Vandemark's Folly Part 22

"But don't you understand," he insisted, "that this, trip has got to end here? Suppose your mother, when she was a child in fact, but a woman grown also, like Miss Royall, had been placed as she is with a boy of your age and one who had lived your life----"

"No," said I, "it won't do. You can have her!"

4

I really felt as if I was giving-up something that had belonged to me. I felt the pangs of renunciation.

We walked back to the wagon in silence, and found. Virginia and Grandma Thornd.y.k.e sitting on the spring seat with grandma's arm about the girl, with a handkerchief in her hand, just as if she had been wiping the tears from Virginia's eyes; but the girl was laughing and talking in a manner more lively than I had ever seen her exhibit. She was as happy, apparently, as I was gloomy and downcast.

I wanted the Thornd.y.k.es to go away so that I could have a farewell talk with Virginia; but they stayed on and stayed on, and finally, after dark, grandma rose with a look at Virginia which she seemed to understand, and they took my girl's satchel and all walked off together toward the tavern.

I sat down and buried my face in my hands, Virginia's good-by had been so light, so much like the parting of two mere strangers. And after all what was I to her but a stranger? She was of a different sort from me.

She had lived in cities. She had a good education--at least I thought so. She was like the Thornd.y.k.es--city folks, educated people, who could have no use for a clodhopper like me, a ca.n.a.l hand, a rough character.

And just as I had plunged myself into the deepest despair, I heard a light footfall, and Virginia knelt down before me on the ground and pulled my hands from my eyes.

"Don't cry," said she. "We'll see each other again. I came back to bid you good-by, and to say that you've been so good to me that I can't think of it without tears! Good-by, Jacob!"

She lifted my face between her two hands, kissed me the least little bit, and ran off. Back in the darkness I saw the tall figure of Grandma Thornd.y.k.e, who seemed to be looking steadily off into the distance.

Virginia locked arms with her and they went away leaving me with my cows and my empty wagon--filled with the goods in which I took so much pride when I left Madison.

With the first rift of light in the east I rose from my sleepless bed under the wagon--I would not profane her couch inside by occupying it--and yoked up my cattle. Before noon I was in Cedar Falls; and from there west I found the Ridge Road growing less and less a beaten track owing to decreasing travel; but plainly marked by stakes which those two pioneers had driven along the way as I have said for the guidance of others in finding a road which they had missed themselves.

We were developing citizens.h.i.+p and the spirit of America. Those wagon loads of stakes cut on the Cedar River in 1854 and driven in the prairie sod as guides for whoever might follow showed forth the true spirit of the American pioneer.

But I was in no frame of mind to realize this. I was drawing nearer and nearer my farm, but for a day or so this gave me no pleasure. My mind was on other things. I was lonelier than I had been since I found Rucker in Madison. I talked to no one--I merely followed the stakes--until one morning I pulled into a strange cl.u.s.ter of houses out on the green prairie, the beginning of a village. I drew up in front of its blacksmith shop and asked the name of the place. The smith lifted his face from the sole of the horse he was shoeing and replied, "Monterey Centre."

I looked around at my own county, stretching away in green waves on all sides of the brand-new village; which was so small that it did not interfere with the view. I had reached my own county! I had been a part of it on this whole wonderful journey, getting acquainted with its people, picking up the threads of its future, now its history.

Prior to this time I had been courting the country; now I was to be united with it in that holy wedlock which binds the farmer to the soil he tills. Out of this black loam was to come my own flesh and blood, and the bodies, and I believe, in some measure, the souls of my children.

Some dim conception of this made me draw in a deep, deep breath of the fresh prairie air.

CHAPTER XII

h.e.l.l SLEW, ALIAS VANDEMARK'S FOLLY

That last night before I reached my "home town" of Monterey Centre, I had camped within two or three miles of the settlement. I forgot all that day to inquire where I was: so absent-minded was I with all my botheration because of losing Virginia. I was thinking all the time of seeing her again, wondering if I should ever see her alone or to speak to her, ashamed of my behavior toward her--in my thoughts at least--vexed because I had felt toward her, except for the last two or three days, things that made it impossible to get really acquainted and friendly with her. I was absorbed in the attempt to figure out the meaning of her friendly acts when we parted, especially her coming back, as I was sure she had, against the will of Grandma Thornd.y.k.e; and that kiss she had given me was a much greater problem than making time on my journey: I lived it over and over again a thousand times and asked myself what I ought to have done when she kissed me, and never feeling satisfied with myself for not doing more of something or other, I knew not what. It was well for me that my teams were way-wised so that they drove themselves. I could have made Monterey Centre easily that night; for it was only about eight o'clock by the sun next morning when I pulled up at the blacksmith shop, and was told by Jim Boyd, the smith, that I was in Monterey Centre.

And now I did not know what to do. I did not know where my land was, nor how to find out. Monterey Prairie was as blank as the sea, except for a few settlers' houses scattered about within a mile or two of the village. I sat scratching my head and gazing about me like a lunkhead while Boyd finished shoeing a horse, and had begun sharpening the lay of a breaking-plow--when up rode Pitt Bushyager on one of the horses he and his gang had had in the Grove of Destiny back beyond Waterloo.

I must have started when I saw him; for he glanced at me sharply and suspiciously, and his dog-like brown eyes darted about for a moment, as if the dog in him had scented game: then he looked at my jaded cows, at my muddy wagon, its once-white cover now weather-beaten and ragged, and at myself, a b.u.t.termilk-eyed, tow-headed Dutch boy with a face covered with down like a month-old gosling; and his eyes grew warm and friendly, as they usually looked, and his curly black mustache parted from his little black goatee with a winning smile. After he had turned his horse over to the smith, he came over and talked with me. He said he had seen cows broken to drive by the Pukes--as we used to call the Missourians--but never except by those who were so "pore" that they couldn't get horses, and he could see by my nice outfit, and the number of cows I had, that I could buy and sell some of the folks that drove horses. What was my idea in driving cows?

"They are faster than oxen," I said, "and they'll make a start in stock for me when I get on my farm; and they give milk when you're traveling.

I traded my horses for my first cows, and I've been trading one sound cow for two lame ones all along the road. I've got some more back along the way."

"Right peart notion," said he. "I reckon you'll do for Iowa. Where you goin'?"

Then I explained about my farm, and my problem in finding it.

"Oh, that's easy!" said he. "Oh, Mr. Burns!" he called to a man standing in a doorway across the street. "Come over here, if you can make it suit. He's a land-locater," he explained to me. "Makes it a business to help newcomers like you to get located. Nice man, too."

By this time Henderson L. Burns had started across the street. He was dressed stylishly, and came with a sort of prance, his head up and his nostrils flaring like a Jersey bull's, looking as popular as a man could appear. We always called him "Henderson L." to set him apart from Hiram L. Burns, a lawyer that tried to practise here for a few years, and didn't make much of an out of it.

"Mr. Burns," said Pitt Bushyager, "this is Mr.--"

"Vandemark," said I: "Jacob Vandemark"--you see I did not know then that my correct name is Jacobus.

"Mine's Bushyager," said he, "Pitt Bushyager, Got a raft of brothers and sisters--so you'll know us better after a while. Mr. Burns, this is Mr.

Vandemark."

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Vandemark," said Henderson L., flaring his nostrils, and shaking my hand till it ached. "Hope you're locating in Monterey County. Father with you?"

"No," said I, "I am alone in the world--and this outfit is all I've got."

"Nice outfit," said he. "Good start for a young fellow; and let me give you a word of advice. Settle in Monterey County, as close to Monterey Centre as you can get. People that drive through, hunting for the earthly paradise, are making a great mistake; for this is the garden spot of the garden of the world. This is practically, and will without a shadow of doubt be permanently the county-seat of the best county in Iowa, and that means the best in the known world. We are just the right distance from the river to make this the location of the best town in the state, and probably eventually the state capital. Land will increase in value by leaps and bounds. No stumps, no stones, just the right amount of rainfall--the garden spot of the West, Mr. Vandemark, the garden spot--"

"This boy," said Pitt Bushyager, "has land already entered. I told him you'd be able to show it to him."

"Land already entered?" he queried. "I don't seem to remember the name of Vandemark on the records. Sure it's in this county?"

I went back to the little flat package in the iron-bound trunk, found my deed, and gave it to him. He examined it closely.

"Not recorded," said he. "Out near h.e.l.l Slew, somewhere. Better let me take you over to the recorder's office, and have him send it in for record. Name of John Rucker on the records. I think the taxes haven't been paid for a couple of years. Better have him send and get a statement. I'll take you to the land. That's my business--guarantee it's the right place, find the corners, and put you right as a trivet all for twenty-five dollars."

"To-day?" I asked. "I want to get to breaking."

"Start as soon as we get through here," said he as we entered the little board shack which bore the sign, "County Offices." "No time to lose if you're going to plant anything this year. Le'me have that deed. This is Mr. Vandemark, Bill."

I don't remember what "Bill's" full name was, for he went back to the other county as soon as the government of Monterey was settled. He took my deed, wrote a memorandum of filing on the back of it, and tossed it into a basket as if it amounted to nothing, after giving me a receipt for it. Henderson L. had some trouble to get me to leave the deed, and the men about the little subst.i.tute for a court-house thought it mighty funny, I guess; but I never could see anything funny about being prudent. Then he got his horse, hitched to a buckboard buggy, and wanted me to ride out to the land with him; but I would not leave my cows and outfit. Henderson L. said he couldn't bother to wait for cows; but when he saw my shotgun, and the twenty-five dollars which I offered him, he said if I would furnish the gun and ammunition he would kill time along the road, so that the whole outfit could be kept together. He even waited while I d.i.c.kered with Jim Boyd for a breaking plow, which I admitted I should need the first thing, as soon as Jim mentioned it to me[10].

[10] The date on the deed shows this to have been May 25, 1855--the day the author first saw what has since become Vandemark Towns.h.i.+p. Although its history is so far written, the towns.h.i.+p was not yet legally in existence.--G.v.d.M.

"This is Mr. Thorkelson," said he as he rejoined me after two or three false starts. "He's going to be a neighbor of yours. I'm going to locate him on a quarter out your way--Mr. Vandemark, Mr. Thorkelson."

Magnus Thorkelson gave me his hand bashfully. He was then about twenty-five; and had on the flat cap and peasant's clothes that he wore on the way over from Norway. He had red hair and a face spotted with freckles; and growing on his chin and upper lip was a fiery red beard.

He was so tall that Henderson L. tried to tell him not to come to the Fourth of July celebration, or folks might think he was the fireworks; but Magnus only smiled. I don't believe he understood: for at that time his English was not very extensive; but after all, he is as silent now as he was then. We looked down on all kinds of "old countrymen" then, and thought them much below us; but Magnus and I got to be friends as we drove the cows across the prairie, and we have been friends ever since.

It was not until years after that I saw what a really remarkable man Magnus was, physically, and mentally--he was so mild, so silent, so gentle. He carried a carpet-bag full of belongings in one hand, which he put in the wagon, and a fiddle in its case in the other. It was a long time, too, before I began to feel how much better his fiddling was than any I had ever heard. It didn't seem to have as much tune to it as the old-style fiddling, and he would hardly ever play for dances; but his fiddle just seemed to sing. He became a part of the history of Vandemark Towns.h.i.+p; and was the first fruits of the Scandinavian movement to our county so far as I know.

2

As we turned back over the way I had come for about half a mile, we met coming into town, the well-known spanking team of horses of Buckner Gowdy; but now it was. .h.i.tched to a light buggy, but was still driven by Pinck Johnson, who had the horses on a keen gallop as if running after a doctor for snake-bite or apoplexy. It was the way Gowdy always went careering over the prairies, killing horses by the score, and laughingly answering criticisms by saying that there would be horses left in the world after he was gone. He said he hadn't time to waste on saving horses; but he always had one or two teams that he took good care of; and once in a while Pinck Johnson went back, to Kentucky, it was said, and brought on a fresh supply. As they came near to us the negro pulled up, and halted just after they had pa.s.sed us. We stopped, and Gowdy came back to my wagon.

"How do you do, Mr. Vandemark," he said. "I am glad to see that you survived all the dangers of the voyage."

"How-de-do," I answered, looking as blank as I could; for Virginia was on my mind as soon as I saw him. "I come slow, but I'm here."