THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA DAVIS A MAN FOR THE AGES A MAN FOR THE AGES A STORY OF THE BUILDERS OF DEMOCRACY BY IRVING BACHELLER AUTHOR OF THE LIGHT IN THE CLEARING, KEEPING UP WITH LIZZIE, ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN WOLCOTT ADAMS GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Made b the United States of America LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORN UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA n A VIS LIBRARY COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE DAVJS COPYRIGHT 1919 THE RIDGWAY COMPANY COPYRIGHT 1919 IRVING BACHELLER Printed in the United States of America. TO MY DEAR FRIEND AND COMRADE ALEXANDER GROSSET 1 DEDICATE THIS BOOK IN TOKEN OF MY ESTEEM ^s: A Letter TO THE AGED AND HONORABLE JOSIAH TRAYLOR FROM HIS GRANDSON, A SOLDIER IN FRANCE, WHEREIN THE MOTIVE AND INSPIRATION OF THIS NARRATIVE ARE BRIEFLY PRESENTED. In France, September 10, 1915. Dear Grandfather: At last I have got mine. I had been scampering towards the stars, like a jack-rabbit chased by barking greyhounds, when a shrapnel shell caught up with me. It sneezed all over my poor bus, and threw some junk into me as if it thought me nothing better than a kind of waste basket. Seems as if it had got tired of car- rying its load and wanted to put it on me. It suc ceeded famously but I got home with the bus. Since then they have been taking sinkers and fish hooks out of me fit only for deep water. Don't worry, I'm get- nng better fast. I shall play no mere football and you will not see me pitching curves and running bases again. No, I shall sit in the grandstand myself here after and there will not be so much of me but I sJiall have qifite a shuck on my soul for all that. I've done a lot of thinking since I have been lying on my back with nothing else to do. When your body gets kind of turned over in the ditch it's wonderful how your A LETTER mind begins to hustle around the place. Until Ms thing happened my intellect was nothing more than a vague rumor. I had heard of it, now and then, in college,, and I had hoped that it would look me up some time and ask what it could do for me, but it didn't. These days I would scarcely believe that I have a body, the poor thing being upon the jacks in this big machine shop, but my small intellect is hopping all over the earth and back again and watching every move of these high-toned mechanics with their shiny tools and white aprons. My mind and I have kind of got acquainted with each other and I'm getting attached to it. It is quite an energetic, promising young mind and I don't know but I'll try to make a permanent place for it in my business. I've been thinking of our Democracy and of my coming oven here to be chucked into this big jack pot as if my life were a small coin; of all the dear old days of the past I have thought and chiefly how the wonderful story of your life has been woven into mine threads of wisdom and adventure and humor and romance. I like to unravel it and look at the colors. Lincoln is the strongest, longest thread in the fabric. Often I think of your description of the great, tender hands that lifted you to his shoulder when you were a boy, of the droll and kindly things that he said to you. I have laughed and cried recalling those hours of yours with Jack Kelso and Dr. John Allen and the rude young giant Abe, of which I have heard you tell A LETTER so often as we sat in the firelight of a winter evening. Best of all I remember the light of your own wisdom as it glowed upon the story; how you found in Lincoln's words a: prophecy of the great struggle that has come. Since I have been steering my imagination on its swift, long flights into the past I have been able to recall the very words you used: "Lincoln said that a house divided againsti itself must fall that our nation could not endure part slave and part free, and it was true. Since then the world has grown incredibly small. The peoples of the earth have been drawn into one house and the affairs of each are the concern of all. With a vain f boastful and unscrupulous degenerate on the throne of Germany, it is likely to be a house divided against itself and I fear a greater struggle than the world has ever seen between the bond and the free. It will be a bloody contest but of its issue there can be no doubt because the friends of freedom are the chil dren of light and are many. They will lay all they have upon its altars. They will be unprepared and roughly handled for a time but their reserves of ma terial and moral strength which shall express them selves in ready sacrifice, are beyond all calculation. Only one whose life spans the wide area from Andrew 'Jackson to Woodrow Wilson and who has stood with Lincoln in his lonely tower and watched the flowing of the tides for three score years and ten, as I have, can be quite aware of the perils and resources of Democracy." A LETTER All these and many other things which you have said to me, dear grandfatlier, have helped me to un derstand this great thunderous drama in which I have had a part. They have helped me to endure its perils and bitter defeats. It was you who saw clearly from the first that this was the final clash between the bond and the free an effort of the great house of God to purge itself, and you urged me to go to Canada and enlist in the struggle. For this, too, I tliank you. My wounds are dear to me, knowing, as you have made me know, that I have come well by them fighting not in the interest of Great Britain or France or Russia, but in the cause of humanity. It is strange that among these men who are -fighting with me I have found only one or two who seem to Iwve a vision of the whole truth of this business. Now I come to the point of my letter. I have an enlistment to urge upon you in the cause of humanity and there are no wounds to go with it. When I come home, as I shall be doing as soon as I am sufficiently mended, we must go to work on the story of your life so that all who ivish to do so may know it as I know it. Let us go to it with all the diaries that you and your father kept, aided by your memory, and give to the world its first full view of the heart and soul of Lin coln. I have read all the biographies and anecdotes of him and- yet without the story as you tell it he wotdd have been a stranger to me. After this war, if I mis- A LETTER take not, Democracy will command the interest of all men. It will be the theme of themes. You tell me that we shall soon get into the struggle and turn the scale. Well, if we do, we shall have to demonstrate a siwftness of preparation and a power in the field which will astonish the world, and when it is all over the yvorld will want to know how this potent Democracy of ours came about. The one name Lincoln with the background of your story, especially the back ground, for the trouble with all the biographies is a lack of background will be the best answer we could give I think. Of course there are other answers, but, as there are few who dare to doubt, these days, that Lincoln is the greatest democrat since Jesus Christ, if we can only present your knowledge to the world we should do well. Again the great, crowd, whom you and I desire to enlighten if we can, do not read biography or history save under the compulsion of the schools, so let us try only to tell the moving story as you have told it to me, with Lincoln striding across the scene or taking the center of the stage just as he was wont to do in your recollection of him. So we will make them to know the giant of Democracy with out trying. Duty calls. What is your answer? Please let me know by cable. Meanwhile I shall be thinking more about it. With love to all the family, from your affec tionate grandson, R. L. CONTENTS CHAPTER PACK BOOK ONE I Which Describes the Journey of Samson Henry Traylor and His Wife and Their Two Children and Their Dog Sambo through the Adirondack Wilderness in 1831 on Their Way to the Land of Plenty, and Especially Their Adventures in Bear Valley and No Santa Claus Land. Furthermore, It Describes the Soaping of the Brimsteads and the Capture of the Veiled Bear . , . . . . 1 II Wherein Is Recorded the Vivid Impression Made upon the Travelers by Their View of a Steam Engine and of the Famous Erie Canal. Wherein, Also, Is a Brief Account of Sundry Curious Characters Met on the Road and at a Celebration of the Fourth of July on the Big Waterway . . 31 III Wherein the Reader Is Introduced to Offut's Store and His Clerk Abe, and the Scholar Jack Kelso and His Cabin and His Daughter Bim, and Gets a First Look at Lincoln 46 IV Which Presents Other Log Cabin Folk and the First Steps in the Making of a New Home and Certain Incapacities of Abe 63 CONTENTS Continued CHAPTER PAGE V In Which the Character of Bim Kelso Flashes Out in a Strange Adventure that Begins the Weaving of a Long Thread of Romance 80 VI Which Describes the Lonely Life in a Prairie Cabin and a Stirring Adventure on the Underground Railroad about the Time It Began Operations . 106 VII In Which Mr. Eliphalet Biggs Gets Acquainted with Bim Kelso and Her Father 122 VIII Wherein Abe Makes Sundry Wise Remarks to the Boy Harry and Announces His Purpose to Be a Candidate for the Legislature at Kelso's Dinner Party 134 IX In Which Bim Kelso Makes History, While Abe and Harry and Other Good Citizens of New Salem Are Making an Effort to that End in the Indian War 151 BOOK TWO X In Which Abe and Samson Wrestle and Some Raiders Come to Burn and Stay to Repent . . 168 XI In Which Abe, Elected to the Legislature, Gives What Comfort He Can to Ann Rutledge in the Beginning of Her Sorrows. Also He Goes to Springfield for New Clothes and Is Astonished by Its Pomp and the Change in Eli 184 XII Which Continues the Romance of Abe and Ann until the Former Leaves New Salem to Begin His CONTENTS Continued CHAPTER PAGE Work in the Legislature. Also It Describes the Coloneling of Peter Lukins 206 XIII Wherein the Route of the Underground Railroad Is Surveyed and Samson and Harry Spend a Night in the Home of Henry Brimstead and Hear Surprising Revelations, Confidentially Disclosed, and Are Charmed by the Personality of His Daughter Annabel 215 XIV In Which Abe Returns from Vandalia and Is En gaged to Ann, and Three Interesting Slaves Ar rive at the Home of Samson Tray lor, Who, with Harry Needles, Has an Adventure of Much Im portance on the Underground Road .... 230 XV Wherein Harry and Abe Ride Up to Springdale and Visit Kelso's and Learn of the Curious Lone- someness of Eliphalet Biggs 249 XVI Wherein Young Mr. Lincoln Safely Passes Two Great Danger Points and Turns into the High way of His Manhood 265 BOOK THREE XVII Wherein Young Mr. Lincoln Betrays Ignorance of Two Highly Important Subjects, in Consequence of Which He Begins to Suffer Serious Embar rassment 273 fcVIII In Which Mr. Lincoln, Samson and Harry Take a Long Ride Together and the Latter Visit the Flourishing Little City of Chicago . . . . , 283 CONTENTS Continued CHAPTER PAGE XIX Wherein Is One of the Many Private Panics Which Followed the Bursting of the Bubble of Specula tion 315 XX Which Tells of the Settling of Abe Lincoln and the Traylors in the Village of Springfield and of Samson's Second Visit to Chicago 325 XXI Wherein a Remarkable School of Political Science Begins Its Sessions in the Rear of Joshua Speed's Store. Also at Samson's Fireside Honest Abe Talks of the Authority of the Law and the Right of Revolution, and Later Brings a Suit against Lionel Davis 353 XXII Wherein Abe Lincoln Reveals His Method of Con ducting a Lawsuit in the Case of Henry Brim- stead et al. vs. Lionel Davis ....... 363 XXIII Which Presents the Pleasant Comedy of Individ ualism in the New Capital, and the Courtship of Lincoln and Mary Todd 374 XXIV Which Describes a Pleasant Holiday and a Pretty Stratagem 392 XXV Being a Brief Memoir by the Honorable and Ven erable Man Known in These Pages as Josiah Traylor, Who Saw the Great Procession of Events between Andrew Jackson and Woodrow Wilson and Especially the Making and the End of Lincoln ........ > .. > . 403 A MAN FOR THE AGES A Man for the Ages BOOK ONE CHAPTER I WHICH DESCRIBES THE JOURNEY OF SAMSON HENRY TRAYLOR AND HIS WIFE AND THEIR TWO CHILDREN AND THEIR DOG SAMBO THROUGH THE ADIRONDACK WILDERNESS IN 183! ON THEIR WAY TO THE LAND OF PLENTY, AND ESPECIALLY THEIR ADVENTURES IN BEAR VALLEY AND NO SANTA CLAUS LAND. FURTHERMORE, IT DESCRIBES THE SOAPING OF THE BRIMSTEADS AND THE CAPTURE OF THE VEILED BEAR. IN the early summer of 1831 Samson Traylor and his wife, Sarah, and two children left their old home near the village of Vergennes, Vermont, and began their travels toward the setting sun with four chairs, a bread board and rolling-pin, a feather bed and blankets, a small looking-glass, a skillet, an axe, a pack basket with a pad of sole leather on the same, a water pail, a box of dishes, a tub of salt pork, a rifle, a tea pot, a sack of meal, sundry small provisions and a violin, in a double wagon drawn by oxen. It is a pleasure to note that they had a violin and were not I 2 A MAN FOR THE AGES disposed to part with it. The reader must not overlook its full historic significance. The stern, uncompromis ing spirit of the Puritan had left the house of the Yankee before a violin could enter it. Humor and the love of play had preceded and cleared a way for it. Where there was a fiddle there were cheerful hearts. A young black shepherd dog with tawny points and the name of Sambo followed the wagon or ex plored the fields and woods it passed. If we had been at the Congregational Church on Sunday we might have heard the minister saying to Samson, after the service, that it was hard to under stand why the happiest family in the parish and the most beloved should be leaving its ancestral home to go to a far, new country of which little was known. We might also have heard Samson answer : "It's awful easy to be happy here. We slide along in the same old groove, that our fathers traveled, from Vergennes to Paradise. We work and play and go to meetin' and put a shin plaster in the box and grow old and narrow and stingy and mean and go up to glory and are turned into saints and angels. Maybe that's the best thing that could happen to us, but Sarah and I kind o' thought we'd try a new starting place and another route to Heaven." Then we might have seen the countenance of the minister assume a grave and troubled look. "Samson, you must not pull down the pillars of this temple," he said. A MAN FOR THE AGES 3 "No, it has done too much for me. I love its faults even. But we have been called and must go. A great empire is growing up in the West. We want to see it; we want to help build it." The minister had acquired a sense of humor among those Yankees. Years later in his autobiography he tells how deeply the words of Samson had impressed him. He had answered : "Think of us. I don't know what we shall do with out your fun and the music of your laugh at the pleasure parties. In addition to being the best wrestler in the parish you are also its most able and sonorous laugher." "Yes, Sarah and I have got the laughing habit. I guess we need a touch of misery to hold us down. But you will have other laughers. The seed has been planted here and the soil is favorable." Samson knew many funny stories and could tell them well. His heart was as merry as The Fisher's Hornpipe. He used to say that he got the violin to help him laugh, as he found his voice failing under the strain. Sarah and Samson had been raised on adjoining farms just out of the village. He had had little school ing, but his mind was active and well inclined. Sarah had prosperous relatives in Boston and had had the advantage of a year's schooling in that city. She was a comely girl of a taste and refinement unusual in the place and time of her birth. Many well favored youths 4 A MAN FOR THE AGES had sought her hand, but, better than others, she liked the big, masterful, good-natured, humorous Samson, crude as he was. Naturally in her hands his timber had undergone some planing and smoothing and his thought had been gently led into new and pleasant ways. Sarah's Uncle Rogers in Boston had kept them supplied with some of the best books and magazines of the time. These they had read aloud with keen enjoyment. Moreover, they remembered what they read and cherished and thought about it. Let us take a look at them as they slowly leave the village of their birth. The wagon is covered with tent cloth drawn over hickory arches. They are sitting on a seat overlooking the oxen in the wagon front. Tears are streaming down the face of the woman. The man's head is bent. His elbows are resting on his knees ; the hickory handle of his ox whip lies across his lap, the lash at his feet. He seems to be looking down at his boots, into the tops of which his trousers have been folded. He is a rugged, blond, bearded man with kindly blue eyes and a rather prominent nose. There is a striking expression of power in the head and shoulders of Samson Traylor. The breadth of his back, the size of his wrists and hands, the color of his face betoken a man of great strength. This thoughtful, sorrowful attitude is the only evidence of emotion which he betrays. In a few minutes he begins to whistle a lively tune. A MAN FOR THE AGES 5 The boy Josiah familiarly called Joe sits beside his mother. He is a slender, sweet-faced lad. He is looking up wistfully at his mother. The little girl Betsey sits between him and her father. That evening they stopped at the house of an old friend some miles up the dusty road to the north. "Here we are goin' west," Samson shouted to the man at the door-step. He alighted and helped his family out of the wagon. "You go right in I'll take care o' the oxen," said the man. Samson started for the house with the girl under one arm and the boy under the other. A pleasant- faced woman greeted them with a hearty welcome at the door. "You poor man ! Come right in," she said. "Poor ! I'm the richest man in the world," said he. "Look at the gold on that girl's head curly, fine gold, too the best there is. She's Betsey my little toy woman half past seven years old blue eyes helps her mother get tired every day. Here's my toy man Josiah yes, brown hair and brown eyes like Sarah heart o' gold helps his mother, too six times one year old." "What pretty faces !" said the woman as she stooped and kissed them. "Yes, ma'am. Got 'em from the fairies," Samson went on. "They have all kinds o' heads for little folks, 6 A MAN FOR THE AGES an' I guess they color 'em up with the blood o' roses an* the gold o' buttercups an' the blue o' violets. Here's this wife o' mine. She's richer'n I am. She owns all of us. We're her slaves/' "Looks as young as she did the day she was married nine years ago/' said the woman. "Exactly !" Samson exclaimed. "Straight as an ar row and proud ! I don't blame her. She's got enough to make her proud I say. I fall in love again every time I look into her big, brown eyes." The talk and laughter brought the dog into the house. "There's Sambo, our camp follower," said Samson. "He likes us, one and all, but he often feels sorry for us because we can not feel the joy that lies in buried bones and the smell of a liberty pole or a gate post" They had a joyous evening and a restful night with these old friends and resumed their journey soon after daylight. They ferried across the lake at Burlington and fared away over the mountains and through the deep forest on the Chateaugay trail. Since the Pilgrims landed between the measureless waters and the pathless wilderness they and their descendants had been surrounded by the lure of mys teries. It filled the imagination of the young with gleams of golden promise. The love of adventure, the desire to explore the dark, infested and beautiful forest, the dream of fruitful sunny lands cut with A MAN FOR THE AGES 7 water courses, shored with silver and strewn with gold beyond it these were the only heritage of their sons and daughters save the strength and courage of the pioneer. How true was this dream of theirs gathering detail and allurement as it passed from sire to son! On distant plains to the west were lands more lovely and fruitful than any of their vision ; in mountains far beyond was gold enough to gild the dome of the heavens, as the sun was wont to do at eventide, and silver enough to put a fairly respectable moon in it. Yet for generations their eyes were not to see, their hands were not to touch these things. They were only to push their frontier a little farther to the west and hold the dream and pass it on to their children. Those early years of the nineteenth century held the first days of fulfillment. Samson and Sarah Traylor had the old dream in their hearts when they first turned their faces to the West. For years Sarah had resisted it, thinking of the hardships and perils in the way of the mover. Samson, a man of twenty-nine when he set out from his old home, was said to be "always chasing the bird in the bush." He was never content with the thing in hand. There were certain of their friends who promised to come and join them when, at last, they should have found the land of plenty. But most of the group that bade them good-by thought it a foolish enterprise and spoke lightly of Samson when they were gone. America has undervalued the brave 8 A MAN FOR THE AGES souls who went west in wagons, without whose sublime courage and endurance the plains would still be an unplowed wilderness. Often we hear them set down as seedy, shiftless dreamers who could not make a living at home. They were mostly the best blood of the world and the noblest of God's missionaries. Who does not honor them above the thrifty, comfort loving men and women who preferred to stay at home, where risks were few, the supply of food sure and sufficient and the consolations of friendship and religion always at hand. Samson and Sarah preferred to enlist and take their places in the front battle line of Civilization. They had read a little book called The Country of the Sangamon. The latter was a word of the Potta- watomies meaning land of plenty. It was the name of a river in Illinois draining "boundless, flowery meadows of unexampled beauty and fertility, belted with timber, blessed with shady groves, covered with game and mostly level, without a stick or a stone to vex the plowman." Thither they were bound to take up a section of government land. They stopped for a visit with Elisha Howard and his wife, old friends of theirs, who lived in the village of Malone, which was in Franklin County, New York. There they traded their oxen for a team of horses. They were large gray horses named Pete and Colonel. The latter was fat and good-natured. His chief in terest in life was food. Pete was always looking for A MAN FOR THE AGES 9 food and perils. Colonel was the near horse. Now and then Samson threw a sheepskin over his back and put the boy on it and tramped along within arm's reach of Joe's left leg. This was a great delight to the little lad. They proceeded at a better pace to the Black River country, toward which, in the village of Canton, they tarried again for a visit with Captain Moody and Silas Wright, both of whom had taught school in the town of Vergennes. They proceeded through DeKalb, Richville and Gouverneur and Antwerp and on to the Sand Plains. They had gone far out of their way for a look at these old friends of theirs. Every day the children would ask many questions, as they rode along, mainly about the beasts and birds in the dark shadows of the forest through which they passed. These were answered patiently by their father and mother and every answer led to other queries. ''You're a funny pair," said their father one day. "You have to turn over every word we say to see what's under it. I used to be just like ye, used to go out in the lot and tip over every stick and stone I could lift to see the bugs and crickets run. You're always hopin' to see a bear or a panther or a fairy run out from under my remarks." "Wonder why we don't see no bears?" Joe asked. " 'Cause they always see us first or hear us comin'," io A MAN FOR THE AGES said his father. "If you're goin' to see ol' Uncle Bear ye got to pay the price of admission." "What's that?" Joe asked. "Got to go still and careful so you'll see him first. If this old wagon didn't talk so loud and would kind o' go on its tiptoes maybe we'd see him. He don't like to be seen. Seems so he was kind o' shamed of himself, an' I wouldn't wonder if he was. He's done a lot o' things to be 'shamed of.'* "What's he done?" Joe asked. "Ketched sheep and pigs and fawns and run off with 'em." "What does he do with 'em?" "Eats 'em up. Now you quit Here's a lot o' rocks and mud and I got to 'tend to business. You tackle yer mother and chase her up and down the hills a while and let me get my breath." Samson's diary tells how, at the top of the long, steep hills he used to cut a small tree by the roadside and tie its butt to the rear axle and hang on to its branches while his wife drove the team. This held their load, making an effective brake. Traveling through the forest, as they had been do ing for weeks, while the day waned, they looked for a brookside on which they could pass the night with water handy. Samson tethered, fed and watered their horses, and while Sarah and the children built a fire and made tea and biscuits, he was getting bait and catching fish in the stream. A MAN FOR THE AGES n "In a few minutes from the time I wet my hook a mess of trout would be dressed and sizzling, with a piece of salt pork, in the pan, or it was a bad day for fishing,'' he writes. After supper the wagon was partly unloaded, the feather bed laid upon the planks under the wagon roof and spread with blankets. Then Samson sang songs and told stories or played upon the violin to amuse the family. The violin invariably woke the birds in the tree-tops, and some, probably thrushes or warblers or white throated sparrows, began twittering, Now and then one would express his view of the dis turbance with a little phrase of song. Often the player paused'to hear these musical whispers "up in the gal lery," as he was wont to call it. Often if the others were weary and depressed he would dance merrily around the fire, playing a lively tune, with Sambo glad to lend a helping foot and much noise to the program. If mosquitos and flies were troublesome Samson built smudges, filling their camp with the smoky incense of dead leaves, in which often the flavor of pine and balsam was mingled. By and by the violin was put away and all knelt by the fire while Sarah prayed aloud for protection through the night. So it will be seen that they carried with them their own little theater, church and hotel. Soon after darkness fell, Sarah and the children lay down for the night, while Samson stretched out with his blankets by the fire in good weather, the loaded 12 A MAN FOR THE AGES musket and the dog Sambo lying beside him. Often the howling of wolves in the distant forest kept them awake, and the dog muttering and barking for hours. Samson woke the camp at daylight and a merry song was his reveille while he led the horses to their drink. "Have a good night ?" Sarah would ask. "Perfect!" he was wont to answer. "But when the smudges went out the mosquiters got to peckin' my face." "Mine feels like a pincushion," Sarah would often answer. "Will you heat up a little water for us to wash with ?" "You better believe I will. Two more hedge hogs last night, but Sambo let J em alone." Sambo had got his mouth sored by hedge hogs some time before and had learned better than to have any fuss with them. When they set out in the morning Samson was wont to say to the little lad, who generally sat beside him: "Well, my boy, what's the good word this morning?" Whereupon Joe would say, parrot like : "God help us all and make His face to shine upon us." "Well said!" his father would answer, and so the day's journey began. Often, near its end, they came to some lonely farm house. Always Samson would stop and go to the door to ask about the roads, followed by little Joe and A MAN FOR THE AGES 13 Betsey with secret hopes. One of these hopes wa3 related to cookies and maple sugar and buttered bread and had been cherished since an hour of good fortune 5 early in the trip and encouraged by sundry good- hearted women along the road. Another was the hope of seeing a baby mainly, it should be said, the hope of Betsey. Joe's interest was merely an echo of hers. He regarded babies with an open mind, as it were, for the opinions of his sister still had some weight with him, she being a year and a half older than he, but babies invariably disappointed him, their capabilities being so restricted. To be sure, they could make quits a noise, and the painter was said to imitate it, but since Joe had learned that they couldn't bite he had begun to lose respect for them. Still, not knowing what might happen, he always took a look at every baby. The children were lifted out of the wagon to stretch their legs at sloughs and houses. They were sure to be close behind the legs of their father when he stood at a stranger's door. Then, the night being near, they were always invited to put their horses in the barn and tarry until next morning. This was due in part to the kindly look and voice of Samson, but mostly to the wistful faces of the little children a fact unsus pected by their parents. What motherly heart could resist the silent appeal of children's faces or fail to understand it? Those were memorable nights for 14 A MAN FOR THE AGES Sarah and Joe and Betsey. In a letter to her brother the woman said : "You don't know how good it seemed to see a woman and talk to her, and we talked and talked until midnight, after all the rest were asleep. She let me hold the baby in my lap until it was put to bed. How good it felt to have a little warm body in my arms again and feel it breathing! In all my life I never saw a prettier baby. It felt good to be in a real house and sleep in a soft, warm bed and to eat jelly and cookies and fresh meat and potatoes and bread and butter. Samson played for them and kept them laugh ing with his stories until bedtime. They wouldn't take a cent and gave us a dozen eggs in a basket and a piece of venison when we went away. Their name is Sanford and I have promised to write to them. They are good Christian folks and they say that maybe they will join us in the land of plenty if we find it all we expect." They had two rainy, cold days, with a northeast wind blowing and deep mud in the roads. The chil dren complained of the cold. After a few miles' travel they stopped at an old hunter's camp facing a great mossy rock near the road. "Guess we'll stop here for a visit," said Samson. "Who we goin' to visit?" Joe asked. "The trees and the fairies," said his father. "Don't ye hear 'em askin' us to stop? They say the wind is blowin' bad an' that we'd better stop an' make some A MAN FOR THE AGES 15 good weather. They offer us a house and a roof to cover it and some wood to burn. I guess we'll be able to make our own sunshine in a few minutes." Samson peeled some bark and repaired the roof and, with his flint and tinder and some fat pine, built a roar ing fire against the rock and soon had his family sit ting, in its warm glow, under shelter. Near by was another rude framework of poles set in crotches partly covered with bark which, with a little repairing, made a sufficient shelter for Pete and Colonel. Down by a little brook a few rods away he cut some balsams and returned presently with his arms full of the frag rant boughs. These he dried in the heat of the fin and spread in a thick mat on the ground under the lean-to. It was now warm with heat, reflected from the side of the great rock it faced. The light of the leaping flames fell upon the travelers. ''Ye see ye can make yer own weather and fill it with sunshine if ye only know how/' said Samson, as he sat down and brushed a coal out of the ashes and swiftly picked it up with his fingers and put it into the bowl of his clay pipe. "Mother and I read in a book that the wood was full o* sunlight all stored up and ready for us to use. Ye just set it afire and out comes the warm sunlight for days like this. God takes pretty good care of us don't He?" The heat of other fires had eaten away a few inches of the base of the rock. Under its overhang some one 16 A MAN FOR THE AGES had written with a black coal the words "Bear Valley Camp." On this suggestion the children called for a bear story, and lying back on the green mat of boughs, Samson told them of the great bear of Camel's Hump which his father had slain, and many other tales of the wilderness. They lived two days in this fragrant, delightful shelter until the storm had passed and the last of their corn meal had been fed to the horses. They were never to forget the comfort and the grateful odors of their camp in Bear Valley. On a warm, bright day in the sand country after the storm they came to a crude, half finished, frame house at the edge of a wide clearing. The sand lay in drifts on one side of the road. It had evidently moved in the last wind. A sickly vegetation covered the field. A ragged, barefooted man and three scrawny, ill clad children stood in the dooryard. It was noon time. A mongrel dog, with a bit of the hound in him, came bounding and barking toward the wagon and pitched upon Sambo and quickly got the worst of it. Sambo, after much experience in self-defense, had learned that the best way out of such trouble was to seize a leg and hang on. This he did. The mongrel began to yelp. Samson lifted both dogs by the backs of their necks, broke the hold of Sambo and tossed aside the mongrel, who ran away whining. "That reminds me of a bull that tackled a man over in Vermont," said he. "The man had a club in his A MAN FOR THE AGES 17 hand. He dodged and grabbed the bull's tail and beat him all over the lot. As the bull roared, the man hol lered : Td like to know who began this fuss anyway.' ' The stranger laughed. "Is that your house?" Samson asked. The man stepped nearer and answered in a low, con fidential tone: "Say, mister, this is a combination poorhouse and idiot asylum. I am the idiot. These are the poor." He pointed to the children. "You don't talk like an idiot," said Samson. The man looked around and leaned over the wheel as if about to impart a secret. "Say, I'll tell ye," he said in a low tone. "A real, first-class idiot never does. You ought to see my actions." "This land is an indication that you're right," Sam son laughed. "It proves it," the stranger whispered. "Have you any water here?" Samson asked. The stranger leaned nearer and said in his most con fidential tone : "Say, mister, it's about the best in the United States. Right over yonder in the edge o' the woods a spring cold as ice Simon-pure water. 'Bout the only thing this land'll raise is water." "This land looks to me about as valuable as so much sheet lightnin' and I guess it can move just about as quick," said Samson. The stranger answered in a low tone : "Say, I'll tell i8 A MAN FOR THE AGES ye, it's a wild cow don't stand still long 'nough to give ye time to git anything out of it. I've toiled and prayed, but it's hard to get much out of it." "Praying won't do this land any good," Samson answered. "What it needr is manure and plenty of it. You can't raise anything here but fleas. It isn't decent to expect God to help run a flea farm. He knows too much for that, and if you keep it up He'll lose all respect for ye. If you were to buy another farm and bring it here and put it down on top o' this one, you could probably make a living. I wouldn't like to live where the wind could dig my potatoes." Again the stranger leaned toward Samson and said in a half- whisper : "Say, mister, I wouldn't want you to mention it, but talkin' o' fleas, I'm like a dog with so many of 'em that he don't have time to eat. Some body has got to soap him or he'll die. You see, I traded my farm over in Vermont for five hundred acres o' this sheet lightnin', unsight an' unseen. We was all crazy to go West an' here we are. If it wasn't for the deer an' the fish I guess we'd 'a' starved to death long ago." "Where did ye come from ?" "Orwell, Vermont." " What's yer name?" "Henry Brimstead," the stranger whispered. "Son of Elijah Brimstead?" "Yes, sir." A MAN FOR THE AGES ig Samson took his hand and shook it warmly. "Well, I declare!' 5 he exclaimed. "Elijah Brimstead was a friend o' my father.'' "Who are you?" Brimstead asked. "I'm one o' the Traylors o' Vergennes." "My father used to buy cattle of Henry Traylor." "Henry was my father. Haven't you let 'em know about your bad luck?" The man resumed his tone of confidence. "Say, I'll tell ye," he answered. "A man that's as big a fool as I am ought not to advertise it. A brain that has treated its owner as shameful as mine has treated me should be compelled to do its own thinkin' er die. I've invented some things that may sell. I've been hopin' my luck would turn." "It'll turn when you turn it," Samson assured him. Brimstead thoughtfully scuffed the sand with his bare foot. In half a moment he stepped to the wheel and imparted this secret : "Say, mister, if you've any more doubt o' my mental condition, I'm goin' to tell ye that they've discovered valuable ore in my land two miles back o' this road, an' I'm hopin' to make a for tune. Don't that prove my case?" "Any man that puts his faith in the bowels of the earth can have my vote," said Samson. Brimstead leaned close to Samson's ear and said in a tone scarcely audible : "My brother Robert has his own idiot asylum. It's 20 A MAN FOR THE AGES a real handsome one an' he has made it pay, but I wouldn't swap with him." Samson smiled, remembering that Robert had a liquor store. "Look here, Henry Brimstead, we're hungry," he said. "If ye furnish the water, we'll skirmish around for bread and give ye as good a din ner as ye ever had in yer life." Henry took the horses to his barn and watered and fed them. Then he brought two pails of water from the spring. Meanwhile Samson started a fire in a grove of small poplars by the roadside and began broiling venison, and Sarah got out the bread board and the flour and the rolling-pin and the teapot. As she waited for the water she called the three strange chil dren to her side. The oldest was a girl of thirteen, with a face uncommonly refined and attractive. In spite of her threadbare clothes, she had a neat and cleanly look and gentle manners. The youngest was a boy of four. They were a pathetic trio. Joe had been telling them about Santa Claus and showing them a jack-knife which had come down the chimney in his pack at Christmas time and describing a dress of his mother's that had gold and silver buttons on it. The little six-year-old girl had asked him many questions about his mother and had stood for some moments looking up into Sarah's face. The girl tim idly felt the dress and hair of the woman and touched her wedding ring. A MAN FOR THE AGES 21 "Come and wash your faces and hands," Joe de manded as soon as the water came. This they did while he poured from a dipper. "Nice people always wash before they eat," he re minded them. Then he showed them his bear stick, with the as surance that it had killed a hedge hog, omitting the unimportant fact that his father had wielded it. The ferocity of hedge hogs was a subject on which he had large information. He told how one of their party had come near getting his skin sewed on a barn door. A hedge hog had come and asked Sambo if he would have some needles. Sambo had never seen a hedge hog, so he said that he guessed he would. Then the hedge hog said : "Help yourself." Sambo went to take some and just got his face full of 'em so it looked like a head o' barley. They had to be took out with a pinchers or they'd V sewed his skin on to a barn door. That was their game. They tried to sew everybody's skin on a barn door. Every night the hedge hog came around and said: "Needles, needles, anybody want some needles." Now Sambo always answered: "No thank you, I've had enough." "Where's your mother?" Sarah asked of the ten- year-old girl. "Dead. Died when my little brother was born." "Who takes care of you?" 22 A MAN FOR THE AGES "Father and God. Father says God does most of it." "Oh dear!" Sarah exclaimed, with a look of pity. They had a good dinner of fresh biscuit and honey and venison and eggs and tea. While they were eat ing Samson told Brimstead of the land of plenty. After dinner, while Brimstead was bringing the team, one of his children, the blonde, pale, tattered little girl of six, climbed into the wagon seat and sat holding a small rag doll, which Sarah' had given her. When they were ready to go she stubbornly refused to get down. "I'm goin' away," she said. "I'm goin' aw-a-ay off to find my mother. I don't like this place. There ain't no Santa Claus here. I'm goin' away." She clung to the wagon seat and cried loudly when her father took her down. "Ain't that enough to break a man's heart ?" he said with a sorrowful look. Then Samson turned to Brimstead and asked : "Look here, Henry Brimstead, are you a drinking man ? Honor bright now." "Never drink a thing but water and tea." "Do you know of anybody who'll give ye anything for what you own here ?" "There's a man in the next town who offered me three hundred and fifty dollars for my interest." "How far is it?" "Three miles." A MAN FOR THE AGES 23 "Come along with us and get the money if you can. I'll help ye fit up and go where ye can earn a living." "I'd like to, but my horse is lame and I can't leave the children." "Put 'em right in this wagon and come on. If there's a livery in the place, I'll send ye home." So the children rode in the wagon and Samson and Brimstead walked, while Sarah drove the team to the next village. There the good woman bought new clothes for the whole Brimstead family and Brimstead sold his interest in the sand plains and bought a good pair of horses, with harness and some cloth for a wagon cover, and had fifty dollars in his pocket and a new look in his face. He put his children on the backs of the horses and led them to his old home, with a sack of provisions on his shoulder. He was to take the track of the Traylors next day and begin his jour ney to the shores of the Sangamon. Samson had asked about him in the village and learned that he was an honest man who had suffered bad luck. A neighbor's wife had taken his children for two years, but bad health had compelled her to give them up. "God does the most of it," Sarah quoted from the young girl, as they rode on. "I guess He's saved 'em from the poorhouse to-day. I hope they'll ketch up with us. I'd like to look after those children a little. They need a mother so." 24 A MAN FOR THE AGES "They'll ketch up all right," said Samson. "We're loaded heavier than they'll be and goin' purty slow. They'll be leavin' No Santa Claus Land to-morrow mornin'. Seems so God spoke to me when that girl said there wa'n't no Santa Claus there." "No Santa Claus Land is a good name for it," said Sarah. They got into a bad swale that afternoon and Sam son had to cut some corduroy to make a footing for team and wagon and do much prying with the end of a heavy pole under the front axle. By and by the horses pulled them out "When ol' Colonel bends his neck things have to move, even if he is up to his belly in the mud," said Samson. As the day waned they came to a river in the deep woods. It was an exquisite bit of forest with the bells of a hermit thrush ringing in one of its towers. Their call and the low song of the river were the only sounds in the silence. The glow of the setting sun which lighted the western windows of the forest had a color like that of the music golden. Long shafts of it fell through the tree columns upon the road here and there. Our weary travelers stopped on the rude plank bridge that crossed the river. Odors of balsam and pine and tamarack came in a light, cool breeze up the river valley. "It smells like Bear Valley," said Sarah, A MAN FOR THE AGES 25 "What was that poetry you learned for the church party?" Samson asked. "I guess the part of it you're thinking of is : 'And west winds with musky wing Down the cedarn alleys fling 'Nard and Cassia's balmy smells/ ' 'That's it," said Samson. "I guess we'll stop at this tavern till to-morrow." Joe was asleep and they laid him on the blankets until supper was ready. Soon after supper Samson shot a deer which had waded into the rapids. Fortunately, it made the op posite shore before it fell. All hands spent that eve ning dressing the deer and jerking the best of the meat. This they did by cutting the meat into strips about the size of a man's hand and salting and laying it on a rack, some two feet above a slow fire, and cover ing it with green boughs. The heat and smoke dried the meat in the course of two or three hours and gave it a fine flavor. Delicious beyond any kind of meat is venison treated in this manner. If kept dry, it will retain its flavor and its sweetness for a month or more. Samson was busy with this process long after the others had gone to bed. When it was nearly finished he left the meat on the rack, the fire beneath it having burned low, crossed the river to the wagon, got his 26 A MAN FOR THE AGES blanket, reloaded his gun and lay down to sleep with the dog beside him. Some hours later he was awakened by "a kind of a bull beller," as he described it. The dog ran barking across the river. Samson seized the gun and followed him. The first dim light of the morning showed through the tree-tops. Some big animal was growling and roaring and rolling over and over in a clump of bushes near the meat rack. In half a moment it rolled out upon the open ground near Samson. The latter could now see that it was a large black bear engaged in a desperate struggle with the pack basket. The bear had forced his great head into the top of it and its hoop had got a firm hold on his neck. He was sniffing and growling and shaking his head and strik ing with both fore paws to free himself. Sambo had laid hold of his stub tail and the bear was trying in vain to reach him, with the dog dodging as he held on. The movements of both were so lively that Samson had to step like a dancer to keep clear of them. The bear, in sore trouble, leaped toward him and the sway ing basket touched the side of the man. Back into the bushes and out again they struggled, Sambo keep ing his hold. A more curious and ludicrous sight never gladdened the eye of a hunter. Samson had found it hard to get a chance to shoot at the noisy, swift torrent of fur. Suddenly the bear rose on his hind legs and let out an angry woof and gave the basket a terrific shaking. In this brief pause a ball A MAN FOR THE AGES 27 from the rifle went to his heart and he fell. Samson jumped forward, seized the dog's collar and pulled him away while the bear struggled in his death throes. Then the man started for camp, while his great laugh woke distant echoes in the forest. "Bear steak for dinner!" he shouted to Sarah and the children, who stood shivering with fright on the bridge. Again his laughter filled the woods with sound. "Gracious Peter ! What in the world was it ?" Sarah asked. "Well, ye see, oP Uncle Bear came to steal our bacon an' the bacon kind o' stole him," said Samson, between peals of laughter, the infection of which went to the heart and lips of every member of the family. "Shoved his head into the pack basket and the pack basket wouldn't let go. It said: 'This is the first time I ever swallered a bear, an' if you don't mind I'll stay on the outside. I kind o' like you.' But the bear did mind. He didn't want to be et up by a bas ket. He'd always done the s waller in' himself an' he hollered an' swore at the basket an' tried to scare it off. Oh, I tell ye he was awful sassy and impudent to that old thing, but it hung on and the way he flounced around, with Sambo clingin' to his tail, and the bear thinkin' that he was bein' swallered at both ends, was awful. Come an' see him." They went to the bear, now dead. Sambo ran ahead of them and laid hold of the bear's stump of a tail 28 A MAN FOR THE AGES and shook it savagely, as if inclined to take too much credit upon himself. The hoop of the pack basket had so tight a hold upon the bear's neck that it took a strong pull to get it back over his head. One side of the basket had been protected from the bear's claws by a pad of sole leather the side which, when the basket was in use, rested on the back of its carrier. His claws had cut nearly through it and torn a carry ing strap into shreds. "I guess he'd 'a' tore off his veil if the dog had give him a little more time," said Samson. "Ol' Uncle Bear had trouble at both ends and didn't know which way to turn." A good-sized piece of bacon still lay in the bottom of the basket "I wouldn't wonder if that would taste pretty beary now," said Samson, as he surveyed the bacon. "It's been sneezed at and growled on so much. Betsey, you take that down to the shore o' the river there and wash the bear out of it. I'll skin him while yer mother is gettin' breakfast There's plenty o' live coals under the venison rack, I guess." They set out rather late that morning. As usual, Joe stood by the head of Colonel while the latter lapped brown sugar from the timid palm of the boy. Then the horse was wont to touch the face of Joe with his big, hairy lips as a tribute to his generosity. Colonel had seemed to acquire a singular attachment A MAN FOR THE AGES 29 for the boy and the dog, while Pete distrusted both of them. He had never a moment's leisure, anyhow, being always busy with his work or the flies. A few breaks in the pack basket had been repaired with green withes. It creaked with its load of jerked venison when put aboard. The meat of the bear was nicely wrapped in his hide and placed beside it. They sold meat and hide and bounty rights in the next village they reached for thirty long shillings. "That cheers up the ol' weasel," Samson declared, as they went on. "He got a hard knock after we met the Brimsteads," said Sarah. "Yes, ma'am! and I'm not sorry either. He's got to come out of his hole once in a while. I tell ye God kind o' spoke to us back there in No Santa Claus Land. He kind o' spoke to us." After a little silence, Sarah said : "I guess He's apt to speak in the voices of little children." His weasel was a dried pig's bladder of unusual size in which he carried his money. Samson had brought with him a fairly good quantity of money for those days. In a smaller bladder he carried his tobacco. Farther on the boy got a sore throat. Sarah bound a slice of pork around it and Samson built a camp by the roadside, in which, after a good fire was started, they gave him a hemlock sweat. This they did by steeping hemlock in pails of hot water and, while the 3 o A MAN FOR THE AGES patient sat in a chair by the fireside, a blanket was spread about him and pinned close to his neck. Under the blanket they put the pails of steaming hemlock tea. After his sweat and a day and night in bed, with a warm fire burning in front of the shanty, Joe was able to resume his seat in the wagon. They spoke of the Brimsteads and thought it strange that they had not come along. On the twenty-ninth day after their journey began they came in sight of the beautiful green valley of the Mohawk. As they looked from the hills they saw the roof of the forest dipping down to the river shores and stretching far to the east and west and broken, here and there, by small clearings. Soon they could see the smoke and spires of the thriving village of Utica. CHAPTER II WHEREIN IS RECORDED THE VIVID IMPRESSION MADE UPON THE TRAVELERS BY THEIR VIEW OF A STEAM ENGINE AND OF THE FAMOUS ERIE CANAL. WHERE IN, ALSO, IS A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF SUNDRY CURIOUS CHARACTERS MET ON THE ROAD AND AT A CELEBRA TION OF THE FOURTH OF JULY ON THE BIG WATER WAY. AT Utica they bought provisions and a tin trumpet for Joe, and a doll with a real porcelain face for Betsey, and turned into the great main thoroughfare of the north leading eastward to Boston and westward to a shore of the midland seas. This road was once the great trail of the Iroquois, by them called the Long House, because it had reached from the Hudson to Lake Erie, and in their day had been well roofed with foliage. Here the travelers got their first view of a steam engine. The latter stood puffing and smoking near the village of Utica, to the horror and amazement of the team and the great excitement of those in the wagon. The boy clung to his father for fear of it. Samson longed to get out of the wagon and take a close look at the noisy monster, but his horses were rearing in their haste to get away, and even a short 32 A MAN FOR THE AGES stop was impossible. Sambo, with his tail between his legs, ran ahead, in a panic, and took refuge in some bushes by the roadside. "What was that, father?" the boy asked when the horses had ceased to worry over this new peril. "A steam engyne," he answered. "Sarah, did ye get a good look at it?" "Yes; if that don't beat all the newfangled notions I ever heard of," she exclaimed. "It's just begun doin' business/' said Samson. "What does it do?" Joe asked. "On a railroad track it can grab hold of a house full o' folks and run off with it. Goes like the wind, too." "Does it eat 'em up?" Joe asked. "No. It eats wood and oil and keeps yellin' for more. I guess it could eat a cord o' wood and wash it down with half a bucket o' castor oil in about five minutes. It snatches folks away to some place and drops 'em. I guess it must make their hair stand up and their teeth chatter." "Does it hurt anybody?" Joe asked hopefully. "Well, sir, if anybody wanted to be hurt and got in its way, I rather guess he'd succeed purty well. It's powerful. Why, if a man was to ketch hold of the tail of a locomotive, and hang on, it would jerk the toe nails right off him." Joe began to have great respect for locomotives. Soon they came in view of the famous Erie Canal, A MAN FOR THE AGES 33 hard by the road. Through it the grain of the far West had just begun moving eastward in a tide that was flowing from April to December. Big barges, drawn by mules and horses on its shore, were cutting the still waters of the canal. They stopped and looked at the barges and the long tow ropes and the tugging animals. "There is a real artificial river, hundreds o' miles long, hand made of the best material, water tight, no snags or rocks or other imperfections, durability guar anteed," said Samson. "It has made the name of DeWitt Clinton known everywhere." "I wonder what next!" Sarah exclaimed. They met many teams and passed other movers going west, and some prosperous farms on a road wider and smoother than any they had traveled. They camped that night, close by the river, with a Connecti cut family on its way to Ohio with a great load of household furniture on one wagon and seven children in another. There were merry hours for the young, and pleasant visiting between the older folk that eve ning at the fireside. There was much talk among the latter about the great Erie Canal. So they fared along through Canandaigua and across the Genesee to the village of Rochester and on through Lewiston and up the Niagara River to the Falls, and camped where they could see the great water flood and hear its muffled thunder. When nearing the 34 A MAN FOR THE AGES latter they overtook a family of poor Irish emigrants, of the name of Flanagan, who shared their camp site at the Falls. The Flanagans were on their way to Michigan and had come from the old country three years before and settled in Broome County, New York. They, too, were on their way to a land of better promise. Among them was a rugged, freckled, red-headed lad, well along in his teens, of the name of Dennis, who wore a tall beaver hat, tilted saucily on one side of his head, and a ragged blue coat with brass buttons, as he walked beside the oxen, whip in hand, with trousers tucked in the tops of his big cow hide boots. There was also a handsome young man in this party of the name of John McNeil, who wore a ruffled shirt and swallow-tail coat, now much soiled by the journey. He listened to Samson's account of the Sangamon country and said that he thought he would go there. He had traded hats on the way with Dennis, who had been deeply impressed by the majes tic look of the beaver and had given a silver breast pin and fifteen shillings to boot. A jolly lad was Dennis, who danced jigs, on a flat rock by the riverside, as Samson played The Irish Washerman and The Fisher's Hornpipe. In the midst of the fun a puff of wind snatched the tall beaver hat from his head and whirled it over the side of the cliff into the foliage of a clump of cedars growing out of the steep cliff -side, ten feet or so below its top. Before A MAN FOR THE AGES 35 any one could stop him the brave Irish lad had scram bled down the steep to the cedars a place of some peril, for they hung over a precipice more than a hun dred feet deep above the river. He got his treasure, but Samson had to help him back with a rope. The latter told of the veiled bear, and when the story was finished he said to the Irish lad: "It will not do you any harm to remember that it is easier to get into trouble than to get out of it. In my opinion one clean-hearted Irish boy is worth more than all the beaver hats in creation." Sarah gave the Irish family a good supply of cookies and jerked venison before she bade them good-by. When our travelers left, next morning, they stopped for a last look at the great Falls. "Children," said Samson, "I want you to take a good look at that. It's the most wonderful thing in the world and maybe you'll never see it again." "The Indians used to think that the Great Spirit was in this river," said Sarah. "Kind o' seems to me they were right," Samson re marked thoughtfully. "Kind o' seems as if the great spirit of America was in that water. It moves on in the way it wills and nothing can stop it. Everything in its current goes along with it." "And only the strong can stand the journey," said Sarah. These words were no doubt inspired by an ache in 36 A MAN FOR THE AGES her bones. A hard seat and the ceaseless jolting of the wagon through long, hot, dusty days had wearied them. Even their hearts were getting sore as they thought of the endless reaches of the roads ahead. Samson stuffed a sack with straw and put it under her and the children on the seat. At a word of complaint he was wont to say : "I know it's awful tiresome, but we got to have patience. We're goin' to get used to it and have a wonderful lot of fun. The time'll pass quick you see." Then he would sing and get them all laughing with some curious bit of drollery. They spent the night of July third at a tavern in Buffalo, then a busy, crude and rapidly growing center for the shipping east and west. Next day there was to be a great celebration of the Fourth of July in Buffalo and our travelers had stopped there to witness it. The bells began to ring and the cannon to bomb at sunrise. It was a day of great excitement for the west-bound travelers. The horses trembled in their stalls. Sambo took refuge in Colonel's manger and would not come out. There were many emigrants on their way to the far West in the crowd men, women and children and babies in arms Irish, English, Germans and Yankees. There were also well dressed, handsome young men 'from the colleges of New England going out to be missionaries "between the desert and the sown." Buffalo, on the edge of the midland seas, had the A MAN FOR THE AGES 37 flavor of the rank, new soil in it those days and especially that day, when it was thronged with rough coated and rougher tongued, swearing men on a holi day, stevedores and boatmen off the lakes and rivers of the middle border some of whom had had their training on the Ohio and Mississippi. There was much drunkenness and fighting in the crowded streets. Some of the carriers and handlers of American com merce vented their enthusiasm in song. In Samson's diary was the refrain of one of these old lake songs, which he had set down, as best he could, after the event : "Then here's three cheers for the skipper an' his crew, Give 'er the wind an' let 'er go, for the boys' 11 put 'er through; I thought 'twould blow the whiskers right off o' you an' me, On our passage up from Buffalo -to Milwaukee-ee." Each of these rough men had dressed to his own fancy. Many wore fine boots of calf skin with red tops, drawn over their trousers, and high heels and blue and red shirts and broad brimmed straw hats. A long haired man, in buckskin leggings and moccasins, with a knife at his belt and too much whisky beneath it, amused a crowd by a loud proclamation of his own reckless and redoubtable character and a louder appeal for a chance to put it in action. It was a droll bit of bragging and merely intended, as the chronicler in forms us, to raise a laugh. 38 A MAN FOR THE AGES "Here I be half man an' half alligator/' he shouted. "Oh, I'm one o' yer tough kind, live forever an' then turn into a hickory post. I've just crept out o' the ma'shes of ol' Ken tuck. I'm only a yearlin', but cuss me if I don't think I can whip anybody in this part o' the country. I'm the chap that towed the Broadhorn up Salt River where the snags was so thick a fish couldn't swim without rubbin' his scales off. Cock a doodle doo! I'm the infant that refused his milk be fore his eyes was open an' called for a bottle o' rum. Talk about grinnin' the bark off a tree that ain't nothin'. One look o' mine would raise a blister on a bull's heel. Cock a doodle doo! (slapping his thighs). Gol darn it! Ain't there some one that dast come up an' collar me? It would just please my vitals if there was some man here who could split me into shoe pegs. I deserve it if ever a man did. I'll have to go home an' have another settlement with ol' Bill Sims. He's purty well gouged up, an* ain't but one ear, but he's willin' to do his best. That's somethin'. It kind o' stays yer appetite, an' I suppose that's all a man like me can expect in this world o' sorrow." At this point a tall, raw-boned woman in "a br indie dress" (to quote the phrase of Samson), wearing a large gilt pin just below her collar, with an ortho graphic design which spelled the name Minnie, ap proached the hero and boldly boxed his ears.