The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 43, May, 1861

Nothing more was needed; our faces told the rest.

"Now Heaven be praised," she replied, "that we are still to have you with us! I could not help thinking, that, if you only knew how much we cared for you, you would not have been in such a hurry to leave us." And she glanced significantly towards Jane.

The rest of the evening was spent in the most interesting explanations. I passed the night at the village inn, as I had intended,—passed it, not in sleep, but in planning and replanning, and in trying to persuade myself that "Pink and Blue" was my own to keep.

The next day I spent at the Woods'. It was the first really happy day of my life. In the afternoon, I took a long walk with Jane, through green lanes, and orchards white and fragrant with blossoms. In the evening, the family assembled, and we held sweet council together. It was decided unanimously, that, situated as I was, there was no reason for delaying the wedding,—that I should repossess myself of the furniture I had given away, by giving new in exchange, the old being dearer to both Jane and myself,—and, finally, that our wedding should be very quiet, and should take place as soon as Jane could be got ready. Through it all I sat like one in a dream, assenting to everything, for everything seemed very desirable.

As soon as possible, I reopened my house, and established myself there with the same little servant. It took Jane about a month to get ready, and it took me some years to feel wholly my own happiness.

The old house is still standing; but after Mrs. Wood died, and Ellen was married, we moved into the village; for the railroad came very near us, cutting right through the path "across the field." I had the bodies of my father and mother removed to the new cemetery.

My wife has been to me a lifelong blessing, my heart's joy and comfort. They who have not tried it can never know how much love there is in a woman's heart. The pink still lingers on her cheek, and her blue eye has that same expression which so bewitched me in my younger days. The spell has never been broken. I am an old man and she is an old woman, and, though I don't do it before folks, lest they call us two old fools, yet, when I come in and find her all alone, I am free to own that I do hug and kiss her, and always mean to. If anybody is inclined to laugh, let him just come and see how beautiful she is.

Our sons are away now, and all our daughters are married but one. I'm glad they haven't taken her,—she looks so much as her mother did when I first knew her. Her name is Jane Wood Allen. She goes in the village by the name of Jennie Allen; but I like Jane better,—Jane Wood.

That is a true account of "How I won my wife."

POMEGRANATE-FLOWERS

The street was narrow, close, and dark,And flanked with antique masonry,The shelving eaves left for an arkBut one long strip of summer sky.But one long line to bless the eye—The thin white cloud lay not so high,Only some brown bird, skimming nigh,From wings whence all the dew was dryShook down a dream of forest scents,Of odorous blooms and sweet contents,Upon the weary passers-by.Ah, few but haggard brows had partBelow that street's uneven crown,And there the murmurs of the martSwarmed faint as hums of drowsy noon.With voices chiming in quaint tuneFrom sun-soaked hulls long wharves adown,The singing sailors rough and brownWon far melodious renown,Here, listening children ceasing play,And mothers sad their well-a-way,In this old breezy sea-board town.Ablaze on distant banks she knew,Spreading their bowls to catch the sun,Magnificent Dutch tulips grewWith pompous color overrun.By light and snow from heaven wonTheir misty web azaleas spun;Low lilies pale as any nun,Their pensile bells rang one by one;And spicing all the summer airGold honeysuckles everywhereTheir trumpets blew in unison.Than where blood-cored carnations stoodShe fancied richer hues might be,Scents rarer than the purple hoodCurled over in the fleur-de-lis.Small skill in learned names had she,Yet whatso wealth of land or seaHad ever stored her memory,She decked its varied imageryWhere, in the highest of the rowUpon a sill more white than snow,She nourished a pomegranate-tree.Some lover from a foreign clime,Some roving gallant of the main,Had brought it on a gay spring-time,And told her of the nacar stainThe thing would wear when bloomed again.Therefore all garden growths in vainTheir glowing ranks swept through her brain,The plant was knit by subtile chainTo all the balm of Southern zones,The incenses of Eastern thrones,The tinkling hem of Aaron's train.The almond shaking in the sunOn some high place ere day begin,Where winds of myrrh and cinnamonBetween the tossing plumes have been,It called before her, and its kinThe fragrant savage balaustineGrown from the ruined ravelinThat tawny leopards couch them in;But this, if rolling in from seasIt only caught the salt-fumed breeze,Would have a grace they might not win.And for the fruit that it should bring,One globe she pictured, bright and near,Crimson, and throughly perfumingAll airs that brush its shining sphere.In its translucent atmosphereAfrite and Princess reappear,—Through painted panes the scattered spearOf sunrise scarce so warm and clear,—And pulped with such a golden juice,Ambrosial, that one cannot chooseBut find the thought most sumptuous cheer.Of all fair women she was queen,And all her beauty, late and soon,O'ercame you like the mellow sheenOf some serene autumnal noon.Her presence like a sweetest tuneAccorded all your thoughts in one.Than last year's alder-tufts in JuneBrowner, yet lustrous as a moonHer eyes glowed on you, and her hairWith such an air as princes wearShe trimmed black-braided in a crown.A perfect peace prepared her days,Few were her wants and small her care,No weary thoughts perplexed her ways,She hardly knew if she were fair.Bent lightly at her needle thereIn that small room stair over stair,All fancies blithe and debonairShe deftly wrought on fabrics rare,All clustered moss, all drifting snow,All trailing vines, all flowers that blow,Her daedal fingers laid them bare.Still at the slowly spreading leavesShe glanced up ever and anon,If yet the shadow of the eavesHad paled the dark gloss they put on.But while her smile like sunlight shone,The life danced to such blossom blownThat all the roses ever known,Blanche of Provence, Noisette, or Yonne,Wore no such tint as this pale streakThat damasked half the rounding cheekOf each bud great to bursting grown.And when the perfect flower lay free,Like some great moth whose gorgeous wingsFan o'er the husk unconsciously,Silken, in airy balancings,—She saw all gay dishevellingsOf fairy flags, whose revellingsIllumine night's enchanted rings.So royal red no blood of kingsShe thought, and Summer in the roomSealed her escutcheon on their bloom,In the glad girl's imaginings.Now, said she, in the heart of the woodsThe sweet south-winds assert their power,And blow apart the snowy snoodsOf trilliums in their thrice-green bower.Now all the swamps are flushed with dowerOf viscid pink, where, hour by hour,The bees swim amorous, and a showerReddens the stream where cardinals tower.Far lost in fern of fragrant stirHer fancies roam, for unto herAll Nature came in this one flower.Sometimes she set it on the ledgeThat it might not be quite forlornOf wind and sky, where o'er the edge,Some gaudy petal, slowly borne,Fluttered to earth in careless scorn,Caught, for a fallen piece of mornFrom kindling vapors loosely shorn,By urchins ragged and wayworn,Who saw, high on the stone embossed,A laughing face, a hand that tossedA prodigal spray just freshly torn.What wizard hints across them fleet,—These heirs of all the town's thick sin,Swift gypsies of the tortuous street,With childhood yet on cheek and chin!What voices dropping through the dinAn airy murmuring begin,—These floating flakes, so fine and thin,Were they and rock-laid earth akin?Some woman of the gods was she,The generous maiden in her glee?And did whole forests grow within?A tissue rare as the hoar-frost,White as the mists spring dawns condemn,The shadowy wrinkles round her lost,She wrought with branch and anadem,Through the fine meshes netting them,Pomegranate-flower and leaf and stem.Dropping it o'er her diademTo float below her gold-stitched hem,Some duchess through the court should sailHazed in the cloud of this white veil,As when a rain-drop mists a gem.Her tresses once when this was done,—Vanished the skein, the needle bare,—She dressed with wreaths vermilionBright as a trumpet's dazzling blare.Nor knew that in Queen Dido's hair,Loading the Carthaginian air,Ancestral blossoms flamed as fairAs any ever hanging there.While o'er her cheek their scarlet gleamShot down a vivid varying beam,Like sunshine on a brown-bronzed pear.And then the veil thrown over her,The vapor of the snowy laceFell downward, as the gossamerTossed from the autumn winds' wild raceFalls round some garden-statue's grace.Beneath, the blushes on her faceFled with the Naiad's shifting chaseWhen flashing through a watery space.And in the dusky mirror glancedA splendid phantom, where there dancedAll brilliances in paler trace.A spicery of sweet perfume,As if from regions rankly greenAnd these rich hoards of bud and bloom,Lay every waft of air between.Out of some heaven's unfancied screenThe gorgeous vision seemed to lean.The Oriental kings have seenLess beauty in their daïs-queen,And any limner's pencil thenHad drawn the eternal love of men,But twice Chance will not intervene.For soon with scarce a loving sighShe lifts it off half unaware,While through the clinging folds held high,Arachnean in a silver snareHer rosy fingers nimbly fare,Till gathered square with dainty care.But still she leaves the flowery flare—Such as Dame Venus' self might wear—Where first she placed them, since they blowMore bounteous color hanging so,And seem more native to the air.Anon the mellow twilight cameWith breath of quiet gently freedFrom sunset's felt but unseen flame.Then by her casement wheeled in speedStrange films, and half the wings indeedThat steam in rainbows o'er the mead,Now magnified in mystery, leadGreat revolutions to her heed.And leaning out, the night o'erhead,Wind-tossed in many a shining thread,Hung one long scarf of glittering brede.Then as it drew its streamers there,And furled its sails to fill and flauntAlong fresh firmaments of airWhen ancient morn renewed his chant,—She sighed in thinking on the plantDrooping so languidly aslant;Fancied some fierce noon's forest-hauntWhere wild red things loll forth and pant,Their golden antlers wave, and stillSigh for a shower that shall distilThe largess gracious nights do grant.The oleanders in the SouthDrape gray hills with their rose, she thought,The yellow-tasselled broom through drouthBathing in half a heaven is caught.Jasmine and myrtle flowers are soughtBy winds that leave them fragrance-fraught.To them the wild bee's path is taught,The crystal spheres of rain are brought,Beside them on some silent sprayThe nightingales sing night away,The darkness wooes them in such sort.But this, close shut beneath a roof,Knows not the night, the tranquil spell,The stillness of the wildwood ouphe,The magic dropped on moor and fell.No cool dew soothes its fiery shell,Nor any star, a red sardel,Swings painted there as in a well.Dyed like a stream of muscadelNo white-skinned snake coils in its cupTo drink its soul of sweetness up,A honeyed hermit in his cell.No humming-bird in emerald coat,Shedding the light, and bearing fainHis ebon spear, while at his throatThe ruby corselet sparkles plain,On wings of misty speed astainWith amber lustres, hangs amain,And tireless hums his happy strain;Emperor of some primeval reign,Over the ages sails to spillThe luscious juice of this, and thrillIts very heart with blissful pain.As if the flowers had taken flightOr as the crusted gems should shootFrom hidden hollows, or as the lightHad blossomed into prisms to fluteIts secret that before was mute,Atoms where fire and tint dispute,No humming-birds here hunt their fruit.No burly bee with banded suitHere dusts him, no full ray by stealthSifts through it stained with warmer wealthWhere fair fierce butterflies salute.Nor night nor day brings to my tree,She thought, the free air's choice extremes,But yet it grows as joyfullyAnd floods my chamber with its beams,So that some tropic land it seemsWhere oranges with ruddy gleams,And aloes, whose weird flowers the creamsOf long rich centuries one deems,Wave through the softness of the gloom,—And these may blush a deeper bloomBecause they gladden so my dreams.The sudden street-lights in moresqueBroke through her tender murmuring,And on her ceiling shades grotesqueReeled in a bacchanalian swing.Then all things swam, and like a ringOf bubbles welling from a springBreaking in deepest coloringFlower-spirits paid her minist'ring.Sleep, fusing all her senses, soonFanned over her in drowsy runeAll night long a pomegranate wing.* * * * *

THE PRAIRIE STATE

On the head-waters of the Wabash, near Lake Erie, we first meet with those grassy plains to which the early French explorers of the West gave the name of Prairies. In Southern Michigan, they become more frequent; in the State of Indiana, still more so; and when we arrive in Illinois, we find ourselves in the Prairie State proper, three-quarters of its territory being open meadow, or prairie. Southern Wisconsin is partly of this character, and, on crossing the Mississippi, most of the surface of both Iowa and Minnesota is also prairie.

Illinois, with little exception, is one vast prairie,—dotted, it is true, with groves, and intersected with belts of timber, but still one great open plain. This State, then, being the type of the prairie lands, a sketch of its history, political, physical, and agricultural, will tolerably well represent that of the whole prairie region.

The State of Illinois was originally part of Florida, and belonged to Spain, by the usual tenure of European title in the sixteenth century, when the King of France or Spain was endowed by His Holiness with half a continent; the rights of the occupants of the soil never for a moment being considered. So the Spaniard, in 1541, having planted his flag at the mouth of the Mississippi, became possessed of the whole of the vast region watered by its tributary streams, and Illinois and Wisconsin became Spanish colonies, and all their native inhabitants vassals of His Most Catholic Majesty. The settlement of the country was, however, never attempted by the Spaniards, who devoted themselves to their more lucrative colonies in South America.

The French missionaries and fur-traders found their way from Canada into these parts at an early day; and in 1667 Robert de la Salle made his celebrated explorations, in which he took possession of the territory of Illinois in behalf of the French crown. And here we may remark, that the relations of the Jesuits and early explorers give a delightful picture of the native inhabitants of the prairies. Compared with their savage neighbors, the Illini seem to have been a favored people. The climate was mild, and the soil so fertile as to afford liberal returns even to their rude husbandry; the rivers and lakes abounded in fish and fowl; the groves swarmed with deer and turkeys,—bustards the French called them, after the large gallinaceous bird which they remembered on the plains of Normandy; and the vast expanse of the prairies was blackened by herds of wild cattle, or buffaloes. The influence of this fair and fertile land seems to have been felt by its inhabitants. They came to meet Father Marquette, offering the calumet, brilliant with many-colored plumes, with the gracious greeting,—"How beautiful is the sun, O Frenchman, when thou comest to us! Thou shalt enter in peace all our dwellings." A very different reception from that offered by the stern savages of Jamestown and Plymouth to John Smith and Miles Standish! So, in peace and plenty, remained for many years this paradise in the prairies.

About the year 1700, Illinois was included in Louisiana, and came under the sway of Louis XIV., who, in 1712, presented to Anthony Crozat the whole territory of Louisiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin,—a truly royal gift!

The fortunate recipient, however, having spent vast sums upon the territory without any returns, surrendered his grant to the crown a few years afterwards; and a trading company, called the Company of the Indies, was got up by the famous John Law, on the basis of these lands. The history of that earliest of Western land-speculations is too well known to need repetition; suffice it to say, that it was conducted upon a scale of magnificence in comparison with which our modern imitations in 1836 and 1856 were feeble indeed. A monument of it stood not many years ago upon the banks of the Mississippi, in the ruins of Fort Chartres, which was built by Law when at the height of his fortune, at a cost of several millions of livres, and which toppled over into the river in a recent inundation.

In 1759 the French power in North America was broken forever by Wolfe, upon the Plains of Abraham; and in 1763, by the Treaty of Paris, all the French possessions upon this continent were ceded to England, and the territory of the Illinois became part of the British empire.

Pontiac, the famous Ottawa chief, after fighting bravely on the French side through the war, refused to be transferred with the territory; he repaired to Illinois, where he was killed by a Peoria Indian. His tribe, the Ottawas, with their allies, the Pottawattomies and Chippewas, in revenge, made war upon the Peorias and their confederates, the Kaskaskias and Cahoklas, in which contest these latter tribes were nearly exterminated.

At this time, the French population of Illinois amounted to about three thousand persons, who were settled along the Mississippi and Illinois rivers, where their descendants remain to this day, preserving a well-defined national character in the midst of the great flood of Anglo-American immigration which rolls around them.

Illinois remained under British rule till the year 1778, when George Rogers Clarke, with four companies of Virginia rangers, marched from Williamsburg, a distance of thirteen hundred miles, through a hostile wilderness, captured the British posts of Kaskaskia and Cahokia, and annexed a territory larger than Great Britain to the new Republic. Many of Colonel Clarke's rangers, pleased with the beauty and fertility of the country, settled in Illinois; but the Indians were so numerous and hostile, that the settlers were obliged to live in fortified stations, or block-houses, and the population remained very scanty for many years.

In 1809 Illinois was made into a separate Territory, and Ninian Edwards appointed its first Governor.

During the War of 1812, Tecumseh, an Indian chief of remarkable ability, endeavored to form a coalition of all the tribes against the Americans, but with only partial success. He inflicted severe losses upon them, but was finally defeated and slain at the Battle of the Thames, leaving behind him the reputation of being the greatest hero and noblest patriot of his race.

In 1818, Illinois, then having a population of about forty-five thousand, was admitted into the Union. The State was formed out of that territory which by the Ordinance of 1787 was dedicated to freedom; but there was a strong party in the State who wished for the introduction of slavery, and in order to effect this it was necessary to call a convention to amend the Constitution. On this arose a desperate contest between the two principles, and it ended in the triumph of freedom. Among those opposed to the introduction of slavery were Morris Birkbeck, Governor Coles, David Blackwell, Judge Lockwood, and Daniel P. Cook. It was a fitting memorial of the latter, that the County of Cook, containing the great commercial city of Chicago, should bear his name. The names of the pro-slavery leaders we will leave to oblivion.

In 1824 the lead mines near Galena began to be worked to advantage, and thousands of persons from Southern Illinois and Missouri swarmed thither. The Illinoisans ran up the river in the spring, worked in the mines during the summer, and returned to their homes down the river in the autumn,—thus resembling in their migrations the fish so common in the Western waters, called the Sucker. It was also observed that great hordes of uncouth ruffians came up to the mines from Missouri, and it was therefore said that she had vomited forth all her worst population. Thenceforth the Missourians were called "Pukes," and the people of Illinois "Suckers."

From 1818 to 1830, the commerce of the State made but small progress. At this time, there were one or two small steamboats upon the Illinois River, but most of the navigation was carried on in keel-boats. The village merchants were mere retailers; they purchased no produce, except a few skins and furs, and a little beeswax and honey. The farmers along the rivers did their own shipping,—building flat-boats, which, having loaded with corn, flour, and bacon, they would float down to New Orleans, which was the only market accessible to them. The voyage was long, tedious, and expensive, and when the farmer arrived, he found himself in a strange city, where all were combined against him, and often he was cheated out of his property,—returning on foot by a long and dangerous journey to a desolate farm, which had been neglected during his absence. Thus two crops were sometimes lost in taking one to market.

The manners and customs of the people were simple and primitive. The costume of the men was a raccoon-skin cap, linsey hunting-shirt, buck-skin leggings and moccasons, with a butcher-knife in the belt. The women wore cotton or woollen frocks, striped with blue dye and Turkey-red, and spun, woven, and made with their own hands; they went barefooted and bareheaded, except on Sundays, when they covered the head with a cotton handkerchief. It is told of a certain John Grammar, for many years a representative from Union County, and a man of some note in the State councils, though he could neither read nor write, that in 1816, when he was first elected, lacking the necessary apparel, he and his sons gathered a large quantity of hazel-nuts, which they took to the nearest town and sold for enough blue strouding to make a suit of clothes. The pattern proved to be scanty, and the women of the household could only get out a very bob-tailed coat and leggings. With these Mr. Grammar started for Kaskaskia, the seat of government, and these he continued to wear till the passage of an appropriation bill enabled him to buy a civilized pair of breeches.

The distinctions in manners and dress between the higher and lower classes were more marked than at present; for while John Grammar wore blue strouding, we are told that Governor Edwards dressed in fine broadcloth, white-topped boots, and a gold-laced cloak, and rode about the country in a fine carriage, driven by a negro.

In those days justice was administered without much parade or ceremony. The judges held their courts mostly in log houses or in the bar-rooms of taverns, fitted up with a temporary bench for the judge, and chairs for the lawyers and jurors. At the first Circuit Court in Washington County, held by Judge John Reynolds, the sheriff, on opening the court, went out into the yard, and said to the people, "Boys, come in; our John is going to hold court." The judges were unwilling to decide questions of law, preferring to submit everything to the jury, and seldom gave them instructions, if they could avoid it. A certain judge, being ambitious to show his learning, gave very pointed directions to the jury, but they could not agree on a verdict. The judge asked the cause of their difference, when the foreman answered with great simplicity,—"Why, Judge, this 'ere's the difficulty: the jury wants to know whether that 'ar what you told us, when we went out, was r'aly the law, or whether it was on'y jist your notion."

In the spring of 1831, Black Hawk, a Sac chief, dissatisfied with the treaty by which his tribe had been removed across the Mississippi, recrossed the river at the head of three or four hundred warriors, and drove away the white settlers from his old lands near the mouth of the Rock River. This was considered an invasion of the State, and Governor Reynolds called for volunteers. Fifteen hundred men answered the summons, and the Indians were driven out. The next spring, however, Black Hawk returned with a larger force, and commenced hostilities by killing some settlers on Indian Creek, not far from Ottawa. A large force of volunteers was again called out, but in the first encounter the whites were beaten, which success encouraged the Sacs and Foxes so much that they spread themselves over the whole of the country between the Mississippi and the Lake, and kept up a desultory warfare for three or four months against the volunteer troops. About the middle of July, a body of volunteers under General Henry of Illinois pursued the Indians into Wisconsin, and by forced marches brought them to action near the Mississippi, before the United States troops, under General Atkinson, could come up. The Indians fought desperately, but were unable to stand long before the courage and superior numbers of the whites. They escaped across the river with the loss of nearly three hundred, killed in the action, or drowned in the retreat. The loss of the Illinois volunteers was about thirty, killed and wounded.