Read Ebook: Silver Queen: The Fabulous Story of Baby Doe Tabor by Bancroft Caroline

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Ebook has 841 lines and 48093 words, and 17 pages

"Frontier courage," Mama said.

"Faith," Papa contradicted, because he believed everything that happened was God's will.

The hammering, banging and shouting that summer were terrific. The noise and energy made a deep impression on me. My brothers and I would walk around and watch the bustling, stimulating activity. It was one of the most delightful vacations I ever spent. That year I didn't go down to the waterfront as much as I generally did, to watch the steamers hauling fleets of logs and timbers. I didn't bother to see the graceful yachts of the Oshkosh Yacht Club go skimming out over the broad blue waters of the lake toward Calumet County on the eastern shore. I just watched the carpentry sideshows along Main Street.

It was the next spring that brought final tragedy to Papa's fortunes. He and his partner had just got a store re-built and running again when the Lord's chastisement fell once more. It was a windy spring day, April 28, 1875, that another fire broke out, this time in Morgan's mill. Papa had been home to dinner and it was just past one o'clock when I was shepherding my younger brothers and sister, Claudia, back to school. As we started down the street a lumberman on a horse came galloping up.

"We need every able-bodied man down by Fox River. Fire in Morgan's mill," he yelled to Papa.

We all climbed into the buggy and set off at a fast trot. The tugs slapped the horses' flanks as we all but flew down hill in the violent wind. When we drew onto Jackson Drive, enormous flying cinders were shooting from Morgan's mill and floating across to some lumber piles. The scene was unbelievably beautiful, but there was a note of desperation in Papa's voice:

"We're done for in this wind--"

He was right. Roaring and crackling, the lumber piles by the river went up in flames like match-boxes. Immediately the street became bedlam. Everybody tore towards their stores to try to save their stocks of goods. Breathless, terror-stricken, we ran behind Papa toward our own store, where he and his partner, Mr. Cameron, loaded us with goods to stow in the buggy. All Main street was wild. Someone rushed up and tried to grab our team's bridles and lead them off. I was just coming out of the door with a bolt of brown suiting.

"Hey, there!" I yelled, dropping the bolt and making a dive for the buggy whip.

The man ducked and dashed off. Before I knew what was happening something thundered by and knocked me down. Luckily I wasn't hurt. As I started to cry out in protest, I saw it was a crazed horse with no bridle that someone had let loose from the livery stable a few doors down.

Beyond, pandemonium was rampant everywhere. The whole town was trying to save something, seizing any sort of empty vehicle or cart and piling stuff in. The board walk was alive with jostling crowds, fighting their way in and out of the stores. Careening teams in the street broke away from their drivers and ran away from the fire, some of them overturning their wagons as they fled. Luckily, we were able to hold our team still, and after the buggy was filled with goods, we unfastened the tugs and hitched the horses to a buckboard we found abandoned in the street. Papa and Mr. Cameron filled it and drove off. Grasping the tongue of the buggy, we young McCourts were able to haul it slowly up Main Street away from danger. The spreading fire blazed fiercely, and near us walls were falling.

The flames took only twenty minutes to race from Morgan's mill to the Milwaukee and St. Paul depot and freight station. We had hoped the fire would turn back toward the river, but it was becoming evident that it wouldn't. After our store caught and we had carted away what goods we could, we went back as near as we dared to watch the terrific holocaust.

"Oh, I can't bear it!" I wailed as I began to realize the extent of the destruction before my eyes.

The Harding Opera House was starting to go. Flames from the large windows of the Temple of Honor and its projecting wooden balcony were leaping out and licking my favorite building, the Opera House. In the midst of the noise and confusion I got separated from the rest of the family and just stood, numb and helpless, my eyes filling with tears. The Opera House was a symbol to me--it made my secret ambition to be an actress seem more than a dream--and I had had thrilling afternoons there enjoying matinees of the many road companies as well as at our own McCourt Hall, which had been the theatrical center before the Opera House was built. Now both were going--

I put my hands up to my eyes to shut out the sight. But the roar in my ears remained, and was just as heart-rending. Fascinated as if by a spell, I uncovered my eyes and stared. I couldn't move. After hardly burning at all, the walls of the Opera House collapsed with a terrifying rumble that made the ground tremble. Thudding bricks rolled near me. The terrific heat at its sides had been too much for the great pile I adored.

"You better not stand so close. It's moving this way. Where's all your family?" A man's voice said behind me.

I turned around but could hardly see through my tears.

"You were wonderful," he went on, "hauling that buggy away from your father's store."

"Oh, I'm so upset--and it looks as if it never would stop. I'm afraid our houses will catch next--"

Then the swirling crowd separated us and he was gone.

The great blaze kept up till midnight, spotting the dark night with sudden flashes of red, and spreading over the whole town an ominous halo of light. For a long time I watched its destruction. It seemed the end of the world.

The next morning, the heaviest gloom pervaded our breakfast table at my sister's house, Mrs. Andrew Haben's.

"Well, Mama," Papa said, "we're just about cleaned out. I think I can borrow enough to build a new store--and it'll be brick this time--two fires in one year are enough--but I don't know what I'll do to stock it. Or where we will live."

"You'll manage somehow, Papa. You always have."

When we went down street, everyone was already outside estimating the damage, throwing dirt over a few smouldering places, and pulling debris out of the wreckage to see if there were any salvage value. You cannot imagine the spirit of that town! Hardly anyone was talking about losses. But on all sides there was earnest talk of dimensions and materials, for these eager people were impatient to get to work on their new buildings. Many families had lost their homes and had bunked in with friends, sitting up most of the night to tell of exciting side adventures that had befallen them that frightful day. As we came by, many of them ran out to repeat these stories to us.

Papa and his partner, Mr. Cameron, set to work on their plans, too. Within the year they had erected at 21 Main Street, now numbered to be 64, a splendid brick and stone building which cost ,000. Papa's interest in the store had to be very much less because practically all his capital had gone in the fires. The bank really owned the store and Papa worked for a salary as a merchant tailor despite the fact that he had opened the third clothing store in Oshkosh and in the early days had been one of its most enterprising business men. I know this was very galling to Mama's pride but I was too young and heedless then to really understand how deep was her humiliation. My own affairs absorbed me.

"The belle of Oshkosh!"

That was my nickname--and more. So many times did I hear myself thus described that I had decided I really was the belle of Oshkosh. And because I had my three younger brothers, all near my own age, and their friends to associate with, it was only to be expected that I should gravitate toward the opposite sex. As I had grown older, Mama, who was very proud of my looks, encouraged me in this tendency.

All my life people have complimented me on the sweet flash of my smile which gave them a glimpse of my even white teeth, and made my bright blue, far-apart Irish eyes sparkle merrily. I have never lost my smile. But at twenty I had a peaches-and-cream complexion, and a curving, rounded figure which everyone found very seductive. My hair was light golden, rather reddish, and naturally curly. My nose was slightly tip-tilted, and my mouth was rounded and soft. My ready wit was the true Irish "gift of gab."

Brought up in such an energetic town by industrious, ambitious parents, I was naturally very high-spirited. In addition, I had a marvelous constitution, which stood me in good stead all my life--I was seldom to have need of a doctor except when my babies were born. My parents and brothers spoiled me and men all around paid me attention. It was only natural that I should be headstrong, and feel no need for the friendship of women--especially since I could clearly see they were jealous.

"You oughtn't to sit up until midnight sewing for that girl and making her clothes," Papa would complain to Mama. "And you ought to chaperone her more--she'll get a bad name."

But Mama would just laugh.

"Lizzie will take care of herself. She's got a head on her shoulders. I wouldn't be surprised if she became a great actress and why not, with her looks? Besides, I want her to have all the good times I missed!"

Papa would turn away with a shudder. He did not approve of Mama's encouraging me in my desire to go on the stage, or of her taking me to matinees whenever we had a little extra money to spend. He would put on his hat and leave quietly by the back door to pray alone in church. To him McCourt Hall had merely been a place to bring in rentals. He never watched the shows and he felt our souls inclined too much toward the paths of sin.

One April evening in 1876 my brother, Peter, and I took a walk. I stopped to get up on an enormous keg of nails to peer through a window into a new house where the men had stopped work. Behind me, I heard my brother, Pete, say:

"Hello!"

I turned around, and there was a very nice-looking young man standing on a lumber pile, also inspecting what the workmen had accomplished. All of us young people were very much interested in this particular house because the owners had sent all the way to Chicago for the latest wall-papers. As far as I could see, they were gold and brown flowered patterns, but the dining-room paper was still in rolls on the floor, and looked as if it were going to be a red geometric design.

"Hello," the young man said. "Is that your sister?"

"Yes," Pete answered proudly, "my sister Elizabeth."

"Hello," the stranger said to me shyly, "I'm Harvey Doe."

"Oh yes," I replied, "I know who you are. Your father comes into the store."

"Yes," he answered slowly--and then with a rush, "and he says you're the prettiest girl in town."

After blurting out this he blushed, stepped off the lumber pile, and started down the street.

"Well, I'll settle him--" Pete began menacingly.

"Oh, don't, Pete. I'm sure he didn't mean anything. Look how he blushed. I think he wanted to be nice."

Secretly, I was very pleased.

"Funny way of showing it," Pete grumbled. But with that the episode was closed and we both gave our thoughts to other youthful interests.

He had spoken in a soft, refined voice, and I was quite attracted. I arranged with my older brother, Jim, to bring him over to call a few nights later. I noticed how different he was from most of the chaps I knew. He seemed more quiet and chivalrous. When I had seen him on the street, I had thought his shyness just gawky, rather peculiar in a grown-up, but now it seemed strangely attractive. I began to look at him with fresh appreciation.

Harvey Doe stayed several hours, visiting with us all that evening, and from that night on I began to feel real affection. Everything was more serious after that. Mama asked him to come to supper one night soon and he accepted. I had found my true love at last.

That winter there was more than usually good skating. Oshkosh was always famous for its ice and, before artificial refrigeration came in, at certain times of the winter the lake would be covered with a great band of men and troops of horses, cutting ice. Each team of horses drew an ice "plough" which had seven cast-steel cutters on it. Naturally, with the residential district sloping right down from a little elevation to this lake, everyone did lots of skating and had skating parties in the winter.

"Did you know the young men at our church are going to have a competition for the best skater on Saturday afternoon?" Harvey Doe said to me one evening. "I'm going to try for the first prize--though I don't suppose I shall have a chance."

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