Part 22 (1/2)

In the spring of 1860 father rented his farm, so that he could devote his whole time to preaching. He built a house in Pardee, that we might live near school and meeting until George should be old enough to do the work on the farm. There was plenty of open prairie to pasture the cows, and George and I tended them, while mother made cheese to help support the family.

Father traveled and preached almost constantly that summer, sometimes alone, sometimes in company with Bro. Hutchinson.

At many of the points at which he organized churches, the old members are now either dead or scattered. But Bro. John A. Campbell, of Big Springs, where he built up a strong church, writes as follows of his work there:

He told me that his first visit to Big Springs was in May, 1858. My first recollection of him was that he preached there on the 4th day of July, of that year, when he organized the church with twenty-eight members, my father (L. R. Campbell) and C. M. Mock being appointed elders.

His subject on that occasion was the ”Unity of all Christians,” and he spoke with great power. He again preached there on the 29th day of August, 1858, and his subject was ”Faith.” On that day the first addition to the church was made by baptism. He continued to preach for the church about once each month through 1858-9, and a part of 1860. During that time very many were added, but I have no means of knowing the number. In the fall of 1859 he held a successful protracted meeting, and another in the winter with Bro. G. W. Hutchinson. In 1860, he was at the State meeting at Big Springs, at which the ground plan of our present co-operative plan of missionary work was laid.

There was also raised at that meeting money to buy a large tent, with which Bro. Butler was to travel and preach as State evangelist. Again, in the year 1877 or 1878 he preached once per month at Big Springs and some adjacent points--once on the Waukarusa, oft the subject of the Seventh-day Sabbath, out of which grew a correspondence for a debate, but it was not; held, owing to a failure to get a suitable house.

In the forepart of December past our church held a memorial service for him, and many pleasant things about his relation to dear brethren and sisters were spoken of.

The relation between him and myself was always very pleasant, and I delight to bear testimony to his great ability and grand life and character. I regarded him as my father in the gospel, and he was a source of great help and strength to me.

The tent of which Bro. Campbell speaks was made by the ladies in the Pardee school-house. In size it was forty by sixty feet, the roof being shaped like the roof of a house. The second State meeting, and many district meetings, were held in it; and father used it in his meetings for nearly ten years, when it was finally torn up by a storm.

In the fall of 1860 the Missionary Society wished him to visit Indiana again, to stir up an interest, and collect his salary. I find no report of his work that winter, except this item from one of his letters: ”There have been seventeen additions at meetings which I have recently attended--six at Brownsburg, Hendricks county, and eleven at Springville, Lawrence county, Ind.”

I have found the note-book which he kept from November, 1860, to November, 1861, in which I find this account: He received #368.50; traveling expenses, $72.55, leaving for his year's work, $295.95. That was the year of the ”drouth,” and he apprised the brethren where he preached of the dest.i.tution in Kansas. Dr. S. G. Moore and my uncle, Prof. N. Dunshee, of Pardee, had been appointed to receive contributions for dest.i.tute brethren; and they reported the receipt and distribution of $670.96, besides boxes of clothing.

After father's return, in March, 1861, he traveled almost constantly.

I have found, in the note-book mentioned above, the time and place, and either the subject or text of each sermon he preached that year, one hundred and fifty-three in all. Here are some of the subjects named: ”The Gospel;” ”Christian Union;” ”Kings of Israel;” ”Noah and the Deluge;” ”Types of the Law;” ”For What Did Jesus Die?” ”Baptism, its Authority and Design;” ”From Whence Ami? and Whither Am I Going?”

”The Material Results of Christianity;” and ”The Kingdom of Heaven.”

Father had spent all of the money that was due him from property sold in Iowa, except a thousand dollars, with which he intended to pay his debts, and finish paying for land in Kansas. While he was in Indiana that spring that amount was forwarded in a draft to mother. The war was just breaking out, and by the time she could write to father and receive his instructions as to its disposal, the bank broke, and he lost a large part of it. He had already been running in debt for necessary expenses, hoping each year that his support would be increased, and the loss in the bank threw him so much in debt that he felt it would be impossible for him to preach much longer.

In September, 1861, he attended the State meeting in Prairie City. On Thursday the meeting was held in an empty store-room, for the poles had not yet been cut to raise the tent. After some preliminary business father made a short speech, telling them that he must soon quit preaching for them. He told them how necessary it was that churches should be planted at once in this new State, and how he had tried in vain to arouse the brethren at the East to their responsibility in the matter, but that he was at last obliged to give up and go to work, like an honest man, and pay his debts. He told them how he had loved the work, and how willingly he had toiled and suffered hards.h.i.+ps, and begged them to hold out faithfully and do what they could; and when his debts were paid, he would return again to the work. When he closed his hearers were nearly all in tears.

Many went long distances to that meeting, the brethren and sisters from Emporia going in a covered wagon, and camping out on the road.

Father continued to preach, however, much of the time that winter.

That part of his farm that was improved was rented for five years, and he had no money to improve the rest. The renter proved an indifferent farmer, and the rent scarcely sufficed to pay the taxes and winter the cattle. So father entered the only paying business, that of freighting, as he relates in Chap x.x.xI. Perhaps some may think from reading that chapter that he only took one trip, but he crossed the plains five times. He first went in the spring of 1862, in Bro.

Butcher's train, taking George, who was only ten years old, along to drive one of his teams, because he could not afford to hire a driver.

It was a hard, monotonous life, driving all day and camping at night through all weather; but the hardest part of it was that men and boys all had to take their turn standing guard over their cattle at night.

After Bro. Butcher was taken sick on that first trip, father acted as his boss, and on all his later trips he went as wagon-boss of some large train owned by Atchison freighters, also taking along two teams of his own.

The wagon-bosses were frequently rough, overbearing men, who not only went armed, but who often treated their drivers tyrannically. They not only cowed the boys with abusive language, but with frequent threats of whipping, or shooting, which they sometimes fulfilled.

Father never carried arms about his person in any of his trips across the plains. But there was something in his quiet, determined manner that enabled him to rule even the most headstrong of the wild young fellows who usually drove the freighting teams. He was once traveling along, for a short time, in company with a train much larger than his own, whose wagon-boss was a big, burly, swaggering fellow, who was drunk much of the time. Each train was driving along behind it such oxen as were unfit for work, and some of the other cattle became accidentally mixed with father's drove. The boss, who was already partially drunk, had ridden on to a ranch to get more whisky. Father called on his own boys, and the boys of the other train--on the plains the drivers were often called boys, even though they were middle aged men--to help separate them. But those of the other train refused to help. They tried in vain to separate them, until they were tired out.

As they neared the ranch father walked up to the well to get a drink, and there sat the drunken boss on his horse. When he saw father, he exclaimed, with a great oath, ”---- ---- ----, what you driving my cattle off for?”

”I asked your boys to help separate them,” replied father, ”but they refused, and I and my boys have worried ourselves out at it. If you will order your boys to help we will try again.”

”---- ---- you, go back and get them cattle out, or I'll send you to ---- !”

Father looked him steadily in the face, and said quietly, ”I would like to see the irons you would do it with.”

”---- ---- go back and get them cattle out, or I'll shoot you as sure as ---- !” shouted the fellow, jerking out a revolver with a great flourish.

The frightened boys stood back, expecting to see him shoot, but father, without moving, coolly replied, ”If you want your cattle out, you will get them out yourself; I will do nothing more about it.”