Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0142/01420.txt

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$Title{Life On The Mississippi
Chapter LX}
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$Author{Twain, Mark}
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$Subject{st
new
year
paul
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$Date{1917}
$Log{}
Title:       Life On The Mississippi
Author:      Twain, Mark
Date:        1917

Chapter LX

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.

     I am not trying to astonish by these statistics.  No, it is only natural
that there should be a sharp difference between climates which lie upon
parallels of latitude which are one or two thousand miles apart. I take this
position, and I will hold it and maintain it in spite of the newspapers.  The
newspaper thinks it isn't a natural thing; and once a year, in February, it
remarks, with ill-concealed exclamation-points, that while we, away up here,
are fighting snow and ice, folks are having new strawberries and peas down
South; callas are blooming out-of-doors, and the people are complaining of the
warm weather.  The newspaper never gets done being surprised about it.  It is
caught regularly every February.  There must be a reason for this; and this
reason must be change of hands at the editorial desk.  You cannot surprise an
individual more than twice with the same marvel - not even with the February
miracles of the Southern climate; but if you keep putting new hands at the
editorial desk every year or two, and forget to vaccinate them against the
annual climatic surprise, that same old thing is going to occur right along.
Each year one new hand will have the disease, and be safe from its recurrence;
but this does not save the newspaper.  No, the newspaper is in as bad case as
ever; it will forever have its new hand; and so, it will break out with the
strawberry surprise every February as long as it lives.  The new hand is
curable; the newspaper itself is incurable.  An act of Congress - no, Congress
could not prohibit the strawberry surprise without questionably stretching its
powers.  An amendment to the Constitution might fix the thing, and that is
probably the best and quickest way to get at it.  Under authority of such an
amendment, Congress could then pass an act inflicting imprisonment for life
for the first offense, and some sort of lingering death for subsequent ones;
and this, no doubt, would presently give us a rest.  At the same time, the
amendment and the resulting act and penalties might easily be made to cover
various cognate abuses, such as the Annual-
Veteran-who-has-Voted-for-Every-President-from-Washington-down,-and-
Walked-to-the-Polls-Yesterday-with-as-Bright-an-Eye-and-as-Firm-a-Step-
as-Ever, and ten or eleven other weary yearly marvels of that sort, and of the
Oldest-Freemason, and Oldest-Printer, and Oldest-Baptist-Preacher, and
Oldest-Alumnus sort, and Three-Children-Born-at-a-Birth sort, and so on, and
so on.  And then England would take it up and pass a law prohibiting the
further use of Sidney Smith's jokes, and appointing a commissioner to
construct some new ones.  Then life would be a sweet dream of rest and peace,
and the nations would cease to long for heaven.

     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 cities of that region are - but he is
peculiarly strong in the matter of commerce.  Last year his jobbing trade
amounted to upward 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 schoolhouses, 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 whisky!  Such is the case.  Look history over; you
will see.  The missionary comes after the whisky - I mean he arrives after the
whisky 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 forever in the land.  But whisky, 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 whisky 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
water-power which, by art, has been made of inestimable value, businesswise,
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 saw-mills 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 five hundred thousand
dollars; 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 three million dollars, and the wholesale
jobbing trade of the town amounts to fifty million dollars 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 clubhouse, 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 mean time 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.