Book 1 - Chapter 6

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_ BOOK ONE CHAPTER VI

WHICH DESCRIBES THE LONELY LIFE IN A PRAIRIE CABIN AND STIRRING ADVENTURE ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD ABOUT THE TIME IT BEGAN OPERATIONS.

When Samson paid Mr. Gollaher, a "detector" came with the latter to look at the money before it was accepted. There were many counterfeits and bills good only at a certain discount of face value, going about those days and the detector was in great request. Directly after moving in, Samson dug a well and lined it with a hollow log. He bought tools and another team and then he and Harry began their fall plowing. Day after day for weeks they paced with their turning furrows until a hundred acres, stretching half a mile to the west and well to the north of the house, were black with them. Fever and ague descended upon the little home in the early winter.

In a letter to her brother, dated January 4th, 1832, Sarah writes:

* * * * *

"We have been longing for news from home, but not a word has come from you. It don't seem as if we could stand it unless we hear from you or some of the folks once in a while. We are not dead just because we are a thousand miles away. We want to hear from you. Please write and let us know how father and mother are and all the news. Is Elizabeth Ranney married yet, and how does the minister get along with his new wife? We have all been sick with the fever and ague. It is a beautiful country and the soil very rich, but there is some sickness. Samson and I were both sick at the same time. I never knew Samson to give up before. He couldn't go on, his head ached so. Little Joe helped me get the fire started and brought some water and waited on us. Then the little man put on his coat and mittens and trudged away to the village with Betsey after the doctor. Harry Needles had gone away to Springfield for Mr. Offut with a drove of hogs. Two other boys are with him. He is going to buy a new suit. He is a very proud boy. Joe and Betsey got back with the doctor at nine. That night Abe Lincoln came and sat up with us and gave us our medicine and kept the fire going. It was comical to see him lying beside Joe in his trundle bed, with his long legs sticking over the end of it and his feet standing on the floor about a yard from the bed. He was spread all over the place. He talked about religion, and his views would shock most of our friends in the East. He doesn't believe in the kind of Heaven that the ministers talk about or any eternal hell. He says that nobody knows anything about the hereafter, except that God is a kind and forgiving father and that all men are His children. He says that we can only serve God by serving each other. He seems to think that every man, good or bad, black or white, rich or poor, is his brother. He thinks that Henry Clay, next to Daniel Webster, is the greatest man in the country. He is studying hard. Expects to go out and make speeches for Clay next summer. He is quite severe in his talk against General Jackson. He and Samson agree in politics and religion. They are a good deal alike. He is very fond of Samson and Harry--calls them his partners. He said to Samson the other evening.

"I want you for a friend always. If you can stand it, I would like my story to be a part of yours. If you say so, we'll stick to the same boat and pole her over the shoals and carry her across the bends and see if we can get to good going in deep water. When the channel will permit, we can put in a steam engine.'

"We love this big awkward giant. His feet are set in the straight way and we think that he is going to make his mark in the world.

"When I went to sleep he lay in the trundle bed, with two candles burning on the stand beside him, reading that big green book of mine entitled _The Works of William Shakespeare_. He had brought a law book with him, but he got interested in William Shakespeare and couldn't let it alone. He said that he was like a mired horse whenever he began to read a play of the immortal bard, and that he had to take his time in getting out. When he went away next morning he borrowed Samson's pack basket. I felt bad because we couldn't go and make any arrangements with Santa Claus for the children. Joe was dreadfully worried, for Betsey had told him that Santa Claus never came to children whose father and mother were sick. Christmas Eve Abe came with the pack basket chock-full of good things after the children were asleep. He took out a turkey and knit caps and mittens and packages of candy and raisins for the children and some cloth for a new dress for me. Mrs. Kelso had come to spend the night with us, although Samson and I were so much better it really wasn't necessary. I made her go up the ladder to bed before midnight. That evening a short, fat Santa Claus came in with a loaded pack. He had a long, brown beard and a red nose and carried a new clay pipe in his mouth and was very much bundled up.

"We called the children. They stood looking at Santa Claus, and Santa Claus stood looking at them. He gave them mufflers and some candy hearts and tried to pick them up. They ran away and he chased them under our bed and got hold of Joe's foot and tried to pull him out, and Joe hollored like a painter, and Santa Claus dropped his pipe and sat down on the floor and began laughing. I saw it was Bim Kelso. Abe left with her, and I suppose they went back to the village and around in a regular Santa Claus spree.

"Mrs. Kelso said that she had been making a beard of pieces of buffalo skin and fitting up an old suit of her father's clothes that afternoon. I wonder what she'll do next. It's terrible to be so much in love and not quite seventeen. Harry is as bad as she is. I wish they had been a little older before they met.

"Joe said yesterday that he was going back to Vergennes.

"'How are you going to get there?' I asked.

"'Abe's going to make me a pair o' wings, and I'm going to smash right up through the sky and go awa-a-y off to Vergennes and play with Ben and Lizzie Tyler. Abe says there ain't no bad roads up there.'

"I asked him what I should do if he went away and left me like that.

"'Oh, I'll come right back,' he said, 'and maybe I'll see Heaven way up in the clouds. If I do I'll stop there in a tavern over night and buy something for you.'

"In a minute a new idea came to him and he said:

"'I guess Abe would make a pair of wings for you if you'd ask him.'

"Often I wish for wings, and always when I think of those who are dear to me and so far away. You said you would come out next spring to look about. Please don't disappoint us. I think it would almost break my heart. I am counting the days. Some time ago I put down 142 straight marks on my old slate, that being the number of days before May 1. Every night I rub off one of them and thank God that you are one day nearer. Don't be afraid of fever and ague. Sapington's pills cure it in three or four days. I would take the steamboat at Pittsburg, the roads in Ohio and Indiana are so bad. You can get a steamer up the Illinois River at Alton and get off at Beardstown and drive across country. If we knew when you were coming Samson or Abe would meet you. Give our love to all the folks and friends.

"Yours affectionately,

"Sarah and Samson."

* * * * *

It had been a cold winter and not easy to keep comfortable in the little house. In the worst weather Samson used to get up at night to keep the fire going. Late in January a wind from the southeast melted the snow and warmed the air of the midlands so that, for a week or so, it seemed as if spring were come. One night of this week Sambo awoke the family with his barking. A strong wind was rushing across the plains and roaring over the cabin and wailing in its chimney. Suddenly there was a rap on its door. When Samson opened it he saw in the moonlight a young colored man and woman standing near the door-step.

"Is dis Mistah Traylor?" the young man asked.

"It is," said Samson. "What can I do for you?"

"Mas'r, de good Lord done fotched us here to ask you fo' help," said the negro. "We be nigh wone out with cold an' hungah, suh, 'deed we be."

Samson asked them in and put wood on the fire, and Sarah got up and made some hot tea and brought food from the cupboard and gave it to the strangers, who sat shivering in the firelight. They were a good-looking pair, the young woman being almost white. They were man and wife. The latter stopped eating and moaned and shook with emotion as her husband told their story. Their master had died the year before and they had been brought to St. Louis to be sold in the slave market. There they had escaped by night and gone to the house of an old friend of their former owner who lived north of the city on the river shore. He had taken pity on them and brought them across the Mississippi and started them on the north road with a letter to Elijah Lovejoy of Alton and a supply of food. Since then they had been hiding days in the swamps and thickets and had traveled by night. Mr. Lovejoy had sent them to Erastus Wright of Springfield, and Mr. Wright had given them the name of Samson Traylor and the location of his cabin. From there they were bound for the house of John Peasley, in Hopedale, Tazewell County.

Lovejoy had asked them to keep the letter with which they had begun their travels. Under its signature he had written: "I know the writer and know that the above was written with his own hand. His word can be relied upon. To all who follow or respect the example of Jesus Christ I commend this man and woman."

The letter stated that their late master had often expressed his purpose of leaving them their freedom when he should pass away. He had left no will and since his death the two had fallen into the hands of his nephew, a despotic, violent young drunkard of the name of Biggs, who had ruled his servants with club and bull whip and who in a temper had killed a young negro a few months before. The fugitives said that they would rather die than go back to him.

Samson was so moved by their story that he hitched up his horses and put some hay in the wagon box and made off with the fugitives up the road to the north in the night. When daylight came he covered them with the hay. About eight o'clock he came to a frame house and barn, the latter being of unusual size for that time and country. Above the door of the barn was a board which bore the stenciled legend: "John Peasley, Orwell Farm."

As Samson drew near the house he observed a man working on the roof of a woodshed. Something familiar in his look held the eye of the New Salem man. In half a moment he recognized the face of Henry Brimstead. It was now a cheerful face. Brimstead came down the ladder and they shook hands.

"Good land o' Goshen! How did you get here?" Samson asked. Brimstead answered:

"Through the help of a feller that looks like you an' the grit of a pair o' hosses. Come down this road early in September on my way to the land o' plenty. Found Peasley here. Couldn't help it. Saw his name on the barn. Used to go to school with him in Orwell. He offered to sell me some land with a house on it an' trust me for his pay. I liked the looks o' the country and so I didn't go no further. I was goin' to write you a letter, but I hain't got around to it yet. Ain't forgot what you done for us, I can tell ye that."

"Well, this looks better than the sand plains--a lot better--and you look better than that flea farmer back in York State. How are the children?"

"Fat an' happy an' well dressed. Mrs. Peasley has been a mother to 'em an' her sister is goin' to be a wife to me." He came close to Samson and added in a confidential tone: "Say, if I was any happier I'd be scairt. I'm like I was when I got over the toothache--so scairt for fear it would come back I was kind o' miserable."

Mr. Peasley came out of the door. He was a big, full bearded, jovial man.

"I've got a small load o' hay for you," said Samson.

"I was expecting it, though I supposed 'twould be walkin'--in the dark o' the night," Peasley answered. "Drive in on the barn floor."

When Samson had driven into the barn its doors were closed and the negroes were called from their place of hiding. Samson writes:

* * * * *

"I never realized what a blessing it is to be free until I saw that scared man and woman crawling out from under the dusty hay and shaking themselves like a pair of dogs. The weather was not cold or I guess they would have been frozen. They knelt together on the barn floor and the woman prayed for God's protection through the day. I knew what slavery must mean when I saw what they were suffering to get away from it. When they came in the night I felt the call of God to help them. Now I knew that I was among the chosen to lead in a great struggle. Peasley brought food for them and stowed them away on the top of his hay mow with a pair of buffalo skins. I suppose they got some sleep there. I went into the house to breakfast and while I ate Brimstead told me about his trip. His children were there. They looked clean and decent. He lived in a log cabin a little further up the road. Mrs. Peasley's sister waited on me. She is a fat and cheerful looking lady, very light complected. Her hair is red--like tomato ketchup. Looks to me a likely, stout armed, good hearted woman who can do a lot of hard work. She can see a joke and has an answer handy every time."

* * * * *

For details of the remainder of the historic visit of Samson Traylor to the home of John Peasley we are indebted to a letter from John to his brother Charles, dated February 21, 1832. In this he says:

* * * * *

"We had gone out to the barn and Brimstead and I were helping Mr. Traylor hitch up his horses. All of a sudden two men came riding up the road at a fast trot and turned in and come straight toward us and pulled up by the wagon. One of them was a slim, red cheeked young feller about twenty-three years old. He wore top boots and spurs and a broad brimmed black hat and gloves and a fur waistcoat and purty linen. He looked at the tires of the wagon and said: 'That's the one we've followed.'

"'Which o' you is Samson Traylor?' he asked.

"'I am,' said Traylor.

"The young feller jumped off his horse and tied him to the fence. Then he went up to Traylor and said:

"What did you do with my niggers, you dirty sucker?'

"Men from Missouri hated the Illinois folks them clays and called 'em Suckers. We always call a Missouri man a name too dirty to be put in a letter. He acted like one o' the Roman emperors ye read of.

"'Hain't you a little reckless, young feller?' Traylor says, as cool as a cucumber.

"I didn't know Traylor them days. If I had, I'd 'a' been prepared for what was comin'.

"Traylor stood up nigh the barn door, which Brimstead had closed after we backed the wagon out.

"The young feller stepped close to the New Salem man and raised his whip for a blow. Quick as lightnin' Traylor grabbed him and threw him ag'in' the barn door, keewhack! He hit so hard the boards bent and the whole barn roared and trembled. The other feller tried to get his pistol out of its holster, but Brimstead, who stood beside him, grabbed it, and I got his hoss by the bits and, we both held on. The young feller lay on the ground shakin' as if he had the ague. Ye never see a man so spylt in a second. Traylor picked him up. His right arm was broke and his face and shoulder bruised some. Ye'd a thought a steam engyne had blowed up while he was puttin' wood in it. He was kind o' limp and the mad had leaked out o' him.

"'I reckon I better find a doctor,' he says.

"'You get into my wagon and I'll take ye to a good one,' says Traylor.

"Just then Stephen Nuckles, the circuit minister, rode in with the big bloodhound that follers him around.

"The other slaver had got off his hoss in the scrimmage. Traylor started for him. The slaver began to back away and suddenly broke into a run. The big dog took after him with a kind of a lion roar. We all began yelling at the dog. We made more noise than you'd hear at the end of a hoss race. It scairt the young feller. He put on more steam and went up the ladder to the roof of the woodshed like a chased weasel. The dog stood barkin' as if he had treed a bear. Traylor grabbed the ladder and pulled it down.

"'You stay there till I get away an' you'll be safe,' said he.

"The man looked down and swore and shook his fist and threatened us with the law.

"Mr. Nuckles rode close to the woodshed and looked up at him.

"'My brother, I fear you be not a Christian,' he said.

"He swore at the minister. That settled him.

"'What's all this erbout?' Mr. Nuckles asked me.

"'He and his friend are from Missouri,' I says. 'They're lookin' for some runaway slaves an' they come here and pitched into us, and one got throwed ag'in' the barn an' the other clum to the roof.'

"'I reckon he better stay thar till he gits a little o' God's grace in his soul,' says the minister.

"Then he says to the dog: 'Ponto, you keep 'im right thar.'

"The dog appeared to understand what was expected of him.

"The minister got off his hoss and hitched him and took off his coat and put it on the ground.

"'What you goin' to do?' I says.

"'Me?' says the minister. 'I be goin' to rassle with Satan for the soul o' that 'ar man, an' if you keep watch I reckon you'll see 'at the ground'll be scratched up some 'fore I git through.'

"He loosened his collar an' knelt on his coat and began to pray that the man's soul would see its wickedness and repent. You could have heard him half a mile away.

"Mr. Traylor drove off with the damaged slaver settin' beside him and the saddle hoss hitched to the rear axle. I see my chance an' before that prayer ended I had got the fugitives under some hay in my wagon and started off with them on my way to Livingston County. I could hear the prayin' until I got over the hill into Canaan barrens. At sundown I left them in good hands thirty miles up the road."

* * * * *

In a frontier newspaper of that time it is recorded that the minister and his dog kept the slaver on the roof all day, vainly trying with prayer and exhortation to convert his soul. The man stopped swearing before dinner and on his promise not again to violate the commandment a good meal was handed up to him. He was liberated at sundown and spent the night with Brimstead.

"Who is that big sucker who grabbed my friend?" the stranger asked Brimstead.

"His name is Samson Traylor. Comes from Vermont," was the answer.

"He's the dog-gonedest steam engyne of a man I ever see, 'pon my word," said the stranger.

"An' he's about the gentlest, womern hearted critter that ever drawed the breath o' life," said Brimstead.

"If he don't look out 'Liph Biggs'll kill him--certain."

Samson spoke not more than a dozen words on his way back to New Salem. Amazed and a little shocked by his own conduct, he sat thinking. After all he had heard and seen, the threat of the young upstart had provoked him beyond his power of endurance. Trained to the love of liberty and justice, the sensitive mind of the New Englander had been hurt by the story of the fugitives. Upon this hurt the young man had poured the turpentine of haughty, imperial manners. In all the strange adventure it seemed to him that he had felt the urge of God--in the letter of Lovejoy, in the prayers of the negro woman and the minister, in his own wrath. The more he thought of it the less inclined he was to reproach himself for his violence. Slavery was a relic of ancient imperialism. It had no right in free America. There could be no peace with it save for a little time. He would write to his friends of what he had learned of the brutalities of slavery. The Missourians would tell their friends of the lawless and violent men of the North, who cared not a fig for the property rights of a southerner. The stories would travel like fire in dry grass.

So, swiftly, the thoughts of men were being prepared for the great battle lines of the future. Samson saw the peril of it.

As they rode along young Mr. Biggs took a flask half full of whisky from his pocket and offered it to Samson. The latter refused this tender of courtesy and the young man drank alone. He complained of pain and Samson made a sling of his muffler and put it over the neck and arm of the injured Biggs and drove with care to avoid jolting. For the first time Samson took a careful and sympathetic look at him. He was a handsome youth, about six feet tall, with dark eyes and hair and a small black mustache and teeth very white and even.

In New Salem Samson took him to Dr. Allen's office and helped the doctor in setting the broken bone. Then he went to Offut's store and found Abe reading his law book and gave him an account of his adventure.

"I'm both glad and sorry," said Abe. "I'm glad that you licked the slaver and got the negroes out of his reach. I reckon I'd have done the same if I could. I'm sorry because it looks to me like the beginning of many troubles. The whole subject of slavery is full of danger. Naturally southern men will fight for their property, and there is a growing number in the North who will fight for their principles. If we all get to fighting, I wonder what will become of the country. It reminds me of the man who found a skunk in his house. His boy was going after the critter with a club.

"'Look here, boy,' he said, 'when you've got a skunk in the house, it's a good time to be careful. You might spyle the skunk with that club, but the skunk would be right certain to spyle the house. While he's our guest, I reckon we'll have to be polite, whether we want to or not.'"

"Looks to me as if that skunk had come to stay until he's put out," said Samson.

"That may be," Abe answered. "But I keep hopin' that we can swap a hen for the house and get rid of him. Anyhow, it's a good time to be careful."

"He may be glad to live with me, but I ain't willin' to live with him," Samson rejoined. "I ain't awful proud, but his station in life is a leetle too far below mine. If I tried to live with him, I would get the smell on my soul so that St. Peter would wonder what to do with me."

Abe laughed.

"That touches the core of the trouble," said he. "In the North most men have begun to think of the effect of slavery on the soul; in the South a vast majority are thinking of its effect on the pocket. One stands for a moral and the other for a legal right."

"But one is righter than the other," Samson insisted.

That evening Samson set down the events of the day in his book and quoted the dialogue in Offut's store in which he had had a part. On the first of February, 1840, he put these words under the entry:

"I wouldn't wonder if this was the first trip on the Underground Railroad." _

Read next: Book 1: Chapter 7

Read previous: Book 1: Chapter 5

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