The Conquest Part 9

What I have intended to put down in this lengthy discourse regarding my race is, if they see or hear of an article concerning the race, they will buy that magazine, to read the article spoken of and nothing more.

Since living in the state, as a recreation I was in the habit of taking trips to Chicago once or twice a year, and as might be expected I would talk of South Dakota. In the course of a conversation I have related a story of some one's success there and would be listened to with unusual attention. As I had found in them many who were poor listeners, at these times when I found myself the object of so much undivided attention I would warm up to the subject until it had evolved into a sort of lecture, and remarks of, "my," "you don't say so," and "just think of it" would interrupt me--"and a colored man." No, I would correct, the least bit hesitant, a white man. Then, just like the sun disappearing behind a cloud, all interest would vanish, furthermore, I have on occasions of this kind had attention of a few minutes before turned to remarks of criticism for taking up the time relating the success of a white man. The idea is prevalent among this cla.s.s that all white people should be rich, and regardless of how ideal the success has been, I learned that no white person could be accepted as an example for this cla.s.s to follow.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The real farmer was fast replacing the homesteader. (Page 130.)]

By reading nothing but discussions concerning the race, by all but refusing to accept the success of the white race as an example and by welcoming any racial disturbance as a conclusion that the entire white race is bent in one great effort to hold him--the negro, down, he can not very well feel the thrill of modern progress and is ignorant as to public opinion. Therefore he is unable to cope with the trend of conditions and has become so condensed in the idea that he has no opportunity, that he is disinteresting to the public. One of the greatest tasks of my life has been to convince a certain cla.s.s of my racial acquaintances that a colored man can be anything.

Now on the entire Little Crow reservation, less than eight hundred miles from Chicago, I was the only colored man engaged in agriculture, and moreover, from Megory to Omaha, a distance of three hundred miles. There was only one other negro family engaged in the same industry.

Having lived in the cities, I therefore, was not a greenhorn, as some of them would try to have me feel, when they referred to their clubs and social affairs.

Among the many facts that confronted me as I meditated the situation, one dated back to the time I had run on the road. The trains I ran on carried thousands monthly into the interior of the northwest. Among these were a great number of emigrants fresh from the old countries, but there was seldom a colored person among them, and those few that I had seen, with few exceptions, went on through to the Pacific coast cities and engaged in the same occupation they had followed in the east.

During these trips I learned the greatest of all the failings were not only among the ignorant cla.s.s, but among the educated as well. Although more agreeable to talk to, they lacked that great and mighty principle which characterizes Americans, called "the initiative." Colored people are possible in every way that is akin to becoming good citizens, which has been thoroughly proven and is an existing fact. Yet they seem to lack the "guts" to get into the northwest and "do things." In seven or eight of the great agricultural states there were not enough colored farmers to fill a towns.h.i.+p of thirty-six sections.

Another predominating inconsistency is that there is that "love of luxury." They want street cars, cement walks, and electric lights to greet them when they arrive. I well remember it was something near two years before I saw a colored man on the reservation, until the road had been extended. They had never come west of Oristown, but as the time for the opening arrived, the kitchens and hotel dining-rooms of Megory and Calias were filled with waiters and cooks.

During the preparation for the opening the commercial club of Megory had lengthy circulars printed, with photographs of the surrounding country, farms, homes, and the like, to accompany. These circulars described briefly the progress the country had made in the four years it had been opened to settlement, and the opportunities waiting. By giving the name and address the club would send these to any address or person, with the statement, "by the request" of whoever gave the name.

I gave the name of not less than one hundred persons, and sent them personally to many as well. I wrote articles and sent them to different newspapers edited by colored people, in the east and other places. I was successful in getting one colored person to come and register--my oldest brother.

CHAPTER XXIV

"AND THE CROWDS DID COME." THE PRAIRIE FIRE

The registration opened at twelve o'clock Monday morning. Seven trains during the night before had brought something like seven thousand people. Of this number about two thousand got off at Megory, and the remainder went on through to Calias. The big opening was on, and the bid for patronage made the relations between the towns more bitter than ever.

After the first few days, however, the crowds, with the exception of a few hundred, daily went on through to Calias and did not heed the cat calls and uncomplimentary remarks from the railway platform at Megory.

Among these remarks flung at the crowded trains were: "Go on to Calias and buy a drink of water", "Go on to Calias and pay a dime for the water to wash your face"--water was one of Calias's scarcities, as will be seen later. However, this failed to detract the crowd.

The C. & R.W. put on fifteen regular trains daily, and the little single track, unballasted and squirmy, was very unsafe to ride over and the crowded trains had to run very slowly on this account. Because of the fact that it was difficult to find adequate side tracking, it took two full days to make the trip from Omaha to Calias and return.

All the day and night the "toot, toot" of the locomotives could be heard and the sound seemed to make the country seem very old indeed. Megory's bra.s.s band--organized for the purpose--undaunted, continued to play frantically at the depot to try to induce the crowded trains to unload a greater share, but to no avail, although the cars were stuffed like sandwiches.

Those times in Calias were long to be remembered. As the trains disgorged the thousands daily it seemed impossible that the little city could care for such crowds. The sidewalks were crowded from morn till night. The registration booths and the saloons never closed and more automobiles than I had ever seen in a country town up to that time, roared, and with their clattering noise, took the people hurriedly across the reservation to the west.

Along toward the close of the opening a prairie fire driven by a strong west wind raced across Tipp county in a straight line for Calias.

Although fire guards sixty feet wide had been burned along the west side of the town, it soon became apparent that the fire would leap them and enter the town, unless some unusual effort on the part of the citizens was made to stop it.

It was late in the afternoon and as seems always the case, a fire will cause the wind to rise, and it rose until the blaze shut out the western horizon. It seemed the entire world to the west was afire.

Ten thousand people, lost in sight-seeing, gambling and revelry, all of a sudden became aware of the approaching danger, and began a rush for safety. To the north, south, and east of the town the lands were under cultivation, therefore, a safe place from the fire that now threatened the town. All business was suspended, registration ceased, and the huge cans containing more than one hundred thousand applications for lands, were loaded on drays and taken into the country and deposited in the center of a large plowed field, for safety. The gamblers put their gains into sacks and joined the surging ma.s.ses, and with grips got from the numerous check rooms, all the people fled like stampeding cattle to a position to the north of town which was protected by a corn field on the west.

Ernest Nicholson, leading the business men and property owners, bravely fought the oncoming disaster. The chemical engine and water hose were rushed forward but were as pins under the drivers of a locomotive. The water from the hose ran weakly for a few minutes and then with a blowing as of an empty faucet, petered out from lack of water. The strong wind blew the chemical into the air and it proved as useless. The fire entered the city. One house, a magnificent residence, was soon enveloped in flames, which spread to another, and still to another.

The thousands of people huddled on a bare spot, but safe, watched the minature city of one year and the gate-way to the homesteads of the next county, disappear in flames.

Megoryites, seeing the danger threatening her hated rival five miles away, called for volunteers who readily responded and formed bucket brigades, loaded barrels into wagons, filled them with water and burned the roads in the hurry-up call to the apparently doomed city.

I could see the fire from where I was harvesting flax ten miles away, and the cloud of smoke, with the little city lying silent before, it reminded me of a picture of Pompeii before Vesuvius. It looked as if Calias were lost. Then, like a miracle, the wind quieted down, changed, and in less than twenty minutes was blowing a gale from the east, starting the fire back over the ground over which it had burned. There it sputtered, flickered, and with a few sparks went out, just as L.A.

Bell pulled onto the scene with lathered and b.l.o.o.d.y eyed mules drawing a tank of Megory's water, and was told by the Nicholson Brothers--who were said to resemble Mississippi steamboat roustabouts on a hot day--that Calias didn't need their water.

Following the day of the high wind which brought the prairie fire that so badly frightened the people of the town, the change of the wind to the east brought rain, and about two hundred automobiles that had been carrying people over Tipp county into the town. I remember the crowds but have no idea now many people there were, but that it looked more like the crowds on Broadway or State street on a busy day than Main Street in a burg of the prairie. This was the afternoon of the drawing and a woman drew number one, while here and there in the crowd that filled the street before the registration, exclamations of surprise and delight went up from different fortunates hearing their names called, drawing a lucky number. I felt rather bewildered by so much excitement and metropolitanism where hardly two years before I had hauled one of the first loads of lumber on the ground to start the town. I could not help but feel that the world moved swiftly, and that I was living, not in a wilderness--as stated in some of the letters I had received from colored friends in reply to my letter that informed them of the opening--but in the midst of advancement and action.

When the drawing was over and the crowds had gone, it was found that the greatest crowds had registered--not at Calias--but at a town just south, in Nebraska, which received forty-five thousand while Calias came second with forty-three thousand and Megory only received seven thousand, something like one hundred fifteen thousand in all having applied.

The hotels in Calias had charged one dollar the person and some of the large ones had made small fortunes, while the saloons were said to have averaged over one thousand dollars a day.

After the opening, land sold like hot hamburger sandwiches had a few weeks before.

CHAPTER XXV

THE SCOTCH GIRL

It had been just four years since I bought the relinquishment and seven since leaving southern Illinois. I had been very successful in farming although I had made some very poor deals in the beginning, and when my crops were sold that season I found I had made three thousand, five hundred dollars. Futhermore, I had in the beginning sought to secure the best land in the best location and had succeeded. I had put two hundred eighty acres under cultivation, with eight head of horses--I had done a little better in my later horse deals--and had machinery, seed and feed sufficient to farm it. My efforts in the seven years had resulted in the owners.h.i.+p of land and stock to the value of twenty thousand dollars and was only two thousand dollars in debt and still under twenty-five years of age.

During the years I had spent on the Little Crow I had "kept batch" all the while until that summer. A Scotch family had moved from Indiana that spring consisting of the father, a widower, two sons and two daughters.

One of the boys worked for me and as it was much handier, I boarded with them.

The older of the two girls was a beautiful blonde maiden of twenty summers, who attended to the household duties, and considering the small opportunities she had to secure an education, was an unusually intelligent girl. She had composed some verses and songs but not knowing where to send them, had never submitted them to a publisher. I secured the name of a company that accepted some of her writings and paid her fifty dollars for them. She was so anxious to improve her mind that I took an interest in her and as I received much literature in the way of newspapers and magazines and read lots of copy-right books, I gave them to her. She seemed delighted and appreciated the gifts.

Before long, however, and without any intention of being other than kind, I found myself being drawn to her in a way that threatened to become serious. While custom frowns on even the discussion of the amalgamation of races, it is only human to be kind, and it was only my intention to encourage the desire to improve, which I could see in her, but I found myself on the verge of falling in love with her. To make matters more awkward, that love was being returned by the object of my kindness. She, however, like myself, had no thought of being other than kind and grateful. It placed me as well as her in an awkward position--for before we realized it, we had learned to understand each other to such an extent, that it became visible in every look and action.

It reached a stage of embarra.s.sment one day when we were reading a volume of Shakespeare. She was sitting at the table and I was standing over her. The volume was "Oth.e.l.lo" and when we came to the climax where Oth.e.l.lo has murdered his wife, driven to it by the evil machinations of Iago, as if by instinct she looked up and caught my eyes and when I came to myself I had kissed her twice on the lips she held up.

After that, being near her caused me to feel awkwardly uncomfortable. We could not even look into each other's eyes, without showing the feeling that existed in the heart.

Now during the time I had lived among the white people, I had kept my place as regards custom, and had been treated with every courtesy and respect; had been referred to in the local papers in the most complimentary terms, and was regarded as one of the Little Crow's best citizens.

But when the reality of the situation dawned upon me, I became in a way frightened, for I did not by any means want to fall in love with a white girl. I had always disapproved of intermarriage, considering it as being above all things, the very thing that a colored man could not even think of. That we would become desperately in love, however, seemed inevitable.

Lived a man--the history of the American Negro shows--who had been the foremost member of his race. He had acquitted himself of many honorable deeds for more than a score of years, in the interest of his race. He had filled a federal office but at the zenith of his career had brought disappointment to his race and criticism from the white people who had honored him, by marrying a white woman, a stenographer in his office.

They were no doubt in love with each other, which in all likelihood overcame the fear of social ostracism, they must have known would follow the marriage. I speak of love and presume that she loved him for in my opinion a white woman, intelligent and respectable and knowing what it means, who would marry a colored man, must love him and love him dearly.

To make that love stronger is the feeling that haunts the mind; the knowledge that custom, tradition, and the dignity of both races are against it. Like anything forbidden, however, it arouses the spirit of opposition, causing the mind to battle with what is felt to be oppression. The sole claim is the right to love.

These thoughts fell upon me like a clap of thunder and frightened me the more. It was then too, that I realized how pleasant the summer just pa.s.sed had been, and that I had not been in the least lonesome, but perfectly contented, aye, happy. And that was the reason.

During the summer when I had read a good story or had on mind to discuss my hopes, she had listened attentively and I had found companions.h.i.+p. If I was melancholy, I had been cheered in the same demure manner. Yet, on the whole, I had been unaware of the affection growing silently; drawing two lonesome hearts together. With the reality of it upon us, we were unable to extricate ourselves from our own weak predicament. We tried avoiding each other; tried everything to crush the weakness. G.o.d has thus endowed. We found it hard.