A Little Girl in Old Chicago

It is one of the compensations of Providence that after the storm and stress of active life is through, one can go back to the beautiful world of memory and live over the earlier joys with a delight not experienced in youth.

So the time I first saw the Little Girl is one of the pictures that line the halls of remembrance, softened, and it may be rendered more beautiful, by the intervening years, and love.

It was a late September evening, at least the day had waned. All the west still held the peculiar rich glow of a magnificent sunset that had melted now into one great sheet of softened tints, with no one distinct color predominating, and changing every instant. Over the great lake it dropped iridescent hues, and even the river, with its muddy banks, shimmered in a glorified light. And I, Norman Hayne, sat idly outside the log end of the house, that was our real living place, though the frame addition had been added, for we had long ago outgrown the other. There was a rude porch over the door, where the Michigan rose rioted in the early summer, and morning-glories later on. Beyond this was a bench with a pail, one or two basins and a dishpan piled with dishes, where my mother would presently stand, washing up. Various utensils hung from the edge of a narrow shelf, a gourd dipper and one of cocoanut. Out beyond, on the garden fence, was the churn dasher and the churn on a low pole.

Early August had been hot and dry, then had fallen copious rains and everything had taken a new lease of life. I was looking idly over to the eastward, wondering what the "States" were like, though it would seem from the influx of emigrants and their tales that they held every variety of climate and productions known to the world.

I watched a great covered wagon lumbering along, drawn by two not over large but stocky horses. In a vague fashion I said to myself—"Some one from the States." It had not the air of a near-by native.

The driver jumped down with a loud "whoa," and the animals, nothing loth, stood still. We were back perhaps fifty feet from the road, though it had a name as a street.

Mother came out just as the man walked up the path. She was rather stout, somewhat weather-beaten with our fierce winds, but fresh and wholesome looking, with a kindly smile, that had not been banished by the scoldings she had found necessary to use. Her hair was a soft dun-colored brown, her eyes brown also, with a sort of twinkle in them that sometimes flashed in the heat of anger.

The man gave his faded wool hat a tug. He was of medium height, much seamed and wrinkled by exposure, with shrewd blue eyes, rather reddish hair and a sparse ragged beard, the sort of man who would hardly attract a second look.

"Ma'am," he began, in a respectful tone, "can you tell me just how I shall find the Towner place, and can I reach it to-night?"

"Well—" mother looked over westward—"I can't say I should advise you to attempt it. It's crost the river. An' ther' ain't much but a tumble-down log hut. Be you the man goin' to live ther'? Towner traded off the place an' was in high feather 'bout his bargain."

The man looked rather crestfallen. "I was in hopes I could. But then it's good to be so near," with a sigh of content in the voice. "There's some taverns about, I suppose, though, for that matter, we could take another night in the wagon."

"What fambly is ther'?" and mother peered out rather curiously.

"Only me and my little gal. There's such big stories told about Chicago."

"An' they're comin' out the little end of the horn," said mother with a short laugh. "You can hardly give lots away."

The man stood rather uncertain.

"See here," began mother, who was hospitality itself, "we can put you up for the night. S'pose you unhitch and take a bite of supper. It's tough goin' to a strange place in the dark, an' a tavern ain't jest the place for a little gal. Norme, you great lazy lout, stir your stumps, and show the way to the barn. Bring your little gal in here, Mister. I declare for it, a gal is quite a treat. I've five boys an' I'm countin' on the time they get married so's I can see a petticoat around."

"Do I come up here?"

"Yes." I was off with a bound and began to turn the tired beasts up the roadway. Just at the stoop I paused.

"I'm mighty obliged to you," he began, bowing to mother. "'Tisn't everybody you find willing to take in a stranger. But I'm going to stay if I can squeeze out any sort of a living. Times are hard everywhere. Seems as though the bottom's fallen out of everything."

"When the bottom falls out 'er Chicago we fill it in agen," returned mother with a heartsome laugh. "You've come to a queer place, stranger. First, we're way out top of the chimbly wavin' defiance to everybody and braggin' like all possessed, then down we come kerflunk! But we rub our bruises and knock off the soot an' go at it agen."

"That's the way you have to do," was the almost cheerful response. Then he went to the side of the wagon and chirped, and lifted out the Little Girl and put her down. I looked intently at her and she was impressed upon my brain.

A little girl of seven or eight in a faded blue cotton frock that came two or three inches from her ankles, and her dainty feet were encased in a pair of beaded moccasins. Her light hair, more flaxen than golden, hung about in short loose curls. Her skin was very fair, her mouth like an opening rosebud. But her eyes transfixed one even in the growing darkness. They seemed bathed in dewy sunshine and were of the depth of sapphire, or the blue of a winter night. The brows and lashes were much darker than the hair, the eyes large and clear, but after she had once glanced up fearlessly they drooped and seemed to shine through the lashes.

"You are just a little dear," said mother, and she stooped to kiss her, though she was not at all given to caresses. "And now while they go out to look after the horses I'll fix some supper. I've just cleared it away. My, but it's dark as a pocket in here. I'll light a candle. Have you had a long journey?"

"Oh, days and days! Sometimes we stayed at houses and sometimes in the wagon. There were wolves one night and father shot two, and we stayed one night in an Indian wigwam. The squaws were kind, but the babies were so funny, tied to a board and standing round. I didn't like the food though. I can cook some."

"Haven't you any mother?"

The child sighed. "Mother died a long, long while ago. Why do they have to be put in the ground? I should think they'd be carried up on some high mountain, where it would be easier for the angels to get them."

"And who took care of you?"

"Aunt Getty did. Then she married Silas Bowers and he had seven children. I didn't like them though. Then Gran came out of the poorhouse, and after that some of the things were sold, only what we could pack in the wagon. It was very nice at first. We stopped by the woods and made fires and broiled fish and birds that father shot. You make a little stone fireplace so—" and she described the outline with her hands. "And when the wood gets all burned to coals you can broil, or you can fry in a skillet."

"You're a smart little thing," declared mother in amazement. "Why you're not much bigger than a minute."

"Why a minute is sixty seconds, and what do you suppose the seconds are?"

"I'm sure I don't know," and mother laughed.

It looked cheery enough when I came in. It should have been painted as an "Interior in Old Chicago." The room was large with a great fireplace at one end, the logs had been chinked in with plaster and then plastered over again, quite roughly to be sure. Every spring and fall mother whitewashed it. Now it was rather smoky. Dan and I had put up a kind of dresser on one side, shelves braced up by side brackets and a curtain hung over them. Our chairs had tough reed grass bottoms, braided in a fashion learned from the Indians. There were several gun racks, and some trophies of hunting. On one side was a roomy settle that did duty as a bed, with dried grass pillows and cured skins, some quite valuable. Mother had two candles lighted on the table, and they shed a sort of weird light around. She was warming up some chicken potpie, and there was a great plate of brown bread and white, and another of gingerbread and an appetizing sauce of wild grapes.

Mr. Gaynor had stopped at the bench and washed face and hands with a great flourish of enjoyment. Now he sniffed at the savory fragrance with the eagerness of a hungry man.

"Jest draw up," said mother, nodding to a chair. But she placed one for the Little Girl and would have lifted her in it, only she slipped by with the litheness of a fairy.

"What is your name, Sissy?"

"Ruth—Ruth Gaynor," was the gentle reply.

"And I am John Gaynor from old Massachusetts. I've wondered along the route what evil spirit enticed me to leave the State where I was born, but somehow luck turned against me, and the farm was a bed of rocks, as one may say—worn-out land. There's to be a great wheat-growing country out here, folks say, and bread is one of the things that doesn't seem to go out of fashion. Jerusalem! but there's a sight of folks growing up all the time. When the world gets full I s'pose it'll have to come to an end, for if it is full of folks, stands to reason there won't be no room for wheat growing."

"Laws a' massy, I never thought of that," said mother. "But ther's wars and plagues an' what not. Sissy, you ain't eating no supper."

"I'm eating slow, tastes so good," returned Ruth gravely, looking up with shining eyes.

There was a sudden rush and howl and she started in terror, turning pale.