n, 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, and 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.

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, to write them down, though they always interested me
from bringing wild natural scenes before the mind. It is pleasant
for the sportsman to be in countries so alive with game; yet it is so
plenty that one would think shooting pigeons or grouse would seem
more like slaughter, than the excitement of skill to a good sportsman.
Hunting the deer is full of adventure, and needs only a Scrope to
describe it to invest the Western woods with _historic_ associations.

How pleasant it was to sit and hear rough men tell pieces out of their
own common lives, in place of the frippery talk of some fine circle
with its conventional sentiment, and timid, second-hand criticism.
Free blew the wind, and boldly flowed the stream, named for Mary
mother mild.

A fine thunder-shower came on in the afternoon. It cleared at sunset,
just as we came in sight of beautiful Mackinaw, over which, a rainbow
bent in promise of peace.

I have always wondered, in reading travels, at the childish joy
travellers felt at meeting people they knew, and their sense of
loneliness when they did not, in places where there was everything new
to occupy the attention. So childish, I thought, always to be longing
for the new in the old, and the old in the new. Yet just such sadness
I felt, when I looked on the island glittering in the sunset, canopied
by the rainbow, and thought no friend would welcome me there; just
such childish joy I felt to see unexpectedly on the landing the face
of one whom I called friend.

The remaining two or three days were delightfully spent, in walking or
boating, or sitting at the window to see the In