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Mark Twain > Life On The Mississippi > Chapter 60

Life On The Mississippi

Chapter 60


                     Speculations and Conclusions

WE reached St. Paul, at the head of navigation of the Mississippi,
and there our voyage of two thousand miles from New Orleans ended. It is
about a ten-day trip by steamer. It can probably be done quicker by rail.
I judge so because I know that one may go by rail from St. Louis to Hannibal--
a distance of at least a hundred and twenty miles--in seven hours.
This is better than walking; unless one is in a hurry.

The season being far advanced when we were in New Orleans, the roses
and magnolia blossoms were falling; but here in St. Paul it was the snow,
In New Orleans we had caught an occasional withering breath from over
a crater, apparently; here in St. Paul we caught a frequent benumbing
one from over a glacier, apparently.


But I wander from my theme. St. Paul is a wonderful town.
It is put together in solid blocks of honest brick and stone,
and has the air of intending to stay. Its post-office was established
thirty-six years ago; and by and by, when the postmaster received
a letter, he carried it to Washington, horseback, to inquire what
was to be done with it. Such is the legend. Two frame houses were
built that year, and several persons were added to the population.
A recent number of the leading St. Paul paper, the 'Pioneer Press,'
gives some statistics which furnish a vivid contrast to that old
state of things, to wit: Population, autumn of the present year
(1882), 71,000; number of letters handled, first half of
the year, 1,209,387; number of houses built during three-quarters
of the year, 989; their cost, $3,186,000. The increase of letters
over the corresponding six months of last year was fifty per cent.
Last year the new buildings added to the city cost above $4,500,000.
St. Paul's strength lies in her commerce--I mean his commerce.
He is a manufacturing city, of course--all the cities of that
region are--but he is peculiarly strong in the matter of commerce.
Last year his jobbing trade amounted to upwards of $52,000,000.

He has a custom-house, and is building a costly capitol to replace
the one recently burned--for he is the capital of the State.
He has churches without end; and not the cheap poor kind,
but the kind that the rich Protestant puts up, the kind that
the poor Irish 'hired-girl' delights to erect. What a passion
for building majestic churches the Irish hired-girl has.
It is a fine thing for our architecture but too often we enjoy
her stately fanes without giving her a grateful thought.
In fact, instead of reflecting that 'every brick and every stone
in this beautiful edifice represents an ache or a pain, and a handful
of sweat, and hours of heavy fatigue, contributed by the back
and forehead and bones of poverty,' it is our habit to forget
these things entirely, and merely glorify the mighty temple itself,
without vouchsafing one praiseful thought to its humble builder,
whose rich heart and withered purse it symbolizes.

This is a land of libraries and schools. St. Paul has three public libraries,
and they contain, in the aggregate, some forty thousand books.
He has one hundred and sixteen school-houses, and pays out more than
seventy thousand dollars a year in teachers' salaries.

There is an unusually fine railway station; so large is it,
in fact, that it seemed somewhat overdone, in the matter
of size, at first; but at the end of a few months it was
perceived that the mistake was distinctly the other way.
The error is to be corrected.

The town stands on high ground; it is about seven hundred feet
above the sea level. It is so high that a wide view of river
and lowland is offered from its streets.

It is a very wonderful town indeed, and is not finished yet.
All the streets are obstructed with building material,
and this is being compacted into houses as fast as possible,
to make room for more--for other people are anxious to build,
as soon as they can get the use of the streets to pile up their bricks
and stuff in.

How solemn and beautiful is the thought, that the earliest pioneer
of civilization, the van-leader of civilization, is never the steamboat,
never the railroad, never the newspaper, never the Sabbath-school,
never the missionary--but always whiskey! Such is the case.
Look history over; you will see. The missionary comes after the whiskey--
I mean he arrives after the whiskey has arrived; next comes
the poor immigrant, with ax and hoe and rifle; next, the trader;
next, the miscellaneous rush; next, the gambler, the desperado,
the highwayman, and all their kindred in sin of both sexes; and next,
the smart chap who has bought up an old grant that covers all the land;
this brings the lawyer tribe; the vigilance committee brings the undertaker.
All these interests bring the newspaper; the newspaper starts up politics
and a railroad; all hands turn to and build a church and a jail--
and behold, civilization is established for ever in the land.
But whiskey, you see, was the van-leader in this beneficent work.
It always is. It was like a foreigner--and excusable in a foreigner--
to be ignorant of this great truth, and wander off into astronomy
to borrow a symbol. But if he had been conversant with the facts,
he would have said--

                Westward the Jug of Empire takes its way.

This great van-leader arrived upon the ground which St. Paul now occupies,
in June 1837. Yes, at that date, Pierre Parrant, a Canadian, built the
first cabin, uncorked his jug, and began to sell whiskey to the Indians.
The result is before us.

All that I have said of the newness, briskness, swift progress,
wealth, intelligence, fine and substantial architecture,
and general slash and go, and energy of St. Paul, will apply
to his near neighbor, Minneapolis--with the addition
that the latter is the bigger of the two cities.

These extraordinary towns were ten miles apart, a few months ago,
but were growing so fast that they may possibly be joined now,
and getting along under a single mayor. At any rate, within five years
from now there will be at least such a substantial ligament of buildings
stretching between them and uniting them that a stranger will not be able
to tell where the one Siamese twin leaves off and the other begins.
Combined, they will then number a population of two hundred and
fifty thousand, if they continue to grow as they are now growing.
Thus, this center of population at the head of Mississippi navigation,
will then begin a rivalry as to numbers, with that center of population
at the foot of it--New Orleans.

Minneapolis is situated at the falls of St. Anthony, which stretch across
the river, fifteen hundred feet, and have a fall of eighty-two feet--
a waterpower which, by art, has been made of inestimable value,
business-wise, though somewhat to the damage of the Falls as a spectacle,
or as a background against which to get your photograph taken.

Thirty flouring-mills turn out two million barrels of the very
choicest of flour every year; twenty sawmills produce two hundred
million feet of lumber annually; then there are woolen mills,
cotton mills, paper and oil mills; and sash, nail, furniture,
barrel, and other factories, without number, so to speak.
The great flouring-mills here and at St. Paul use the 'new process'
and mash the wheat by rolling, instead of grinding it.

Sixteen railroads meet in Minneapolis, and sixty-five passenger trains arrive
and depart daily. In this place, as in St. Paul, journalism thrives.
Here there are three great dailies, ten weeklies, and three monthlies.

There is a university, with four hundred students--and, better still,
its good efforts are not confined to enlightening the one sex.
There are sixteen public schools, with buildings which cost $500,000;
there are six thousand pupils and one hundred and twenty-eight teachers.
There are also seventy churches existing, and a lot more projected.
The banks aggregate a capital of $3,000,000, and the wholesale jobbing trade
of the town amounts to $50,000,000 a year.

Near St. Paul and Minneapolis are several points of interest--
Fort Snelling, a fortress occupying a river-bluff a hundred
feet high; the falls of Minnehaha, White-bear Lake, and so forth.
The beautiful falls of Minnehaha are sufficiently celebrated--
they do not need a lift from me, in that direction.
The White-bear Lake is less known. It is a lovely sheet of water,
and is being utilized as a summer resort by the wealth and fashion
of the State. It has its club-house, and its hotel, with the modern
improvements and conveniences; its fine summer residences;
and plenty of fishing, hunting, and pleasant drives.
There are a dozen minor summer resorts around about St. Paul
and Minneapolis, but the White-bear Lake is the resort.
Connected with White-bear Lake is a most idiotic Indian legend.
I would resist the temptation to print it here, if I could,
but the task is beyond my strength. The guide-book names the preserver
of the legend, and compliments his 'facile pen.' Without further
comment or delay then, let us turn the said facile pen loose
upon the reader--

                     A LEGEND OF WHITE-BEAR LAKE.

Every spring, for perhaps a century, or as long as there has been a nation
of red men, an island in the middle of White-bear Lake has been visited
by a band of Indians for the purpose of making maple sugar.

Tradition says that many springs ago, while upon this island,
a young warrior loved and wooed the daughter of his chief,
and it is said, also, the maiden loved the warrior.
He had again and again been refused her hand by her parents,
the old chief alleging that he was no brave, and his old consort
called him a woman!

The sun had again set upon the 'sugar-bush,' and the bright moon rose
high in the bright blue heavens, when the young warrior took down his
flute and went out alone, once more to sing the story of his love,
the mild breeze gently moved the two gay feathers in his head-dress,
and as he mounted on the trunk of a leaning tree, the damp snow fell
from his feet heavily. As he raised his flute to his lips, his blanket
slipped from his well-formed shoulders, and lay partly on the snow beneath.
He began his weird, wild love-song, but soon felt that he was cold,
and as he reached back for his blanket, some unseen hand laid it gently
on his shoulders; it was the hand of his love, his guardian angel.
She took her place beside him, and for the present they were happy;
for the Indian has a heart to love, and in this pride he is as noble
as in his own freedom, which makes him the child of the forest.
As the legend runs, a large white-bear, thinking, perhaps, that polar snows
and dismal winter weather extended everywhere, took up his journey southward.
He at length approached the northern shore of the lake which now bears
his name, walked down the bank and made his way noiselessly through
the deep heavy snow toward the island. It was the same spring ensuing
that the lovers met. They had left their first retreat, and were now
seated among the branches of a large elm which hung far over the lake.
(The same tree is still standing, and excites universal curiosity
and interest.) For fear of being detected, they talked almost in a whisper,
and now, that they might get back to camp in good time and thereby
avoid suspicion, they were just rising to return, when the maiden uttered
a shriek which was heard at the camp, and bounding toward the young brave,
she caught his blanket, but missed the direction of her foot and fell,
bearing the blanket with her into the great arms of the ferocious monster.
Instantly every man, woman, and child of the band were upon the bank,
but all unarmed. Cries and wailings went up from every mouth.
What was to be done'? In the meantime this white and savage beast held
the breathless maiden in his huge grasp, and fondled with his precious
prey as if he were used to scenes like this. One deafening yell from
the lover warrior is heard above the cries of hundreds of his tribe,
and dashing away to his wigwam he grasps his faithful knife,
returns almost at a single bound to the scene of fear and fright,
rushes out along the leaning tree to the spot where his treasure fell,
and springing with the fury of a mad panther, pounced upon his prey.
The animal turned, and with one stroke of his huge paw brought
the lovers heart to heart, but the next moment the warrior, with one
plunge of the blade of his knife, opened the crimson sluices of death,
and the dying bear relaxed his hold.

That night there was no more sleep for the band or the lovers,
and as the young and the old danced about the carcass of the dead monster,
the gallant warrior was presented with another plume, and ere
another moon had set he had a living treasure added to his heart.
Their children for many years played upon the skin of the white-bear--
from which the lake derives its name--and the maiden and the brave
remembered long the fearful scene and rescue that made them one,
for Kis-se-me-pa and Ka-go-ka could never forget their fearful
encounter with the huge monster that came so near sending them to
the happy hunting-ground.

It is a perplexing business. First, she fell down out of the tree--
she and the blanket; and the bear caught her and fondled her--
her and the blanket; then she fell up into the tree again--
leaving the blanket; meantime the lover goes war-whooping
home and comes back 'heeled,' climbs the tree, jumps down on
the bear, the girl jumps down after him--apparently, for she
was up the tree--resumes her place in the bear's arms along
with the blanket, the lover rams his knife into the bear,
and saves--whom, the blanket? No--nothing of the sort.
You get yourself all worked up and excited about that blanket,
and then all of a sudden, just when a happy climax seems
imminent you are let down flat--nothing saved but the girl.
Whereas, one is not interested in the girl; she is not
the prominent feature of the legend. Nevertheless, there you
are left, and there you must remain; for if you live
a thousand years you will never know who got the blanket.
A dead man could get up a better legend than this one.
I don't mean a fresh dead man either; I mean a man that's been dead
weeks and weeks.

We struck the home-trail now, and in a few hours were in that
astonishing Chicago--a city where they are always rubbing the lamp,
and fetching up the genii, and contriving and achieving new impossibilities.
It is hopeless for the occasional visitor to try to keep up with Chicago--
she outgrows his prophecies faster than he can make them.
She is always a novelty; for she is never the Chicago you saw when you
passed through the last time. The Pennsylvania road rushed us to New
York without missing schedule time ten minutes anywhere on the route;
and there ended one of the most enjoyable five-thousand-mile journeys I have
ever had the good fortune to make.

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