A Summer's Outing Part 9

The present lock is wholly inadequate, and steamers often wait for five hours for their turn, and that, too, although it admits several vessels at a time. Over beyond the cascade the Dominion is erecting a vast system of locks on its own ground. The near future will need them all.

A PLEA FOR RECIPROCITY.

We look across the foamy river and see a beautiful little town, the "Canadian Soo." Behind it lifts a gently rising land, all clothed in sweet verdure and making an exquisite picture. There, for thousands of miles east and west and extending several hundreds of miles to the north, are a people in every way our kinsmen. We wander among them and feel that we are among friends of our own clan, and yet I cannot take my satchel ash.o.r.e without submitting it to the inspection of our custom-house officers. How long will this thing last? Why should two people so closely united by every bond except that of so called nationality, submit to this hampering of their kindly relations? When will the bars be thrown down so that the Canuck and the Yankee can trade as brothers and friends? I may not be a statesman, but what little of statecraft I possess, tells me there should be absolute reciprocity between Americans from the Gulf of Mexico to the frozen seas; reciprocity at least for all productions of the respective countries.

I look out of my window; the ship is sinking down between the ma.s.sive walls of the lock. In a few moments we will be on a level with Lake Huron, and just below the lock we will land in Michigan. So now we bid adieu to the hospitalities of President Van Horne, and will commend his iron highway to all who love nature and its grand works, and who delight in its sublimest displays.

CHAPTER IX.

THE ST. MARY'S RIVER. CHARMING SCENERY. THE LOCALITY FOR SUMMER HOMES.

AN EPISODE. MACKINAW. GRAND RAPIDS, A BEAUTIFUL CITY.

At Sault Ste. Marie, we took steamer for Mackinaw. The steamer was comfortable, and the trip a charming one.

The run down the Ste. Marie into Lake Huron, has few equals in sweet, gentle, and at times picturesque scenery. Low lying hills lie on both banks of the river, some of them lifting from the water. Now and then, a promentory or an island point lifts the general quiet tone into something of boldness. These are washed and laved by waters of pallucid purity. The hills, both however, generally lie back from the river on banks with pretty plains under them; here, wide enough for a small field, or garden; there, giving s.p.a.ce for a pretty farm. The uplands rise from the small bottoms in easy flowing slopes, green in fresh growth. There are on both slopes occasional farms and small hamlets, affording life and movement to the pretty picture.

When this continent shall become a single nation--one grand Republic; the frozen arms of an Arctic ice-floe enfolding its northern boundary; the warm breath of the Gulf of Mexico reddening the cheek of the orange and covering Magnolia groves with snowy bloom along its southern sh.o.r.es; the mighty Pacific pouring its sonorous swell on its western confines from Behring's sea to the Tropic of Cancer, and the storm breeding Atlantic roaring along its sh.o.r.es, from Lincoln Sea to Key West; when brothers shall clasp hands across the deep waters of the lakes without the espionage of a custom collector, then these low-lying hills and sweet plains at their feet--these pretty islands and rugged promentories, will become the summer homes of the rich of the mighty land, and the green waters will reflect the villas and cottages of the wealthy and the well to do, along the entire river; and the world will know no more beautiful and sweetly rural locality.

I was leaning on the taffrail of our boat, enjoying the sweet prospect--the long reach of Georgian Bay, lying to the east--and some bold points lifting about us, when I heard a gentleman call the attention of a lad by his side, to a rock they could see in the distance through their gla.s.ses.[1]

[1] The reader may take all reference to this gentleman as fact or fiction, as his own fancy suggests.

"At the foot of that rock, I caught twenty black ba.s.s in an hour,"

said the gentleman.

A deep groan close by my side caught my ear. I turned to find a gray headed old man, also leaning on the rail, whose gla.s.s was turned in the same direction as those of the gentleman and lad. The man of the groan, was evidently seventy odd years old, with a gentle face, but now in deep and painful thought; tears were coursing down his cheeks, and when he lowered his gla.s.ses, showed eyes red with weeping. His face looked so wan that I feared he was sick. I spoke to him gently.

He answered me kindly, and then said: "I was watching through my gla.s.s a spot in the distance beyond the rock adverted to by the gentleman to that boy, and when he spoke of catching fish at its base, a long ago past was weighing on my mind. His words brought up the groan you heard and not any illness of my own--a past connected with a big rock near the spot I was looking at, and of a tragedy which deeply distressed me, and changed the course of my life."

I very naturally asked: "Are the matters you refer to, such that you cannot speak of them?" I handed him, at the same time, my card. He looked up saying "Ah, yes! I know of you. A few days since I read some letters of yours in the Chicago _Tribune_, from the National Park.

They made me half resolve to go there next year." He asked me if I intended publishing them in book form; that he thought such a book, just now, would be acceptable; that he had preserved my letters for use, should he make the excursion. A man who has published any thing, is as easily captured by a kindly word for his bantling, as ever mother was by praise for her first baby. I told him that my letters, even if enlarged as I might see fit, would hardly make a book of fit size for publication.

The elderly gentlemen landed at Mackinaw with us. After wandering over this pretty old island, visiting its places of interest which well repay a visit--after listening to a few dozen prominent lawyers, judges, merchants and physicians talking through their noses--all of them victims of hay-fever--I was lazily resting on the hotel piazza, awaiting the hour for taking the ferry boat to reach the train for home, when my new made friend of the boat came to me and said: "Mr.

Harrison, you say your letters are not enough to make a book of publishing size. I spoke to you of a tragedy, which changed the course of my life. I have at home, but will send it to you, a ma.n.u.script, touching that sad affair, which would not be inappropriate in a letter touching a trip from the Soo to Chicago. The ma.n.u.script is a plain and faithful story of the events narrated; you can, however, supply fict.i.tious names, and alter certain immaterial points and touch up the whole. I thanked him, and a.s.sured him I would probably gladly use his material." He afterward sent to me "The Secret of the Big Rock," which will be found following this letter.

A night's run brought us to Grand Rapids. Its people ought to be proud of it. It is not only a thriving, busy town, growing with great rapidity, but is one of the prettiest cities in America. Its business quarters are fine and wear a metropolitan air, but its residence portion is very pretty. The streets are lined with trees, which grow with such luxuriance park commissioners might envy.

We spent a half day in the charming place and in a few hours reached home, having enjoyed a glorious "outing," which I freely recommend every one who can, to make, and as early as possible. If I had to choose between a trip to Europe of two or three months, and the excursion we have just made, and were compelled to forego one or the other, I would forego the European one.

PART II.

THE OLD MAN'S STORY.

CHAPTER I.

THE SECRET OF THE BIG ROCK.

In the spring of 185-- I was head bookkeeper and confidential clerk of a Cincinnati firm, having a large trade with the Cotton States. I had an adored wife, and two fine children, who were our pride and our delight. Not ambitious for wealth, I was perfectly satisfied if my endeavors conduced to the prosperity of my employers. My salary was sufficient for our wants. None of us had ever been sick and the family physician was rather a friend than an adviser. The firm was prosperous; my employers, always kind and considerate; my modest home was cheerful, and I believed myself the happiest of men.

Cholera was that year prevalent, and toward the first of June, threatened to become epidemic in our city. My employers hurried with their families to the country, leaving me in full charge of the house.

Continuous immunity from sickness, made my wife and myself so confident, that had we been able to strike the sign of the pa.s.sover on our door posts, we would scarcely have thought the precaution necessary. Even the dread scourge, cholera, had few terrors for us.

Going home one Sat.u.r.day afternoon, I read on the Bulletin Board of a newspaper office, that the physicians believed Cincinnati had pa.s.sed the crisis; that no epidemic need be feared. I had a habit, when walking alone, of whistling softly. Near my house a neighbor smiled, as he said, "he was glad to see my mouth in so fine a pucker, for it spoke well of the day." My wife met me at the door, as usual, but told me she felt quite sick; seeing my face become clouded, she a.s.sured me it was not much, and laughingly repeated a witty speech of our little girl. Hardly had she finished, when she almost screamed with pain. In twenty-four hours, she was a corpse; and Monday, at noon, I was wifeless and childless.

I did not pray to die, believing that G.o.d knew and did what was best for his children; but I would have greeted with a smile the grim monster, had he reached out his hand for me.

In two days I was at my desk, for there were important matters to be attended to. The necessity for work, kept me from falling by the wayside. My mother had taught me, "that man's highest duty is, to do his duty." This saying had been adopted as my motto.

The next week, my employers returned to town, and ordered me to Fort Mackinaw for a couple of months' vacation, presenting me with a thousand dollar check, to cover my expenses. Two months between the Island and the Soo were pa.s.sed in fishing, with such benefits resulting, that the excursion has been renewed whenever an absolute necessity for a change has been felt.

My employers on my return, seeing the good effects upon me, of the water and the rod, presented me with a nice skiff, telling me to take every Thursday afternoon for a holiday, and to keep them supplied with fish for Friday; at the same time, kindly informing me, that a plate would always be at one or the other of their tables for me to help enjoy my catch.

Being a man of almost machine like habits of regularity, my boat was always seen on the proper afternoon, rain or shine, during the fishing seasons for several years.

It was in '58 that I accidentally threw my line in a deep pool or hole, in the Licking river, a mile or two from the Ohio, and almost immediately struck a fine gaspergou perch, or as the people in Kentucky called it, a "New Light." This fish was first seen in the state, when the forerunners of the present Cambellite, or Christian church, the "New Lights," were creating much enthusiasm in the Kentucky religious world.

The catch was followed by several others, when a terrible splashing was made close to my hook by an out-rigger rowed by a stalwart negro.

The Ethiopian scowled upon me as he shot by. In a few moments he returned and caught a _crab_, letting an oar back water about the same place on his run down stream. The disturbance drove all the fish from the locality; at least I had no more bites.

The two following Thursdays, I tried the same pool, but my darkey was again rowing about the ground, and no fish were to be had.

About a month later, there was a press of business at the store. At the request of our senior to forego my usual holiday, I worked all Thursday afternoon, with the understanding I was to take the next day and bring in my fish for Friday's supper. I started early and rowed some distance up the Licking, to what were considered good fishing grounds. In pa.s.sing the spot where my sport had been twice disturbed, I saw the outrigger handled by the sable oarsman, while a handsome young man in the stern drew up a fine black ba.s.s. The negro again scowled at me.

I reached my ground, and was having but indifferent success, when almost without a ripple the outrigger drew up close to my side.

"What luck?" demanded the gentleman, in a clear, sweetly modulated voice, which made me for a minute forget the colored man's evident ill will.

"Rather poor; nothing to what I was enjoying four weeks ago, before your boat drove all the fish away from the hole where I saw you an hour ago. I have a notion your man had a method in his madness."

The gentleman laughed a laugh so breezy and cheery, that it drew me at once to him.

"Yes, Jim told me of his exploit, and we have come up to invite you back to "_our hole_" as he calls it."

I could not refuse an offer so cordially extended.

The gentleman as we gently floated down the stream informed me, that Jim had selected "our hole" as one little likely to attract Cincinnati Waltons, and regularly every Friday left in it a fine feed for fish; that Jim was almost amphibious and seemed to know how to draw the finny denizens of the river to whatever spot he selected and at fixed times; that he was surprised to learn I had found fish in the place on Thursday, when there should have been none until Friday; that the sable conjuror was not so much put out, because I had found the spot, as because the fish had lost their reckoning and were a day ahead of time.