Children of the Market Place. Edgar Lee Masters
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fall went by. The winter descended. The brook was frozen. I had to break the ice with the ax to get water. I had to spend an hour each day cutting wood for the fireplace and bearing it into the hut. These were the mornings when the cold bath, which I could never forego, no matter what the circumstances were, tested my resolution. For I was sleeping in the loft where the bitter wind fanned my cheeks during the night. Zoe had found it too rigorous, and preferred the danger of an intruder to the cold. Even snow sifted on my face from rifts in the shingles which we had overlooked. But nevertheless I adhered to the morning lustration, sometimes going to the brook to do it. I had never experienced such cold.
Yet the months of November and December, which at the time I thought were the extreme of winter weather, were as nothing to the polar blasts that poured down upon us in January and February. I had no thermometer. But judging by subsequent observations I am sure that the temperature reached twenty degrees below zero. I took no baths in the brook now but contented myself with a hurried splash from a pan. At night I covered myself with all the blankets that I could support. I protected my face with a woolen cap, which was drawn over the ears as well. Zoe, though sleeping near the immense fire which we kept well fed with logs, got through but a little better than I. We heated stones in hot water to take to bed with us. All kinds of wild animals coming forth for food were frozen in their tracks. I found wolves and foxes in abundance lying stiffened and defeated in the woods. Some nights, seeing the light of our candle they would howl for food and shelter; and I heard them run up and down past the door, wisping it with their tails. Then Zoe would cling to me. And I would take up the rifle in anticipation of the wind opening the door and admitting the marauder. We were snowbound the whole month of February. I had to shovel a path to the brook. But it was out of the question for any one to go to town, or for any one to come to us. And of course during these bitter days nothing was done on my new house. The logs were all cut. They stood piled under the snow, except for a few that had been put in place.
One brilliant morning in the last of February I had gone to the brook for water. The cold had moderated to some extent. But the snow remained deep in the woods and on the fields. For though the sun shone, the sky was nevertheless hazed with innumerable particles of frozen mist, having the appearance of illuminated dust, or powdered mica. Somewhere in the depths of this screen I heard the joyous cry of a jay. And Zoe, who was by my side, said that spring was at hand.
The next day the air was milder. Soon the snow began to melt. We heard musical droppings from our eaves. The brook broke from its manacles. I could see patches of dead grass and dark earth between the disappearing snow on the fields. At break of day we heard the chirrup of the chickadee, the sparrow. I now resumed my plunge at the brook. And as we were depleted of cornmeal and other provisions, Zoe and I went to town, riding one of the horses which Engle had brought over to me. Bad news waited us here. Mrs. Spurgeon had died during the bitter weather, about three weeks before. Sarah was very much depressed. And Reverdy seemed almost as unhappy over the loss.
He had much to do, but he would now set to work upon my house.
Soon he came out bringing the men. I had made a drawing for the work and I was much about watching to see that it was followed. We could have had bricks for the chimney, though it was a good deal of labor to haul them. But why not a chimney of stone? There were plenty of stones of adequate size along the bed of the brook. And so we used them. But I did buy lumber for the floors. I sent to St. Louis for the kind of doors I wanted, and windows too. I was having a house built with regard to roominess and hospitable conveniences; a large living room, two bedrooms, a dining room, a kitchen, downstairs. The second floor was to have four chambers. I had selected a site back from the road. It was in a grove of majestic oaks, not far from the brook and the hut. The work progressed none too rapidly. Some of the men had to be away at times to attend to their farming. As for myself I had learned to plow, and was at it from early morning until sundown. I had many laborers working for me, plowing, sowing, building fences, clearing; in a word, reducing the land to cultivation. It was a big job.
I had won the respect of the community by the energy with which I had undertaken the task. The neighbors said I was an improvement on my father. They wondered, however, if I would be as far-sighted and acquisitive as he, if I would add to what I had or lose it.
In March I had a letter from my grandmother. She expressed pride in me for what I had done, approved the spirit I had shown towards Zoe. She was a great admirer of Wilberforce; and as she disliked America for its separation from the Crown she wished the institution of slavery no good on these shores. But she was disturbed about the conditions in England and Europe. The old order seemed to her to be crumbling. Revolution might break forth. The middle classes in England, having secured their rights, as she expressed it, the laborers were now striving for the franchise. Chartism was rampant. What would it all come to? Was England safe against such innovation? But how about America, if the colored people were given freedom, not of the franchise merely, but in civil rights of property and free activity? But contemporaneous with this letter, two events came into my life of profound influence. One was my meeting with Russell Lamborn, the son of one of Jacksonville's numerous lawyers. And the other was an extraordinary debate between a Whig politician named John J. Wyatt and young Douglas. It was at the debate that I met Lamborn.
Douglas had finished his school teaching. He had been licensed to practice law, though not yet twenty-one years of age. He had opened an office in the courthouse at Jacksonville. His sharp wit, pugnacity, self-reliance, had already excited rivalry and envy. He had suddenly leaped into the political arena, carrying a defiant banner.
Affairs in America were no more tranquil than they were in England. President Jackson had stirred the country profoundly by his imperious attitude toward the banking interests on the one hand, and the matter of South Carolina's nullification of the tariff law on the other hand. This had weakened the Democratic party in Illinois. And as there was to be an election in the fall of state officials, it was necessary to success to satisfy the electorate that President Jackson had not betrayed his leadership.
Bantering words went around to the effect that Douglas was seizing the opportunity of this debate to make himself known, to get a start as a lawyer, and a lift in politics. When a chance to make a hit fits the orator's opportunity and convictions, it would be difficult for a man of Douglas' enterprise and audacity to resist it.
For Douglas had, in spite of everything, captured the town. His name was on every one's tongue. He had lauded President Jackson and his policies with as much fervor as he had with virulence and vehemence denounced the humbugging Whigs, as he had characterized them. The village paper, a Whig publication, had sat upon him. It had dubbed him a turkey gobbler, a little giant, a Yankee fire-eater. But Douglas gave no quarter to any one. He returned blow for blow. He had become a terror. He must be subdued.
John J. Wyatt, a man of ready speech, in the full maturity of his powers, a debater and campaigner, a soldier in the War of 1812, and a respected character, was to lay the adventurer, the interloper, low! He was elected to the task. Was Douglas a youth? No. He was a monstrosity. He had always been a man. He had never grown up. He had simply appeared in this part of the world, a creature of mature powers. Yet Wyatt would subdue him.
We were all in anticipation of the contest. It was to take place in the courthouse. What was the subject? Anything. Everything. Chiefly Whiggery and Democracy. I came into town bringing Zoe and leaving her with Sarah. Reverdy and I went together. Here I met Russell Lamborn. He sat on one side of me and Reverdy on the other.
I shall never forget this night. Wyatt opened the debate, and he closed it. The question was: Are the Whig policies best for the country? Douglas had the negative and, therefore, but one speech. Was it fair? Had not the young man given away too much? No, for Douglas proved a match for two or three such minds as Wyatt's. He humiliated to the last degree the older, and at first confident, antagonist.
It was the most extraordinary exhibition of youth and dash and confidence and ready wit, and knowledge and dialectic handling of difficult matter. It furnished the groundwork of my education in the history of American politics up to that time. It led into almost every possible matter of constitutional law and party policy.
Wyatt talked for an hour. He jeered at Douglas. He referred to his diminutive