Now that I was separated from him how should I follow him day by day?  I got Niles’ Register in order to keep in touch with him.

CHAPTER XXX

Large mercantile establishments were building in Chicago.  Elevators and pork-packing plants fronted the Chicago River.  The harbor was being improved by the Federal government.  The population had risen to more than ten thousand people.  Great labor was necessary to keep the facilities of life equal to the growing demands upon it.  The first water works had been installed at a cost of $95.50, and consisted of a well alone.  Now the city purveyed water through wooden pipes, laid under the ground.  The Illinois and Michigan canal, which Douglas had done so much to originate, was nearing completion.  The thousands of Irish laborers engaged upon the work added to the liveliness and colorfulness of the city life.  We had excellent mail service.  Long since the drygoods box had disappeared which had served as the only depository of mail.  The hogs had been barred from the main streets, so that in my boarding place at Michigan Avenue and Madison Street I was no longer disturbed by grunts and squeals as they fed and wandered through the city.

Mr. Williams and I had formed a real estate and brokerage partnership, and we were making money at a phenomenal rate.  The air was vibrating with the ring of the trowel and the hammer.  Gardens and roadhouses had appeared in the pleasanter places out of town.  Everywhere in the central part of the city were livery stables, restaurants, saloons.  The harbor was full of sailing craft.  Every day saw the tides of emigration pour upon this hospitable shore.  I felt the stir of the new life, the growing city.  I was fascinated with the money making.  I had found new friends.  My change of life had brought me happiness.

Abigail and I saw much of each other and we talked of many things, and much of Douglas.  I saw him as the symbol of this intense life, this miraculous development.  He seemed to me the man of the hour, the man even of the age.

No sooner was he sworn in as a Congressman than he proceeded to make his presence felt.  He did precisely what he had done in Illinois when he came to Winchester, penniless and unknown:  he seized an opportunity.  He admired Andrew Jackson with an almost unqualified heart, and he rose to Jackson’s defense in Congress.

I have said that I was reading Niles’ Register.  Through it I was able to follow Douglas’ career in Congress from the beginning.