our home life; a great heavy iron pot that hung on the crane in the chimney corner where the mush would slowly bubble and splutter over or near a bed of oak coals for half the afternoon. And such mush, always made from yellow corn meal and cooked three hours or more. This, eaten with plenty of fresh, rich milk comprised the supper for the children. Tea? Not to be thought of. Sugar? It was too expensive—cost fifteen to eighteen cents a pound, and at a time it took a week's labor to earn as much as a day's labor now. Cheap molasses, sometimes, but not often. Meat, not more than once a day, but eggs in abundance. Everything father had to sell was low-priced, while everything mother must buy at the store was high. Only to think of it, you who complain of the hard lot of the workers of this generation: wheat twenty-five cents a bushel, corn fifteen cents, pork two and two and a half cents a pound, with bacon sometimes used as fuel by the reckless, racing steamboat captains of the Ohio and Mississippi. But when we got onto the farm with abundance of fruit and vegetables, with plenty of pumpkin pies and apple dumplings, our cup of joy was full, and we were the happiest mortals on earth. As I have said, 4:00 o'clock scarcely ever found mother in bed, and until within very recent years I can say that 5:00 o'clock almost invariably finds me up. Habit, do you say? No, not wholly, though that may have something to do with it, but I get up early because I want to, and because I have something to do.
When I was born, thirty miles of railroad comprised the whole mileage of the United States, and this only a tramway. Now, how many hundred thousand miles I know not, but many miles over the two hundred thousand mark. When I crossed the great states of Illinois and Iowa on my way to Oregon in 1852 not a mile of railroad was seen in either state. Only four years before, the first line was built in Indiana, really a tramway, from Madison, on the Ohio River, to Indianapolis. What a furore the building of that railroad created! Earnest, honest men opposed the building just as sincerely as men now advocate public ownership; both propositions are fallacious, the one long since exploded, the other in due time, as sure to die out as the first. My father was a strong advocate of the railroads, but I caught the arguments on the other side advocated with such vehemence as to have the sound of anger. What will our farmers do with their hay if all the teams that are hauling freight to the Ohio River are thrown out of employment? What will the tavern keepers do? What will become of the wagoners? A hundred such queries would be asked by the opponents of the railroad and, to themselves, triumphantly answered that the country would be ruined if railroads were built. Nevertheless, Indianapolis has grown from ten thousand to much over two hundred thousand, notwithstanding the city enjoyed the unusual distinction of being the first terminal city in the state of Indiana. I remember it was the boast of the railroad magnates of that day that they would soon increase the speed of their trains to fourteen miles an hour—this when they were running twelve.
In the year 1845 a letter came from Grandfather Baker to my mother that he would give her a thousand dollars with which to buy a farm. The burning question with my father and mother was how to get that money out from Ohio to Indiana. They actually went in a covered wagon to Ohio for it and hauled it home, all silver, in a box. This silver was nearly all foreign coin. Prior to that time, but a few million dollars had been coined by the United States Government. Grandfather Baker had accumulated this money by marketing small things in Cincinnati, twenty-five miles distant. I have heard my mother tell of going to market on horseback with grandfather many times, carrying eggs, butter and even live chickens on the horse she rode. Grandfather would not go in debt, and so he lived on his farm a long time without a wagon, but finally became wealthy, and was reputed to have a "barrel of money" (silver, of course), out of which store the thousand dollars mentioned came. It took nearly a whole day to count this thousand dollars, as there seemed to be nearly every nation's coin on earth represented, and the "tables" (of value) had to be consulted, the particular coins counted, and their aggregate value computed.
It was this money that bought the farm five miles southwest of Indianapolis, where I received my first real farm training. Father had advanced ideas about farming, though a miller by trade, and early taught me some valuable lessons I never forgot. We (I say "we" advisedly, as father continued to work in the mill and left me in charge of the farm) soon brought up the run-down farm to produce twenty-three bushels of wheat per acre instead of ten, by the rotation of corn, and clover and then wheat. But there was no money in farming at the then prevailing prices, and the land, for which father paid ten dollars an acre, would not yield a rental equal to the interest on the money. Now that same land has recently sold for six hundred dollars an acre.
For a time I worked in the Journal printing office for S. V. B. Noel, who, I think, was the publisher of the Journal, and also printed a free-soil paper. A part of my duty was to deliver those papers to subscribers, who treated me civilly, but when I was caught on the streets of Indianapolis with the papers in my hand I was sure of abuse from some one, and a number of times narrowly escaped personal violence. In the office I worked as roller boy, but known as "the devil," a term that annoyed me not a little. The pressman was a man by the name of Wood. In the same room was a power press, the power being a stalwart negro who turned a crank. We used to race with the power press, when I would fly the sheets, that is, take them off when printed with one hand and roll the type with the other. This so pleased Noel that he advanced my wages to $1.50 a week.
The present generation can have no conception of the brutal virulence of the advocates of slavery against the "nigger" and "nigger lovers," as all were known who did not join in the crusade against the negroes.
One day we heard a commotion on the streets, and upon inquiry were told that "they had just killed a nigger up the street, that's all," and went back to work shocked, but could do nothing. But when a little later word came that it was Wood's brother that had led the mob and that it was "old Jimmy Blake's man" (who was known as a sober, inoffensive colored man) consternation seized Wood as with an iron grip. His grief was inconsolable. The negro had been set upon by the mob just because he was a negro and for no other reason, and brutally murdered. That murder, coupled with the abuse I had received at the hands of this same element, set me to thinking, and I then and there embraced the anti-slavery doctrines and ever after adhered to them until the question was settled.
One of the subscribers to whom I delivered that anti-slavery paper was Henry Ward Beecher, who had then not attained the fame that came to him later in life, but to whom I became attached by his kind treatment and gentle words he always found time to utter. He was then, I think the pastor of the Congregational Church that faced the "Governor's Circle." The church has long since been torn down.
One episode of my life I remember because I thought my parents were in the wrong. Vocal music was taught in singing school, almost, I might say, as regular as day schools. I was passionately fond of music, and before the change came had a splendid alto voice, and became a leader in my part of the class. This coming to the notice of the trustees of Beecher's church, an effort was made to have me join the choir. Mother first objected because my clothes were not good enough, whereupon an offer was made to suitably clothe me and pay something besides; but father objected because he did not want me to listen to preaching other than the sect (Campbellite) to which he belonged. The incident set me to thinking, and finally drove me, young as I was, into the liberal faith, though I dared not openly espouse it. In those days many ministers openly preached of endless punishment in a lake of fire, but I never could believe that doctrine, and yet their words would carry terror into my heart. The ways of the world are better now in this, as in many other respects.
Another episode of my life while working in the printing office I have remembered vividly all these years. During the campaign of 1844 the Whigs held a second gathering on the Tippecanoe battle-ground. It could hardly be called a convention. A better name for the gathering would be a political camp-meeting. The people came in wagons, on horseback, afoot—any way to get there—and camped just like people used to do in their religious camp-meetings. The journeymen printers of the Journal office planned to go in a covered dead-ax wagon, and signified they would make a place for the "devil," if his parents would let him go along. This was speedily arranged with mother, who always took charge of such matters. The proposition coming to Noel's ears he said for the men to print me some campaign songs, which they did with a will, Wood running them off the press after night while
