vide the produce.' He thinks it is a hopeless
task to grub in our poor stony hills, when boundless plains in the
western states of North America are only waiting to be ploughed, and in
any factory he can be earning wages so large as to yield a small income
for several years."

"Yes, indeed, I know, it is his cousins who have put this fancy in his
head with their glowing letters. But I suppose we cannot prevent him
going if his heart is set on it?"

"What can we do? He is a free man and must go his own way."

"Well, perhaps it is best. When he is home-sick he will come back
again."

"I am afraid it will be long enough before that happens. At starting all
seems so fine. 'I shall soon come home with a small pile.' In reality
all his memories will grow faint within a year, and the distance to the
red cottage will seem to grow longer as time flies. I mourn for him as
dead already; he will never come back."

* * * * *

A few days after this our emigrant Gunnar breaks all ties and tears up
all the roots which since his birth have held him bound to the soil of
Sweden. He travels by the shortest route to Bremen and steps on board an
emigrant steamer for New York. During the long hours of the voyage the
people sit on deck and talk of the great country to which they are all
bound. Before the last lighthouse on the coast of Europe is lost to
sight, Gunnar seems to have all America at his finger-ends. The same
names are always ringing in his ears--New York, Philadelphia, Chicago,
and San Francisco have become quite familiar, and he has only to insert
between them a number of smaller towns, a few rivers, mountains, and
lakes, to draw in a few railway lines, to remember the great country of
Canada to the north and mountainous Mexico in the south, to place at
three of the corners of the continent the peninsulas of Alaska,
California, and Florida, and at the fourth the large island of
Newfoundland, and then his map of North America is complete.

* * * * *

The voyage over the Atlantic draws to an end. One day a growing
restlessness and excitement is perceptible, and the travellers cast
inquiring glances ahead. It is said that the American coast will be
visible in an hour. And so it is. An irregular line appears to
starboard. That is Long Island. Two hours more, and the boat glides into
the mouth of the Hudson River and comes alongside at Ellis Island in the
harbour