The Boy Settlers: A Story of Early Times in Kansas

Mr. Bryant smiled, and said that he was not afraid of Indians, but he thought that there might come a time when it would be desirable for a community to stand together as one man. “Are you a free-State man?” he asked Younkins. This was a home-thrust. Younkins came from a slave State; he was probably a pro-slavery man.

“I’m neither a free-State man nor yet a pro-slavery man,” he said, slowly, and with great deliberation. “I’m just for Younkins all the time. Fact is,” he continued, “where I came from most of us are pore whites. I never owned but one darky, and I had him from my grandfather. Ben and me, we sorter quarrelled-like over that darky. Ben, he thought he oughter had him, and I knowed my grandfather left him to me. So I sold him off, and the neighbors didn’t seem to like it. I don’t justly know why they didn’t like it; but they didn’t. Then Ben, he allowed that I had better light out. So I lit out, and here I am. No, I’m no free-State man, and then ag’in, I’m no man for slavery. I’m just for Younkins. Solomon Younkins is my name.”

Bryant was very clearly prejudiced in favor of the settler from the Republican Fork by this speech; and yet he thought it best to move on to the fort that day and take the matter into consideration.

So he said that if Younkins would accept the hospitality of their tent, the Dixon party would be glad to have him pass the night with them. Younkins had a horse on which he had ridden down from his place, and with which he had intended to reach home that night. But, for the sake of inducing the new arrivals to go up into his part of the country, he was willing to stay.

“I should think you would be afraid to leave your wife and baby all alone there in the wilderness,” said Sandy, regarding his new friend with evident admiration. “No neighbor nearer than Hunter’s Creek, did you say? How far off is that?”

“Well, a matter of six miles-like,” replied Younkins. “It isn’t often that I do leave them alone over night; but then I have to once in a while. My old woman, she doesn’t mind it. She was sort of skeary-like when she first came into the country; but she’s got used to it. We don’t want any neighbors. If you folks come up to settle, you’ll be on the other side of the river,” he said, with unsmiling candor. “That’s near enough–three or four miles, anyway.”

Fort Riley is about ten miles from Manhattan, at the forks of the Kaw. It was a long drive for one afternoon; but the settlers from Illinois camped on the edge of the military reservation that night. When the boys, curious to see what the fort was like, looked over the premises next morning, they were somewhat disappointed to find that the post was merely a quadrangle of buildings constructed of rough-hammered stone. A few frame houses were scattered about. One of these was the sutler’s store, just on the edge of the reservation. But, for the most part, the post consisted of two- or three-story buildings arranged in the form of a hollow square. These were barracks, officers’ quarters, and depots for the storage of military supplies and army equipments.

“Why, this is no fort!” said Oscar, contemptuously. “There isn’t even a stockade. What’s to prevent a band of Indians raiding through the whole place? I could take it myself, if I had men enough.”

His cousin Charlie laughed, and said: “Forts are not built out here nowadays to defend a garrison. The army men don’t propose to let the Indians get near enough to the post to threaten it. The fact is, I guess, this fort is only a depot-like, as our friend Younkins would say, for the soldiers and for military stores. They don’t expect ever to be besieged here; but if there should happen to be trouble anywhere along the frontier, then the soldiers would be here, ready to fly out to the rescue, don’t you see?”

“Yes,” answered Sandy; “and when a part of the garrison had gone to the rescue, as you call it, another party of redskins would swoop down and gobble up the remnant left at the post.”

“If I were you, Master Sandy,” said his brother, “I wouldn’t worry about the soldiers. Uncle Sam built this fort, and there are lots of others like it. I don’t know for sure, but my impression is that Uncle Sam knows what is best for the use of the military and for the defence of the frontier. So let’s go and take a look at the sutler’s store. I want to buy some letter-paper.”

The sutler, in those days, was a very important person in the estimation of the soldiers of a frontier post. Under a license from the War Department of the Government, he kept a store in which was everything that the people at the post could possibly need. Crowded into the long building of the Fort Riley sutler were dry-goods, groceries, hardware, boots and shoes, window-glass, rope and twine, and even candy of a very poor sort. Hanging from the ceiling of this queer warehouse were sides of smoked meat, strings of onions, oilcloth suits, and other things that were designed for the comfort or convenience of the officers and soldiers, and were not provided by the Government.

“I wonder what soldiers want of calico and ribbons,” whispered Sandy, with a suppressed giggle, as the three lads went prying about.

“Officers and soldiers have their wives and children here, you greeny,” said his brother, sharply. “Look out there and see ’em.”

And, sure enough, as Sandy’s eyes followed the direction of his brother’s, he saw two prettily dressed ladies and a group of children walking over the smooth turf that filled the square in the midst of the fort. It gave Sandy a homesick feeling, this sight of a home in the wilderness. Here were families of grown people and children, living apart from the rest of the world. They had been here long before the echo of civil strife in Kansas had reached the Eastern States, and before the first wave of emigration had touched the head-waters of the Kaw. Here they were, a community by themselves, uncaring, apparently, whether slavery was voted up or down. At least, some such thought as this flitted through Sandy’s mind as he looked out upon the leisurely life of the fort, just beginning to stir.

All along the outer margin of the reservation were grouped the camps of emigrants; not many of them, but enough to present a curious and picturesque sight. There were a few tents, but most of the emigrants slept in or under their wagons. There were no women or children in these camps, and the hardy men had been so well seasoned by their past experiences, journeying to this far western part of the Territory, that they did not mind the exposure of sleeping on the ground and under the open skies. Soldiers from the fort, off duty and curious to hear the news from the outer world, came lounging around the camps and chatted with the emigrants in that cool, superior manner that marks the private soldier when he meets a civilian on equal footing, away from the haunts of men.

The boys regarded these uniformed military servants of the Government of the United States with great respect, and even with some awe. These, they thought to themselves, were the men who were there to fight Indians, to protect the border, and to keep back the rising tide of wild hostilities that might, if it were not for them, sweep down upon the feeble Territory and even inundate the whole Western country.

“Perhaps some of Black Hawk’s descendants are among the Indians on this very frontier,” said Oscar, impressively. “And these gold-laced chaps, with shoulder-straps on, are the Zack Taylors and the Robert Andersons who do the fighting,” added Charlie, with a laugh.

Making a few small purchases from the surly sutler of Fort Riley, and then canvassing with the emigrants around the reservation the question of routes and locations, our friends passed the forenoon. The elders of the party had anxiously discussed the comparative merits of the Smoky Hill and the Republican Fork country and had finally yielded to the attractions of a cabin ready-built in Younkins’s neighborhood, with a garden patch attached, and had decided to go in that direction.

“This is simply bully!” said Sandy Howell, as the little caravan turned to the right and drove up the north bank of the Republican Fork.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE SETTLERS AT HOME

A wide, shallow river, whose turbid waters were yellow with the freshets of early summer, shadowed by tall and sweeping cottonwoods and water-maples; shores gently sloping to the current, save where a tall and rocky bluff broke the prospect up stream; thickets of oaks, alders, sycamores, and persimmons–this was the scene on which the Illinois emigrants arrived, as they journeyed to their new home in the far West. On the north bank of the river, only a few hundred rods from the stream, was the log-cabin of Younkins. It was built on the edge of a fine bit of timber land, in which oaks and hickories were mingled with less valuable trees. Near by the cabin, and hugging closely up to it, was a thrifty field of corn and other garden stuff, just beginning to look promising of good things to come; and it was a refreshing sight here in the wilderness, for all around was the virgin forest and the unbroken prairie.

Younkins’s wife, a pale, sallow, and anxious-looking woman, and Younkins’s baby boy, chubby and open-eyed, welcomed the strangers without much show of feeling other than a natural curiosity. With Western hospitality, the little cabin was found large enough to receive all the party, and the floor was covered with blankets and buffalo-skins when they lay down to sleep their first night near their future home in the country of the Republican Fork. The boys were very happy that their journey was at an end. They had listened with delight while Younkins told stories of buffalo and antelope hunting, of Indian “scares,” and of the many queer adventures of settlers on this distant frontier.

“What is there west of this?” asked Charlie, as the party were dividing the floor and the shallow loft among themselves for the night.

“Nothing but Indians and buffalo,” said Younkins, sententiously.

“No settlers anywhere?” cried Sandy, eagerly.

“The next settlement west of here, if you can call it a settlement, is Fort Kearney, on the other side of the Platte. From here to there, there isn’t so much as a hunter’s camp, so far as I know.” This was Younkins’s last word, as he tumbled, half dressed, into his bunk in one corner of the cabin. Sandy hugged his brother Charlie before he dropped off to sleep, and whispered in his ear, “We’re on the frontier at last! It’s just splendid!”

Next day, leaving their cattle and wagon at the Younkins homestead, the party, piloted by their good-natured future neighbor, forded the Fork and went over into the Promised Land. The river was rather high as yet; for the snow, melting in the far-off Rocky Mountains as the summer advanced, had swollen all the tributaries of the Republican Fork, and the effects of the rise were to be seen far down on the Kaw. The newcomers were initiated into the fashion of the country by Younkins, who directed each one to take off all clothes but his shirt and hat. Then their garments were rolled up in bundles, each man and boy taking his own on his head, and wading deliberately into the water, the sedate Younkins being the leader.

It seemed a little dangerous. The stream was about one hundred rods wide, and the current was tolerably swift, swollen by the inrush of smaller streams above. The water was cold, and made an ominous swishing and gurgling among the underbrush that leaned into the margin of the river. In Indian file, Mr. Howell bringing up the rear, and keeping his eyes anxiously upon the lads before him, they all crossed in safety, Sandy, the shortest of the party, being unable to keep dry the only garment he had worn, for the water came well up under his arms.

“Well, that was funny, anyhow,” he blithely remarked, as he wrung the water out of his shirt, and, drying himself as well as he could, dressed and joined the rest of the party in the trip toward their future home.

Along the lower bank of the Republican Fork, where the new settlers now found themselves, the country is gently undulating. Bordering the stream they saw a dense growth of sycamores, cottonwoods, and birches. Some of these trees were tall and handsome, and the general effect on the minds of the newcomers was delightful. After they had emerged from the woods that skirted the river, they were in the midst of a lovely rolling prairie, the forest on the right; on their left was a thick growth of wood that marked the winding course of a creek which, rising far to the west, emptied into the Republican Fork at a point just below where the party had forded the stream. The land rose gradually from the point nearest the ford, breaking into a low, rocky bluff beyond at their right and nearest the river, a mile away, and rolling off to the southwest in folds and swales.

Just at the foot of the little bluff ahead, with a background of trees, was a log-cabin of hewn timber, weather-stained and gray in the summer sun, absolutely alone, and looking as if lost in this untrodden wild. Pointing to it, Younkins said, “That’s your house so long as you want it.”

The emigrants tramped through the tall, lush grass that covered every foot of the new Kansas soil, their eyes fixed eagerly on the log-cabin before them. The latch-string hung out hospitably from the door of split “shakes,” and the party entered without ado. Everything was just as Younkins had last left it. Two or three gophers, disturbed in their foraging about the premises, fled swiftly at the entrance of the visitors, and a flock of blackbirds, settled around the rear of the house, flew noisily across the creek that wound its way down to the Fork.

The floor was of puncheons split from oak logs, and laid loosely on rough-hewn joists. These rattled as the visitors walked over them. At one end of the cabin a huge fireplace of stone laid in clay yawned for the future comfort of the new tenants. Near by, a rude set of shelves suggested a pantry, and a table, home-made and equally rude, stood in the middle of the floor. In one corner was built a bedstead, two sides of the house furnishing two sides of the work, and the other two being made by driving a stake into the floor, and connecting that by string-pieces to the sides of the cabin. Thongs of buffalo-hide formed the bottom of this novel bedstead. A few stools and short benches were scattered about. Near the fireplace long and strong pegs, driven into the logs, served as a ladder, on which one could climb to the low loft overhead. Two windows, each of twelve small panes of glass, let in the light, one from the end of the cabin, and one from the back opposite the door, which was in the middle of the front. Outside, a frail shanty of shakes leaned against the cabin, affording a sort of outdoor kitchen for summer use.

“So this is home,” said Charlie, gazing about. “What will mother say to this–if she ever gets here?”

“Well, we’ve taken a heap of comfort here, my old woman and me,” said Younkins, looking around quickly, and with an air of surprise. “It’s a mighty comfortable house; leastways we think so.”

Charlie apologized for having seemed to cast any discredit on the establishment. Only he said that he did not suppose that his mother knew much about log-cabins. As for himself, he would like nothing better than this for a home for a long time to come. “For,” he added, roguishly, “you know we have come to make the West, ‘as they the East, the homestead of the free.’”

Mr. Younkins looked puzzled, but made no remark. The younger boys, after taking in the situation and fondly inspecting every detail of the premises, enthusiastically agreed that nothing could be finer than this. They darted out of doors, and saw a corral, or pound, in which the cattle could be penned up, in case of need. There was a small patch of fallow ground, that needed only to be spaded up to become a promising garden-spot. Then, swiftly running to the top of the little bluff beyond, they gazed over the smiling panorama of emerald prairie, laced with woody creeks, level fields, as yet undisturbed by the ploughshare, blue, distant woods and yet more distant hills, among which, to the northwest, the broad river wound and disappeared. Westward, nothing was to be seen but the green and rolling swales of the virgin prairie, broken here and there by an outcropping of rock. And as they looked, a tawny, yellowish creature trotted out from behind a roll of the prairie, sniffed in the direction of the boys, and then stealthily disappeared in the wildness of the vast expanse.

“A coyote,” said Sandy, briefly. “I’ve seen them in Illinois. But I wish I had my gun now.” His wiser brother laughed as he told him that it would be a long day before a coyote could be got near enough to be knocked over with any shot-gun. The coyote, or prairie-wolf, is the slyest animal that walks on four legs.

The three men and Charlie returned to the further side of the Fork, and made immediate preparations to move all their goods and effects to the new home of the emigrants. Sandy and Oscar, being rather too small to wade the stream without discomfort, while it was so high, were left on the south bank to receive the returning party.

There the boys sat, hugely enjoying the situation, while the others were loading the wagon and yoking the oxen on the other side. The lads could hear the cheery sounds of the men talking, although they could not see them through the trees that lined the farther bank of the river. The flow of the stream made a ceaseless lapping against the brink of the shore. A party of catbirds quarrelled sharply in the thicket hard by; quail whistled in the underbrush of the adjacent creek, and overhead a solitary eagle circled slowly around as if looking down to watch these rude invaders of the privacy of the dominion that had existed ever since the world began.

Hugging his knees in measureless content, as they sat in the grass by the river, Sandy asked, almost in a whisper, “Have you ever been homesick since we left Dixon, Oscar?”

“Just once, Sandy; and that was yesterday when I saw those nice-looking ladies at the fort out walking in the morning with their children. That was the first sight that looked like home since we crossed the Missouri.”

“Me, too,” answered Sandy, soberly. “But this is just about as fine as anything can be. Only think of it, Oscar! There are buffalo and antelopes within ten or fifteen miles of here. I know, for Younkins told me so. And Indians,–not wild Indians, but tame ones that are at peace with the whites. It seems too good to have happened to us; doesn’t it, Oscar?”

Once more the wagon was blocked up for a difficult ford, the lighter and more perishable articles of its load being packed into a dugout, or canoe hollowed from a sycamore log, which was the property of Younkins, and used only at high stages of the water. The three men guided the wagon and oxen across while Charlie, stripped to his shirt, pushed the loaded dugout carefully over, and the two boys on the other bank, full of the importance of the event, received the solitary voyager, unloaded the canoe, and then transferred the little cargo to the wagon. The caravan took its way up the rolling ground of the prairie to the log-cabin. Willing hands unloaded and took into the house the tools, provisions, and clothes that constituted their all, and, before the sun went down, the settlers were at home.

While in Manhattan, they had supplied themselves with potatoes; at Fort Riley they had bought fresh beef from the sutler. Sandy made a glorious fire in the long-disused fireplace. His father soon had a batch of biscuits baking in the covered kettle, or Dutch oven, that they had brought with them from home. Charlie’s contribution to the repast was a pot of excellent coffee, the milk for which, an unaccustomed luxury, was supplied by the thoughtfulness of Mrs. Younkins. So, with thankful hearts, they gathered around their frugal board and took their first meal in their new home.

When supper was done and the cabin, now lighted by the scanty rays of two tallow candles, had been made tidy for the night, Oscar took out his violin, and, after much needed tuning, struck into the measure of wild, warbling “Dundee.” All hands took the hint, and all voices were raised once more to the words of Whittier’s song of the “Kansas Emigrants.” Perhaps it was with new spirit and new tenderness that they sang,–

“No pause, nor rest, save where the streamsThat feed the Kansas run,Save where the pilgrim gonfalonShall flout the setting sun!”

“I don’t know what the pilgrim’s gonfalon is,” said Sandy, sleepily, “but I guess it’s all right.” The emigrants had crossed the prairies as of old their father had crossed the sea. They were now at home in the New West. The night fell dark and still about their lonely cabin as, with hope and trust, they laid them down to peaceful dreams.

CHAPTER IX.

SETTING THE STAKES

“We mustn’t let any grass grow under our feet, boys,” was Mr. Aleck Howell’s energetic remark, next morning, when the little party had finished their first breakfast in their new home.

“That means work, I s’pose,” replied Oscar, turning a longing glance to his violin hanging on the side of the cabin, with a broken string crying for repairs.

“Yes, and hard work, too,” said his father, noting the lad’s look. “Luckily for us, Brother Aleck,” he continued, “our boys are not afraid of work. They have been brought up to it, and although I am thinking they don’t know much about the sort of work that we shall have to put in on these beautiful prairies, I guess they will buckle down to it. Eh?” and the loving father turned his look from the grassy and rolling plain to his son’s face.

Sandy answered for him. “Oh, yes, Uncle Charlie, we all like work! Afraid of work? Why, Oscar and I are so used to it that we would be willing to lie right down by the side of it, and sleep as securely as if it were as harmless as a kitten! Afraid of work? Never you fear ‘the Dixon boys who fear no noise’–what’s the rest of that song?”

Nobody knew, and, in the laugh that followed, Mr. Howell suggested that as Younkins was coming over the river to show them the stakes of their new claims, the boys might better set an extra plate at dinner-time. It was very good of Younkins to take so much trouble on their account, and the least they could do was to show him proper hospitality.

“What is all this about stakes and quarter-sections, anyway, father?” asked Sandy. “I’m sure I don’t know.”

“He doesn’t know what quarter-sections are!” shouted Charlie. “Oh, my! what an ignoramus!”

“Well, what is a quarter-section, as you are so knowing?” demanded Sandy. “I don’t believe you know yourself.”

“It is a quarter of a section of public land,” answered the lad. “Every man or single woman of mature age–I think that is what the books say–who doesn’t own several hundred acres of land elsewhere (I don’t know just how many) is entitled to enter on and take up a quarter of a section of unoccupied public land, and have it for a homestead. That’s all,” and Charlie looked to his father for approval.

“Pretty good, Charlie,” said his uncle. “How many acres are there in a quarter-section of land?”

“Yes, how many acres in a quarter of a section?” shouted Sandy, who saw that his brother hesitated. “Speak up, my little man, and don’t be afraid!”

“I don’t know,” replied the lad, frankly.

“Good for you!” said his father. “Never be afraid of saying that you don’t know when you do not know. The fear of confessing ignorance is what has wrecked many a young fellow’s chances for finding out things he should know.”

“Well, boys,” said Mr. Bryant, addressing himself to the three lads, “all the land of the United States Government that is open to settlement is laid off in townships six miles square. These, in turn, are laid off into sections of six hundred and forty acres each. Now, then, how much land should there be in a quarter-section?”

“One hundred and sixty acres!” shouted all three boys at once, breathlessly.

“Correct. The Government allows every man, or single woman of mature age, widow or unmarried, to go upon a plot of land, not more than one hundred and sixty acres nor less than forty acres, and to improve it, and live upon it. If he stays there, or ‘maintains a continuous residence,’ as the lawyers say, for a certain length of time, the Government gives him a title-deed at the end of that time, and he owns the land.”

“What?–free, gratis, and for nothing?” cried Sandy.

“Certainly,” said his uncle. “The homestead law was passed by Congress to encourage the settlement of the lands belonging to the Government. You see there is an abundance of these lands,–so much, in fact, that they have not yet been all laid off into townships and sections and quarter-sections. If a large number of homestead claims are taken up, then other settlers will be certain to come in and buy the lands that the Government has to sell; and that will make settlements grow throughout that locality.”