Chicago had changed in my absence.  The second water system, consisting of a reservoir at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Water Street, and a pump, operated by a 25-horsepower engine, was soon to be supplanted by a crib sunk in the lake 600 feet from shore, from which the water was to be drawn by a 200-horsepower engine.  The lake traffic had increased enormously.  The Illinois and Michigan canal was soon to be opened.

Mother Clayton had saved for me the copies of Niles’ Register and had marked passages in Douglas’ speeches in Congress, particularly his effective retorts to the aged J. Q. Adams, who pursued Douglas with inveterate hostility.  It was all about the slavery question.

I looked Douglas up as soon as possible.  We invited him and his young wife to dinner.  Surely he had found a charming and interesting mate.  We now had so much of life in common and of mutual memory to draw upon.  He was eager to hear of the war, the battles I had been in.  He was very proud of me and happy beyond measure that I had come out of the war without a scar.

How strange about Colonel Hardin!  “An able man, that,” said Douglas, “but I don’t believe he ever forgave me for taking the state’s attorneyship from him.”

Abigail and Aldington were also at our dinner.  Mrs. Douglas found herself quite at home with Mother Clayton and Dorothy.  I could see, however, that she did not like Abigail.

After that Douglas and I had many meetings.  He was full of ideas and absorbed in various activities.  He was pugnacious and energetic.  But what friends he made!  He passed in and out of my view frequently, now that we lived in the same city.  And before I knew it, scarcely before there was any talk of it, he was selected as United States Senator from Illinois.

It was in December of 1847.  He was within some four months of his thirty-fifth birthday.  He had now had an uninterrupted career of political triumph.  His one defeat for Congress, when he ran the first time, could scarcely be counted against him.

But to my English eyes, in spite of all my admiration for the man, I saw much imperfection in his intellectual make-up, due in part I think to the haste with which he had lived.  He had an adroitness and a fertility of mind which were altogether amazing.  Yet he was like Chicago:  of quick and phenomenal growth.  His protective coloration was like Chicago’s, which covered its ugliness and its irregularity with bunting and flags on a holiday.  He was growing up rapidly, as Chicago was growing up.  Chicago was facing greater problems as its population increased; and as Douglas rose into higher power, thicker complications entangled him.  He dragged after him the imperfect education of his youth, the opinions of his immaturity.  He was now enmeshed in the problems of the new territories, and always, slavery.  Prepared or not, he would fight for his principles.  If defeated he would rise quickly; if triumphant he advanced.