Produced by David Widger
By Winston Churchill
Faithfully to relate how Eliphalet Hopper came try St. Louis is to betrayno secret. Mr. Hopper is wont to tell the story now, when hisdaughter-in-law is not by; and sometimes he tells it in her presence, forhe is a shameless and determined old party who denies the divine right ofBoston, and has taken again to chewing tobacco.
When Eliphalet came to town, his son's wife, Mrs: Samuel D. (or S. Dwyeras she is beginning to call herself), was not born. Gentlemen of Cavalierand Puritan descent had not yet begun to arrive at the Planters' House,to buy hunting shirts and broad rims, belts and bowies, and departquietly for Kansas, there to indulge in that; most pleasurable ofAnglo-Saxon pastimes, a free fight. Mr. Douglas had not thrown his boneof Local Sovereignty to the sleeping dogs of war.
To return to Eliphalet's arrival,—a picture which has much that isinteresting in it. Behold the friendless boy he stands in the prow of thegreat steamboat 'Louisiana' of a scorching summer morning, and looks withsomething of a nameless disquiet on the chocolate waters of theMississippi. There have been other sights, since passing Louisville,which might have disgusted a Massachusetts lad more. A certain deck onthe 'Paducah', which took him as far as Cairo, was devoted to cattle—black cattle. Eliphalet possessed a fortunate temperament. The deck wasdark, and the smell of the wretches confined there was worse than itshould have been. And the incessant weeping of some of the women wasannoying, inasmuch as it drowned many of the profane communications ofthe overseer who was showing Eliphalet the sights.