The Book of the Bush. George Dunderdale
rising out of the bed of the Illinois river. It is called "Starved Rock." Once a number of Indian warriors, pursued by white men, climbed up the almost perpendicular sides of the pillar. They had no food, and though the stream was flowing beneath them, they could not obtain a drink of water without danger of death from rifle bullets. The white men instituted a blockade of the pillar, and the red men all perished of starvation on the top of it.
The conversation was conducted by the captain of the canal boat, as he walked on the deck to and fro. He was full of information. He said he was a native of Kentucky; had come down the Ohio river from Louisville; was taking freight to Chicago; reckoned he was bound to rake in the dollars on the canal; was no dog-gonned Abolitionist; niggers were made to work for white folks; they had no souls any more than a horse; he'd like to see the man who would argue the point.
Mrs. Beecher Stowe was then writing "Uncle Tom's Cabin," at too great a distance to hear the challenge, but a greenhorn ventured to argue the point.
"What about the mulatto? Half black, half white. His father being a white man had a whole soul; his mother being black had no soul. Has the mulatto a whole soul, half a soul, or no soul at all?"
The captain paused in his walk, with both hands in his pockets, gazed at the argumentative greenhorn, turned his quid, spat across the canal, went away whistling "Old Dan Tucker," and left the question of the mulatto's soul unsolved.
When I arrived at Joliet there was a land boom at Chicago. The canal company had cut up their alternate sections, and were offering them at the usual alarming sacrifice. A land boom is a dream of celestial bliss. While it lasts, the wisest men and the greatest fools walk with ecstatic steps through the golden streets of a New Jerusalem. I have been there three times. It is dreadful to wake up and to find that all the gold in the street is nothing but moonshine.
I proceeded to the Lake City to lay the foundation of my fortune by buying town lots. I laid the foundation on a five-acre block in West Joliet, but had to borrow seven dollars from my nearest friend to pay the first deposit. Chicago was then a small but busy wooden town, with slushy streets, plank sidewalks, verandahs full of rats, and bedrooms humming with mosquitoes. I left it penniless but proud, an owner of real estate.
While returning to Joliet on the canal boat my nearest friend, from whom I had borrowed the seven dollars, kindly gave me his views on the subject of "greenhorns." (The Australian equivalent of "greenhorn" is "new chum." I had the advantage of serving my time in both capacities). "No greenhorn," he observed, "ever begins to get along in the States until he has parted with his bottom dollar. That puts a keen edge on his mind, and he grows smart in business. A smart man don't strain his back with hard work for any considerable time. He takes out a patent for something--a mowing machine, or one for sowing corn and pumpkins, a new churn or wash-tub, pills for the shakes, or, best of all, a new religion--anything, in fact, that will catch on and fetch the public."
I had parted with my bottom dollar, was also in debt, and therefore in the best position for getting along; but I could not all at once think of anything to patent, and had to earn my daily bread some way or other. I began to do it by hammering sheets of iron into the proper curves for an undershot water-wheel. After I had worked two days my boss suggested that I should seek other employment--in a school, for instance; a new teacher was wanted in the common school of West Joliet.
I said I should prefer something higher; a teacher was of no more earthly account than a tailor.
The boss said: "That might be so in benighted Britain, but in the Great United States our prominent citizens begin life as teachers in the common schools, and gradually rise to the highest positions in the Republic."
I concluded to rise, but a certificate of competency was required, and I presented myself for examination to the proper official, the editor and proprietor of 'The True Democrat' whose office was across the bridge, nearly opposite Matheson's woollen factory. I found the editor and his compositor labouring over the next edition of the paper.
The editor began the examination with the alphabet. I said in England we used twenty-six letters, and I named all of them correctly except the last. I called it "zed," but the editor said it was "zee," and I did not argue the point.
He then asked me to pick out the vowels, the consonants, the flats, the sharps, the aspirates, the labials, the palatals, the dentals, and the mutes. I was struck dumb; I could feel the very foundation of all learning sinking beneath me, and had to confess that I did not know my letters.
Then he went on to spelling and writing. My writing was barely passable, and my spelling was quite out of date. I used superfluous letters which had been very properly abolished by Webster's dictionary.
At last the editor remarked, with becoming modesty, that he was himself of no account at figures, but Mr. Sims would put me through the arithmetic. Mr. Sims was the compositor, and an Englishman; he put me through tenderly.
When the examination was finished, I felt like a convicted impostor, and was prepared to resume work on the undershot water-wheel, but the two professors took pity on me, and certified in writing that I was qualified to keep school.
Then the editor remarked that the retiring teacher, Mr. Randal, had advertised in the 'True Democrat' his ability to teach the Latin language; but, unfortunately, Father Ingoldsby had offered himself as a first pupil; Mr. Randal never got another, and all his Latin oozed out. On this timely hint I advertised my ability to teach the citizens of Joliet not only Latin, but Greek, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. My advertisement will be found among the files of the 'True Democrat' of the year 1849 by anyone taking the trouble to look for it. I had carelessly omitted to mention the English language, but we sometimes get what we don't ask for, and no less than sixteen Germans came to night school to study our tongue. They were all masons and quarrymen engaged in exporting steps and window sills to the rising city of Chicago.
When Goldsmith tried to earn his bread by teaching English in Holland, he overlooked the fact that it was first necessary for him to learn Low Dutch. I overlooked the same fact, but it gave me no trouble whatever. There was no united Germany then, and my pupils disagreed continually about the pronunciation of their own language, which seemed, like that of Babel, intelligible to nobody. I composed their quarrels by confining their minds to English solely, and harmony was restored each night by song.
The school-house was a one-storey frame building on the second plateau in West Joliet, and was attended by about one hundred scholars. In the rear was a shallow lagoon, fenced on one side by a wall of loose rocks, infested with snakes. The track to the cemetery was near, and it soon began to be in very frequent use. One day during recess the boys had a snake hunt, and they tied their game in one bunch by the heads with string, and suspended them by the wayside. I counted them, and there were twenty-seven snakes in the bunch.
The year '49 was the 'annus mirabilis' of the great rush for gold across the plains, and it was also an 'annus miserabilis' on account of the cholera. In three weeks fourteen hundred waggons bound for California crossed one of the bridges over the canal. I was desirous of joining the rush, but was, as usual, short of cash, and I had to stay at Joliet to earn my salary. I met the editor of the 'True Democrat' nearly every day carrying home a bucket of water from the Aux Plaines river. He did his own chores. He sent two young men who wished to become teachers to my school to graduate. One was named O'Reilly, lately from Ireland; I gave him his degree in a few weeks, and he kept school somewhere out on the prairie. The other did not graduate before the cholera came. He was a native of Vermont, and he played the clarionet in our church choir. The instrumental music came from the clarionet, from a violin, and a flute. The choir came from France and Germany, Old England and New England, Ireland, Alsace, and Belgium. It was divided into two hostile camps, and the party which first took possession of the gallery took precedence in the music for that day only. There was a want of harmony. One morning when the priest was chanting the first words of the Gloria, the head of a little French bugler appeared at the top of the gallery stairs, and at once started a plaint chant, Gloria, we had never rehearsed or heard before. He sang his solo to the end. He was thirsting for glory, and he took a full draught.
I don't think there was ever a choir like ours but one, and that was conducted by a butcher from