CHAPTER XX

THE PASSING OF OLD CHICAGO

That two years abroad was like a happy dream, the romance of our lives. Everything was queer to my travellers at first. Ruth made amusing attempts at French, of which she did know a little. Mother would have none of the "gibberish."

When we were quite domesticated I consulted several surgeons, who examined Mr. Gaynor. The limb, they thought, had not been rightly set. They would not say it could be altogether remedied, but that it could be greatly improved, though the process would be tedious, and perhaps take three months.

That time was not discouraging. We had come to the merciful period of anæsthesia, so the conscious suffering was reduced. He decided to undertake it. The prospect of going without a crutch was most tempting.

During that period mother, Ruth and I took various delightful journeys about the environs of Paris. It was in the early days of the third Napoleon and Paris was very brilliant. Many improvements had been made, and my two guests were filled with amazement. There was so much beauty on every hand.

After the first fortnight we were allowed to see Mr. Gaynor. The surgeon admitted that it had been a rather serious case, and the operation would be the means of prolonging his life, which could not have gone on much longer without a fatal issue. I thanked Heaven that I had been so importunate. After ten weeks the patient came home. He was not to give up his crutch immediately, but he could bear some weight on his foot, which would have to be provided with a cork soled shoe, as his leg had shortened somewhat.

I was quite engrossed with Mr. Le Moyne's business until along in the winter. Then we went to Spain, and saw Madrid, Granada and other famous cities; the great fortress at Gibraltar, and crossed the beautiful sea to the Bay of Naples, sojourned a brief while in Florence and Rome, went up into Switzerland, Germany, Holland, then down to Paris again, where I received my fortune. And here Ruth and I were married at the embassy, with many friends to wish us Godspeed. Mr. Gaynor was a very happy man. He limped a little and used a cane, but could get about so easily that he declared he had renewed his youth. Mother was delighted and admitted that she had always coveted Ruth.

Ah! what happy days those were. We went to England and her two tributaries. Mother declared that I kissed the Blarney stone. She had become quite a foreigner.

How would we ever endure Chicago again?

But one evening, as Ruth's head lay on my shoulder, and her sweet mouth just where I could heap kisses upon it, she said:

"Oh, Norman, I would like to go home. And I know father is longing for it. Everything is beautiful, but I want to ramble about the old places. I want to think of the days when I was a little girl and see the spot where I first came to you."

Had she always been mine? It seemed so now. The other life was like a dream.

Two years had passed away. I am afraid we were a little disenchanted at first. But here were all the old friends—very few of them had dropped out of life. Brave Jesse Walker, the pioneer Methodist preacher, was among the first to welcome mother. And there was Mr. Porter, whose wife had been our earliest school teacher, two or three of the ex-mayors, Mr. Hubbard and the Doles of my boyhood and many another.

The town had not stood still. But the most wonderful thing to me was the invincible push and perseverance and industry, the resolve to establish a great city on those foundation stones, not ancestry, not mere intellectuality. All roads should lead to it as they had to old Rome. Some were started, others planned and there were great dreams. It seemed queer after the finished aspect of the Old World.

The Sontieffs had done very well indeed. Both wives had come, a somewhat severe-looking middle-aged mother, who was sweet and tender at heart, a rather pretty, light-haired young wife of some German stock a generation or two back, and two very foreign-looking children, such as we had seen in groups in the old cities.

The men had been informing themselves in American ways and methods. They would go farther back and buy government land. Already quite a colony had been formed and two men had been sent out prospecting. It was to be not far from the great canal, but now railroads were being planned. California had given an impetus to us. The Pacific was to be our western boundary. We would not even stop at the Rocky Mountains, and have not those brilliant dreams been fulfilled? Has Chicago proved herself a mere braggart?

Young John Gaynor was a man grown, and as we found soon afterward, had a sweetheart, a fine sturdy, honest-looking young fellow with the breezy voice one insensibly acquires when the spaces are wide.

Homer suggested father very strongly to me. He was building, buying and selling, preferring the nimble sixpence to the slow shilling. They had a new little girl, and they called her Bessy. Sophie was stout and energetic, a lovely mother. Nanette had a little family also, and it seemed as if the population had increased rapidly.

Ben had one year more in the law school. He was coming back to Chicago.

"I want a place to draw a good long breath," he said. "Out here there is room for new States and cities, and a man can forge up to the head sooner. It makes me laugh to hear those Eastern people talk. They think they have it all. Some day they will wake up mightily surprised."

Chris was doing well and growing really handsome in a more spiritual fashion than any of the other of us boys. He was mother's darling, after all.

It was about autumn before we were truly settled. Mother was to remain with us. The house was enlarged a little and renovated, and partly new furnished. Mother had her furniture in her two rooms, she fancied she might like to keep house by herself, but she never did.

Certainly there was not a happier man in Chicago than John Gaynor, unless it was myself. He trotted about inspecting the new elevators, the new vessels, gathering statistics, as if he were a newspaper reporter. He had not given up what he called his scribbling habit, and his delight was to draw comparisons with the peasantry of the Old World and the New World that had no peasantry.

That Christmas morning a new little girl came to Chicago. The other little girl was only a memory now, just as Old Chicago was fast becoming a memory. But you often heard a group of men exchanging old reminiscences of the time they first came in the early thirties, with a small amount of money on hand, some none at all, going to work with hearty good will.

John Gaynor had thought nothing could make him happier than the return to his native land, but I think his cup ran over that Christmas morning.

There came now and then an unfortunate year, perhaps that is not the term, a less fortunate year, but Chicago travelled on at her steady pace. West of us were growing up other great States, other cities, crowds of people coming to be fed and housed and finding room to grow broad not only in physique, but in mind and endeavor. So we travelled over in the sixties, when there were ominous clouds gathering and there was a larger question to struggle for than bread and shelter.

John Gaynor went on adding field to field. I laughed at him for a mania. "Ground is a good enough investment for me," he would say. "Thieves can't steal it and fire can't burn it up." But Homer and I were joining forces in building stores and warehouses. For now we were connected with most of the country with railroads. How could we have brought in the grain in ox-carts?

Then followed the four years of the terrible Civil War. Ben, just getting nicely established, threw up his business and went in the army with hundreds of promising young men. The city did its share nobly. Some came back and took their olden places, some were invalided, and many a home was left vacant.

John Gaynor returned and made another stalwart plunge in newspaper life. Ben opened a new office and went on to realize his dreams. For now Chicago again swept on with giant strides. Did any one raise pigs and chickens in the space about the house, or even garden truck? We raised our town step by step. There were miles of paved streets, and all the modern improvements. The log houses vanished. Stone and marble came in and great buildings were reared.

We were swept onward too, business overtook the old home like a great wave, and we went further up the lake front and modernized ourselves. Since our Paris sojourn mother had taken kindly to improvements. Homer's sons and daughters were growing up. Ruth was married, John Gaynor and his sweetheart had a family clustering about them. Ben was thriving, had captured one or two excellent positions. Chris had gone westward, a very earnest pioneer worker, and we looked sometime to see him made a bishop.

Those were happy years. We had a little flock of four, and though grandfather was proud of the sturdy boys, baby Ruth, the first born, was, I think, the dearest of all to him. The last darling was Bess. They would always be family names.

We had had one other tremendous flood to submerge a part of the city. Then great pains had been taken to protect us from the overflow of the lake. We studied security more than money. When we looked at the splendid buildings did we ever say to ourselves: "This is the great Babylon we have builded!"

There had been a long, dry hot spell. Late corn had withered and scorched up before ripening. Winter wheat was parched. Our pretty flower garden was watered assiduously, and the lawn, but the blossoms drooped, the grass turned brown. What sweltering days they were those September days, with the glowing, pitiless sun that set in a bed of flames that scorched up the kindly dews. It did not seem as if there was any moisture left in the lake. What would we have done without our splendid water-works!

Then October came in. We had talked of a journey up in Michigan for a little relief, but fortunately we had not gone.

There came up a strong southwest breeze and we took courage, although there was not a cloud in the sky. "But it must rain presently," we all said.

Sitting there on the porch, which was quite a high one, we saw the spires of flame shooting up skyward. It was so far away that we only looked and commented. Whether it was the unfortunate kick of Mrs. O'Leary's cow that sent the lighted lamp over in the hay, as is the commonly received version, or some other fatal incident, the fire broke out in a crowded portion of the city, where old rookeries abounded, always a menace. One almost felt it would safeguard the city to have them burn down, and burn they did. Whether any more vigorous work or alarm could have prevented the spread no one could decide afterward.

But by midnight the conflagration was overwhelming. Fire and wind swept in wild fury. It came northward in two grand, separate columns, tossing its firebrands to the right and the left, and then it made a mighty sweep over the river. Was there ever anything like it for sublimity and terror? The brute creation was crazed. Horses ran wildly about, roared and kicked, the air was filled with cries and screams of maddened people. On and on it flew, whirling great masses of flame from one point to another. Grand hotels, warehouses, stored full of valuables, the Chamber of Commerce, the banks, the great shopping palace of Fields, Leiter & Co.—it was no respecter of persons.

We had sent the two smaller children to bed tired out, but we could not go, fascinated with terror. I knew a great part of my investments were swallowed up—that Homer would lose much of the work of his life. This way and that it dashed. Stone and marble crumbled and went down. There had been the burning Rome and Alexander's orgie at Persepolis—were they to be compared to this?

We had thought ourselves safe, but the demon flew on and on. Nothing could withstand him. We began to pick up our valuables and load whatever wagons we had and send them out toward Lincoln Park. The streets were full of crying, shrieking, homeless people. And when it came nearer, nearer, we, too, joined the throng, but we were all safe together and made our way out where the air was not quite so dense with smoke, and at length dropped on the brown, shrivelled grass, and clasped our arms about each other.

It has been written over many times, the loss and ruin, the indomitable energy of the people, the suffering and the courage, the heartiness with which every one set about mending his broken fortunes and helping his neighbors. Safes and money had perished. But the grand spontaneous outburst of sympathy, the proffers of help from other cities was cheering in the extreme. With one voice they said, and we said, Chicago must be rebuilt in a better and more enduring shape. It is true that many solid structures had gone with the flimsy ones.

There was no more Old Chicago. And the Little Girl had come to middle life, but her eyes had the old light, her lips were soft and sweet as she kissed me that morning in the midst of our desolation.

"We have each other," she said, "and our children and father and mother."

Are some people "born for luck?" as the saying is. If so, surely John Gaynor was. He had sold his summer crops and a good part of his corn, and the day the money was paid him turned it over on a new purchase of prairie land he had made. If it had been in the bank it would have gone to feed the flames.

"I told you land wouldn't burn up," he said. "We have the sure promise until the last great conflagration."

But my row of stores and buildings were gone. I was a poor man and must begin the struggle with business again, if one could find anything to do in such devastation. Homer had fared better. Mother and Ruth and the children accepted their hospitality for the winter.

John Gaynor was near seventy, but brisk and hearty and helpful, hopeful, too, I ought to say. He would have enough to start the four children in life. Why should I worry about them?

How Chicago arose from its ashes, stronger, more magnificent, more durable, and still kept stretching out its thews and sinews in every direction is a matter long since gone into history. Banks, hotels, public buildings and stores could be restored in a more durable manner, streets widened and improved, parks and squares added, but many things could not be replaced. The grand collection of the Historical Society, and the great Emancipation Proclamation, next to the Declaration of Independence, the Chicago Library, with books and archives, and engravings of old houses and old streets, even then forgotten by many, with other valuable articles that could not be duplicated. Truly, Old Chicago had been swept away.

Did we sit down and weep over the vast ruin such as had never befallen any city? There were starving women and children to have food and shelter, and those who had shared joyfully with these. All that was best and noblest and broadest in humanity came out then. The kindliness, the pluck and the courage was something wonderful amid all that destitution and desolation.

Like a romance Chicago rose from her ruins and ashes to be grander than any one had dreamed, and her men again worked their way up to prosperity with indomitable energy. Homer lost less than I, but it was enough to make us poor men. John Gaynor started in afresh with his paper with cheery Yankee spirit. Ben's stock was largely ambitions, and he lived to realize upon them.

I prospered to some extent afterward and we had a happy time. We went out of our own city by railroad to San Francisco. We went up to Oregon, south to famous cities. We were the centre of the country, we were the granary of the West, the East. We helped to feed the starving nations of Europe, that less than sixty years before had believed us an uncouth, half-Indian people and doubted if any good could come out of Nazareth. It was done by persevering industry, by largeness of aim, by sterling integrity, by the great love of every citizen for his native city, and the desire to see her stand in the front rank.

We built our new house near the lake front again. Little Ruth married when she was barely seventeen, and John Gaynor lived to hold his great-grandson in his arms. A cheerful, happy man, going down the great decline peaceful and content, followed not long after by mother, who was sometimes afraid she had had too many of the good things in this life, but she had always been pitiful to the Lazarus at the gate and not left him to be nursed by dogs.

When Chicago reared the magnificent White City, the like of which no one had yet attempted, we were in the older generation with our grandchildren about us. They never tire of hearing how grandmamma travelled from Massachusetts in a big country wagon, with all the household goods they could carry, crossing New York and Ohio, stopping by the way to catch fish or shoot game and cooking by the wayside in a stone fireplace, sleeping in the wagon, sometimes roused by wild animals, occasionally meeting Indians, and at last reaching Chicago and grandpapa. It is better than the best of their gilded and engraved fairy books.

What days we spent in the White City inspecting the treasures of our own and other countries! What a wonder electricity and the telephone was, and a hundred other things. And the great city stretching out along the lake, southward, westward, northward, its railroads running swiftly to and fro, its streets a busy hive of the industry that has made her famous.

The trolleys go everywhere and at times we ramble in them or out of them. Here is old Fort Dearborn with the tablet to mark its memory. Did we loiter about it and sit on the steps and recapitulate the massacre? And here was the old Kinzie house, where the San Domingo trader had his cabin, and here the first school I went to, here the old Towner log cabin where the Little Girl lived, and I used to come in and help her get supper, and we read that dear, delightful, stirring "Lady of the Lake." Here we went to Sunday School and walked home together. But dearest of all is the old house where we five boys were born and brought up, because here I first saw the Little Girl as her father lifted her out of the wagon and I glanced into her sapphire blue eyes and loved her forever after.

None of them are there. We look at them through the wizard glass of memory. There is no more Little Girl, there is no more Old Chicago.

Then we kiss each other and go our way. We have lived and loved.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's A Little Girl in Old Chicago, by Amanda M. Douglas