ts, his hat, were worn almost to pieces. We were driving
a single horse hitched to a buggy. The horse was weary; the harness was
a patch of ropes. We could have made these things good with purchases
along the way, but Douglas put off the day. At last we decided to make
them in Chicago. He was loath to let me use my money for such needs as
these, seeing that I had already contributed so much to campaign
expenses. But I overbore his wishes.
We were a comical pair driving into the hurly burly of the new city of
Chicago. It had recently received a charter. But what a motley of
buildings it was! Frame shacks wedged between more substantial buildings
of brick or wood. Land speculators swarmed everywhere; land offices
confronted one at every turn; lawyers, doctors, men of all professions
and trades had descended upon this waste of sand and scrub oaks about
the lake. Indians walked among the whites; negroes as porters, laborers,
bootblacks, were plentiful; there were countless drinking places and new
hotels; there were sharpers, adventurers, blacklegs, men of prey of all
description, prostitutes, the camp followers of new settlements, houses
of vice, restaurants, gardens. And with all the rest of it evidences of
fine breeds, and civilizing purposes in some of the residences and
activities. After all a city was to be built.
And here we were--a sorry pair indeed! Douglas, worn from his
campaigning, battered and frayed; myself, dusty and unkempt, entering
Chicago behind a horse dragging its body harnessed in patches to a
rattling buggy. We laughed at ourselves.
Douglas and I went to a clothing store where I insisted upon fitting him
out with a suit and a hat. We bought a new harness for the horse. Then
we set forth for meals and drinks.
Somehow I felt that Zoe might be in some concert hall singing for the
means of life. A darker idea crossed my mind, but I put it away. I told
Douglas that I meant to find Zoe, if I could. After our meal we went
from place to place in this quest. Douglas did not try to dissuade me,
but he looked at me keenly as if he wondered why I wished to find Zoe.
Why, after all? As years elapsed I would be rid of all associated memory
of her in Jacksonville. Might not Dorothy come back to me if she knew
that Zoe had wholly vanished from my life? Yet something of a sense of
responsibility, and something of an affection for Zoe kept my mind fast
to the idea of finding her. Up and down the streets of Chicag
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