Chapter II: Part 2

A body of about three hundred and forty rangers, not of the regular army, under Major Stillman, asked to go ahead as scouts, to look for a body of Indians under Black Hawk, rumored to be about twelve miles away. The permission was given, and on the night of the 14th of May Stillman and his men went into camp. Black Hawk heard of their presence. By this time the poor old chief had discovered that the promises of aid from the Indian tribes and the British were false, and, dismayed, he had resolved to recross the Mississippi. When he heard of the whites near he sent three braves with a white flag to ask for a parley and permission to descend the river. Behind them he sent five men to watch proceedings. Stillman's rangers were in camp when the bearers of the flag of truce appeared. The men were many of them half drunk, and when they saw the Indian truce-bearers, they rushed out in a wild mob, and ran them into camp. Then catching sight of the five spies, they started after them, killing two. The three who reached Black Hawk reported that the truce-bearers had been killed as well as their two companions. Furious at this violation of faith, Black Hawk "raised a yell," and declared to the forty braves, all he had with him, that they must have revenge. The Indians immediately sallied forth, and met Stillman's band of over three hundred men, who by this time were out in search of the Indians. Black Hawk, too maddened to think of the difference of numbers, attacked the whites. To his surprise the enemy turned, and fled in a wild riot. Nor did they stop at their camp, which from its position was almost impregnable; they fled in complete panic, _sauve qui peut_, through their camp, across prairie and rivers and swamps, to Dixon, twelve miles away, where by midnight they began to arrive. The first arrival reported that two thousand savages had swept down on Stillman's camp and slaughtered all but himself. Before the next night all but eleven of the band had arrived.

Stillman's defeat, as this disgraceful affair is called, put all notion of peace out of Black Hawk's mind, and he started out in earnest on the warpath. Governor Reynolds, excited by the reports of the first arrivals from the Stillman stampede, made out that night, "by candle-light," a call for more volunteers, and by the morning of the 15th had messengers out and his army in pursuit of Black Hawk. But it was like pursuing a shadow. The Indians purposely confused their trail. Sometimes it was a broad path, then it suddenly radiated to all points. The whites broke their bands, and pursued the savages here and there, never overtaking them, though now and then coming suddenly on some terrible evidences of their presence--a frontier home deserted and burned, slaughtered cattle, scalps suspended where the army could not fail to see them.

This fruitless warfare exasperated the volunteers; they threatened to leave, and their officers had great difficulty in making them obey orders. On reaching a point in the Rock River, beyond which lay the Indian country, a company under Colonel Zachary Taylor refused to cross, and held a public indignation meeting, urging that they had volunteered to defend the State, and had the right, as independent American citizens, to refuse to go out of its borders. Taylor heard them to the end, and then said: "I feel that all gentlemen here are my equals; in reality, I am persuaded that many of them will, in a few years, be my superiors, and perhaps, in the capacity of members of Congress, arbiters of the fortunes and reputation of humble servants of the republic, like myself. I expect then to obey them as interpreters of the will of the people; and the best proof that I will obey them is now to observe the orders of those whom the people have already put in the place of authority to which many gentlemen around me justly aspire. In plain English, gentlemen and fellow-citizens, the word has been passed on to me from Washington to follow Black Hawk and to take you with me as soldiers. I mean to do both. There are the flatboats drawn up on the shore, and here are Uncle Sam's men drawn up behind you on the prairie." The volunteers were quick-witted men, and knew true grit when they met it. They dissolved their meeting and crossed the river without Uncle Sam's men being called into action.

From the original now on file in the County Clerk's office, Springfield, Illinois. The first civil office Lincoln ever held was that of election clerk, and the return made by him, of which a facsimile is here presented, was his first official document. The New Salem election of September 20, 1832, has the added interest of having been held at "the house of John McNeil," the young merchant who was then already in love with Ann Rutledge, the young girl to whom Lincoln afterwards became engaged. All the men whose names appear on this election return are now dead except William McNeely, now residing at Petersburg. John Clary lived at Clary's Grove; John R. Herndon was "Row" Herndon, whose store Berry and Lincoln purchased, and at whose house Lincoln for a time boarded; Baxter Berry was a relative of Lincoln's partner in the grocery business, and Edmund Greer was a school-teacher, and afterward a justice of the peace and a surveyor. James Rutledge was the keeper of the Rutledge tavern and the father of Ann Rutledge; Hugh Armstrong was the head of the numerous Armstrong family; "Uncle Jimmy" White lived on a farm five miles from New Salem, and died about thirty years ago in the eightieth year of his age; William Green (spelled by the later members of the family with a final "e") was the father of William G. Greene, Lincoln's associate in Offutt's store; and as to Bowling Green, more is said elsewhere. In the following three or four years, very few elections were held at which Lincoln was not a clerk. It is a somewhat singular fact that Lincoln, though clerk of this election, is not recorded as voting.--_J. McCan Davis._]

The march in pursuit of the Indians led the army to Ottawa, where the volunteers became so dissatisfied that on May 27th and 28th Governor Reynolds mustered them out. But a force in the field was essential until a new levy was raised; and a few of the men were patriotic enough to offer their services, among them Lincoln, who on May 29th was mustered in at the mouth of the Fox River by a man in whom, thirty years later, he was to have a keen interest--General Robert Anderson, commander at Fort Sumter in 1861. Lincoln became a private in Captain Elijah Iles's company of Independent Rangers, not brigaded--a company made up, says Captain Iles in his "Footsteps and Wanderings," of "generals, colonels, captains, and distinguished men from the disbanded army." General Anderson says that at this muster Lincoln's arms were valued at forty dollars, his horse and equipment at one hundred and twenty dollars. The Independent Rangers were a favored body, used to carry messages and to spy on the enemy. They had no camp duties, and "drew rations as often as they pleased." So that as a private Lincoln was really better off than as a captain.[C]

With the exception of a scouting trip to Galena and back, fruitful of nothing more than Indian scares, Major Iles's company remained quietly in the neighborhood of the Rapids of the Illinois until June 16th, when Major Anderson mustered it out. Four days later, June 20th, at the same place, he mustered Lincoln in again as a member of an independent company under Captain Jacob M. Early. His arms were valued this time at only fifteen dollars, his horse and equipment at eighty-five dollars.[D] The army moved up Rock River soon after the middle of June. Black Hawk was overrunning the country, and scattering death wherever he went. The settlers were wild with fear, and most of the settlements were abandoned. At a sudden sound, at the merest rumor, men, women, and children fled. "I well remember these troublesome times," says one old Illinois woman. "We often left our bread dough unbaked to rush to the Indian fort near by." When Mr. John Bryant, a brother of William Cullen Bryant, visited the colony in Princeton in 1832, he found it nearly broken up on account of the war. Everywhere the crops were neglected, for the able-bodied men were volunteering. William Cullen Bryant, who travelled on horseback in June from Petersburg to near Pekin and back, wrote home: "Every few miles on our way we fell in with bodies of Illinois militia proceeding to the American camp, or saw where they had encamped for the night. They generally stationed themselves near a stream or a spring in the edge of a wood, and turned their horses to graze on the prairie. Their way was barked or girdled, and the roads through the uninhabited country were as much beaten and as dusty as the highways on New York Island. Some of the settlers complained that they made war upon the pigs and chickens. They were a hard-looking set of men, unkempt and unshaved, wearing shirts of dark calico and sometimes calico capotes."

Soon after the army moved up the Rock River, the independent spy company, of which Lincoln was a member, was sent with a brigade to the northwest, near Galena, in pursuit of the Hawk. The nearest Lincoln came to an actual engagement in the war was here. The skirmish of Kellogg's Grove took place on June 25th; Lincoln's company came up soon after it was over, and helped bury the five men killed. It was probably to this experience that he referred when he told a friend once of coming on a camp of white scouts one morning just as the sun was rising. The Indians had surprised the camp, and had killed and scalped every man.

"I remember just how those men looked," said Lincoln, "as we rode up the little hill where their camp was. The red light of the morning sun was streaming upon them as they lay heads towards us on the ground. And every man had a round red spot on the top of his head about as big as a dollar, where the redskins had taken his scalp. It was frightful, but it was grotesque; and the red sunlight seemed to paint everything all over." Lincoln paused, as if recalling the vivid picture, and added, somewhat irrelevantly, "I remember that one man had buckskin breeches on."[E]

By the end of the month the troops crossed into Michigan Territory--what is now Wisconsin--and July was spent in floundering through swamps and stumbling through forests, in pursuit of the now nearly exhausted Black Hawk. A few days before the last battle of the war, that of Bad Axe on August 2d, in which the whites finally massacred most of the Indian band, Lincoln's company was disbanded at Whitewater, Wisconsin, and he and his friends started for home. The volunteers in returning, in almost every case, suffered much from hunger. Mr. Durly, of Hennepin, Illinois, who walked home from Rock Island, says all he had to eat on the journey was meal and water baked in rolls of bark laid by the fire. Lincoln was little better off. The night before his company started from Whitewater he and one of his mess-mates had their horses stolen; and, excepting when their more fortunate companions gave them a lift, they walked as far as Peoria, Illinois, where they bought a canoe, and paddled down the Illinois River to Havana. Here they sold the canoe, and walked across the country to New Salem.

The town lay along the ridge marked by the star.]

ELECTIONEERING FOR THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

Lincoln arrived only a few days before the election, and at once plunged into "electioneering." He ran as "an avowed Clay man," and the county was stiffly Democratic. However, in those days political contests were almost purely personal. If the candidate was liked he was voted for irrespective of principles. Around New Salem the population turned in and helped Lincoln almost to a man. "The Democrats of New Salem worked for Lincoln out of their personal regard for him," said Stephen T. Logan, a young lawyer of Springfield, who made Lincoln's acquaintance in the campaign. "He was as stiff as a man could be in his Whig doctrines. They did this for him simply because he was popular--because he was Lincoln."

It was the custom for the candidates to appear at every gathering which brought the people out, and, if they had a chance, to make speeches. Then, as now, the farmers gathered at the county-seat or at the largest town within their reach on Saturday afternoons, to dispose of produce, buy supplies, see their neighbors, and get the news. During "election times" candidates were always present, and a regular feature of the day was listening to their speeches. Public sales also were gatherings which they never missed, it being expected that after the "vandoo" the candidates would take the auctioneer's place.

Lincoln let none of these chances to be heard slip. Accompanied by his friends, generally including a few Clary's Grove Boys, he always was present. The first speech he made was after a sale at Pappsville. What he said there is not remembered; but an illustration of the kind of man he was, interpolated into his discourse, made a lasting impression. A fight broke out in his audience while he was on the stand, and observing that one of his friends was being worsted, he bounded into the group of contestants, seized the fellow who had his supporter down, threw him "ten or twelve feet," mounted the platform, and finished the speech. Sangamon County could appreciate such a performance; and the crowd that day at Pappsville never forgot Lincoln.

His appearance at Springfield at this time was of great importance to him. Springfield was not at that time a very attractive place. Bryant, visiting it in June, 1832, said that the houses were not as good as at Jacksonville, "a considerable proportion of them being log cabins, and the whole town having an appearance of dirt and discomfort." Nevertheless it was the largest town in the county, and among its inhabitants were many young men of education, birth, and energy. One of these men Lincoln had become well acquainted with in the Black Hawk War--Major John T. Stewart,[F] at that time a lawyer, and, like Lincoln, a candidate for the General Assembly. He met others at this time who were to be associated with him more or less closely in the future in both law and politics, such as Judge Logan and William Butler. With these men the manners which had won him the day at Pappsville were of no value; what impressed them was his "very sensible speech," and his decided individuality and originality.

The election came off on August 6th. The first civil office Lincoln ever held was that of clerk of this election. The report in his hand still exists; as far as we know, it is his first official document.

Lincoln was defeated. "This was the only time Abraham was ever defeated on a direct vote of the people," say his autobiographical notes. He had a consolation in his defeat, however, for in spite of the pronounced Democratic sentiments of his precinct, he received two hundred and seventy-seven votes out of three hundred cast.[G]

_(Begun in the November number, 1895; to be continued.)_

[Footnote A: The story of Lincoln's first seventeen months in Illinois, outlined in this paragraph, is told in MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE for December.]

[Footnote B: This story of Kirkpatrick's unfair treatment of Lincoln we owe to the courtesy of Colonel Clark E. Carr of Galesburg, Illinois, to whom it was told several times by Greene himself.]

[Footnote C: William Cullen Bryant, who was in Illinois in 1832 at the time of the Black Hawk War, used to tell of meeting in his travels in the State a company of Illinois volunteers, commanded by a "raw youth" of "quaint and pleasant" speech, and of learning afterwards that this captain was Abraham Lincoln. As Lincoln's captaincy ended on May 27th, and Mr. Bryant did not reach Jacksonville, Illinois, until June 12th, and as the nearest point he came to the army was Pleasant Grove, eight miles from Pekin on the Illinois River, and that was at a time when the body of Rangers to which Lincoln belonged was fifty miles away on the rapids of the Illinois, it is evident that the "raw youth" could not have been Lincoln, much as one would like to believe that it was. See "Life of William Cullen Bryant," by Parke Godwin, vol. i. page 283. Also Prose of William Cullen Bryant, edited by Parke Godwin, vol. ii. page 20.]

[Footnote D: See Wisconsin Historical Collections, vol. x., for Major Anderson's reminiscences of the Black Hawk War.]

[Footnote E: Reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln by Noah Brooks.]

[Footnote F: There were many prominent Americans in the Black Hawk War, with some of whom Lincoln became acquainted. Among the best known were General Robert Anderson; Colonel Zachary Taylor; General Scott, afterwards candidate for President, and Lieut.-General; Henry Dodge, Governor of the Territory of Wisconsin and United States Senator; Hon. William L.D. Ewing and Hon. Sidney Breese, both United States Senators from Illinois; William S. Hamilton, a son of Alexander Hamilton; Colonel Nathan Boone, son of Daniel Boone; Lieutenant Albert Sydney Johnston, afterwards a Confederate general. Jefferson Davis was not in the war, as has been so often stated.]

[Footnote G: In the New Salem precinct, at the August election of 1832, exactly three hundred votes were cast. Of these Lincoln received 277. The facts upon this point are here stated for the first time. The biographers as a rule have agreed that Lincoln received all of the votes cast in the New Salem precinct except three. Mr. Herndon places the total vote at 208; Nicolay and Hay, at 277; and Mr. Lincoln himself, in his autobiography, has said that he received all but seven of a total of 277 votes, basing his statement, no doubt, upon memory. An examination of the official poll-book in the County Clerk's office at Springfield shows that all of these figures are erroneous. The fact remains, however--and it is a fact which has been commented upon by several of the biographers as showing his phenomenal popularity--that the vote for Lincoln was far in excess of that given any other candidate. The twelve candidates, with the number of votes of each were: Abraham Lincoln, 277; John T. Stewart, 182; William Carpenter, 136; John Dawson, 105; E.D. Taylor, 88; Archer G. Herndon, 84; Peter Cartwright, 62; Achilles Morris, 27; Thomas M. Neal, 21; Edward Robeson, 15; Zachariah Peters, 4; Richard Dunston, 4.

Of the twenty-three who did not vote for Lincoln, ten refrained from voting for Representative at all, thus leaving only thirteen votes actually cast against Lincoln. Lincoln is not recorded as voting. The judges were Bowling Green, Pollard Simmons, and William Clary, and the clerks were John Ritter and Mentor Graham.--_J. McCan Davis._]

EUGENE FIELD AND HIS CHILD FRIENDS.[H]

BY CLEVELAND MOFFETT.

The form of the expressions of regard and regret called out on all sides by the untimely death of Eugene Field, at his home in Chicago, on November 4, 1895, makes clear that the character in which the public at large knew and loved Mr. Field best was that of the poet of child life. What gives his child-poems their unequalled hold on the popular heart is their simplicity, warmth, and genuineness; and these qualities they owe to the fact that Field himself lived in the closest and fondest intimacy with children, had troops of them for his friends, and wrote his poems directly under their suggestion and inspiration. Mr. T.A. Van Laun of Chicago, who was one of Mr. Field's closest friends, has kindly given me many reminiscences, and helped me to much material, illustrating all sides of Mr. Field's life, among others this fine relation with the children. A characteristic incident occurred on Field's marriage day. The hour of the ceremony was all but at hand, and the bridal party was waiting at the church for the bridegroom to appear. But he did not come; and, after an anxious delay, some of his friends went in search of him. They found him a short distance away, engaged in settling a dispute that had arisen among some street gamins over a game of marbles. There he was, down on his knees in the mud, listening to the various accounts of the origin of the quarrel; and it was only on the arrival of his friends that he suddenly recollected his more pressing and more pleasant duties.

One day, as was often happening, Field received a letter written in the scrawling hand of a child, which told him how the writer, a little girl, had read most of his poems, spoke of the pleasure they had given her, and said that when she grew up she intended to be just such a writer as he was. Following his usual kindly custom, Field answered this letter, telling the child of the beauties of nature that surrounded him, of the twittering birds, and the lovely flowers he had in sight from his window, and concluding: "Now I must go out and shoot a buffalo for breakfast."

Dr. Gunsaulus of Chicago, who was one of Mr. Field's most intimate friends, tells a story of Field's first visit to his house that shows how quick the poet was to make himself at home with children. For years the little ones in the Doctor's household had heard of Eugene Field as a wonderful person; and when they were told that he had come to see them their delight knew no bounds, and they ran into the library to pay him homage. It was in the evening, and, presumably, Field had already dined; but he told the children with his first breath that he wanted to know where the cookery was. They, overjoyed at being asked a service they were able to render, trooped out into the kitchen with Field following. The store of eatables was duly exposed, and Field seized upon a turkey, or what remained of one from dinner, and carried it into the dining-room. There he seated himself at table, with the children on his knees and about him, and fell to with a good appetite, talking to the little ones all the time, telling them quaint stories, and making them listen with all their eyes and ears. Having thus become good friends and put them quite at their ease, he spent the rest of the evening singing lullabies to them, and reciting his verses. Naturally, before he went away the children had given him their whole hearts. And this was his way with all the children with whom he came in contact.

One day on the cars Mr. Field chanced to sit near a workingman who had with him his wife and baby. The father, it seemed, had heard Field lecture the night before, and had been deeply impressed. With great deference he brought his child up to Field, and said: "Now, little one, I want you to look at this gentleman. He is Mr. Field, and when you grow up you'll be glad to know that once upon a time he spoke to you." At this Field took the baby in his arms, and played with it for an hour, to the surprise and, of course, to the delight of the parents.

Of recent years Mr. Field rarely went to the office of the Chicago "News," the paper for which during the last ten years he had written a daily column under the title of "Sharps and Flats," but did most of his work at his home in Buena Park, which he called the Sabine Farm. Here he began his day about nine o'clock, by having breakfast served to him in bed, after which he glanced through the papers, and then settled himself to his writing, with feet high on the table, and his pages before him laid neatly on a piece of plate glass. He wrote with a fine-pointed pen, and had by him several different colored inks, with which he would illuminate his capitals and embellish his manuscript. The first thing he did was his "Sharps and Flats" column, which occupied three or four hours, the task being usually finished by one o'clock. His other work he did in the afternoons and evenings, writing at odd hours, sometimes in the garden if the weather was pleasant. He was much interrupted by friends dropping in to see him; but, however busy, he welcomed whoever came, and would turn aside good-naturedly from his manuscript to entertain a visitor or to hear a story of misfortune. After dinner he retired to his "den" to read; for he read constantly, whatever the distractions about him, and was much given to reading in bed.

And of all his visitors the most constant and appreciative were children. These he never sent away without some bright word, and he rarely sent them away at all. Nowhere could they find such an entertaining playmate as he--one who would tell them such wonderful stories and make up such funny rhymes for them on the spur of the moment, and romp with them like one of themselves. It was in the homely incidents of these visits, and the like intimacy with his own children, that he found the subjects for his poems. He could voice the feelings of a child, because he knew child life from always living it.

On his own children he bestowed pet names--"Pinney," "Daisy," "Googhy," "Posey," and "Trotty;" and they almost forgot that they had others. His eldest daughter, for instance, now a lovely girl of nineteen, has remained "Trotty" from her babyhood, and "Trotty" she will always be. At her christening Field had an argument with his wife about the name they should give her. Mrs. Field wished her to be called Frances, to which Field objected on the ground that it would be shortened into Frankie, which he disliked. Then other names were suggested, and, after listening to this one and that one, Field finally said: "You can christen her whatever you please, but I shall call her Trotty." "Pinney" was named from the comic opera "Pinafore," which was in vogue at the time he was born; and "Daisy" got his name from the song, popular when he was born: "Oh My! A'int He a Daisy?"

A devotion so unfailing in his relations with children would, naturally, show itself in other relations. His devotion to his wife, for example, was of the completest. In all the world she was the one woman he loved, and he never wished to be away from her. In one of his scrap-books, under her picture, are written these lines:

You are as fair and sweet and tender,
Dear brown-eyed little sweetheart mine!
As when, a callow youth and slender,
I asked to be your valentine.

Often she accompanied him on his readings. Last summer it happened that they went together to St. Joe, Missouri, the home of Mrs. Field's girlhood. On their arrival, Mrs. Field's friends took possession of her and carried her off to a lunch-party, where it was arranged that Mr. Field should join her later. But he, left alone, was swept by his thoughts back to the time when, a youth of twenty-one, he had here paid court to the woman now his wife, then a girl of sixteen; and so affected was he by these memories that, instead of going to the lunch-party, he took a carriage, and all alone drove to the places which he and she had been wont to visit in the happy time of their love-making, especially to a certain lover's lane where they had taken many a walk together.

From a copyrighted photograph by Place & Coover, Chicago; reproduced by permission of the Etching Publishing Co., Chicago.]

The day before Field's death the mail brought a hundred dollars in payment for a magazine article he had written. It was in small bills, and there was quite a quantity of them. As he lay in bed, Field spread them out on the covers, and then called Mrs. Field. As she came in she said: "Why, what are you doing with all that money?"

Field, laughing, snatched the bills up and tucked them under the pillow, saying: "You shan't have it, this is my money." After his death, the bills, all crumpled up, were found still under his pillow.

It was a common happening in the "News" office, while Mr. Field still did his work there, for some ragged, unwashed, woe-begone creature, too much abashed to take the elevator, to come toiling up the stairs and down the long passage into one of the editorial rooms, where he would blurt out fearfully, sometimes half defiantly, but always as if confident in the power of the name he spoke: "Is 'Gene Field here?" Sometimes an overzealous office-boy would try to drive one of these poor fellows away, and woe to that boy if Field found it out. "I knew 'Gene Field in Denver," or, "I worked with Field on the 'Kansas City Times,'"--these were sufficient pass-words, and never failed to call forth the cheery voice from Field's room: "That's all right, show him in here; he's a friend of mine." And then, after a grip of the hand and some talk over former experiences--which Field may or may not have remembered, but always pretended to--the inevitable half dollar or dollar was forthcoming, and another unfortunate went out into the world blessing the name of a man who, whether he was orthodox or not in his religious views, always acted up to the principle that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

[Footnote H: NOTE.--See a "Conversation" between Eugene Field and Hamlin Garland, in which Mr. Field tells the story of his literary life, McCLURE'S MAGAZINE for August, 1893. Also a series of portraits of Eugene Field in McCLURE'S MAGAZINE for September, 1893. Price fifteen cents.]

POEMS OF CHILDHOOD, BY EUGENE FIELD.

The choicest literary expression of Eugene Field's intimacy with the children is found in four volumes published by Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons--"A Little Book of Western Verse," "Second Book of Verse," "With Trumpet and Drum," and "Love-Songs of Childhood." It is only a few years since the earliest of these was published; but no books are better known, and they hold in the hearts of their readers the same fond place that their author held in the hearts of the children whose thoughts and adventures he so aptly and tenderly portrayed. By the kind permission of the publishers, we reproduce here a few of the best known of the poems, adding pictures of the particular child friends of Mr. Field who inspired them. The selections are from the last two volumes--"With Trumpet and Drum" and "Love-Songs of Childhood." The pictures are from Mr. Field's own collection, which chanced to be in New York at the time of his death; and the identifying phrases quoted under several of them were written on the backs of the photographs by Mr. Field's own hand.

WITH TRUMPET AND DRUM.

With big tin trumpet and little red drum,
Marching like soldiers, the children come!
It's this way and that way they circle and file--
My! but that music of theirs is fine!
This way and that way, and after a while
They march straight into this heart of mine!
A sturdy old heart, but it has to succumb
To the blare of that trumpet and beat of that drum!

Come on, little people, from cot and from hall--
This heart it hath welcome and room for you all!
It will sing you its songs and warm you with love,
As your dear little arms with my arms intertwine;
It will rock you away to the dreamland above--
Oh, a jolly old heart is this old heart of mine,
And jollier still is it bound to become
When you blow that big trumpet and beat that red drum.

So come; though I see not _his_ dear little face
And hear not _his_ voice in this jubilant place,
I know he were happy to bid me enshrine
His memory deep in my heart with your play--
Ah me! but a love that is sweeter than mine
Holdeth my boy in its keeping to-day!
And my heart it is lonely--so, little folk, come,
March in and make merry with trumpet and drum!

THE DELECTABLE BALLAD OF THE WALLER LOT.

Up yonder in Buena Park
There is a famous spot,
In legend and in history
Yelept the Waller Lot.

There children play in daytime
And lovers stroll by dark,
For 'tis the goodliest trysting-place
In all Buena Park.

Once on a time that beauteous maid,
Sweet little Sissy Knott,
Took out her pretty doll to walk
Within the Waller Lot.

While thus she fared, from Ravenswood
Came Injuns o'er the plain,
And seized upon that beauteous maid
And rent her doll in twain.

Oh, 'twas a piteous thing to hear
Her lamentations wild;
She tore her golden curls and cried:
"My child! My child! My child!"

Alas, what cared those Injun chiefs
How bitterly wailed she?
They never had been mothers,
And they could not hope to be!

"Have done with tears," they rudely quoth,
And then they bound her hands;
For they proposed to take her off
To distant border lands.

From a photograph by Max Platz, Chicago.]

But, joy! from Mr. Eddy's barn
Doth Willie Clow behold
The sight that makes his hair rise up
And all his blood run cold.

He put his fingers in his mouth
And whistled long and clear,
And presently a goodly horde
Of cowboys did appear.

Cried Willie Clow: "My comrades bold,
Haste to the Waller Lot,
And rescue from that Injun band
Our charming Sissy Knott!
"Spare neither Injun buck nor squaw,
But smite them hide and hair!
Spare neither sex nor age nor size,
And no condition spare!"

Then sped that cowboy band away,
Full of revengeful wrath,
And Kendall Evans rode ahead
Upon a hickory lath.

And next came gallant Dady Field
And Willie's brother Kent,
The Eddy boys and Robbie James,
On murderous purpose bent.

For they were much beholden to
That maid--in sooth, the lot
Were very, very much in love
With charming Sissy Knott.

From a photograph by Gehrig & Windeatt, Chicago.]

What wonder? She was beauty's queen,
And good beyond compare;
Moreover, it was known she was
Her wealthy father's heir!

Now when the Injuns saw that band
They trembled with affright,
And yet they thought the cheapest thing
To do was stay and fight.

So sturdily they stood their ground,
Nor would their prisoner yield,
Despite the wrath of Willie Clow
And gallant Dady Field.

Oh, never fiercer battle raged
Upon the Waller Lot,
And never blood more freely flowed
Than flowed for Sissy Knott!

From a photograph by Coover, Chicago.]

An Injun chief of monstrous size
Got Kendall Evans down,
And Robbie James was soon o'erthrown
By one of great renown.

And Dady Field was sorely done,
And Willie Clow was hurt,
And all that gallant cowboy band
Lay wallowing in the dirt.

But still they strove with might and main
Till all the Waller Lot
Was strewn with hair and gouts of gore--
All, all for Sissy Knott!

Then cried the maiden in despair:
"Alas, I sadly fear
The battle and my hopes are lost,
Unless some help appear!"

Lo, as she spoke, she saw afar
The rescuer looming up--
The pride of all Buena Park,
Clow's famous yellow pup!

From a photograph by D.R. Coover, Chicago.]

"Now, sick 'em, Don," the maiden cried,
"Now, sick 'em, Don!" cried she;
Obedient Don at once complied--
As ordered, so did he.

He sicked 'em all so passing well
That, overcome by fright,
The Indian horde gave up the fray
And safety sought in flight.

They ran and ran and ran and ran
O'er valley, plain, and hill;
And if they are not walking now,
Why, then, they're running still.

The cowboys rose up from the dust
With faces black and blue;
"Remember, beauteous maid," said they,
"We've bled and died for you!

"And though we suffer grievously,
We gladly hail the lot
That brings us toils and pains and wounds
For charming Sissy Knott!"

But Sissy Knott still wailed and wept,
And still her fate reviled;
For who could patch her dolly up--
Who, who could mend her child?

Then out her doting mother came,
And soothed her daughter then;
"Grieve not, my darling, I will sew
Your dolly up again!"

Joy soon succeeded unto grief,
And tears were soon dried up,
And dignities were heaped upon
Clow's noble yellow pup.

Him all that goodly company
Did as deliverer hail--
They tied a ribbon round his neck,
Another round his tail.

And every anniversary day
Upon the Waller Lot
They celebrate the victory won
For charming Sissy Knott.

And I, the poet of these folk,
Am ordered to compile
This truly famous history
In good old ballad style.

Which having done as to have earned
The sweet rewards of fame,
In what same style I did begin
I now shall end the same.

So let us sing: Long live the King,
Long live the Queen and Jack,
Long live the ten-spot and the ace,
And also all the pack!

THE ROCK-A-BY LADY.

The Rock-a-By Lady from Hushaby Street
Comes stealing; comes creeping;
The poppies they hang from her head to her feet,
And each hath a dream that is tiny and fleet--
She bringeth her poppies to you, my sweet,
When she findeth you sleeping!

There is one little dream of a beautiful drum--
"Rub-a-dub!" it goeth;
There is one little dream of a big sugar-plum,
And lo! thick and fast the other dreams come
Of popguns that bang, and tin tops that hum,
And a trumpet that bloweth!

And dollies peep out of those wee little dreams
With laughter and singing;
And boats go a-floating on silvery streams,
And the stars peek-a-boo with their own misty gleams,
And up, up, and up, where the Mother Moon beams,
The fairies go winging!

From a photograph by Stein, Chicago.]

Would you dream all these dreams that are tiny and fleet?
They'll come to you sleeping;
So shut the two eyes that are weary, my sweet,
For the Rock-a-By Lady from Hushaby Street,
With poppies that hang from her head to her feet,
Comes stealing; comes creeping.

"BOOH!"

On afternoons, when baby boy has had a splendid nap,
And sits, like any monarch on his throne, in nurse's lap,
In some such wise my handkerchief I hold before my face,
And cautiously and quietly I move about the place;
Then, with a cry, I suddenly expose my face to view,
And you should hear him laugh and crow when I say "Booh!"

Sometimes the rascal tries to make believe that he is scared,
And really, when I first began, he stared, and stared, and stared;
And then his under lip came out and farther out it came,
Till mamma and the nurse agreed it was a "cruel shame"--
But now what does that same wee, toddling, lisping baby do
But laugh and kick his little heels when I say "Booh!"

He laughs and kicks his little heels in rapturous glee, and then
In shrill, despotic treble bids me "do it all aden!"
And I--of course I do it; for, as his progenitor,
It is such pretty, pleasant play as this that I am for!
And it is, oh, such fun! and I am sure that we shall rue
The time when we are both too old to play the game of "Booh!"

THE DUEL.

The gingham dog and the calico cat
Side by side on the table sat;
'Twas half-past twelve, and (what do you think!)
Nor one nor t'other had slept a wink!
The old Dutch clock and the Chinese plate
Appeared to know as sure as fate
There was going to be a terrible spat.
_(I wasn't there; I simply state
What was told to me by the Chinese plate!)_

The gingham dog went "bow-wow-wow!"
The calico cat replied "mee-ow!"
The air was littered, an hour or so,
With bits of gingham and calico,
While the old Dutch clock in the chimney-place
Up with its hands before its face,
For it always dreaded a family row!
_(Now mind: I'm only telling you
What the old Dutch clock declares is true!)_

The Chinese plate looked very blue,
And wailed, "Oh, dear! what shall we do!"
But the gingham dog and the calico cat
Wallowed this way and tumbled that,
Employing every tooth and claw--
In the awfullest way you ever saw--
And, oh! how the gingham and calico flew!
_(Don't fancy I exaggerate--
I got my news from the Chinese plate!)_

Next morning, where the two had sat
They found no trace of dog or cat;
And some folks think unto this day
That burglars stole that pair away!
But the truth about the cat and pup
Is this: they ate each other up!
Now what do you really think of that!
_(The old Dutch clock it told me so,
And that is how I came to know.)_

From a photograph by Leonard, Topeka, Kansas.]

THE RIDE TO BUMPVILLE.

Play that my knee was a calico mare
Saddled and bridled for Bumpville;
Leap to the back of this steed, if you dare,
And gallop away to Bumpville!
I hope you'll be sure to sit fast in your seat,
For this calico mare is prodigiously fleet,
And many adventures you're likely to meet
As you journey along to Bumpville.

This calico mare both gallops and trots
While whisking you off to Bumpville;
She paces, she shies, and she stumbles, in spots,
In the tortuous road to Bumpville!
And sometimes this strangely mercurial steed
Will suddenly stop and refuse to proceed,
Which, all will admit, is vexatious indeed,
When one is en route to Bumpville!

She's scared of the cars when the engine goes "Toot!"
Down by the crossing at Bumpville;
You'd better look out for that treacherous brute
Bearing you off to Bumpville!
With a snort she rears up on her hindermost heels,
And executes jigs and Virginia reels--
Words fail to explain how embarrassed one feels
Dancing so wildly to Bumpville.
It's bumpytybump and it's jiggytyjog,
Journeying on to Bumpville;
It's over the hilltop and down through the bog
You ride on your way to Bumpville;
It's rattletybang over boulder and stump,
There are rivers to ford, there are fences to jump,
And the corduroy road it goes bumpytybump,
Mile after mile to Bumpville!

Perhaps you'll observe it's no easy thing
Making the journey to Bumpville,
So I think, on the whole, it were prudent to bring
An end to this ride to Bumpville;
For, though she has uttered no protest or plaint,
The calico mare must be blowing and faint--
What's more to the point, I'm blowed if I ain't!
So play we have got to Bumpville.

SO, SO, ROCK-A-BY SO!

So, so, rock-a-by so!
Off to the garden where dreamikins grow;
And here is a kiss on your winkyblink eyes,
And here is a kiss on your dimpledown cheek,
And here is a kiss for the treasure that lies
In a beautiful garden way up in the skies
Which you seek.
Now mind these three kisses wherever you go--
So, so, rock-a-by so!

There's one little fumfay who lives there, I know,
For he dances all night where the dreamikins grow;
I send him this kiss on your droopydrop eyes.
I send him this kiss on your rosyred cheek.
And here is a kiss for the dream that shall rise
When the fumfay shall dance in those far-away skies
Which you seek.
Be sure that you pay those three kisses you owe--
So, so, rock-a-by so!

And, by-low, as you rock-a-by go,
Don't forget mother who loveth you so!
And here is her kiss on your weepydeep eyes,
And here is her kiss on your peachypink cheek,
And here is her kiss for the dreamland that lies
Like a babe on the breast of those far-away skies
Which you seek--
The blinkywink garden where dreamikins grow--
So, so, rock-a-by so!

From a photograph by Stein, Milwaukee.]

SEEIN' THINGS.

I ain't afeard uv snakes, or toads, or bugs, or worms, or mice,
An' things 'at girls are skeered uv I think are awful nice!
I'm pretty brave, I guess; an' yet I hate to go to bed,
For when I'm tucked up warm an' snug an' when my prayers are said,
Mother tells me "Happy dreams!" and takes away the light,
An' leaves me lyin' all alone an' seein' things at night!

Sometimes they're in the corner, sometimes they're by the door,
Sometimes they're all a-standin' in the middle uv the floor;
Sometimes they are a-sittin' down, sometimes they're walkin' round
So softly an' so creepy-like they never make a sound!
Sometimes they are as black as ink, an' other times they're white--
But the color ain't no difference when you see things at night!

Once, when I licked a feller 'at had just moved on our street,
An' father sent me up to bed without a bite to eat,
I woke up in the dark an' saw things standin' in a row,
A-lookin' at me cross-eyed an' p'intin' at me--so!
Oh, my! I wuz so skeered that time I never slep' a mite--
It's almost alluz when I'm bad I see things at night!

Lucky thing I ain't a girl, or I'd be skeered to death!
Bein' I'm a boy, I duck my head an' hold my breath;
An' I am, oh! _so_ sorry I'm a naughty boy, an' then
I promise to be better an' I say my prayers again!
Gran'ma tells me that's the only way to make it right
When a feller has been wicked an' sees things at night!

An' so, when other naughty boys would coax me into sin,
I try to skwush the Tempter's voice 'at urges me within;
An' when they's pie for supper, or cakes 'at 's big an' nice;
I want to--but I do not pass my plate f'r them things twice!
No, ruther let Starvation wipe me slowly out o' sight
Than I should keep a-livin' on an' seein' things at night!

The legend of the Sabine women is familiar. In the early days of Rome, Romulus, the city's founder and first king, finding his subjects much lacking in wives, invited the Sabines, a neighboring people, into the city for a feast and games; and in the midst of the sport, he and his followers seized the Sabine mothers and daughters by force of arms, and married them out of hand. David's picture represents the seizure. Classical subjects were especially preferred by David and his school.]

A CENTURY OF PAINTING.

NOTES BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL.--THE ART OF FRANCE IN THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.--DAVID AND HIS FOLLOWERS.

BY WILL H. LOW.

When the potter's daughter of remote antiquity first drew the incised line around her lover's shadow cast upon the wall by the accomplice sun, art had its birth. Before that time primitive man had endeavored--with who knows what desire to leave behind him some trace of his passage upon earth--to make upon bones rude tracings of his surroundings. The proof of the universality of art is in these manifestations, of which the logical outcome was the complete and splendid art of Greece. Through the sequence of Byzantine art we come to Giotto, who, a shepherd's son under the skies of Italy, was reinspired at the source of nature, and became the first painter as we to-day know painting. From Giotto descends in direct line the great family of artists who, in the service of the spiritual and temporal sovereigns of the earth, shed illustration upon their craft and undying lustre on their names until the old order, changing, giving way to the new, enfranchised art in the great upheaval of the latter part of the eighteenth century.

It is well, in order to understand the position in which this great revolution left art, to briefly consider the conditions preceding it. Painting, up to the end of the seventeenth century, had been essentially the handmaiden of religion; and religion in its turn had been so closely allied to the state that, when declining faith let down the barriers, art took for the first time its place among the liberal professions whose first duty is to find in the necessities of mankind a reason for their existence. Small wonder, then, that, accustomed to be fostered and encouraged, to be held aloof from the material necessity of earning their daily bread, the artists of this period sought protection from the only class which in those days had the leisure to appreciate or the fortune to encourage them. The people, the "general public," as we say to-day, did not exist, except as a mass of patient workers in the first part, as a clamorous rabble demanding its rights in the latter part, of the century. Hence the patronage of art, its very existence, depended on the pleasure of the nobility, and naturally enough its themes were measured according to the tastes of its patrons. Much that was charming was produced, but never before did art portray its epoch with such great limitations. The persistent blindness to the signs and portents gathering thick about them which characterized the higher classes of the time, may be felt in its art; of the great outside world, of the hungry masses so soon to rise in rebellion, nothing is seen. One may walk through the palaces at Versailles, may search through the pictures of the epoch in the Louvre, or linger at Sans Souci in Potsdam--where Frederick filled his house with sculptured duchesses in classical costume playing at Diana, and covered his walls with Watteaus and his ceilings with decorations by Pesne, a less worthy Frenchman--and remain in complete ignorance of hungry Jacques, who, with pike-staff and guillotine, was so soon to change all that and usher in the period of the Revolution, Before the evil day dawned for the gilded gentry of France, however, the British colonies in America, influenced by the teachings of the precursors of the French Revolution, and aided by their isolation, were to establish their independence.

The exact date of this picture is unknown; but it was, presumably, painted before 1775, when David, having received the Prix de Rome, went to Italy for the first time. It was given to the Louvre, where it now is, by the painter Eugene Isabey in 1852; David had presented it to the elder Isabey, also a painter.]

It was undoubtedly at this time, when revolt was in the air and man was preoccupied with his primal right to liberty of existence, that art was given the bad name of a luxury. Until its long prostitution throughout the seventeenth century, its mission had been noble; but now, coincident to the fall of the old _régime_, the people, from an ignorance which was more their misfortune than their fault, confounded art with luxuries more than questionable, in which their whilom superiors had indulged while they lacked bread. With the curious assumption of Spartan virtue which rings with an almost convincing sound of true metal through so many of the resolutions passed by the National Convention of France, in the days following the holocaust of the Reign of Terror, there was serious debate as to whether pictures and statues were to be permitted to exist or their production encouraged.

This debate must have fallen strangely on the ears of one of the members of the Convention, who had already made his power as an artist felt, and who was from that time for more than forty years to be the directing influence, not only of French art, but of painting on the Continent in general. This man, Jacques Louis David, in point of fact was soon practically to demonstrate to his colleagues that art had as its mission other aims than those followed by the painters of the preceding generations. It fell that Lepelletier, one of the members of the Convention, was assassinated, and David's brush portrayed him as he lay dead; and the picture, being brought into the legislative hall, moved the entire assembly to a conviction that the art of the painter struck a human chord which vibrated deep in the heart of man.

Michel Gérard was a member of the National Assembly, the body which ruled France in the first years of the Revolution, from 1789 to 1791. The picture represents him in the midst of his family, attired with the simplicity affected by the Revolutionary leaders at that time.]