The World As I Have Found It Part 14

"Alas for him who never sees The stars shine through his cypress trees!

Who hopeless lays his dead away, Nor looks to see the breaking day Across the mournful marbles play!

Who hath not learned in hours of faith The truth to flesh and sense unknown, That Life is ever Lord of Death, And love can never lose its own!"

A short time after our return home, Miss Tyson, having become weary of traveling, I accompanied her to Morrison, and after spending a few days there left her with friends and went alone to Pecatonica, when Ida again accompanied me in my travels. On my return I stopped at Winnebago, Illinois, to visit the hallowed spot in which Hattie lay buried. As I approached the cemetery mingled memories of her beautiful life came surging through my soul, and a deep silent awe stole over me. I sent my friends away to another part of the grounds that I might be entirely alone with my dead, and as I knelt in the stillness of that sacred hour I felt that the grave held only the precious clay, and that the sweet spirit-presence was there trying to comfort me as it had always done in earth-life, while, as the soft sound of the June wind stole through the trembling evergreen near by, it seemed to whisper a sweet song, whose burden sighed--

Love will dream and faith will trust, Since he who knows our needs is just; That somehow, somewhere, meet we must.

As I turned away I felt the strong ray of sunshine which fell upon her grave, and rested there a halo and a promise!

Our first stop going Westward was at Kansas City, and as it was the first of August we found the colored people out in a well-filled procession, celebrating this, one of their great Emanc.i.p.ation days. Ida having seen very few colored people during her life was furnished an amusing entertainment. We also visited Lawrence, which is so marked in Kansas annals, and Topeka, the capital, but as my experience in this State differs so materially from that in any other (not making sufficient through my sales to cover expenses), I will hurriedly pa.s.s it by.

We took the sleeping car at Topeka, but, as a "washout" had destroyed the track for some distance, I left the train with the other pa.s.sengers, and walked with precision over culverts and places of danger with ofttimes only a narrow plank for my track. A gentleman who kindly led me smilingly said this was indeed "walking by faith," and it was true blind eyes never have aught but faith "as a lamp to their feet and a guide to their path."

After leaving Salina there was nothing to be seen but a blank, desolate plain, as monotonous as a silent, sailless sea, grimly varied by an occasional station, with a few "dugouts" for houses. The mail on this train was most unceremoniously delivered by being thrown from the cars, and it was very amusing to witness the confusion and rush for its contents, for the love-laden and business-burdened missives are as dear to these people as to the most cultured members of society.

The frequent recurrence of the little sand-hill communities, known as prairie dog cities, was of novel interest to us, and the habits of these creatures a curious study. They build their sand-hill habitations as skillfully as the beaver erects his dam, and are so untiring in following their instinct of self-preservation that they stand as constant sentinels at the entrance of their homes, and in any case of danger play to such perfection the role of "the artful dodger" that they are never caught.

It is a singular fact that these animals are very rarely killed, and if by chance some "unlucky dog" should lose his life he is hurried out of sight by his devoted companions with so much celerity that his body is never found.

Fifty miles before reaching Denver the snow crowned tops of Gray's and James' Peaks are clearly revealed, while from one point alone will Pike's Peak allow the traveler a glimpse of his glorious grandeur. We were told that the former mountains were more frequently visible at a distance of one hundred miles. We neared Denver just as the sun was sinking, enthroned in purple and amber and gold, with a faint, delicate rosy flush tinging the edge of the more royal hues. Its truly Italian beauty was so vividly pictured to me by Ida, that I could almost realize the regal splendor of a Colorado sunset. Completely tired out and covered with alkaline dust, we were grateful for the rest and comfort afforded by the elegant Wentworth House.

We spent a week in Denver, fraught with interest, for while it is a city dest.i.tute of the charm of historical a.s.sociations and musty memories, which add so much interest to most foreign cities and many American localities, it so abounds in youthful life with its warm and bounding currents, its vim and vigor, that it teems with varying attractions. Its broad avenues, softened by shade, its stately residences and mammoth business blocks, render it as imposing as many old cities, and indicate but little of its real primitive struggles for life, and the dangerous aggressions of the "Red Man;" its truly western pluck having ranked these among the things that were.

The elliptical basin in which Denver is built, sloping north and east, gives it a picturesque and extended view; the mountains losing themselves in one direction in the now historic "Black Hills," and in the other merging into the "Spanish Peaks" and "Sangre de Christo Range," so named from a natural symbol of the Christian faith, a snowy cross grandly gleaming in the distance.

Taking the Colorado Central Railway we went through the Clear Creek Canon, with its rich and fertile fields to Golden, so beautifully sheltered in the valley at the base of the mountain, and whose air was more life-giving to me than that of any other portion of Colorado. In the vicinity of this little Eden we climbed a rock seven hundred feet high, and while two laborious hours were occupied in the ascent, we were amply recompensed when we stood upon the smooth rock which crowned its summit, where the merry picnicers pause amid their pastimes, absorbed in the sublimity of their surroundings, for while they are basking in the soft sunlight the sound of the distant thundering and lightning in the mountain tops recalls the story of Sinai, where the mult.i.tude below stood silent and breathless, and from the roar of Heaven's artillery above issued the written tables of stone.

From this our lofty site the clear ether of the intervening fourteen miles revealed the city of Denver looming up like a lonely vision.

Turning toward the "Gold Centres," whose wealth, if the half were told, would seem as fabulous as an "Arabian Nights Story," we visited "Central City" and "Black Hawk,", which are so close together that it has been facetiously said "It is impossible for a citizen to tell where he lives without going out doors and looking at some landmark."

These two places are really built upon foundations of gold, and many of the houses constructed of gold-bearing quartz.

The depot at Black Hawk might justly be denominated "Porter's Folly," for this magnificent structure was built by a reckless miner for a quartz-mill, at an expenditure of one hundred thousand dollars, and the miner was General Fitz John Porter.

At Central City we stopped at the Teller House, and received marked kindness from Mr. Bush, the proprietor. Mr. Rhodes, editor of the daily paper, aided me greatly in his well-written notices, and invited us to dine at his house, where we were delightfully entertained by himself and his accomplished wife.

We crossed the country by stage to Idaho Springs, over a region not only grand and diversified in scenery, but rich in mineral wealth, the road winding through intricate mountain heights and wild canons. The springs are the chief resort of this portion of Colorado, and, aside from their wildly beautiful surroundings, furnish great facilities for the exhilarating hot soda baths and swimming bath-houses, in which elegantly costumed bathers of both s.e.xes hold high carnival.

The hotel was quite romantically situated near a meandering creek, which murmured by its side and made my pleasant room upon the ground floor musical with its rippling flow. Days of dreamy beauty, and nights of cool, invigorating rest, render this a watering place of remarkable attraction.

Georgetown stands next in size to Denver, and is an outgrowth of the rich mining wealth with which it is environed. Indeed, it seemed as if some geni had touched all around it with a magic wand. Silver-ore was strewn in rich profusion, piled like cord-wood in huge ma.s.ses at every step; was talked of in the street, the hotel, and the home, until it seemed as if we thought, ate, and breathed silver.

At the beautiful town of Boulder we stopped at the prominent and luxurious hotel known as the American House, and after a short stay took the stage for Caribon, then the most elevated town in the State, standing considerably over nine thousand feet above the sea-level. A romantic and ever-ascending ride of a day's length was required to reach this eyrie, and at noon-day the driver allowed us to stop for our dinner, when our wayside inn was improvized from the sheltering shade of grand old trees, our table a rock, our chairs the same.

No ambrosia could have been sweeter to the G.o.ds than was our sylvan feast, with the appet.i.te induced by mountain air and exercise; no nectar finer than the crystal draught, dipped from the little stream; no orchestra more musical than its varied tones. Although it was yet September, there was a severe snow-storm, and, the next day, when it had subsided, a party went out to pick raspberries, which were sweet and delicious in flavor, while beside the deep snow-banks bloomed flowers as beautiful as the rarest exotics.

Ladies are so vigorous in that country that they think nothing of a walk of many miles, but the intensely rarefied air of the mountains made my own respiration very difficult.

We returned to Denver, where our few days' visit was all too short, for it was with painful reluctance we yielded to the demands of business interest, and left a city which to us was fraught with so much pleasure, and went to Colorado Springs, a place of five thousand inhabitants, and one of the most stirring towns in the State. It is very level, being symmetrically laid out in broad and shaded streets, and derives its name from the fact of being the station from which tourists take the stage for the springs at Manitou, six miles distant. It is also the point from which pleasure parties daily leave for Pike's Peak.

One of the main features of interest in our visit to Colorado Springs, was the presence of the great "Man of the Period," over whom the stupendous heart of Barnum throbbed with exultant pride, and scientists waxed wondering and eloquent. This august personage, who was no other than the since sensational "Stone Man of Colorado," was lying in state, in all the majesty of his marbleized grandeur, and was the magnet toward which throngs of wonder-seekers were irresistibly drawn, all of whom, as if entering the presence chamber of the King of Terrors, seemed awed by this silent "representative of the dead past," and with hushed voices and bated breath, lingered over the lineaments of one, which, if it had been known at that time was not a real petrifaction, would perhaps have excited only feelings of ridicule and words of derision. We were willing to be humbugged with the rest for the sacred emotions experienced under the silent potency of this phenomenon of the nineteenth century; nor can we even in the light of subsequent revelations deny the fact that he was "fearfully and wonderfully made."

We next visited Pueblo, where this giant was exhumed, but were not at all pleased with the town or its surroundings, and suffered greatly from thirst rather than drink the offensive water for which the residents are so heavily taxed. It was so apparently poisonous in odor, that if it had been in the malarious climate of Chicago, instead of the exhilarating atmosphere of Colorado, all would have died from its effects.

We have never visited a State which held such diversified interest as that of Colorado, a fitting resort for the invalid, the pleasure seeker, artist, scientist or poet. No place but some haunt of the Muses could boast the ethereal beauty of a "Glen Eyrie," and no wonder the "Garden of the G.o.ds" is supposed to have once been the abode of "Great Jove himself,"

and that there fair Venus bathed her beauteous form, and girdled with the fabled "Cestus," held her court amid the immortal beauties of the sacred spot.

We came through Kansas via the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, meeting with no better success than that which marked our former trip in that region of country, and could only conclude, that while their crops were at that time large and lucrative, the gra.s.shopper raid had taught them a lesson of economy which they were rigidly observing.

Before returning home we visited the only surviving sister of my mother, who lived in Salsbury, Missouri, and who not having heard from me since the Chicago fire, concluded that I might have perished in its flames. She and her husband were both over seventy years old, and strange to say, were like so many of the old people I have met in my travels, that my readers might suppose my heroes and heroines had found the "fabled fountain" and secured immortal youth. Be this as it may, it could certainly be said of her husband, as of the father of Evangeline:

"Stalwart and stately of form Was the man of seventy summers; Hearty and hale was he As an oak that is covered with snow-flakes."

I had a delightful visit of two days with this aged couple, during which my aunt rehea.r.s.ed to me many incidents in the early life of my mother, and presented me with a lock of her hair, which, as a memento, is ever magnetically a.s.sociated with the "loved ones gone before."

Returning to Chicago, I found my husband, whose health was far worse than when I saw him in Galveston. This, together with a combination of surrounding circ.u.mstances, suggested the project of writing up "The World as I have found it," and I spent the greater part of the winter of 1877-8 in this work.

If it should appear to my friends and readers, that I found only the "sunny side" of life, and they should wonder why I so seldom saw the shadow, or received the thrust of unkindness, I can simply say that I was almost universally so well received, that the few cases of unkind treatment became the exception and not the rule, and these were generally so bitterly repented, and so amply amended, that I felt it would be an act of ingrat.i.tude to note them in my experiences.

Hoping that these last missives to my kind and n.o.ble patrons will be as well received as was the first humble effort of my girlhood--"Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl," I can only add in conclusion, that if any one of the patient followers of my wanderings has found aught of sufficient interest to while away the tedium of an otherwise weary hour, or gleaned from the dross a single "golden grain," I will be amply recompensed.

HELP THE BLIND TO HELP THEMSELVES.

Throughout the entire length my unpretending offering my aim has been, as far as was compatible with a personal history, to make my pages interesting to the general public, but I cannot close without addressing some especial words to those, who, like myself, must be content to live with vision veiled from the world's transcendant beauties, and whose life-paths from a variety of causes seem ofttimes utterly rayless.

Blindness has been universally regarded as one of the most terrible afflictions of an adverse fate, nor can it be denied that it is one which requires a great amount of grace, and all the reason and judgment one can command, to bear the burden with any degree of patience, much less with perfect resignation.

It is so often the result of impaired health, while the severe test of maltreatment or even the most skillful treatment, tends to deplete the system and depress the spirits.

Again, the blind are in the majority of cases the children of poor parents, and subject to all the neglect and exposure incident to poverty, while, if they are born in affluence, they are so petted and pampered, in consequence of their affliction, that they become utterly dependent and useless, and contract habits that should be and which under other circ.u.mstances would be broken.

It is no more necessary for a blind child, with proper instruction and careful training, to become awkward and ungainly, than for one in full possession of all the senses, the drawback of blindness simply demanding a little more patience and perseverance to attain the ease and grace, which is as inevitable as in other children.

In all the category of first instructions for the period of childhood, from the muscular education by which a babe is taught to take its first tottering step or the voluntary movement necessary to grasp and hold an object, to the lisping language of love intoned in the first sweet prattle, the all-pervading spirit, from the first to the last lesson, is that of self-reliance. While blind children of wealth are waited upon until they become utterly incapable of helping themselves, and through a mistaken kindness are so constantly ministered to, they lapse into pa.s.sive, pantomimic puppets, void of the vitality and sparkle which, by their natural endowments, is attainable.

I have made it a guiding rule, throughout my life, never to consider there was anything which, with the proper effort, I could not do, and my experience proves a confirmation of the fact that there were very few things I could not accomplish. I would fain impress this lesson upon my blind friends, feeling as I do that it would prove of untold service to them.

It is not at all necessary that the blind should so lose their dignity or individuality, as to allow themselves to be addressed in word or tone at all different from that directed to other people, and, as an ill.u.s.tration of this point, I may be pardoned for relating an incident of my school life.

A gentleman once called at our Inst.i.tution in Baltimore, and, immediately after his introduction to a group of blind girls, of which I was one, he said: "Ladies, how would you manage to select a husband?"

Flaming with indignation, I impulsively replied: "Sir! We do not deal in such merchandise?" and smarting with a sense of the indignity, I immediately left his presence.