The World As I Have Found It Part 8

Reaching our destination we first repaired to the tomb, and with bowed and uncovered heads all reverently gazed upon the mausoleum of departed greatness, and turned to the mansion, each department of which had its own peculiar charm.

Prominent among other relics were his war-equipments, the paraphernalia of Revolutionary times; and as we ever a.s.sociate him with his character as general, these were especially significant from the sword so often wielded with masterly power, to the little canteen, from which, after long and weary marches, he refreshed his parched lips.

In his bed-chamber, with its antique air and quaint garniture, there stood a bedstead, the fac-simile of the one upon which he died. Here we lingered long and lovingly, and turned to another department, in one corner of which stood a harpsichord, once belonging to his niece, Miss Lewis. In fancy I could see her fairy fingers as they swept in "waves of grace" over its strings, and with the "concord of sweet sounds" ministered to a circle of distinguished listeners. I could not resist the impulse to pa.s.s my hands over the long neglected strings, and recalled the sentiment of the old song,

"As a sweet lute that lingers In silence alone; Unswept by light fingers.

Scarce murmurs a tone; My own heart resembles, This lute, light and free, 'Til o'er its chord trembles Sweet memories of thee."

The garden still remained as arranged by his taste and dictation, and at one corner of the house the magnolia tree, planted by his own hand, still bloomed in fragrant beauty.

In the yard was the old well, with "its moss-covered, iron-bound bucket,"

and at the door the gray-haired negro, the inevitable servant of "Ma.s.sa Was.h.i.+ngton," who will doubtless, like a wandering Jew, out live all time, and for centuries to come remain an attache of our country's father.

Several gentlemen present evinced and expressed great surprise that a blind woman should go to _see_ Mount Vernon, yet I very much doubt if any eyes really saw more than my own. When we reached the boat, each gentleman carried in his hand a cane cut from the woods of Mount Vernon, and one and all returned to Was.h.i.+ngton with the consciousness of having spent a pleasant and profitable day.

We soon left for Lynchburg, Virginia, after which we visited the towns en route to Knoxville, Tennessee. At the latter place we had a very enjoyable visit to the home of Parson Brownlow. He was absent in attendance upon the Legislature, but his daughter gracefully and cordially dispensed the hospitalities of their home, and did everything within the bounds of her warm, sympathetic intelligence to heighten the pleasure and interest of our visit.

Back again to Chicago, we were welcomed by Mr. Arms, whom we found engaged in erecting machinery in the Gowan Marble Works, the largest of the kind in the North-west. Resting in the sweet haven of home, we pa.s.sed the winter in this sanctum.

CHAPTER XXV.

"I love not man the less, but nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal."

Renewed and refreshed from our long winter rest, with the migration of the birds we winged our way westward, alighting in many a lovely locality in the flouris.h.i.+ng State of Iowa, whose soft undulations of prairies were now swelling in billows of gorgeous green, and touched with the varied tints of flowery bloom.

Our last resting place was in Council Bluffs, so celebrated for the grandeur of its location at the foot of the beetling bluffs of the Missouri River, and for its flouris.h.i.+ng and progressive spirit, aside from which it holds a place in our historic annals dating back to aboriginal days. When this century was in its early infancy, and the shadowy dawn of our young nation was still wrapt in the mists which enshrouded its first struggling efforts; when the little far-away fur station of Astoria, near the whispering waves of the Pacific coast, held not the mellowing memories of time or the living light with which the genius of an Irving has since invested it; when the great explorers, Lewis and Clarke, were leaving their foot-prints on the land bordering the Columbia River, they held a council with the Red Man at Kanesville, Iowa, ever since known as "Council Bluffs."

Thence we went to Omaha, which is one of the most flouris.h.i.+ng places in Nebraska, and from the improvised post-office of early days, the "plug"

hat of Mr. Jones, its first post-master, has grown the large distributing office of the department.

It was also a military post and winter garrison for our troops in transitu, its cheerful barracks, well-kept roads and clean parade ground converting it into a favorite drive and walk, where resort many strangers to witness the dress parade of "The Boys in Blue."

The Platte River Valley is well known to most of my readers from its romantic a.s.sociation with the struggles of the vast army of emigrants, who not only braved the dangers of its uncertain fords and deceitful quicksands, but the tomahawk and scalp knife, ofttimes leaving a nameless grave beside its waters; and, were it not for a laughable incident in this connection, I would pa.s.s it by unnoticed.

There are so many heroes of the Don Quixote school, who are so brave in fighting wind-mills, who, in time of peace, are "soldiers armed with resolution," but in the real conflict what Shakspeare designates as "soldiers and afeard." There was in our train a young prig, who "played the braggart with his tongue," telling of his brave exploits, like a very Oth.e.l.lo recounting the "dangers he pa.s.sed," ending with a defiant show of how he should act in the event of an attack from marauding Indians, to which the trains were at that time so subject, after which he fell into a profound slumber, resting upon his imaginary laurels. While he slept the train had changed conductors, and it became necessary to see his ticket.

This new official pa.s.sing by, and finding himself unable to arouse the snoring sleeper by ordinary means, gave him a l.u.s.ty shake, whereupon our hero gave a hideous yell of "Indians! Indians!" his lips quivering and his frame palsied with fear. The sound was so startling that the affrighted pa.s.sengers imagined themselves for the moment in the merciless grasp of a band of Red Men.

The conductor gave this quaking coward another energetic shake and an imperious demand for "your ticket, sir!" and the quondam man of war "smoothed his wrinkled front," and humbly subsided into a semblance of sleep, while the conductor was no doubt astonished at the loud laughter that followed a brief silence, during which the pa.s.sengers recovered their composure, and realized the full ludicrousness of the incident. In my experience in life I have met a great many people who were ready to tell what they would have done "had they been there;" but this priggish gascon was the first I had ever seen put to the test, and I believe him to be a fair sample of that smart cla.s.s who could, if you take their words for it, have done better on any given occasion than those whom the occasion found "there."

Emerging from the Platte Valley, we realized the fact that we were fairly on our way to the far West, ready to take in with insatiable avidity all the immensity and grandeur of our territorial scenery.

Arriving at Cheyenne, we were surprised to find a comfortable hotel-omnibus in waiting, and most of the concomitants of a metropolis, notwithstanding the oft-expressed surprise and fear of friends at the daring venture of two unprotected women in going alone to this lawless and G.o.d-forsaken country.

Alas for the demoralizing influence of so-called civilization! While in the elegant counting-rooms of polished millionaires in more eastern localities we had occasionally met with insults and snubs; in this place of reputed "roughs" we received not one rebuff, and were greeted not merely with respect, but with unbounded generosity. While we found rough diamonds, they were diamonds nevertheless.

Over this city has since swept the tidal wave of reform, and a great temperance awakening evoked by one of the great workers in that movement, Mr. Page, who, with gentle yet royal mandate, has said to the many "troubled waters," with their sad wrecks of human souls--"peace! be still!"

We find it vain to depict by our feeble word-painting the many-hued, many-voiced phases nature a.s.sumes in this almost boundless domain, and the yet untold, undeveloped depths of our territorial resources. Mountains looming up in imperial grandeur, their snow-crowned summits melting into cloud and sky; weird canons, in which the whispered words of wors.h.i.+p from a myriad devotees seem to echo and re-echo through their dark depths; giant trees:

"The murmuring pines and hemlock, Bearded with moss and in garments of green, Indistinct in the twilight, Stand like Druids of Eld, With voices sad and prophetic."

Among the many military posts Fort Bridger, named for the famous trapper and guide of oft-written and oft-told fame, is also renowned as one of the posts of our gallant frontier officer, Albert Sydney Johnston, who won his first laurels amid the first Mormon troubles, and gallantly fell at s.h.i.+loh early in the Civil War.

Many of the most romantic places have been named for some fair maiden of the pioneer families, as Maggie's Creek, Susan's Valley, etc., while one of the most noted and poetic spots is known as "The Maiden's Grave," the once rude resting place of a gentle girl, whose remains were left there by her mourning friends on their way to their home on the Pacific Slope. It was afterwards found by a party of graders on the railway, and these rough but sympathetic men erected a fitting mausoleum of solid masonry, surmounted by a pure white cross of stone, whose symmetrical proportions are prominently visible to every traveler upon the Union Pacific Railroad.

One of the most interesting objects to me was the "Thousand Mile Tree,"

whose towering height I could imagine and long to behold as described to me by my companion and friend, its strange isolation sending a peculiar thrill of loneliness through the heart of one who was fifteen hundred miles from home. This old tree, through some strange freak of nature, stood a solitary sentinel, a guide-post of nature to tell the traveler he was a thousand miles from Omaha.

As we neared Weber River our well known and popular conductor came into the cars, and in a voice of deep, rich melody, sang the words of the then favorite song:

"Yes, we will gather at the river.

The beautiful, the beautiful river; Gather with the Saints at the river, That flows by the throne of G.o.d."

The pa.s.sengers, as we neared the kingdom of the Saints, catching the magnetism of his song, joined in the sweet refrain until it swelled into a soaring, reverberating harmony.

We reached Ogden City just as the sun was setting in royal hues, and repaired at once to the White House, the only gentile hotel in the place.

CHAPTER XXVI.

"Westward the star of Empire takes its way; The four first acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day; Time's n.o.blest offspring-is the last."

Our first emotion upon our introduction to Utah was one of fear and foreboding, for our landlord seemed so a.s.sured that we should meet with no success, selfishness being the established character of the Mormons, who never allowed their hearts to go out in sympathy to any one outside of their own church or community.

Far away from home, "a stranger in a strange land," felt like those old-time wanderers who sat them down by the "waters of Babylon," and hanging their harps upon the willow, sang sad songs and wept bitter tears.

I gathered sufficient courage to call upon the editor of the daily paper, and his gentlemanly reception was very rea.s.suring. He gave me a lengthy and commendatory notice, and this emanating from a man with five wives gave me a more charitable sentiment than I had formerly maintained toward Mormon inst.i.tutions, and it likewise gave me courage and a better opinion as to my prospects. We remained there two days, and met with such unexpected success that we turned in a more hopeful mood toward Salt Lake City.

On the road to that city is a celebrated sulphur spring, whose presence is indicated for miles before it is reached by somewhat infernal fumes. A woman in the car, overcome by the unpleasant odor, exclaimed, in evident disgust: "Is that the way the Mormons smell?" She seemed so impressed with the nearness of his Satanic Majesty, whom she intimately a.s.sociated with Mormondom, that it recalled the somewhat vulgar story of the "Teuton,"

who, in nearing the Virginia White Sulphur Springs, with the same fumes in his nostrils, cried out: "Mein Gott! pe shure, h.e.l.l is not more as a mile off!"

Arriving at Salt Lake City at the close of a beautiful day, the western sky gleaming with the royally gorgeous hues of a clear, bright sunset, while the delightful surroundings and stimulating atmosphere lured us to walk from the depot.

Salt Lake being at that time a city of twenty thousand souls, and this being prior to the opening of the mines, it was probably in the hey-day of its beauty, and could boast of but one saloon, whereas they are now very numerous. Its broad, regular avenues were shaded with trees of such immense growth as are known only in our western lands, the coolness and shade of whose leafy, spreading branches invitingly appeal to the pa.s.ser-by. Streams of limpid, crystal water, born in the pure mountain snows, gurgle down each street, and, in their beautiful borders of nature's green enamel, impart an almost marvelous beauty to the city.

The twenty-third of July being the twenty-third anniversary of the founding of the "City of the Saints," I had the pleasure of going to their Temple and listening to the earnest oratory of their representative men, and among them the "Prophet" himself. George Francis Train being also a visitor in the city, gave a characteristic oration, in which he rehea.r.s.ed the pilgrimage of this people, their persecution, privations and pains before reaching their haven, which seems, in its rare beauty, an almost magical city, rising up in the wilderness as a lovely refuge, for, after all, what magic is so potent as industry and perseverance, and how much of both of these elements must have been brought to bear in the accomplishment of so much in the short s.p.a.ce of twenty-three years.

The Honorable George Cocannon, the able editor of their daily paper, representative in Congress, and one of their distinguished elders, gave me a telling editorial, which, from its influential source, benefited me very greatly, and could not fail to facilitate my sales.

We called at the residence of Brigham Young, and he kindly gave us a half hour of his valuable time, a favor much appreciated, and one which threw great additional light upon their inst.i.tutions.

We visited their public schools, found the system of graded departments, high schools, etc., very similar to our own, and all in an equally flouris.h.i.+ng condition. My companion was peculiarly attracted by the uncommon beauty of the pupils, never having seen in an equal number of children so much personal fascination. I also visited the public market, where a man in one of the stalls bought a book, remarking at the same time that he supposed he ought to buy four, as he had that number of wives. A bystander asked if this did not sound very strangely in the ears of one so unaccustomed to a plurality of wives. I quickly responded that the men of Utah must have large hearts to be capable of taking in four wives, or even more, when our men had scarce courage to marry one. My reply evidently touched some responsive chord, for all at once bought books. Their system of co-operative trade ofttimes leaves them dest.i.tute of ready cash, but all who had money gave me the most liberal patronage.