The journal of a grandfather

XIV

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS W. E. H. Gramp ... - Frontispiece

FaciDE Paie /

Kickem, in Her Lisping Infancy - - - - 10

The Granddaughter was then Young and Fair - 14

Bammy, the Wheel-horse in Our Conjugal Team 138

An Only Child and Grandchild - - - - 141

For a Park Drive from the City Home - - 145

A Midday Lunch by the Wayside - - - 155

Cottonwood Ranch ■'■'^

Gramp, Tom Draw, and the Other Dogs - - 177

Thomas Jefferson Goes With Us - - - 182

Satanta, Kiowa Chief 1^4

The Dignity of Her Senior Year - - - 201

Her Free Swing and Follow Through - - - 202

She Handles Well a Four Upon Occasion - 216

General and the Girl Flying Over - - * 225

Chapter One Why I ^vrite

I HAVE just been reading from the Journal of a Recluse that Benvenuto Cellini, a somewhat famous Italian, opens his biography by saying that "all men, no matter their condition, if they have done anything worth while, ought with their own hand to write a description of their life, but ought not to commence doing so until they have passed the age of forty." This journalist who so quotes from Cellini, adds: "And I? Have I done anything worth while?"

I shall not ask myself that question. I am long past my fortieth mile-post. If I have done nothing worth while by this time I am not likely to, so, as I have a chit of a girl to come after me who has enjoyed with me some of the scenes I wish to write of, I shall write.

Age is garrulous. I have reached my three score years and ten ; so, as my early ambitions are all about gratified or given up, and as I have never talked much of my life, I think I will rather enjoy writing about

Page Eight THE JOURNAL OF A GRANDFATHER

it, thus, as it were, living over again scenes well-nigh

forgotten, letting —

"Eeminiscent thoughts create Landscape and incident before me."

Furthermore, it may be that when I am dust and ashes some part of what I write here, may recall my love and devotion to those that come after me, and my solicitude for their welfare.

I shall be able, too, to write family history, happenings, and experiences that must otherwise remain unknown to them. For is not —

"All experience an arch wherethr'o Gleams that untravell'd World whose margui fades Forever and forever when we move."

Besides, have not I, too,

' 'Seen and known Cities of men and manners, climates, Councils, governments; and drunk delight Of battle with my peers."

Again, this journal is to a granddaughter, and whatever I may write will, I know, be worth while to her. For I "have lived, thought, felt keenly," and, as someone has said, "Isn't that the essence of literature?"

I lay no claim to literary excellence ; for, "What we are, we are." If in writing this, too, I attempt to go beyond family history, and my own life events, I may write of outdoor life and scenes that have done so much to lighten and brighten my life. I shall browse, too, from all fields ; pick and quote, often with imper-

Page Nine

WHY I WRITE

feet memory, from all authors that come to me, who have said somewhere and sometime, better than I can, the ♦^hings I want to say here.

I may not, too, always write from libraries where there are books; but from ranches, or from camps and cabins in the forests and by the streams — sometimes even upon a saddle-blanket under a tree where the woods are thickest; or on the mountain side where the views are finest,

I am a poor walker, but a good rider; and these days I greatly love to ride a favorite horse through the hills and valleys among the cattle, getting down frequently to rest the old horse and myself. It is an easy matter to carry a notebook and pencil in one saddle-pocket and a biscuit in the other, and to dismount, unsaddle, spread the saddle-blanket and write, if in writing mood. I always divide the biscuit with the old horse, so he never leaves me. After the biscuit, while the horse browses for grass, I may sometimes browse for ideas — my own or some one else's — I am just as apt to get some one else's as my own, and I do not mind if I do. The result may be a mixture — a kind of mosaic, as it were — *'my blend" as my liquor dealer sometimes says in his printed label on the bottles he sends me.

The granddaughter, our only child now, for whom I write this journal, as she was none too robust in her infancy, I have kept with me, having her lead an outdoor life as much as possible, and that she may have something to interest and keep her there, I have

Page Ten THE JOURNAL OF A GRANDFATHER

encouraged her in her natural taste for all wholesome outdoor sports. I call our granddaughter Kickem, and should any one ask how she acquired her unclassical name, I would answer, her rightful name is Clifton, this, in her first lisping infancy, from her inability to pronounce her given name, she synonymed Kickem.

Kickem, from the first, seemed to take advantage of our kinship, and at times to be most irreverent, early calling me Gramp, and her grandmother Bammy. Bammy is right enough for a white-haired, sweet-faced, middle-aged woman, but Gramp ! Who ever heard of a Gramp? It sounds doubtless most disrespectful, but somehow, I never thought it so. So, Gramp it is, and as Gramp I shall write this journal, satisfying if I can, as Cellini says we must, that natural curiosity as to my credibility and as to my family.

Kickem, in Her Lisping Infancy

Chapter Two

MY father was a Virginian, of Scotch-Irish descent. As John Fiske says: "The Scotch-Irish were the pioneers of the American backwoods. They were picked men and women of the most excellent sort. They were intelhgent yeomanry and artisans. And the people to whom the term applied are for the most part Lowland Scotch Presbyterians, very slightly Hibernicized in blood. The policy of the Government was to interpose them as a buffer between the expanding colony and the Indian frontier. They spread rapidly and in large numbers toward the southwest along the mountain country through the Shenandoah Valley and into the Carolinas. At a later time they formed almost the entire population of West Virginia, and they were the men who chiefly built up the commonwealths of Kentucky and Tennessee. When our Civil War came these men were a great power on both sides."

Page Twelve THE JOURNAL OF A GRANDFATHER

It was from this stock my father came. His delight was in his farm, his horses and his cattle. He always owned and farmed his own land, and he was always happy when working upon the one and with the other. There was not a lazy bone in his body. Daylight never found him in bed, and through all the winter season the family always breakfasted by candlelight. He was a devout churchman, and for all the time I knew him, an Elder in the Presbyterian Church. His religion he took upon faith with never a doubt. He was honest, industrious and straightforward in all his dealings; and he enjoyed the confidence of all who knew him. He was a most useful member of his church, and in his later days — after he had retired from the active labors of the farm he gave most of his time to it, and to helping as he could those needing his services.

My mother was in every way a grand woman. Every mother is that to her son, or ought to be. It is true she died when I was but eight years old, but my aunts — her older sisters — I grew up to know well; they were of the grand type. After her death, they always spoke of my mother in the highest terms as the youngest and most capable member of the family.

I remember my mother best at her loom; a large, heavy oak affair, reaching almost to the ceiling; where she was accustomed to sit with her back to the wall upon the rude wooden bench attached to and facing the loom, weaving the woolen homespun for the fam-

Page Thirteen ily. She always sat facing my sistere ; who with their spinning wheels against the opposite wall, were in the same room (with their backs to my mother) spinning at their wheels.

These old-fashioned hand spinning wheels were tall, light affairs, each with an oak bottom frame set up on wooden pegs for legs, each supporting a single light open wooden wheel, larger in diameter but not unlike the hind wheel of a carriage, except that the rim or tire was of wood grooved to carry a round string band connecting with and turning a spmdle. The spinners would, with a quick forward or back step, as the case might be, give the wheel a quick whirl with a wooden spinning peg held in the hand, attach the filmy woolen roll to the whirling spindle and continue to trip lightly back and forth, rolling the twisted thread upon the spool held by the spindle until it was twisted to the proper size and consistency; then take another roll from the frame, give the wheel another whirl, attach the end to the open untwisted end of the former roll ; and so on until the spool was filled. The spinning had to be done standing and it required light hands, quick steps and light feet to do it well. When done by a lithesome girl, or sprightly woman, it was a most picturesque and graceful performance, oftentimes as imposing almost and as stately as a minuet; especially when accompanied as it often was with quick whirling steps and sweet maiden voices at intervals breaking into song in time with the steps.

Page Fourteen THE JOURNAL OF A GRANDFATHER

How I remember that large cheery work room; the big loom always going with its rythmic beat, beat, beat; and the wheels spinning and humming — not seldom — with joyous maiden laughter and song. I have witnessed in my life many pleasant work scenes — but none quite like this.

My mother was a Kentuckian and of Scotch descent. Her maiden name was Rutherford, and her branch of the family, as I have always been told, was from Jedburg in Scotland, near the English border, in Sir Walter Scott's country, whose mother, as is well known, was herself a Rutherford.

When I visited that section a few years ago in company with the granddaughter, Dr. Rutherford — a member of the family — who happened to be the family physician where we were visiting — in response to my inquiry as to the family said — "The Rutherfords were among the largest of the Scotch Highland Clans, and during the Border Wars took from the English as many cattle as the best of them and to use his quaint Scotch dialect — "Keep't them, too."

As the granddaughter was then young and fair, and rode straight and well, they took us in at once; had us at their homes and were very kind; and when we came to leave for America, the granddaughter was given an immense blue book, stamped in large gilt letters on the cover— THE RUTHERFORDS OF THAT ELK. And upon the first blank fly leaf inside, there was inscribed, "Given to her for she

The Granddaughter was then Young and Fair

Page Fifteen herself is a Rutherford in right of her grandmother, Ehza Ann Rutherford; to be kept as an archive in the family. Given her on her fifteenth birthday, right in the very heart and center of this border land, whose history these Rutherfords helped so much to make. A land richer in Romance, Song and Story, — thanks to Sir Walter Scott, himself a Rutherford — than any land in all the World. Sunlav7S — Scotland, Dec. 22d."

The granddaughter and I were at this time spending the holidays and part of the hunting season at Sunlaws, a beautiful country place, fifty miles from Edinburgh, where we spent many happy, never to be forgotten days. Although I have studied the big, blue book some, I must confess I have never been quite able to satisfy myself as to which particular branch of the family — there are so many — I belong. I think though there must be a strain of the Scotch Rutherfords in my blood; for I liked in the days I was there to gallop over the border; and I to this day like cattle, and I like to keep them as my own.

I like Scotland and the Scotch, and elsewhere in this Journal, I may have more to write of both.

Among the sturdy men and women of good stock that came from the South and East to Central Illinois, in the first quarter of the Nineteenth Century, were my father and mother; and the mystic voices that are ever calling the young and the energetic from

Page Sixteen THE JOURNAL OF A GRANDFATHER

the old lands to the new were irresistible to them, and with the others they came eagerly to the conquest of the Western forests and prairies; and they brought with them good moral characters and a willingness to work. No wonder that in a short time they made the virgin plains blossom as the rose, and Illinois one of the first States in the American Union.

My father was not what would be called an educated man in the language of the Schools. The rudiments, Reading, Writing, Arithmetic and Grammar, he knew well enough for all practical purposes. He always regretted that he had not what is called a liberal education; and he always said, that as he would have little else to give his children, he meant to give them an education ; and he made every effort to do so. With my sisters, he succeeded well, as all of them, three in number, — after the Common and High Schools — took an Academic Course, and all taught afterwards.

As for me, alas ! I, his only son, was the disappointment of his early and middle life — I could never get beyond my Sophomore year in College. Until I was eight years of age, my education proceeded well enough. I began, when I was about four years old, to attend with my sisters a Country School, kept in a little frame country school house of one room, distant not over a half mile from the modest brick and wooden farm house where we lived.

The teacher, although eccentric as I think now,

Page Seventeen was a man of force, in love with his work, and from the start he interested and impressed me.

In the four years I was there, I got about all the school-book education that ever really counted with me. Beginning with my letters, I there in the four years learned to read, write and spell, studying geography and practically finishing arithmetic. I there learned the multiplication table so I never forgot it, and when I quit this school, I really believe I could work any sum in Smith's or Ray's Arithmetic; as for spelling, too, I was among the best spellers in the school, although there were several practically grown up men and women there. How I remember the public Spelling Matches, we had in this country school house, the last Friday night in every month !

These Spelling Matches were great events. How eagerly I looked forward to them ! Being, as I said, among the good spellers, I though a youngster was early chosen, to my great gratification I remember, and entered each match expecting to stay up to the last, but I never did.

At the end of each School Year, we had an Exhibition — Compositions and Declamations. I was always among the declaimers; and as I see it now, I was regarded by the teacher as one of his best cards. The teacher himself always appeared in at least one declamation, which he learned from the book like the rest of us.

For these exhibition occasions, my mother always dressed me in my best, of course, and made me wear

Page Eighteen THE JOURNAL OF A GRANDFATHER

shoes. Dressed up, and excited as I was at these exhibitions, I felt large — if I did not look it — and in my shrill childish voice, I spouted in great shape.

I remember the teacher and I would often open the exercises with a dialogue. We had one in particular, that we used on any and all occasions; in which I would lead off with — "How big was Alexander, Pa?" etc., etc. To write of this now seems, I know, very ridiculous, but at the time, it stimulated and excited me about as much as ever did a Cavalry Charge, something I may write of later. This exciting system, and the way I was brought forward by my first teacher, would have been bad no doubt for the average boy — but, it never hurt me.

The next twelve years — from my eighth to my twentieth — were so disappointing to me, my father, and my family, that all my early egotism was I think quite taken out of me. At the end of these years, I was a wild and worthless young man; fit for nothing but to run away and join the Army; a thing I did later, thereby almost, if not quite, breaking my old father's heart. The only consolation came in later years, when my father made me a visit in the Southern home I had made for myself, and to his surprise no doubt; and to his evident gratification, found me an apparently prosperous, respected, and — if I may say it — a fairly educated and even an honored citizen. For education, after all, is not wholly of the Schools. It was the Army, and the three years I served in it as a private, that brought me to my senses.

Page Nineteen

In 1848, my father removed from his farm to the County town, a city so-called then, of from six to eight thousand inhabitants. This, from a financial point, was a mistake; and my father, for all the time he was in business in the city, lost money and was like a fish out of water. He invested a portion of the proceeds of the farm in a pretty, comfortable, modest home, on one of the principal streets, and adjoining the Presbyterian Female Academy. Here I passed the worst twelve years of my life — not because of the surroundings — they were as moral and wholesome as could be. It was the general worthlessness and cussedness, that sometimes takes hold of a boy from no apparent cause and holds on to him, that at this time possessed and about ruined me.

After buying the home, my father bought, with the remaining proceeds of the farm, a combined book and music store. After trying this for two or three unprofitable years; he in partnership with an Englishman, who was a baker and candy-maker, put up a bakery and a confectionery establishment. This failing to pay, and not being to his taste, my father disposed of his interest to his partner, and bought another small farm close to town; and still later a large flouring mill, the only one in the city at that time.

The mill like the other mercantile ventures, proved a failure. During these years, I alternated between the high school, the store, the mill, and the farm — ■ school books and school teachers had ceased to inter-

Page Twenty THE JOURNAL OF A GRANDFATHER

est me — whispering voices, "The Call of the Wild," were luring me to the woods, and by the streams — I would take "days oft" without leave. When the taking was discovered there would be trouble for me, at school and at home.

At such times I would be taken from school for a time, and put to work. Rather menial work, I thought. I rebelled, but not openly. When sent back to school, I would do better, but only for a time. Finally, though poorly prepared, I entered the freshman class in one of the oldest Colleges in the State. At the end of the year I failed to pass my examinations, and had to take the year over. The next year, I barely passed. At the end of the Sophomore Year, fearing I would again fail, I left the College, and my school days were over. So ended, to my father's grief and disappointment, more than my own, his hopes of my education. He little thought that some day that same College would tender me its M. A. Degree.

I have long since learned that an education, after all, comes not wholly from the Schools. The smattering of Latin, Greek, French, Philosophy, the higher mathematics, etc., etc., all jumbled and crowded and forced down together, as I received it, does little to educate. The education that is valuable in practical life is one which gives a thorough grounding in the rudiments. This, with the self-culture that comes from reading the best books — is what counts. If after the Elementaries one is able to get hold of, and

Page Twenty-One to read and re-read the best books to give the right start and form early a correct taste, he, if really hungry for an education will get one. The originals — the really good books — are few. In these days of Public Libraries and good and cheap editions none are too poor to get the best and to have and to keep them as their own. He who best knows what to do, and how to do it, is the best educated.

I could really have easily taken the College Course, as the others did, but the truth is I was full of life — boy life — and the allurements of the College Green and the College Grove were irresistible. I excelled in almost all of the college games. I was the kind of a boy that liked play, and that never got enough of it at home.

My father believed in work for boys. No bad thing for them I admit; and he always laid out enough of it for me to occupy about all of my hours out of school. I had to be up by daylight winter and summer. Morning and night before and after school, it was my work to cut the wood, milk the cow, and feed the horses that were not in regular work under some one else. For my Saturdays, and other holidays, including the three months of summer vacation, there was always the work on the farm, or the hauling upon the road with wagon and team. To tell the truth, I was always a bit lazy when it came to working with the hands only. I did not mind the work so much, if I could do it with the horses. So about all of my farm and road work

Page Twenty-Two THE JOURNAL OF A GRANDFATHER

was with the horses and I early became a good horseman. The wheat cutting and the haying were always in the summer vacation. I was generally put to drive the horses in the harvest time. A mere boy of little use in binding, shocking wheat, or pitching hay, could do a man's work if he could drive. Hence I was early put to drive and kept at it as my father was always a great economizer of money, time and labor. To the reaper in wheat cutting, we always had to use four horses; and as a labor-saving scheme, it always fell to my lot to drive them, even when I was quite young. I liked this, and became in time quite expert with a four-in-hand.

My earliest ambition was to be a stage-driver and about my earliest recollection is of a bright red stage coach that daily passed the farni house where my childhood was spent, with four horses and a horn. How I daily, when a little fellow, watched for itl Its passing was a bright, cheery, particular event of my day then. i\t the first distant sound of the horn, I rushed bareheaded and barefooted, with yells and waving cap to the highroad to see it go by. I think the driver, realizing what an enthusiastic admirer he had in me, generally gave an extra toot and flourish for my benefit.

To what trivial events in childhood do we owe our tastes and predilections:

' 'A pebble in the streamlet cast

Changes in its course the mighty river, A dew drop on the bal)y plant Dwarfs the giant oak forever."

Page Twenty-Three

Since these early boyhood days, I have driven many thousands of miles in my own coach; ofttime with pleasurable, interesting, and exciting incident and scene, yet I doubt if any of them thrilled and excited me more than did this first red stage coach, with its four horses and its horn.

My second and lasting ambition was to be a lawyer. I have always thought I was really better qualified for my first ambition, "The Stage Driver," than I ever was for my second. However, to the second, although poorly equipped in the beginning, I attribute what little success I attained in later years — if success it can be called. Alas! What is Success? Who Knows?

The above sentence calls to my mind a pretty Allegory, "Success and Failure"; written by Beatrice Harraden, the authoress, as every one knows, of "Ships That Pass in the Night." This Allegory, questions, I remember, the standard by which Success in this world is commonly judged and how different it may be from the standard applied in the World beyond this. I met with this little story but once — that was when years ago on a Coaching Trip, I chanced to pick it up and read it at a hotel where we had stopped for a day or two's rest.

The proprietor told me that Beatrice Harraden was then living with some English friends of hers, only fifteen miles away, at a picturesque and pretty cottage, on a little farm that they were wanting to

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sell. The next day, I hired a livery team and drove over to see the cottage and the farm. The proprietor of the hotel kindly gave me a note of introduction. I was asked to remain over to luncheon and I did so. Beatrice Harraden and the gentleman's wife (whose name has escaped me, but to whom Miss Harraden dedicated "Ships That Pass in the Night") chanced to be out for the day. The gentleman was quite full of Beatrice (as he called her) and her work, and he showed me the desk upon which "Ships That Pass in the Night" had been written. When I mentioned the little Allegory written by her, that I had just read, over at the hotel, and remarked that it pleased me better even than "Ships That Pass in the Night," he expressed his surprise. The next day the gentleman called upon me at my hotel and told me how pleased Beatrice was when she came home to hear I had spoken so highly of her Allegory.

I do think Beatrice Harraden's Allegory is a literary gem, and the best thing she has written. At least, it seemed so to me, from the one reading at the little Way Side Inn. I want to get it and read it again.

We all know, however, how much environment, time and place and the mood you are in when you read, has to do with our judgment of books. After a day on the road, over the horses, with a Road Coach, I am alive "to my finger tips." The stop for night at a Way Side Inn after such a day makes

Page Twenty-Five the parlor maid look the fine lady and any little booklet that has for the time pleased you a literary gem.

After leaving College, I began in a sort of perfunctory way the study of the law. I had always somehow loved the atmosphere of courts — so when I was not engaged with the law books, in the office of the lawyer who kindly took me in and promised to direct my reading, I was usually to be found in and about the court room. The sharp legal sparring of counsel; the skilled management of a case on trial; the adroit handling of a witness on the stand; and the final arguments interested me. I liked to hear the stories and jokes of the members of the Bar and their bye talk in the court room, when waiting for the court to call. I knew the big lawyers — the leading members — by sight at least, and knew just how big they were, or thought I did.

Among those leading members that always attended our District Court was the great Abraham Lincoln. At that time, however, 1850 to i860, I do not think he was considered an all 'round great lawyer. I heard Mr. Lincoln several times in important cases. I have seen and heard in my day some great lawyers, but none that seemed to me so great as Mr. Lincoln before a jury. He was matchless, too, in his great hearted, kindly winning way of handling a witness, and I never knew him on crossexamination ask an opposing witness a question too many. He managed by his honest face and straight-