Part 32
In company with Premier Laurier and Mr. Knowles, we went up to their rooms and spent about as interesting an hour as Dr. Watson experienced during the entire tour. It was a revelation to him; but he had been a boy himself once, and he learned one fact, that in the great and new West the boy nature predominates among the men to the end of their lives. These men were leading Canadian politicians, and the affairs of Canada were largely in the control of the set to which they belonged. There was a pretty intense political campaign on in Canada just at this time over the school question, and there was a desire on the part of the different partisans to explain to Dr. Watson why their particular party was right and how the salvation of the country depended upon the election of their man. He enjoyed it.
We were obliged to start very early next morning for Kingston, and were glad to leave the old Russell House. The dull porter directed us wrong, so that we were obliged to change cars twice, when we might have come direct in a parlor car. My travelling companions had a chance to experience the inconvenience of riding in the common day coaches of Canada, and for a short distance we were obliged to ride in the caboose of a freight train. It was not a delightful experience, but I heard not the slightest complaint. The doctor really got fun out of it.
At Kingston we were met by Principal Grant, of Queen’s College, who entertained the Watsons over Sunday. There was a very large audience that evening at the Kingston Opera House, which made the local managers happy. Principal Grant presided at the lecture and afterward asked me if it were not possible to secure Dr. Watson to address the students at the college next morning. I told him the doctor had agreed to lecture twice a day for me if I would release him from preaching, so I could not insist, though I thought he might have been willing to address the college to please a thousand students, many of whom had given up their hard earnings to hear him at the Opera House. But he is Scotch, and having said “no,” he did “no,” although he worshipped with the students at the college in the morning.
The next day (Monday) we were due at Toronto. I drove a mile in a carriage to Principal Grant’s home at the college at about 1 A.M., found Dr. and Mrs. Watson waiting, and we drove out to Kingston Junction to get our train. It was an uncomfortable ride in a rickety old hack, with the thermometer at zero. I know that Mrs. Watson and I didn’t enjoy it, but the doctor was as beaming as though he had had a normal night’s sleep.
“Jannie,” said he, “I guess the boys are not thinking of where we are just now. If we hadn’t promised them those bicycles we wouldn’t be here.” And so he kept the chilly air out by making sunshine at midnight. The fire had gone out in the stove in the station waiting room, and all the coal was locked up in the shed outside. The train was forty minutes late. It seemed the longest forty minutes of my life. A more unendurable position I never knew than waiting in a cold railway station at 2 A.M., in Canada, for a late train. “Ian Maclaren” found enjoyment in it. But when the train came we had a comfortable ride into Toronto, and were none the worse for our rough experience of the middle of the night.
Here the Scotch were out in force again. Badges and insignia of different societies were much in evidence. They all wanted to see “Ian Maclaren,” and he was unable to see any of them. He accepted an invitation to lunch with Mr. E. Gurney, a prominent citizen and an old friend of Mr. Beecher’s and mine, and then he and Mrs. Watson were driven about the city all the rest of the day until it was time to lecture. Lord Aberdeen presided, and it is a matter worthy of record that the largest audience that ever attended any one-man entertainment in Massey Hall, Toronto, and paid high prices, was the one drawn to hear “Ian Maclaren’s” readings. A more enthusiastic demonstration of welcome one seldom sees, especially in America. It was more like Welsh enthusiasm.
We were booked for Detroit the following day at eleven o’clock, and Grand Rapids at eight in the evening, so I had a lively time hustling the doctor from Massey Hall on board the sleeping car. We reached Detroit at 8 A.M. and breakfasted at the Russell. The doctor gave his reading at eleven to an opera house full of Detroit’s most select citizens. Colonel Livingstone, editor of the Detroit _Journal_, had arranged a luncheon party for the doctor at the Detroit Club at 12:30, and we were to leave at 1:20 for Grand Rapids. A carriage was engaged during our stay in Detroit. Dr. Watson hurried from the hall over to the club. The luncheon was a magnificent affair. About two hundred of Detroit’s best men were there and made it a pretty lively thirty minutes for the Scotchman. I took a special carriage and hurried to the station and persuaded the conductor to hold the train five minutes for us. Finally the doctor and Colonel Livingstone came. We jumped on the train just as it was starting and went bounding over the country for Grand Rapids.
At Jackson we took on a special train carrying the generals of the army, who had enlisted in the Presidential campaign and were on their way to Grand Rapids for a grand mass meeting. As we entered that city there were brass bands playing, fireworks, and all sorts of demonstrations. I assured Dr. Watson they were not intended in his honor, and he quickly found out that he was a mighty small affair in the minds of that excited populace. It was “McKinley and Hobart” everywhere, and everybody was in some kind of uniform carrying a torch.
In due time my correspondent there appeared with a carriage and drove us to the Baptist Church, where a great crowd was waiting to welcome “Ian Maclaren.” It surprised the doctor. The lecture over, we went direct to the sleeping car, which we boarded at 11 P.M. for Chicago. We had been on the move at a very lively rate all day, but Dr. Watson’s ability to see everything from the brightest side kept us all jolly.
We had a very early breakfast in the Auditorium Hotel, in the first sky dining room the Watsons had ever seen. Unfortunately, Lake Michigan, once to be seen only a short distance away, was completely hidden by the smoke.
“How do you like this, Dr. Watson?” I asked.
“Wait until I get my breakfast and I will tell you, Major,” he said.
Reporters came early and kept the doctor under cross-examination for some time, not, however, to his discomfort. He enjoyed them, and they knew it, and helped to make things lively. The Rev. Dr. Gunsaulus was the first minister to call. He drove the doctor out to the Armour Institute, where he addressed the students that morning, and in the afternoon he took him for another drive to see Chicago. On his return his enthusiasm and wonder could hardly be expressed.
“Major, these big stories we read about your Chicago and the West are not big stories at all. I have seen thirty miles of parks to-day, and I am told that not one of them is over twenty-five years old.” In the evening he spoke before the Twentieth Century Club.
At noon the next day the doctor lunched at the Union League Club with a party of leading spirits. The round table, with twenty-four men sitting about it, had been placed in the main dining room, where the distinguished party could be viewed from all sides. I noticed that Dr. Watson was disturbed. He was not very sociable, either, under the gaze of so many starers. It was an elaborate lunch, but there were glasses for water only. After we went out, Dr. Watson asked me if gentlemen were in the habit of lunching distinguished parties without wine. A friend of mine who was present assured the doctor that the absence of wine was entirely on account of the presence of a distinguished minister. Had he (Dr. Watson) been absent it would have been very different. That evening the lecture was in Central Music Hall, which was crammed.
My Minneapolis correspondent, who had bought a single lecture for that city, was one of the doctor’s enthusiastic auditors in Chicago. I had originally planned that Dr. Watson should have an open date in Minneapolis for rest, as a neighboring minister in Liverpool had written: “Watson, poor fellow, is not strong. He has had severe hemorrhages.” But when I found that he was an athlete, with the power of endurance of a gladiator, and when he offered to keep all dates I made if I would release him from preaching, I decided to fill in three more readings in Minneapolis and St. Paul. I felt all the more warranted in doing so as all the auditoriums in which Dr. Watson had spoken up to this time had been crowded to their full capacity. So I told my Minneapolis man that either he must arrange to fill in two matinées and the open evening, or I must buy him off and go back East, where we were sure of a much larger business. He demurred, but “it was to be,” so he finally assented.
Looking up my dates, I found that the day before election was open in Central Music Hall, Chicago, and I decided to place two return readings there for the afternoon and evening of that day. The local manager refused to have anything to do with it, so I did it myself, and enjoyed seeing him quite demoralized because he had not accepted my offer. That afternoon and evening Dr. Watson gave two readings, the gross receipts for which were over $4,000.
What a delightful ride we had the next day on the fast express from Chicago to Milwaukee, where I once worked as a printer on the _Sentinel_. At that time (1857-58) Milwaukee was the metropolis of the State; now it is a suburb of Chicago. I called Dr. Watson’s attention to the beautiful brick which is used here, and makes such handsome buildings. He thought them inferior in quality to the Scotch bricks, and I think he was right.
He lectured here in Plymouth Church, where I had been with Mr. Beecher and other stars. The church was crowded, and I was told that there had been no such enthusiasm since the palmy days of John B. Gough. A supper after the lecture was attended by the leading minds of the city and State, among whom was my old friend F. N. Finney, son of the late Charles G. Finney of Oberlin. The Woman’s Club, which had secured Dr. Watson for Milwaukee, entertained our entire party the next morning, showing us the sights of the city, including a first-class art gallery and the largest, best-equipped brewery in the world.
We pushed on to Appleton, Wisconsin, where nearly the whole town was in waiting at the depot. The rest of the townspeople met us on the train before reaching the city. At the lecture that evening, the Congregational Church held the biggest crowd it ever had held up to that time. The next day (Sunday) was a proud day for me. “Ian Maclaren” preached for one in my father and mother’s old church, in order that my friends might hear him. It was a great sermon and a great crowd, too. People came over two hundred miles to hear him, and filled the church both morning and evening, and all the surrounding streets as well. It was my second great triumph in Appleton. On a former occasion I had introduced Henry Ward Beecher to the same public, and Dr. Watson’s reception was just as hearty as Beecher’s. In the evening I gave my Beecher lecture. Dr. Watson was a listener and gave me inspiration. I talked Beecher for an hour and a half, and was attentively listened to.
The next day we went to Madison, Wisconsin, where Dr. and Mrs. Watson were the guests of President Adams of the Wisconsin State University. Mrs. Watson was unable to sit up. The doctor addressed the students of the University in the afternoon, and lectured in the First Congregational Church in the evening--the same place where, in 1879, Mr. Beecher had drawn exactly $1,200. The legislature was in session then, but now it was autumn, and no legislature. Dr. Watson drew just $1,000 even money.
We were obliged to take the midnight train from Madison to Minneapolis. When we went on board poor Mrs. Watson was almost broken down, but never a murmur escaped her. Dr. Watson nursed and cared for her all night on the cars as gently as a mother could have done. Still he couldn’t help saying funny things. As she lay in agony in her berth, he said: “Jannie, you must not forget; the boys may get their wheels yet. The audience was not hostile.”
By the time we reached Minneapolis, Mrs. Watson was so feeble that she could hardly bear to be lifted from the car to a carriage; still she did not complain. At the West Hotel we called in a physician, who declared that she was threatened with pneumonia. Colonel West and his daughters were very kind and attentive and relieved the doctor as much as possible. The Caledonian Society and the St. Andrew’s Society were in waiting to show honors to the distinguished visitor, and many other Scotch institutions were out in great force. The lobbies of the hotels were jammed. “Ian Maclaren” was the name on everybody’s lips.
He amused the audience at the beginning of one of his lectures by telling of a letter he had received, asking whether the first name of his pseudonym was pronounced Ian, Eean, Yan, Yon, Yane, John, Jan, or Jane. “In answer to this question,” said Dr. Watson, “I would say that if you want to pronounce it like an Englishman, you will say I-an; if like a Scotchman, Ee-an; and if like a Highlander, Ee-on.”
A luncheon was given him by one society, and after the reading in the evening he had a banquet. I absolutely believed the doctor must be bewildered from so much increasing attention. The smart reporters here got hold of him. His keen discernment enabled him to detect a different atmospherical condition about these and our Eastern newspaper men. There was a freshness and a keen assurance about the Minneapolis reporters that rendered them irresistible. He saw and enjoyed everything. Everybody was in love with him, and everybody wished to do something for him.
Judge Gilfillan, of the United Scotch Societies, introduced him at the first reading by declaring that it had been left to the lion of the evening “to show us the lights and shadows of Scottish character as they are exhibited in the simple, everyday scenes of life.” The doctor stepped forward amid a wave of lasting applause. “It is my duty,” he said, “to notice with a glow of heart the Scottish tone of this introduction, for, as I sat listening, I could scarcely realize that I was in the far Northwest and not in my own country.” Wherever he went he met Scotch people--some by descent, some by marriage, and one by virtue of the fact that her sister had been tended by a Scotch nurse.
We gave three readings in Minneapolis, instead of one, as originally planned, and two in St. Paul. The afternoon in St. Paul was marked by almost as terrific a rain-storm as I ever remember witnessing. The water absolutely piled up in the streets for two or three hours. Through the invitation of Mr. I. W. Whitney of the Great Northern R.R. Co., Dr. Watson visited the residence of Mr. James Hill, president of the railroad, who has the finest collection of pictures west of New York. Dr. Watson, who is an art critic and has seen all the famous collections of Europe, declared this the best-selected and choicest private collection of paintings that he knew of.
We found Mrs. Watson more comfortable on our return, but the physicians said that she had a slight touch of pneumonia and must not be moved for a week, so we were obliged to leave her behind and go on to Des Moines without her. I feared that the tour was about finished. I didn’t see how the doctor could give his readings under such conditions, but he insisted that “Jannie” was a woman of wonderful will power and he was sure she would come through all right. To leave her among strangers, in a strange land, nearly five thousand miles from home, was not a cheering prospect, but Colonel West, owner of the West Hotel, and his daughters were very kind to her, and she was heroic and brave as well. “Good-by, Jannie. The boys will get their wheels,” were the doctor’s last cheering words as he came from her room and we took a carriage for the depot to go to Des Moines.
We left Minneapolis at about seven o’clock, having a Pullman sleeping car all to ourselves. The weather was the most disagreeable possible--a cold, sleety rain, which later changed to a gale so severe as to impede the progress of the train. We lost time all day. When the conductor told the doctor that we were losing time on account of the wind, he exclaimed: “How absurd! Do you mean to tell me that any wind can retard the speed of a heavy locomotive and train like this?” The conductor assured him that nothing else had caused the lateness of the train. He insisted that it was ridiculous, and wouldn’t listen to it; but I have known a gale to lift a locomotive and whole train off the track. Little he knows of the Iowa and Kansas zephyrs.
When I saw that we were bound to be late, I telegraphed my correspondent in Des Moines that the train was losing time. All day we travelled over the boundless prairie, thickly dotted with frail frame houses that appeared hardly able to withstand the gale. This was the first real prairie country the doctor had ever seen, and it was a surprise to him.
As there were no eating stations along the line and no food to be had on the train, we were obliged to go without eating all day, which the doctor did not relish, and declared that this was the last time he would be caught on a long journey without food. I told him that we would go right to the hotel as soon as we arrived and get something. He was obliged to dress on the sleeper, and was very much worried, because he was afraid he would have to lecture without his supper. I began to fear that he was right when he told me in Meriden I might sometimes have to put up with some very disagreeable things.
It was after eight when we reached the hotel. The clerk told us that we could get nothing to eat, as the dining-room closed at eight (it is so with all provincial hotels), but the doctor rushed to the dining-room and made a loud noise on the door, which was opened by a man in evening dress. He proved to be the head waiter.
“I want some food immediately,” said the doctor. The man stood paralyzed.
“I must have some food right away,” the doctor repeated, and rushed by the man to a table where were the remains of the dinner of the latest comer. He attacked it, and the head waiter tried to stop proceedings, but the doctor kept right on. He managed to get part of a meal, and hurried out, the man following him. In the carriage on the way to the Opera House the doctor told me that he hoped he had not permanently injured that man who persisted in trying to prevent him from eating what he could find. I think I never experienced a more amusing incident. It was nearly nine o’clock when Dr. Watson stepped upon the stage. I’ll let the Des Moines _Leader_ tell the story:
“At five minutes before nine o’clock the lecturer came around the flies. During the long wait the audience was entertained with a violin solo and a piano solo. An impromptu choir on the stage started ‘America,’ and four verses were sung. Then came ‘Annie Laurie,’ and it was during the singing of that that Dr. Watson took his seat. ‘How appropriate,’ every one said to his neighbor, and the tedium of the long delay was forgotten. It was a gathering of which any person might be proud, and evinced extraordinary interest concerning the new star in the literary firmament, unknown except in his clerical capacity two years ago.”
The president of the Woman’s Club, under whose auspices the lecture was given, introduced the speaker in a very few words of eulogy on the man and his work. She said, “The long-anticipated hour has come,” and Dr. Watson stood up before the audience. He said that no one could convey a reproach so delicately as a woman, and that when he heard the words “long-anticipated hour” combined with what was complimentary, it reminded him of his childhood days when medicine was administered in sweets. “Only the other day,” he continued, “I was congratulating myself on never being late, either for pulpit or platform, but now the boast has come home to me, as such things usually do.”
At 11:30 we were again on board the sleeper bound for Galesburg. Our journey was interrupted by an enforced long wait at Rock Island--from 8 A.M. to 2:40 P.M.--but it proved a very delightful wait. We took a carriage and drove about the town, visiting the United States Arsenal, where arms and war equipments are manufactured. Through the politeness of the commanding officer, Colonel Buffington, Dr. Watson was most graciously entertained all the forenoon.
At Rock Island, President John Finley of Knox College (then the youngest college president in America) met us with the private car of the superintendent of the road, to convey us to Galesburg. The college students, male and female, had turned out en masse to meet “Ian Maclaren” at the station, and behind a band of music and the students our carriage was escorted to President Finley’s house. Here was a telegram from Mrs. Watson telling her husband that she was much improved and would meet us in Chicago the next morning.
“Astonishing,” said the doctor, his face fairly beaming. “Can I send a telegram right away?” he asked.
“I’ll take it,” said I, for I wanted to do something.
He wrote a telegram after the English manner--as few words as possible--and this is the way it read:
* * * * *
“MRS. WATSON, WEST HOTEL, MINNEAPOLIS.
“Much lifted.
WATSON.”
* * * * *
I made a copy of it, which I handed in at the office, retaining the original. I have never parted with a word of his or Mr. Beecher’s manuscript.
After dinner, Dr. Watson visited the rooms of the new “Abraham Lincoln Memorial to Art and Science.” About a hundred young ladies were in waiting, dressed in white, with a little green ribbon about their necks and each one wearing a white rose. The doctor christened the new society, “Circle of the Order of the White Rose,” and the occasion inspired him to make one of the sweetest addresses I ever heard. I did not know of a man since Mr. Beecher had gone who could rise to such an occasion as Dr. Watson did.
The lecture that evening was to help establish a fund to aid in the objects of the new society. The Knox College students completely filled the Opera House from floor to ceiling. As the doctor stepped upon the stage he was greeted with a Western college cheer, given with a vigor that could not be excelled for volume. It seemed to inspire him for the evening’s work. This was one of the most hearty receptions he had in America. After the lecture we returned to Dr. Finley’s home, where flashlight pictures were taken of the party.
By 11:30 we were on the train for Chicago, Dr. Finley with us, arriving at 6:30 Sunday morning. Our entire party were guests of my old friends, Mr. and Mrs. C. H. McConnell, on the South Side. Although it was such an unseasonable hour to disturb friends, Mr. McConnell met us at the door and welcomed Dr. Watson with heart and hand in such a manner as to cause him to say before we fairly got into the house:
“Major, I’m very glad we’re here.”
At 8:30 A.M., Mrs. Watson arrived from Minneapolis. I met her at the train. She did look feeble, but she insisted on carrying her handbag to the carriage, and was very cheerful and anxious to know how everybody had gotten along without her. I assured her that she had been very much missed, and that from now on we were all right.