the lower end of the town, and were sweeping everything
before them. Our column moved at once.
It was a very hot night, and my musket was very heavy.
We marched and marched; and the nearer we approached
the seat of war, the hotter I grew and the thirstier
I got. I was behind my friend; so, finally,
I asked him to hold my musket while I dropped out
and got a drink. Then I branched off and went
home. I was not feeling any solicitude about
him of course, because I knew he was so well armed,
now, that he could take care of himself without any
trouble. If I had had any doubts about that,
I would have borrowed another musket for him.
I left the city pretty early the next morning, and
if this grizzled man had not happened to encounter
my name in the papers the other day in St. Louis,
and felt moved to seek me out, I should have carried
to my grave a heart-torturing uncertainty as to whether
he ever got out of the riots all right or not.
I ought to have inquired, thirty years ago; I know
that. And I would have inquired, if I had had
the muskets; but, in the circumstances, he seemed
better fixed to conduct the investigations than I
was.
One Monday, near the time of our visit to St. Louis,
the ’Globe-Democrat’ came out with a
couple of pages of Sunday statistics, whereby it appeared
that 119,448 St. Louis people attended the morning
and evening church services the day before, and 23,102
children attended Sunday-school. Thus 142,550
persons, out of the city’s total of 400,000
population, respected the day religious-wise.
I found these statistics, in a condensed form, in
a telegram of the Associated Press, and preserved
them. They made it apparent that St. Louis was
in a higher state of grace than she could have claimed
to be in my time. But now that I canvass the
figures narrowly, I suspect that the telegraph mutilated
them. It cannot be that there are more than 150,000
Catholics in the town; the other 250,000 must be classified
as Protestants. Out of these 250,000, according
to this questionable telegram, only 26,362 attended
church and Sunday-school, while out of the 150,000
Catholics, 116,188 went to church and Sunday-school.
Chapter 52 A Burning Brand
All at once the thought came into my mind, ’I
have not sought out Mr. Brown.’
Upon that text I desire to depart from the direct
line of my subject, and make a little excursion.
I wish to reveal a secret which I have carried with
me nine years, and which has become burdensome.
Upon a certain occasion, nine years ago, I had said,
with strong feeling, ’If ever I see St. Louis
again, I will seek out Mr. Brown, the great grain
merchant, and ask of him the privilege of shaking him
by the hand.’
The occasion and the circumstances were as follows.
A friend of mine, a clergyman, came one evening and
said—
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Life on the Mississippi from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
