The Boy Settlers: A Story of Early Times in Kansas

“And did they really trust you three boys for your passage-money? How did that happen?” asked the merchant, with admiration.

Charlie, as spokesman, explained that Sandy had “sparred” their way for them; and when he had told how Sandy still owed for a pack of cards, and how it was his honest face and candid way of doing things that had brought them thus far on their homeward journey, Uncle Oscar, laughing heartily and quite unbending from his formal and dry way of talking, said, “Well done, my little red-hot Abolitionist; you’ll get through this world, I’ll be bound.” He bade the wanderers farewell and goodspeed with much impressiveness and sent messages of good-will to their parents.

“How do you suppose Uncle Oscar knew I was an Abolitionist?” demanded Sandy, as soon as they were out of earshot. “I’m not an Abolitionist, anyhow.”

“Well, you’re a free-State man; and that’s the same thing,” said Charlie. “A free-State boy,” added Oscar.

With a proud heart the cashier of the Boy Settlers paid their bill at the hotel, and reclaimed their valise from the porter, with whom they had lodged it in the morning before going out. Then they hurried to the levee, and, to their surprise, found that the little steamer that conveyed passengers across the river to the East St. Louis railway station lay close alongside the “New Lucy.” Their task of transferring the baggage was easy.

“Say, Sandy, you made the bargain with the clerk to bring us down here on the security of our luggage; it’s nothing more than business-like that you should pay him what we owe,” said Charlie.

“Right you are, Charlie,” added Oscar, “and it’s fair that Sandy, who has had the bother of sparring our way for us, should have the proud satisfaction of paying up all old scores.” So Sandy, nothing loth, took the roll of bills and marched bravely up to the clerk’s office and paid the money due. The handsome clerk looked approvingly at the boy, and said: “Found your friends? Good boy! Well, I wish you good luck.”

The barkeeper said he had forgotten all about the pack of cards that he had trusted Sandy with, when the lad gave him the seventy-five cents due him. “I can’t always keep account of these little things,” he explained.

“But you don’t often trust anybody with cards coming down the river, do you?” asked Sandy, surprised.

“Heaps,” said the barkeeper.

“And do they always pay?”

“Some of ’em does, and then ag’in, some of ’em doesn’t,” replied the man, as with a yawn he turned away to rearrange his bottles and glasses.

With the aid of a lounger on the landing, whom they thought they could now afford to fee for a quarter, the youngsters soon transferred their luggage from the “New Lucy” to the little ferry-boat near at hand. To their great pleasure, they found on board the pleasant-faced lady from Baltimore and her party. She was apparently quite as pleased to meet them, and she expressed her regret that they were not going eastward on the train with herself and sons. “We have had such a pleasant trip down the river together,” she said. “And you are going back to Illinois? Will you return to Kansas in the spring?”

“We cannot tell yet,” replied Charlie, modestly. “That all depends upon how things look in the spring, and what father and Uncle Aleck think about it. We are free-State people, and we want to see the Territory free, you see.”

The pleasant-faced lady’s forehead was just a little clouded when she said, “You will have your labor lost, if you go to Kansas, then; for it will certainly be a slave State.”

They soon were in the cars with their tickets for Dixon bought, and, as Sandy exultingly declared, paid for, and their baggage checked all the way through. Then Sandy said, “I’m sorry that pretty lady from Baltimore is a Border Ruffian.”

The other two boys shouted with laughter, and Oscar cried: “She’s no Border Ruffian. She’s only pro-slavery; and so is Uncle Oscar and lots of others. You ought to be ashamed of yourself to be so–what is it, Charlie? Intolerant, that’s what it is.”

The train was slowly moving from the rude shed that was dignified by the name of railroad depot. Looking back at the river with their heads out of the windows, for the track lay at right angles with the river bank, they could now see the last of the noble stream on which they had taken their journey downwards from “bleeding Kansas” by the Big Muddy. They were nearing home, and their hearts were all the lighter for the trials and troubles through which they had so lately passed.

“We don’t cross the prairies as of old our fathers crossed the sea, any more, do we, Charlie?” said Oscar, as they caught their last glimpse of the mighty Mississippi.

“No,” said the elder lad. “We may not be there to see it; but Kansas will be the homestead of the free, for all that. Mind what I say.”