The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Yankee from the West, by Opie Read

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Title: A Yankee from the West
A Novel

Author: Opie Read

Release Date: September 20, 2010 [EBook #33773]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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A YANKEE FROM THE WEST.

_FOURTEENTH EDITION._

A YANKEE FROM THE WEST

A Novel

BY

OPIE READ,

AUTHOR OF

"JUDGE ELBRIDGE," "THE WATERS OF CANEY FORK," "AN ARKANSAS PLANTER."

[Illustration]

CHICAGO AND NEW YORK: RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS.

Copyright, 1898, by Rand, McNally & Co.

A YANKEE FROM THE WEST.

CHAPTER I.

MILFORD.

In his mind the traveler holds of Illinois a tiresome picture, the
kitchen garden of a great people, a flat and unromantic necessity. The
greatest of men have trod the level ground, but it is hard to mark
history upon a plane; there is no rugged place on which to hang a
wreath, and on the prairie the traveling eye is accommodated by no inn
whereat it may halt to rest. Such is the Illinois as remembered by the
hastening tourist. But in the southern part of the State there are
mountains, and in the north, the scene of this story, there is a spread
and a roll of romantic country--the green billows of Wisconsin gently
breaking into Illinois; lakes scattered like a handful of jewels thrown
broadcast, quiet rivers singing low among the rushes. Traveling north,
we have left the slim, man-tended tree of the prairies, and here we find
the great oak. There are hillsides where the forest is heavy. There are
valleys sweet in a riot of flowers. Along the roads the fences are
almost hidden by grape-vines. On a knoll the air is honeyed with wild
crab-apple; along a slope the senses tingle with the scent of the green
walnut. There are lanes so romantic that cool design could have had no
hand in their arrangement--they hold the poetry of accident. The
inhabitants of this scope of country have done nothing to beautify it.
They have built wooden houses and have scarred t