“How good you are!”
“Well, I try to be. It is all a person can do in a world like this.” An Archangel
And now, my burden being shifted to other shoulders, my terrors soon faded away.
FROM ST. LOUIS NORTHWARD there are all the enlivening signs The day before we left Hannibal, a curious thing fell un-of the presence of active, energetic, intelligent, prosperous, der my notice—the surprising spread which longitudinal time practical nineteenth-century populations. The people don’t 305
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain dream, they work. The happy result is manifest all around in stately blocks of commercial buildings. And there are ample the substantial outside aspect of things, and the suggestions of fair-grounds, a well kept park, and many attractive drives; wholesome life and comfort that everywhere appear.
library, reading-rooms, a couple of colleges, some handsome Quincy is a notable example—a brisk, handsome, well-and costly churches, and a grand court-house, with grounds ordered city; and now, as formerly, interested in art, letters, which occupy a square. The population of the city is thirty and other high things.
thousand. There are some large factories here, and manufac-But Marion City is an exception. Marion City has gone turing, of many sorts, is done on a great scale.
backwards in a most unaccountable way. This metropolis La Grange and Canton are growing towns, but I missed promised so well that the projectors tacked “city” to its name Alexandria; was told it was under water, but would come up in the very beginning, with full confidence; but it was bad to blow in the summer.
prophecy. When I first saw Marion City, thirty-five years Keokuk was easily recognizable. I lived there in 1857—an ago, it contained one street, and nearly or quite six houses.
extraordinary year there in real-estate matters. The ‘boom’
It contains but one house now, and this one, in a state of was something wonderful. Everybody bought, everybody ruin, is getting ready to follow the former five into the river.
sold—except widows and preachers; they always hold on; Doubtless Marion City was too near to Quincy. It had an-and when the tide ebbs, they get left. Anything in the sem-other disadvantage: it was situated in a flat mud bottom, blance of a town lot, no matter how situated, was salable, below high-water mark, whereas Quincy stands high up on and at a figure which would still have been high if the ground the slope of a hill.
had been sodded with greenbacks.
In the beginning Quincy had the aspect and ways of a The town has a population of fifteen thousand now, and model New England town: and these she has yet: broad, is progressing with a healthy growth. It was night, and we clean streets, trim, neat dwellings and lawns, fine mansions, could not see details, for which we were sorry, for Keokuk 306
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain has the reputation of being a beautiful city. It was a pleasant finished, its contents, however abstruse, had been burnt into one to live in long ago, and doubtless has advanced, not his memory, and were his permanent possession. In this way retrograded, in that respect.
he acquired a vast hoard of all sorts of learning, and had it A mighty work which was in progress there in my day is pigeon-holed in his head where he could put his intellectual finished now. This is the canal over the Rapids. It is eight hand on it whenever it was wanted.
miles long, three hundred feet wide, and is in no place less His clothes differed in no respect from a “wharf-rat’s,” than six feet deep. Its masonry is of the majestic kind which except that they were raggeder, more ill-assorted and inhar-the War Department usually deals in, and will endure like a monious (and therefore more extravagantly picturesque), and Roman aqueduct. The work cost four or five millions.
several layers dirtier. Nobody could infer the master-mind After an hour or two spent with former friends, we started in the top of that edifice from the edifice itself.
up the river again. Keokuk, a long time ago, was an occa-He was an orator—by nature in the first place, and later sional loafing-place of that erratic genius, Henry Clay Dean.
by the training of experience and practice. When he was out I believe I never saw him but once; but he was much talked on a canvass, his name was a lodestone which drew the farm-of when I lived there. This is what was said of him—
ers to his stump from fifty miles around. His theme was He began life poor and without education. But he edu-always politics. He used no notes, for a volcano does not cated himself—on the curbstones of Keokuk. He would sit need notes. In 1862, a son of Keokuk’s late distinguished down on a curbstone with his book, careless or unconscious citizen, Mr. Claggett, gave me this incident concerning of the clatter of commerce and the tramp of the passing Dean—
crowds, and bury himself in his studies by the hour, never The war feeling was running high in Keokuk (in ’61), and changing his position except to draw in his knees now and a great mass meeting was to be held on a certain day in the then to let a dray pass unobstructed; and when his book was new Athenaeum. A distinguished stranger was to address 307
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain the house. After the building had been packed to its utmost which left four inches of forearm unprotected; small, stiff-capacity with sweltering folk of both sexes, the stage still brimmed soldier-cap hung on a corner of the bump of—
remained vacant—the distinguished stranger had failed to whichever bump it was. This figure moved gravely out upon connect. The crowd grew impatient, and by and by indig-the stage and, with sedate and measured step, down to the nant and rebellious. About this time a distressed manager front, where it paused, and dreamily inspected the house, discovered Dean on a curb-stone, explained the dilemma to saying no word. The silence of surprise held its own for a him, took his book away from him, rushed him into the moment, then was broken by a just audible ripple of merri-building the back way, and told him to make for the stage ment which swept the sea of faces like the wash of a wave.
and save his country.
The figure remained as before, thoughtfully inspecting.
Presently a sudden silence fell upon the grumbling audi-Another wave started—laughter, this time. It was followed ence, and everybody’s eyes sought a single point—the wide, by another, then a third—this last one boisterous.
empty, carpetless stage. A figure appeared there whose as-And now the stranger stepped back one pace, took off his pect was familiar to hardly a dozen persons present. It was soldier-cap, tossed it into the wing, and began to speak, with the scarecrow Dean—in foxy shoes, down at the heels; socks deliberation, nobody listening, everybody laughing and of odd colors, also ‘down;’ damaged trousers, relics of antiq-whispering. The speaker talked on unembarrassed, and presuity, and a world too short, exposing some inches of naked ently delivered a shot which went home, and silence and ankle; an unbuttoned vest, also too short, and exposing a attention resulted. He followed it quick and fast, with other zone of soiled and wrinkled linen between it and the waist-telling things; warmed to his work and began to pour his band; shirt bosom open; long black handkerchief, wound words out, instead of dripping them; grew hotter and hot-round and round the neck like a bandage; bob-tailed blue ter, and fell to discharging lightnings and thunder—and now coat, reaching down to the small of the back, with sleeves the house began to break into applause, to which the speaker 308
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain gave no heed, but went hammering straight on; unwound the manufacture, exportation, importation, purchase, sale, his black bandage and cast it away, still thundering; pres-borrowing, lending, stealing, drinking, smelling, or posses-ently discarded the bob tailed coat and flung it aside, firing sion, by conquest, inheritance, intent, accident, or other-up higher and higher all the time; finally flung the vest after wise, in the State of Iowa, of each and every deleterious bev-the coat; and then for an untimed period stood there, like erage known to the human race, except water. This measure another Vesuvius, spouting smoke and flame, lava and ashes, was approved by all the rational people in the State; but not raining pumice-stone and cinders, shaking the moral earth by the bench of Judges.
with intellectual crash upon crash, explosion upon explo-Burlington has the progressive modern city’s full equip-sion, while the mad multitude stood upon their feet in a ment of devices for right and intelligent government; in-solid body, answering back with a ceaseless hurricane of cluding a paid fire department, a thing which the great city cheers, through a thrashing snowstorm of waving handker-of New Orleans is without, but still employs that relic of chiefs.
antiquity, the independent system.
“When Dean came,” said Claggett, “the people thought In Burlington, as in all these Upper-River towns, one he was an escaped lunatic; but when he went, they thought breathes a go-ahead atmosphere which tastes good in the he was an escaped archangel.”
nostrils. An opera-house has lately been built there which is Burlington, home of the sparkling Burdette, is another in strong contrast with the shabby dens which usually do hill city; and also a beautiful one; unquestionably so; a fine duty as theaters in cities of Burlington’s size.
and flourishing city, with a population of twenty-five thou-We had not time to go ashore in Muscatine, but had a sand, and belted with busy factories of nearly every imagin-daylight view of it from the boat. I lived there awhile, many able description. It was a very sober city, too—for the mo-years ago, but the place, now, had a rather unfamiliar look; ment—for a most sobering bill was pending; a bill to forbid so I suppose it has clear outgrown the town which I used to 309
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain know. In fact, I know it has; for I remember it as a small ing to the eye, but sharply tried it at the same time. All the place—which it isn’t now. But I remember it best for a luna-Upper Mississippi region has these extraordinary sunsets as tic who caught me out in the fields, one Sunday, and ex-a familiar spectacle. It is the true Sunset Land: I am sure no tracted a butcher-knife from his boot and proposed to carve other country can show so good a right to the name. The me up with it, unless I acknowledged him to be the only son sunrises are also said to be exceedingly fine. I do not know.
of the Devil. I tried to compromise on an acknowledgment that he was the only member of the family I had met; but that did not satisfy him; he wouldn’t have any half-mea-Chapter 58
sures; I must say he was the sole and only son of the Devil—
he whetted his knife on his boot. It did not seem worth On the Upper River
while to make trouble about a little thing like that; so I swung round to his view of the matter and saved my skin whole.
THE BIG TOWNS DROP IN, thick and fast, now: and between Shortly afterward, he went to visit his father; and as he has stretch processions of thrifty farms, not desolate solitude.
not turned up since, I trust he is there yet.
Hour by hour, the boat plows deeper and deeper into the And I remember Muscatine—still more pleasantly—for great and populous North-west; and with each successive its summer sunsets. I have never seen any, on either side of section of it which is revealed, one’s surprise and respect gather the ocean, that equaled them. They used the broad smooth emphasis and increase. Such a people, and such achievements river as a canvas, and painted on it every imaginable dream as theirs, compel homage. This is an independent race who of color, from the mottled daintinesses and delicacies of the think for themselves, and who are competent to do it, be-opal, all the way up, through cumulative intensities, to blind-cause they are educated and enlightened; they read, they ing purple and crimson conflagrations which were enchant-keep abreast of the best and newest thought, they fortify 310
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain every weak place in their land with a school, a college, a ten thousand; Winona, ten thousand; Moline, ten thousand; library, and a newspaper; and they live under law. Solicitude Rock Island, twelve thousand; La Crosse, twelve thousand; for the future of a race like this is not in order.
Burlington, twenty-five thousand; Dubuque, twenty-five thou-This region is new; so new that it may be said to be still in sand; Davenport, thirty thousand; St. Paul, fifty-eight thou-its babyhood. By what it has accomplished while still teeth-sand, Minneapolis, sixty thousand and upward.
ing, one may forecast what marvels it will do in the strength The foreign tourist has never heard of these; there is no of its maturity. It is so new that the foreign tourist has not note of them in his books. They have sprung up in the night, heard of it yet; and has not visited it. For sixty years, the for-while he slept. So new is this region, that I, who am compara-eign tourist has steamed up and down the river between St.
tively young, am yet older than it is. When I was born, St.
Louis and New Orleans, and then gone home and written his Paul had a population of three persons, Minneapolis had just book, believing he had seen all of the river that was worth a third as many. The then population of Minneapolis died seeing or that had anything to see. In not six of all these books two years ago; and when he died he had seen himself undergo is there mention of these Upper River towns—for the reason an increase, in forty years, of fifty-nine thousand nine hun-that the five or six tourists who penetrated this region did it dred and ninety-nine persons. He had a frog’s fertility.
before these towns were projected. The latest tourist of them I must explain that the figures set down above, as the popu-all (1878) made the same old regulation trip—he had not lation of St. Paul and Minneapolis, are several months old.
heard that there was anything north of St. Louis.
These towns are far larger now. In fact, I have just seen a Yet there was. There was this amazing region, bristling with newspaper estimate which gives the former seventy-one thou-great towns, projected day before yesterday, so to speak, and sand, and the latter seventy-eight thousand. This book will built next morning. A score of them number from fifteen not reach the public for six or seven months yet; none of the hundred to five thousand people. Then we have Muscatine, figures will be worth much then.
311
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain We had a glimpse of Davenport, which is another beauti-which fret the Mississippi and the pilots, between St. Louis ful city, crowning a hill—a phrase which applies to all these and St. Paul.
towns; for they are all comely, all well built, clean, orderly, The charming island of Rock Island, three miles long and pleasant to the eye, and cheering to the spirit; and they are half a mile wide, belongs to the United States, and the Gov-all situated upon hills. Therefore we will give that phrase a ernment has turned it into a wonderful park, enhancing its rest. The Indians have a tradition that Marquette and Joliet natural attractions by art, and threading its fine forests with camped where Davenport now stands, in 1673. The next many miles of drives. Near the center of the island one catches white man who camped there, did it about a hundred and glimpses, through the trees, of ten vast stone four-story build-seventy years later—in 1834. Davenport has gathered its ings, each of which covers an acre of ground. These are the thirty thousand people within the past thirty years. She sends Government workshops; for the Rock Island establishment more children to her schools now, than her whole popula-is a national armory and arsenal.
tion numbered twent y-three years ago. She has the usual We move up the river—always through enchanting scen-Upper River quota of factories, newspapers, and institutions ery, there being no other kind on the Upper Mississippi—
of learning; she has telephones, local telegraphs, an electric and pass Moline, a center of vast manufacturing industries; alarm, and an admirable paid fire department, consisting of and Clinton and Lyons, great lumber centers; and presently six hook and ladder companies, four steam fire engines, and reach Dubuque, which is situated in a rich mineral region.
thirty churches. Davenport is the official residence of two The lead mines are very productive, and of wide extent.
bishops—Episcopal and Catholic.
Dubuque has a great number of manufacturing establish-Opposite Davenport is the flourishing town of Rock Is-ments; among them a plow factory which has for customers land, which lies at the foot of the Upper Rapids. A great all Christendom in general. At least so I was told by an agent railroad bridge connects the two towns—one of the thirteen of the concern who was on the boat. He said—
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Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain
“You show me any country under the sun where they re-sippi was olive-green—rich and beautiful and semi-trans-ally know how to plow, and if I don’t show you our mark on parent, with the sun on it. Of course the water was nowhere the plow they use, I’ll eat that plow; and I won’t ask for any as clear or of as fine a complexion as it is in some other Woostershyre sauce to flavor it up with, either.” seasons of the year; for now it was at flood stage, and there-All this part of the river is rich in Indian history and tradi-fore dimmed and blurred by the mud manufactured from tions. Black Hawk’s was once a puissant name hereabouts; as caving banks.
was Keokuk’s, further down. A few miles below Dubuque is The majestic bluffs that overlook the river, along through the Tete de Mort—Death’s-head rock, or bluff—to the top this region, charm one with the grace and variety of their of which the French drove a band of Indians, in early times, forms, and the soft beauty of their adornment. The steep and cooped them up there, with death for a certainty, and verdant slope, whose base is at the water’s edge is topped by only the manner of it matter of choice—to starve, or jump a lofty rampart of broken, turreted rocks, which are exquis-off and kill themselves. Black Hawk adopted the ways of the itely rich and mellow in color—mainly dark browns and white people, toward the end of his life; and when he died dull greens, but splashed with other tints. And then you he was buried, near Des Moines, in Christian fashion, modi-have the shining river, winding here and there and yonder, fied by Indian custom; that is to say, clothed in a Christian its sweep interrupted at intervals by clusters of wooded is-military uniform, and with a Christian cane in his hand, but lands threaded by silver channels; and you have glimpses of deposited in the grave in a sitting posture. Formerly, a horse distant villages, asleep upon capes; and of stealthy rafts slip-had always been buried with a chief. The substitution of the ping along in the shade of the forest walls; and of white cane shows that Black Hawk’s haughty nature was really steamers vanishing around remote points. And it is all as humbled, and he expected to walk when he got over.
tranquil and reposeful as dreamland, and has nothing this-We noticed that above Dubuque the water of the Missis-worldly about it—nothing to hang a fret or a worry upon.
313
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain Until the unholy train comes tearing along—which it pres-
“Boat used to land—captain on hurricane roof—mighty ently does, ripping the sacred solitude to rags and tatters with stiff and straight—iron ramrod for a spine—kid gloves, plug its devil’s warwhoop and the roar and thunder of its rushing tile, hair parted behind—man on shore takes off hat and wheels—and straightway you are back in this world, and with says—
one of its frets ready to hand for your entertainment: for you
“’Got twenty-eight tons of wheat, cap’n—be great favor if remember that this is the very road whose stock always goes you can take them.’
down after you buy it, and always goes up again as soon as you
“Captain says—
sell it. It makes me shudder to this day, to remember that I
“’ ‘ll take two of them’—and don’t even condescend to once came near not getting rid of my stock at all. It must be an look at him.
awful thing to have a railroad left on your hands.
“But nowadays the captain takes off his old slouch, and The locomotive is in sight from the deck of the steamboat smiles all the way around to the back of his ears, and gets off almost the whole way from St. Louis to St. Paul—eight hun-a bow which he hasn’t got any ramrod to interfere with, and dred miles. These railroads have made havoc with the steam-says—
boat commerce. The clerk of our boat was a steamboat clerk
“’Glad to see you, Smith, glad to see you—you’re looking before these roads were built. In that day the influx of popu-well—haven’t seen you looking so well for years—what you lation was so great, and the freight business so heavy, that got for us?’
the boats were not able to keep up with the demands made
“’Nuth’n’, says Smith; and keeps his hat on, and just turns upon their carrying capacity; consequently the captains were his back and goes to talking with somebody else.
very independent and airy—pretty ‘biggity,’ as Uncle Remus
“Oh, yes, eight years ago, the captain was on top; but it’s would say. The clerk nut-shelled the contrast between the Smith’s turn now. Eight years ago a boat used to go up the former time and the present, thus—
river with every stateroom full, and people piled five and six 314
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain deep on the cabin floor; and a solid deck-load of immigrants foliage that almost touched our bows on both sides; and here and harvesters down below, into the bargain. To get a first-class every individual leaf, and every individual ripple stood out in stateroom, you’d got to prove sixteen quarterings of nobility its natural color, and flooded with a glare as of noonday inten-and four hundred years of descent, or be personally acquainted sified. The effect was strange, and fine, and very striking.
with the nigger that blacked the captain’s boots. But it’s all We passed Prairie du Chien, another of Father Marquette’s changed now; plenty staterooms above, no harvesters below—
camping-places; and after some hours of progress through there’s a patent self-binder now, and they don’t have harvesters varied and beautiful scenery, reached La Crosse. Here is a any more; they’ve gone where the woodbine twineth—and they town of twelve or thirteen thousand population, with elec-didn’t go by steamboat, either; went by the train.” tric lighted streets, and with blocks of buildings which are Up in this region we met massed acres of lumber rafts stately enough, and also architecturally fine enough, to com-coming down—but not floating leisurely along, in the old-mand respect in any city. It is a choice town, and we made fashioned way, manned with joyous and reckless crews of satisfactory use of the hour allowed us, in roaming it over, fiddling, song-singing, whiskey-drinking, breakdown-danc-though the weather was rainier than necessary.
ing rapscallions; no, the whole thing was shoved swiftly along by a powerful stern-wheeler, modern fashion, and the small Chapter 59
crews were quiet, orderly men, of a sedate business aspect, with not a suggestion of romance about them anywhere.
Legends and Scenery
Along here, somewhere, on a black night, we ran some exceedingly narrow and intricate island-chutes by aid of the elec-WE ADDED SEVERAL PASSENGERS to our list, at La Crosse; among tric light. Behind was solid blackness—a crackless bank of it; others an old gentleman who had come to this north-west-ahead, a narrow elbow of water, curving between dense walls of ern region with the early settlers, and was familiar with ev-315
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain ery part of it. Pardonably proud of it, too. He said—
Islands to St. Paul; naming its names with such facility, trip-
“You’ll find scenery between here and St. Paul that can give ping along his theme with such nimble and confident ease, the Hudson points. You’ll have the Queen’s Bluff—seven hun-slamming in a three-ton word, here and there, with such a dred feet high, and just as imposing a spectacle as you can find complacent air of ‘t isn’t-anything,-I-can-do-it-any-time-I-anywheres; and Trempeleau Island, which isn’t like any other want-to, and letting off fine surprises of lurid eloquence at island in America, I believe, for it is a gigantic mountain, with such judicious intervals, that I presently began to suspect—
precipitous sides, and is full of Indian traditions, and used to be But no matter what I began to suspect. Hear him—
full of rattlesnakes; if you catch the sun just right there, you will
“Ten miles above Winona we come to Fountain City, nest-have a picture that will stay with you. And above Winona you’ll ling sweetly at the feet of cliffs that lift their awful fronts, have lovely prairies; and then come the Thousand Islands, too Jovelike, toward the blue depths of heaven, bathing them in beautiful for anything; green? why you never saw foliage so virgin atmospheres that have known no other contact save green, nor packed so thick; it’s like a thousand plush cushions that of angels’ wings.
afloat on a looking-glass—when the water ‘s still; and then the
“And next we glide through silver waters, amid lovely and monstrous bluffs on both sides of the river—ragged, rugged, stupendous aspects of nature that attune our hearts to adoring dark-complected—just the frame that’s wanted; you always want admiration, about twelve miles, and strike Mount Vernon, six a strong frame, you know, to throw up the nice points of a hundred feet high, with romantic ruins of a once first-class delicate picture and make them stand out.” hotel perched far among the cloud shadows that mottle its The old gentleman also told us a touching Indian legend dizzy heights—sole remnant of once-flourishing Mount or two—but not very powerful ones.
Vernon, town of early days, now desolate and utterly deserted.
After this excursion into history, he came back to the scen-
“And so we move on. Past Chimney Rock we fly—noble ery, and described it, detail by detail, from the Thousand shaft of six hundred feet; then just before landing at 316
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain Minnieska our attention is attracted by a most striking prom-puissant foe of Bright’s disease, and that grandest concep-ontory rising over five hundred feet—the ideal mountain tion of nature’s works, incomparable Lake Pepin—these con-pyramid. Its conic shape—thickly-wooded surface girding stitute a picture whereon the tourist’s eye may gaze uncounted its sides, and its apex like that of a cone, cause the spectator hours, with rapture unappeased and unappeasable.
to wonder at nature’s workings. From its dizzy heights su-
“And so we glide along; in due time encountering those perb views of the forests, streams, bluffs, hills and dales be-majestic domes, the mighty Sugar Loaf, and the sublime low and beyond for miles are brought within its focus. What Maiden’s Rock—which latter, romantic superstition has in-grander river scenery can be conceived, as we gaze upon this vested with a voice; and oft-times as the birch canoe glides enchanting landscape, from the uppermost point of these near, at twilight, the dusky paddler fancies he hears the soft bluffs upon the valleys below? The primeval wildness and sweet music of the long-departed Winona, darling of Indian awful loneliness of these sublime creations of nature and song and story.
nature’s God, excite feelings of unbounded admiration, and
“Then Frontenac looms upon our vision, delightful resort the recollection of which can never be effaced from the of jaded summer tourists; then progressive Red Wing; and memory, as we view them in any direction.
Diamond Bluff, impressive and preponderous in its lone
“Next we have the Lion’s Head and the Lioness’s Head, sublimity; then Prescott and the St. Croix; and anon we see carved by nature’s hand, to adorn and dominate the beaute-bursting upon us the domes and steeples of St. Paul, giant ous stream; and then anon the river widens, and a most young chief of the North, marching with seven-league stride charming and magnificent view of the valley before us sud-in the van of progress, banner-bearer of the highest and new-denly bursts upon our vision; rugged hills, clad with verdant est civilization, carving his beneficent way with the toma-forests from summit to base, level prairie lands, holding in hawk of commercial enterprise, sounding the warwhoop of their lap the beautiful Wabasha, City of the Healing Waters, Christian culture, tearing off the reeking scalp of sloth and 317
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain superstition to plant there the steam-plow and the school-and rolled on as