Daughter of Middle Border Page 2

  For a year or two we met in Bessie Potter's studio, and on the theory that our club, visible and hospitable on Friday afternoon, was non-existent during all the other days of the week, we called it "the Little Room." Later still we shifted to Ralph Clarkson's studio in the Fine Arts Building—where it still flourishes.

  The fact is, I was a poor club man. I did not smoke, and never used rum except as a hair tonic—and beer and tobacco were rather distasteful to me. I do not boast of this singularity, I merely state it. No doubt I was considered a dull and profitless companion even in "the Little Room," but in most of my sobrieties Taft and Browne upheld me, though they both possessed the redeeming virtue of being amusing, which I, most certainly, never achieved.

  Taft was especially witty in his sly, sidewise comment, and often when several of us were in hot debate, his sententious or humorous retorts cut or stung in defence of some esthetic principle much more effectively than most of my harangues. Sculpture, with him, was a religious faith, and he defended it manfully and practiced it with skill and an industry which was astounding.

  Though a noble figure and universally admired, he had, like myself, two very serious defects, he was addicted to frock coats and the habit of lecturing! Although he did not go so far as to wear a plaid Windsor tie with his "Prince Albert" coat (as I have been accused of doing), he displayed something of the professor's zeal in his platform addresses. I would demur against the plaid Windsor tie indictment if I dared to do so, but a certain snapshot portrait taken by a South-side photographer of that day (and still extant) forces me to painful confession—I had such a tie, and I wore it with a frock coat. My social status is thus clearly defined.

  Taft's studio, which was on the top floor of the Athenæum Building on Van Buren Street, had a section which he called "the morgue," for the reason that it was littered with plaster duplicates of busts, arms, and hands. This room, fitted up with shelf-like bunks, was filled nearly every night with penniless young sculptors who camped in primitive simplicity amid the grewsome discarded portraits of Cook County's most illustrious citizens. Several of these roomers have since become artists of wide renown, and I refrain from disclosing their names. No doubt they will smile as they recall those nights amid their landlord's cast-off handiwork.

  Taft was an "easy mark" in those times, a shining hope to all the indigent models, discouraged painters and other esthetic derelicts of the Columbian Exposition. No artist suppliant ever knocked at his door without getting a dollar, and some of them got twenty. For several years Clarkson and I had him on our minds because of this gentle and yielding disposition until at last we discovered that in one way or another, in spite of a reckless prodigality, he prospered. The bread which he cheerfully cast upon these unknown waters, almost always returned (sometimes from another direction) in loaves at least as large as biscuits. His fame steadily increased with his charity. I did not understand the principle of his manner of life then, and I do not now. By all the laws of my experience he should at this moment be in the poorhouse, but he isn't—he is rich and honored and loved.

  In sculpture he was, at this time a conservative, a worshiper of the Greek, and it would seem that I became his counter-irritant, for my demand for "A native art" kept him wholesomely stirred up. One by one as the years passed he yielded esthetic positions which at first he most stoutly held. He conceded that the Modern could not be entirely expressed by the Ancient, that America might sometime grow to the dignity of having an art of its own, and that in sculpture (as in painting and architecture) new problems might arise. Even in his own work (although he professed but one ideal, the Athenian) he came at last to include the plastic value of the red man, and to find in the expression of the Sioux or Omaha a certain sorrowful dignity which fell parallel with his own grave temperament, for, despite his smiling face, his best work remained somber, almost tragic in spirit.

  Henry B. Fuller, who in The Chevalier of Pensieri-Vani had shown himself to be the finest literary craftsman in the West, became (a little later) a leader in our group and a keen delight to us all. He was at this time a small, brown-bearded man of thirty-five, whose quick humor, keen insight and unfailing interest in all things literary made him a caustic corrective of the bombast to which our local reviewers were sadly liable. Although a merciless critic of Chicago, he was a native of the city, and his comment on its life had to be confronted with such equanimity as our self-elected social hierarchy could assume.

  Elusive if not austere with strangers, Henry's laugh (a musical "ha ha") was often heard among his friends. His face could be impassive not to say repellent when approached by those in whom he took no interest, and there were large numbers of his fellow citizens for whom the author of Pensieri-Vani had only contempt. Strange to say, he became my most intimate friend and confidant—antithetic pair!

  Eugene Field, his direct opposite, and the most distinguished member of "the journalistic gang," took very little interest in the doings of "the Bunnies" and few of them knew him, but I often visited him in his home on the North Side, and greatly enjoyed his solemn-faced humor. He was a singular character, as improvident as Lorado but in a far different way.

  I recall meeting him one day on the street wearing, as usual, a long, gray plaid ulster with enormous pockets at the sides. Confronting me with coldly solemn visage, he thrust his right hand into his pocket and lifted a heavy brass candlestick to the light. "Look," he said. I looked. Dropping this he dipped his left hand into the opposite pocket and displayed another similar piece, then with a faint smile lifting the corners of his wide, thin-lipped mouth, he gravely boomed, "Brother Garland—you see before you—a man—who lately—had ten dollars."

  Thereupon he went his way, leaving me to wonder whether his wife would be equally amused with his latest purchase.

  His library was filled with all kinds of curious objects—worthless junk they seemed to me—clocks, snuffers, butterflies, and the like but he also possessed many autographed books and photographs whose value I granted. His cottage which was not large, swarmed with growing boys and noisy dogs; and Mrs. Field, a sweet and patient soul, seemed sadly out of key with her husband's habit of buying collections of rare moths, door-knockers, and candle molds with money which should have gone to buy chairs and carpets or trousers for the boys.

  Eugene was one of the first "Colyumists" in the country, and to fill his "Sharps and Flats" levied pitilessly upon his friends. From time to time we all figured as subjects for his humorous paragraphs; but each new victim understood and smiled. For example, in his column I read one morning these words: "La Crosse, a small city in Wisconsin, famous for the fact that all its trains back into town, and as the home of Hamlin Garland."

  He was one of the most popular of Western writers, and his home of a Sunday was usually crowded with visitors, many of whom were actors. I recall meeting Francis Wilson there—also E. S. Willard and Bram Stoker—but I do not remember to have seen Fuller there, although, later, Roswell, Eugene's brother, became Fuller's intimate friend.

  George Ade, a thin, pale, bright-eyed young Hoosier, was a frequent visitor at Field's. George had just begun to make a place for himself as the author of a column in the News called "Stories of the Street and of the Town"; and John T. McCutcheon, another Hoosier of the same lean type was his illustrator. I believed in them both and took a kind of elder brother interest in their work.

  In the companionship of men like Field and Browne and Taft, I was happy. My writing went well, and if I regretted Boston, I had the pleasant sense of being so near West Salem that I could go to bed in a train at ten at night, and breakfast with my mother in the morning, and just to prove that this was true I ran up to the Homestead at Christmas time and delivered my presents in person—keenly enjoying the smile of delight with which my mother received them.

  West Salem was like a scene on the stage that day—a setting for a rural mid-winter drama. The men in their gayly-colored Mackinac jackets, the sleighbells jingling pleasantly along the lanes, the cottage r
oofs laden with snow, and the sidewalks, walled with drifts, were almost arctic in their suggestion, and yet, my parents in the shelter of the friendly hills, were at peace. The cold was not being driven against them by the wind of the plain, and a plentiful supply of food and fuel made their fireside comfortable and secure.

  During this vacation I seized the opportunity to go a little farther and spend a few days in the Pineries which I had never seen. Out of this experience I gained some beautiful pictures of the snowy forest, and a suggestion for a story or two. A few days later, on a commission from McClure's, I was in Pittsburg writing an article on "Homestead and Its Perilous Trades," and the clouds of smoke, the flaming chimneys, the clang of steel, the roar of blast-furnaces and the thunder of monstrous steel rollers made Wisconsin lumber camps idyllic. The serene white peace of West Salem set Pittsburg apart as a sulphurous hell and my description of it became a passionate indictment of an industrial system which could so work and so house its men. The grimy hovels in which the toilers lived made my own homestead a poem. More than ever convinced that our social order was unjust and impermanent, I sent in my "story," in some doubt about its being accepted. It was printed with illustrations by Orson Lowell and was widely quoted at the time.

  Soon after this I made a trip to Memphis, thus gaining my first impression of the South. Like most northern visitors, I was immediately and intensely absorbed in the negroes. Their singing entranced me, and my hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Judah, hired a trio of black minstrels to come in and perform for me. Their songs so moved me, and I became so interested in one old negro's curious chants that I fairly wore them out with demands for their most characteristic spirituals. Some of the hymns were of such sacred character that one of the men would not sing them. "I ain't got no right to sing dem songs," he said.

  In Atlanta I met Joel Chandler Harris, who had done so much to portray the negro's inner kindliness, as well as his singularly poetic outlook. Harris was one of the editors of the Atlanta Constitution, and there I found him in a bare, prosaic office, a short, shy, red-haired man whom I liked at once. Two nights later I was dining with James A. Herne and William Dean Howells in New York City, and the day following I read some of my verses for the Nineteenth Century Club. At the end of March I was again at my desk in Chicago.

  These sudden changes of scene, these dramatic meetings, so typical of my life for many years, took away all sense of drudgery, all routine weariness. Seldom remaining in any one place long enough to become bored I had little chance to bore others. Literary clubs welcomed my readings and lectures; and, being vigorous and of good digestion, I accepted travel as a diversion as well as a business. As a student of American life, I was resolved to know every phase of it.

  Among my pleasant jobs I recall the putting into shape of a "Real Conversation" with James Whitcomb Riley, the material for which had been gained in a visit to Greenfield, Riley's native town, during August of the previous year.

  My first meeting with Riley had been in Boston at a time when I was a penniless student and he the shining, highly-paid lecturer; and I still suffered a feeling of wonder that a poet—any poet—could demand such pay. I did not resent it—I only marveled at it—for in our conversation he had made his philosophy plain.

  "Tell of the things just like they was, they don't need no excuse," one of his characters said. "Don't tech 'em up as the poets does till they're all too fine fer use," and in his talk with me Riley quaintly added, "Nature is good enough for God, it's good enough for me."

  In this article which I wrote for McClure's, I made comment on the essential mystery of the poet's art, a conjury which is able to transmute a perfectly commonplace landscape into something fine and mellow and sweet; for the region in which Riley spent his youth, and from which he derived most of his later material, was to me a depressing land, a country without a hill, a river or a lake; a commonplace country, flat, unkempt and without a line of beauty, and yet from these rude fields and simple gardens the singer had drawn the sweetest honey of song, song with a tang in it, like the odor of ripe buckwheat and the taste of frost-bit persimmons. It reinforced my resolution that the mid-land was about to blossom into art.

  In travel and in work such as this and in pleasant intercourse with the painters, sculptors, and writers of Chicago my first winter in the desolate, drab, and tumultuous city passed swiftly and on the whole profitably, I no longer looked backward to Boston, but as the first warm spring-winds began to blow, my thoughts turned towards my newly-acquired homestead and the old mother who was awaiting me there.

  Eager to start certain improvements which should tend to make the house more nearly the kind of dwelling place I had promised myself it should become, hungry for the soil, rejoicing in the thought of once more planting and building, I took the train for the North with all my summer ward-robe and most of my manuscripts, with no intention of reëntering the city till October at the earliest.

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWO

  I Return to the Saddle

  To pass from the crowds, the smoke and the iron clangor of Chicago into the clear April air of West Salem was a celestial change for me. For many years the clock of my seasons had been stilled. The coming of the birds, the budding of the leaves, the serial blossoming of spring had not touched me, and as I walked up the street that exquisite morning, a reminiscent ecstasy filled my heart. The laughter of the robins, the shrill ki-ki-ki of the golden-wing woodpeckers, and the wistful whistle of the lark, brought back my youth, my happiest youth, and when my mother met me at the door it seemed that all my cares and all my years of city life had fallen from me.

  "Well, here I am!" I called, "ready for the spring's work."

  With a silent laugh, as preface, she replied, "You'll get a-plenty. Your father is all packed, impatient to leave for Ordway."

  The old soldier, who came in from the barn a few moments later, confirmed this. "I'm no truck farmer," he explained with humorous contempt. "I turn this onion patch over to you. It's no place for me. In two days I'll be broad-casting wheat on a thousand-acre farm. That's my size"—a fact which I admitted.

  As we sat at breakfast he went on to say that he found Wisconsin woefully unprogressive. "These fellows back here are all stuck in the mud. They've got to wake up to the reform movements. I'll be glad to get back to Dakota where people are alive."

  With the spirit of the seed-sower swelling within him he took the noon train, handing over to me the management of the Homestead.

  An hour later mother and I went out to inspect the garden and to plan the seeding. The pie-plant leaves were unfolding and slender asparagus spears were pointing from the mold. The smell of burning leaves brought back to us both, with magic power, memories of the other springs and other plantings on the plain. It was glorious, it was medicinal!

  "This is the life!" I exultantly proclaimed. "Work is just what I need. I shall set to it at once. Aren't you glad you are here in this lovely valley and not out on the bleak Dakota plain?"

  Mother's face sobered. "Yes, I like it here—it seems more like home than any other place—and yet I miss the prairie and my Ordway friends."

  As I went about the village I came to a partial understanding of her feeling. The small dark shops, the uneven sidewalks, the rickety wooden awnings were closely in character with the easy-going citizens who moved leisurely and contentedly about their small affairs. It came to me (with a sense of amusement) that these coatless shopkeepers who dealt out sugar and kerosene while wearing their derby hats on the backs of their heads, were not only my neighbors, but members of the Board of Education. Though still primitive to my city eyes, they no longer appeared remote. Something in their names and voices touched me nearly. They were American. Their militant social democracy was at once comical and corrective.

  O, the peace, the sweetness of those days! To be awakened by the valiant challenge of early-rising roosters; to hear the chuckle of dawn-light worm-hunting robins brought a return of boy-hood's exultation. Not only did my muscles ha
rden to the spade and the hoe, my soul rejoiced in a new and delightful sense of establishment. I had returned to citizenship. I was a proprietor. The clock of the seasons had resumed its beat.

  Hiring a gardener, I bought a hand-book on Horticulture and announced my intent to make those four fat acres feed my little flock. I was now a land enthusiast. My feet laid hold upon the earth. I almost took root!

  With what secret satisfaction I planned to widen the front porch and build a two-story bay-window on the north end of the sitting room—an enterprise of such audacity that I kept it strictly to myself! It meant the extravagant outlay of nearly two hundred dollars—but above and beyond that, it involved cutting a hole in the wall and cluttering up the yard; therefore I thought it best to keep my plot hidden from my mother till mid-summer gave more leisure to us all.

  My notebook of that spring is crowded with descriptions, almost lyrical, of the glory of sunsets and the beauty of bird-song and budding trees—even the loud-voiced, cheerful democracy of the village was grateful to me.

  "Yesterday I was deep in the tumult of Chicago," runs the entry, "to-day, I am hoeing in my sun-lit garden, hearing the mourning-dove coo and the cat-birds cry. Last night as the sun went down the hill-tops to the west became vividly purple with a subtle illusive deep-crimson glow beneath, while the sky above their tops, a saffron dome rose almost to the zenith. These mystical things are here joined: The trill of black-birds near at hand, the cackle of barn-yard fowls, the sound of hammers, a plowman talking to his team, the pungent smoke of burning leaves, the cool, sweet, spring wind and the glowing down-pouring sunshine—all marvelous and satisfying to me and mine. This is home!"