some roaring mill-dam, and drive a little trade in basket-work where
their fathers hunted deer. Our new visitor was probably wandering
through the country toward Boston, subsisting on the careless charity
of the people while he turned his archery to profitable account by
shooting at cents which were to be the prize of his successful aim.

The Indian had not long been seated ere our merry damsel sought to
draw him into conversation. She, indeed, seemed all made up of
sunshine in the month of May, for there was nothing so dark and dismal
that her pleasant mind could not cast a glow over it; and the wild
man, like a fir tree in his native forest, soon began to brighten into
a sort of sombre cheerfulness. At length she inquired whether his
journey had any particular end or purpose.

"I go shoot at the camp-meeting at Stamford," replied the Indian.

"And here are five more," said the girl, "all aiming at the
camp-meeting too. You shall be one of us, for we travel with light
hearts; and, as for me, I sing merry songs and tell merry tales and am
full of merry thoughts, and I dance merrily along the road, so that
there is never any sadness among them that keep me company. But oh,
you would find it very dull indeed to go all the way to Stamford
alone."

My ideas of the aboriginal character led me to fear that the Indian
would prefer his own solitary musings to the gay society thus offered
him; on the contrary, the girl's proposal met with immediate
acceptance and seemed to animate him with a misty expectation of
enjoyment.

I now gave myself up to a course of thought which, whether it flowed
naturally from this combination of events or was drawn forth by a
wayward fancy, caused my mind to thrill as if I were listening to deep
music. I saw mankind in this weary old age of the world either
enduring a sluggish existence amid the smoke and dust of cities, or,
if they breathed a purer air, still lying down at night with no hope
but to wear out to-morrow, and all the to-morrows which make up life,
among the same dull scenes and in the same wretched toil that had
darkened the sunshine of today. But there were some full of the
primeval instinct who preserved the freshness of youth to their latest
years by the continual excitement of new objects, new pursuits and new
associates, and cared little, though their birthplace might have been
here in New England, if the grave should close over them in Central
Asia. Fate was summoning a