BEING A CONTRIBUTION TO THE INQUIRY INTO WHAT WE ARE TO DO WITH OUR BOYS

PART I.

LETTER No. I.

My bright anticipations—Melancholy forebodings—Bound for the Rockies—Frank's start for the Far West—Farming in Minnesota—A new scheme—Starting a creamery—Glowing hopes—Failure and disappointment.

London, July, 1885.

 

make my headquarters for fishing in The Teme, or The Lugg, or The Arrow.

As a boy, I knew that old house well; every corner of it, all the buildings, orchards, and lovely green meadows surrounding it; the woods, the ravines, the far-off mountains, and, above all, the pleasant river which ran through and around the farm, wherein I used to swim and fish for trout and grayling, are vividly before me now.

"I knew each lane and every alley green,

Dingle and bushy dell....

And every bosky bourn from side to side,

My daily walk and ancient neighbourhood."

But hard and inexorable fate has ordered me off in quite a different direction. All being well, my autumnal holiday will be spent in the Rocky Mountains! If I have called such a fate as that hard, it is only because of the uncertainty of it. A young man, I fancy, would see nothing but delight in it; but for an old man in his seventh decade, and one not accustomed to travel, it is like tearing up his roots and plunging down stream into the unknown.

I am going to fish in the Rockies. I shall take with me that immaculate tackle which last year inspired me with such hopes in Dovedale. I hear of places where you have only to cast your fly and you pull out a 5 lb. trout (nothing less) with positive certainty; and without taking him off your hook, you have simply to swing him a little behind you into a natural boiling geyser, and in ten minutes your 5-pounder is cooked and ready for your lunch. That is but a small specimen of the kind of sport I am anticipating! That's the sort of thing that inspires me!

But then there is the reverse of this pretty picture, which sometimes, in melancholy moments, makes me contemplate my enforced holiday as a hardship on the part of fate. Are there not mosquitoes on that side of the broad Atlantic? Are there not Red Indians and grizzly bears? I have pictured myself walking though a narrow glen, fishing-rod in hand, in the angler's contemplative mood, and suddenly finding myself confronted by a grizzly! Must, or rather will, he retire, or must I? I never fired a revolver in my life, so I should not think of carrying one; besides, I have no thirst for a grizzly's blood, and I only hope he has none for mine. I am sure if he will let me alone I won't meddle with him. Alas! I get a hug and a pat, and my fate and my fishing are ended!

Then, again, I dream of encountering a band of black-feet, or crow's feet, or spotted-tailed Indians, in feathers and war-paint, armed with tomahawk and scalping-knife. I yield my hoary, or I may say my bald scalp to that horrid knife, and so my fate is ended. When I think of things in that way, am I wrong in talking of it as a hard fate? Then there are six-shooters, bowie-knives, buffaloes, and rattlesnakes!

Nevertheless, to the Rockies I am bound, in spite of all such gloomy possibilities. My passage money is already paid and my berth secured in the good ship "Cunardia": which is, I am told, one of the finest vessels afloat; so I hope I shall be able to give a good account of her.

My youngest son Frank, who has always been somewhat of a rolling stone, and to whom, in the old country, neither wool nor pelf would stick, is now settled away up at the foot of the Rocky Mountains; and when he has sometimes written to me for money, and I have asked him how he has spent it, his answer has invariably been "Come and see!"

Year after year I have put off going, but now I am beginning to feel that if I am ever to go, I must delay no longer; so I am about to see with my own eyes where my money has gone to, and what may be the chances of any portion of it coming back to me.

Frank was always a peculiar youth to manage. He began life in my City counting-house, but he soon tired of it. He had formed the notion that he was better suited to the free life of the prairie than to the routine work of City business. Of course he knew nothing about prairie life, and he would not be persuaded that his notions were but the outcome of a disordered imagination; he was well off where he was, with fair chances before him; but he was quite prepared to throw those chances away, and to strike out into the Far West. He was a strong, healthy, good-looking youth, fond of society, and very popular, and consequently, was gradually being led into habits of extravagance which might have ended badly. I was therefore, willing to humour his wishes.

In the year 1880 I paid his passage to America, and he began his career by engaging himself to a farmer in Minnesota, who for a small stipend was to instruct him in farming and give him his board in exchange for his work.

When Frank began with the farmer, it is not too much to say that he was totally ignorant of everything belonging to a farm; but he had not been on this farm for six months before he became convinced that he had learnt everything there was to learn, and that he could give a few wrinkles to his master.

Then he told me that there was a wonderful farm to be had close at hand, dirt cheap, a chance not to be lost; it was a small place of about 200 acres with good house and building, and splendid feeding prairie-land adjoining. This, he said, was just the place for him to begin on; and he produced such elaborate figures to prove to me that, although the previous occupant had failed there, enormous profits—one hundred per cent. at least—could be made of it, if managed in accordance with his enlightened views, rather than in the humdrum way in which the previous farmer had come to grief. He wrote to me so urgently, so persistently, so enthusiastically, that I, although with many misgivings, found him the money wherewith to purchase and stock the place. More money was expended on that farm than I am now willing to acknowledge, but everything went along swimmingly for a short period.

As time went on things did not seem to thrive so well as was hoped. The corn crop was not up to the mark; the cattle did not fetch the expected price; two or three horses died, and, on the whole, the first year's work had not paid its expenses. But Frank was not disheartened; he wrote courageously home for more money, and worked hard, ploughing and planting, digging and hoeing. I was at least pleased to find him sticking to his work so bravely, and exhibiting no desire to "cave in," although it was evident that his life was a pretty hard one, and his daily fare rough enough.

One day I got a letter from him telling me that he was going to sell the farm, as he had got another scheme in view which would land him in a fortune in a very short time.

The scheme was something quite new in that part of the country, and was a safe success.

The idea was to sell his farm, and with the produce establish a Creamery, for the purpose of buying up all the cream from the farmers for many miles round, and supply all the western cities, and even eastward, as far as New York, with the best butter that could be made, and at prices of hitherto unknown moderation.

Frank supplied me with figures which proved conclusively that after estimating cost of plant, and interest thereon, horses and carts for driving round and collecting, wages of carters and butter-makers, and the prime cost of the cream, the best butter could be produced at a prime cost of sixpence a pound, while the very lowest at which it could possibly be sold was a shilling or 1s. 2d. a pound. This, after making ample allowance for cost of transit, &c., would clearly leave a very handsome profit; the success of the thing was too obvious to be for a moment questioned.

So Frank sold his farm at about what it had originally cost him, but with a total loss of his year's labour, and money sunk in improvements; and went to work in connection with a partner, a practical man, who joined him with no capital, but who, in consideration of his knowledge and experience, was to share equally in the profits, first allowing Frank fair interest for his capital. The local newspapers puffed the new enterprise, and spoke in glowing terms of the pluck and energy of the young Englishman: for a time things looked quite promising.

Frank wrote home with his usual buoyancy and asked for more money to purchase sundry articles and machinery absolutely needed to carry on the rapidly-growing business.

But, alas! for the glowing hopes of youth! At the end of a year it was found by a balance-sheet carefully, and I believe fairly, drawn up by the business partner, that there was nothing left but the plant; the working capital for purchases and expenses was gone. The price of butter had fallen enormously, and the price of cream and cost of collecting it had exceeded the original calculations, whilst the plant, except as a going concern, was not worth much.

It was found necessary either that Frank should put in 2,000 dollars more capital (which he said would set them right), or he must give up the creamery. He did give it up, and was left high and dry to begin the world again with a capital of about two hundred dollars.

I am told that the working partner still carries on the business, and having got hold of the plant at a nominal price, is now really making the thing pay.

But Frank was out of it, and Minnesota was no longer a place for him. With the small capital above mentioned he decided to strike out west for the Rockies.

How he fared I will tell you in my next letter.

LETTER No. II.

Frank's dearly-bought experience—A start for the Rockies—Magnificent scenery—Indian scouts and revolvers—Advice to parents—Frank's determination to "rough it."

London, August, 1885.

 

 

He had purchased experience at my expense; his money was nearly all gone, and with what remained he resolved to start off for the Rocky Mountains with a friend. This friend was a young fellow, who had gone out from the City of London fired with the notion that the Great West was the proper place for him, that there was nothing like a life in the open prairie, where a little work would be diversified by a good deal of hunting, shooting, and riding about.

So this youth immediately on his reaching Frank, to whom he had been highly commended by friends at home, borrowed a hundred dollars from him, and they started off together to seek their fortunes in the Rockies.

I think I cannot do better than send you some extracts from Frank's letters, which will give you a fair notion of his progress from the year 1883 to this time, and show, at all events, that amid a good many ups and downs, and hardships of no ordinary character, he has up to this point "stuck to it;" while his friend who accompanied him to the Rockies, suddenly bolted, leaving Frank in the lurch, and minus the money he had lent him. The first letter is dated June, 1883.

"My dear Parents,

"I have just struck out here; I had nothing to do at M. The creamery business was finished up, and I can get better pay working out here than there. I started with S. on Monday, and we arrived here on Thursday, a distance of 1,100 miles, right through the Rockies.

"The view from our window looks out across a valley to the Rocky Mountains, and down the valley for a distance of fifty miles; the scenery is magnificent; the mountains are capped with snow. On Monday we start for a place called Clark's Forks, 120 miles S.W., just north of 'The National Park.' We stage it for sixty miles, and either walk or take ponies the rest, up to a height of 7,000 feet above sea level, to work on some fencing at two and a half dollars a day. There are lots of ways of making a living there, and I hope of saving money. The town here is full of Indian scouts, and every man carries a revolver; in fact, as you may suppose, it is a rough place, and we shall have to look sharp after ourselves with our revolvers. Bears (grizzlies) are thick in the district we are going to, also antelope, deer, and Indians.... We are in the roughest of countries, but I am determined to fight my way through, and in the end I hope to come out successful....

"My motive in coming here is simply to work hard and save money. If any thing should happen to either of us you will hear from one of us; we go with our lives in our hands.

"As we are green hands just yet, we only get two dollars, but after a little while we are to get three dollars a day.

"I have now just money enough to get to our destination."

Notwithstanding the fact that this boy had been losing my money all the time, I did not feel altogether disheartened; for I had found him as candid about his failures as he had been sanguine about his successes, and he always gave me sufficiently clear accounts as to how the money had gone. I was pleased with the pluck he had shown under difficulties from which many a young fellow would have shrunk.

I had found out by this time that I had acted very unwisely in supplying an inexperienced youth, however energetic and right principled, with capital to start farming in a new country without any practical knowledge whatever.

Hundreds of youths go out to America and the Colonies every year under circumstances very like those of my son. Indulgent parents supply them with money at once to start them in life in an occupation to which they bring nothing but conceit and ignorance combined, and their money is as certain to be lost as if it were thrown into the sea.

My advice to parents situated similarly to myself is never to give an unlimited supply of money to start with. Allow your son just so much as will keep him from starvation, and let him work out his luxuries for himself. Let him rough it for three or four years at least; by that time he will have discovered how far his boyish dreams have been realized by experience, and he will have shown the stuff he is made of. He will either have succumbed and gone home, or broken down in some more disastrous way, or he will have gained experience which may justify his starting in business with some hope of his being able to take care of himself and his money, and to pull through.

My son had gained experience at my expense, and now I decided that he should gain a little more at his own cost. I thought it better that he should rough it for himself, and this he had made up his mind to do.

LETTER No. III.

A hundred and twenty miles' walk—Axe, pick-axe, and shovel—A four-hundred-feet roll down the mountain—Rough living—An Indian scare—Deadly fumes—Working round a smelter—Fishing in Lake "Abundance"—Disturbed by a grizzly.

London, August, 1885.

 

 

In his next letter, which is dated Cook's City, July 6, 1883, he says:—

"I started out from Minnesota, as there was nothing for me to do there that would pay me so well.... We walked from Bozeman, 120 miles through the Rockies, with a promise of work, but the roads and creeks, or rather mountain torrents, which we had to cross are so bad at present that the smelter cannot be got up here yet, and so we are employing ourselves in building a log cabin for the winter for ourselves. The trouble is that winter will soon be here ... and as I paid all S.'s expenses as well as my own, besides lending him 100 dollars, I am afraid I shall not have much left.... We are now 120 miles from the nearest neighbourhood, right in the heart of the Rockies, so that letters are scarce and far between. From Bozeman (where Mrs. Blackmore was buried) the carrier comes once a week, but in winter, I suppose, once a fortnight.

"The scenery here is magnificent; we are now in a gulch, with a range of mountains on each side of us; a small camp composed of log cabins, at present about fifty people, but a boom is expected, and we shall share it. We have already taken up a lot, which costs nothing, and are building a log cabin, which in two weeks we hope to finish.... We hope in winter to save by getting an elk or two, of which there are plenty, also bears, mountain lions, &c. The air is very fine and rare here, and happens to agree with us both."

WOODCHOPPER'S CABIN, FROM FRANK'S SKETCH.

"Clark's Fork, August 5, 1883.

"When we first came here (on foot, 120 miles from Bozeman) we were promised work, but on account of a misunderstanding between our employers, we had to wait a few days; however, we have both been working on a mountain pass, at two dollars and board a day. The work, swinging an axe, pick-axe, and shovel, is not so very hard, but the sleeping out in the open under our two blankets, sometimes pouring with rain, was not very clever. There were about twenty of us and a black cook, and the amount of bluebottle flies and other insects I have eaten would have turned my stomach but for having a marvellous appetite.

"Boiled elk, bear, and tea was the programme for two weeks. When the job was finished, we immediately got work fixing up and shovelling charcoal round a smelter at three dollars, without board; so we are now working at it, and come home at noon for our dinner in a little shack near the smelter; hours, seven to twelve; one to six. We cook our bread when we get through at six, generally boiling some buffalo meat for our next day's supply.

"I must not forget to mention that our appearance at night is somewhat similar to a coalheaver's.

"This is good, honest, though dirty work. Our intention at present is to save up 100 dollars, start off from here, and camp up at Bridger's, 130 miles from here (about twelve miles on the other side of Bozeman), and cut cordwood to supply Bozeman, and by hard work hope to make 1,000 dollars by next July.... I want you to think that I am doing my very best to make and save money. We have not had even potatoes for a month. Goods are too expensive here, as they have to be hauled from Bozeman.

AN AWKWARD ROLL.

"Before we went on to the road business we had a three days' job about five miles away, up on the side of a mountain covered with snow, and had to pack our blankets, grub, &c., across the snow, making sure of our footsteps, otherwise it might have been all up with us. Once we did slip, and went flying down the mountain for 400 feet; but there happened to be a curve which pulled us up. I shall never forget the sensation. We tried to get a horse across. He slipped, rolled over and over with our blankets, frying pan, and all on his back. We thought it was all over with him, but he got up after tumbling down 300 feet, shook himself, and walked off, leaving our teapot smashed in. I believe the old beast had been there before."

"August 19, 1883.