What Norman Saw in the West

CHAPTER III. CHILDREN MADE HAPPY.

Most grateful was the quiet repose of Mrs. Rivers’s pretty home after the long wearisome ride in the cars, most pleasant was it to be kindly welcomed by old friends in their new homes. The village seemed full of purpose and aspiration, springing up in an oak opening on the shore of Lake Michigan, and clustering round the two literary institutions that have called it into existence. The familiar faces gathered around Mrs. Rivers’s tea-table recalled many dear and cherished associations, and brought back pleasant pictures of the past.

28Norman’s pleasures were in the present. He was soon off to the lake with George Rivers, wandering a while on its pebbly shore, and then sitting on the pier fishing. They dropped their lines in the water, and sat waiting for a bite. Long and patiently they sat, the sun burning their faces, but their patience was not rewarded with success, for they got no fish. Norman found more companions in the little Randolphs and Henrys, who were fishing at the same time. They lived a few doors from George Rivers, and they came to see Norman, and invited him to dinner and to tea. He had many pleasant talks, and many games with his new friends, who were very kind to him.

Sunday morning came; the weather doubtful, uncertain, showery. Mrs. Lester heard with great pleasure a lecture from her former pastor, and a sermon from an old friend. The Sunday school was invited to visit the Biblical Institute 29that afternoon, to see some idols that had just arrived from China, and to hear Profesor L. lecture upon them. The children were on tip-toe with expectation; but the superintendent, after consultation with the teachers, decided that it would not be prudent to go; the clouds were threatening, and the grass was wet with the recent rain. With his pleasant face and his kindly voice, he told the children of this decision, and then asked all who were in favor of going to the Biblical Institute the next afternoon, at four o’clock, to raise their hands. Every hand was raised, but there was a new difficulty. A professor in the Institute said that it would be better to defer the visit till the next Sabbath, as it would interfere with the students’ recitations on Monday afternoon.

“Not the next Sabbath,” said another gentleman; “there will be a general class-meeting here then, which we all wish to attend.”

30“All, then,” said the superintendent, “who are in favor of visiting the Institute this day fortnight, will signify it by holding up their hands.”

Not an uplifted hand was seen; the expression of opinion was very decided. The children did not believe in a pleasure so long delayed. The professor, with great good-humor, then said that they were disposed to gratify the children, and that they would so arrange their recitations as to give them a cordial welcome.

“My text is at the Institute,” said Professor L., as he rose to speak to the children, “and my audience here;” but he contrived to talk to them without a text so agreeably, that the children voted that he should be invited to address them the next afternoon, which he partly consented to do.

It was a very pleasant looking Sunday school, teachers and children all in their 31places, notwithstanding the wet walks and the dark clouds. The children looked bright and happy, interested in their lessons, attentive to their teachers, and they sang sweet hymns with great spirit and earnestness.

Monday was bright and beautiful, and many little hearts beat high with the thoughts of the afternoon’s pleasure. How glad they were that it had not been put off for a fortnight. It was a pretty sight to see the procession of children winding through the grove of grand old trees on the high bank of the lake, whose blue waters sparkled in the sunlight. The white sails of schooners were seen in the distant horizon, and the lake looked so peaceful that it was difficult to imagine it roughened by the tempest, uttering its loud roar as its great waves dashed against the bank, tearing it away, and prostrating the lofty trees that adorned it.

The children walked into the Institute, 32and entering the room on the right, saw the walls covered with pictures of hideous Chinese idols. One of the great idols they had come to see was a gigantic figure, dressed in flowing robes of white muslin, with a ghastly face, rolling eyes, grinning mouth, and a crown on his head. He was attended by his servant, who had a horrible black face, and long flowing black garments. Such figures as these are carried through the streets in China to receive the worship of the people; and thus religion, which should elevate, only debases them; and fear is the ruling motive instead of love.

Norman thought of that scene in the idol temple in Rangoon: the room lined with images of Boodh, in a sitting posture, with folded hands, bearing lamps to give light to a Christian prayer-meeting; Havelock, with his Bible in his hand, surrounded by a hundred Christian soldiers, praying to the God of heaven, and 33singing praises to the Lord Christ in this famous idol temple. Well, the day will come when all the idols will be cast to the moles and the bats, and when from every hill-top and valley, from the broad prairie and the green savannah, the incense of praise shall ascend to the one living and true God.

After the children had passed around the rooms, and looked at the idols, they went up stairs and seated themselves in the chapel to hear Professor L. The fresh breeze blew in the window, and the lake spread its broad bosom beneath the eye; stripes of green and blue gave variety to its surface; little sail-boats sailed rapidly by; and a large steamer went proudly on its way. It was pleasant to look out upon this noble view, and listen at the same time to Professor L.’s narration of what he had seen during his three years in China.

He gave an interesting account of Miss 34Aldersey, a noble English woman, who, while in her pretty English home, in the midst of kind friends, and social joys, and religious privileges, felt her heart so moved by the spiritual destitution of the Chinese, that she left home and friends, and all pleasant, familiar things, and went over the seas to China. Freely she had received; freely she gave fortune, time, and toil to the great work to which she had consecrated her life. She opened a school, and gathered in the poor neglected children. Female children are despised in China, and many of these poor little things, who had no one to love them, found a home beneath Miss Aldersey’s roof. Day after day she sat teaching these ignorant little girls, and telling them of Jesus and the home he has gone to prepare for his people. They listened to the new and wonderful story, and their hearts were opened to receive these heavenly truths.

One of them, after the custom of the 35country, had been bethrothed when she was four years old, to a boy several years older, and the time approached when she was called upon to be married. Part of the marriage ceremony consists of bowing down before ancestral tablets, containing images of their ancestors, and burning incense to them. This the young Christian Chinese girl refused to do. She loved Jesus, she worshiped God, and she would not bow down before any idol.

In vain her parents expostulated and entreated. In vain they offered her reward, and threatened punishment. She was firm in her refusal to break the law of God. They beat her and tortured her, but her steadfast heart, stayed upon God, knew no fear. Faithful to her Christian profession, this brave girl continued in the path of Christian duty, unmoved by tribulation and wrath and all the devices of wicked men.

36The children then sang the noble missionary hymn,

and were dismissed for a little recreation in the grove, where there was a swing, and cool shade, and grassy turf. Just before sunset the children were called together, and again in regular order walked homeward, with faces glowing with enjoyment, and minds and hearts filled with happy thoughts and memories.

Wednesday morning Norman went with his mother to the lake, just after breakfast. The waves were gently kissing the shore, and hours passed swiftly away as they listened to the soothing sound and gathered curious pebbles. They found some small fossils, with the remains of shells and animals in them, and Norman was greatly delighted with one that his mother picked up, that looked as if it had on it a single pearl 37set in gold. They felt sorry to leave the pleasant beach; but the morning had already gone, and it was time to go to Mr. Henry’s to dinner. On their return they found a kind invitation from Mrs. Harris to take tea at the Institute. There were about forty students at the tea-table, and after tea they had prayers. Instead of the reading of the Scripture, verses were repeated, thus enabling all who wished to participate in the devotional exercises; and noble and comforting promises, and precious truths, were uttered in varying tones. That company of young men were girding on their armor, that they might fight as good soldiers under the Captain of their salvation. They were preparing themselves for their life-work; some of them to sow the “precious seed” over the broad prairies of Illinois, by the rocky bluffs and wood-crowned hills of Wisconsin, and the blue waters of Minnesota; while others were 38looking to the lands of the East—to Bulgaria, and India, and China. It was pleasant to exchange a few brief words with these young men who, by the eye of faith, could see more abundant harvests than those which reward the Western husbandmen. They had asked the Lord of the harvest to send them as reapers into these fields of promise, looking forward to that blessed time when they shall “return with joy bringing their sheaves with them.”

Mrs. Lester afterward looked upon the portrait of the Christian woman to whose liberality this institution owes its existence. That portrait ought to hang on its walls. There is a queenly look about the fine figure, and the way the head is set on the shoulders, and blended goodness and intelligence in the countenance. In the evening of the same day Mrs. Lester was in the room where Mrs. Garrett died, and she thought of the blissful 39visions that may have floated about that dying pillow glimpses of refreshing and perennial streams to make the wilderness rejoice and blossom as the rose. Her life was not spent in vain on the earth. Regular and consistent in her daily walks of duty and piety, she has, by the judicious bestowment of ample means, prolonged her usefulness on the earth, linked herself to holy activities through coming time, and set in motion trains of influence, the mighty results of which may only be known in the morning of the resurrection. She made to herself friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when she failed they might receive her into everlasting habitations.

CHAPTER IV. THE QUEEN CITY OF THE LAKE.

Norman had many little friends to say good-by to as he left for the cars on 41Thursday morning, and very many pleasant memories to take with him.

Kind friends were waiting for them at the station at Chicago, and they were soon driving through its busy streets. They approached the river, which has made the town, affording as it does a safe harbor for vessels. This river runs due east and falls into the lakes, receiving, about a mile from its mouth, branches from the north and the south. The river and its branches, lined with substantial warehouses, divide the city into the north, south and west side. On approaching the bridge it suddenly swung round to give passage to a large schooner towed by a little puffing black tug, which gave its shrill whistle as a signal for the drawbridge to open, and then went panting and snorting through.

While waiting for the bridge to resume its place, Emily Percy, a blue-eyed, fair-haired little girl who was seated beside 42Norman, showed him an old wooden house that formerly belonged to Fort Dearborn, and that, with the light-house, was the only thing left to tell of its existence.

“Norman,” said Mrs. Lester, “this is the fort spoken of in those lines you are so fond of repeating about the Indians:

“It is difficult to fancy any Indians here, in the heart of this busy city,” said Norman.

“And yet this great city,” said Mrs. Percy “is the growth of twenty-five years. In 1831 there were but four arrivals, two brigs and two schooners, and now there are eight thousand.”

43“The lonely garrison that abandoned this fort in 1812,” said Mrs. Lester, “would have been rather astonished, could the vision of this city have risen up: before them.”

“Why did they abandon the fort, mother?” asked Norman.

“They thought it best when they heard of General Hull’s surrender at Detroit. Soon after leaving the fort they were attacked by a large body of Indians, to whom they surrendered, on condition that their lives should be spared. Notwithstanding this promise, the Indians cruelly murdered several of them.”

“You must not forget to tell of Mrs. Heald,” said Mrs. Percy, “for I think we may call her the heroine of Chicago.”

“I leave that to you,” replied Mrs. Lester.

“An Indian,” said Mrs. Percy, “approached her with uplifted tomahawk, when, with great presence of mind, she 44looked him full in the face, and smilingly said, ‘Surely you would not kill a squaw!’ This Indian warrior was disarmed by this appeal, and the lady’s life was saved.”

The schooner towed by the potent little tug soon passed through, but they were detained by a sloop that made its way very slowly, and Norman had time to look at the vessels in the river, many of them loaded with grain, twenty-five millions of bushels being annually received at this grain port. He also watched with great interest the working of a dredging machine used to take mud out of the river and thus deepen its channel.

A great number of carriages and carts awaited the return of the moving bridge, and many, pedestrians were ready to leap upon it as it approached. The bridges are a daily school of patience for the citizens of Chicago.

The few days at Mrs. Percy’s Norman 45enjoyed very much. He took long walks with Emily about the north side of the city, which is pleasantly shaded with trees and adorned with many fine residences. They drove out too with Mrs. Percy on Michigan Avenue, a noble street, with rows of fine houses built of beautiful cream-colored stone, and pretty cottages embowered in shrubbery, fronting on the lake. The railway is laid through the water, at a short distance from the shore, and the interval affords a fine safe place for rowing, sheltered as it is from the sudden storms of the lake. There were a number of pretty row boats rapidly darting to and fro, and young people enjoying the air and exercise on the quiet waters.

They returned by Wabash Avenue, adorned with its noble churches. They alighted, and went in to look at the new Methodist church, which was nearly finished. Norman thought it very beautiful. 46This, and the handsome Presbyterian church at the next corner, are built of the cream-colored stone which gives such a cheerful light aspect to the edifices in Chicago. The Second Presbyterian church is the most antique-looking structure in the city. It is built of a whitish stone, spotted with black, giving it somewhat the aspect of the white marble of St. Paul’s begrimed with the smoke and dust of London. This stone was found on the prairies; the black is a sort of bitumen that exudes from it, and as the quarry is exhausted, this church will be unique as well as antique in its appearance.

Norman was amused at the inequality of the sidewalks, sometimes rising above the carriage way, sometimes depressed far below, so that the pedestrian is obliged continually to go up and down steps, or inclined planes, and to mind his ways if he wishes to avoid a fall. The new stores open finely on the elevated sidewalks, 47and Norman was astonished to see the splendid rows of stores with elaborate iron fronts. The older houses and stores must be entered by descending steps to reach their level. Mrs. Percy told Norman the reason of this, that the city was built on a flat prairie, so low that the water would not run off, and the streets could not be drained; and so this enterprising people are lifting up the whole city six or seven feet, and there must be inequality of surface while this transition process is going on. Norman saw a frame house, mounted on rollers, leisurely making its way through the streets.

Charlie Percy, who was several years older than Norman had a chemical cabinet, and the boys had a very animated evening, trying a number of experiments, making colored fires, and making fire jump about the surface of the water.

“Here is an invitation for you, children,” said Mr. Percy, “which I have no 48doubt you will be very glad to accept. Mr. and Mrs. Bowers called to invite us to accompany them to Green Park, where they are to have a pic-nic.”

“How pleasant that will be,” exclaimed Emily; “I am sure you will like to go, Norman.”

The children were ready immediately after dinner, when Mr. Bowers’s carriage drove up for them, and at the station they found quite a party of children, baskets in hand, with their mothers and fathers, bound for the pic-nic. They were a joyous family party, Mr. Bowers’s sisters and their families. Norman looked from the cars upon the stately buildings of Michigan Avenue, and there was not time to look at much more, for a few minutes brought them to Green Park, and the party were soon out of the cars, and on a bank overlooking the lake. It is a pretty place, grassy turf, graveled walks, grateful shade, and rustic summer houses; better 49than all, the pleasant beach with its rounded pebbles, and the constant dash of its gentle waves. The children had merry games of tag and puss-in-the-corner, then they wandered along the beach, and then they came with sharpened appetites to inquire when the baskets were to be opened. “You may go and bring them now,” was the welcome response.

“Are we not to sit round the table in the summer-house?” asked one of the little girls.

“No,” replied her mamma, “it is cooler here.”

Willing feet ran to the rustic arbor, and willing hands brought the baskets from the rustic table. They seated themselves on the grass and ate the biscuits and sardines and sandwiches, and the gingerbread and cake. A little girl whom they did not know was playing near her father and mother, who were seated on a 50bench at a little distance. One of the children, with thoughtful kindness, asked her mother’s permission to take some biscuits and cake to the little stranger, and joyfully she ran off to offer of their abundance to the little one.

After they had done full justice to the contents of the baskets, and picked up pebbles on the beach, they sat in the large summer house and sang hymns, sweet familiar hymns, sung by sweet childish voices, sobering and sanctifying the pleasures of that happy Saturday afternoon.

At the station they found a merry party of school-girls who had walked out in the morning to gather flowers on the prairie. They were in high glee; their large straw hats were wreathed with oak leaves, and their hands were filled with great bunches of flowers,

Norman said good-by to Emily Percy 51at her door, for he and his mother were to spend the Sabbath with Mrs. Bowers, and a pleasant Sabbath it was. The conversation, in harmony with the day, on the piazza, after breakfast, beneath the shade of lofty spreading trees; the sermons and services of morning, afternoon, and evening, different in tone and character, but all profitable and pleasing; the visit to the large and interesting Sunday school, in which Mrs. Bowers taught a class, made the Sabbath a delightful one.

Monday morning Mrs. Percy took Mrs. Lester and Norman and Emily to her husband’s grain warehouse, the top of which they reached after ascending many flights of steps. The roof is of canvas, covered with tar, upon which, while it is warm, pebbles are thrown, making a durable and fire proof roof. The city lay beneath them; they could mark its great extent, trace the course of its dividing rivers, with their sails, and steamers, and 52propellers; see trains of cars arriving and departing; count the spires which

and around all see the great lake and the encircling prairie.

The warehouse was filled with dust, as the machinery was in motion. Norman watched the elevators lifting up the grain from the rail-car on one side to the fifth story of the warehouse, where it is weighed and poured into great bins, whence it is discharged into vessels on the other side. The elevator is a series of buckets on an endless band. Thousands of bushels, from the wide prairies of Illinois, are thus elevated, weighed, and transferred from car to boat, to be sent to the Eastern states or to Europe.

The saddest sight Norman saw in this city was the great number of saloons, as they call the shops where liquor is sold, where drunkards are made, and where many an unwary victim is lured to destruction. 53In almost every block, they tempt the thoughtless; music sounds her welcome; vice puts on her most attractive mien; and young men forget a father’s counsel, a mother’s prayers; and for the momentary gratification of their appetites they offer up reputation, character, health, life, and their eternal all; a costly sacrifice! Everything lost, and nothing gained but degradation, misery, and death.

CHAPTER V. ON THE ROCK RIVER.

A railway ride over the beautiful prairies took Norman and his mother to their place of destination. How soft and gentle were those prairie swells, looking like English park scenery, relieved as is the vast expanse of meadow by scattered groves of trees. The fine unbroken horizon line tells you that you do not see a greater extent of country, only because your eye has no greater capabilities; that onward, and all around, the vast prairie lies in its verdure and beauty; that there, as here, 55the flowers are springing; that you may travel north, south, east, and west, hundreds of miles, and still that undulating prairie, in its “encircling vastness,” will lie around you like the sea.

At the station Norman found his uncle looking out anxiously for him, and he was soon pressed tenderly in his arms.

“Well, my boy,” said his uncle, “I feared we should be disappointed again to-day. How glad I am to see you once more, though you have so grown I would not have known you.”

“How is Aunt Ellen?” asked Norman.

“Very well, she is waiting anxiously for you at home; she has been counting the days since you wrote you were coming.”

“How well I remember,” said Norman, “when I was a little boy, how she let me whittle in her room, and how she brought me bread and butter with white sugar on it.”

“That bread and butter and sugar 56made a deep impression on his mind,” said Mrs. Lester; “he has always connected the thought of it with his Aunt Ellen.”

“And there is your Aunt Ellen at the gate looking for you,” said his uncle.

Norman loved his uncle and aunt very much, and was very glad to be with them once more. He loved to sit by his uncle’s side and read to him, and tell him about his school, and about his cottage home, and about his little cousins, Bessie and Edith, with whom he spent so many pleasant summer days, rambling about the woods and among the rocks.

His uncle was an invalid, obliged continually to recline on his couch, but he was always cheerful, always happy. A sister said of him, that if you put him on the top of a rock he would be happy; and the secret of this was, that his heart was filled with love to God, and that he had constant communion with his blessed Saviour. The peace of God lay upon his 57countenance; he had no troubled or vexing thoughts.

He loved to read and hear about the progress of Christ’s kingdom, and about what good men are doing to bring about the fulfillment of that prayer, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Norman was very busy for several days, copying his sketches of Niagara, and doing them in pastil, and his uncle took great interest in the progress of his work.

One day they went with a clergyman, Aunt Ellen’s brother, to a seminary, built on a commanding eminence above the town. After seeing the scholars do their sums very rapidly on the black-board, they went to the upper story of the building, and looked upon an extensive view. To the north the rapid river, with its high banks and wooded islands; to the east, the prairie, stretching out far in the distance. The spires and buildings of the town toward the south, with the fine 58arches of the railing embankments, while the river, whose falls filled the air with sound, was spanned with the noble arches of the railroad bridge, and the broken ones of several ruined bridges, swept away by the recent floods.

After leaving the seminary they wandered in the oak grove that adorns the bluff upon which it stands, and looked down on the ravine which bounds the grounds to the north.

“Now, mother,” said Norman, one morning after breakfast, “for a walk on the prairies.”

“I am ready,” replied Mrs. Lester; “it is a cool, gray morning; just the day for such a ramble.”

On and on they wandered; Norman running to and fro, as the brilliant tint of some flower caught his eye, made his mother the bearer of all his floral treasures. A fine bouquet he had after a while, yellow lupins, the blue spiderwort, the purple 59phlox, an orange flower very much like the wallflower, and the painted cup, made classic by Bryant’s verse:

They first walked toward the south, where they could have glimpses of the river; but at length they directed their course to the east, to an octagon house, that stood like a light-house on a hill. Crossing the railroad, they paused a while to see the gravel-train get its load of sand from the banks.

“There,” said Norman, as the locomotive gave a snort or two, as if in impatience at the pause; “there stands the grand old fellow to be looked at, as Mr. Beecher says.”

A far-reaching view of the undulating prairie, heightened at intervals by flashes of the river gliding among the fertile 60meadows, repaid them for the ascent to the octagon house.

On their return they stood beneath a railroad bridge, and saw two long freight trains pass over it. They passed a rural town that had recently sprung up in an “oak opening,” and arrived at home with flowers and pleasant remembrances of their four-mile walk on the prairies.

Norman’s quiet pleasures by his uncle’s side, his reading and sketching, soon gave place to more active out-of-door amusements. He formed a friendship with two boys who lived in the neighborhood, who were so well-trained, that his uncle readily consented to his intimacy with them.

“Even a child is known by his doings;” and it is well when a boy has already formed a character which inspires confidence, and allows parents and friends safely to trust in him. Such a lad will probably retain in manhood the respect and confidence he has won in boyhood.

61Norman went every evening with Alfred and Herbert Walduf to bathe in the Rock river, and sometimes he went with them to fish, or walked with them in the woods.

These boys were regular attendants at the Sunday school of which Mr. Laurence, Aunt Ellen’s brother, was superintendent, and they asked Norman to go with them to school. How earnestly the children listened when their superintendent told them of the sad fate of four of their number who had recently joined with them in their hymns of praise. They had removed a short time before with their parents to a town not far distant, where their father had received a call to preach. A letter had been received from their mother, describing the situation of their new home, by the side of a little stream, and saying that she thought she had found a pleasant resting-place.

Father, mother, and eight children were 62all gathered together one peaceful Sabbath; the two elder sons having come home from their places of business to spend a few days with their family. Kind and affectionate words were spoken—a thankful retrospect of the past, and hopeful glancings to the future.

The next day the little stream began to rise and swell, and the children greatly enjoyed the transformation of their quiet brook into the rushing torrent. Enjoyment, however, gave place to alarm as the waters rose higher and higher, till they reached the house.

Some men from the village came down and advised them to seek a more secure shelter. On measuring the waters, however, they found that they had fallen four inches; and the father, thinking that the worst was over, concluded that they had better remain in the house. The men, gathering up some clothes that had been left out to dry, handed them to 63the inmates of the house, and left them.

There were anxious hearts in that lonely dwelling that night, as they listened to the rushing waters without. The baby wakened, and the elder brother, to amuse and quiet the little thing, gave it his watch to play with. Suddenly there was a crash, and the house was loosened from its foundations. There was a cry heard from the wife and mother, and then all other sounds were lost in the roar of the waters. Stunned, half unconscious, the father felt himself borne onward by the rushing flood. As the stream carried him past an overhanging tree, he caught hold of its branches, and there he hung till the morning light brought help and rescue. He was a childless man; the loving faces of wife and children he was to see no more till the morning of the resurrection. Four of the bodies were found the next morning beneath the ruins of the house. 64The infant’s hand clasped the watch, still ticking, while its own pulse was stopped forever. The waters of the stream, swelled by the great freshet, had been obstructed by a culvert on the railway till it gave way, and the accumulated mass of waters had swept on with resistless impetuosity, working ruin and death.

And then Mr. Laurence enforced the lesson so often taught, so soon forgotten, of so living that when the cry is heard, “Behold the bridegroom cometh!” whether at midnight or in the morning, we may go forth with joy to meet him.

CHAPTER VI. INDIAN STORIES.

Again in the cars for a journey to St. Anthony’s Falls, and again the fertile rolling prairie met the eye on every side. The view was somewhat marred by the high board fences of the railroad, that in some places hid those broad flowery fields. Some curious mounds, round, smooth, and green, extended like a chain from east to 66west, and looked as if they were artificial formations, lying as they do on the bosom of the prairie; perhaps the burial-place of a departed race.

Soon the high lands on the Mississippi were seen. A portly gentleman of Galena, just returning from a convention at Springfield, pointed them out to Mrs. Lester, and said, “Ma’am, there is no such river in the world; you never saw such scenery; you would not look at the Hudson after it.”

“That would be unfortunate,” replied Mrs. Lester, “as my home is on the Hudson. Is the scenery finer than the Highlands and the Catskills?”

“Well, ma’am, I can’t exactly say as to that; I have not been below Albany.”

“Ah, then, you have not seen our beautiful river, as it cannot boast of much grandeur above Albany.”

Galena is a curious town, built on the 67side of a very steep hill; the houses rising one above another, and in a picturesque, romantic region. The road lay for some time along the bank of the Fever River, and Norman looked in vain for the lead mines, for which this part of the country is so famous. A very fine specimen of the lead ore was afterward given him.

“Ah! look, mother!” he exclaimed, as the descending sun that had been partially vailed, shone through a rift in the clouds, and was brightly mirrored in the placid waters of the river. Low wooded banks and islands were also mirrored there as well as the shining orb and the large dark masses of clouds. It was the great sight of the afternoon.

At Dunleith, on the line between Illinois and Wisconsin, the terminus of the Illinois Central road, they went on board the Grey Eagle, the best boat on the Upper Mississippi.

A sunset on the Missi-sepe, the Great 68River! It was radiant and golden, but without any pomp of crimson clouds, of long-trailing glory.

Norman had a fine view of Dubuque, built on a natural terrace on the opposite shore, and creeping up four of five ravines between the great bluffs which rise directly behind the town. After tea, as the boat was not to leave till morning, he watched the lights gleaming out from the city below, and the scattered dwellings above, and then went to bed in his state-room.

His mother had not met the friends whom she had expected to join at Dunleith for this excursion, and she felt somewhat disappointed. The morning came in clouds and drizzling rain. The hills were vailed; but as the boat went very near the western shore, the passengers could admire the wealth of foliage, and the rich greens of those primeval forests. A road ran along the river bank, and 69some men were quarrying stone; near this was a deserted log-house.

On passing a very high red bluff, that stood in the forest, like an Egyptian idol, so curiously was it fashioned, Mrs. Lester ran to the east side of the boat to call Norman to look at it. He came, but after a hasty glance returned to his play, which for the time wholly absorbed him. He was engaged in some merry games with Helen and Frank Lisle, and he had no thought for anything else. Mrs. Lisle found that Norman was the son of a minister who had been an intimate friend of her sister’s. “My sister has very frequently spoken to me of him,” she said; “I almost think I had known him. My sister named her eldest son after your father, Norman, and I have been strangely reminded of Lester at your age all the morning.”

Norman remained a while to look at a large raft which his mother had called 70him to see. There were twenty men upon it; some of them with red shirts, and another wrapping a white blanket around him. There was a shed where one man was cooking the dinner, and a board table in front for their meals. A gentleman said that a raft of that size was worth about seven thousand dollars. There were a number of rafts floating by this western shore. One misses the white sails of the Hudson on the Mississippi, where rafts, and steamboats, and an occasional sail-boat, are the only craft on its waters.

There were ravines running up among the hills, and near the shore were layers of white stone piled regularly as if laid in mortar. Castellated bluffs peeped out from the encircling verdure, and low islands, covered with willows, were emerging from the recent floods. From behind one of these the steamer Northern Light appeared, her bright golden star on a back ground of green.

71After dinner the aspect of things brightened. The clouds rolled away, and the clear blue sky appeared in its soft beauty. The eastern now became the most interesting side; noble bluffs were seen far above the lofty oaks and maples, like some ancient towers, the strongholds of the former lords of the soil. The town of Guttenbay is on a table land at the foot of one of these bluffs, and beyond it a range of rounded hills, softly rising above wooded islands. “O look!” said Helen Lisle, “at that beautiful rainbow in the spray.” It was no fleeting vision, but all the afternoon the radiant bow, with its hues of blended brightness, afforded them a beautiful object for contemplation.

“See those trees,” cried Norman; “they look as if they were running a race down hill.”

In crossing from the east to the west side they passed an island shaped like a 72bowl, the center filled with water, and a broad green brim. M’Gregor’s landing is a small busy town of one long street, there being no place for another in the narrow ravine. The street was filled with wagons, and many passengers landed to go out on the rich prairies of Iowa, to which this ravine leads.

There is a noble view of the broad river and its wooded islands, in crossing to Prairie du Chien on the east side. Norman was amused at seeing three dogs on this prairie, the first he had seen on the shores of the river. The town derives its name from a family of Fox Indians, who formerly lived there, and were known by the name of Dogs.

The fort, though now deserted, looked very finely with its white walls, and its pleasant site, commanding the far reaches of the Mississippi, and the prairie opening into the interior.

73

No. 666.

PRAIRIE DU CHIEN.

75“Keokuk used to live here, Norman; do you remember the story you were reading about him?”

“O yes, mother, he was such a brave man. He was chief of the Sacs and Foxes, and yet he was such a firm friend to the whites that he exerted all his influence to prevent his tribe from going to war with them. At one time when the nation had determined upon a war with the United States, he told them to burn their wigwams, kill their squaws, and then to go into the enemy’s country to conquer or to die. This speech convinced them of the folly of engaging in a war that could only terminate in their ruin, and they followed his peaceful counsels.”

“And then,” asked Mrs. Lester, “how did he show his magnanimity when the people were wearied with his goodness, as the Athenians of old were at hearing Aristides called the Just?”

“O yes, that was at Prairie du Chien 76too. They chose a young man for chief instead of the noble chief who so long had led them. He quietly took the lower place, and introduced his youthful successor to the United States agent, asking him to treat him as kindly as he had treated Keokuk. This noble conduct showed the tribe their folly, and Keokuk was soon restored to his place as their chief.”

“Poor Red Bird,” said Mrs. Lester, “this spot was a fatal one to him. He was a real Indian hero; tall, lithe, and beautiful, graceful in movement, skilled in feats of agility, daring and brave.”

“Why was this spot fatal to him?” asked Helen.

“He was a great friend to the whites,” replied Mrs. Lester, and dealt kindly and truly with them. An Indian had been killed by a white man, and his tribe demanded scalps to atone for this murder. Red Bird was sent to obtain the scalp of 77the white man, but he returned, saying he could find none.

Then came the cruel taunts of the revengeful savages; “Red Bird was no brave;” “he feared the pale-faces;” “he cared not to avenge the blood of one of their tribe.” “Red Bird must go again,” and this time not alone, but accompanied by cruel Indians, to watch his movements. Poor Red Bird had never met the pale-faces but with truth and kindness, and now a hundred voices clamored for their destruction; and these voices overpowered the still small voice within him.

Red Bird and his two companions entered a cabin, a little below Prairie du Chien, at noon-day. It was a peaceful family group, fearing no evil. The woman was washing near the window that looked toward the river; her husband was seated by the cradle of his sleeping child, while an old soldier sat near the door. The Indians asked for something 78to eat, and as the woman gave them some bread and milk, she saw an expression in their faces that led her to fly from the cabin to call for help. No help could reach the ill-fated occupants of the cabin. The tomahawk of the Indians rapidly descended; Red Bird scalped the husband and father, the second Indian the soldier, while the fair hair of the infant was dangling at the belt of the third savage, as he left the cabin.

“And what became of Red Bird?” asked Helen.

“He was taken by the United States officers, and brought to trial. Red Bird, sad and stately, drew himself up to his full height, and said that he had always been a friend of the white man, that he had never before injured them, and that he had been forced to this act of retaliation by the taunts of his tribe; that he thought they ought not to condemn him for a single offense.”

79

No. 666.

INDIANS KILLING A WHITE FAMILY.

81“He was put in irons, an indignity that so wrought upon his lofty spirit, that he pined to death.”

“Look at that log-cabin on the bank,” said Norman; “perhaps that is the one Keokuk slept in one night.”

“Why did he go there?” asked Helen.

“He came in and asked for a night’s lodging. The settler’s family, who had seen many Indians about in the afternoon, were afraid; but the noble countenance of their guest reassured them, and they gave him permission to stay. In the morning he told them that his tribe were returning up the river, after having received their money from the United States, and that as some of them had drunk the firewater, he feared they might alarm the pale-faces in the cabin, and therefore he had come to project them.”

Painted Rock, so called because there are Indian paintings upon it, was on the opposite side of the river, in deep shadow, 82while the green hill sloping toward the south, lay in broad sunshine.

Dwellings nestled in a pretty ravine were frowned upon by four lofty cliffs, whose rugged rocks resembled fortifications. One rock looked precisely like the fragment of a massive wall. Just beyond, a valley, branching in three directions, ran up among the hills. Over one of these, to the south, the dark shadow of the bluff was thrown, while the soft rounded hills to the north were covered with scattered trees, resembling orchards on the hillside, giving a cultivated look to the scene.

No docks are needed, as the steamer, that only draws about eighteen inches of water, runs up anywhere close to the shore. As it was approaching the bank they saw a log-cabin, in the door of which stood a man, and a little child in red frock and white pantalets, making a pretty picture.

83On the jutting point where the boat touched was a white house, and a young girl, with an earthen pitcher, was walking down the stone steps leading to the water.

A great yellow Egyptian-looking cliff threw a shadow over this peaceful scene.

“There are the nine passengers who are to land at this place,” exclaimed Norman, as a man walked up the road followed by eight sheep. “He has been surrounded by that family ever since we left Dunleith.”

“He looks very well satisfied now to have them all safely landed,” said Helen Lisle; “how pleased his children will be at the grand arrival.”

The bluffs were now magnificent. The limestone strata extended in straight lines, looking like streets; then a bold red bluff towered up like a great cathedral; then a building resembling the New York Free Academy, while lofty masses of rock, 84crowned and encircled with verdure, continually remind one of the feudal castles of the Rhine. It was with reluctance they obeyed the summons to tea, which withdrew them from the ruddy cliffs of Wisconsin; but on returning to the deck they saw them still, glowing in the light of the setting sun:

There is the mouth of the Upper Iowa River, on the boundary line of Iowa and Minnesota. “Good-by, Iowa,” said Norman, taking off his hat and waving it to the receding state.

“Crossing the river again,” said Mrs. Lester. “We will soon be at the mouth of the Bad Axe River, but the light is fading so rapidly that we will not be able to see 85the spot of the decisive conflict between the Indian and white man.”

“I never heard of that battle mother, will you tell me something about it?”

“It was at the close of the Black Hawk war, in 1832. The Indians were entirely defeated by the United States troops at this place. A number of squaws were slain in the wild confusion of battle, not being distinguished from the Indians in the long grass into which they had fled for refuge. One poor woman, as she received her mortal wound, clasped her child close to her bosom, and fell over upon it, thus pinioning it to the ground. The poor little thing was found the next day under the lifeless body of its mother. Its arm was broken, and the child was so starved that, even during the painful operation of setting the broken bone, it eagerly devoured some meat given to it by the compassionate soldier who had rescued it from the arms now powerless 86for its protection. The love of another mother bore her safely over the deep waters. She placed her papoose in her blanket, and holding it between her teeth, she swam across the broad river, and reached the opposite shore in safety.”

CHAPTER VII. SECOND DAY UPON THE MISSISSIPPI.

“It must have been a proud moment for De Soto when he first looked upon the lower waters of this magnificent river,” said Mrs. Lester, as she sat with Norman on the guards of the boat the next morning; “what a scene it must have been; the canoes of the Indians floating on the waters, while on the banks hundreds of the red men, with white feathers waving o’er their brows, were gazing with wonder at their new visitors.

“And when he and his followers had crossed the bank, and the Indians knelt to the white chief, whom they thought was one of the children of the sun, to 88ask him for life for the dying, he told them to pray to God, who alone could help them.

“Soon in this dreary western wilderness the princely De Soto breathed his last. His people, fearing to let the Indians know of his death, wrapped up his body, and buried it beneath the waters of the great river he had discovered; while, for the first time, a Christian requiem, softly chanted in the darkness, mingled with the music of its winds and waves.”^[1]

“And so,” said Norman, “the mighty river is a memorial of him. How much I would like to have seen birch-canoes floating on the river. And I do believe there is one made fast to the shore just by that ‘dug-out.’”

89“What an ugly word ‘dug-out’ is; so different from the birch canoe,” said Mrs. Lester.

“But, mother, it just tells what it is; a trunk of a tree, hollowed or dug out in the shape of a boat. But see how pretty that bark canoe is! Don’t you remember we were reading about it in Hiawatha; how he girdled the birch-tree just above its roots, and just below its lower branches, then cut it from top to bottom, and stripped it, unbroken, from the tree with a wooden wedge?”

“Well, what did he do then?”

“He made a framework of cedar-boughs, like two bended bows, and then he sewed the bark together with the roots of the larch-tree; bound it to the framework, and stopped up all the seams and crevices with resin from the fir-tree. And then he embroidered it with porcupine quills.”

“You remember pretty well how the 90canoe was made, Norman. I wish you could recall some of those lines about the birch canoe you were so fond of repeating.”

“I think I can, mother,” said Norman; “at any rate I will repeat what I remember:”

“I am very glad that I have seen a birch canoe; but I would like to see some Indians in it; not an Indian have I seen on the banks of this river. Now we are going to take in wood. I wish I could go on shore.”

It did, indeed, look most inviting, that 91piece of woodland, with its high umbrageous roof, and deep dark recesses; and many of the gentlemen went on shore to gather flowers and cut sticks for canes; one of these was handed to Norman as a remembrance of the woods of Minnesota.

The bank was bordered with two long wood-piles; and one of the officers of the boat measured the height and length of a section; and, at a word, twelve stout Irishmen sprung on shore, and seizing each his half dozen sticks, trotted on board. Rapid as were their movements, it was a long time before the great wood-pile was transferred to the deck of the steamer, but it was pleasant to enjoy the fragrance of the forest and the sweet songs of its birds.

About mid-day they entered Lake Pepin, an expansion of the river twenty-four miles long, and from two to four miles wide. It is a beautiful sheet of water, with high rocky bluffs on the eastern, and rounded wooded hills on the western bank, 92while it is bordered with a broad beach of white gravel. A fresh breeze crossed its waters, almost rising into a stiff gale. Sudden gales of wind are not uncommon on this lake, often obliging steamers to lay to until their violence is over.

On the western shore is the celebrated Maiden’s Rock, a bold, precipitous bluff, rising four hundred feet above the lake. All eyes were turned toward its towering height. Its story is one of great beauty.

A maiden of the Sioux had given her heart to a chief of her own tribe, who had sought her love. The parents, however, would not consent to her alliance with the young brave, but insisted on her marrying an old chief, of great wisdom and influence in the nation. The marriage-day was fixed, and Oola-Ita, with other Indian maidens, was gathering berries on the brow of this cliff for the wedding-feast. Suddenly a plaintive song rose on the sea, and they saw the beautiful Oola-Ita poised gracefully on the very edge of the precipice, her head upraised, and her long hair floating in the wind, as she warbled her parting song. In a moment, before a friendly hand could arrest her, she leaped from the precipice, and was dashed to pieces on the rocks below.

93

No. 666.

MAIDEN’S ROCK.

95Six miles above Lake Pepin is the town of Red Wing, finely situated on the river bank, beneath the shadow of a towering bluff. There was formerly the village of Talangamane, or the Red Wing, esteemed the first chief of his nation. The university which bears Bishop Hamline’s name, and which has been founded by his liberal gift, may be seen from the water, and near it is a large Methodist church.

Two weeks after a terrible accident happened at this town. The steamer Galena took fire. The pilot manfully kept his place at the wheel; amid the scorching flames he brought the boat to the shore, and kept her there till the passengers 96had escaped. A mother and three children were lost, but the rest stood in their night-clothes on the shore; some of them stripped of the means which were to provide them with a home in the new country to which they were going, but thankful for lives saved from flood and flame.

The presiding elder of the district came on board at Red Wing. He was introduced to Mrs. Lester by a Baptist minister, who was returning to St. Paul with his bride. He had been in the country for twelve years, and his varied knowledge made him a most agreeable companion. He had been brought in familiar contact with the Indians and with the settlers; he could tell of the wigwam, and the log cabin, and the thriving towns now replacing them; he knew the character of the strata of the river bank and the names of the trees in the forest. He had visited an Indian mission four hundred miles 97above the Falls of St. Anthony; had ascended part of it in a canoe carried over the portage past the rapids, by half-breeds. A most quiet, domestic river it is above St. Anthony, flowing through beautiful prairies covered with grapes and wild flowers, diversified with gentle hills and groves of oak. These prairies were formerly the resort of herds of buffaloes and deer; wolves, too, roamed over them, and just before dawn might be heard the hideous cry of the great white owl. Abundance of water-fowl used to be seen here; ducks, geese, pelicans, swans, and snipe; while the hawk, buzzard, and eagle sailed on lofty wing in the regions of upper air.

The waters of the St. Croix River looked blue and beautiful as they flowed from the lovely lake at its mouth into the more turbid waters of the Mississippi, with which they refuse for some time to mingle, the currents of different hues running side 98by side. Magnificent forests, huge trees (primeval) of stately trunk and deep rich foliage, adorn the shores of the river, or the large islands in its broad bosom.

Norman saw three wigwams on one of these islands, and two Indian boys seated on the shore. Not very far from this was formerly a Sioux village of Le Petit Corbeau, or the Little Raven. An anecdote is told of this Indian chief, which very finely illustrates the Saviour’s precept: “If any man take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.”

The Little Raven, going one morning to examine his beaver-trap, found a sauteur in the act of stealing it. The thief, looking up, saw the chief of a nation with which his own was at war, standing looking at him with a loaded rifle in his hands. The culprit expected instant death. How great then was his astonishment when the Sioux chief, approaching him, said: “Be not alarmed, I come to present you 99the trap, of which I see you stand in need. You are entirely welcome to it. Take my gun also, as I perceive you have none of your own, and depart with it to the land of your countrymen; but linger not here, lest some of my young men, who are panting for the blood of their enemies, should discover your footsteps in our country, and should fall upon you.” So saying, he gave him his gun and his accoutrements, and returned unarmed to his village.

One would think that this Indian chief must have heard and received the sublime words of the apostle:

“Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay,’ saith the Lord; therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”

CHAPTER VIII. OWAH-MENAH, THE FALLING WATER.

St. Paul, “the diadem city of the northwest,” situated on high bluffs, at a bend of the river, looked very imposing in the light of a glowing sunset. The noisy cries of the hackmen and runners for the different hotels filled the air as the boat touched the wharf. Fourteen of the passengers took the stage for St. Anthony’s Falls. Norman was seated on the top of the stage-coach. The glimmering twilight and the pale moonlight were not, however, very favorable for distant views of a new country. Companies of emigrants had pitched their tents and 101kindled their fire to cook their evening meal. The light played upon the faces of parents and children grouped around the fire, and fell upon the white cover of the prairie wagons, near which the horses were tied.

There were glimpses of the Mississippi, of a large hotel and a high observatory; and exclamations from sleepy children at the great musquetos lighting upon their faces in the darkness. There was a sound of waters in the air, and a great building loomed up in the dim light, and they were at the Winslow House. Great halls, large parlors richly furnished, and bed-rooms with velvet carpets and luxuriously stuffed chairs. Very grand for the northwest. It was past eleven o’clock, and the wearied travelers were glad to seek repose.

At four o’clock in the morning Mrs. Lester was awakened by a knock at her door. It was from an untiring fellow-traveler, 102who wished to see all that was to be seen in time to return to the Grey Eagle at ten. Mrs. Lester thanked her, but said she could not get ready in time, and from her window she watched the lady, her brother, and her niece on their way to the falls and the bridge. Sightseeing seemed particularly unattractive in that grey morning twilight that clothes the landscape with a more sober livery than that of evening.

After some ineffectual attempts to arouse Norman, Mrs. Lester went to the observatory, at the top of the great hotel, to see the sun rise. It was a noble view; the town of St. Anthony immediately beneath the eye; the Mississippi, with its falls, suspension bridge, and wooded island above, and the rocky chasm below; Minneapolis, with its spires and fine hotels, on the opposite side of the river, and the boundless prairie meeting the sky in that encircling horizon.

103

No. 666.

FALLS OF ST. ANTHONY.

105At length Norman was awakened, and after sundry calls from his mother to hasten his movements, he sallied forth with her for a walk. Walking down the street for some distance, they crossed a little bridge leading past a large stone mill, and after scrambling over a stony path, they came to the edge of the river and in view of the falls. Norman’s disappointment was great. “Why, mother,” said he, “have we come all this distance to see these falls?”

In truth they were not very imposing. The stream above was filled with logs, floated down to be sawed in the mill, and many of them were lodged above and below the fall, while a shingle-machine was built in the center. Man’s work had taken away all the wild grace of nature.

The fall is only seventeen feet high, but the whole scene looks finely from the bridge below, and from the Minneapolis side, whence it was seen by the party that 106set out on their rambles at four o’clock in the morning.

It was a very warm morning, but near the river the air was cool and refreshing, and Norman gathered wild roses and rose-buds in all their dewy freshness. The charm of early birds, too, was not wanting at Owah-Menah, the musical Indian name, changed by Father Hennepin, a French missionary, who visited this spot in 1680, to St. Anthony’s Falls.

As the falls of a mighty river, they are worth seeing; and they are at the point of transition from the prairies of the Upper Mississippi, to the rugged limestone bluffs below; oaks growing above, and cedars and pines below.

On their way to the hotel Norman gathered some purple flowers growing in great profusion, while his mother wandered to the suspension bridge so gracefully thrown over the river, looked at the 107pretty wooded island, and at the mass of drift logs collected in the boom.

After a nice and beautifully served breakfast, Norman and his mother got into a carriage to return to St. Paul and the Grey Eagle. They would have liked to spend the day at St. Paul, but Mrs. Lester was anxious to return home, as she thought she would be able to do, before the Sabbath. They crossed the suspension bridge, drove through Minneapolis, called to say good-by to Mrs. Lisle and the children, who had added so much to the pleasure of their river travel, and then rapidly over the broad prairie.

Their attention was attracted by a lonely tomb, deeply shaded with trees, on the banks of the Minnehaha, and the driver told them that it was the tomb of the young wife and child of an officer of the army, who, when stationed at Fort Snelling, buried his beloved ones on the banks of this romantic stream.

108The driver stopped; they were on the prairie, with nothing to excite expectation.

Then getting out of the carriage, and descending a narrow path, the fall was before them, perfectly satisfying in its beauty; a gem of a fall, at once stamping its image on the memory; “a thing of beauty” to be “a joy forever.”

The fall is sixty feet high, and makes one graceful leap over an amphitheater of rock, that recedes far enough to enable one to walk round behind the fall, beneath the overhanging cliff. One large tree grew on the steep bank on which they stood, sufficiently near to make a fine foreground to the picture, and throw its masses of foliage across the fall. There was nothing to mar the perfect loveliness 109of the scene. A stir in the branches of the great tree against which Norman leaned induced him to look up, and there, upon the bough,

Norman watched him leap surely from branch to branch, over the deep abyss below, and then gathered some pretty flowers within reach, and asked the guide to gather some graceful hare-bells that hung over the steep cliff.

Another look from the head of the falls, and a few more flowers gathered, which they pressed, together with the rose-buds from Owah-Menah, and they got into the carriage.

Soon they reached Fort Snelling, in which Norman was very much interested. They drove round the deserted barracks, no longer astir with “the pomp and circumstance 110of war.” Norman would have enjoyed seeing the sentinel on duty and the soldiers on parade. His mother thought of the lonely lives the officers and their families must have led on that frontier post, far, far as it then was from the center of civilized life.

The fort commands a noble view, placed as it is on a commanding bluff at the junction of the Mississippi and the St. Peters rivers. The valley of the St. Peters, sloping upward, with its sunny fields, its aromatic grasses, and noble groves, stretches onward in its beauty as far as the eye can reach. In this valley is found the fine red stone of which the Indians make the bowls of their pipes; the red paint the Sioux use so much, and the blue and green clay used in painting, are also found here. This lovely valley had recently been the scene of a bloody battle between the Sioux and Chippewas, and the driver told Norman that he had seen 111some of wounded Indians carried through St. Anthony by some of their tribe.

From the earliest times these two nations have been at war; a feud transmitted from generation to generation.

How few of these Indians have learned the great lessons of loving kindness which the white men ought to have taught them. Steadily retreating from their broad prairies, their great lakes and rivers, before the advancing tread of the white man, they have not, as they gave up their beautiful homes, got a title to a grander and more glorious inheritance in the spirit land. How many have received firewater and fire-arms, at the hand of the white man! how few have taken from him the cup of salvation! Some of the customs of the Sioux seem to indicate that they have come from Asia, across the narrow straits that divide the two continents. They offer sacrifices and prayers to an unknown God; they have 112feasts of thanksgiving after deliverance from danger; they offer meat and burnt-offerings; they burn incense. These customs, together with their peculiar countenances and utterances, their own traditions, and the testimony of other nations, have convinced careful observers that they are descendants of a race of Asiatics.^[3]

The road winds around the hill on which the fort is built, and Norman saw many swallows flying into nests excavated in the banks of white sand-stone.

Crossing the river by a rope ferry, they ascended the opposite bank, and drove rapidly onward till they stopped to visit Carver’s Cave.

There are several large rooms rounded in the white sand-stone, which crumbles at the touch. The floor was of pure white fine sand, powdered, while through the cave flowed a stream clear as crystal. 113Norman stooped and drank freely of the cool refreshing water. He was delighted. “How beautiful these arched walls are,” he exclaimed; “how curious to have such rooms hollowed out of the earth.”

There were other apartments to be reached, through a narrow passage, but the driver had no torch with him, and it was not advisable to venture in the darkness. Norman broke off a piece of the sand-stone as a memorial of the cave, and then hastened to the carriage.

Over the prairie, with its abundant blossoms; along the high bluffs upon which St. Paul is built; through a long busy street; a pause at the door of a gentleman whom Mrs. Lester had known in her old home in the East, and they were once more on the Grey Eagle.

And there was the lady whom they had left at the Winslow House, just getting out of the stage. Her face brightened as she heard of Fort Snelling, the lovely 114Minnehaha, and Carver’s Cave; but then she had had a very satisfactory view of St. Anthony’s Falls, and had been able to verify, in the truth-telling daylight, the vague and indistinct impressions of a moonlight drive.

CHAPTER IX. DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI.

The gentleman whom Mrs. Lester had called to see, and who was out driving at the time, came to the boat to see her, and promised her many lovely drives if she would prolong her visit. There were many things to say of old friends and scenes, and he sat talking in the saloon till Norman ran in to say that the boat had left the wharf. Good-by was hurriedly said, and Mr. —— hastened to the captain to ask him to put him ashore, as he was not prepared for a voyage down the Mississippi.

“That is the way,” said the captain; 116“people do not mind their own business, and then I have to attend to it.”

He good-humoredly, however, gave the order to arrest the course of the proud steamer, and direct its prow to the opposite shore. It was the work of some minutes, for they are obliged, in stopping at a landing going down stream, to turn the bow up the current.

“Well, captain,” said Mr. ——, as he sprang on shore, “I promise you to go down twice in the Grey Eagle for this.”

There were some curious caves on the eastern bank of the river, walled up and with windows in them. In one of these the owner keeps his vegetables, as it is perfectly protected from the frost.

Going down the river was the going up reversed, and yet the same scenery became new, seen under different aspects. The broad sunlight that now lay on land and water was not so favorable to artistic effect as the softened light and the 117lengthening shadows of the previous evening.

After dinner the Rev. Mr. Maynard asked Mrs. Lester to go into the bow of the boat, where there was a cool breeze, most welcome in that sultry summer day, and a fine view of the scenery. Norman would not go; he was tired, and preferred reading in the saloon, where his mother left him. Nearly an hour passed away, and as they were, approaching the St. Croix River, Mrs. Lester said: “I must show Norman this beautiful sheet of water; he did not see it when we went up.”

Through the long saloon she went, opened her state-room door, he was not there; out on the guards, not there. She asked the stewardess, who had not seen him since dinner. Breathless with agitation, Mrs. Lester rushed upstairs to the hurricane-deck, meeting Mr. Maynard, who had come up the opposite side to 118look in the pilot-house; the boy was not there! where could he be?

Mr. Maynard had looked in the steerage, the barber’s shop; there was no corner of the boat unvisited, and the terrible dread that he had fallen overboard was settling down on his mother’s heart as she sank down on a chair in the saloon, when the stewardess exclaimed, as she opened the door of the state-room, “Here he is, asleep in the upper berth!” And there he was, fast asleep, with two life-preservers, which he had tied around him, and which his mother had mistaken for a gray comforter.

Norman, awakened, looked down with some wonder at the group at the door. It was very hot; the sun’s fervent rays were shining upon the state-room, and the life-preservers rather added to the heat, so that Norman had had a pretty warm time. But he had made up by a sound sleep for the late sitting up of the night 119before, and the early rising at St. Anthony, and he was now quite ready to enjoy the afternoon.

Mr. Maynard, greatly relieved that Norman was found, pointed out his house on the high bank of the river at Prescott, and then said good-by, as he was going home.

Lake Pepin looked finely, with the “wavy curvature of its guardian hills;” and again the Maiden’s Rock attracted all eyes. Lake City is prettily situated beneath the bluffs on the western bank. A young girl, who there came on the boat, told a sad story.

A few days before, a party of merry young people got into a boat, to sail over to Maiden’s Rock. The party was planned to celebrate the birthday of a young girl who, with her sister, and two friends, sisters, on a visit to them, had just returned from school for their vacation. Two young gentlemen and another young 120lady completed the party. The morning was bright, and the sail charming. There was no cloud in the sky, no shadow on that youthful group. They climbed the Maiden’s Rock, gathered berries like those Indian maidens, and talked of the sad fate of the chief’s daughter; little dreaming that in a few short hours the fate of Oola-Ita was to be theirs, that they, too, were looking for the last time on the waters of Lake Pepin!

On their return a sudden flaw of wind upset their boat in the middle of the lake. The young men charged the young girls to hold fast to the boat as it floated, upturned, in the water. They did so till, one by one, their hands becoming numb and powerless, and their strength exhausted, they sunk to rise no more! The long hair of one of the girls became entangled around the button of the coat of one of the young men, and he succeeded in lifting her up, and reaching the shore 121with her. The four sisters were gone, and as the three survivors entered the town with their heavy tidings, the friends of the two sisters visiting Lake City drove in to take them home. Alas, they were already beyond the reach of earthly help or love!

In a few days the bodies of these four young girls were found, two of them far down at the other end of the lake. Every heart sympathized with the bereaved parents, and while their house was left to them desolate, the shadow of grief rested on the whole town.

A clear sunset and fading twilight gave place to the rising glories of the queen of night.

About ten o’clock the boat stopped by the side of a forest to take in wood. Pine fagots, lighted on the shore, cast a ruddy glow on the men, who ran rapidly to and fro with their burden.

The moonlight slept peacefully on the 122waters, while from out of the shadowy recesses of the grove a whippowill charmed the night into silence. Rapid, clear, and distinct were those sweet sounds, as if he wished to sing his song for the listening ears soon to be far away. He seemed to have all the wood to himself, as he warbled his delicious notes. In harmony were they with the still beauty of that summer night, with the mystery of that woodland scene, and the quiet ripple of the moonlit waters.

“Loud, and sudden, and near, the note of the whippowill sounded, like a flute in the woods; and anon, through the neighboring thickets. Further and further away it floated, and dropped into silence.”

Later in the night there was alarm and confusion on board. The steamer Itasca, at a landing, ran into the Grey Eagle, breaking her paddle-wheel. There was a crash, and for some time none knew the 123extent of the injury received. The engines were stopped. The emigrants sleeping on the deck, near the broken wheel, roused by the collision, were transferred, with their sleeping children, to the other side, and fruitless attempts were made to repair the injury. After a delay of two hours the machinery was again set in motion, and the one paddle-wheel had to do all the work. Happily Norman and his mother, who were on the quiet side of the boat, slept through all the noise and confusion.

CHAPTER X. FOURTH DAY UPON THE MISSISSIPPI.

Early in the morning Winona appeared, surrounded by its protecting hills, reposing, as do most of those pretty towns, in the shadow of the great bluffs, “like peace in the bosom of strength.”

The boat stopped for some time at La Crosse, a very nourishing town. Here Mrs. Lester saw two Indians in blankets and leggings, a sight Norman missed, to his great disappointment. He was at the other end of the boat, too far off to be summoned in time.

The pilot, having just left his watch of six hours, came and invited them to 125come up to the pilot-house in the afternoon. It was a welcome invitation, for the day was very warm, and the pilot-house, with its cool breeze, and its commanding view of the scenery, was a most desirable place. Norman admired the handsome pilot as, with steadfast eye and erect figure, he stood at the wheel, scanning the waters, and guiding the vessel in the channel, winding round the islands, and from one shore to the other of the great river. Turning the wheel, first to the right, and then to the left, it seems very easy work, a very simple operation; and yet what destinies depend upon those movements; fortune, happiness, life, all involved! Hundreds of human beings pass days of enjoyment and nights of quiet rest because they have faith in their pilot.

And there are men who, as they guide the pen, or utter calm, truthful words, or pray in the deep of their hearts, seem to 126be doing very little, and yet those pen traces, those simple words, those earnest prayers, may guide hundreds in the perilous voyage of life, may direct their course away from the shoals and snags that threaten destruction, and float them safely to their desired haven.

Norman was greatly mortified at the disabled state of the Grey Eagle, one wing broken, how could she maintain her triumphant flight? Others accustomed to yield the palm, now passed her with ease.

“I hope they know that her paddle-wheel is broken,” said Norman; “just look at those boats; what efforts they are making to pass us!”

Norman watched the boats with great interest, as they put on more steam, and darted past the Grey Eagle, making the landings before her, and carrying off the waiting passengers.

The view, crossing the river from Prairie du Chien, overlooking the islands as 127they now could from their elevated position, was extremely fine.

The Northern Light and the Grey Eagle met at M’Gregor’s Landing, and the captain of the latter was telling the captain of the former about his broken paddle-wheel and his consequently tardy progress.

“There is a lady trying to speak to you,” said the pilot. On the Northern Light was Mrs. Ralston, with whom Mrs. Lester had intended to journey to St. Paul. Handkerchiefs were waved and mute signals attempted, but the few desired words of explanation were wanting. Near and yet afar off. The boats soon parted for their opposite points of destination, and Mr. and Mrs. Ralston, from the hurricane deck, waved their good-by. Nearly opposite M’Gregor’s landing is the mouth of the Wisconsin River.

“There was a memorable voyage on that river nearly two hundred years ago,” 128said Mrs. Lester. “Two canoes, containing seven men, floated down these waters, ‘entering happily this great river with a joy that could not be expressed.’”

“Who were they, mother?”

“Father Marquette, the gentle, good missionary; Joliet, a citizen of Quebec, and five Frenchmen, their companions. They had left the Fox River, which flows into Green Bay, and carrying their canoes, they crossed the narrow portage that divides it from the Wisconsin on the 10th of June, 1673. Down the river for seven days, floating in those majestic solitudes, seeing neither man nor beast, passing beautiful prairies, and green hillsides, the discoverers at length reached the great river which they were seeking to find.

“And where did they go then?” asked Norman. “Over these waters the light birch bark canoes floated for about sixty leagues. Then they landed on the western bank of the river, where they saw 129foot-prints on the shore. They followed them till they came in sight of an Indian village.

“They commended themselves to God, and cried aloud. Four old men advanced to meet them, bearing the calumet, the peace-pipe, adorned with brilliant feathers, and saying, “We are Illinois,” which means, “We are men.” The Indians invited the strangers to their village, prepared a feast in their honor, and entertained them for six days. Several hundred warriors then escorted them to their canoes, hanging around the neck of Marquette, on parting, the calumet, with its plumage of various hues, a pledge of safety for the wanderers among savage tribes.”

“Do go on, mother, and tell me something more about Marquette. I think his adventures are very interesting.”

“I know little more about him, except that he sailed down the river past the Missouri and the Ohio, and that some 130warlike Indians, armed with clubs, axes, bows and arrows, came out to meet them with the fearful war-whoop. Marquette stood up, holding the sacred peace-pipe, and God touched the hearts of the Indians, so that at the sight of this symbol they threw their bows and arrows into the canoes, and welcomed the strangers.

“On their return they sailed up the river Illinois, through the beautiful prairies. The tribe of Illinois that live on its banks wanted the good missionary to remain with them, and one of their chiefs, with his young men, led the party to Lake Michigan, by way of Chicago. Here Marquette remained to preach to the Miamis north of Chicago, and Joliet returned to Quebec, to announce the discovery of the upper Mississippi.

“And what became of the good Marquette?”

“Two years afterward, as he was going to Mackinaw, he entered a little river in 131Michigan, which, for a long time afterward, was called by his name. He requested the men who paddled his canoe to carry him ashore. They did so; and there, with no shelter but the little bark cabin which his men hastily erected, he endured great agony. But he seems to have had faith in Christ, and died in great peace. In the gloom of the vast forests he slept to wake again in the green solitudes of the New World. His companions dug his grave on a rising ground near the river, and buried his body, which was afterward taken up by the Indians, and carried with great respect to old Mackinaw, and placed in a little vault of a Catholic church, which has long since disappeared.”

The scenery that on their upward course was vailed in mist and drizzling rain, was now seen in its “fairest, happiest attitude.” Nothing was wanting to “the gentle grace” of that parting day. Purple, 132crimson, and gold painted the western sky, as the sun sank slowly below the horizon, lighting up a fairy scene on the placid waters of the river. Then, as the onward motion of the boat rudely disturbed the sleeping glory, new combinations of beauty sought to make amends for the loss of the serene picture of the radiant heavens. Golden ripples, a honeycomb of black and gold, lay between them and the wooded banks toward which, as the gorgeous tints now faded on earth and sky, Norman directed his attention.

Rocks, decayed trees and branches covered with moss and lichen, were faithfully mirrored in the waters, giving a kaleidescopic effect to every object. Norman saw, simultaneously with his mother, exquisitely tinted butterflies, insects of green and gray, stone altars, rustic letters, and many other objects. Exclamations of wonder and admiration were echoed 133from one to the other at some of these marvelous combinations; and it was with reluctance they turned, as the twilight deepened, from the margin of the woodland to the clear outline of the trees against the western sky. There was still room for fancy to sketch her pictures, and call up birds and beasts in that varied outline.

“This is the pleasantest afternoon of all,” cried Norman; “it is so nice for us to be by ourselves.”

“And yet you forsook me first, Norman, and, absorbed in your play, lost the first views of the Mississippi. You said there was a want with children which children alone could supply—a demand of the social nature.”

“I know it, mother; I know that I said so, and I enjoyed those merry games very much; but after all this has been the happiest time.”

CHAPTER XI. A SUNDAY IN DUBUQUE.

A very pleasant room at the Julien House afforded a welcome retreat on the Sabbath. It was intensely hot; the burning rays of the sun were reflected from the towering bluffs that shield the town from the west wind. A walk of a mile and a half through the main street led them to the Methodist church, where the services were very animating and delightful.

A cordial greeting from the minister, who had known Mrs. Lester in the East, 135was followed by a kind invitation to the parsonage, next door to the church. There was a beautiful bunch of flowers on the table, gathered on the prairies the day before. One, the moccasin flower, a large yellow flower, with a sort of pouch like a gigantic calceolaria, Norman had never seen before, and he was very much pleased when a number of them were given to him.

Several churches to which Mrs. Lester went in the afternoon were closed, so she continued her walk to the same church, where she heard a very good sermon from the Presbyterian minister, to whose congregation the use of the Methodist church was given while their own was being repaired.

The street she took on her return home led her nearer to the bluff, up which people were creeping to get some cool air in the oppressive stillness of that summer afternoon. Every door was open, and 136quiet pleasant interiors were revealed to the passer-by; family groups, seated on the porch or in the parlor, reading or taking their tea.

Toward evening, as he was sitting on the window, Norman saw a number of people flocking to the Levee, and he asked his mother’s permission to follow them, and ascertain what had happened. He soon returned, looking very grave and downcast. He had been in the presence of death. A young man of nineteen had been drowned the evening before, seized with sudden cramps while bathing, and they had just found his body. There it lay, floating on the water, the head downward, the limbs drawn up; and in the solemn presence of death light and careless words had been spoken that shocked Norman, touched as he was by the unfamiliar sight. The drowned lad was French, an orphan and a stranger in the land, with no one to miss him or mourn 137for him, save one loving heart, that of a sister, left alone without kindred or friends. Later in the evening the vehicle containing the body stopped at a confectioner’s, on the opposite side of the street, and the young man was carried in to the room he had left the evening before, in the fullness of life and health.

Well is it in this life of uncertainty, when the happiest moments may be darkened by the presence of this grim visitor, to be prepared for his coming; to have our fear of him taken away; to be able to look upon him as the messenger sent to call us to our Father’s house.

“In the midst of life we are in death: to whom then, O Lord, can we turn but unto thee!”

CHAPTER XII. DOWN THE RIVER.

The morning came bright and warm as ever.

At the boat Norman was delighted to see his friend, the pilot of the Grey Eagle, who introduced them to Captain Gray, of the Kate Cassel. There he saw too the lady who brought with her memories of the early dawn at St. Anthony. “You like to see everything that is to be seen,” she said to Mrs. Lester; “under that bare spot you see on the bluff south of the town is the grave of Dubuque, the Indian chief who once owned all this land.”

“Mother,” said Norman, as their kindly 139informant left them, “Dubuque is a very strange name for an Indian chief to have; he must have been named by the French when he was a child.”

“Julien Dubuque,” replied his mother, “was not an Indian, but a Frenchman, who bought all this valuable mining region, so rich in fine lead ore, from the Indians, in 1788. They had been discovered two years before by the wife of Peosta, an Indian warrior. Dubuque died in 1810. The Julien House is named, I suppose, in his honor.”

For a hot and weary hour the deck hands were busy taking on freight: first barrels from a warehouse on the Levee at Dubuque; then at Dunleith, a number of reapers and mowers, very heavy and cumbersome to be moved.

As soon as the boat was in motion Captain Gray asked Mrs. Lester if she would go to the pilot-house, as that was the coolest part of the boat. Very kindly 140he escorted her thither across the hurricane-deck. It was a delightful change from the heated atmosphere below to the cool refreshing breezes above.

“Two eagles at once,” said the captain. “There is something for you to look at, my boy.”

There was the Grey Eagle, her paddles both in motion, and the War Eagle following her in her northward course; a great sight for Norman.

The banks are well wooded, and of some elevation, and there are pretty islands; but the scenery is more monotonous and not so grand as that of the Upper Mississippi. The river is much more shallow, and can be navigated only by a smaller class of steamboats.

The captain pointed out to them, on the banks of the river, the entrance to a lead mine, and a hill-top called Pilot Knob.

At two o’clock they approached Fulton, 141and the captain courteously took them on shore.

Fulton, the terminus of an air-line road from Chicago, is rather an uninviting looking place, with a grand hotel, suitable for a great city; a destiny Fulton does not seem likely to achieve.

Seated in the cars, Norman saw the sun set for the last time on the great river that had become to him a familiar friend; saw the Rock River gleam in the moonlight; and soon after the welcome lights of his uncle’s home.

Norman had a great deal to tell his uncle and aunt about the Mississippi, and Minnehaha, and the boats, and the little incidents of their journey, and the week he was to spend at Dixon passed rapidly away.

One day Norman’s aunt took Mrs. Lester to see Father Dixon, the patriarch of the place to which his name is given. The hotel also bears the name given to 142him by the Indians, Nachusah, or the White Haired. His long flowing white hair makes him look very venerable; and there is an expression of gentleness in his delicate features that wins the love of the children of the town, who all call him Grandpapa. He established a ferry over the Rock River thirty years ago, when there were no white people in all the country round, and lived here in his solitary dwelling by the river side.

He lives there still; and Mrs. Lester was very much interested in her visit to him, and in his accounts of the Indians who formerly roamed over these prairies, now the fruitful farms of the white men.

One day a gentleman, who lived on the opposite side of the river, sent his two carriages over for Norman’s uncle and aunt, his mother and himself. As Norman was in the woods with Herbert Waldorf, they went without him. The bridge had been 143carried away by the flood, so they crossed by the rope ferry. A very stout wire rope was stretched across the river, and a scow was fastened to this by a rope which slipped by a wheel along the iron cable. When they drove on the scow, the man turned the prow of the boat up the current, which at once urged the boat onward. It is a very pleasant and rapid way of crossing the river, allowing one to have a near look of the swiftly flowing waters.

Mr. Dexter had a pretty cottage and fifty acres of prairie land just on the edge of the town. Mrs. Lester went up stairs to see the extensive view of prairie from Ernest Dexter’s window, and then she looked at a cabinet of fossils, most of which he had collected himself in Illinois. There were some very fine specimens, and he was kind enough to give Mrs. Lester a number of them.

The music of the piano called forth the 144rival notes of the mocking bird, and, accompanied by several canaries, he made the air vocal with sweet sounds. Mrs. Lester forgot what she was playing, so charmed was she with these delicious songsters. Strawberries and ice-cream were fully appreciated after the music, and the evening’s entertainment concluded with a magnificent sunset on the prairie. Golden clouds were penciled softly on the clear amber sky, while rugged wild clouds towered up in stern contrast with this calm serenity. One could imagine the cliffs of Sinai in those gray clouds, so bold and lofty, while through a torn rift gleamed the soft blue sky. It was a memorable sunset even in the West, where they claim for their sunsets a peculiar beauty.

Norman was very sorry when he heard how much he had missed, especially as Mr. Dexter had been kind enough to send over twice for him. So he told 145Harold Dexter, when he saw him at church the next day, that he would walk over with Herbert Waldorf on Monday morning.

After breakfast Norman and Herbert walked over to Mr. Dexter’s, where they found the boys waiting for them. After a careful survey of Ernest’s treasury, and of a smaller cabinet belonging to Harold and his brother, they set off, with baskets and hammers, in search of minerals. They went to a quarry and found a very fine fossil, a portion of a petrified snake. They hammered at this for a long time, but they broke it all to pieces in endeavoring to get it out. Harold found, however, a large stone filled with petrified shells, which he kindly gave to Norman, who came home in the afternoon with his basket filled with pieces of rock.

One afternoon Norman saw three “prairie schooners” in the street before his 146uncle’s door. These are the emigrant wagons with their white tops, which look not unlike sails as you see them quietly moving on over the far reaches of the prairie. A number of horses and boys were standing near them. The party were hesitating as to their course; wishing to cross the river, and seeing no bridge but the railroad bridge, they were making their way to that, when they found they could not cross it. Hence the halt and the consultation.

“Norman,” said his mother, “do go and find out where those emigrants are going.”

“O mother,” said Norman, “I would not ask them for anything.”

“I will go then,” replied his mother, as she opened the garden gate, and walked up to the last prairie wagon, in which a woman was seated with her four children.

She seemed pleased to hear the accents 147of a friendly voice, and soon told her simple story.

Eight years before she had been left a widow, with six children. The boys of twelve and fourteen did not wish to learn a trade, and farming was not very profitable in the part of Pennsylvania where she lived; so she had come to seek, in the fertile fields of Iowa, bread for her children. She had worked hard, and days of toil were still before her, but there was more hope in that virgin soil of securing a competence. The rich deep black loam of these prairies often, at its first sowing, bears a golden harvest, that gives back to the farmer the amount he has paid for the land, and the expense of its cultivation.

Mrs. Lester asked the emigrant, in whose patient face she had taken much interest, if she had any friends in the new and strange country to which she was going.

148“O yes,” she replied; she had a married daughter there, and a church and Sunday school for her children. She was a Methodist, as were the two families with whom she was journeying; and she would have been unwilling to go where her children would be deprived of their religious privileges.

There were fifteen persons in the company. They had driven from Pennsylvania to Cleveland, where they had taken the cars for Chicago. The wagon was lifted on the car, the cover taken off, and the woman said she had had the pleasantest ride she had ever taken in her life, looking over the lake and the prairie from her elevated position. From Chicago they had journeyed on, sometimes sleeping in their wagons, and sometimes on the floor of some house opened for them. There were bright, black-eyed children peeping from the recesses of the covered wagon, as their mother was talking to 149Mrs. Lester, and one little girl sat intently reading. Mrs. Lester bade her goodspeed, and the woman, with brightened face, thanked her for her words of kindness and sympathy.

The last day of their stay in Dixon at length arrived, and with it came Aunt Clara, whom Norman had never seen before, but whom he very soon learned to love. She showed him his picture when a baby, which his mother had sent her, and she found it difficult to trace any resemblance to the tall boy before her.

Norman stayed with her and his uncle in the evening, while his mother went out with a gentleman and lady to take a drive on the prairies. The day had been very warm, but there was a cool breeze on those boundless meadows that undulated peacefully, in their rounded swells, to the far horizon. The corn was laughing in rich abundance, the wheat standing thick on the fields, after the sun had set, 150leaving its luminous track of light in wavy radiance; one huge cloud towered up in solitary grandeur, its bold outline gilded by those parting rays.

CHAPTER XIII. THE PICNIC.

Norman was very sorry to part with his dear young friends, Alfred and Herbert; but he was very glad that his Aunt and Uncle Lester, and his Aunt Clara, were going with them, so that he had not to say good-by to them. As he had traveled over this road when he came west, he had seen these broad prairies before, but they were now enameled with brighter hues. Great patches of purple phlox, a profusion of yellow flowers, and bright 152red lilies, made all the broad expanse a vast flower-garden. His Aunt Clara said that many of the prairie flowers were disappearing in the progress of cultivation. The cattle that now covered the plains destroyed them, and the plow rooted them up.

“Yes,” said his uncle to Norman, “your Aunt Clara sometimes fancies her mission is to cultivate a blooming inclosure, in which she will preserve all the prairie flowers from the extinction to which they are rapidly tending.”

Geneva, which they soon reached, is a pretty town on the Fox River, and the house of Henry’s aunt, whom they had come to visit, had a view of the river and its wooded islands. Norman’s Aunt Clayton was very glad to see him, and very kind to him, so that he was very happy with his new relations. His aunt would bring him, several times a day, a great tumbler of good rich milk, the like of 153which he had not often seen. She sent for Willie Clayton to meet Norman, and the boys asked permission to bathe in the river, Willie assuring Mrs. Lester that it was perfectly safe. They were absent for a long time, and as neither of the boys could swim, Mrs. Lester became very anxious as the dinner-hour approached, and they had not yet returned. Mr. Clayton very kindly offered to go in search of them, and while he was gone the boys made their appearance. They did not know that they had been so long away; they had waded over to the island, and the time slipped away more quickly than they thought.

After dinner Norman said his back was very much burned, exposed, as it had been, to the fierce rays of the sun. His mother put some flour on it, but after a while, it became so painful that he had to lie down on the bed and have it covered with flour. His neck, and back, and 154arms were all bright scarlet, and he suffered very much from the intense burning.

The next day there was to be a school picnic in the grove, and Willie was to speak on the occasion. Norman said it would be impossible for him to dress himself; but when the animating strains of the band floated in his window, as the procession marched to the grove, he thought he might make the effort. His mother helped him to put on his clothes, as his back was all blistered, and he walked with her and his aunt and uncle rather soberly to the picnic.

The children were seated on benches under the trees, and a platform was erected for the speakers. Norman was soon seated beside Willie, who was also suffering from his sun-burned back. The band was stationed near them, and between the recitations and declamations of the children, “discoursed most excellent music.”

After a while the company were invited 155to partake of refreshments, and, preceded by the band, they marched to another part of the grove, where tables were tastefully arranged, covered with an abundance of good cake, and ornamented with flowers.

Norman and Willie were in the front rank next to the rope that separated the children from the tables; but the pressure from behind was rather severe on their tender backs, so they came to where their mothers and aunts were standing.

Mrs. Lester was happy to recognize in one of the young men most active in providing for the wants of the children, one whom she had known in her former beloved home in the East. Of his mother, who had been a near neighbor, she retained a most kindly remembrance; and as she had been suddenly and recently called to her home in the heavens, Mrs. Lester was glad to learn that her son, left with his brother almost alone in the 156world, was active in this western town in the Sabbath school and in the temperance cause, maintaining a consistent religious character. A great field for usefulness is opened in the West to Christian young men. So many young men, in seeding their fortunes in these new and thriving towns, throw off the restraining influence of their pious homes; absent themselves from the house of God, and are thus easily led aside by a thousand encircling temptations.

Exercises in geography, arithmetic, and declamation followed the feast, some of which the band applauded in a very graceful manner. A number of children gathered around the musicians, and one little boy, in a bright red frock, stood leaning against his father, close by the great drum, his eyes fixed on its great circumference, and his eyelids winking every time it was struck.

After the exercises one of the ministers made a very good speech, in which he 157told the children that if they wanted to rise above being mere drudges at the dictation of others, they must study, they must work, they must learn to think. What they did, they must do with their might; when they played, they must play in earnest; and when they studied, they must study in earnest; and that to be industrious and to be in earnest, was the only way to be anything, or to do anything in the world.

He made the children laugh when he told them that in some parts of New Hampshire the fields were so stony, that it was jocosely said that the farmers sharpened their sheep’s noses that they might eat the grass growing between the stones. This was a wonderful story for western children, who never saw stones on their broad fertile prairies.

As the band played its farewell, the company left the ground greatly pleased with the day’s entertainment.

CHAPTER XIV. THE CAMP-MEETING.

The next day Norman was to go with his mother and aunt to a camp-meeting. It had rained the night before, and the clouds were gathering in rather a threatening manner, obscuring the heavens, and forming in dark masses at several points on the horizon. It was thought not very prudent to go, but the strong desire in Mrs. Lester’s face overpowered the cooler judgment of the others.

“If it does not rain,” said Mrs. Lester, “those clouds will certainly be better than 159the broad glare of sunshine we have had for some days past.”

The carriage drove up to the door, and calling for some friends who lived near, they were soon on their way. The drive was very pleasant through the Fox valley, with frequent groves and pretty views of the river. They drove into the pretty town of St. Charles, across its fine bridge, with its noble piers, through the town on the east of the river, and after a little while into the deep woods in which the camp-meeting was held. The road through the woods was very bad: deep mud, and several sloughs, called in the west slews. All these critical spots were happily passed, and reaching the grove they got out of the carriage and walked on the camp-ground.

The gentleman who accompanied them brought the carriage cushions to put on the plank seats, which were rather damp with the heavy rains of the night previous. 160There were ministers in the elevated covered stand, appropriated to them, and a large congregation gathered for a love-feast. It was pleasant to hear them speak of the happiness of religion, to see the calm peace on their countenances, and to listen to their expressions of love to their Saviour, of faith in him, and fixed resolve to live to his service.

An intermission of a few minutes before the public service gave Norman an opportunity of looking about him. About thirty tents were pitched in a circle, and in the center of the amphitheater thus formed, seats were arranged for the congregation beneath the shade of fine noble trees that spread wide their branches. One, beneath which the preachers’ stand was placed, threw itself toward the other trees, that bent as if to meet it, making a most picturesque group. At each corner of the area there was a structure formed of four stout sticks, about five feet high, 161on which rested a platform covered with turf. On these rude candelabras, at dark, they kindled pine knots, to give light to the evening meetings and to the encampment. How much Norman would like to have seen this wild woodland thus illuminated, the broad glare flashing on the gathered groups.

An excellent sermon was preached on “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ;” and then a young minister, with the sweet expression of whose face Norman had been struck, got up and made an address full of beauty. It was enforcing the law of kindness. He said that when they drove to the camp-ground the day before they had got into a slough on the road, and there they were fast, the horses remaining quiet after some ineffectual attempts to move forward. The driver, he was glad to say, betrayed no impatience, and did not swear at the delay. Soon another 162wagon drove up, and the driver, seeing the difficulty they were in, at once unhitched his own horses and drew them out. And that was what, he said, we ought to do when we saw people in trouble, draw them out if we had the power. He then spoke of the harsh judgment we often form of others, because they are deficient in some point upon which we lay stress. “Now,” he continued, “these trees that bend over us are not rounded and full on every side; some have their wealth of branches on one side, and some on another. And so Christians seldom present full symmetry of growth. One brother has a great deal of patience and very weak faith; and one sister has faith almost strong enough to remove mountains and very little patience. Now we should rather contemplate the excellences of our Christian friends than their deficiencies.”

He exhorted the people not to be like 163those trees that are slow to yield their fruit, whose fruit, hard and green, required a vigorous shake to loosen its hold. “Rather,” said he, “be like those generous trees, borne down with their golden fruit, blessing the eye, and the touch, and the taste of all around—trees of blessing, making glad the heritage of God.” He spoke of words of kindness and sympathy, how often they cheered the heart of the desolate, and brightened the path of the wayfarer. How often those who were collecting for benevolent objects were more cheered with the kind words of one who had no money to give, than with the large gifts of another, grudgingly bestowed.

One word of counsel he gave, rather at variance with ordinary exhortation. He charged his hearers to try not to be first, but to be second. “In your plans and pleasures think of some one before yourself; prefer the comfort of some friend to 164your own; sacrifice your own ease to promote the well-being of another, and you will tread in the footsteps of Him who pleased not himself.”

Norman saw the tears in his Aunt Lester’s eyes, as he turned to look at her, and he thought that she had learned that lesson well, that she was always thinking of other people, and preferring their comfort to her own.

The hymn, swelled by the united voices of that large congregation, filled the grove with its solemn harmony, and then the words of the benediction fell like dew upon them.

Norman had never been to a camp-meeting before, and the scene had all the charm of novelty to him. He saw the people preparing their meals in the rear of their tents, the fire made of dry sticks on the grounds, and the kettle hung on a cross stick, placed in the notches of two upright ones. The tables were spread in 165the tents, and soon surrounded by family groups. A lady, who knew Norman’s aunt, invited them to dinner, after which they returned to their seats, when the bell was rung for the afternoon service.

The sermon was a good one, on “Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing may be lost.”

Norman did not remember much of the sermon; but one fact, given by the minister who rose to exhort, made a great impression upon him.

“At a time of great religious interest,” said he, “when many persons, awakened to a sense of their danger, were inquiring what they should do to be saved, I spoke to three boys, and asked them if they could not, by personal effort, lead some of their companions to the Saviour. One of the boys, a tall and thoughtful lad, stood a little apart from the rest, his eyes fixed on the ground, while I was talking 166to them. He said nothing, but it was an hour of fixed resolve.

“Three days after one of the boys came to me, and said: ‘Sir, do you remember the tall boy that stood near when you were talking to us?’ ‘Yes, I do,’ I replied. ‘Well, sir, he has been trying ever since to lead sinners to Christ; and he has persuaded three men, and two women, and a little boy to give their hearts to the Saviour; and there he is, sir, talking to that gray-haired man!’ I followed the direction of the boy’s eye, and there stood the lad, his thoughtful face all aglow with feeling, as he spoke earnestly to the old man, who shortly after came forward, and knelt as a penitent at the altar of prayer. Who can estimate the good thus accomplished by the earnest efforts of this lad; and why may not every one follow his example, and make it his business to lead souls to Christ?”

167It was with reluctance they left this hallowed scene, where they had been permitted to join the swell of holy song, and to hear so much that was profitable; teachings that ought to make them better. Norman would gladly have stayed for the evening services, to have seen those trees gleaming out in the ruddy light, but they would not venture to travel that road in the darkness. As it was they had a very pleasant drive home, where they came just in time for tea.

CHAPTER XV. A SABBATH-DAY.

The Sabbath dawned clear and beautiful, bringing refreshing breezes after the intense heat of the past fortnight. After the morning service in the Methodist church Mrs. Lester stayed to the Bible class led by the minister. The lesson was the eighth chapter of Romans, and it was interesting to see two old men, with spectacles, bending earnestly over one book, and talking over the meaning of the passage. The members of the class were all men and women, and there was a very free interchange of thought, as they looked 169into the Scriptures of truth. One face especially attracted Mrs. Lester’s attention. It was a youthful face, rather large, very fair, with light hair, blue eyes, and regular features, not beautiful, but with a sweet, heavenly expression on the high brow, and in the untroubled eye. In the class-meeting that followed the Bible class, she spoke calmly, but with an unfaltering trust, of her love to the Saviour, as being the master-passion of her soul; that she loved God supremely, and found him to be a satisfying portion. Her father, who led the class, spoke to her, with tears in his eyes, of the time when her decrepit form would put on immortality, and would shine with glorious beauty; when she would know no weary hours of pain, but would dwell in the land where the inhabitants shall no more say, I am sick, but where all tears shall be wiped away.

Yes, that sweet face was the face of a 170cripple. Her form was shrunken and withered, and her limbs had never carried her whithersoever she would. Her father took her into his arms at the close of the service, her limbs hanging limp and as if without life, and carried her to the little wagon in which he had drawn her to church. Mrs. Lester asked her if she was not tired with the long service.

“O no,” she said; she would like to stay there till the evening prayer-meeting at five o’clock.

It was not very often she could go to the house of God. She felt with David, “A day in thy courts is better than a thousand: I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.” O how she loved the house of God, the place where his honor dwelleth.

This poor, crippled girl, who had known no happy childhood, who had never been able to participate in its sports, who had 171always been confined to the narrow precincts of a home destitute of all the luxuries of life, who had been daily accustomed to pain and privation, had yet found the true secret of happiness. It lay like moonlight on her countenance. She had that within which many of the rich and wise and great, who look at will on the glorious scenery of earth, who command the treasures of literature and art, who surround themselves with all the comforts and appliances of a home of elegant sufficiency, fail to gain—calm peace in her heart, perfect contentment with her lot, and a spring of never-failing happiness. Nor is she useless in the world, though she has no worldly means to give, nor hands or feet to do her bidding. The light of her holy example, her patience, meekness, resignation, and faith, are treasures to the Church. Every Wednesday there is a prayer-meeting in her room, of which she takes the charge, as she can be always present, and 172the beauty and propriety with which she speaks of divine things make her words very profitable.

In the afternoon Mrs. Lester and Norman went to the prayer-meeting. At the close of the service Mrs. Day, to whom Mrs. Clayton had introduced her in the morning, came up and asked her to go home by the way of her house, as she wished to gather some flowers for her. The large garden, filled with flowers and shrubbery, blooming most luxuriantly in that fertile soil, looked cool and inviting. Mrs. Day handed Norman some flowers as the beginning of his bouquet, and told him to go and pick what he liked. Pink and white spireces, double China pinks, a few lingering June roses, the pretty bee larkspur, the coreopsis, candytuft, and verbenas, were gathered in profusion by Mrs. Day’s lavish hand, and arranged in two bouquets for Mrs. Clayton and Mrs. Lester. “Four years ago,” said she, “this garden was a bare 173field. I never was so discouraged in coming to any new place.”

“You certainly have transformed it into a very pleasant home,” replied Mrs. Lester. “Taste and cultivation, with such a soil as this, can soon work wonders. You can truly sit under your own vine and fig-tree,” continued she, pointing to a beautiful grape-vine that had crept up a lattice, and inclosed with its graceful green curtain a verandah in the rear of the house.

“Yes,” said she, “I planted that vine myself, and it is a daily rejoicing to me, and a sermon too. It reminds me continually of that true Vine from which we must draw all our life and sustenance.”

“It is well,” said Mrs. Lester, “to have divine truths thus brought to our minds by the objects that surround us.”

“My prairie home,” said Mrs. Day, “was really beautiful; that was quite to my mind; a nice house shaded with trees, 174adorned with shrubbery and flowers, and looking upon broad fertile fields.”

“Why did you leave so pretty a home?” asked Mrs. Lester.

“We came here to be near a church, and to enjoy religious privileges. For years after we went on the prairie our house was the home of the preachers, and meetings were always held there. As the country became more settled the services were transferred to a church, four miles from us, and we at length concluded to give up our home to our son, and come to spend the evening of our lives in a place where we could constantly enjoy the services of God’s house. We have tried to make religion the chief business of our life, and God has prospered us.”

“And you enjoy this new country?” inquired Mrs. Lester.

175

No. 666.

WESTERN SETTLER’S FIRST HOME.

177“It seems to me,” she replied, “the oldest country God has made; such riches as these are in the soil all ready and prepared for the seed of the sower, only waiting for man’s coming to yield of its abundance.”

The sun was tinging town and prairie with his parting beams, and the garden was already in deep shadow when Norman and his mother, loaded with bright and fragrant flowers, returned home.

CHAPTER XVI. ON THE RAIL.

Early, very early the next morning, the fifth of July, Mrs. Lester was aroused by the firing of cannon, to celebrate our national independence. Norman and Willie had kept the third, by firing off crackers all day, and winding up with wheels, Roman candles, and blue lights, exhibited to an appreciating audience on the portico in the evening. After breakfast Norman, his Aunt Clara, and his mother bade good-by, and got in the carriage which was to convey them to Batavia, the spires of which were visible 179from Mr. Clayton’s. It was a pleasant drive of two miles in the Fox River valley. The man drove very fast, and they were sorry to arrive so soon at the place of their destination, especially when they were told that they were to wait two hours for the arrival of the train. The hackman, who had come for them before the time, had many demands for the carriage, for which he charged an extra price in honor of the holiday. A number of passengers were waiting for the train; many of them going to the celebration at Aurora, a pretty town, all astir with gaily dressed people, and a procession marching to the grove where already a crowd was gathered. It was a most lovely country, soft rolling prairie, with its wealth of golden wheat, of waving corn, of graceful barley, bordered by rich groves of timber, and dotted here and there with towns and villages.

At Mendota they left their cars, and 180entered those of the Illinois Central Railroad. There were several trains there, and a great number of passengers hurrying to and fro, and rushing in to dinner. Norman ran first into one store, and then into another, to buy some torpedoes, as he was very anxious to make some noise, to give vent to his patriotic feeling. He came back with a large box full, just in time, for the train was soon in motion. And the passengers too, for the road was so rough that the people went dancing up and down in the most violent manner. Mrs. Lester asked the conductor if the road was so rough all the way? No, he said; they had passed over the worst of it. And with that hope Mrs. Lester tried to enjoy the beautiful prairies, and the noble view of the Illinois River as seen from the high embankment over which the road passes.

Norman would like to have seen the “Starved Rock,” somewhere on this 181river, whither some Indians, pursued by their enemies, fled for refuge. They were surrounded, and all escape from the rock prevented by their encircling foes, who, day after day, waited for them to surrender. At length they scaled the rock, and found the garrison all starved to death but one squaw, who calmly awaited the entrance of her enemies.

The Starved Rock, however, was not in sight, nor was any rock recalling thrilling legend and heroic story; but another prospect, not so agreeable, from the rear of the car near which they were seated—a long strait road, the rails of which were rather too much curved to suggest ideas of safety. “Don’t you think this road very unsafe?” inquired Mrs. Lester of a gentleman who was contemplating this retrospective view of dangers passed.

“Not very, but it might be safer.”

Up and down jumped all that car-load of passengers, whose faces wore not the 182calmest and brightest expression. Suddenly there was an explosion that startled people rather ready to be startled, and Mrs. Lester, remembering the torpedoes, turned to Norman, who was looking out of the rear window, and said reproachfully, “Norman, how can you do so?”

Every eye was directed toward the blushing lad, as he earnestly exclaimed, “Mother, it was not me.”

Returning to his seat he looked for the torpedoes, which he found had been jolted off the seat on the floor under his mother’s feet, and a sudden movement of her foot had caused the explosion of ten or twelve of them. “There, mother, it was you after all,” said Norman, as he gathered up his remaining torpedoes.

Again they were startled—a prolonged whistle, and a stoppage of the cars on an embankment at a distance from any station. Every head went out of the windows, and some enterprising passengers 183went out on the platform to learn the cause of this ominous pause. Again and again that warning whistle; what did it mean? At length the matter was explained. About twenty horses were on the track, galloping on in front of the locomotive, which was obliged to pause till they separated to the right and the left.

Right glad were the party when they arrived at Bloomington. Mrs. Lester wished to go to a very handsome hotel, the photograph of which had been shown to her on the Grey Eagle by the proprietor thereof. A large unfinished building seemed to her very like the photograph she had seen; but that could not be, as the photograph must have been taken from the hotel in its finished, occupied state, with handsome stores beneath. On inquiry she found this was the hotel in question, which stood there, an arrested monument of western enterprise. They went to the hotel opposite, and after tea 184some friends of Aunt Clara’s called to see them, and to ask them to walk.

Bloomington is a large, finely situated town, on the rising prairie, not far from the fine groves that mark the course of Sugar Creek. The president of the Illinois University (situated in a grove near the town) walked with them, and took them to the observatory on the Female College, where they had a lovely sunset view of the town, the prairie, and the distant woods. How cool and refreshing were those prairie breezes after the intense heat of the day; but they were warned by the fading light that it was time to return. No mountains or hills to prolong the twilight in these regions. The sun sinks, and speedily the darkness comes on. Miss Allen, Aunt Clara’s friend, insisted upon their coming in to see her. With kindly hospitality she had sent for several of Aunt Clara’s friends to meet her; and while Norman was amused with some fireworks 185in the court-yard, they were refreshed with cake and ice-cream. Miss Allen, her brothers, and Mrs. Lester had very pleasant conversation about some mutual friends, and thus passed the evening to an hour rather late for travelers who were to rise at two o’clock in the morning.

At that early hour they were aroused, and the omnibus conveyed them to the station at three o’clock, where they had the satisfaction of being told that the cars had stopped above the junction, cause unknown. Probably they had run off the track, and they might not arrive before eight o’clock.

“There is the locomotive that is to take us,” said a gentleman, pointing to the expectant iron horse, panting and snorting, and rushing to and fro, as if impatient at the delay. “I saw him in the bank on Saturday, just below here. But he has suffered no harm from running off the track.”

“Near them stood an engineer with his 186arm in a sling. He had been returning to his post, as he had been off duty, when he threw himself forward to rescue a man who, having missed his footing on the step, would have been under the wheel of the car. As it was, his struggles loosened the footing of his deliverer, who succeeded in dragging him on the truck, from which precarious position they were rescued as soon as the train could be stopped. The engineer’s arm was badly broken, but the man whose life he had saved never came to thank him. “I have no money to give him, why should I go?” said he to the conductor, who told him to thank the man who had periled life and limb to save him.”

“Men do not risk their lives for money,” replied the conductor, turning away from the ungrateful man.

“The prospect looks rather dim,” said Aunt Clara, the first discouraging word she had spoken.

187“How calm and quiet she was,” said Norman, “when we were so frightened in the rail car.”

The waiting-room of the station-house was not very comfortable for weary passengers; Norman established himself on three chairs, and was soon fast asleep on his hard bed; nor was he wakened when his mother slipped her carpet-bag under his head.

A group near the door was more picturesque. It was a German family whom they had seen the day before at the cars, and who had passed all night at the station. One little girl lay across a bag, her head tending toward the floor. The younger brother was on his knees, resting his head on a chair, fast asleep; while near them, her head erect, as if watching over her goods and chattels, sat the elder sister, a quaint, prim-looking girl of thirteen, with a short waist, and a little shawl pinned round it, and a broad 188flat over her braids of light hair; while round her were bags, and boxes, and bundles, an incongruous heap, in which it was at first somewhat difficult to distinguish the sleeping children. The little boy at length, weary of his constrained position on his knees, had pillowed his head on his sleeping sister’s foot, which, by sundry twitches, and a few energetic kicks, freed itself from the encumbering weight. But still the children slept on. The mother was sitting outside of the door, silent, because none knew her language. At length a telegram announced that the cars would be there at five. The locomotive had been stopped because the rails were slippery.

The early twilight brightened into day, the train arrived, the passengers stepped in, and a very short time brought Norman, his mother and aunt to their point of destination; a few houses had been dropped down on the prairie, as the nucleus 189of a town; not very promising as a resting-place. Soon, however, a buggy and a wagon drove up for the travelers, who, after a short drive, were welcomed by their relatives.

CHAPTER XVII. THE PRAIRIES.

It looked quite homelike; the house shaded by tall trees, the garden, the hedge of Osage orange shutting out the wide expanse of prairie. The house was in the corner of Tazewell county; the barn in McLean, and the greater part of the farm in a third county. Norman found two new aunts to know and love, and a tall cousin of six feet three.

It was not long before he became acquainted with two little girls of ten and 191twelve, cousins, who lived on a farm near, with whom he had many pleasant hours of play. They had, too, a great deal to talk over of their journings in the West, for these little girls had always before lived in a New England home. They had seen a great many Indians, painted in all their bravery, in Wisconsin. They had seen a squaw, with her papoose strapped on her back, riding on a small Indian pony, with a child before and a child behind.

“This, mother,” said Norman, “is pleasanter than all; one day on a prairie is worth ten days in town.” He was up early in the morning to see the horses watered before they were sent off to the field. There were more then twenty of them, and Norman’s cousin, Justin, selected the handsomest colt on the farm, and gave it to Norman for his own. Norman was enchanted. He took an ear of corn, and Prince followed him about, eating it 192from his hand. Even after Prince had gone down into the field, he followed Norman and the ear of corn home.

“Mother, look at my colt,” said Norman in triumph; “how am I to get him home?” There were various plans discussed, as the one idea took possession of his mind, but no satisfactory conclusions were arrived at. The glow of delight somewhat faded away. “I really do not know what good my colt is going to do me,” said Norman, despondingly; “I cannot ride him here, and I cannot take him home.”

His face brightened, however, when David brought up a horse for him to ride. He had never rode before but once, when the pony threw him over his head; but he said this was the sort of riding he would like, to charge over the prairies.

He did ride off several miles over the prairies by himself, and then he rode four miles with his Aunt Clara.

193It was the time of harvest, and Norman loved to watch the mowing machine as it so rapidly cut down the tall grass, and the hay-making, and the tossing it into the great hay-stack. But what most interested him was to watch the progress of the great header, with its three attendant wagons, as it loomed up so grandly in the harvest field. Three horses urged onward the machine, which cut off the heads of the wheat and threw it on a platform, whence it was taken up in an elevator and received into a wagon, which accompanied the gigantic machine till it was loaded, and then, giving place to another, drove to the great stack with its burden. This machine requires three attendant wagons and six men, who thus cut down as much wheat as fifteen men can do in the ordinary way, and stack it to boot. These mowing and reaping machines seem especially intended for the extensive level grain fields of Illinois, 194which would look in vain for reapers and mowers with the old sickle and scythe. Something is lost however in picturesque effect, as was most manifest in the field next to that which the great header was so rapidly despoiling of its riches. This field was dotted over with the graceful sheaves of wheat, while a number of men were engaged in the work of binding and stacking them together.

Norman had watched too the ploughman, who, with a cultivator passing between the shining corn, did the work more laboriously done at the East by hoeing.

He liked to watch the herds of cattle and sheep feeding on the prairies; great herds, for everything was on a great scale on these western farms.

But better even than this were the stories his cousin Justin told him about his boyish days. He was twenty-three years old, and he had lived on the prairie sixteen 195years. It used to be the custom, he said, to plant a flagstaff in some central position, and invite horsemen to leave the groves all around and ride to this point at a certain hour. As the hour approached horsemen would be seen issuing from all the groves, riding rapidly onward, driving before them wolves, and the timid deer, till a dense ring of three or four hundred horsemen inclosing the frightened animals who were then dispatched by the clubs with which the men were armed. Sometimes the desperate wolves broke through the ring where it was weakest, and then there was waving of hats, and cheering, and galloping after the animals, and all was wild uproar. “I can remember” said he “the charm these wolf-hunts had for me when I was a boy of twelve; how I armed myself with my club, mounted my spirited horse, and galloped off to the stirring scene.”

196“My cousin Walter,” continued Justin, “liked to hunt the wolf alone. One day he encountered a prairie wolf, whom he pursued till the wolf plunged into the stream to escape him. Seizing him by the tail, he cut the strings of his hind legs, during which operation the wolf bit his foot, leaving the mark of his long teeth through his boot. The disabled wolf, however, as it emerged from the water, made but slow progress, and Walter, disengaging his stirrups, gave him a blow in the forehead which killed him, and stripping off his skin, he returned home with his trophy, afterward to do good service in the form of a muff for his sister.”

Then he told of the prairie fires that came every year. To be prepared for the approach of this fiery invader they ploughed several furrows near the fence of their farm, and then several furrows at the distance of about four rods, and to the 197grass on that interval they set fire, that this bared strip might oppose a barrier to the flames. Onward they would come when the wind was from the same quarter, with the speed of a locomotive, crackling, flashing, leaping high in the air, rolling great waves of lurid light onward with fierce rapidity. They would watch the on-coming of this sheeted flame, terrible in its fiery glare, crimsoning the heavens with its ruddy glow, consuming everything in its path, sending up fiery messengers into the sky, and wonder whether it would be possible for them to escape. “It was a magnificent sight,” continued he; “never do I expect to see anything so terrible in its sublimity and beauty. Now that the prairies are covered over with the habitations of men, we have no more prairie fires, and no more wolf hunts. No more fierce pursuer did the prairie wolf find than this untiring adversary of flame, 198driving before it the terrified wolves and the gentle deer, flying for life till they reached some timber where the fire would be arrested.”

Norman was very sorry when the day came for him to leave. He was sorry to leave his aunts and cousins, to whom he had become very much attached; he was sorry to leave his colt, and to give up his pleasant rides on horseback. The day they were to leave they were to dine with another aunt of Norman’s, and Norman, accompanied by David, rode there on horseback, while his cousin Justin was to drive his mother in his buggy. She had very much enjoyed her daily drives over the prairies, enamelled with flowers, of every new variety of which Justin stopped to gather for her, and which she prized as memorials of those pleasant hours.

At his aunt’s Norman saw the picture of his Cousin Walter—the hero of the 199wolf story—a face full of intelligence and sweetness, a slender form. He was a brilliant youth, with high hopes and aspirations, when, in the midst of his collegiate course, he was stricken down by cholera, and in a few days was numbered with the dead.

After dinner Norman mounted his horse, and, attended by David, who rode beautifully, he took his way toward the station. His mother and his cousin started about half an hour afterward, and pursued their winding way. The road on the prairies is continually changing; as the new farms are fenced, the owners divert the road from their fields to the exterior of their farms. One memorable place Mrs. Lester had passed on her drive to the village the evening before. It was a slough where, in the spring, a pair of horses were so completely buried that it was necessary to employ oxen to drag them out by the head. One field, on their 200way to the station, looked as if it were covered with pansies, the rather coarse flowers with which it was filled being softened by distance into this likeness.

They drove across a grassy field that looked as if it must at some time have been the bed of a great river, so strikingly did the woodlands resemble the banks. Indeed, one is often struck, in looking out upon the prairies, with the resemblance to a sea view. At the margin there will frequently be a mist, such as bounds the view on the water; the groves of timber jut out into the prairie like headlands, and the eye often follows these indentations as if tracing the shore of a vast lake. Proofs are not wanting to establish the fact that Illinois was once the bed of a great lake, probably an expansion of the Mississippi, till it broke though on its headlong course to the Gulf of Mexico. The prairie breezes come every day to moderate the intense heat of summer, and sweep over 201these vast plains as on the bosom of a great inland sea. Those who build in the timber lose these refreshing winds.

Mrs. Lester was somewhat troubled on arriving at the station to find that Norman was not there, though he had left so long before her, and she looked rather anxiously over the prairie for some signs of his coming. The boys were not visible, and she was contemplating the prospect of returning to the kind friends whom she had left when they came in sight. She waved her handkerchief to them to hasten, as the train was due in five minutes. Just in time; the train was in sight as Norman stepped on the platform; and as Justin accompanied them into the cars to find them seats, Mrs. Lester hurried him off, lest he should be taken on, so short was the pause at the station.

CHAPTER XVIII. CHICAGO, AND THE RIDE THITHER.

The ride was very agreeable: boundless views of rolling prairie, that looked like English park scenery; scattered groves, pretty farm houses, thriving villages, afforded a constant succession of agreeable objects. Far to the west was seen a threatening cloud, at length descending in torrents of rain to the westward, while the sudden, violent wind that swept across the track of the cars was succeeded by dashes of rain. A curious optical illusion was produced by the sun shining from behind a dark cloud, and throwing 203lines of light across the prairie, producing the effect of a fort, and of long rows of white buildings. The sun was setting behind clouds of crimson and gold when the train arrived at Joliet, and stopped twenty minutes for refreshments.

Joliet, named in honor of the citizen of Quebec who first trod the soil of Iowa, is a handsome town, ornamented with numerous spires. Here are fine quarries of the beautiful cream-colored stone used so much in Chicago, and transported thither by a canal running over the low wet prairies parallel with the railroad.

While waiting till the train from Chicago should pass them, Norman had a fine view of some splendid rockets in honor of the arrival of a noted politician in the city.

At the station they found their kind friend, Mr. Percy, and he drove them to his house very rapidly. Late as it was, Mrs. Percy and Miss Ray were at the 204door to welcome them, and, after a few words of greeting, to show them to their rooms.

The next morning Norman went fishing with Charley Percy, and while he was gone his Uncle and Aunt Lester came in Mrs. Hunter’s carriage to take them for a drive. Mrs. Hunter took them to her house, where they had iced lemonade; and Mrs. Lester returned, promising to take tea and stay all night with Mr. and Mrs. Lester at her brother’s, where they were staying. This brother was a minister, and his home had an atmosphere of taste and refinement and piety. Choice books, in every room, invited perusal; illustrated works attracted the eye; a canary warbled its sweet notes, especially when the piano was touched; and the mistress of the house sang the songs her husband had written. Most pleasantly did every object harmonize with the repose of the Sabbath. The new Methodist 205church edifice was in the next street, and the services were held for the last time in the lecture-room, as on next Thursday the church was to be dedicated to the worship of God. At the love-feast in the afternoon there was an earnest expression of gratitude to God for the abundant mercies he had showered upon them during the past winter, and for the prosperity that had attended their efforts to erect a house to his service.

Mrs. Percy sent the carriage for them in the afternoon, and they found the family assembled in the parlor, singing sacred songs. Each one had the music of the hymns, and the hour before tea thus passed most pleasantly. In the evening Norman and his mother went with Mr. and Mrs. Percy to church, and heard an excellent sermon from Dr. Rice, on the breast-plate of faith and love, and the helmet, the hope of salvation. “How much reason have we for thankfulness,” 206said Mrs. Lester to Norman in the evening, “that everywhere we have found Christian homes; everywhere family prayer, and a love for God’s house and service. How many such privileges have we enjoyed!”

The next morning Dr. Davis called to invite them to pay him a visit; Norman went with Albert Davis, and a few hours afterward the doctor called in his carriage for Mrs. Lester. Norman’s uncle and aunt were in the carriage, and when they arrived at the doctor’s country place, they found Norman lying on the grass, contemplating Albert’s pony.

Norman found some very interesting books filled with large colored plates of birds, and plants, and Indians. He looked at these portraits of the red men, taken by Mr. Catlin, and read sketches of their history with great interest

In the afternoon Dr. Davis drove them to see the pretty grounds of a gentleman 207in the neighborhood, and to the Lake View House, where they drank some iced lemonade, and wandered on the beach. It seemed very much like the sea-shore, the great waves rolling in and dashing against the sand, and, a little below, the hulk of a vessel blown ashore and stranded in the recent storm. Such proofs of the power of old Michigan, when its waves rise up in their might, may be seen all along its shores, unprovided as they are with harbors for vessels to take refuge in at the approach of the tempest.

CHAPTER XIX. ON THE LAKES.

Lake Superior, the mighty lake, fed by two hundred rivers and streams, plunging down falls and rapids to mingle their waters with those of this inland ocean; with its stern rocky walls, and overhanging crags; with its rich mines of copper, silver, and iron; with its abundant fisheries of trout, pickerel, pike, carp, black fish, and white fish; and with its grand pictured rocks, presenting columns, towers, arches, and ruins, and hollowed out into vast caverns, echoing with tremendous roar to the dash of the waves. An excursion 209proposed to this lake offered great attractions, and Mrs. Lester was tempted to go on the fine steamer that was to take a party thither.

Norman supplied himself with trolling-hook and fishing tackle, as the steamer was to stop frequently to allow the passengers to fish in those cold, clear, transparent waters. Charley Percy and his friend, Alfred Scarborough, somewhat older than himself, were going in the steamer to Collingwood, on their way to Niagara; so in the evening they went to the boat, accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Percy, and Alfred’s father and mother. The saloon was gayly lighted up, the band playing; the state-rooms were very comfortable, and the beginning of the voyage at least was very promising.

Good-by was said to their kind friends, and the steamer moved slowly down the river, past the warehouses, and through the bridges, in the darkness, amid the 210gleaming lights here and there, and to the sound of music, and it all seemed very dream-like. At length they reached the lake, and the regular lines of light on Michigan Avenue sparkled as they sailed away. It was very late, near eleven o’clock, and the travelers soon sought the repose of their berths. Mrs. Lester only wakened in the morning in time to see the graceful spires of Racine, sleeping in the early morning light.

About ten o’clock they sailed into the harbor of Milwaukee, built on both sides of the Milwaukee River, on a high bluff overlooking the lake. Most of the town is built of the Milwaukee brick, which is of a light straw-color; and though this brick is a very fine building material, yet it harmonizes too much with the color of the sandy streets and sandy bluff to give a fine effect to the town. A stronger contrast would be better. There are some very fine buildings; a hotel of beautiful 211and elaborate design, and a custom-house of fine architecture, built of white stone.

Until one o’clock “The Planet” remained at Milwaukee, awaiting the arrival of a party who wished to go on the excursion, and who had telegraphed them from Chicago, and this delay enabled the passengers to ride and walk about the town.

A sad sight met the eyes of those who remained on the boat. The steamboat Traveler was just passing them, on its way out of the harbor, when the mate, who had given some orders not followed to his satisfaction, let himself down from the upper deck, by catching hold of the middle rail of the balustrade. The rail broke, and the man was thrown into the water, probably receiving some mortal blow on the way, as he never rose. Truly there is but a step between us and death. In that calm water, on that still, sunny day, the hardy seaman who had braved 212death in the darkness and tempest, found a grave.

It was very warm, and all were glad when the steamer was once more in motion, and the fresh breezes of the lake came with their cooling for heated brows. It was rather too fresh after a while, and there was more motion than was consistent with the enjoyment of some of the passengers. There was a shower, too, dimpling the lake, and driving most of the people into the saloon.

Norman had his first experience of seasickness, and retiring to his berth at five o’clock, he slept there till the morning. His mother was very sorry to have him miss that magnificent sunset on Lake Michigan. The rain had passed away, and a light breeze crisped the waters. The boat had made its last landing, and the little town they were leaving was glorified by its back ground of amber, deepening into a brilliant orange. Every house 213and tree came out with marvelous distinctness, as the sun dipped behind the western horizon, and painted, after he had passed from view, a gorgeous picture as his parting gift—a gift not to be lost with the fleeting hour, or to be confounded with other gifts from the same source. It was marvelous in its beauty. Clouds of rich crimson, fading into brown, were festooned on the serene radiance of the clear sky. A wealth of celestial drapery seemed drawn aside to reveal the far-off glory. As these kindling hues faded away, a cloud nearer the horizon assumed the aspect of a woodland scene receding from the shore of the lake. There were the headlands jutting into the water, the nodding groves, the bays running into the land. It was difficult to make all this extensive country only cloud-land, and the little company at the stern of the boat gazed upon it till the gathering darkness hid it from view.

214It was a night of glorious shows; about ten o’clock the northern lights threw up their quivering brilliant scintillations far up into the heavens, glorifying the north with a bow of flickering beauty, even as the west had been glorified with masses of magnificent clouds. The lake, however, was almost too rough to allow many spectators to enjoy this glimpse of northern splendors, and most of the passengers sought the safe security of their berths.

Early in the morning Norman was called by his mother to come out on deck and see the Manitou Islands, with their sandy bluffs and crown of green trees. Norman looked at them a long time in silence by himself. When he came to his mother he said: “I feel almost as if I had been looking at the Holy Land; those islands were the holy land to the Indians, the dwelling-place of the Great Spirit, not to be approached by mortals.”

215“It made me very fanciful to look at them,” continued Norman. “The great cloud of smoke that our steamer is sending toward the island, and that now hovers over it, seemed to me an oblation to the great Manitou of the Indians.”

There was a visitor from those islands; a pretty little bird that lighted on the ropes, and jumped about the deck till frightened away.

They passed Beaver Island, once inhabited by the Mormons, who, the captain said, seemed a very quiet, inoffensive people when they lived there. He said they had been very kind in assisting him once when he ran ashore near their island.

After breakfast Norman, his mother, and Alfred Scarborough went to the hurricane deck. Soon a gentleman came up, and walked vigorously up and down, giving at each turn some good advice to Norman. He was an English clergyman, 216hale and fresh complexioned, with a bright eye, and firm, quick step, though he was seventy years of age. “I have come out,” he said, “to get some fresh air before breakfast. There are not many young men that can run up a mountain like me. Many young men only smoke, and sleep, and eat; they never think of taking vigorous exercise. They will never be able to walk as I do at my age.

“Walk, my boy,” said he, putting his hand on Norman’s shoulder “run, leap, and you will grow strong. Those are the Fox Islands, are they? Well, I must go down to my breakfast, they will not make much on me; I can eat a pound more than I could have when I came up.” And thus ending his walk and sentences together, he went down stairs.

It was a lovely morning; the cool breeze was exhilarating, and the morning passed quickly away as they glided 217through the straits that connect Lake Michigan and Lake Huron; the straits so long known under the formidable name of the Straits of Michilimackinac, now abridged to Mackinaw.

CHAPTER XX. MACKINAW AND LAKE HURON.

Just after dinner they reached Mackinaw, where a number of the excursionists were to remain until the boat returned from Collingwood. The captain said they would remain at Mackinaw time enough to visit the fort.

Ready at the gangway as the boat touched the shore, Mrs. Lester, Norman, with a number of others, rushed on shore, scarcely pausing to look through the clear, transparent water at the white pebbles of the beach. Up the hill to the fort, the sun shining down on them with fervent 219heat, while his rays were reflected from the white walls. It was, however, a short, direct road, and the lovely view fully repaid them for the momentary heat. A peaceful scene lay beneath them; the quiet little village of Mackinaw, with its humble dwellings; the beach, sweeping round in the form of a crescent, and the placid waters of Lake Huron beyond, made a pretty picture; the sentinel walking to and fro on his post; the heavy pieces of artillery, and piles of shot and shell. Soldiers, grouped here and there, greatly interested Norman. The descent was very steep, and Norman in one minute found himself at the foot of the walled-in road which they had ascended. On arriving at the boat they found the men engaged in putting on shore sheep and cattle for the support of the soldiers, whose provision is thus brought to them. Taking advantage of the delay, Norman rushed on shore to buy 220some birch bark boxes, filled with maple sugar, and embroidered in porcupine quills. As he showed them to his mother on his return, she ventured up the street to buy some Indian work, emboldened by the sight of the captain walking before her.

A group of Indian women, in their own dress, with blue cloth blankets and leggings, attracted their attention as they entered the shop. They were Ottawas, and one of them had a face of great beauty. It was oval: her features were fine, and there was a pensive expression, a look of sadness on her face, that made her very interesting. Mrs. Lester wanted to look at that face of sorrowful meaning, and learn something of her history; but the sight of the captain, on his return to the boat, hastened her movements, and hastily selecting some fans and boxes of maple sugar, with an embroidered canoe of birch bark, she hurried away.

221Nine more sheep to land; there would have been a few moments to spare for a longer perusal of the face of that Ottawa maiden, but it was safe to come when they did, and not run the risk of being left. And so they were once more in motion, with hastily gathered memories of Mackinaw, its town and fort.

“Norman,” said Mrs. Lester, “did you ever hear of a famous game of ball at Mackinaw?”

“No, mother; please tell me about it.”

“It was in June. A number of Indians had arrived near the fort, apparently to trade, and a day was appointed for a game of ball, of which they are very fond. Stakes were planted, and the game, in playing which the great object is to keep the ball beyond the adversary’s goal, began. The Indians uttered loud cries in the wild excitement of the game, and the commandant of the fort and his lieutenant stood outside of the gate to watch 222them. The ball was tossed nearer and nearer the fort, and the excited crowd of Indians ran and leaped after it, when suddenly they rushed upon the two officers at the gate, and imprisoned them. At once they joined some Indians who had come into the fort under pretense of trading, and imprisoned the whole garrison, seventeen of whom they put to death.

“This was the beginning of Pontiac’s war.”

“I never heard of this game of ball,” said Norman; “but I can tell as good a story of a pair of moccasins. May I?”

“Certainly,” said his mother. “I would like to hear it.”

“Well, mother, I believe this was at the beginning of Pontiac’s war too. An Indian woman had made some moccasins for Major Gladstone, who commanded the fort at Detroit. They were made of a curious elk-skin that he valued very much. He paid her for them, and gave her the 223rest of the skin, asking her to make another pair for a friend of his. The squaw seemed unwilling to go home, and the major sent for her, and asked her what she was waiting for. She said she did not like to take the elk-skin that he thought so much of, as she could not make another pair of moccasins. He asked her why she could not make them. At first she would not tell; but then she said he had been very good to her, and she would tell him the secret, that she might save his life.

“The Indians, who had asked permission to visit the fort the next day, that they might present the calumet to Major Gladstone, were coming with their guns cut off, that they might hide them under their blankets; then, when Pontiac presented the calumet in some peculiar way, they were to fire upon the officers.

“The soldiers were stationed outside of the room where the council was to be held; the officers were armed, and when 224Pontiac was about to present the calumet, the officers partially drew their swords from their scabbards, and the clank of the soldiers’ arms was heard outside. Pontiac turned pale, and presented the calumet without the preconcerted signal.

“Major Gladstone then stepped up to one of the Indians, pulled aside his blanket, and revealed the gun cut short, just as the squaw had said. He accused Pontiac of treachery, but said that as he had promised them a safe audience, they might go out of the town unharmed.”

“Perhaps if he had kept them prisoners,” said Mrs. Lester, “he might have prevented the war that ensued.”

How beautiful the island looked in its commanding position! The high land in the center, with its lofty forests rising like a curve. How much they would have enjoyed the day that had been promised them at Mackinaw to visit the old fort on its central heights, the arched rock, and 225the wild solitudes of this picturesque region. The bold rock known as the Lover’s Leap stood out finely from the greenwood behind, and Norman listened to its story told him by Mr. Bard. An Indian maiden, who had refused to marry a brave who loved her very much, was one day seated on this lofty rock, looking out on the grand view beneath her, when she heard a stealthy step, and her rejected lover stood by her side. The hour, the scene were propitious to his suit, and again it was urged with all the warmth of earnest affection. The maiden listened, hesitated, and at length told him that if he would leap off that cliff she would marry him. The Indian raised his tall form to its utmost height, looked at the sea, the sky, and then at the beautiful face for which he periled the sight of both, and leaped from the giddy verge. Strange to say, without loss of life or limb, with the agility and skill of a well-trained Indian, 226he took the fearful leap, which was broken by the branches of trees and shrubbery beneath. And thus he won his Indian bride.

Mr. Bard, who had come to the country when there were but two houses in Chicago out of the fort, had been familiar with it when the Indian tribes roved at will over the vast prairies of Illinois. He spoke four of their languages, and could sing their songs. He had been twice cast away on the shores of Lake Michigan, and he could tell many a tale of wild adventure. More wonderful than any fairy tale was the aspect of the cultivated farms, the neat farm-houses, the numerous villages and towns, with their spires pointing skyward, the great city that had all grown up in a few years beneath his eye. And those red men, with whom he had been so familiarly associated, where had they gone? How rapidly those western regions are losing the element of the picturesque 227that the Indian with his bark canoe and his wigwam give to their lakes and rivers, with their wooded shores.

He told Norman of a most curious scene he had once witnessed. An Indian had a very handsome pony, which another Indian was anxious to purchase, but which he resolutely refused to sell. They were both drinking, when the owner of the pony, finding his stock of whisky exhausted, asked the other to give or sell him a mouthful from his remaining bottle. He at first declined, but, on being entreated, said that he would give him a mouthful of whisky for the pony. The Indian at once consented to give up his favorite horse for the momentary gratification, and putting his lips to those which had recently imbibed the whisky, he received the stipulated mouthful.

It was a repetition, in these western wilds, of the old Hebrew story, the sacrifice of a birthright by the hungry hunter 228for the mess of pottage given him by the plain man dwelling in tents. Well, were this the solitary repetition! but, alas! Esaus are found in all our borders, giving up, for the indulgence of present clamorous desires, an inheritance more glorious than any to which the first-born of earth could ever lay claim.

The captain asked Norman if he had seen the northern lights the evening before. Norman said that he was asleep, and asked the captain if he frequently saw them.

“O yes,” he replied, “they are very brilliant in these high latitudes. The Indians think they are the dance of the dead. One evening I came on deck, and looking up at that pole I saw a bird just resting on the gilt ball that surmounts it. I seemed to hear the soft flutter of her wings. I watched it for some time, and then went in and called the engineer to look at it. He too saw it, and when I 229turned to look at the boat every line and point seemed luminous. He was showing it to some ladies, and pointing toward it a light blue flame streamed from his finger. Everything was highly charged with electricity, which produced the semblance of the bird on the flagstaff on the bow. I never saw anything like it.”

“How long did it last?” asked Norman.

“About two hours.”

Norman then asked him about Lake Superior, and he told him of the wonderful beauty of the pictured rocks, of the castles and temples jutting out of their bold front, of their arched caverns; that those majestic rocks, three hundred feet high, extend ten miles, and the Indians passed them with awful reverence, thinking that they were the dwelling-place of the great Manitou.

The captain spoke of the sudden storms so violent in this “Big Sea Water” in the 230autumn, and showed Norman a very beautiful gold watch that had been presented to him by the citizens of Superior City, in honor of his courage, skill, and fidelity when his vessel was exposed to a severe storm, and he brought her safely through the snow, and ice, and tempest. On the case was engraved a picture of the “Lady Elgin,” and on the heavy gold chain, secured by an anchor to his buttonhole, were his initials, in massive gold letters.

The captain showed Norman the straits that led up into Lake Superior, and he regretted his mother had given up the excursion around the lake. She concluded that as they had been gone two months from home, it would not be well to set out on an excursion that would detain them ten or twelve days longer, and expose them, moreover, to traveling on the Sabbath. The home prospect looked so bright, however, that they did not regret very much 231the loss of the sight of the prairies and rocks, and all the desolate glories of this great lake.

“Norman,” said his mother, “just think of the courage it must have required when, more than two hundred years ago, two French missionaries sailed over these lonely lakes. They were seventeen days in a light bark canoe. They sailed past the pretty islands we shall soon see in Georgian Bay, and over the clear waters upon which we are now sailing, up the river St. Mary, which the captain showed you, which leads to Lake Superior, and there, at the Sault St. Marie, they told the Indians about Jesus:

232A lady showed Norman a picture of the rapids at the Sault St. Marie, with a number of Indians in their canoes; and the captain said they would paddle their canoes up the rapids, and then throwing their nets in the water as they came down, would catch the fish going up the stream.

After tea they seated themselves in the stern of the vessel, and looked at her track far over the lake. The air was cool and exhilarating, and it was with devout gratitude to God for the wonderful display of his mighty works, and for his abundant blessings, that some of the company gazed upon the serene glory of the sunsetting. It was not gorgeous, as was the sunset on Lake Michigan, with clouds of purple and crimson, but slowly, slowly the shining orb dipped behind the waters. The evening star hung trembling in the sky, faintly shining out from that region of pale gold; while the moon, high in the western 233heavens, promised for many hours her silvery light.

Norman brought out his trolling-hook, that he might have the pleasure of throwing it into Lake Huron, as he was denied that of fishing in Lake Superior. He let it out at the end of a long and strong fishing line, and amused himself watching it bounce out of the water, and feeling the twitches it gave his hand as the boat moved rapidly onward. A lady, who sat near, was very much amused at the stout resistance of the waves. At length Norman drew in his line, and lo! and behold the hook was gone. The action of the waves had worn away the stout cord, made still stronger by being wound around with thread.

“There,” said Norman, “I have lost the hook which cost me twenty-five cents.”

“I think it has given us twenty-five cents’ worth of pleasure,” said the lady, who had been watching the dancing line.

234“And you have the honor of having lost your hook in the clear waters of Lake Huron,” added his mother. Norman was meanwhile tying to the end of his line the little board on which the line had been wound, and he threw that in the water in place of the hook. This was a more stirring pastime. The board offered so much stronger resistance to the waves, that Norman had to wind the line several times around his hand to retain his hold. At one moment the jerk was so violent, that the cord drew the boy toward the low balustrade, over which he might have easily gone, but for the interposing arms of the lady and his mother, at once thrown round him. There was a start among the little company as they perceived the boy’s danger, and Mrs. Lester told Norman he had now better draw in his line.

A new entertainment succeeded. Norman had been watching a sea-gull that 235had been following directly in the track of their vessel for many miles long before sunset; those untiring wings of snowy white had borne the graceful bird onward, and ever and anon she made a circling sweep, and rested a while on the bosom of the water.

“Norman,” said Mrs. Bard, “you go to the pantry, and ask for some pieces of bread, and throw them in the water, and you will soon have a flock of sea-gulls following you.”

Norman waited not a second bidding, and soon came back with some rolls and pieces of bread. He threw some in, and the gull did not see them. He then waited till the bird came quite near the vessel, and threw it up toward her. Then he had the satisfaction of seeing the gull slowly circle round and round, till it picked up the morsel of bread. In a few minutes another gull came, and then another, and then another, till six white birds, on rapid 236wing, were hovering over the vessel’s track, and picking up the bread cast upon the waters.

Norman’s delight knew no bounds. It is pleasant to feed chickens in a barn-yard; but what is that compared to feeding gulls on Lake Huron, and seeing them wing their flight at your call through the trackless solitudes of air. He was sorry when the darkness prevented the sea-gulls from seeing the pieces of bread, and they

The evening star soon set, and the moon was left pale empress of the sky. How glorious was the path of silvery light she threw across the water. Sweet strains of music sounded from the band, and the eye, following that radiant pathway, would see in it now a silvery cascade, and now a shining road to a niche, in which hung the moon, the crescent lamp of night. It was a sweet conclusion to a day rich in enjoyment. Sea, sky, and air had brought their tribute; and the heart of man had rejoiced, as the eye took in this wealth of beauty. What suitable expression those feelings found in the language of the nineteenth Psalm!

237

No. 666.

COMMON GULL.

CHAPTER XXI. COLLINGWOOD.

A bright band of light clearly defined the eastern horizon, and heralded the approach of the sun. A steamer, making its way along the shore, stood out with great distinctness in the clear atmosphere. They were in Georgian Bay, dotted with pretty islands, and near the southwestern shore, deeply indented and covered with timber.

“There are our friends, the sea-gulls,” exclaimed Norman. Yes, there they were—

their white wings glancing in the sunlight. At length Collingwood was visible, 241a stone light-house, on an island, passed, then another wooden light-house, and they were in the harbor.

Norman saw two wigwams among the trees, and a “dug-out” with four or five Indians in it.

The train had left twenty minutes before the smoke of the Planet was seen, and a telegram was sent to Toronto requesting a special train, which it was thought would be granted. The passengers were all seated in the cars, the locomotive had its steam up, when a telegram came to say that there could be no train before four o’clock.

Collingwood is a collection of unpainted houses built in the sand, most dreary and uninviting in its aspect. Norman and his mother, and Alfred Scarborough, walked through its streets. The stores are shaded by evergreens, stuck in the ground, to afford a temporary shade. They went into several stores, to buy some 242Indian things, but there was no one in the store to sell them, and after waiting a while they were obliged to leave. At length Mrs. Lester found some pretty boxes, worked with porcupine quills, and Norman bought an Indian battle-axe.

After wandering a while on the shores of the lake, looking down into its clear transparent waters, and gathering some wild flowers, they returned to the boat, where they found the other passengers. The view of the harbor of Collingwood was very pretty, the waters were blue and beautiful, and the breezes cool and bracing.

Norman watched with great interest a race between a little sloop and schooner, round the light-house. The wind was so fresh that the vessels leaned very far over, and seemed in some danger of being capsized.

While the train was coming slowly up from the pier to the station, where 243the passengers awaited it, a gentleman, with a baby in his arms, was walking on the track. The English clergyman rushed forward before it, waving his umbrella and crying, “Off, man, off the track, or in one moment you will be crushed to atoms.”

Again they were seated in the cars. “What beautiful spikes of purple flowers,” exclaimed Mrs. Lester, “and close by the station. I wish we had seen them.”

“And those brilliant red flowers,” said Norman, “Did you ever see anything prettier?”

“Do you think they are flowers or berries” asked his mother; “we go so fast that I cannot tell which they are.”

At a station where they stopped, a gentleman got out and gathered some of these red berries, handing them to Mrs. Lester through the window.

“Red elderberries,” said Mrs. Lester; “very pretty, but not the gorgeous flowers 244we thought them; we cannot press these.”

The road lay through timber, and the stations were groups of unpainted houses in the clearings. Felled trees and blackened stumps met the eye in every direction.

At a station near Lake Simcoe the train stopped for two or three minutes, and Norman and his mother rushed to an opening, where they had a lovely view of the pretty sheet of water.

A longer view they had, though not so lovely, when the train went down on a short railroad running to the lake, to take the passengers who had made the circuit of it in the little steamboat. The boat was in sight, but some distance off, so that the passengers seated themselves on the pier, or on the piles of boards that encumbered it. Logs and boards met the eye in every direction, and an immense steam saw-mill was at work, converting the 245felled trees of the great forest through which they had passed, into the boards with which the settler builds his house.

“Where is Norman?” asked Mrs. Lester anxiously of Mr. Campbell, a Scotch gentleman. “I do not see him anywhere.” The gentleman told her he would look for him, and in a few minutes he returned with the boy.

“Mother, I went up to that wood to gather some of these beautiful purple flowers for you, and for that young lady. She said she would like some of them, and I saw that the steamboat was so far off that I had time.”

“You should have told me where you were going, my child, and you would have spared me some moments of anxiety.”

“I am sorry, mother, but I was in no danger. I wanted to get some red berries for that young lady, but I could not find any.”

246“You may have these,” replied his mother; “I do not want them;” and while Norman went to give his berries and flowers to the young lady, with whom he had had many pleasant talks on the Planet, his mother pressed the pretty spikes of purple flowers in her guidebook.

The English clergyman stayed that he might go around Lake Simcoe, of which most of the passengers thought they had seen enough. It was dark when they reached Toronto, and Norman did not see much, roused as he was from a sound sleep, till he walked through the stately halls and parlors of the Rossin House, and into his comfortable room.

CHAPTER XXII. A SUNDAY IN TORONTO.

A bright, clear, cool Sabbath! Perfect peace reigned in that city; not a sound disturbed its quiet. All the stores closed; no riding or driving; no groups of idle people congregated anywhere; clean quiet streets only filled with people on their way to the house of God. It was a striking contrast to many of our towns in the States, where multitudes of people are riding and driving, buying and selling, crowding to the drinking saloons, and in many other ways desecrating God’s holy day.

248Mrs. Lester told Norman that she wished him to learn that beautiful promise in the fifty-eighth chapter of Isaiah.

“If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honorable; and shalt honor him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words.

“Then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.”

“Mother,” said Norman, “people do not seem to mind traveling on Sunday. Every one was surprised that you hurried from St. Paul, so as not to be on board the boat on Sunday.”

“I think, my dear child, that those who fear God will keep his commandments. And this commandment to keep holy the 249Sabbath-day was spoken not only amid the thunders of Sinai, but amid the blissful solitudes of Eden. Prophet after prophet warned the Sabbath-breaker of coming woe, and promised blessings to those who remembered the Sabbath to keep it holy. Listen to the beautiful promise God gives to those who keep his Sabbaths: ‘Even unto them will I give in my house, and within my walls, a place and a name better than of sons and daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.’

“Just think of the things here promised, a home, a place in God’s house, a position better than that even of sons and daughters, and a name never to be forgotten. What a reward for the faithful and joyful keeping of the Sabbath, in itself a happiness. But, Norman, read the seventh verse of the same chapter, (Isaiah lvi,) and you will find more blessings promised.”

250Norman found the place and read:

“Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt-offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar.”

In the morning Norman and his mother, accompanied by Mr. Campbell, went to the cathedral. It is a large handsome new church, and the grassy turf around it, shaded by fine trees, gave a very pleasant aspect to the entrance. As they stood near the door awaiting the pew-opener to show them to seats, a lady in a large square pew in the corner invited them in. It was very warm; the pew was under the gallery and closely curtained, and the words of the unseen minister, as he began the service, were inaudible. Mrs. Lester whispered to Mr. Campbell, “Had we not better go somewhere where we can see and hear?”

With words of apology to the lady who 251had kindly offered them seats, they left the pew, and were shown to another in the nave, the body of the church. It was a new thing for Norman to hear prayers for Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, and all the royal family, instead of the President of the United States.

Another thing showed him that he was in a foreign country. On the front of the gallery, just above him, were a gilt lion and unicorn, with a crown above them. The royal arms of England were in front of the pew of Sir Edmund Head, the Governor General of Canada. The sermon was preached by the curate, a slender young man, who was soon to go to Europe for his health. After the service the two aids-de-camp of the Governor General, in full uniform, waited for him at the church door, to attend him to his carriage. He keeps up a sort of court, as the representative of royalty, and his salary is $35,000.

After dinner Mrs. Lester, with Norman, 252went to see Dr. G., a Wesleyan minister, once a fellow passenger across the Atlantic. His house is very pleasantly situated, overlooking the pretty grounds of the normal school, whose fine buildings are an ornament to the city. Once, many years before, Mrs. Lester had taken tea with Mrs. G., and it was very pleasant to renew an acquaintance made under very happy auspices. The evening service in the Wesleyan churches did not begin till six, and Mrs. G. asked Mrs. Lester to remain and go to the Adelaide church with them. Mrs. Lester, however, found it necessary to return to the hotel, and before she went Dr. G. showed her, from the top of the house, the numerous churches whose spires adorn the fair city of Toronto.

They had a pleasant walk to their hotel, at the far end of the town; on their way they passed several handsome churches, one situated in a sort of court, the street terminating at the church. It was a 253pleasant evening service at the Richmond-street church: a very large congregation, hearty singing, and a good earnest sermon.

On passing the pretty Congregational church on the corner of Adelaide and Bay streets, they walked in and found that the minister had just begun his sermon on, “At midnight there was a cry heard, Behold the Bridegroom cometh: go ye out to meet him.” The minister, with a strong Scotch accent was saying, as they entered, “Who of you would be willing to fix a time when you would be ready to hear that cry?” He spoke of the stillness and solemnity of the hour—midnight silence and darkness, when the slightest sound startles one; when the wind, or the rustling of a branch against the window, often terrifies one when sitting alone or suddenly awakened from sleep. What then will it be to hear the piercing tones of that trumpet that will rouse the universe?

254And then he said that that night might the cry sound to one who was listening to him, that suddenly, in the still watches of the night, that soul might be called to meet the Bridegroom. The morning would come; the family assembled at breakfast would miss the absent one, and on going to his room they would find only his lifeless remains; he would never meet with them again on earth.

CHAPTER XXIII. ONCE MORE AT NIAGARA.

Ontario was sleeping in the sunshine when they crossed it on Monday morning.

“Is this an English or American fort?” asked Norman, as he looked at the massive walls of Fort Niagara at the mouth of the river. “It is an American fort,” said a young English officer, who stood near, “but we will come down and take it soon.”

“Not so easily as you think,” replied Norman.

“Yes we will,” said the Lieutenant; “we will come down and take it, and keep it too.”

256“I don’t believe you will,” said Norman.

“We took it once,” rejoined the officer, “in the last war.”

“But you did not keep it,” Norman replied.

As Norman was going off the boat the Englishman said: “We will soon come and annex the United States.”

From the boat to the cars, for the short ride to Clifton Station, there is a superb view of the Queenstown Heights, and Brock’s monument rising proudly on its grand pedestal.

The window of Mrs. Lester’s room, at the Clifton House, commanded a fine view of the falls, so that they could be enjoyed even in the moments of rest and dressing.

It was a lovely day, and the walk to Table Rock is probably the most magnificent in the world, commanding as it does, through its entire length, a noble view of both falls. The sunlight on the white 257foaming water made it almost painful for the eyes to look upon.

They sat on Table Rock and looked down upon the dazzling beauty of those falling waters so quaintly described by the French missionary, Father Hennepin, who saw them in 1678. “A vast and prodigious cadence of water, which falls down after a surprising and astonishing manner, insomuch that the universe does not afford its parallel.”

They had a more extensive view of the rapids, in connection with the falls, from the observatory of the house near Table Rock. Then they went to the Pagoda, and after ascending several flights of stairs, entered a small room containing a round table covered with white muslin. Norman wondered why they had come, when the old man closed the window, and on this white table was thrown a picture that the greatest painter of earth cannot equal.

258Soft and beautiful, a moving picture first of the American falls, then of the brown crags of Goat Island, and the soft foliage of its forests, then of the Horse-Shoe Fall, with its brown stone tower. And while they were looking at this the little steamer Maid of the Mist, was seen making its way through the foam and spray to the foot of that mighty cataract, and then turning for its return voyage.

“What a beautiful picture!” cried Norman, laughing aloud with delight; “what would not the Queen of England give for such a table in her drawing room?”

“No table of mosaic or enamel can ever equal the soft tints of that lovely picture,” replied his mother.

“O look there! look there!” cried Norman, as Table Rock and the road leading to it appeared on the wonderful table. “See those ladies with their parasols seated on the rock, and that little girl 259with her brown straw flat, and that carriage filled with gentlemen driving up there; and look at these ladies walking away; how little do they know that their portraits are painted on this table?

“In old times, mother,” continued Norman, “people would have thought this a magic table, but because we know that it is a camera obscura we do not think it so wonderful.”

“There is the Clifton House,” said the man, “and see that bit of foreground, masses of foliage.”

“Norman, we must leave this enchanted picture, for it will soon be time for us to go back to dinner.”

One more view from Table Rock, more beautiful than ever, crowned as it was with a brilliant rainbow spanning the British and American Falls, a type of the bow of peace which should unite the nations.

Once more the Maid of the Mist was 260seen urging her way close beneath the American Falls. The figures on her deck, in their waterproof dresses, looked weird and unearthly as they stood looking up to that mass of descending waters, and enveloped in the clouds of spray. On their way home Mrs. Lester stopped to purchase some curious fossils from a man who had his stand under some trees, and she sat awhile on a chair he placed for her on the grass, looking at the view, which is exceedingly fine from this point, commanding the fearful chasm and the rugged rocks on the Canada side.

The same walk in the afternoon, when they descended the stone steps leading to the path under Table Rock: down, down by the side of those stupendous cliffs, towering upward in their might, the water trickling along the crevices, till they stood beneath the overhanging Table Rock and looked upward at that mass of falling waters.

261“This I like better than all,” said Norman; “how much I would like to go behind the sheet of water.”

“No, indeed,” replied his mother, “I do not mean that you shall go there. But is not this grand!”

A few minutes only and they retraced their steps, gathering some blue hare-bells growing out of the crevices of these rude cliffs.

Slowly, slowly the shadow of the hills crept up the falls, vailing their dazzling beauty, and obscuring their radiant bows. The sunset came too soon to close that day of exceeding beauty; but then the moon faintly lighted up the splendors of the scene, kindling the rapids above the falls, and making a path of light in the profound depths below. A little way in the moonlight, down the road to the ferry, to gaze on the wonders of that fearful chasm, softened rather than heightened by that silvery light.

262No lunar bow to be seen till late in the night from the Canada side. Those who looked that night from Goat Island and the Tower saw it in great beauty.

CHAPTER XXIV. HOME AGAIN.

Then tell me, what have you brought home? If but an olive leaf, let us have it; come, unpack your budget.

Up at four o’clock; the Falls yet unvisited by the sun’s early beams. The birds were singing their merriest song, as Norman and his mother, after an early breakfast, got into the carriage, and rode along that wonderful river to the Suspension Bridge. A wondering glance at the fearful depths below, as the water rolled on beneath, mighty in its seeming stillness, a last lingering look at the Falls as they crossed the Suspension Bridge, and they were at the station.

In the cars of the Central Railroad; how rapidly they were borne onward! how hot and dusty it soon became! Lockport, 264with its wild scenery, its commanding views, and its splendid locks on the canal, letting down its waters from a great height, interested Norman more than anything he saw. Then the salt lakes, near Syracuse, and the great salt works there!

But Norman was in no mood for enjoyment. The water, of which he drank so freely at Niagara, had disagreed with him, and he suffered a good deal of pain.

“Mother, please do not go to Trenton Falls.”

“O Norman, you would enjoy seeing them very much; they are so very beautiful!”

“I would not enjoy them at all now; but do not let me keep you from going.”

Mrs. Lester hesitated. She was most anxious to visit that spot, so perfectly satisfying in its wild beauty; but it would be a great drawback to enjoy it alone, and she concluded to defer it till some more 265auspicious moment. She little thought of the tragedy that would have saddened her visit!

That afternoon a boy of fourteen fell from one of the rocky ledges, and was at once swallowed up in those engulfing waters. His brother, who was with him, missed him, and saw his hat floating in the rapid stream. They had been brought there, with their mother, to spend a few weeks, by their father, who had returned to his business in town.

And so, at Utica, instead of going to Trenton, as she anticipated, Mrs. Lester resumed her place in the cars, and looked that afternoon upon the lovely Mohawk Valley, as it was unrolled before her view.

At East Albany Norman was looking out of the cars at the up-train, which had just arrived, and at a little boy running under the cars, in front of those great wheels that would crush him to atoms if 266the train moved while he was in his perilous position, when Mrs. Lester exclaimed, “Why, there’s your Aunt Augusta and Aunt Helen!” Glances of recognition, mute gestures, but no words possible, as the train was just starting.

“They are going to Trenton and Niagara,” said Mrs. Lester. “If we had gone to Trenton we would have met them there. There is your Uncle Charles waving good-by from the platform.”

“And there were Bessie and Edith,” said Norman, mournfully.

“I think not,” replied Mrs. Lester. “I did not see them.”

“But I am sure I saw them,” said Norman; “and that will take away half my pleasure in getting home. I was looking forward to telling them about all what I had seen.”

At the depôt Mrs. Lester was kindly greeted by Mrs. Eiledon, who insisted upon sending her home in her carriage. 267After leaving Mrs. Eiledon at Ellesmere, they drove on to the Glen. How beautiful everything looked in this region of valleys and hills! How glorious was the sunset behind those grand, blue mountains! How refreshing the soft evening breezes, after the heat and dust of the cars!

Home again. Norman’s heart leaped up within him.

“How surprised they will be! Mother, put your vail down, and they will think it is Mrs. —— come to pay a visit.”

As they drove through the wood, and came in sight of the cottage, Norman sprang to his feet, and waving his hat round and round, shouted a loud hurra. Even then the party on the veranda did not recognize the returning travelers in the gathering twilight. They fancied them on the distant waters of Lake Superior, and were greatly astonished to see their familiar faces, as they sprung out of 268the carriage. There was a loud and prolonged shout of welcome, and cordial embraces from mother, and sisters, and aunts, and cousins. Yes, Norman’s little cousins, Bessie and Edith, were there, in spite of the vision he had had of them in the up-train, and their voices were loud and merry all the evening.

It was with deep gratitude to God that Norman and his mother retired to rest that evening. They were thankful that his kind providence had watched over them in their journey of more than three thousand miles, and had brought them home again, to find those whom they loved well and happy.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE