Part 6

On Sunday Father Ingoldsby advised his people to prepare their souls for the visit of the Angel of Death, who was every night knocking at their doors. There were many, he said, whose faces he had never seen at the rails since he came to Joliet; and what answer would they give to the summons which called them to appear without delay before the judgment seat of God? What doom could they expect but that of damnation and eternal death?

The sermon needed no translation for the men of many nations who were present. Irishmen and Englishmen, Highlanders and Belgians, French and Germans, Mexicans and Canadians, could interpret the meaning of the flashing eye which roamed to every corner of the church, singling out each miserable sinner; the fierce frown, the threatening gesture, the finger first pointing to the heaven above, and then down to the depths of hell.

Some stayed to pray and to confess their sins; others hardened their hearts and went home unrepentant. Michael Mangan went to Belz's grocery near the canal. He said he felt pains in his interior, and drank a jigger of whisky. Then he bought half-a-gallon of the same remedy to take home with him. It was a cheap prescription, costing only twelve and a half cents, but it proved very effective. Old Belz put the stuff into an earthenware bottle, which he corked with a corncob. Michael started for home by the zigzag path which led up the steep limestone bluff, but his steps were slow and unsteady; he sat down on a rock, and took another dose out of his bottle. He never went any further of his own motion, and we buried him next day. We were of different opinions about the cause of his death; some thought it was the cholera, others the pangs of conscience, some the whisky, and others a mixture of all three; at any rate, he died without speaking to the priest.

Next day another neighbour died, Mr. Harrigan. He had lost one arm, but with the other he wrote a good hand, and registered deeds in the County Court. I called to see him. He was in bed lying on his back, his one arm outside the coverlet, his heaving chest was bare, and his face was ghastly pale. There were six men in the room, one of whom said:

"Do you know me, Mr. Harrigan?"

"Sure, divil a dog in Lockport but knows you, Barney," said the dying man.

Barney lived in Lockport, and in an audible whisper said to us: "Ain't he getting on finely? He'll be all right again to-morrow, please God."

"And didn't the doctor say I'd be dead before twelve this day?" asked Harrigan.

I looked at the clock on the mantelshelf. It was past ten. He died an hour later.

One day the young man from Vermont rose from his seat and looked at me across the schoolroom. I thought he was going to say something. He took down his hat, went to the door, turned and looked at me again, but he did not speak or make any sign. Next morning his place was vacant, and I asked one of the boys if he had seen the young man. The boy said:

"He ain't a-coming to school no more, I calkilate. He was buried this morning before school hours."

That year, '49 was a dismal year in Joliet.

Mr. Rogers, one of the school managers, came and sat on a bench near the door. He was a New Englander, a carpenter, round-shouldered, tall and bony. He said:

"I called in to tell you that I can't vote for appinting you to this school next term. Fact is the ladies are dead against you; don't see you at meeting on the Sabbath; say you go to the Catholic Church with the Irish and Dutch. I a'n't a word to say agen you myself. This is a free country; every man can go, for aught I care, whichever way he darn chooses--to heaven, or hell, or any other place. But I want to be peaceable, and I can't get no peace about voting for you next term, so I thought I'd let you know, that you mightn't be disappointed."

In that way Mr. Rogers washed his hands of me. I said I was sorry I did not please the ladies, but I liked to hear a man who spoke his mind freely.

Soon afterwards the Germans brought me word that the Yankees were calling a meeting about me. I was aware by this time that when a special gathering of citizens takes place to discuss the demerits of any individual, it is advisable for that individual to be absent if possible; but curiosity was strong within me; hitherto I had never been honoured with any public notice whatever, and I attended the meeting uninvited.

The Yankees are excellent orators; they are born without bashfulness; they are taught to speak pieces in school from their childhood; they pronounce each word distinctly; they use correctly the rising inflection and the falling inflection. Moreover, they are always in deadly earnest; there is another miserable world awaiting their arrival. Their humorists are the most unhappy of men. You may smile when you read their jokes, but when you see the jokers you are more inclined to weep. With pain and sorrow they grind, like Samson, at the jokers' mill all the days of their lives.

The meeting was held in the new two-storey school-house.

Deacon Beaumont took the chair--my chair--and Mr Curtis was appointed secretary. I began to hate Deacon Beaumont, as also Mr. Curtis, who was the only other teacher present; it was evident they were going to put him in my place.

Each speaker on rising put his left hand in the side pocket of his pants. I was not mentioned by name, but nevertheless I was given clearly to understand that I had been reared in a land whose people are under the dominion of a tyrannical monarch and a bloated aristocracy; that therefore I had never breathed the pure air of freedom, and was unfitted to teach the children of the Great Republic.

Mr. Tucker, an influential citizen, moved finally that the school managers be instructed to engage a Mr. Sellars, of Dresden, as teacher at the West Joliet School. He said Mr. Sellars was a young man from New England who had been teaching for a term at Dresden, and had given great satisfaction. He had the best testimony to the character and ability of the young man from his own daughter, Miss Priscilla Tucker, who had been school marm in the same school, and was now home on a visit. She could give, from her own personal knowledge, any information the managers might require.

Mr. Tucker's motion was seconded. There was no amendment proposed, and all in favour of the motion were requested by Deacon Beaumont to stand up. The Yankees all rose to their feet, the others sat still, all but old Gorges, a Prussian, who, with his two sons, had come to vote for me. But the old man did not understand English. His son John pulled him down, but Deacon Beaumont had counted his vote, and the motion was carried by a majority of one. So I was, in fact, put out of the school by my best friend, old Gorges.

I went away in a dudgeon and marked off a cellar on my real estate, 30 feet by 18 feet, on the top of the bluff, near the edge of the western prairie. The ground was a mixture of stiff clay and limestone rock, and I dug at it all through the month of September. Curious people came along and made various remarks; some said nothing, but went away whistling. One day Mr. Jackson and Paul Duffendorff were passing by, and I wanted them to pass, but they stopped like the rest. Mr. Jackson was reckoned one of the smartest men in Will county. He had a large farm, well stocked, but he was never known to do any work except with his brains. He was one of those men who increased the income of the State of Illinois by ability. Duffendorf was a huge Dutchman, nearly seven feet in height. He was a great friend of mine, great every way, but very stupid; he had no sense of refinement. He said:

"Ve gates, schoolmeister? Py golly! Here, Mr. Shackson, is our schoolmeister a vurkin mit spade and bick. How vas you like dat kind of vurk, Mr. Shackson?"

"Never could be such a darned fool; sooner steal," answered Jackson.

Duffendorf laughed until he nearly fell into the cellar. Now this talk was very offensive. I knew Mr. Jackson was defendant in a case then pending. He had been charged with conspiring to defraud; with having stolen three horses; with illegally detaining seventy-five dollars; and on other counts which I cannot remember just now. The thing was originally very simple, even Duffendorff could understand it.

Mr. Jackson was in want of some ready money, so he directed his hired man to steal three of his horses in the dead of night, take them to Chicago, sell them to the highest bidder, find out where the highest bidder lived, and then return with the cash to Joliet. The hired man did his part of the business faithfully, returned and reported to his employer. Then Mr. Jackson set out in search of his stolen horses, found them, and brought them home. The man expected to receive half the profits of the enterprise. The boss demurred, and only offered one-third, and said if that was not satisfactory he would bring a charge of horse-stealing. The case went into court, and under the treatment of learned counsel grew very complicated. It was remarkable as being the only one on record in Will county in which a man had made money by stealing his own horses. It is, I fancy, still 'sub judice'.

Both the old school and the new school remained closed even after the cholera ceased to thin out the citizens, but I felt no further interest in the education of youth. When winter came I tramped three miles into the forest, and began to fell trees and split rails in order to fence in my suburban estate. For some time I carried a rifle, and besides various small game I shot two deer, but neither of them would wait for me to come up with them even after I had shot them; they took my two bullets away with them, and left me only a few drops of blood on the snow; then I left the rifle at home. For about four months the ground was covered with snow, and the cold was intense, but I continued splitting until the snakes came out to bask in the sun and warm themselves. I saw near a dead log eight coiled together, and I killed them all. The juice of the sugar maples began to run. I cut notches in the bark in the shape of a broad arrow, bored a hole at the point, inserted a short spout of bark, and on sunny mornings the juice flowed in a regular stream, clear and sparkling; on cloudy days it only dropped.

One evening as I was plodding my weary way homeward, I looked up and saw in the distance a man inspecting my cellar. I said, "Here's another disgusting fool who ain't seen it before." It certainly was a peculiar cellar, but not worth looking at so much. I hated the sight of it. It had no building over it, never was roofed in, and was sometimes full of snow.

The other fool proved to be Mr. Curtis, the teacher who had written the resolution of the meeting which voted me out of the school. He held out his hand, and I took it, but reluctantly, and under secret protest. I thought to myself, "This mine enemy has an axe to grind, or he would not be here. I'll be on my guard."

"I have been waiting for you some time," said Mr. Curtis. "I was told you were splitting rails in the forest, and would be home about sundown. I wanted to see you about opening school again. Mr. Rogers won't have anything to say to it, but the other two managers, Mr. Strong and Mr. Demmond, want to engage you and me, one to teach in the upper storey of the school, the other down below, and I came up to ask you to see them about it."

"How does it happen that Mr. Sellars has not come over from Dresden?" I said.

"Joliet is about the last place on this earth that Mr. Sellars will come to. Didn't you hear about him and Priscilla?" asked Mr. Curtis.

"No, I heard nothing since that meeting; only saw the school doors were closed every time I passed that way."

"Well, I am surprised. I thought everybody knew by this time, though we did not like to say much about it."

I began to feel interested. Mr. Curtis had something pleasant to tell me about the misfortunes of my enemies, so I listened attentively.

It was a tale of western love, and its course was no smoother in Illinois than in any less enlightened country of old Europe. Miss Priscilla reckoned she could hoe her own row. She and Mr. Sellars conducted the Common School at Dresden with great success and harmony. All went merry as a marriage bell, and the marriage was to come off by-and-by--so hoped Miss Priscilla. During the recess she took the teacher's arm, and they walked to and fro lovingly. All Dresden said it was to be a match, but at the end of the term Miss Priscilla returned to Joliet--the match was not yet made.

It was at this time that the dissatisfaction with the new British teacher became extreme; Miss Priscilla fanned the flame of discontent. She did not "let concealment like a worm i' th' bud feed on her damask cheek," but boldly proposed that Mr. Sellars--a true-born native of New England, a good young man, always seen at meetings on the Sabbath--should be requested to take charge of the West Joliet school. So the meeting was held: I was voted out, Mr. Sellars was voted in, and the daughters of the Puritans triumphed.

Miss Priscilla wrote to Dresden, announcing to her beloved the success of her diplomacy, requesting him to come to Joliet without delay, and assume direction of the new school. This letter fell into the hands of another lady who had just arrived at Dresden from New England in search of her husband, who happened to be Mr. Sellars. The letter which that other lady wrote to Miss Priscilla I did not see, but it was said to be a masterpiece of composition, and it emptied two schools. Mr. Tucker went over to Dresden and looked around for Mr. Sellars, but that gentleman had gone out west, and was never heard of again. The west was a very wide unfenced space, without railways.

"The fact is," said Mr. Curtis, "we were all kinder shamed the way things turned out, and we just let 'em rip. But people are now stirring about the school being closed so long, so Mr. Strong and Mr. Demmond have concluded to engage you and me to conduct the school."

We were engaged that night, and I went rail-splitting no more. But I fenced my estate; and while running the line on the western boundary I found the grave of Highland Mary. It was in the middle of a grove of oak and hickory saplings, and was nearly hidden by hazel bushes. The tombstone was a slab about two feet high, roughly hewn. Her epitaph was, "Mary Campbell, aged 7. 1827." That was all. Poor little Mary.

The Common Schools of Illinois were maintained principally from the revenue derived from grants of land. When the country was first surveyed, one section of 640 acres in each township of six miles square was reserved for school purposes. There was a State law on education, but the management was entirely local, and was in the hands of a treasurer and three directors, elected biennally by the citizens of each school district. The revenue derived from the school section was sometimes not sufficient to defray the salary of the teacher, and then the deficiency was supplied by the parents of the children who had attended at the school; those citizens whose children did not attend were not taxed by the State for the Common Schools; they did not pay for that which they did not receive. In some instances only one school was maintained by the revenue of two school sections. When the attendance in the school was numerous, a young lady, called the "school-marm," assisted in the teaching. Sometimes, as in the case of Miss Priscilla, she fell into trouble.

The books were provided by the enterprise of private citizens, and an occasional change of "Readers" was agreeable both to teachers and scholars. The best of old stories grow tiresome when repeated too often. One day a traveller from Cincinnati brought me samples of a new series of "Readers," offering on my approval, to substitute next day a new volume for every old one produced. I approved, and he presented each scholar with copies of the new series for nothing.

The teaching was secular, but certain virtues were inculcated either directly or indirectly. Truth and patriotism were recommended by the example of George Washington, who never told a lie, and who won with his sword the freedom of his country. There were lessons on history, in which the tyranny of the English Government was denounced; Kings, Lords and Bishops, especially Bishop Laud, were held up to eternal abhorrence; as was also England's greed of gain, her intolerance, bigotry, taxation; her penal and navigation laws. The glorious War of Independence was related at length. The children of the Puritans, of the Irish and the Germans, did not in those days imbibe much prejudice in favour of England or her institutions, and the English teacher desirous of arriving at the truth, had the advantage of having heard both sides of many historical questions; of listening, as it were, to the scream of the American eagle, as well as to the roar of the British lion.

Mr. Curtis was a good teacher, systematic, patient, persevering, and ingenious. I ceased to hate him; Miss Priscilla's downfall cemented our friendship. We kept order in the school by moral suasion, but the task was sometimes difficult. My private feelings were in favour of the occasional use of the hickory stick, the American substitute for the rod of Solomon, and the birch of England.

The geography we taught was principally that of the United States and her territories, spacious maps of which were suspended round the school, continually reminding the scholars of their glorious inheritance. It was then full of vacant lots, over which roamed the Indian and the buffalo, species of animals now nearly extinct. We did not pay much attention to the rest of the world.

Elocution was inculcated assiduously, and at regular intervals each boy and girl had to come forth and "speak a piece" in the presence of the scholars, teachers, and visitors.

Mental arithmetic and the use of fractions were taught daily. The use of the decimal in the American coinage is of great advantage; it is easier and more intelligible to children than the clumsy old system of pounds, shillings, pence, and farthings. It is a system which would no doubt have been long ago adopted by England, if it had not been humiliating to our national pride to take even a good thing from rebellious Yankees, and inferior Latin races. We cling fondly to absurdities because they are our own. In Australia wild rabbits are vermin, in England they are private property; and if one of the three millions of her miserable paupers is found with a rabbit in each of his coat pockets, he is fined 10s. or sent to gaol. Pope Gregory XIII. demonstrated the error of the calendar then in use, and all Catholic nations adopted his correction. But when the adoption of the calendar was proposed in Parliament, John Bull put his big foot down at once; he would receive no truth, not even a mathematical one, from the Pope of Rome, and it was only after the lapse of nearly 200 years, when the memory of Gregory and his calendar had almost faded away from the sensitive mind of Protestantism, that an Act was passed, "equalising the style in Great Britain and Ireland with that used in other countries of Europe."

A fugitive slave with his wife and daughter came to Joliet. One day he was seized by three slave-hunters, who took him towards the canal. A number of abolitionists assembled to rescue the slave, but the three men drew their revolvers, and no abolitionist had the courage to fire the first shot. The slave was put in a canal boat and went south; his wife remained in Joliet and earned her bread by weaving drugget; the daughter came to my school; she was of pure negro blood, but was taught with the white girls.

The abolitionists were increasing in number, and during the war with the South the slaves were freed. They are now like Israel in Egypt, they increase too rapidly. If father Abraham had sent them back to Africa when they were only four millions, he would have earned the gratitude of his country. Now they number more than eight millions; the Sunny South agrees with their constitution; they work as little and steal as much as possible. In the days of their bondage they were addicted to petty larceny; now they have votes, and when they achieve place and power they are addicted to grand larceny, and they loot the public treasury as unblushingly as the white politicians.

The nigger question has doubled in magnitude during the last thirty years, and there will have to be another abolition campaign of some kind. The blacks are incapable of ruling the whites; no time was given to educate them for their new duties, if teaching them was possible; the Declaration of Independence was in their case a mockery from the beginning. When all the old abolitionists and slave-holders are dead, another generation of men grown wiser by the failure of the policy of their forefathers may solve the black problem.

Complaint is made that the American education of to-day is in a chaotic condition, due to the want of any definite idea of what education is aiming at. There is evidence that the ancients of New England used to birch their boys, but after independence had been fought for and won, higher aims prevailed. The Puritan then believed that his children were born to a destiny far grander than that of any other children on the face of the earth; the treatment accorded to them was therefore to be different. The fundamental idea of American life was to be "Freedom," and the definition of "Freedom" by a learned American is, "The power which necessarily belongs to the self-conscious being of determining his actions in view of the highest, the universal good, and thereby of gradually realising in himself the eternal divine perfection." The definition seems a little hazy, but the workings of great minds are often unintelligible to common people. "The American citizen must be morally autonomous, regarding all institutions as servants, not as masters. So far man has been for the most part a thrall. The true American must worship the inner God recognised as his own deepest and eternal self, not an outer God regarded as something different from himself."

Lucifer is said to have entertained a similar idea. He would not be a thrall, and the result as described by the republican Milton was truly disastrous:

"Him the Almighty Power Hurl'd headlong down to bottomless perdition Region of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell."

The manner in which the American citizen is to be made "morally autonomous, and placed beyond the control of current opinion," will require much money; his parents must therefore be rich; they must already have inherited wealth, or have obtained it by ability or labour. The course of training to be given to youth includes travelling for six years in foreign countries under private tutors, studying human history, ethnic, social, political, industrial, æsthetic, religious; gems of poetry; the elements of geometry; mechanics; art, plastic, and graphic; reading Confucius, Sakya-muni, Themistocles, Socrates, Julius Caesar, Paul, Mahommed, Charlemagne, Alfred, Gregory VII., St. Bernard, St. Francis, Savonarola, Luther, Queen Elizabeth, Columbus, Washington, Lincoln, Homer, Virgil, Dante, Tennyson, and Lowell.

The boys on the prairies had to earn their bread; they could not spend six years travelling around and studying all the writers above mentioned, making themselves morally autonomous, and worshipping their own deepest and eternal selves. The best men America has produced were reared at home, and did chores out of school hours.