Memoirs of a little girl

Chapter I

It is from a day in the midst of the snows of a rigorous Western winter that my first conscious and permanent memory dates. The exterior of my home does not seem at that epoch to have impressed itself upon me, though I recollect it later, a big gray house surrounded by tall locust trees and lilac and snowball bushes, looking cheerful enough under the warm July sunshine.

The first day from which everything else in my world seems to date, I remember as being spent in a large room warmed and almost lighted by the fire that glowed in an immense wood stove. I say lighted, for the fast-falling snow made a ghostly half twilight all day long, through which shone feebly a pale yellow orb that neither healed nor illuminated. The drifting snow nearly covered the lower part of the windows and encrusted itself in patches on the higher panes. From time to time I left my play near* the roaring fire, to press my small nose against the glass and to wonder if by night the white tide would have risen until it mounted to the very roof. I believe that I secretly hoped that it would ; children are eager for sensations new and startling. And then — to the vivid memory of that bright and homely room and the smiling face of my mother as she watched my play, succeeds an absolute blank. Whether the storm cleared or whether it increased, as I hoped it would do, until we were engulfed, I could not now relate from my own recollection. And next, by some strange, miraculous transformation, it was summer and I was romping on the grass with a new baby sister — new only in my memory — for she must have then been six months old. And I pelted her with snowballs from the bush near by, as I must have seen other children pelt their playfellows with real balls of snow in the winter that had past, until the little creature cried with fright and the nursemaid told me that I was too big and rough to play with my little sister.

After that, other memories succeed each other with kaleidoscopic swiftness, some vdvid, some vague. There were childish escapades, as when I ran away to join a circus, or to be a feminine Robinson Crusoe on a desert island. Then there was my famous imitation of one of Baron Trenck’s many escapes, which ended so disastrously for me. F or some childish peccadillo I had been sent to my room, there to remain until I should be in a penitent frame of mind. This was entirely moral suasion, the only sort my mother practiced. I was not forcibly haled up the stairs and locked in the room ; I was simply told to go there and close the door. I could, therefore, have walked out as easily as I had walked in, but that would not have suited my high and heroic purpose half so well as to make a bold and daring escape by way of the window. So I hastily tore my little bed open and hastily — alas ! loo hastily, knotted the two sheets together and, after fastening the rope thus made to one of the legs of the bed, I swung myself gallantly and fearlessly out of the window. There followed for one second a glorious soaring sensation that made me catch my breath — then nothing more until I recovered my senses and found myself supported on my mother’s knees, with grave and anxious faces all about me and a dreadful pain shooting through my right arm. My knots had not been very well secured and the improvised rope had parted in the middle just as it crossed the window ledge.

Under such circumstances, Baron Trenck would doubtless have picked himself up and gone on his way rejoicing that he had only broken his arm and not his neck. I, however, was forced to admit to myself that a small girl of six, if no less fearless than a war-scarred veteran, is fearless because she does not realize the probable consequences of her foolhardy deeds rather than because she is careless of them.

My broken arm gave me a certain degree of satisfaction when I made my first appearance among my playfellows with it done up in a sling, for I could pose as a heroine who had suffered for her daring and who proudly bore her honorable scars ; but the novelty soon wore off and, as the arm did not mend very fast, I found it a serious drawback to my active amusements.

Then there was a never-to-be-forgotten trip to a lumber camp, taken one spring with my father, the owner of a large sawmill on the Fox River. The roads were very bad, as the frost had only recently relaxed the hold in which it locks so fast the earth in that cold region. It was necessary, therefore, to make the trip on horseback,

I riding astride in front of my father. The wild scene made an ineffaceable impression on my mind — the large clearing surrounded by a lofty and almost impenetrable forest, the rude log huts and the red-shirted lumbermen, a rough and boisterous crew, ready with knife or pistol on small provocation.

They were very gentle with me, however, and their harsh voices took on ingratiating inflections as they talked to the “ little lady.” One of them was rather a skillful taxidermist, and he insisted on presenting me with a gopher which he had stuffed. It was one of my most cherished treasures, until a small puppy, a newer acquisition, chewed it up beyond all hope of repair. Through my sobs I told my mother that I supposed I’d have to forgive the dog for he didn’t know any better, but that I never wished to see him again. I relented the next day, however, not so much from a Christian spirit of forgiveness as because I didn’t care to lose at once my two dearest treasures. So Prince was gradually restored to a favor which lasted until his untimely taking off through distemper. This, my first great sorrow was, like the Irishman’s, somewhat assuaged by giving my departed friend a “ most iligant funeral.” Indeed, the obsequies were so satisfactory to all the participants, that we thought seriously of exhuming the corpse and repeating the ceremonies on the following day. My mother overheard some conversation bearing on the subject, however, and so decisively forbade the carrying out of our plan that we were forced to regard our canine friend as being as dead as Csesar, and all our subsequent consolation was derived from composing an elabora.te epitaph to adorn the monument which, by dint of carefully saving our pennies, we intended to purchase.

Needless to say that the composition never was chiseled into stone, for, by the next week, other things began to interest us. We could not forever mourn, and candy and marbles were expensive.

CHAPTER li.

The summer which followed my visit to the logging camp, left its impress on my mind as being a very eventful one. At least, it was full of novel experiences and afforded glimpses of a phase of life that was to me wholly new. In the first place, our family, which had always occupied our own house, moved to a hotel, and it was irici c iiio-L I made my first acquaintance with the theatre, both before and behind the scenes.

My brother, who was many years older than I, had elected, a year previous to this time, to do as so many ambitious boys have done — go out into the world and seek his fortune. He had taken a position in a Chicago business house. His visits home were rare, and brief in their duration, and so, only my little sister Kitty and I were left with our parents in the big house behind the snowball bushes and lilac trees. When an enterprising Yankee, full of modern ideas and fresh from the center of Eastern civilization, built a smart and showy new hotel, throwing completely into the shade the old California House, my father took a suite of rooms for us there, and the home of my earliest recollections was abandoned.

The top floor of the National Hotel was constructed into a large hall, with a stage at one end. Mot long after its completion, Lepere was visited by a travelling theatrical company. It was called the J. C. Blodgett Co., I think — the name of its star actor. The gifted beings who played Shakespeare by night were entirely affable and condescending by defy. Lady Macbeth always asked kindly, in her deep tragedy tones, “How do you do, little girl ?” when she met me in the corridor, and Hamlet was a very approachable person. The one whom I most admired, however, was a plump young woman with short blonde curls, who was always cast for the part of a page, and who occasionally did a song and dance before the curtain to allay the impatience of the w'aiting audience. My childish heart W’as won by her merry smile and gay, good-humored ways. I began secretly to aspire to be an actress, just like Miss Ethel St. John.

My delight knew no bounds when I was called upon to help the company out of difficulty. Mr. Blodgett (by request), so the programme stated, was to play Rip Van Winkle. His little son took the part of Rip’s boy, and there was no other child in the company to play “ Mina ” in the first act. My size and age — I was eight years old — fitted me to walk through the one scene, and my mother’s objections gave way before Mr. Blodgett’s supplications and my own eagerness.

I had only one rehearsal to prepare me for my first appearance in public, as they did not think it necessary that I should learn the words of the part. I was to be an animated dummy — nothing more — but secretly I cherished high hopes of so distinguishing myself that the company would insist on my being enrolled as a regular member. I was quite prepared to run away, did my parents refuse their permission. Alas ! I had never heard of stage fright, but by bitter experience I learned its meaning and my ambitious aspirations came to naught.

Probably Mr. Blodgett’s “ Rip ” was far below Jefferson’s standard, but it satisfied and moved his audience that night. When it came time for me to appear, the strangest feelings began to assail me ; my tongue grew dry and my knees became weak and unsteady. I went on the stage helping the little boy to carry a basket ; — of clothes — 1 think. When we set it down, I stood stock-still, struggling with a wild desire to run away and hide myself from all those staring eyes that seemed so mercilessly fixed on me. My little stage-brother went through his lines with ease and confidence which seemed little short of miraculous to me.

“Come here, Mina,” he said, seating himself by the table.

I did not move. I could not, I was perfectly paralyzed with fear. The boy scowled at me and beckoned. “ Come here, Mina, I want to tell you something,” he repeated. “Come along you little goose, or I’ll throw something at you,” he whispered shrilly.

This was too much. I recovered my power of locomotion and fled, weeping, overturning the basket of clothes in my effort to escape, by the shortest cut, into the obscurity of a private life. How Mr. Blodgett finished the act, I don’t know, for I was too mortified to creep out that evening from the hiding-place I had sought. It is probable that he was a little careful the next time he selected an amateur to help him.

My small companions teased me unmercifully, as children will, and my discomfiture was so great that for a few days I preferred to play alone rather than run the risk of hearing anything about Rip Van Winkle. It was a tax on my ingenuity to amuse myself without any playmates, particularly as my mother had forbidden me to go near the river whose brink was so invitingly near the hotel, being at the foot of a gentle slope some forty yards from the back of the building, or to play in the ice-houses, most fascinating places which were built along the river’s edge. So, at my wit’s end for amusement, I started to imitate some of the adventures of a certain “ Tiny Pig,” an imaginary being who seemed to be quite as clever as “Brer Rabbit” or “ Reineke Fuchs,” judging from the exploits I used to hear my little sister’s nurse relating to her. At one point in his career he made his escape from his enemies, so ran the chronicle, by getting into a barrel and rolling down hill, far faster than they could run. The hill was there ; so was the barrel. What fun it would be to try it ! Of course I didn’t care to keep on my way until I rolled into the river, so I chose a spot where a conveniently placed woodshed would stop the barrel before it reached the brink. I had not then read of the tortures of Regulus at the hands of the Carthaginians, or I might have more carefully examined the sides of the barrel before venturing to make a descent in it. Chuckling to myself, entirely confident of the result of my exploit, I crawled in and started the barrel. It rolled on, gently at first, then faster and faster, until I seemed to lose all consciousness. At length, with what seemed terrible force, it struck the side of the woodshed and poor “ Tiny Pig ” crawled out, battered and bruised, lacerated and bleeding from the sharp nails which protruded through the barrel’s sides.

My first thought was to wonder whether anyone had seen my hasty and undignified descent. I peered anxiously about. No one was in sight. The back windows of the hotel stared back blankly, empty of spectators. I heaved a sigh of relief and set to work to repair, as well as I could.

the disorder of my appearance. It was many years before I told any one of my attempt to give a practical demonstration of the romantic achievements of “ Tiny Pig.”

I soon forgot both my misadventures, and the other children forgot to tease me, in the aosorbingly interesting topic which occupied everybody’s attention at that time. People were always getting drowned in Lep^re. It seemed almost as though the Fox River ran through the town for the double purpose of carrying down logs to the mills, and of drowning off the superduous population. The river had lately claimed its prey in the shape of a worthless vagabond, the town drunkard, known as “ Old ” Jim O’Brien. Jim was not very old, and, barring his excesses in the way of drink, was a healthy enough specimen of manhood. The town buried him ; the town shed no tears over his untimely taking-off and would promptly have forgotten him, if it hadn’t occurred to some one that his coffin had seemed a good deal heavier than it ought to have been. People talked for two or three days, and finally, the rumors grew to such an extent that the grave was examined. Sure enough — instead of burying “Old” Jim, they had buried a pine log.

The news spread like wildfire. Who had taken the body and where had it been hidden ? Nobody knew, but everybody suspected, at first, Dr. Risk, a young physician, living at the National

Hotel, and his friend, a druggist on the nearest corner, who dabbled in medicine, under the doctor’s tutelage. But Dr. Risk talked so indignantly of the outrage, of the horror of grave desecrating, that suspicion passed him by.

We children listened and shivered. We had never feared “ Old Jim ” alive, even in his cups. We were wofully afraid of him, now that he was dead. We suspected every empty room, every dark corner, of being Jim’s hiding-place. It was said that his body was hidden in one of the ice-houses, that it was buried beneath sawdust near the riverside, that it was in this man’s cellar or that man’s attic. Willie Miller, Fannie Burt, little Louise T^treau and I pressed closer together as we talked in fearful whispers of the gruesome thing.

Willie said scornfully “ Who’s afraid of ‘ Old Jim ? ’ I ain’t.” But later in the evening, when it came time for him to go home, he begged us girls to walk there with him. It was a few rods away, on the same street as the hotel.

“ I’ll teach you to row my boat to-morrow if you will,” said Willie persuasively to me. “ Mebbe we’ll catch some fish. I’ve got a real hook and there’s lots of worms in our back yard, only ma said I wasn’t to dig it up any more. But I guess she’ll let me get a few,” he added hopefully. “Come on, Bess, don’t be a ’fraid cat.”

“You’re the 'fraid cat,” I retorted. “ You’re afraid to walk home ’cause it’s dark. I’m not afraid — I just don’t feel like walking,” I demonstrated my weariness by sitting down on the stairs and leaning my head against the bannister rail.

“Oh, pshaw, Bess ! I didn’t mean that, really. Our cat has got six kittens, and ma said I could give some of ’em away. I thought mebbe you’d like to pick out one.”

At the mention of kittens I jumped up with alacrity. I adored the soft, fluffy, cuddling things, but they always would insist on growing up into dignified and sleepy cats, no longer interesting, so that a new kitten was a gift not to be despised. I forgot our bugbear until we stepped out into the street, when Fannie Burt whispered in my ear — “ Supposin’ ‘ Old Jim ’ should reach out from under the sidewalk and grab your foot ! ” Overcome by the horror of the very probable picture she had called up, she turned and fled back into the house, little Louise T^treau shrieking at her heels. I stood my ground stoutly, although chills were chasing each other down my back.

“ I forgot,” I remarked, with elaborate carelessness, “but my mother said last time that I brought a kitten home that I wasn’t to bring any more for ever and ever so long. I’ll ask her to-morrow if I can’t have one, though,” I added, fearing to lose the coveted prize.

Willie was at his wit’s end. He hung about disconsolately, feeling that he had exhausted his /•esources but unwilling to give up, and tread that dark path alone. Suddenly he brightened. “ There’s our hired girl and her beau. Good night, Bess. Hold on, Mary — wait for me,” he shouted, darting after the pair, who were just then passing the hotel. He was probably an unwelcome addition to their party of two, and doubtless shortened their leavetaking at the backgate, but Willie was not sensitive, and was perfectly satisfied to make his way home under escort of any sort.

Chapter III

The little town wore an air of subdued and mysterious excitement the next morning. Before I had breakfasted, Willie Miller was shouting under our windows for me to come out. I thought of the kitten, and completed my toilet hastily. Willie was waiting outside.

“Say,” he exclaimed, bursting with eagerness, “they’ve found him !”

“ Found him ! ” I repeated stupidly. “ What ? 'Old Jim ’ — really ? Where was he ?”

“ In Dr. Denison’s drug-store cellar. He’s in there now, and Dr. Denison and Dr. Risk put him there. The Irish Catholics are going to lynch ’em. They’re hunting for them now. Hooray, lets go and see the fun ! ”

Willie gave vent to his feelings by letting out a terrific Indian war-whoop and kicking up his heels a little, as he started to run down the street. He had wasted all the time he could afford, and was off to hang on to the outskirts of the mob. For a mob there was. I could see a crowd coming down the street. In front of them, bareheaded and walking backwards, was a man whom I recognized as Judge Jewett. I could not hear what he was saying, but by his gestures I saw that he was attempting to pacify them. One of the men was carrying a rope, which he flourished in the air ; two others bore a ladder between them. “String ’em up!” I heard some one shout.

I realized the situation. The hotel was almost deserted, for every one was out hearing the news, or forming the throng which surrounded Denison’s drug-store. What if Dr. Risk were in his room ? The mob were evidently coming to look for him there.

I darted into the hall and down the stairway, and, with a mighty effort, pushed the heavy door to and shot the bolt. I flew breathlessly up two flights of stairs. I wasn’t particularly fond of Dr. Risk — his was not an attractive personality — but I did not wish him to be hanged. I knocked at his door with eager, trembling hands. “ Who’s there ? ” a voice inquired.

“ It’s me, Dr. Risk — Bessie Benton. They’re coming to hang you. Run — hide — quick ! ”

The door opened, and the doctor, pale and agitated, caught me by the wrist. “ What’s that you say ? ” he asked.

“ They’ve found out — old Jim O’Brien. The Catholics — they’re going to lynch you,” I stammered. “ Oh, quick ! ”

“ If you’re deceiving me, Bessie ” The

doctor gave me an ugly look, but did not finish.

Sounds from below made him turn even more ghastly. They were trying to force the hall door. Some one shouted, “ Go through the bar.”

For heaven’s sake, Bessie, what shall I do ? ” gasped the frightened man.

“ In my room — come. They won’t know you’re there.” I half dragged him down the stairs, one flight, to my own room. It was just as I had left it, a few minutes before. My little sister, a picture of innocent, cherubic loveliness, lay, still fast asleep, in the bed.

“ Get under the bed — be quick ! ’Way under — I can see you.” I dragged off a part of the covering, so that it hung down and concealed his form. None too soon. I went out into the hall and closed the door after me as the mob reached the head of the stairs. Judge Jewett, his coat half torn from his shoulders, was still trying to hold them back, and with him was my father, trying too, with all his might, to check their progress. I ran, with a frightened sob in my throat, to my father’s side.

“ What are you doing here, Bessie ? ” he asked sternly. “ Go into your room and lock the door.”

As I obeyed him, the mob rushed on. They wereTn the third story. With a howl of rage they Hung open the room whence their prey had escaped. “We’ll find him yet. He« here !’

22 THE MEMOIRS OE A LITTLE GIRL.

some one of them cried. I could hear them opening, or forcing, the doors of the rooms above (it was the uppermost story except one — the theatre). Then they came back to the second floor. I heard my father cry : “ Men, men, have you no shame ? This is my wife’s room ! ” Still the search went on. They were hammering at my door. My mother, half fainting, and partially dressed, came through the door that opened from her room into mine.

“ Open and have it over,” she exclaimed. “You can see that there is no one here.”

“ Have either of you seen that bodysnatcher ? ” asked one of the leaders.

My little sister awoke and sat up in bed rubbing her eyes. Seeing the rough, strange men about, she commenced to cry. My mother snatched her up and began to soothe the frightened child.

“ I’ve just got up,” I said calmly. It seemed as though they must hear the loud thumping of my heart. “ 1 haven’t been to breakfast yet ! Who are you looking for ? ”

“You can see for yourselves,” exclaimed my father indignantly. “ I know your names.

I know you, McManus, and you, Gallagher. You shall answer for this outrage.”

A little humbled, a trifle cooled down, they pressed on, out of the room. Needless to say, they did not find the doctor, who, secreted in another room of the hotel until nightfall, was driven under cover of darkness to the nearest town, five miles away. He went by rail from there to Chicago, lor a change of scene, and it was some time before he ventured to show himself in Lep^re again. When he did, the hotblooded, impulsive, lawless fellows who had led the outbreak against him, had almost forgotten Jim O’Brien.

It leaked out gradually what my part in the affair had been, and, greatly to my surprise and relief, the Irish Catholics showed no desire to hang me in place of Dr. Risk. Willie Miller, however, remarked that girls always spoiled everything. “ You might have let them get him and give him a scare,” he said to me. “Some one would 'a cut him down before he choked to death. I never saw a hanging, and I wanted to see one.”

It is probable that the doctor did not share Willie’s optimistic view of the situation.

Chapter IV

“Come on, Bess, I’ve got something to show you.” Willie Miller had evidently become possessed of a treasure. His face was shining with delight and excitement. I was anxious to please him, for I had felt keenly his strictures on my interference in behalf of Dr. Risk, so I followed meekly when he beckoned. At a safe distance from the house, he showed me the contents of the little package he was carrying, live neatly-rolled cigars and a dozen or so of matches, “ I’m going to smoke ’em,” he said. “ Come on down to the boat-house and see me. I got ’em all for a nickel.”

“ Oh, Willie, do you know how ? Mamma said I must never go down to the boat-house, though.”

“ Oh, come along. It ain’t going to drown you just to go into the boat-house and see me smoke.”

I had scruples, however, and Willie finally compromised on a secluded corner of the big hotel woodshed, against which “Tiny Pig ” had come to a full stop. I watched for a time, with reverential awe, then a desire to emulate his prowess began to take possession of me.

“ Let me smoke one, Willie,” I pleaded.

THE MEMOIRS OF A LITTLE GIRL.

“ Girls don’t smoke,” replied the young autocrat, conscious of the superiority of years and sex. He was three years my senior.

“ I read that Cuban ladies smoke cigars, just like the men. Just let me try. Let’s pretend I’m a Cuban. Old Irishwomen smoke, too. I’ve seen ’em.”

“ Well, anyhow, the young ones don’t, and the old women only smoke pipes. But I’ve got more’n I’ll want here to- day, I guess, and you can try one.”

• A hall an hour later, I left Willie curled up in a dark corner of the wood-house. He seemed very wretched indeed, so wretched that I should have hesitated to leave him alone, had he not shown every evidence of a desire to get rid of me, and had I not begun to feel a similar need for solitude. I was dreadfully ill. It seemed, at times, that I was about to die, and my sole consolation in my agonies was that I had not disobeyed my mother and gone to the boat-house. Perhaps I stood some chance of going to heaven.

I should have liked to kiss them all good-bye, I thought, but 1 hadn’t time. I hadn’t time for anything.

I had hidden away in an empty room of the hotel, and it was dark before I finally crawled out of my retirement. For me, time was no more. I realized that the supper hour must long have been past, but I didn’t care for that. My appetite seemed permanently lost. As I wandered unsteadily in the direction of my room, I thought of Willie’s probable fate. He had smoked two cigars, or nearly two, I less than one. He was undoubtedly dead. No constitution could stand such a strain. I began to cry. Willie had his faults. He was inclined to be overbearing and to put on superior airs. He was not always truthful, but we had been friends. I wished that I had walked home with him that night when we were all so afraid of “ Old Jim.” I might have been kinder and more sympathetic that afternoon, too. I might have stayed with him and held his head. Here I shuddered retrospectively.

As I entered my door, I ran into Nora, our Irish nurse. She gave a howl that nearly shattered my already weakened nerves.

“ Bessie Benton, you bad girl ! Where’ve you been ? And they dhraggin’ the river for you this blessed minute, and yer poor mother in fits in her room. Don’t ye go in there, now ” — barring my path. “ The docthor has given her some ’orphine, and put the poor lady to slape. Oh, ye bad child ! ”