I counted them, and there were twenty-seven snakes in the
bunch.
The year '49 was the 'annus mirabilis' of the great rush for gold
across the plains, and it was also an 'annus miserabilis' on account
of the cholera. In three weeks fourteen hundred waggons bound for
California crossed one of the bridges over the canal. I was desirous
of joining the rush, but was, as usual, short of cash, and I had to
stay at Joliet to earn my salary. I met the editor of the 'True
Democrat' nearly every day carrying home a bucket of water from the
Aux Plaines river. He did his own chores. He sent two young men who
wished to become teachers to my school to graduate. One was named
O'Reilly, lately from Ireland; I gave him his degree in a few weeks,
and he kept school somewhere out on the prairie. The other did not
graduate before the cholera came. He was a native of Vermont, and he
played the clarionet in our church choir. The instrumental music
came from the clarionet, from a violin, and a flute. The choir came
from France and Germany, Old England and New England, Ireland,
Alsace, and Belgium. It was divided into two hostile camps, and the
party which first took possession of the gallery took precedence in
the music for that day only. There was a want of harmony. One
morning when the priest was chanting the first words of the Gloria,
the head of a little French bugler appeared at the top of the gallery
stairs, and at once started a plaint chant, Gloria, we had never
rehearsed or heard before.
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