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Children of the Market Place by Edgar Lee Masters

E >> Edgar Lee Masters >> Children of the Market Place




We were a comical pair driving into the hurly burly of the new city of
Chicago. It had recently received a charter. But what a motley of
buildings it was! Frame shacks wedged between more substantial buildings
of brick or wood. Land speculators swarmed everywhere; land offices
confronted one at every turn; lawyers, doctors, men of all professions
and trades had descended upon this waste of sand and scrub oaks about
the lake. Indians walked among the whites; negroes as porters, laborers,
bootblacks, were plentiful; there were countless drinking places and new
hotels; there were sharpers, adventurers, blacklegs, men of prey of all
description, prostitutes, the camp followers of new settlements, houses
of vice, restaurants, gardens. And with all the rest of it evidences of
fine breeds, and civilizing purposes in some of the residences and
activities. After all a city was to be built.

And here we were--a sorry pair indeed! Douglas, worn from his
campaigning, battered and frayed; myself, dusty and unkempt, entering
Chicago behind a horse dragging its body harnessed in patches to a
rattling buggy. We laughed at ourselves.

Douglas and I went to a clothing store where I insisted upon fitting him
out with a suit and a hat. We bought a new harness for the horse. Then
we set forth for meals and drinks.

Somehow I felt that Zoe might be in some concert hall singing for the
means of life. A darker idea crossed my mind, but I put it away. I told
Douglas that I meant to find Zoe, if I could. After our meal we went
from place to place in this quest. Douglas did not try to dissuade me,
but he looked at me keenly as if he wondered why I wished to find Zoe.
Why, after all? As years elapsed I would be rid of all associated memory
of her in Jacksonville. Might not Dorothy come back to me if she knew
that Zoe had wholly vanished from my life? Yet something of a sense of
responsibility, and something of an affection for Zoe kept my mind fast
to the idea of finding her. Up and down the streets of Chicago Douglas
and I walked, looking for Zoe.

Once I heard a woman's voice singing "Annie Laurie." I rushed into the
place whence the voice came, followed deliberately and patiently by
Douglas. There stood a woman on a sort of platform. She was garishly
dressed. There were idlers and drinkers at the table. When we came out
Douglas said that the search was useless; that if Zoe was in Chicago
she might be in a place so secret that I would never find her, except by
chance. Yes, I understood. And if it had come to that, what could I do
with Zoe, if I found her?

Chicago was not long in discovering that Douglas, the marvelous boy, was
in their midst. He must make an address. They erected a platform and
billed the town. I stayed near until Douglas rose to speak. He looked
fresh and tidy in his new suit, and with freshly shaven face. I heard
his great voice roll out over the large crowd collected to hear him. I
heard the applause that welcomed him, that responded to the first thrill
of his fluent eloquence. Then I stole away to look for Zoe.

I walked up and down the streets. I stood in drinking places. I entered
a few places of vice. I stopped at the rear of a hotel, where the maids
were gathered together resting and talking after the day's work. But no
Zoe.

At last I went down to the shore of the lake, rather to the shore of the
sluice through which the Chicago River widened into the lake in a
southerly direction. I sat here on a rude settee. The air was warm.
There were sounds and voices floating over me from the town.
Occasionally I could hear the organ music of Douglas' oratory, as it
drifted indistinguishably to me. I was thinking, wondering about my own
life; enthralled at the vision of this new country, which I could see
taking form before my own eyes. Then I became conscious of a couple on a
settee near. I had not noticed them before. I got up and walked past
them. And there was Zoe!

It was dusk, but she knew me. She gave a quick start, put her hand to
her mouth. The man was silent, looking at her, unconscious of my
presence. I divined that she did not want me to speak to her. I heard
her say to her companion: "Go back. Leave me here awhile, I want to be
alone. I will return soon."

I walked on a distance of a hundred yards or more. Then I looked back. I
thought some one, Zoe, or both of them were still on the settee. I could
not be sure. I retraced my steps. When I came to the settee the man was
some distance away, going toward the town. Zoe motioned to me to walk
the way I had come. I did so; loitered and returned. Zoe was now alone.
I sat down beside her; Zoe took my hand.

My first thought was who was the man. Zoe proceeded to tell me that she
was working as a domestic, that this man was a voice teacher who had
recently arrived in Chicago from New York. I looked at Zoe, as if to ask
her what was the nature of the intimacy that would lead her into this
association at night in this secluded place by the lake. I followed this
by asking: "Are you very good friends?" "He is kind to me," Zoe said.
"He teaches me and we walk out together and talk."

Well, were there not then the usual consequences? Zoe was remarkably
beautiful; Zoe's morale had been broken by a terrible experience. She
had gone through the disintegration natural to my own difficulties, of
which she was the occasion; the killing of Lamborn, the whole condition
at Jacksonville. And now, what was Zoe? I could not penetrate her
reserve. She stroked my hands affectionately. The tears started from her
eyes.

I changed the key by bringing up her interests. "Reverdy is your
guardian and I am putting your property in his hands. Don't you need
money? Why haven't you sent for money?" "Because," Zoe answered, "I
meant to go out of your life, and stay out of your life. Now that you
have found me it does not matter. All I could do would be to run off
again. But why? This is a wonderful place. I love the excitement, the
stir here. And I am in no danger here from being kidnapped. I don't want
to go into the country again. I will be all right, James, be sure. But
if you want to send me some money I will be glad. Only don't come for
me; don't have me known in your life again. I am out of it now. You
can't do for me what you could if I was white. Why try? Facts are just
what they are. I will be all right here. I am learning to sing. Mr.
Fortescue says that I have a voice. That's his name. He is a good man,
you can be sure." "He loves you?" I interrupted. Zoe did not answer. "He
wants to marry you?" I said, half interrogatively. "I don't believe I am
made for marriage," said Zoe. "Where do you work?" I asked.

Zoe was silent for some seconds, as if thinking. I repeated the
question. "Don't ask me that, Mr. James, don't," she said. "I know where
you are, I know where to find you. And if you need me I will come to you
if I can; but don't ask me where I am." "How can I send you money?"
"Send it to the post office. Send it to Laurette Toombs. That's my name
here. But don't try to find me again. I just pray God all the time that
I may never be of any trouble to you; and I am afraid all the time I
may." "Why?" I asked quickly. "Oh, I don't know; just because things are
what they are. I have already made you a world of trouble. And you have
been just as good to me as a brother could be. I just pray God not to
make you any more trouble. I must go." Her voice had grown full of
pathos. "Where?" I asked. "Don't follow me, Mr. James, just let me go. I
am a grown woman. I must lead my own life. Just be good to me as you
have been--don't you understand? I grieve. So be good to me, let me
manage myself and manage our meetings, whatever they are. Sit here now
while I steal away. Promise me."

Zoe got up, stretched her hands to me, then hurried through the darkness
to the town. I followed her with my eyes until she was lost to view. The
voice of Douglas by a sudden swell of the air was borne to me. One
articulate word fell upon my ears. It was "slavery." His voice lapsed
into the silence of the receding breeze. I sat alone for a few minutes.
Then I arose, and went to the place where Douglas was speaking.

He was just finishing. In a burst of impetuous and impassioned
eloquence he was pointing to the future glory of the United States, when
Great Britain would own no foot of soil from the North Pole to the Gulf.
The audience applauded tumultuously. Douglas stepped from the rude
platform into the arms of bewitched admirers. He freed himself and came
to me. He brought with him a Mr. DeWitt Williams who had prevailed upon
Douglas to accept his hospitality for the night. As Douglas' traveling
companion, I was invited to share in the entertainment.




CHAPTER XXIII


I had no opportunity now to tell Douglas that I had found Zoe. Her own
injunctions to keep her whereabouts a secret appealed to me. Perhaps her
going away, the changing of her name, her determination to keep her life
free from mine, made for a real solution. Perhaps she could continue in
this way for years, taking from me what I might send her. Perhaps I
could marry Dorothy eventually. Perhaps all would be well. Perhaps!

When we were driving toward Springfield the next day I was on the point
several times of telling Douglas that I had found Zoe. I wanted to
discuss the possibilities with some one. Prudence, however, dictated
silence--and silence I kept.

Mr. Williams was a prospering lawyer and land speculator. He had been in
Chicago for two years. His household consisted of Mrs. Williams and two
children, and a Miss Walker from Connecticut, a sister of Mrs. Williams.
The house was new and of some architectural pretentions, of brick, in
the style of the houses I had seen in New York. It was well furnished.
There were two servants; altogether an air of elegance about the
establishment.

We had a gay hour at breakfast, for Douglas was in one of his most
engaging and talkative moods. Mr. Williams was a man in the middle
forties, and seemed colorless and unschooled in comparison with Douglas.
He shared Douglas' political opinions, looked upon him with a certain
awe; while Mrs. Williams and the children kept a reverential silence.

But Miss Walker! I saw that she was disposed to match wits with Douglas.
She was exceedingly fair of complexion, with lovely brown hair and
gray-blue eyes, which had a way of fixing themselves in an expression of
intense concentration. Like sudden spurts of flame they lighted quickly
upon the barely suggested point of a story or an argument. She laughed
freely in a musical voice that encouraged Douglas to multiply anecdotes.
Douglas enjoyed this admiration. But after all his attitude toward women
was wholly conventional. He did not use his gifts to win them. The idea
of making conquests, even through his growing celebrity, did not enter
into his speculations. He was a man's man. If he was ever to be
interested in a woman it would be in the practical way of making her his
wife. He could be a husband, never a lover. His genius, though fed by
passion and virility, entertained no visions of romantic ecstasy. His
instinct was for the laws.

Miss Walker was to Douglas only a delightful auditor, an apt
interlocutor. She looked Douglas through and through. She dropped words
of dissent. She expressed her abhorrence of slavery and the South. In
referring to South Carolina's attempted nullification of the tariff law,
she said that if they ever attempted to secede they should be pushed
out of the door and not held. I thought her critical of Douglas, in
spite of the amazement which her eyes betrayed for his conversational
gifts, his self-assurance and brilliancy. Once she said that there was a
right and wrong about everything. And when Douglas glanced up at her
quickly, her eyes fixed him steadily. Douglas took up this challenge by
saying: "Yes, but who is to decide what is right and what is wrong; or
what is to decide it? The progress of the country or the opinions of
fanatics?" "The minds of big men," retorted Miss Walker. "And since you
have spoken of a great territory for the United States let me bespeak
big men for it instead. Persia you know was a big country." "Why make
the two inconsistent?" asked Douglas. "You can have both." "No, not
where you make material progress the never-ending thought of every one."

Mr. Williams had many things on his mind, that was apparent. His haste
in eating, his self-absorption showed that. Yet after breakfast he
lingered for half an hour; and during this time Miss Walker, who had
noticed me no more up to now than as one of the persons at the table,
came to a seat near me in the living room. She was lovely to look at,
but in a way half prim. The whiteness of her forehead, the fineness of
her hands, her air of clear and quick intellectuality, made her a person
to inspire something of deference. And yet I felt myself captivated by
her. Surely in every thinking man's heart there is a biological groping
toward a woman of mind. Shadowy forms rise undistinguished before him.
They are the children that such a woman can bear. He does not know that
this is the urge; but nature knows. On Miss Walker's part, I saw her
appraising me. She had come west where life was luxuriant and the
accidents of fortune abundant and men were strong. She had now
overstayed her visit with Mrs. Williams. Was to-day her day of destiny?
Here before her were the rising statesman of Illinois and a man who had
increased a fortune.

She was coming to Springfield shortly to visit. Would I be there? Did I
know the Ridgeway family there, of which Edward Ridgeway, the founder,
had been prominent in the affairs of Illinois, now dead some five years?
If I came to Springfield she would be glad to have me call upon her.
Well, perhaps she liked me and did not like Douglas after all. Was I
drawn to her? I felt some definite interest in her, that was sure. But I
was not forgetting Dorothy. Dorothy could not be obscured by a light as
white as Miss Walker's. And yet I had to confess that I was thinking of
Miss Walker in a half serious way.




CHAPTER XXIV


Douglas' hard campaign was ended when we arrived in Springfield. His
humorous remark was that he had the constitution of the United States.
He was never so wholly fatigued that a drink or a meal would not pull
him up to a zest and a capacity for a further task. A little sleep
restored him to a new exuberance. Truly, he was one of the most vital
men who come into the world for a restless career.

On the way back we noted how rapidly the country was changing. The
influx of settlers was very great. Villages, towns were springing up
everywhere. Farmhouses were multiplying. Douglas was enthusiastic over
the great prosperity which was evident. As an empire builder his
imagination was stirred. If he was not elected to Congress he would have
to go back to the practice of law. At this period of his life he was the
eager and ambitious youth pressed in the matter of money. I saw his
career influenced, if not largely shaped, by material necessity. And as
it turned out in the election in August he was defeated by thirty-five
votes in a total poll of 36,000. We did not know the result of the
election until several weeks later, due to the tardy facilities for
communicating news.

He had fought against an able and experienced campaigner. He had the
handicap of extreme youth. He had to meet the slurs of "interloper," and
the charge of being a pushing newcomer. And yet he was almost elected.
There were discrepancies in the count, too. He was urged to contest the
election. But the expense was too great. He was poor.

There was much about Douglas to remind one of Napoleon: drive, will,
resourcefulness, exhaustless energy. Too bad to remit such a man to the
business of getting clients. He was not a plodder. He was a mind who saw
men in large aggregations bound to each other by policies and interests.
He knew how to handle them as material in empire building.

On that ride back to Springfield he talked to me of many things that
gave me an insight into the workings of his mind. For the dreamer, the
visionary, he had no patience; he felt contempt for the agitator and the
radical. In a theory preoccupying the human mind he saw something akin
to madness. Mormonism, abolitionism, all the various forms of propaganda
which made American life so clamorous, found a common classification in
his tabulation of men. What was really before the country? Truly, the
conquest of the wilderness, the production of wealth, the development of
national power; but always the rule of the people too. "There are two
things in my life," he said to me. "One is the fact that I got mad at my
uncle, and the other is the inspiration that I get out of these
prairies. Add to these what mind I have, and the sum is myself."

When we parted in Springfield, and I was about to return to my farm in
Jacksonville, he could not thank me enough for what I had done for him.
But I was his friend, and why not? I saw him later when a dinner was
given at Quincy in honor of the Democratic governor-elect whose success
Douglas had done so much to bring about. All the speakers paid tribute
to Douglas amid storms of applause. They assured him that his firm
integrity, the high order of his talent had endeared him to the people;
and that he would be remembered in two years with another nomination.

As soon as I saw Reverdy I told him that I had found Zoe and all the
circumstances and about Fortescue. Reverdy thought that I should send
Zoe money for living expenses on the first of each month; and so I
began.

But neither Reverdy nor myself could work out any permanent program for
Zoe. After all, what was humanly possible? Zoe was now about nineteen.
If she was dealt with justly as to her property what more could I do? If
there was danger from Fortescue, or any one else, I was powerless to
prevent it. Since she did not wish to live with me, I had no power to
make her do so.

In November Reverdy and I went to Meredosia to see the locomotive which
had been shipped from Pittsburgh for Illinois' first railroad. All of
the horses and oxen of the neighborhood were required to pull the huge
iron thing up the banks of the river; and scores of men in ant-like
activity worked about it to place it upon the rails. Douglas was in the
crowd, happy and enthusiastic. He joined the party, headed by Governor
Duncan, in the first journey that a steam train ever made in the state.
He tried to make a place for Reverdy and me; but the Governor had filled
all the seats with his friends: so we stood as spectators, while the new
wonder moved on its way, pulled by the queer locomotive, amid the shouts
of the crowd, responded to by the calls of those on board.

Going back to Jacksonville I ventured to talk to Reverdy about Dorothy.
He knew well enough what my feeling was for her. He knew the story; he
knew her attitude. He did not share in her fears, in her feeling about
Zoe. He was frank to say that Zoe could do nothing, could be nothing
that need affect my life in any way more serious than if her skin was
white. But he explained that Dorothy had the southern view; and if I
wished to wait and see if she could work herself out of doubts, well and
good; and if I could not further hope he could understand that too. I
wanted to write to Dorothy to tell her that Zoe was still away and that
I thought she would never return. But perhaps after all Dorothy's
attitude was founded in an innate prejudice against the relationship to
which she would make herself a party by marrying me. Was this not
perfectly unreasonable? It made me distrust Dorothy's nature at times.
What was she after all? Finally, however, I wrote to Dorothy as best I
could and after many ineffectual trials at expressing myself. Promptly
enough a letter came back. It was not lacking in kindness, but it
offered no hope. Hurt and listless I tried to turn my thoughts to other
things. There were always my growing enterprises--and yet to what end?
To be rich, to be richer.

When December came I had a letter from Miss Walker. She was in
Springfield at the Ridgeway mansion for a visit through the holidays.
There were to be parties and dances. Why did I not come over? And I
went.

I looked up Douglas at once. He was making some headway at the practice
of law, but his energies, for the most part, were absorbed in perfecting
the organization of his party. He was putting together a compact
machine. He was on the very edge of being the leader of the Illinois
Democracy. What infinite details there are to any given end! If it is
the building of a house, tools must be bought, trees felled, foundations
dug. A carpenter's finger must be bandaged so that he can go on with the
work. Cloth must be found for the bandage and a string with which to tie
it. And so Douglas was engaged in infinite talks on the corners, at the
newspaper office; he was making short trips; he was writing dozens of
letters, he was inserting editorials in the newspapers. But he had time
for the gayeties of the season.

He was always the gallant, the amusing wit, the ready raconteur. We were
such friends! Again Miss Walker had both of us for attendants; but upon
such widely different footing. I was a suitor with many doubts. Douglas
was not a suitor at all. He came to her to enjoy the keenness of her
mind.

But as I was English, and as Miss Walker thought herself the next thing
to it, she took me aside as an understanding confidant as to the life
around us. Springfield was almost a mudhole. She was offended by it, but
also she found much in it to make her laugh. There were the gawks; the
sprawling ill-bred men; the illiterate young women; the mushroom life;
the haste, the crudities of living; the ugliness and the disorder; the
unsettled, ever restless, patchy catch as catch can existence; the
attempt, in a word, to make life, to build a town, a capital. All this
shocked or amused her. Did I not see it with English eyes used to
tranquillity and order? She wondered why Douglas had left the East. He
could have risen there in time; and when he should have done so it would
have been an eminence. Had he not acquired brusqueness, vulgarity since
coming west? A man of undoubted gifts, she conceded--yet. Perhaps I was
her favorite after all.

To test her out, I put my own story around the life of a friend, telling
her of a man who had married an octoroon, leaving a daughter of color
and a son by a previous marriage with a white woman; also describing the
consequences that had ensued. Miss Walker heard me with interested
attention. She admitted that the complications were serious.
Undoubtedly, many women in the West would care nothing about such a
relationship, there was so much indifference here to form and breeding;
anything for a husband, anything to get along in the world. Well, if
Miss Walker from Connecticut could see my relationship to Zoe in such a
light, could I blame Dorothy from Tennessee for judging it more
seriously? Perhaps after all this was a woman's reaction to my story.

Later I had a party at my house, inviting all the young crowd of
Springfield to come over. Douglas came too, and Reverdy and Sarah and
Mr. and Mrs. Sturtevant. It was just after Christmas. We had a roaring
fire in the fireplace. We popped corn and pulled candy. I brought in my
old fiddler from the woods to play for us. We danced. These festivities
were in honor of Miss Walker, and she entered into the fun with great
zest. Day by day we were better friends. When she came to go back to
Springfield she was no longer Miss Walker to me, she was Abigail. I was
not in love with her--there was Dorothy still in my heart. Yet I was
very fond of her. I thought she approved of me. As we parted she asked
me why I did not come to Chicago. It was fast growing into a city. What
better field for making money? Vaguely the idea entered my mind and
began to mature.




CHAPTER XXV


The truth was that the loneliness in my life was depressing me; it was
in a sense work without hope--only the hope of being rich. While I could
not doubt Abigail's fitness as a mate for me, and though I was in
desperate need of a companion, Dorothy would not out of my mind and my
heart. My indomitable will had asserted itself in the pursuit of
Dorothy. Even if my judgment had favored Abigail I could not have given
up Dorothy. To surrender the hope of Dorothy was to leave something in
my life unfinished; and that was contrary to my tenacious purpose. I
could not hear Abigail's voice without comparing it to the softer
modulations of Dorothy's. I could not be in the presence of Abigail
without feeling that there was something more kindred to me in the
personality of Dorothy. And yet I had to confess on reflection that I
was not sure of this. Dorothy wrote to me on occasion, but there was
really nothing in her letters to keep hope alive. All the while my life
was going on in labor, in planning, in building, with Mrs. Brown to keep
my house. Even Zoe did not write to me. I knew that she was receiving
the monthly allowance from the fact that my letters were not returned.
However, at last one was sent back to me.

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