Detroit, Thursday evening, January 25
At one this morning we were driven down to the [Hamilton]
station. It was filled with large English or Irishmen reposing on benches.
Presently a freight train came thundering in, and up jumped all the Irishmen.
Going out I found that there was an emigrant car attached, and then out came
bundling a multitude of women and children, and also numerous great neat corded
boxes. Poor creatures, I supposed them newcomers, and wondered what would
become of them. I saw that all seemed to get off very quickly, and the great
boxes were wheeled away with miraculous activity, while the elders seemed quite
at home. At last I discovered that these were the wives of the men on
the benches, fresh from the old country, every soul of them, nine women and
fifteen children, five children having died on the voyage, which explained the
tears that streamed down the cheeks of one wild dark woman, as she convulsively
grasped her husband's hand.
When this was once understood, it became a scene worth
watching. All, without exception, were comfortably clothed and looked pictures
of health — such round little rosy children, clustering round the fire, winking
and blinking, the older ones asking, “Mother, is it morning?” and the smallest always
decided on that point — “Oh, yes, iss morning!” Most were English; the few
Irish were more talkative and demonstrative, telling all their experiences; the
English were quicker, but all seemed really happy, and the men shouldered about
the babies, and didn’t believe little Jimmy was the same boy, which all the
Jimmies resented. The women looked handsome and respectable, but seemed coarse;
they swore a little and the husbands a great deal; then one man treated all the
others with hot wine and water and whiskey and water, and all the women drank
in a circle, very quietly, and let the children taste, even an urchin two years
old. It was like a scene out of Dickens. Of course I began distributing candy,
and plump little girls dropped old-fashioned curtsies. Then our train came up
and I whirled away, and left them still talking and laughing and crying behind;
on this the first night of their New World.
(On the train.) . . . We had several Irish families; it was
pleasant to see that nothing could disturb Irish good-nature or make Irish
peasants — even the ruggedest men — any less devoted to their sturdy little
children. Was wood wanting in the stove, the Irish laughed, the English
grumbled briefly and sat still, the Yankees grumbled nervously and then set
out, hunted up wood, and revived the fire. . . . I saw no Germans or Swedes, but
to my surprise found the “notice to passengers” translated into both those
languages — a thing which speaks volumes. . . .
I felt a childish pleasure in the thought that I was really
getting into the West. Our track ran through scores of miles of woods, broken
only by log huts, and one could see our straight path, looking back, far as eye
could reach. Some log huts held Irish apparently, and some negroes; others of
the latter were driving wood-sleds, or sawing at the stations. All looked hale
and well dressed.
My heart bounded when we came out of the trees on a vast
level plain, with the withered grass appearing through the snow, and a
snow-storm driving across it — reminding me of Sarah Clarke's brown etchings.
They tell me since that it was not a prairie, but it was as good as one to me.
At last we got to Windsor, where the ferry-boat was slowly
toiling through the ice, and I preferred, with many others, to walk across,
carpetbag in hand, and thus I reached Detroit at 3 P.M.
SOURCE: Mary Potter Thacher Higginson, Editor, Letters
and Journals of Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1846-1906, p. 99-101
No comments:
Post a Comment