eriority to the subject. If a dinner in the Illinois woods, on dry
bread and drier meat, with water from the stream that flowed hard by,
pleased me best of all, yet at one time, when living at a house where
nothing was prepared for the table fit to touch, and even the bread
could not be partaken of without a headach in consequence, I learnt to
understand and sympathize with the anxious tone in which fathers of
families, about to take their innocent children into some scene of wild
beauty, ask first of all, "Is there a good table?" I shall ask just so
in future. Only those whom the Powers have furnished small travelling
cases of ambrosia, can take exercise all day, and be happy without even
bread morning or night.

Our voyage back was all pleasure. It was the fairest day. I saw the
river, the islands, the clouds to the greatest advantage.

On board was an old man, an Illinois farmer, whom I found a most
agreeable companion. He had just been with his son, and eleven other
young men, on an exploring expedition to the shores of lake Superior. He
was the only old man of the party, but he had enjoyed, most of any, the
journey. He had been the counsellor and playmate, too, of the young
ones. He was one of those parents,--why so rare?--who understand and
live a new life in that of their children, instead of wasting time and
young happiness in trying to make them conform to an object and standard
of their own. The character and history of each child may be a new and
poetic experience to the parent, if he will let it. Our farmer was
domestic, judicious, solid; the son, inventive, enterprising,
superficial, full of follies, full of resources, always liable to
failure, sure to rise above it. The father conformed to, and learnt
from, a character he could not change, and won the sweet from the
bitter.

His account of his life at home, and of his late adventures among the
Indians, was very amusing, but I want talent to write it down. I have
not heard the slang of these people intimately enough. There is a good
book about Indiana, called the New Purchase, written by a person who
knows the people of the country well enough to describe them in their
own way. It is not witty, but penetrating, valuable for its practical
wisdom and good-humored fun.

[Illustration: MACKINAW BEACH]

There were many sportsman stories told, too, by those from Illinois and
Wisconsin. I do not retain any of these well enough, nor any that I
heard earlier,