CHAPTER VI.

Paton Wilson was a prominent citizen of that neighborhood; in fact, he was well known through all that region. He owned a large scope of that country and was a member of the Territorial Legislature. I remember Mr. Wilson as a strong, robust man, not far from fifty years old, with a pleasant way of treating young people. He was easily approached, and at the same time one felt that he was a superior person and a leader among men. He and his wife were excellent neighbors, as we had reason to know. The Wilsons ministered to the sick and helped the less thrifty in various ways, without seeming to think they were doing anything unusual or remarkable. One evening soon after I went to that neighborhood one of the Wilson girls asked me to go with her to see a sick man who lived about a half a mile away. As we were about to start, Mrs. Wilson came out of the kitchen with a good-sized basket rounded up with something which we couldn't see, for a nice linen towel was spread over it and tied down with a string. As she handed it to us she said: "Girls, you may be needed there to sit up, for Allen is very low. I have put some things in this basket for Celia and the children; if there is nobody else there you had better stay all night; you will find a dried apple-pie at the bottom, which you can eat if you get hungry in the night. Give the rest to Celia, and tell her when she needs anything to send me word. I don't think that poor man is going to live long."

Ursula Wilson and I went tripping across a field and over a little strip of prairie to the miserable little cabin where that poor man was dying. It was nearly dark, and when we entered we could hardly see the poor, forlorn-looking woman crouched down by the fireplace with a little child in her arms; another little pitiful-looking child about four years old was standing by her. Ursula sat the basket down and spoke to the woman, who seemed hardly to have life enough to notice us. The cabin was like many others thereabout. Only one room, a very small window in one side, a door on the other, a very much botched-up stone fireplace and chimney.

Ursula was one of the kind of girls who take in the situation, and didn't stand on ceremony. She threw off her bonnet and shawl, took up the wooden poker and stirred the dying chunks, and soon had a blaze which lighted that miserable hovel sufficiently to enable us to see in one corner a poor, scantily-furnished bed on which was lying a poor, emaciated creature with his knees drawn up with rheumatism, and set, so that he couldn't possibly straighten them down. Poor Allen was past taking nourishment. Though we offered it to him, he could do nothing but moan and motion it away. The hearth was made of flat stones of irregular shape and very poorly put together. The floor was loose, and rattled as we walked over it. Another bed, like to the one on which the sick man lay, was in another corner; three or four splint-bottom chairs, a square rickety table, a few cooking utensils, and a very meager supply of dishes constituted the furnishings of that wretched abode. Ursula asked the woman if she expected anyone there that night to sit up, to which she replied: "Wash. Lyon was here to-day and he said he would come to-night and stay awhile. Ursula took the towel off and laid the contents of the basket on the table-all except the dried apple pie; she spread the towel over that, and placed the basket on the shelf where the three or four plates and cups were kept. Ursula said not a word as she took from that basket a loaf of salt-rising bread, a piece of bacon, a roll of butter, a bowl of plum sauce, a package of sugar, another of coffee, and two tallow candles. When she was sure she had placed everything on the table her mother intended for Celia, she said: "Here are some things mother sent you, thinking perhaps you had very little time to do cooking, and these would help you a little." The poor woman may have felt grateful, but she didn't seem to know how to express her gratitude. We urged her to go to bed with her children; we would watch by her husband and call her if necessary. She acted on our advice, but before doing so she and her little girl each ate a big slice of that bread spread with butter and plum sauce.

I lighted one of the candles and looked around for a candle-stick, but finding none, I improvised by wrapping a rag around the unlighted end and sticking it in the mouth of a jug which I found under the table. That night was not very cold, but too cold to do without fire. Ursula and I went out and looked for wood to replenish the fire. We found some scattered around but it was not very plentiful. Just as we were in the act of picking up that scanty supply of wood, a gentleman came walking toward us. Ursula introduced him to me as Mr. Lyon. The first thing Mr. Lyon did was to snatch up an axe and go to chopping on a log. We went in the house and presently, Mr. Lyon came in with a tremendous armful of wood and deposited it in the corner of the fire-place, which was at least six feet wide. He laid two or three sticks on the fire, then went to the sick man. I will never forget the tenderness in his voice as he bent over that sick man and asked him if he knew him and wasn't there something he wanted? He tenderly adjusted the poor man's pillow and shabby quilt, then sat down by the fire and entered into a conversation with us. He had a pleasant, honest looking face, dark hair and eyes, was a little above medium height; altogether he was a manly looking man. He replenished the fire occasionally through the night, brought in a bucket of water, and some time during the night Ursula took down that dried apple pie and we three ate it.

That man Allen, like many others in that region, had come a few years before when land could be bought very low. He had a little money, bought a quarter section of unimproved land, built the cabin which I have described, broke some prairie, made rails and fenced a considerable field. He worked early and late, exposed to cold and
heat and rain and dew. Some men could have done all that and came out apparently sound, but Allen broke down, and, when I first saw him he had been a whole year confined to his bed, and was dying amidst those wretched surroundings. His poor worn-out wife hardly had life enough left to feel sorrow or joy or gratitude.

A few days after that memorable night, I attended his burial. There was a kind of a crude carpenter and cabinet-maker not far away who had a shop in his home and made coffins. This cabinet-maker's name was Whitacre. I remember seeing he and his son bring in the coffin for Allen. It was a respectable looking coffin, but hardly deep enough to take in those poor bent knees, and they had to press them down to get the lid on. Mr. Whitacre then took a hammer and great big nails and fastened down the lid of that coffin. I had seen coffin lids fastened down with screws and a screw driver, but never before nor since have I seen a poor dead body shut up in a way that looked and sounded so horrible to me as that did. I looked around and wondered how that poor wife must feel on hearing that cruel pounding on her husband's coffin. The poor, shabbily-dressed, forlornlooking creature was sitting by the corner of the fireplace with tears streaming down her face, and her little frightened-looking children were crouching down by her. The Wilsons and Mr. Lyon were there, and several others, with wagons to go with them to the grave. Mr. Wilson furnished a wagon to take the corpse, and Mrs. Wilson brought a clean white sheet to spread over the coffin as it was being taken to the grave. Mr. Wilson's hired man drove the team and the Wilsons took the poor woman in with them, and after the funeral they took them to their own home and kept them for days.

The people about there, even those who were called "well off," had very few of the comforts of life. Some had large bodies of land, big prairie plows, long strings of oxen, and thousands of bushels of corn. But only Mr. Wilson's and two other families that I became acquainted with had so much as a strip of rag carpet on their floors. Everybody cooked by a fire-place; not even the Wilsons had a cooking stove. There were ledges of stone along Cedar Creek that looked almost like they had been laid up by a mason, and they were so easily taken out that everybody had a stone chimney and a big stone hearth. Timber was plentiful along that creek, and everybody who 'owned a prairie farm also had a piece of timber on the creek. Skunk river was only a mile or two away.

I soon became quite well acquainted with Mr. Lyon, who knew the country and the people all over Henry County. When he learned that I had taught one term of school in Indiana, and would like to teach a school somewhere about there if I could get one, he offered to assist me. In a day or two after, he came to see me and said he thought he had found the place. Just north of Mt. Pleasant was a splendid neighborhood, where they wanted a teacher; there was a good school-house, and that was considered one of the best country schools he knew of. There were no public schools or school fund then, but the neighborhood had organized themselves into a school district and had appointed two prominent citizens to act as directors, to examine and employ teachers. Mr. Lyon had seen those directors and talked with them about me; they told him to have me draw up an agreement and come to see them, bringing the article with me. Mr. Lyon proposed to go with me and introduce me to said directors. This was in March, 1844; and that was an early Spring. The prairies were green and trees beginning to put out in March. Mr. Lyon appointed a day to go, and I went to work to brush up in my grammar and geography. One of those directors was Esquire McMillen and the other Esquire Smith. Esquire McMillen was also called "Colonel." I felt a little afraid of those high-sounding titles, but kept my courage up as well as I could, and went on with my nouns and verbs and moods and tenses, &c. I felt pretty confident of my ability in the rudiments of arithmetic, and geography didn't worry me, for I had learned to singmy geography, and had every body of water, peninsula, cape, isthmus, mountain, island and capital in the known world at my tongue's end. I was not called upon to teach grammar in the school I taught in Indiana, but I didn't know what abstruse sentences those titled and supposed to be learned directors might call on me to parse.

When the morning came on which I was to start on that momentous trip, I was up bright and early, dressed myself to look as well as possible, then had a handsome black horse which we called "Coby " saddled. About the time I was ready to go Mr. Lyon came dashing up on a handsome bay. I was at home in the saddle in those days, and was not afraid to jump ditches nor any other thing that usually came in the way of horseback riders.

It was a bright Spring morning and the road was fine. Farmers were plowing and sowing oats, cattle. were grazing on the prairies, and birds were singing. I was young and the world looked so bright, that I would have been very happy had it not been for the dread of the ordeal I thought I would have to go through in being examined by those august school directors. Mr. Lyon seemed to know every man, woman, and child along the road. He was a pleasant talker, and interested and amused me by telling their history and relating incidents and anecdotes of his own experience since coming to Iowa. I had never seen Skunk river, and when we came in sight of it I was surprised to see a river so wide and clear and shallow as that classic stream is in Henry county. The water was clear as crystal, running over a rocky and gravelly bed. It wasn't more than knee deep to our horses. There was a large mill just above the ford, and the water pouring over the dam made a sound I always like to hear. Mr. Lyon informed me that was "Wilson's Mill"; not Mr. Paton Wilson but another Wilson. After we crossed Skunk river our road led through some fine woods. We crossed a creek called Big creek which seemed to me was "big" enough to be called a river. After going through the woods bordering on Big creek we came out on the open prairie and in sight of Mt. Pleasant. The town stood out in bold relief, and the country all around looked charming. The prairies had been burned off, the grass was coming up, and it had the appearance of a great smooth-mown lawn. As we passed through the town I noticed a clean, respectable look all about the houses and streets. Therewere churches and many comfortable
looking dwellings. Everything I saw in or about Mt. Pleasant had to me the appearance of respectability and thrift.

After we had passed Mt. Pleasant and gone perhaps a mile, Mr. Lyon pointed to a farm-house a little way ahead, and remarked: "That is Colonel McMillen's." I felt that the time had come for me to brace up, and "put my best foot foremost." I had told Mr. Lyon on the way that I was afraid I would be so embarrassed when the Colonel began putting me through what I supposed would be a fearful ordeal that I wouldn't be able to tell the little I did know. We rode up to the gate, alighted from our horses, and as we started toward the door Mr. Lyon remarked: "Don't you worry; you will get along all right." His words gave me courage. We went into what seemed to be the sitting-room, met two ladies, .one an elderly, pleasant-looking lady, whom Mr. Lyon introduced as Mrs. McMillen, and the young lady as Miss McMillen. They received us politely and asked us to be seated, but Mr. Lyon hastened to inform them that we wished to see the Colonel on business. The young lady ushered us into an adjoining room and into the presence of the Colonel, who was sitting by a table which was covered with papers and writing material. The Colonel being a justice of the peace, I took that to be his office. He was writing when we went in, but looked up, and recognizing Mr. Lyon, arose and shook his hand. Mr. Lyon then introduced me. I offered the Colonel my hand, which he grasped in a manner sufficiently cordial to dispel to some degree my fears. Colonel McMillen was a dignified, elderly gentleman, dark-complexioned, his hair sprinkled with gray. After making a few remarks to Mr. Lyon about the weather, he addressed me in this way:

"Well, Miss Hobbs, you, I presume, are the young lady that Mr. Lyon has been telling me about, who would like to teach school for us? I answered, "That is what I came to see you about, and if you think me capable, and we can agree on terms, I will be pleased to teach your school." I proceeded to show him the article I had drawn up. He adjusted his glasses, read it over carefully, then looking me-straight in the face, said: "Young lady, did you write this?" I said, "Yes, sir, I wrote it." In my article I proposed to teach reading, spelling, writing, geography, arithmetic, and English grammar. He reached up to a shelf above his table and took down a book which I could see was a "Kirkham's grammar." He opened the book at the author's preface, handed it to me, and asked me to read. I read a few paragraphs, about half a page, when he remarked, "That will do." I handed the book to him. He took it, turned a few leaves, and then came the questioning, which I had been looking forward to with fear and trembling. I was pretty familiar with Kirkham's grammar and noticed that he opened the book at any easy place, and where the answers as well as the questions were before him. He kept his eyes on the book as he proceeded to propound the following questions:

What is grammar? What is orthography? What is a noun? What is a verb? When I had answered the foregoing questions seemingly to the Colonel's satisfaction, he then proceeded to examine me in geography. His questions were as follows: What is the name of the country we live in? What is the capital of the United States? What is the longest river in the United States? What is an island? He asked another question or two about as difficult, and then seemed to think be had gone far enough to satisfy himself that I was qualified to teach. He wrote a note and sealed it, directed to "Thomas Smith, Esq.," handed it to me and told me to give that to Esquire Smith. He further said: The Squire's daughter, Miss Jane Smith, taught our school last summer and took her pay in farm produce, and if you will do the same, providing Esquire Smith is satisfied with your qualifications when you talk with him, I think we can give you a large school. Money is scarce and hard to obtain, and business is carried on here by exchanging one commodity for another. You can trade your produce to the merchants in Mt. Pleasant for dry goods. Every one of your patrons will agree to deliver the produce to any mercantile house you may designate in the town. There is plenty of farm produce but very little money in this region."