h his brother to Illinois and settle upon a prairie
farm. Of course his wife and baby boy must go too, and with the
announcement of this decision came an invitation to me to accompany
them. I had no difficulty as to my response. It was just what I wanted
to do. I was to teach a district school; but what there was beyond
that, I could not guess. I liked to feel that it was all as vague as
the unexplored regions to which I was going. My friend and room-mate
Sarah, who was preparing herself to be a teacher, was invited to join
us, and she was glad to do so. It was all quickly settled, and early in
the spring of 1846 we left New England.

When I came to a realization of what I was leaving, when good-bys had
to be said, I began to feel very sorrowful, and to wish it was not to
be. I said positively that I should soon return, but underneath my
protestations I was afraid that I might not. The West was very far off
then, a full week's journey. It would be hard getting back. Those I
loved might die; I might die myself. These thoughts passed through my
mind, though not through my lips. My eyes would sometimes tell the
story, however, and I fancy that my tearful farewells must have seemed
ridiculous to many of my friends, since my going was of my own cheerful
choice.

The last meeting of the Improvement Circle before I went away was a
kind of surprise party to me. Several original poems were read,
addressed to me personally. I am afraid that I received it all in a
dumb, undemonstrative way, for I could not make it seem real that I was
the person meant, or that I was going away at all. But I treasured
those tributes of sympathy afterwards, under the strange, spacious
skies where I sometimes felt so alone.

The editors of the "Offering" left with me a testimonial in money,
accompanied by an acknowledgment of my contributions during several
years; but I had never dreamed of pay, and did not know how to look
upon it so. I took it gratefully, however, as a token of their
appreciation, and twenty dollars was no small help toward my outfit.
Friends brought me books and other keepsakes. Our minister, gave me
D'Aubigne's "History of the Reformation" as a parting gift. It was
quite a circumstance to be "going out West."

The exhilaration of starting off on one's first long journey, young,
ignorant, buoyant, expectant, is unlike anything else, unless it be
youth itself, the real beginning of the real journey--life. Annoyances
are overlo