As you approach St. Paul, at Fort Snelling, where the Mississippi and Minnesota join forces, the country grows bold and beautiful. The town itself, then boasting about thirty thousand inhabitants, is finely situated, with substantial stone residences. It was in one of these charming homes I found a harbor of rest during my stay in the city. Mrs. Stuart, whose hospitalities I enjoyed, was a woman of rare common sense and sound health. Her husband, Dr. Jacob H. Stuart, was one of the very first surgeons to volunteer in the late war. In the panic at Bull Run, instead of running, as everybody else did, he stayed with the wounded, and was taken prisoner while taking a bullet from the head of a rebel. When exchanged, Beauregard gave him his sword for his devotion to the dying and wounded.
I had the pleasure of seeing several of the leading gentlemen and ladies of St. Paul at the Orphans' Fair, where we all adjourned, after my lecture, to discuss woman's rights, over a bounteous supper. Here I met William L. Banning, the originator of the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad. He besieged Congress and capitalists for a dozen years to build this road, but was laughed at and put off with sneers and contempt, until, at last, Jay Cooke became so weary of his continual coming that he said: "I will build the road to get rid of you."
Whittier seems to have had a prophetic vision of the peopling of this region. When speaking of the Yankee, he says:
"He's whittling by St. Mary's Falls,
Upon his loaded wain;
He's measuring o'er the Pictured Rocks,
With eager eyes of gain.
"I hear the mattock in the mine,
The ax-stroke in the dell,
The clamor from the Indian lodge,
The Jesuits' chapel bell!
"I hear the tread of pioneers
Of nations yet to be;
The first low wash of waves, where soon
Shall roll a human sea."
The opening of these new outlets and mines of wealth was wholly due to the forecast and perseverance of Mr. Banning. The first engine that went over a part of the road had been christened at St. Paul, with becoming ceremonies; the officiating priestess being a beautiful maiden. A cask of water from the Pacific was sent by Mr. Banning's brother from California, and a small keg was brought from Lake Superior for the occasion. A glass was placed in the hands of Miss Ella B. Banning, daughter of the president, who then christened the engine, saying: "With the waters of the Pacific Ocean in my right hand, and the waters of Lake Superior in my left, invoking the Genius of Progress to bring together, with iron band, two great commercial systems of the globe, I dedicate this engine to the use of the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad, and name it William L. Banning."
From St. Paul to Dubuque, as the boats had ceased running, a circuitous route and a night of discomfort were inevitable. Leaving the main road to Chicago at Clinton Junction, I had the pleasure of waiting at a small country inn until midnight for a freight train. This was indeed dreary, but, having Mrs. Child's sketches of Mmes. De Staël and Roland at hand, I read of Napoleon's persecutions of the one and Robespierre's of the other, until, by comparison, my condition was tolerable, and the little meagerly furnished room, with its dull fire and dim lamp, seemed a paradise compared with years of exile from one's native land or the prison cell and guillotine. How small our ordinary, petty trials seem in contrast with the mountains of sorrow that have been piled up on the great souls of the past! Absorbed in communion with them twelve o'clock soon came, and with it the train.
A burly son of Adam escorted me to the passenger car filled with German immigrants, with tin cups, babies, bags, and bundles innumerable. The ventilators were all closed, the stoves hot, and the air was like that of the Black Hole of Calcutta. So, after depositing my cloak and bag in an empty seat, I quietly propped both doors open with a stick of wood, shut up the stoves, and opened all the ventilators with the poker. But the celestial breeze, so grateful to me, had the most unhappy effect on the slumbering exiles. Paterfamilias swore outright; the companion of his earthly pilgrimage said, "We must be going north," and, as the heavy veil of carbonic acid gas was lifted from infant faces, and the pure oxygen filled their lungs and roused them to new life, they set up one simultaneous shout of joy and gratitude, which their parents mistook for agony. Altogether there was a general stir. As I had quietly slipped into my seat and laid my head down to sleep, I remained unobserved—the innocent cause of the general purification and vexation.
We reached Freeport at three o'clock in the morning. As the depot for Dubuque was nearly half a mile on the other side of the town, I said to a solitary old man who stood shivering there to receive us, "How can I get to the other station?" "Walk, madam." "But I do not know the way." "There is no one to go with you." "How is my trunk going?" said I. "I have a donkey and cart to take that." "Then," said I, "you, the donkey, the trunk, and I will go together." So I stepped into the cart, sat down on the trunk, and the old man laughed heartily as we jogged along through the mud of that solitary town in the pale morning starlight. Just as the day was dawning, Dubuque, with its rough hills and bold scenery, loomed up. Soon, under the roof of Myron Beach, one of the distinguished lawyers of the West, with a good breakfast and sound nap, my night's sorrows were forgotten.
I was sorry to find that Mrs. Beach, though a native of New York, and born on the very spot where the first woman's rights convention was held in this country, was not sound on the question of woman suffrage. She seemed to have an idea that voting and housekeeping could not be compounded; but I suggested that, if the nation could only enjoy a little of the admirable system with which she and other women administered their domestic affairs, Uncle Sam's interests would be better secured. This is just what the nation needs to-day, and women must wake up to the consideration that they, too, have duties as well as rights in the State. A splendid audience greeted me in the Opera House, and I gave "Our Girls," bringing many male sinners to repentance, and stirring up some lethargic femmes coverts to a state of rebellion against the existing order of things.
From Dubuque I went to Dixon, a large town, where I met a number of pleasant people, but I have one cause of complaint against the telegraph operator, whose negligence to send a dispatch to Mt. Vernon, written and paid for, came near causing me a solitary night on the prairie, unsheltered and unknown. Hearing that the express train went out Sunday afternoon, I decided to go, so as to have all day at Mt. Vernon before speaking; but on getting my trunk checked, the baggageman said the train did not stop there. "Well," said I, "check the trunk to the nearest point at which it does stop," resolving that I would persuade the conductor to stop one minute, anyway. Accordingly, when the conductor came round, I presented my case as persuasively and eloquently as possible, telling him that I had telegraphed friends to meet me, etc., etc. He kindly consented to do so and had my trunk re-checked. On arriving, as there was no light, no sound, and the depot was half a mile from the town, the conductor urged me to go to Cedar Rapids and come back the next morning, as it was Sunday night and the depot might not be opened, and I might be compelled to stay there on the platform all night in the cold.
But, as I had telegraphed, I told him I thought someone would be there, and I would take the risk. So off went the train, leaving me solitary and alone. I could see the lights in the distant town and the dark outlines of two great mills near by, which suggested dams and races. I heard, too, the distant barking of dogs, and I thought there might be wolves, too; but no human sound. The platform was high and I could see no way down, and I should not have dared to go down if I had. So I walked all round the house, knocked at every door and window, called "John!" "James!" "Patrick!" but no response. Dressed in all their best, they had, no doubt, gone to visit Sally, and I knew they would stay late. The night wind was cold. What could I do? The prospect of spending the night there filled me with dismay. At last I thought I would try my vocal powers; so I hallooed as loud as I could, in every note of the gamut, until I was hoarse. At last I heard a distant sound, a loud halloo, which I returned, and so we kept it up until the voice grew near, and, when I heard