Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 12, No. 33, December, 1873

"Well done!" cried Mr. Loud, who just then came out to the cart. "That's the biggest gobbler I have seen this year. I must weigh that bird: bring out the scales, Peter. So—eighteen pounds, and this other sixteen: fine birds indeed! Who killed them?"

"Colonel Vincent killed the largest, and I two of the others," said Dr. Macleod of the Victoria. "Captain Morris, I think, shot three turkeys and a deer; Mr. Weldon killed two deer; Halliday shot the steer and the cat, and the small game was pretty equally divided between us, I believe."

We had that night a fine supper of venison steaks, roast ducks, stewed squirrels, oysters and fish, all well cooked by Mr. Loud's old negro, who was really an artist.

    S.C. CLARKE.

THE LIVELIES

IN TWO PARTS.—II

When Dr. Lively had accomplished his part toward relieving immediate suffering, when he saw system growing gradually out of the chaos, when he saw that he could be spared from the work, he began to consider his personal affairs.

"I can't start again here," he said to Mrs. Lively. "Office and living rooms that would answer at all cannot be had for less than one hundred and fifty dollars a month, and that paid in advance, and I haven't a cent."

"What in the world are we going to do?"

"I'll tell you what I've been thinking about: I met in the relief-rooms yesterday an old college acquaintance—Edward Harrison. He lives in Keokuk, Iowa, now—came on here with some money and provisions for the sufferers. He would insist on lending me a few dollars. He's a good fellow: I used to like him at college. Well, he told me of a place near Keokuk where a good physician and surgeon is needed—none there except a raw young man. It has no railroad, but it's all the better for a doctor on that account."

"No railroad! How in the world do the folks get anywhere?"

"It's on the Mississippi River, and boats are passing the town every few hours."

"The idea of going from Chicago to where there isn't even a railroad! What place is it?"

"Nauvoo."

"Nauvoo! That miserable Mormon place?"

"Harrison says there is only an occasional Mormon there now—that it's largely settled by Germans engaged in wine-making."

"Grapes?" asked Napoleon.

"That boy never comes out of his dreaming except for something to eat. Dear me! the idea of living among a lot of Germans!" said Mrs. Lively, returning to the subject.

"There's a French element there, the remnants of the Icarians—a colony of Communists under Cabet," the doctor explained.

"What! those horrid Communists that turned Paris upside down?" Mrs. Lively exclaimed.

"Oh no," said the doctor. "They settled in Nauvoo some twenty years ago, I believe."

"Dear! dear! dear! it's very hard," said the lady.

"My dear, I think we are very fortunate. Harrison says there's plenty of work there, though it's hard work—riding over bad roads. He promises me letters of introduction to merchants there, so that I can get credit for the household goods we shall need to begin with and for our pressing necessities. He has already written to a man there to rent us a house, and put up a kitchen stove and a couple of plain beds, and to have a few provisions on hand when we arrive. I purpose leaving here to-morrow, or the day after at farthest."

"But how are we ever to get there without money?"

"We can get passes out of the city. So, my dear, please try to feel grateful. Think of the thousands here who can't turn round, who are utterly helpless."

"Well, it never did help me to feel better to know that somebody was worse off than I. It doesn't cure my headache to be told that somebody else has a raging toothache. Grateful! when I haven't even a change of clothes!"

"Go to the relief-rooms and get a change of under garments," Dr. Lively advised.

"I won't go there and wait round like a beggar, and have them ask me a million of prying questions, and all for somebody's old clothes," Mrs. Lively declared.

"Now, my dear," her husband remonstrated, "I have been a great deal in the relief-rooms, and I believe there are no unnecessary questions asked—only such as are imperative to prevent imposition."

"The things don't belong to them any more than they do to me."

"Perhaps not as much. They were sent to the destitute, such as you, so you shouldn't mind asking for your own," the doctor argued.

"Think what a mean little story I should have to tell! I do wish you'd bought that house. If we'd lost fifty thousand!—but a few bed-quilts and those old frogs and bugs and dried leaves of yours! The most miserable Irish woman on DeKoven street can tell as big a story of losses as we can."

"I'll go to the relief-rooms and get some clothes for you," said the doctor decidedly: "I'm not ashamed."

"I won't wear any of the things if you bring them," said Mrs. Lively.

"Oh, wife," said the doctor, his face pallid and grieved, "you are wrong, you are wrong. Are you to get no kind of good out of this calamity? Is the chastisement to exasperate only? to make you more perverse, more bitter?"

"You are very complimentary," was the wife's reply.

The doctor was silent for a moment: then he took up his hat. "I'm going to try to get passes out of the city," he said.

He had a long walk by Twelfth street to the rooms of the committee on transportation. Arrived at the hall, he found two long lines of waiting humanity reaching out like great wings from the door, the men on one side, the women on the other. He fell into line at the very foot, and there he waited hour after hour. For once, the women held the vantage-ground. They passed up in advance of the men to the audience-room, being admitted one by one. The audience consumed, on the average, five minutes to a person. At length all the women had had their turn: then, one by one, the men were admitted. Slowly Dr. Lively moved forward. He had attained the steps and was feeling hopeful of a speedy admission, when the business-session was pronounced ended for the day, and the doors were closed. He went back drooping, and related his experience to his wife.

"You don't mean to say you've been gone all this afternoon and come back without the passes?" she exclaimed.

"That's just how it is," answered the doctor.

"Well, I'll warrant I would have got in if I'd been there," she said.

"Yes, you'd have got an audience, for, as I have said, the women were admitted before the men. My next neighbor in the line said he had been there three days in succession without getting into the hall."

"Well, I'll go in the morning, and I'll come home with a pass in an hour, I promise you."

The next morning Mrs. Lively started for the hall at eight o'clock, determined to procure a place at the head of the line. But, early as was the hour, she found the doors already besieged. There were at least three dozen women ahead of her. She took her place very ungraciously at the foot of the line. At nine the doors were opened, and the first comers admitted. Ten o'clock came, and Mrs. Lively was still in the street—had not even reached the stairs. Eleven o'clock came—she stood on the second step. At length she had reached the top step but one, and it was not yet twelve.

"It doesn't seem fair," she said to the doorkeeper, "that the men should have to wait, day after day, till all the women in the city are served."

"No," assented the keeper, "it is not fair. Now, there are men in that line who have been here for four days. They'd have done better and saved time if they'd gone to work in the burnt district moving rubbish, and earned their railroad passage."

Mrs. Lively's suggestion of unfairness proved an unfortunate one for her, for the keeper conceived the idea of acting on it.

"It isn't fair," he repeated, "and I mean to let some of those fellows in."

"Oh, do let me in first," she cried, but the keeper had already beckoned to the head of the other line, and was now marching him into the hall.

"No use for you to try for a pass," said the inner doorkeeper after a few words with the petitioner. "You must have a certificate from some well-known, responsible person that your means were all lost by the fire, or you cannot get an audience. Must have your certificate, sir, before I can pass you to the committee."