: one of November, 28th,
to Orion, who by this time had bought a paper in Muscatine, Iowa,
and located the family there; and one to Pamela dated December 5th.
Evidently Orion had realized that his brother might be of value as a
contributor, for the latter says:

I will try to write for the paper occasionally, but I fear my
letters will be very uninteresting, for this incessant night work
dulls one's ideas amazingly.... I believe I am the only person in
the Inquirer office that does not drink. One young fellow makes $18
for a few weeks, and gets on a grand "bender" and spends every cent
of it.

How do you like "free soil"?--I would like amazingly to see a good
old-fashioned negro. My love to all.

Truly your brother, SAM

In the letter to Pamela he is clearly homesick.

"I only want to return to avoid night work, which is injuring my eyes,"
is the excuse, but in the next sentence he complains of the scarcity of
letters from home and those "not written as they should be." "One only
has to leave home to learn how to write interesting letters to an absent
friend," he says, and in conclusion, "I don't like our present prospect
for cold weather at all."

He had been gone half a year, and the first attack of home-longing, for
a boy of his age, was due. The novelty of things had worn off; it was
coming on winter; changes had taken place among his home people and
friends; the life he had known best and longest was going on and he had
no part in it. Leaning over his case, he sometimes hummed:

"An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain."

He weathered the attack and stuck it out for more than half a year
longer. In January, when the days were dark and he grew depressed, he
made a trip to Washington to see the sights of the capital. His stay
was comparatively brief, and he did not work there. He returned to
Philadelphia, working for a time on the Ledger and North American.
Finally he went back to New York. There are no letters of this period.
His second experience in New York appears not to have been recorded, and
in later years was only vaguely remembered. It was late in the summer of
1854 when he finally set out on his return to the West. His 'Wanderjahr'
had lasted nearly fifteen months.

He went directly to St. Louis, sitting up three days and nights in a
smoking-car to make the journey. He was worn out when he arrived, but
stopped there only a few hours t