Chapter XXXII: The Pioneer Wedding 318 (6)

In those early days, Mr. Limblin, finding he had but one bushel and a half of corn left, and one dollar and a half in money, prevailed on a Mr. Clark to take both corn and money to Traverse City, thirty miles away, and get groceries with the money, and have the corn ground, Mr. Clark to have half for the work. One ox was all the beast of burden they had. Mr. Clark started with the corn on the back of the ox; about half-way he exchanged for a pony and sled for the rest of the road, leaving the ox with the Indians till his return. On his way back, a fierce snowstorm hid the shores of the bay from view. Presently he came to a wide crack in the ice; his pony, being urged, made a spring, but only got his fore hoofs on the other side. Mr. Clark sprang over and grasped the pony's ears, but, as he pulled, his feet slipped, and down he came. His cries brought the Indians, who rescued him and the pony. Exhausted, he crawled back to their camp. But, alas! the corn-meal and groceries were at the bottom of the bay. A sad scene it was to see his poor wife's tears on his arrival home.

Rev. Peter Daugherty, now of Wisconsin, was the first missionary in these parts. He once missed his way; and night coming on, he saw that he must sleep in the woods. The air was chill. Not daring to build a fire for fear of the damage it might do to the dry woods, he cast about for a shelter. Spying two headless barrels on the beach, with much trouble he crawled into them, drawing them as close together as he could, and so passed the night. He got up very early and finished his journey. But do we have such places yet? and does the missionary still have to expose himself? Yes, friends, there are scores of such places in every frontier State and Territory; and strong men are needed more than ever to break up new ground, and cause the desert and solitary places to be glad and blossom as the rose. Send us such men!

XXVIII.

SOWING THE SEED.

The land is bound to grow its crop. The more the land has been enriched, the greater will be that crop, of useful grain or rank weeds. And the only way to keep the weeds from gaining the victory is by sowing good seed and pulling the weeds. A friend in Detroit once called my attention to the luxuriant weeds in a fenced lot we were walking by. In the vacant lot close by, the weeds were stunted. In the fenced lot a market gardener once lived. He had enriched the soil.

Our country is to have a rank growth of something. Rich in the blood of many nationalities, with freedom well-nigh to license, what will the harvest be if left without spiritual husbandry? Dr. Mulhall's "Dictionary of Statistics" tells us how the crop looks now. The ratio of murders to each million inhabitants has stood as follows in the countries named: England, 711; Ireland, 883; France, 796; Germany, 837; and the United States, 2,460. Only Italy and Spain exceed us. Do we wonder why the foreigner is worse here than at home? The answer is easy. He has left the restraints of a watchful government; our liberty is for him license. On the frontier he is exposed to the worst influences, and for years has no religious instruction nor even example. Is it strange that death reaps such a harvest? The sowers go forth to sow. In due time that seed ripens to the harvest.

The _Police Gazette_ is sowing dragon's teeth most diligently. The log shanties of the lumbermen are often papered with them. Nice primers these for "young America"! Sober Maine sends streams of polluted literature out here, with cheap chromo attachments, and the Sunday-school lesson in them for an opiate. The infidel lecturer is sowing his seed on the fruitful soil of runaway guilt. The callow scientist is dropping seed long since _dropped_ in another way by real scientists. The whole country is sown with newspapers of all grades, and the crop is coming up. What shall the harvest be?

"Be not deceived, whatsoever a nation soweth, that shall it also reap."

In a very large number of new settlements all the above agencies are in active operation before the missionary arrives; and, oh, what a field he finds! The farmer on the new farm cannot use the drill and improved implements for the uneven places and stumps, but must needs sow by hand, and sometimes between the log piles, a little here and a little there, and then, between times, spend his strength underbrushing.

So the missionary starts without a church building, choir, organ, or even a membership, his pulpit a box in a vacant store, or in a schoolhouse or railway depot, or some rude log house of the settler; his audience is gathered from the four corners of the earth-- representatives of a dozen sects, backsliders in abundance, and those who have run away from the light of civilized life. Many among the latter have broken their marriage vows, and are now living in unlawful wedlock.

I remember once preaching on this evil to an audience of less than twenty, and was surprised at the close of the meeting to hear a woman say, "Did you know you gave Mrs. ---- an awful crack on the knuckles to-day?"

I said, "No!"

"Well, ye did, ye know."

Mentioning the circumstance with surprise to another, I received for an answer, "Well, she needn't say nothin'; she's in the same boat herself!"

Depressed in spirits, I told my troubles to a good lady who I knew was "one of the salt of the earth," and noticing a smile come over her face, I asked her what she was smiling at. She replied, "The third was as bad as the other two!"

Just here is one of the greatest hindrances the missionary has to contend with. I am not sure but it rivals the saloon. One missionary I visited told me that in one little hamlet, on his field, there was not a single family living in lawful wedlock. It is next to impossible to do anything with the parents in such cases. But there is one bright side to this dark picture. Almost without exception, they like to have their children attend the Sabbath-school. Here is prolific soil in which to sow good seed, and we cannot commence too soon.

We are living in rushing times. I have just read in a paper that one town in Ontonagon County, one year and a half old, has three thousand inhabitants, forty-five saloons, twelve hotels, two papers, forty-eight stores, two opera houses, and an electric plant! With villages springing up in every county, and the immense onflowing tide from foreign shores, the lone missionary on the frontier ofttimes would despair, but for the promise of the Master, the miracles of the past, and the joy of hope's bright harvest in the future. And so, "going forth weeping, bearing precious seed," he sows beside all waters, with full expectations that "He shall come again rejoicing, bringing His sheaves with Him."

That the reader may have an idea of the vastness of the field, and the distances between the workers, I will jot down a few facts. In 1887 there were thirty Congregational churches in the three conferences of Grand Traverse, Cheboygan, and Chippewa and Mackinac. These conferences had an average width of sixty miles, and stretch from Sherman, in the south of Grand Traverse Conference, for a hundred and fifty-eight miles, as the bird flies, to Sugar Island, in the north of Chippewa and Mackinac Conference.

No one can say we were crowded. My nearest neighbor was sixteen miles away, the next thirty, and the next forty; and, unless a change has come very lately, this is the only self-supporting church in the three conferences--and that because it was settled thirty years prior to many of the other churches. Ten years ago there were hundreds of miles of unbroken forests where to-day are crowded summer resorts and busy villages, filled with representatives of the most diverse nationalities under the sun. I have preached to a good-sized audience with not a single person in it that was born in the United States. And the cry is, Still they come. Now send on your harvesters!

XXIX.

"HARVEST HOME."

After all the hopes and fears and toil of the summer, the farmer's most beautiful sight is to see the last great load safe in the barn, the stock fattening on the rich, sweet aftermath, the golden fruit in the orchard, and the big, red, harvest moon smiling over all. This is a frequent sight, despite poor crops and bad weather. The successful farmer does not rely on one, but a variety of crops. Then, if the season is bad for corn, it will be good for oats or wheat. Some crop will repay his labor.

Here is a hint for the home missionary who goes forth to sow spiritual seed. If he expects to get a crop of Congregationalists, he will often lament over poor returns. Often the missionary finds himself in a miscellaneous gathering, like that of Pentecost in its variety, and no mere "ism" will crystallize them. One is of Paul, another of Apollos or Cephas, and he must "determine not to know anything among them save Christ and him crucified." He must drop minor points, and adopt that plan on which all can agree.

Here is a bit of experience. In a community of seven hundred souls, the following denominations were represented: Baptists, three kinds; Presbyterians, two kinds; Methodists, four kinds; Christians, "Church of God," Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, Seventh-day Adventists, Lutherans of all branches, Quakers, and Congregationalists. One day I found three married women making ready to keep house in what had been a large store, the only vacant place in which to live; their husbands were working and living in camp. I said, "I am glad to see you. I suppose you are all Christians?"

To my surprise, they all cheerfully responded, "Yes."

"Well, that is good news," I said. "And to what church do you belong?"

"Church of God," was their answer.

"Good; so do I. Have you brought your letters?"

"No."

"But do you really belong to the 'Church of God'?" said one. "Well, I _am_ glad to think we should find a 'Church of God' minister way up here!"

This she said addressing the other women.

"Oh, well," said one, "he means that every church is a church of God!"

"Oh!" was the answer, with a shade of disappointment on her face.

"Well, well," I said, "is not that true?"

"Y-a-as; but it is not like ourn."

"What do you believe different from me?"

"Well, we believe in feet-washing for one thing, and in immersion."

"Oh, well, I think Christians should wash their feet too."

"Now, Elder, that ain't right to be making fun of Scripter; for Christ told his disciples to wash one another's feet, and said, 'Happy are ye if ye do these things.'"

I explained what I thought was the meaning of the lesson, but she shook her head.

I said, "Are you happy?"

"Not very. I feel lonesome here."

"But is not Christ here too?"

"Oh, yes; but it is not home."

"Well, I am glad you belong to Christ, and hope you will unite with us in fighting the common foe. Will you come to church, and bring the children to our Sabbath-school?"

"Well, we shall do that."

As I was leaving one of them said, "There is a new-comer across the street. She belongs to some church _outside_." By "outside" she meant the old, settled parts. "You better call on her."

I did so, and said that I was the home missionary. I asked her how she liked her new home?

"Not much. It is a dreadfully wicked place."

"Yes, that is true; and I hope you will lend a hand in the good work. You are a Christian, I believe?"

"Yes; but I don't belong to your church."

"What church are you now a member of?"

"Well, there is only one of my kind in the State that I know of."

"You must feel lonesome at times; but in what do you differ from us?"

"Well, we believe in being immersed three times in succession, face downwards. I intend doing what I can."

After giving her a cordial invitation to attend the church, I left the good woman, saying I hoped I could depend on her being at church. But, alas! trade became so brisk that the good sister had to work Sundays. She felt very sorry, she said, but it did seem as if it was impossible to live a Christian life in such a wicked place; and she had concluded not to give her letter to the church until she could get into a better community, where she would not have to work Sundays. I told her I was surprised that one who had been so thoroughly cleansed should have fallen away so quickly.

"Yes; but it is such a wicked place."

"I know; but you have only to be just a small Christian here to pass for a first-class saint!"

She smiled sadly, and said she guessed she would wait.

A man that must have a "New England element" to work in will feel depressed in such a field. But if, like Wesley, his field is the world, or, like Paul, he can say to the people, "called to be saints," then he can thrust in the sickle and begin harvesting. We must not only sow beside all waters, but reap too. Do not harvest the weeds and the darnel, nor reject the barley because it is not wheat. Often in the new settlements there are enough Christians to form the nucleus of one church; whereas, if we wait to have a church for each sect, it means waste of money and waste of men.

In one small town of less than three hundred people, where there were many denominations represented, the company that owned nearly all the land gave a lot and the lumber for a church. Most of the Christians united, and a minister was secured. Some, however, would not join with their brethren, but waited on the superintendent to get a lot for themselves. He said, "Yes, we will give you all a lot and help you build. Just as soon as this church becomes self-supporting we will give the next strongest a lot, and so on to the end."

This is level-headed Christian business. If we want to reap the harvest, we must "receive him that is weak in the faith." Hidden away in trunks are hundreds of church letters that should be coaxed out. Faithful preaching, teaching, and visiting, will bring a glorious "Harvest Home." A goodly sight it is to see, under one roof, all these different branches of the Lord's army worshipping the same Master, rejoicing in the same hope, and realizing in a small degree that there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, but that all are one in Christ Jesus.

XXX.

INJEANNY VS. HEAVEN.

The title to this chapter bears about the same relation to its contents as the name of one sermon does to the other twenty in a given volume. I gave it this title because it must have some heading; everything has a heading. Graves have headstones.

No greater variety of character exists on the frontier than elsewhere, but peculiar cases come to the surface oftener. Those women living in the woods, who belonged to the "Church of God," are good illustrations. They had some peculiar ideas about the Scriptures, but it was much more refreshing to the missionary to find _peculiar_ views than none at all. I often introduced myself to them with a text of Scripture, and tried hard to induce them to move into the next village for their children's sake. It was a much better place morally, although but a mile distant. But the influence of an organized church, with a good building and Sunday-school, made a greater difference than the distance would seem to warrant. One day, as I was passing their home, I shouted out, "Up, get you out of this place; for the Lord will destroy this city!" The next day I was off on my way to the other side of the State. As my journey well illustrates the difficulties of travel in a new country, I will describe it.

At my first change of cars, I found that my train was delayed by a fire along the track, so that I could not make my next connection with a cross-country train. This troubled me, as it was Friday, and the young minister whom I was about to visit was doing manual work on his church building, and would probably be ill-prepared to preach himself. I telegraphed him, and was just turning away when my eye caught sight of a map, and I noticed that the road I was on and the road he was on, although a hundred miles apart where I was then, gradually approached until within thirteen miles of each other, one hundred miles north. Remembering that a stage crossed at this point, I started on the late train, which, like a human being, seldom makes up for lost time, and was dropped into the pitch darkness about eleven P.M. The red lights of the train were soon lost in the black forest; I felt like Goldsmith's last man.

Two or three little lights twinkled from some log cabins. A small boy, with a dilapidated mail-bag and a dirty lantern, stood near me. I asked him if there was a hotel in town.

He said, "Yep."

Would he guide me to it?

"Yep."

I next inquired whether the stage made connections with the train on the other road.

"Wal, yes, it gineraley does."

"Why, does it not to-morrow?"

"Guess not."

"Why?"

"Cos' of the ternado."

"Tornado?"

"Yes; didn't ye know we had a ternado?"

"No."

"Well, we did, ye know; tore the trees up hullsale, and just played Ned. Rain cum down like suds."

"Well, can I get a buggy or wagon?"

"Guess not; both out in the woods; can't git home."

I felt sick at hearing this; for how to get across with two grips filled with books, theological books too, troubled me. I slept little. My room was bare; the rain pattering on the roof, the mosquitoes inside, and my own thoughts, routed me out early Saturday morning. I was pleased to find that the man had returned with the wagon, and after much persuasion, I engaged him for five dollars to take me across.

We started off with an axe. The old settlers laughed at our attempt, but we were young. Over the fallen trees we went bumping along; but, alas, we tried too big a maple, and out came the reach-pole and left us balanced on the tree. After a tiring walk through the "shin-tangles"--that is, ground hemlock--we reached the road, and mounted bareback. We met some commercial travellers cutting their way through, with a settler's help, passed a horse and buggy (minus a driver), with a bottle of whiskey in the bottom. We then had the good fortune to borrow a single wagon of a minister, who lived near on a farm. Our horses had to walk in the water by the edge of the lake, and the leeches fastened on them by the dozen. Finally we met the stage, and knew our way was clear. We were drenched with the rain, but it was clearing, and so we cheered up.

I asked the stage-driver whether I could catch the train.

He said, "Well, if ye _drive_, ye can."

The emphasis he put into the drive made us whip up. Presently the village could be seen, a half-mile away. The engine was on the turntable. How fast it went around! I was getting nervous. I asked the man to get my grips out, while I got my ticket; and rushing into the office, I snapped out, "Ticket for ----!"

The man turned his head with a jerk, and stared at me so intently that I thought something was wrong. So I said, "What time does the train start?"

"In about an hour."

You could have knocked me over with a feather. I felt like Sir Francis Drake, when his vessel seemed to be going over in the Thames. "What! have I sailed the ocean," said he, "to be drowned in a ditch?" So, I thought, "Have I come a hundred miles out of my way, to miss the train?"

I boarded the cars, cleaned my valises, and found the color running from my book-covers. My boots were like brown paper, so sodden were they. I dried myself by the stove; but my troubles were not over. The train-boy called out the station at the water-tank. The rain was pouring down; I was in for it again; so I walked down between the freight cars, went to the hotel and dried myself again, and, after dancing around the room on one foot to get my boots on, I started off to find my man.

He was out of town! Expected home with a funeral soon. I was foolish enough to make myself known as soon as he got off the cars, and he coaxed me into taking charge of the funeral. Then for the third time I was soaked, as we stood in the new cemetery, while a hymn of six verses was rendered. But what flattened me worse than all was that the young man had not received my second telegram, which I sent to relieve his supposed excited feelings, and had not been troubled in the least, but was going to make Fred. Robertson ("who being dead yet speaketh") do duty for him. Tired out, I flung myself on a bed, and slept in spite of--well never mind what. I had to change quarters next night, for I was not so sleepy.

I received a letter from the student who had taken my charge, saying, "----is burnt to the ground, and all north of the railway." In an instant there flashed on my mind the words of the woman: "Up, get you out," etc. The same words came home to the women as they saw their homes going up in smoke.

"What did the elder say?" said they to one another.

The excitement of the fire brought on brain fever in the case of the youngest child.

On my return, while trying to comfort the little one (who we thought was dying), and telling her about heaven, she cried out in her feebleness, "I don't want to go to heaven! I want to go to Injeanny."

And, sure enough, she got well, and did go to "Injeanny."

XXXI

THE LATEST FRONTIER--OKLAHOMA.

Collier, in his "Great Events of History," tells of a million warriors who, leaving their wives and children, crossed the Danube, and swore allegiance to Rome. Since that time a great many immigrations have taken place, but none on so large a scale. But, large or small, the settlements of the Indian Territory, now called Oklahoma, are the most unique.

It would have been hard to have devised a worse way to open a new country. Thousands of people--strong, weak, the poor settler, the speculator, the gambler--were all here, man and wife, and spinster on her own responsibility. All waited for weeks on the border-land. At last the time came, and the gun was fired, and in confusion wild as a Comanche raid, the great rush was made. Many sections being claimed by two and three parties, the occasion had its comic side, amid more that was tragic. Thousands went in on cattle-cars, and as many more filled common coaches inside and out, and clung to the cow-catcher of the engine. In places wire fences were on either side of the railway; and men in trying to get through them in a hurry, often reached their land minus a large part of their clothing.

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In one case a portly woman, taking the tortoise plan of slow and steady, reached the best section, while the men still hung in the fence like victims of a butcher-bird. It is said of one young woman, who made the run on horseback, that reaching a town-site, her horse stumbled, and she was thrown violently to the ground and stunned. A passing man jumped off his horse, and sprinkled her face with water from his canteen; and as she revived, the first thing she said was, "This is my lot."

"No, you don't," said the man. But to settle it they went to law, and the court decided in favor of the woman, as she struck the ground first.

Among much that was brutal and barbarous, some cases of chivalry were noticed. In one case a young woman was caught in a wire fence, and two young men went back, helped her out, and allowed her to take her choice of a section. One man, in his eagerness, found himself many miles from water. As he was driving his stake, he noticed that his horse was dying; and realizing his awful situation, being nearly exhausted with thirst, he cut his horses throat, drank the blood, and saved his own life.

The work done in six years is simply marvellous. Imagine the prairie described by Loomis as the place where you could see day after to-morrow coming up over the horizon; at times covered with flowers fair as the garden of the Lord, or covered with snow, and nothing to break the fury of the wind. Seventy-five thousand Indians the only permanent residents in the morning; at night hundreds of thousands of whites--villages, towns, and cities started, in some of them a mayor chosen, a board of aldermen elected, and the staked-out streets under police control. The inhabitants were under tents for a few weeks, while sickness of all kinds attacked them. There were rattlesnakes of two varieties, tarantulas, two kinds of scorpions,--one, the most dangerous, a kind of lizard, which also stings with its tail, and with often deadly effect,--and centipedes that grow to six inches in length. One of the latter was inside a shirt which came home from the laundry, and planted his many feet on the breast of one of our minute-men, and caused it to swell so fearfully that he thought at one time he should die. He recovered, but still at times feels the effect of the wounds, which are as numerous as the feet. The pain caused is intense, and the parts wounded slough off.

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Now imagine all this; and then six years after you visit this land, and find cities of ten thousand inhabitants, banks with polished granite pillars,--polished with three per cent per month interest,--great blocks, huge elevators, and fine hotels. And nowhere, even in Paris, will you find more style than among the well-to-do. And on the same streets where I saw all this, I also saw men picking kernels of corn out of an old cellar close by a second-hand store, where already the poor had given up and sold their furniture to get home.

I looked out of my hotel window one morning in "Old Oklahoma," and saw a lady walking past dressed in a lavender suit, a white hat with great ostrich feathers on it, by her side a gentleman as well groomed as any New York swell, an English greyhound ambled by their side, while in the rear were rough men with the ugly stiff hats usually worn by your frontier rough. Storekeepers were going to work in their shirt-sleeves. This was in a town of two thousand inhabitants, where there were four banks, four newspapers, eleven churches, and only three saloons.

While I was there a most brutal murder took place,--a woman shot her step-daughter, killing her instantly. The husband, the girl's father, swept the blood from the sidewalk, and went down to the jail that night and stayed with the woman, while a fiddler was sent down to cheer her. This man was her fifth husband.

In the two weeks I was in that vicinity seven persons were killed. Three men had shot down some train-robbers, and after they were dead had filled their bodies with bullets. This so incensed the friends of the dead men that a number of them went to the house where the men had fortified themselves. When they saw how large a force was against them, they surrendered, their wives in the meanwhile begging the men who had come not to molest their husbands. But the women were pushed rudely aside, and the men were carried to the hills and lynched. One murderer cost the Territory over fifteen thousand dollars. Banks have loaded pistols behind the wire windows, where they can be reached at a moment's notice.

Still, lawlessness is not the rule; and it has never been as bad as one city was farther north, where men were held up on the main street in broad daylight. Such facts may just as well be known, because there is a better time coming, and these things are but transitory.

In the old settled parts, peach orchards are already bearing; and if there is a moderate rainfall, and the people can get three good crops out of five, such is the richness of the soil, the people will be rich. But to me the western part of the Territory seems like an experiment as yet. There are many places in the same latitude farther north utterly deserted; and empty court-houses, schools, and churches stand on the dry prairie as lonesome as Persepolis without her grandeur.

But now let us go into "The Strip." ("The Strip" is the Cherokee Strip, the last but one opened; the Kickapoo being opened this May.) It has been settled about eighteen months. It is May, 1895. We leave the train, and start across the prairie in a buggy with splendid horses that can be bought for less than forty dollars each. We pass beautiful little ponies that you can buy for ten to twenty dollars. On either side we pass large herds of cattle and many horses. Few houses are in sight, as most of them are very small and hardly distinguishable from the ground, while some are under ground. Here and there a little log house, made from the "black jacks" that border the stream, which is often a dry ditch. The rivers, with banks a quarter of a mile apart at flood can be stepped over to-day.

Fifty miles of riding bring us to a county town. All the county towns in "The Strip" were located by the Government, and have large squares, or rather oblongs, in which the county buildings stand. It is the day before the Indians are paid. Here we find every one busy. Streets are being graded, and a fine court-house in process of erection. Stores are doing an immense business, one reaching over one hundred thousand dollars a year; another, larger still, being built. By their sides will be a peanut-stand, a sod store, another partly of wood and partly of canvas, and every conceivable kind of building for living in or trading. And here is a house with every modern convenience, up to a set of china for afternoon teas, and a club already formed for progressive euchre.

The Indian is not a terror to the settlers, as in early days; but he exasperates him, stalking by to get his money from the Government. He spends it like a child, on anything and everything to which he takes a notion. He lives on canned goods, and feasts for a time, then fasts until the Great Fathers send him more money. On the reservation, gamblers fleece him; but he does not seem to care, for he has a regular income and all the independence of a pauper.

It seemed very strange to look out of the car window, and see the tepees of the Indians, and on the other side of the car a lady in riding-habit with a gentleman escort--a pair who would have been in their place in Rotten Row.

Now we must turn westward for a hundred miles, and in all the long ride pass but one wheatfield that will pay for cutting; and that depends on rain, and must be cut with a header. Dire distress already stares the settler in the face; and even men, made desperate by hunger in Old Oklahoma, are sending their petitions to Guthrie for food. There are hundreds of families who have nothing but flour and milk, and some who have neither. When a cry goes up for help, it is soon followed by another, saying things are not so bad. This latter cry comes from those who hold property, and who would rather the people starve than that property should decrease.

I saw men who had cut wood, and hauled it sixteen miles, then split it, and carried it twelve miles to market, and after their three days' work the two men had a load for themselves and one dollar and a quarter left. And one man said, "Mine is a case of 'root hog or die,'" and so got fifty cents for his load of wood he had brought fourteen miles; while another man returned with his, after vainly offering it for forty cents. In one town I saw a horse,--a poor one, it is true,--but the man could not get another bid after it had reached one dollar and a half.

Of course there are thousands who are better off; but in the case of very many they were at the very last degree of poverty when they went in. Many of our minute-men preached the first Sunday. They were among the men who sat on the cow-catcher of the engine, and made the run for a church-lot and to win souls. They preached that first Sunday in a dust-storm so bad that you could scarcely see the color of your clothes. To those who never saw one, these dust-storms are past belief. Even when the doors and windows are closed, the room seems as if it were in a fog; for the fine particles of dust defy doors and windows. And should a window be left open, you can literally use a shovel to get the dust off the beds.

You may be riding along, as I was, the hot wind coming in puffs, the swifts gliding over the prairie by your side, the heat rising visibly on the horizon, when in a flash, a dust-storm from the north came tearing along, until you could not see your pony's head at times, drifts six inches deep on the wheat, and your teeth chattering with the cold at one P.M., when at eleven A.M. you were nearly exhausted with the heat.

Strange when you ask people whether it is not extremely hot in the Middle West, they say, "Yes; but we always have cool nights." And, as a rule, that is so; but now as I write, July 9, 1895, comes the news of intense heat,--thermometer a hundred and nine in the shade, and ninety-eight at midnight, followed by a storm that shot pebbles into the very brickwork of the houses.

Every man who can, has a cyclone cellar. Some are fitted up so that you could keep house in them. In one town where I went to speak, the meeting was abandoned on account of a storm which was but moderate; but such is the fear of the twister that nearly all the people were in their pits.

In the Baptist church, where they had a full house the night before, I found one woman and two men; and they were blowing out the lights. The telegrams kept coming, telling of a storm shaking buildings, and travelling forty miles an hour; but it was dissipated before it reached me, and I escaped. Yet I found a man who had lived over a quarter of a century in the West, and had never seen one.

It is a big country. A friend of mine in England wrote me that they feared for me as they read of our fearful cyclones. I was living near Boston, Mass. I wrote back, saying I felt bad for them in London when the Danube overflowed. I had to go over and explain it before they saw my joke.

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The cyclone, however, is no joke. Nevertheless, it performs some queer antics. One cyclone struck a house, and left nothing but the floor and a tin cuspidore. The latter stood by a stove which weighed several hundredweight, and which was smashed to atoms.

In another house a heavy table was torn to pieces, while the piano-cover in the same room was left on the piano. In one house all had gone into the cellar, when they remembered the sleeping baby. A young girl sprang in, and got the baby; and just as she stepped off, the house went, and she floated into the cellar like a piece of thistle-down. A school-teacher was leaving school, when she was thrown to the ground, and every bit of clothing was stripped from her, leaving her without a scratch.

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Perhaps the most remarkable escape was a few years ago in Kansas City. When a young school-teacher reached home, her mother said, "Why did you not bring your young brother?" She hastened back; and as she reached the room where her brother was, she grasped him around the waist, and jumped out of the window just as the building was struck. She was carried two blocks, and dropped without injury to either of them. These things are hard to believe, but no one will be lost who does not believe them.

But to return to our journey. We had three churches to dedicate in three days, two on one day. And here let me say, a church could be organized every day in the year, and not trespass on any one's work. We could see the little building loom up on the horizon, appearing twice its size, as things do on the prairie with nothing to contrast them with, for the houses were almost invisible. The place was crowded, so that the wagon-seats were brought in; and a very affecting sight it was to see the communion-wine brought in a ketchup bottle. The people were good, but very poor, although nearly all owned horses, for in that country this is no sign of wealth.

After a few hours' drive, we came to our second church. The prairie here was broken up by small cañons, interspersed with streams, and was quite pretty. A grocery and a blacksmith-shop, the latter opened Tuesday and Thursday only, comprised the village. A small house where the proprietor of the store lived, and the church, were all the buildings one could see. The people were very cordial and intelligent. The daughters of mine host were smart, handsome girls, that could do almost everything,--ride a wild broncho, and shoot a rattler's head off with a bullet, and yet were modest, well-dressed, and good-mannered young ladies.

I was taken down stairs cut out of the clay, and covered with carpet, into a room the sides of which were the cañon. It looked out over the great expanse. The beds were lifted up so as to form walls around the room, and take up less space.

After a bountiful supper, I looked at the church, which stood on a sightly hill. I wondered where the people were coming from, but was told it would be filled. It was on a Thursday night. I looked over the prairie; and in all directions I saw dark spots in motion, that grew larger. I said, "They appear as if rising from the ground."

"Well," said mine host, "most of them are."

By eight o'clock three hundred were there, most of them bringing chairs; by 8.30, there were four hundred; at 9 o'clock, by actual count, five hundred people crowded in and around the door of the church. It was a sight never to be forgotten, to see this great company start off across the prairie in the full moonlight. I spoke to some of them, saying, "Why, you were out at the afternoon meeting."--"Yes," said the man, "I should have come if we had to ride a cow all the way from Enid." This was a place thirty miles away. This church was built by the people, one man working for a dollar a week and his dinner, the farmers working his farm for him while he was at the building.

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The church had not yet received its chairs, and was seated with boards laid across nail-kegs.

Here our minute-man preaches in houses so small that the chairs had to be put outside, and the people packed so thickly that they touched him. It ought to touch the Christian reader to help more. We had fifty miles to ride the next day, into a county town. We found it all alive; for nearly four hundred lawsuits were on the docket, mostly for timber stealing.

"Poor fellows," I thought, "Uncle Sam ought to give you the timber for coaxing you here."

However, the judge was a fine, well-read man, and let them off easy. Deputy-sheriffs by the score were stalking about, with their deadly revolvers sticking out from under their short coats.

The best hotel was crowded, and I had for that night to sleep in another one. The house was old, and had been taken down and brought here from Kansas and rebuilt. The doors up-stairs once had glass in them; rough boards covered the broken places. One door was made up entirely of old sign-boards, which made it appear like so many Chinese characters, such as Pat said he could not read, but thought he could play it if he had his flute with him.

I was ushered into a room, and requested to put the light out when I was through with it; meaning I was to place it outside, which I did not do. But what a room! The wainscoting did not reach the floor. Small bottles of oil, with feathers in them, looked awfully suspicious. There was no washstand or water. The pillow looked like a little bag of shot, and was as dirty as the bed-clothes. The door was fastened with a little wooden button, which hung precariously on a small nail.

I took off my coat, and put it on again, and finally lay down on the bed, after placing something between my head and that pillow.

I had to go several blocks in the morning to find a place to wash, so dirty were the towels down-stairs. I was then given a house to myself, which consisted of a single room, eight by ten, or ten by twelve, I forget which. It was originally the church and parsonage. Here the church was organized, and the first wedding took place.

A fine church, the largest and handsomest in the Territory, was next door, and was to be dedicated the next day, which would be Sunday. This building had been brought all the way from Kansas, and the very foundation-stones carried with it, and put up in better shape than ever. Three times next day it was crowded, even to the steps outside, many coming twenty miles to attend. One lady came twice who lived six miles away, and said, "Oh, how I wish I could come again to-night! But I have six cows to milk, and it would mean twelve miles to ride there and back, and then six miles to go home; yet I would if I could. Oh! sometimes I think I should die but for God and my little girl."

As the people came in, I said to myself, "Where have I seen these ladies before,--pink and lemon-colored silk dresses, pointed buff shoes, ostrich feathers in their enormous hats,--oh! I have it, in the daily hints from Paris."

The men wore collars as ugly and uncomfortable as they could be made, which made them keep their chins up; and right by their sides were women whose hats looked like those we see in boxes outside the stores, your choice for five cents; there were four or five little sunburned children, some of whom were in undress uniform, and their fathers in homespun and blue jeans.

Close by in the cañons crouched a fugitive from justice. Two men started out to take him, but came home without their guns. Then a brave, cool-headed man of experience went, and slept in the timber where our desperado lay concealed, thinking to catch him in the morning before the robber awoke; but while he was rubbing his own sleepy eyes the words, sharp as a rifle report, came, "Hold up your hands!" And number three came home minus his shooting-irons.

Oklahoma differs in many ways from other frontiers. You find greater extremes, but you also find a higher type intellectually. The _Century_ and _Harper's_ and the popular magazines sell faster, and more of them, than the _Police Gazette_.

On the other hand, settled _en masse_ as it has been, the church has not begun to reach the people except in county towns, where, as usual, it is too often, but not always, overdone. In one case I found a man who was trying to organize with one member; and in another a man actually built a church before a single member of his denomination was there, and there were none there when I left. In some cases I found our minute-man an old soldier; and more than once for weeks at a time he had to sleep in his clothes, and keep his rifle by his side.

In some cases the Government had located a county town, and the railway company had chosen another site close by. Then the fight began. The railway at first ignored the Government's site, and ran their trains by; built a station on their own site, and would have no other. Then the people on the Government site tore up the tracks, and incendiarism became so common that the insurance agent came and cancelled all the policies except the church and parsonage where our minute-man stood guard. This was done in several places, and the end is not yet.

Now, to the general reader, everything seems in a hopeless muddle, and he is glad he is not living there. But remember this. It is better than some older settlements, where men had to give eighty bushels of wheat for a pair of stogy boots, as they did in Ohio, and fight the Indian as well as the wolf from the door, or in Kansas forty years ago, where corn brought five cents a bushel, and men had to go a hundred miles to the mill. In order to show the hopeful side, I will give an illustration.

I was to speak at a meeting in Illinois. My way was through Missouri, where spiritual and civilized prosperity has not kept pace with her wealth and opportunities. I was entertained in a mansion built sixty years ago. The city, of sixteen thousand inhabitants, could hardly be matched in New England,--many fine streets, shaded with grand old elms; the roads bricked and well graded; the houses beautiful, artistic, and surrounded with lovely lawns; a college, a ladies' seminary, and many fine schools and churches.

The lady of the house said, "My mother crossed the mountains many times to Washington, to live with her husband, who represented the State there." At last she had to take two carriages and two horses, and it became too hard work, when her husband built the house which is still a beautiful home, with magnificent elms, planted by its original owner, shading it. In that day the rattlesnake glided about the doorway, the Indians roamed everywhere, and the wolves actually licked the frosting off the cakes that were set to cool on the doorstep, while the Indians stole the poor woman's dinner who lived close by. To-day a park adorns the front, given by the generous owner to the city; and where the wolves and the Indians roamed, lives the daughter of Governor Duncan, with her husband and family, in one of the finest cities of its size in the world. Nowhere in all this wide world can the advance of civilization during the last fifty years be found on so large a scale as here on the American frontiers.

XXXII.

THE PIONEER WEDDING.

As one travels over our country to-day, one will see as lowly homes, as acute poverty, and as congested a population, as he can find anywhere in Europe, with this great difference,--our people are filled with hope. There is a buoyancy about American life that is lacking in Europe. It is, as Emerson expressed it, a land of opportunity; and this difference is everything to the immigrant and the native pioneer. And this means much to us. The great majority of immigrants are from the most thrifty of the poor.

I have in mind now a family, who once lived in a large city. It took all the strength of husband and wife to make both ends meet; but by dint of rigid economy, they saved enough to take them across the water in the steerage of a great ship. This couple, with their little ones, found themselves at the end of their journey on a homestead, but with scarcely a cent left. The people around them were very poor, some of them living the first winter on potatoes and salt, not having either bread or milk. But in some way they managed to live, cheered by the hope that any move must be upward, and in the near future comfort, and farther on affluence. The same economy that saved the passage-money kept a little for a rainy day, no matter how hard the times were.

When I became acquainted with them they owned a large farm, a small log house and stable, several cows, horses, pigs, and poultry. Around the house was a neat picket-fence, every picket being cut out and made with axe and jack-knife during the long winter months. The vegetable garden was well-stocked; but what appealed to me most was the richness and the variety of the flower-garden,--roses, pansies, wallflowers, sweet-pease, hollyhocks, and mignonette. It was truly a feast for the eyes. The little house and the milk-room, the latter made of lilliputian logs, were dazzling white by the repeated coats of whitewash. The whole formed a pretty picture; and for so new a country it was more than a picture,--it was an education for every settler near them.

I tried to fancy my host's feelings as he thought of the sharp struggle in the old land, and as he looked over his broad acres now, richer than the farmers he once envied as they drove in on their stout cobs to market.

Near by was another home. Here, too, were fine gardens, and another old couple out of the grip of poverty, which well-nigh killed them in the struggle. This good lady was once the only white woman on a large island, which to-day is laid out in sections, has towns, villages, schoolhouses, and churches, and every farm occupied. The old couple had an unmarried son left; and he, too, was about to quit the parent nest, and start a home for himself. And now I must tell about the wedding.

But first a word about the climate, soil, and conditions, in order to understand what follows. The whole country had once been forest, the home of the Hurons, Chippewas, and other tribes of Indians. The Jesuit had roamed here, suffered, and often become a martyr. Some time in the past, either from Indian fires or carelessness, the forest caught fire, and tens of thousands of acres of choice maples and birch were burnt down to the very roots. The soil is clay, but so charged with lime that you can plough while the water follows the horses in the furrows in rivulets that dash against their fetlocks. This in clay, as a rule, would mean utter ruin until frost came, and the ground thawed again. But not so here. As the ground becomes dry, it pulverizes easily under the harrow.

This section was subject to storms that filled the narrow streams until they became dangerous torrents, sweeping all before them, and sometimes making a jam of logs twenty miles long. One spring I noticed that all the bridges were new, and that they had all been built some four feet higher than before. I was told that the spring freshets had swept everything before them, and had been so unusually high that the change of level became necessary.