Make Me a City

by Jonathan Carr

  While his eyes were spectating the sky he spoke again in his quear English. Those eyes were teliskopes and his voice was like a river running from the highest mountain.

  This is exactly what he said in his superior way the best I can remember. The Great Spirit has brung little Antje from Chicago. She has asked me about the white mans land and the land of our fathers. This I say in answer. The Great Spirit gives the land to all his children.

  I asked him to repeat that please nobull sir because I had never heard anything so beautiful. The Great Spirit gives the land to all his children he repeated. The Great Spirit gave them the land to share together geniully for growing corn and for hunting and for living on and for dying on when their last breth comes.

  It was a long speech. I cannot remember the words exactly so I will not underline them but I promise they are true. This next part is the most greivous that did bring my tears streaming.

  The white people came from across the seas and because they were visiters from a far place we perlitely said welcome. But then the white people made dainty picture maps of the land given by the Great Spirit and divided it into pieces and said they wanted to perchorse this part and that part and all the parts.

  Our people had never seen picture maps before or played this perchorse game. The white men gave our people whiskey and said they were our friends. And then they said with their noses in the air that we lost the game with picture maps and must leave the land and go away forever.

  When the majic man stopped the speech and my tears were streaming I said I would tell our history teacher Miss Trumbull immediatly what trick was played on his fathers because it must have happened since a long time and that was why nobody told her.

  Suddenly a shiver flustered down my spine. I realized like a flash that I had found the answer to the big ridle. History was since a long time and very mistick. That was why Miss Trumbull did not care for my question if history was like poetry. Because she already knew the truth that only majic men could see all the truth facts from the days of Adam and Eve.

  It must be trajic to know everything that ever happened and that is why I hearby declare the majic man a superior exentrick to the one lung Mrs. Daly or one eyed Mr. Church. I was greatly oared by this news and wanted to tell Miss Trumbull at once.

  The ancient majic man said one more quear thing. He said I am fortunate that the Great Spirit has sent little Antje from Chicago because she gives me hope. I said please nobull sir explain yourself. Not hope for myself he said because in a few moons I shall follow my fathers to the shades but hope for the land.

  I was still purplexed because I did not know how to give hope to the land so I asked the ancient majic man please to make a spell on me so I could understand. He bestrode one hand on my head and waved his fur bag in the pious manner and the spell was long and musikle with no brakes for breth and I knew in my heart that its power would preside in me forever.

  Suddenly the 16 young ladies (school girls) were there and I was in very greivous trouble with Miss Trumbull because I did not go to the prayed ground for the Spring Dance.

  When I told her perlitely that the ancient majic man was the best historian because he knew all the truth facts from the days of Adam and Eve she mountered her high horse. She did not care to listen but gave me a speaking look.

  I turned around to bid a fond farewell to the ancient majic man and was dispressed to see he had already flied away forever.

  1852

  THE AUTOMATON

  JOHN PULLS THE bell cord. A few moments later, there is a knock at the door and his manservant sets a basin of warm water on the stand.

  “Good morning, sir.”

  John has drawn back the curtain and is opening the window.

  “It certainly is, Seamus. Another splendid day. I shall take coffee with my mother.”

  He leans out the window. The sky is the deepest early morning blue. A ship’s horn blows in the distance, while a carriage passes by below. Wabash Avenue is still quiet, with only a few people about, the road deserted but for the four or five broughams drawn up, each one waiting outside one or other of the identical three-story brownstone buildings that line the street. He likes being high up, on the third floor, from where he has sight of the Lake. He can often see ships pass by, masts glinting as they come in and out of view.

  He takes a deep breath. The early morning air is pleasantly cool though already soured by wood smoke and horse dung and the swampy, fetid aroma that periodically comes off the Lake. It could be worse, he thinks. Indeed, later on in the day he knows it will be worse when the temperature rises and the colorless miasma from the stockyards starts wafting across, just as he also knows that Kitty will find an opportunity to bring this fact to his attention. But consider what a fine house we have on what a fine street, he hears himself argue. To which she will reply, with hauteur, that Chicago is hardly Virginia, and that Number 36, Wabash Avenue is not, absolutely not, the family mansion at Blakeley.

  He sighs with a sense of defiant pride. Making a city is not a genteel process, Kitty, he would like to say. Chicago will sometimes forget its manners. If the beginning has been a little unruly and boisterous, we should not be surprised. Because unlike you, Kitty, I did not grow up in one of the most privileged households in the land. Unlike you, I did not consort with presidents and senators at Mount Vernon as a child. Unlike you, I do not describe the soldier Mr. Robert E. Lee from Arlington as my “uncle.” Number 36, Wabash Avenue may not be Blakeley, but for Chicago we could not do much better.

  Enough of such thoughts. He washes, dresses quickly and goes down to the second floor where he creeps past the children’s room and taps gently on his mother’s door. He enters without waiting for a response. She is always up early too. But this morning, to his surprise, he finds her still at prayers. She is kneeling beside her bed, hands clasped together, eyes closed, lips moving.

  He waits until she has finished. After his own bedroom, this is his favorite place in the house. Everything speaks of who his mother is. The room is always brightly lit and discreetly scented with a violet fragrance. On top of her bookshelf are her teaching books. Next comes her collection of Greek and Latin classics and English literature. On the bottom shelf are a mixture of more modern texts about politics. On the pine bulletin board that hangs above the bookshelf she has pinned clever or amusing notes from past pupils. The old kitchen table that followed them from Sheffield to Williamstown to Chicago has become her desk. That was where he used to do his homework. The wood is cracked and warped in places, and he recognizes some of the ink stains as old friends. The desk is tidy. Her Bible lies in the middle. Pen, ink and blotter have been wiped clean. Her diary is closed. Above the desk hangs a portrait of his father, Deacon Wright, looking stern and inscrutable. And on the wall opposite is her picture of Christ driving out the moneychangers from the Temple, titled: My House Shall Be Called the House of Prayer.

  She says “amen” aloud and rises to her feet. He steps across to kiss her. “Extra prayers for someone today, Mater?”

  “Yes,” she says, with a smile. “For my eldest son.”

  “Even though your eldest son is the one you don’t need to worry about?” How often has he had to rescue one or other of his younger brothers? “Have you slept well?”

  “Thank you.”

  She looks, though, wan this morning. The light shows up her wrinkles and blotchy hands. Only at odd moments like this does he remember she is growing old. She remains so active. She is still teaching at the State Road school (“behind my back they call me Beaky, the little imps”), she is still a member of all kinds of associations and societies, she still insists on walking everywhere she can. But she is sixty-six years old. The doctor has told her to slow down and do less or she risks having another of those fainting attacks. And the next time it could be more serious, he warned. Not for the first time John vows to speak to her about this.

  There is a knock at the door and Seamus brings in the coffee. Its scent gives John almost
as much pleasure as the taste. If he has any weakness, or addiction, it is for good coffee. Seamus pours a cup for them both and adds sugar for John.

  “Will you be taking breakfast with Mrs. Wright this morning, sir?”

  Seamus means Kitty. John tells him he will not be taking breakfast at all.

  He puts the saucer aside and takes short, rapid sips from the cup. Kitty hates it when she catches him doing that, and says it is bad manners. He likes to drink his coffee hot and fast.

  “I was hoping you might have a chance to talk to Kitty before you left this morning,” says his mother.

  “I’m afraid I have an early appointment. That’s why I don’t have time for breakfast.”

  “I see.”

  “I have,” he insists.

  “I’m sorry to say this, John, but I do think you should put your foot down this time.”

  “Very well. I shall talk to her again tonight. But you know how she is. I don’t think…” His voice tails off.

  Kitty is due to depart tomorrow for Virginia. Augustine, poor Walter (deceased) and Maria were all born there and Kitty sees no reason why their next child should not have the same “advantage.” When he tried to persuade her to stay this time in Chicago, she reeled off the same reasons as before. In Virginia, she is assured of the best doctor and the best care, the air is more healthful, the climate is more temperate, levels of cleanliness and hygiene are vastly superior, there is less risk of infection etc., etc. And you can sneer at Chicago from over there, he thinks, far away from your husband and mother-in-law.

  He claps his hands and smiles. “Anyway, Mater, listen to this. My appointment is about a most intriguing new business proposal.”

  “But I thought you already had a new business.”

  “The wool company is hardly new.”

  “Six months is not new?”

  “It’s already doing very well and amounts to little more than managing a warehouse. This new proposition is very different indeed. It’s about making something useful.” His mother has always chided him for not doing enough serious “useful” things. (“In the final analysis buying and selling real estate is nothing but gambling, John. It’s un-Christian.”)

  “I worry when you take on too much,” she says. “You know what can happen.”

  “I learned my lessons the hard way, Mater.”

  She nods. “But don’t forget that other people get hurt too.”

  “That’s a long time ago.” His mother never lets him forget that when he went bankrupt in the crash of ’37, the people he employed lost their jobs too. “This business proposal is based on what sounds like a very clever invention,” he says.

  His mother sits up straight. She peers at him over the rim of her cup. “Is it another machine?” she asks suspiciously.

  “This won’t be like the last one, I promise,” he says. “I’ll tell you about it tonight, when I know more.”

  He lost over $10,000 on the failed breadmaking enterprise and she has still not forgiven him. John loves and admires his mother, but the older she gets the more conservative she becomes. She has a particular aversion to machines that take over what she believes we should do ourselves. “Making bread is a human ritual,” she argues, “and once machines start taking over our rituals, what do we have left?”

  “Whatever you do,” his mother says, “don’t rush into anything. Your father always believed in thinking things through first.”

  John knows he has a tendency to be impulsive, but his instincts are usually right. His father’s problem was the opposite. He thought things through for so long, he never did anything.

  He kisses her again and wishes her a good day.

  “You won’t forget about Kitty?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “You know I try not to interfere. But I do feel that just this once it’s important.”

  He pauses at the door when he hears the strain in her voice. He comes halfway back toward her. “I love you, Mater, you do know that, don’t you?”

  She sighs. “Of course I do, John.”

  * * *

  Outside, he jumps into the waiting brougham and tells his driver to make haste for the intersection of Washington and State Road, where he has agreed to meet Mr. Albert Sage. He adjusts his topper and sits back. His earlier excitement about the day ahead, dampened because he had let his mother ask the wrong questions, returns with a vengeance. How he loves the city in the early morning, with its noises and smells and never-ending activity.

  At this very moment, there will be the scramble of steamers, scows and clippers at the docks fighting for space with the fishing boats as they slap down their catches on the pier. He can as good as hear the yells and whistles, the thump of grounded cargo and the squeal of straining ropes, smell the addled sweat of the Irish and Negro dockers, their shirts plastered to their backs as they haul the cargo ashore without pause, cursing life and their lot and America.

  They will already be off-loading lumber, wheat, wool, cement, sugar, salt, crates packed with fine pieces of china, sack-wrapped rosewood and mahogany furniture with marble tabletops and turned bedposts, huge rolls of carpeting and Persian rugs carried ashore like logs on the shoulder, cartons loaded with finely crafted boots and shoes and fashionable clothing imported from the East. Into the warehouses they’ll be going—the warehouses that make up the frontage where there is not an inch of space to spare between each unit (he should know—three of them are his). What better sign of progress is there, than the range and quantity of goods now needed to satisfy the citizens of Chicago?

  Over on the Canal, ships and barges will be arriving, pulled by teams of mules on the towpath, their holds heaving with all manner of fabric and foodstuffs, with molasses, cocoa, spices and tropical fruit that have traveled from across the Caribbean Sea. And most important of all, just a few blocks away on La Salle Street, a locomotive would shortly leave for Joliet. When the line is completed it will, like the Canal, connect Chicago to the Mississippi. And in the other direction, trains will soon be running from Chicago to Boston and New York. Every train that comes from the East will end up in Chicago, and every train that comes from the North and South and West will also end up in Chicago. Chicago will be the beginning and the end of every railroad line in America. And all because of a certain “branch” line.

  The brougham pulls up at the intersection of Washington and State. These are extraordinary times, he thinks. Wonders never cease. If the invention described to him last night by Mr. Sage performs as promised, it will change the life of farmers all over the world. And he, John S. Wright, will make that happen.

  The man in question is waiting at the corner. Mr. Sage is a short, stocky gentleman, with stooping shoulders and washy eyes and a thick half-moon droop of a mustache that is bristling, this morning, with breakfast grease and crumbs. John does not know him well, only that he owns a reputable hardware store on Madison from which John has, in the past, bought building materials. He is reliable, honest and, frankly, a bit dull. Their conversations have always been confined to general business affairs. It was therefore a surprise when Mr. Sage’s presence was announced at his home the previous evening. The poor man had been in quite a fluster, apologetic for having called on Mr. Wright like this, but he hoped he would not consider it an impertinence etc., etc.

  Mr. Sage steps up into the carriage and removes his hat; John latches the door shut.

  “And Mr. Atkins’s address, Mr. Sage?”

  Mr. Sage gives a number on Kinzie Street, the driver goads the horse and they rattle off and turn onto Lake Street, which might be a mistake because the morning traffic is already considerable. They are soon weaving their way through the flow of carriages and carts. Stores are opening. Awnings are coming down, doors are being unlocked, signs are going up in shop windows, paper boys are yelling at the tops of their voices. He likes the noise and the traffic, and watching people rushing here and there. The sidewalks are thronged with laborers in scuffed clothes and flat caps on their
way to work.

  John stops the carriage outside a bakery and buys two doughnuts, one for each of them. Hopping back in, he eats fast. He must have been hungry. As he dusts the crumbs off his coat, he remarks to Mr. Sage that he first came to Chicago about twenty years ago. “There was one inn, about a dozen stores, and a few hundred people.” He gestures outside. “And look at it now. We haven’t done badly, have we?”

  Mr. Sage agrees they have not.

  “Now tell me, Mr. Sage, how did you become acquainted with Mr. Jearum Atkins.”

  Mr. Sage is not much of a talker. He explains that they both grew up in Vermont and have known each other since childhood.

  “And you say you are his assistant?”

  “I help him make models of his designs. Only in my spare time, of course.” He clears his throat. “There is one other matter I should warn you about, Mr. Wright, that perhaps I should have mentioned last night. Mr. Atkins is confined to his bed.”

  “You mean he is ill?”

  “No, sir. Mr. Atkins has to lie on his back.”

  “He has had an accident?”

  “Yes, sir. About ten years ago.”

  “You mean he’s been lying on his back for ten years?”

  “Yes, Mr. Wright.”

  “Then how on earth could he have invented anything?”

  “He invents in his head, sir.”

  They pull up outside a dilapidated-looking one-story frame house on Kinzie Street. John is an optimist. But he also knows himself well enough to realize that this would not be the first time he has misjudged a man’s character. Mr. Sage has always struck him as polite and sensible. Now, as he adjusts his topper and straightens his coat, as he picks his way through a scrabble of hens pecking at potato peelings in the front yard, he feels the stirrings of disappointment. Some things sound too good to be true precisely because they are too good to be true. He can imagine his mother’s face, were he to admit this to her, the sense that she could have told him so.