not exactly ignore me, but I seemed not to enter into the association of his ideas or their expression. He talked of the country. There was the matter of Texas, a territory half as large as central Europe. But if Texas seceded from Mexico he wished the country absorbed into the domain of the United States. Texas has a right to secede. All governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed. Let moralists and dreamers say what they would, the course of America was toward mastery of the whole of North America. Yes, and there was Oregon. If the Louisiana Purchase of 1804 did not include Oregon, what of the Lewis and Clark expedition; what of the founding of Astoria by Mr. Astor of New York, on the shores of the Columbia River; what of the restoration of Astoria to the United States in 1818 after it had been forcibly seized by Great Britain in the War of 1812? Douglas looked forward to the day when Great Britain would not have an inch of land from the Gulf of Mexico to the North Pole, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific. All of this vast territory should be the abiding place of liberty forever. Homestead laws should be passed with reference to it, and settlers invited to reduce it to cultivation. It should be tilled by millions of husbandmen, the most intelligent and progressive of the world. It should be crossed by railroads and canals. Already there were the Mohawk and Hudson railroad, the Boston and Albany, and the Baltimore and Ohio. Illinois should have railroads and canals; the rivers and harbors should be improved. Lake Michigan should be connected with the Mississippi River by a canal joining Lake Michigan with the Illinois River. What was it all about? National wealth as a foundation for education, power, the supremacy of the white stocks having the greatest vitality. Zoe was waiting upon the table, occasionally sitting down to take a bite. Douglas neither saw her nor was he oblivious of her. He talked ahead, referring now to the slavery question. He believed the North should leave the South alone. He had seen the reformer, the intermeddler, in his native lair in Vermont. Who had brought into this remote and peaceful town that copy of Garrison's _Liberator_? He was a half-cracked busybody. People who had no business of their own made the business of other people their business. He would put all such drivelers to work upon the roads, and thus make them contribute to the nation's wealth. He referred to the works of Jefferson, which he had read, to the _Federalist_, which he had read, and to much else, of which at that time I did not know a line. I studied Reverdy's face to see whether or not Reverdy concurred in what Douglas said. I had confidence in Reverdy, and was willing to go along with Douglas if Reverdy approved of these programs; although my English blood was stirred to some extent by Douglas' evident hostility to Great Britain. I sensed that Reverdy did not wholly agree with Douglas in all his theories and plans. But Reverdy knew that he could not cope with such a whirlwind as this dynamic logician. He therefore at times smiled a half disapproval, but did not express it. For myself I found my mind consenting to the magic of Douglas' vision. I did not relish the idea of England's surrendering Oregon; but, on the other hand, since my fortunes were cast in the United States, did it not behoove me to draw upon the country's increasing prosperity and to help to increase it? Texas did not matter. I did not fancy the institution of slavery. It grated upon my sensibilities; but I had a very slight understanding of it in the concrete. I was glad that England was rid of it. I had never admired the Wesleys, the Methodists; but I was glad to give them credit for what they had done to relieve England of such an abomination. I rejoiced that more than seven years before I was born Clarkson and Wilberforce had brought about the abolition of this traffic from the land of my nativity and its dependencies. Then here was Zoe. If I was indifferent to slavery I had to be logical and be indifferent to her becoming a subject of barter. At least what, but a sentimental reason, could I set up against the enforced servitude of Zoe? What did it matter in point of justice and civilization that the South could not carry on her commercial interests without slavery? Was trade everything? Were the merchants the leaders of civilization? Were merchants to be permitted to do what they chose in order that they might create wealth for themselves, or even the nation? In a word, was wealth everything? My Adam Smith had said no, and I had already read that. He had classified banks of issue, colonialism, and slavery, as well as some other things as equal parts of a mercantile program. I was, therefore, inclined to dissent from any plan that included any one of these things. And still I was swept along by the torrent of Douglas' thinking. His vision enthralled me. His outlook upon the country, its increasing power and wealth, fascinated my imagination. Was I not resolved to be rich myself? And for moments I was under the spell of his great power. He was a world thinker, but with his own country forefronted in the playing of a colossal part. It appealed to my English blood, that blood which does great deeds through great vision, and then repents the iniquities along the way and corrects them at last. And who was Douglas in spirit? Nothing less than the English genius. And so my feelings were mixed, but admiration for him predominated. I felt his edge and did not like it; his audacity and resented it; his power and rebelled against it; his brusqueness and shrank from it; his emphasis upon power and supremacy, and felt that he might be overlooking finer powers and more lasting triumphs. But his eyes were full of kindly lights, in spite of their intellectual penetration; and he was charming to the last degree. He stood up. I was a head taller than he. But his torso belonged to a giant, and his head. We all arose. And after a time, saying that he was spending his evenings in the study of law, he took his leave. _ |
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