“I saw the domes before me rise,
The lake behind me swell;
I thought upon the bygone days,
When nature wore a different phase,
And man a different skin;
And stretching far, through plain and swamp,
I saw the Indian’s fiery camp,
And heard the buffalo’s marching tramp,
And felt the mammoth’s earthquake stamp,
And all that once had been.
“A sudden change came o’er my dream;
I must have waked and dropp’d my theme.
For ships and cars, in fire and steam,
Begirt the horizon round;
Tall houses rose, with shops in front,
And bricks piled up, as bricks are wont,
In cloud-capp’d turrets frown’d;
And through the living, boiling throng
Thunder’d a thousand carts along,
And railroads howl’d their shrieking song,
Across the groaning ground.”

Norman had many little friends to say good-by to as he left for the cars on 41Thursday morning, and very many pleasant memories to take with him.

Kind friends were waiting for them at the station at Chicago, and they were soon driving through its busy streets. They approached the river, which has made the town, affording as it does a safe harbor for vessels. This river runs due east and falls into the lakes, receiving, about a mile from its mouth, branches from the north and the south. The river and its branches, lined with substantial warehouses, divide the city into the north, south and west side. On approaching the bridge it suddenly swung round to give passage to a large schooner towed by a little puffing black tug, which gave its shrill whistle as a signal for the drawbridge to open, and then went panting and snorting through.

While waiting for the bridge to resume its place, Emily Percy, a blue-eyed, fair-haired little girl who was seated beside 42Norman, showed him an old wooden house that formerly belonged to Fort Dearborn, and that, with the light-house, was the only thing left to tell of its existence.

“Norman,” said Mrs. Lester, “this is the fort spoken of in those lines you are so fond of repeating about the Indians:
‘Where, to repel their fierce attack,
Fort Dearborn rear’d across their track
Its log-constructed walls.
For forty years these fronts of wood
The tempest and the foe withstood;
And many a night of fire and flood,
The dauntless garrison made good
Their supper in its halls.’”

“It is difficult to fancy any Indians here, in the heart of this busy city,” said Norman.

“And yet this great city,” said Mrs. Percy “is the growth of twenty-five years. In 1831 there were but four arrivals, two brigs and two schooners, and now there are eight thousand.”

43“The lonely garrison that abandoned this fort in 1812,” said Mrs. Lester, “would have been rather astonished, could the vision of this city have risen up: before them.”

“Why did they abandon the fort, mother?” asked Norman.

“They thought it best when they heard of General Hull’s surrender at Detroit. Soon after leaving the fort they were attacked by a large body of Indians, to whom they surrendered, on condition that their lives should be spared. Notwithstanding this promise, the Indians cruelly murdered several of them.”

“You must not forget to tell of Mrs. Heald,” said Mrs. Percy, “for I think we may call her the heroine of Chicago.”

“I leave that to you,” replied Mrs. Lester.

“An Indian,” said Mrs. Percy, “approached her with uplifted tomahawk, when, with great presence of mind, she 44looked him full in the face, and smilingly said, ‘Surely you would not kill a squaw!’ This Indian warrior was disarmed by this appeal, and the lady’s life was saved.”

The schooner towed by the potent little tug soon passed through, but they were detained by a sloop that made its way very slowly, and Norman had time to look at the vessels in the river, many of them loaded with grain, twenty-five millions of bushels being annually received at this grain port. He also watched with great interest the working of a dredging machine used to take mud out of the river and thus deepen its channel.

A great number of carriages and carts awaited the return of the moving bridge, and many, pedestrians were ready to leap upon it as it approached. The bridges are a daily school of patience for the citizens of Chicago.

The few days at Mrs. Percy’s Norman 45enjoyed very much. He took long walks with Emily about the north side of the city, which is pleasantly shaded with trees and adorned with many fine residences. They drove out too with Mrs. Percy on Michigan Avenue, a noble street, with rows of fine houses built of beautiful cream-colored stone, and pretty cottages embowered in shrubbery, fronting on the lake. The railway is laid through the water, at a short distance from the shore, and the interval affords a fine safe place for rowing, sheltered as it is from the sudden storms of the lake. There were a number of pretty row boats rapidly darting to and fro, and young people enjoying the air and exercise on the quiet waters.

They returned by Wabash Avenue, adorned with its noble churches. They alighted, and went in to look at the new Methodist church, which was nearly finished. Norman thought it very beautiful. 46This, and the handsome Presbyterian church at the next corner, are built of the cream-colored stone which gives such a cheerful light aspect to the edifices in Chicago. The Second Presbyterian church is the most antique-looking structure in the city. It is built of a whitish stone, spotted with black, giving it somewhat the aspect of the white marble of St. Paul’s begrimed with the smoke and dust of London. This stone was found on the prairies; the black is a sort of bitumen that exudes from it, and as the quarry is exhausted, this church will be unique as well as antique in its appearance.

Norman was amused at the inequality of the sidewalks, sometimes rising above the carriage way, sometimes depressed far below, so that the pedestrian is obliged continually to go up and down steps, or inclined planes, and to mind his ways if he wishes to avoid a fall. The new stores open finely on the elevated sidewalks, 47and Norman was astonished to see the splendid rows of stores with elaborate iron fronts. The older houses and stores must be entered by descending steps to reach their level. Mrs. Percy told Norman the reason of this, that the city was built on a flat prairie, so low that the water would not run off, and the streets could not be drained; and so this enterprising people are lifting up the whole city six or seven feet, and there must be inequality of surface while this transition process is going on. Norman saw a frame house, mounted on rollers, leisurely making its way through the streets.

Charlie Percy, who was several years older than Norman had a chemical cabinet, and the boys had a very animated evening, trying a number of experiments, making colored fires, and making fire jump about the surface of the water.

“Here is an invitation for you, children,” said Mr. Percy, “which I have no 48doubt you will be very glad to accept. Mr. and Mrs. Bowers called to invite us to accompany them to Green Park, where they are to have a pic-nic.”

“How pleasant that will be,” exclaimed Emily; “I am sure you will like to go, Norman.”

The children were ready immediately after dinner, when Mr. Bowers’s carriage drove up for them, and at the station they found quite a party of children, baskets in hand, with their mothers and fathers, bound for the pic-nic. They were a joyous family party, Mr. Bowers’s sisters and their families. Norman looked from the cars upon the stately buildings of Michigan Avenue, and there was not time to look at much more, for a few minutes brought them to Green Park, and the party were soon out of the cars, and on a bank overlooking the lake. It is a pretty place, grassy turf, graveled walks, grateful shade, and rustic summer houses; better 49than all, the pleasant beach with its rounded pebbles, and the constant dash of its gentle waves. The children had merry games of tag and puss-in-the-corner, then they wandered along the beach, and then they came with sharpened appetites to inquire when the baskets were to be opened. “You may go and bring them now,” was the welcome response.

“Are we not to sit round the table in the summer-house?” asked one of the little girls.

“No,” replied her mamma, “it is cooler here.”

Willing feet ran to the rustic arbor, and willing hands brought the baskets from the rustic table. They seated themselves on the grass and ate the biscuits and sardines and sandwiches, and the gingerbread and cake. A little girl whom they did not know was playing near her father and mother, who were seated on a 50bench at a little distance. One of the children, with thoughtful kindness, asked her mother’s permission to take some biscuits and cake to the little stranger, and joyfully she ran off to offer of their abundance to the little one.

After they had done full justice to the contents of the baskets, and picked up pebbles on the beach, they sat in the large summer house and sang hymns, sweet familiar hymns, sung by sweet childish voices, sobering and sanctifying the pleasures of that happy Saturday afternoon.

At the station they found a merry party of school-girls who had walked out in the morning to gather flowers on the prairie. They were in high glee; their large straw hats were wreathed with oak leaves, and their hands were filled with great bunches of flowers,
“The golden and the flame-like flower.”

Norman said good-by to Emily Percy 51at her door, for he and his mother were to spend the Sabbath with Mrs. Bowers, and a pleasant Sabbath it was. The conversation, in harmony with the day, on the piazza, after breakfast, beneath the shade of lofty spreading trees; the sermons and services of morning, afternoon, and evening, different in tone and character, but all profitable and pleasing; the visit to the large and interesting Sunday school, in which Mrs. Bowers taught a class, made the Sabbath a delightful one.

Monday morning Mrs. Percy took Mrs. Lester and Norman and Emily to her husband’s grain warehouse, the top of which they reached after ascending many flights of steps. The roof is of canvas, covered with tar, upon which, while it is warm, pebbles are thrown, making a durable and fire proof roof. The city lay beneath them; they could mark its great extent, trace the course of its dividing rivers, with their sails, and steamers, and 52propellers; see trains of cars arriving and departing; count the spires which
“With silent fingers point to heaven,”

and around all see the great lake and the encircling prairie.

The warehouse was filled with dust, as the machinery was in motion. Norman watched the elevators lifting up the grain from the rail-car on one side to the fifth story of the warehouse, where it is weighed and poured into great bins, whence it is discharged into vessels on the other side. The elevator is a series of buckets on an endless band. Thousands of bushels, from the wide prairies of Illinois, are thus elevated, weighed, and transferred from car to boat, to be sent to the Eastern states or to Europe.

The saddest sight Norman saw in this city was the great number of saloons, as they call the shops where liquor is sold, where drunkards are made, and where many an unwary victim is lured to destruction. 53In almost every block, they tempt the thoughtless; music sounds her welcome; vice puts on her most attractive mien; and young men forget a father’s counsel, a mother’s prayers; and for the momentary gratification of their appetites they offer up reputation, character, health, life, and their eternal all; a costly sacrifice! Everything lost, and nothing gained but degradation, misery, and death.