The Minute Man of the Frontier Part 7

The first thing one notices after pa.s.sing the great iron dock are the odd names on some of the signs. There is the "Golden Rule" livery stable, with its attendant saloon. On its left, quaintly linking the past with the present, is an old log house, built in past century style, with its logs hewn, tongued, and grooved, but used at present as a printing-office, with the latest style of presses. One can easily imagine the time when beside its huge fireplace the half-breed and the Indian squatted, smoked their pipes, and told their stories; for it is not four years since that was so. Outside, nailed to the logs, is a c.o.o.n-skin, and underneath it the legend, "Hard Cider." From this primitive place issues the democratic _Free Press_. A little farther on, and we notice "Dr. ----, horse doctor and saloon keeper." A very few more steps brings us to the Home Saloon, the Mansion House, the Clarendon, and the Young Canadian.

Besides these, there are twenty other saloons, with and without names; you will not be surprised when I tell you that, on my first visit here, I found a poor man had cut his throat after a heavy spree. The shame he felt at the thought of meeting wife and children (who were on their way, expecting to find a home) was too much for him, and hence suicide. So when wife and little ones arrived they found only a dying husband and father.

Not long after this a young man, the only support of his parents, went out into the dark night from a dance, dazed with drink. He fell on the track, and the morning express crushed him to death. Brother Newberry, going to condole with the parents, found the poor father bedridden by an accident, and the mother, who was furious with drink, held by two men. Down on the dock, one evening, a poor man fell into the lake. He had been drinking to drown his sorrows (a man having run away with his wife). The bystanders, among whom was his own son, seemed stupidly indifferent to his fate; and when they did arouse themselves it was only to bring up his dead body. This they laid in the freight shed, while the son went coolly to work on a vessel close by, and brutal men made jests of the misery of the dead man's married life.

To give you an idea of the zest with which the liquor traffic is carried on, let me say that three days after the ferry-boat "Algomah"

was stuck fast in the ice-drift, and while it was yet dangerous to cross the strait by sleigh, a saloon was built on the ice about a mile from sh.o.r.e to catch the teamsters as they pa.s.sed with freight. When I saw it five days later, it had been removed nearer the sh.o.r.e; so that it was built and taken down and put up again all within a week.

But come with me out of so baneful an atmosphere. Let us cross the Strait of Mackinaw on the ice by moonlight. What a scene! It is a wild midnight, the moon at the full, a light snow falling; and although it is here only six miles to the other side, you cannot see the sh.o.r.e, as the snow thickens. There are miles upon miles of ice, driven by the fierce gale, sometimes into the depths, again mounting the crest of some mighty billow, groaning and cracking up into all shapes and sizes, swirling as if in some giant whirlpool, transfixed and left in all its awful confusion. It is glittering with beauty to-night; yet so wild, so weird, so awfully grand and solemn, that we involuntarily repeat, "Lord, what is man that thou art mindful of him?"

The sleighs look, in the distance, like a little dog-train. Now you are gliding over a mile of ice, smooth as gla.s.s, while all around it is heap upon heap; then you pa.s.s through gaps cut by the road-makers, who have left little pine-trees to guide you; and though the ice in places is packed thirty feet deep, you feel a sense of comfort and safety as you pa.s.s from the bleak sweep of the wind into the thick cedars on the sh.o.r.e, and nestle down as if in the shadow of His wing.

The next crossing is by early morn. The sun comes cheerily up from out a great cloud of orange and vermilion, while here and there are crimson clots and deep indigo-colored clouds rolling off to follow the night. I cannot describe the beauty of this scene; that needs a poet; but I can tell you of the odd side. Away we go behind two Indian ponies, snorting and prancing as if they, too, enjoyed the beauty of the scene. But look! not forty yards away is the "Algomah." After being resurrected from the ice with dynamite, she has begun her regular trips. Bravely she ploughs through two feet of blue ice; and when she comes to the high ridges backs up and charges them again and again. After hours of faithful work, she makes St. Ignace after sundown, seven miles from the spot she left at sunrise.

You will not be surprised, perhaps, to find your missionary from Northern Michigan turning up at Olivet, Southern Michigan where the Lord graciously baptized the meetings with his Holy Spirit. I collected seventy-two dollars towards a little church, to be called Olivet Chapel; and, better still, quite a number decided to be Christians. Best of all, thirteen young Christian students gave themselves to G.o.d, and will be ready when the time comes for the work of Christian missions.

At Ann Harbor I was most cordially welcomed by Brother Ryder and his church, and received from them hopeful a.s.surance of help for our church at Sugar Island; so the time was not thrown away in going South. At Newberry, Brother Curry has been offered the use of the new church built by Mrs. Newberry of Detroit. So the Lord is opening the way. If we could only get one or two of those ministers who were seen "out West" sitting on the four posts of the newly surveyed town, waiting to build churches, we could furnish parishes already inhabited. Seney, Grand Marais, Point Detour, Drummond Island, and many more, are growing, with no churches.

The last time I visited Detour, a large mill had been finished and was running. The owners would give a lot, and help build a church. There are some good people living there. They gave me a cordial welcome and the best bed. I was very tired the first night and slept soundly; so I was surprised in the morning when the lady asked me if I was disturbed. On my saying "No," she said that on account of the rats her husband had to pull up the ladder, as they were sleeping on shakedowns; but she was glad I was not disturbed. The next night they kindly lent me a little black-and-tan terrier; so I slept, was refreshed, and started for home, promising I would send a missionary as soon as possible.

XII.

OUT-OF-THE-WAY PLACES.

In making a visit to one Home Missionary, I found him living in a little board house, battened on the outside, but devoid of plaster.

His study-table was a large dry-goods box, near the cook-stove, and on it, among other things, a typewriter. It looked somewhat incongruous; and on mentioning this, the good brother said, "Oh that is nothing; wait until it is dark and I will show you something else."

And sure enough, soon after supper he hung up a sheet, and gave me quite an elaborate entertainment with the help of a stereopticon. It seemed very strange to be seated in this little sh.e.l.l of a house, in such a new town among the pine stumps; and I could hardly realize my position as I sat gazing at the beautiful scenes which were flashed upon the sheet.

Across the road was a dance-house; and we could hear the sc.r.a.ping of the fiddler, the loud voice calling off the dances, and the heavy thump of the dancers in their thick boots. Afterwards the missionary gave me a short account of his trials and victories on coming to the new field, and it ill.u.s.trates how G.o.d opens the way when to all human wisdom it seems closed.

When he tried to hire a house, the owner wanted a month's rent in advance; but a short time after called on him and gave him the house and lot with a clear deed of the property for one dollar! At the same time he told him that there were lots of cedar posts in the woods for his garden fence, if he would cut them, and added that maybe some one would haul them for him. The missionary chopped the posts, "some one"

hauled them for him, and up went the fence.

The missionary felt so rich that he asked the price of a fine cooking-stove that this man had loaned him. "Oh," he said, "I _gave_ you that." The next thing was to find a place suitable to worship in--often no easy thing in a new town. At last a man said, "You can have the old boarding-house." This was said with a sly wink at the men standing by. So into the old log house went our friend, with his wife; and after a day's work with hoe, shovel, and whitewash, the place was ready. The whitewash was indispensable; for though the men had deserted it, there was still a great deal of life in it.

When the men saw the earnestness of the missionary they turned in and helped him, and became his friends; and in the old log boarding-house were heard the songs of praise instead of ribaldry, and prayers instead of curses, while Bibles and Sunday-school leaflets took the place of the _Police Gazette_.

The other field in which this brother works would delight Dr.

Gladden's heart: 350 people, 17 denominations, all "mothered" by a Congregational church; and I don't know of another church under the sun that could brood such a medley under its wings. When the church was building, one might have seen a Methodist brother with a load of boards, a Presbyterian hauling the shingles, a Baptist with some foundation-stones, and a Mormon hewing the sills--not a Mormon of the "Latter-Day swindle variety," though, but a Josephite. In this place our brother had many a trial, however, before getting his conglomerate together.

The head man of the village offered to give a lot if the church would buy another; and in the meanwhile his charge was five dollars each time they used the hall. But the next time our brother went, the man gave both the lots; the next time, he said he would not charge for the hall; and finally he gave the lumber for the church. The church was finished, and a good parsonage added; and to-day fashionable summer resorters sit under its shadow, and never dream of the wild lawlessness that once reigned there.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WINTER SCENE IN NORTHERN MICHIGAN.

_Page 127._]

The next new place I visited was well out into Lake Michigan, and yet sheltered by high bluffs clothed with a rich growth of forest trees, so that, notwithstanding its northern lat.i.tude, six degrees below zero was the lowest the mercury reached, up to the middle of February. This is saying much in favor of its winter climate, when we consider the fact that in the rest of the State it has often been from zero down to forty below for nearly a month at a time.

I do not remember such another month in years,--wind, snow, fires, intense cold, and disease, all combined. However, in spite of everything, the people turned out remarkably well, and I managed to preach twenty-eight times, besides giving talks to the children.

It took twelve hours of hard driving to make the forty miles between home and the appointment, and we were only just in time for the services. I was surprised to see the number present; but what looked to me like impa.s.sable drifts were nothing to people who had sat on the top of the telegraph-poles, and walked in the up-stairs windows off from a snow-bank, as they actually did four winters previously.

The church here has a good building, heated with a furnace, and owns a nice parsonage where the minister lives with his wife and four children. Although it stormed every day but one, the meetings were blessed by the conversion of some, and the church rejoiced with a new spirit for work.

I next visited E----, a place seven years old, which ran up to fifteen hundred inhabitants in the first three years of its existence. It had about twelve hundred inhabitants, and ours was the only church-building in the place. When the pastor first came, there was neither church to worship in nor house to live in, save an old shingle shanty into which they went. It was so close to the railway that it required constant care in the daytime to keep the children safe, and not a little watching at night to keep the rough characters out.

Quite a change for the better has taken place, and a bell now rings each night at nine o'clock to warn saloons to close.

It was a hard winter, and the storms came thicker than ever, blockading all railways, and making the walking almost impossible.

Service on the first evening after the storm was out of the question, and for days after the walks were like little narrow sheep tracks.

There are a great many things to contend with in these new mill towns under the best of circ.u.mstances; but when you add to the saloons and worse places, the roller skating-rink, a big fire, and diphtheria, you have some idea of the odds against which we worked.

In two places I visited, a fire broke out; and one could not but notice the ludicrous side in the otherwise terrible calamity that a fire causes in these little wooden towns in winter. The stores, built close together, look like rows of mammoth dry-goods boxes. When once fire gets a start, they crackle and curl up like pasteboard. At one fire a man carefully carried a sash nearly a block, and then pitched it upon a pile of cordwood, smashing every pane. Others were throwing black walnut chairs and tables out of the upper story; while I saw another throwing out a lamp-gla.s.s, crying out as he did so, "Here comes a lamp-gla.s.s!" as if it were a meritorious action that deserved notice.

At the other fire I saw a man wandering aimlessly about with a large paper advertis.e.m.e.nt for some kind of soap, while the real article was burning up. I could not but think how like the worldling he was--intent upon his body and minor things while his soul was in danger; and also how like is the frantic mismanagement at the breaking out of a fire to the sudden call of death to a man in his sins. To add to the misery of these houseless people during this intense cold, diphtheria was carrying off its victims, so that the schools were closed for the second time that winter. These things were used readily as excuses by those who did not wish to attend the meetings. Yet the skating-rink was in full blast. But with all these impediments, the conversions in the meetings, and the quickening of the church to more active life, more than repaid for all the trouble and disappointment.

We often hear of "the drink curse" in these places, and it is not exaggerated; but there is one crime in these new towns of the north that to my mind is worse, and a greater barrier to the conversion of men and women. It is licentiousness. One little place not far from where I was preaching boasts of not having a single family in it that is not living openly in this sin. Although this is the worst I ever heard of, it is too true that our woods towns are thus honeycombed.

About the only hope the missionary has in many cases is in the children, even though he begins, as did one pastor that I know of, with two besides his own. He started his school in a deserted log shanty where it grew to be forty strong, and in spite of obstacles it grew. It was hard work sometimes, when the instinct of the boy would show itself in the pleasures of insect hunting with a pin along the log seats. Yet there the missionary's wife sat and taught. They soon had a nice church, paid for within the year.

I did not expect to find within six miles of a large city such a state of things as existed in Peter Cartwright's time in Michigan, but I did; and lest I should be called unfair, I will say I found there a few of the excellent of the earth.

Let me describe the meeting-place. It was in an old hall, the floor humped up in the middle; there was an old cook-stove to warm it, while a few lanterns hung among faded pine boughs gave out a dim light. A few seats without backs completed the furniture. Here it was that a good brother, while preaching, had the front and rear wheels of his buggy changed, making rough riding over roads none too smooth at their best. Another from the Y. M. C. A. rooms of the neighboring city had his buffalo robes stolen and every buckle of the harness undone while he was conducting services.

Knowing these things, I was not surprised at finding a rough old Roman Catholic Irishman trying to make a disturbance; but a kind word or two won him over to good behavior. Much less tractable were the young roughs, who reap all the vices of the city near by, and get none of its virtues. I had to tell them of the rough places I had seen, and that this was the first place I had been where the young men did not know enough to behave themselves in church. Promising without fail to arrest the first one that made a disturbance, I secured quiet. Of course I had to make friends with them afterwards and shake hands. Oh, how hard it is to preach the gospel after talking law in that fashion; but, friends, think how much it is needed. As a little bit of bright for so black a setting, let me say, that on the second night some kind friends subst.i.tuted a box-stove for the cook-stove, lamps for lanterns, and an organ to help in the praise.

XIII.

c.o.c.kLE, CHESS, AND WHEAT.

Rather a strange heading! I know it; but I have lost an hour trying to think of a better; and is not society composed (figuratively speaking) of c.o.c.kle, chess, and wheat? In old settled parts and in cities we see society like wheat in the bulk. The plump grain is on top, but there are c.o.c.kle and chess at the bottom. On the frontier the wheat is spread on the barn floor, and the chess and c.o.c.kle are more plainly seen. As the fanning-mill lets the wheat drop near it and the lighter grains fly off, so in the great fanning-mill of the world, the good are in cl.u.s.ters in the towns and settled country, while the c.o.c.kle and chess are scattered all over the borders. Of course in screenings, there is always considerable real wheat, though the grains are small.

Under proper cultivation, however, these will produce good wheat.

These little grains among the screenings are the children, and they are the missionaries' hope.

In my pastoral work I have met with all kinds of humanity,--here a man living a hermit life, in a little shanty without floor or windows, his face as yellow as gold, from opium; there an old man doing ch.o.r.es in a camp, who had been a preacher for twenty-five years; here a graduate from an Eastern college, cashier of a bank a little while ago, now scaling lumber when not drunk; occasionally one of G.o.d's little ones, striving to let his light shine o'er the bad deeds of a naughty world.

It was my custom for nearly a year to preach on a week-night in a little village near my home, sometimes to a houseful, oftener to a handful. Few or many, I noticed one man always there; no matter how stormy or how dark the night, I would find him among the first arrivals. He lived farther from the meeting than I, and it was not a pleasant walk at any time. One was always liable to meet a gang of drunken river-men spoiling for a fight; and there was a trestle bridge eighty rods in length to walk over, and the ties in winter were often covered with snow and ice.

Then after reaching the schoolhouse the prospect was not enchanting; windows broken, snow on the seats, the room lighted sometimes with nothing but lanterns, one being hung under the stove-pipe. Under these circ.u.mstances I became very much interested in the young man. He never spoke unless he was spoken to, and then his answers were short, and not over bright; but as he became a regular attendant on all the means of grace,--Sunday-school, prayer-meetings, and the preaching of the Word,--I strove to bring him to a knowledge of the truth, and was much pleased one evening to see him rise for prayers. As he showed by his life and conversation that he had met with a change (he had been a drunkard), he was admitted into the church, and some time after was appointed s.e.xton.

One night, on my way to prayer-meeting, I saw a dark object near the church which looked suspicious. On investigation it proved to be our s.e.xton, with his face terribly disfigured, and nearly blind. Some drunken ruffian had caught him coming out of the church, and, mistaking him for another man, had beaten him and left him half dead.