[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

On the return, our first night was passed with the host
of the antediluvian razor. But going into the woods we needed
now no shaving; although we shortly became entangled
in another scrape, to be estimated in comparison and contrast,
according to the tenderness of one's face, and his leggins
and trousers.

Let me not forget that, before reaching Razorville, we
had passed through a primitive world, an antique French
settlement; and in it could be discerned no trace of modern
arts and inventions; but agriculture, architecture and other
matters were so ancient that we seemed to have come
among aboriginal Egyptians or Greeks. The carts or
wagons were like the wain of Ceres, and moved on spokeless
wheels of solid wood, without naves, and, if circumsference
applied to wheels must be a circle, without circumference.

The horse—if such may be called a dwarf, shaggy
pony, so dirty and earthy as to seem raised in a crop, like
turnips or potatoes—this villanous and cunning horse was
tied to the Cerealian vehicle by thongs of elm bark, fastened
to a collar of corn blades around his neck; and he had
a head-gear of elm bark ropes for halter or bridle—but
sometimes he had no head-gear whatever. He was driven
usually by flagellation from a stick-whip, in size between
a switch and a pole, yet often with a corn-stalk fourteen

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

feet long without its tassel, and, not infrequently, by a clod
or rock[10] thrown against his head or side.

At the first hint from the persuasives, shaggy coat would
merely shake his head and look up, and then, with an impudent
flourish of a tail compounded of burs and horse-hair,
he would pull away—not, indeed, at his load—but at
the corn-blades and ears dangling in plenty about his unmuzzled
mouth. On a repetition of the hint, especially if
accompanied by a Canadianised-French execration—(and
its potency may be thus judged)—pony would whisk with
his cart some half-dozen decided jerks, attended by the
rattling of his corn-collar, the straining of bark traces, and
the screeching of dry wheel and axis; minus also a mess
of corn bounced from the wain at every jerk. And thus
matters proceeded, with iterations of thumps, pelts, curses,
and outcries on one side, and jerks ahead on the other, till
the horse and wagon was clear of the corn-field—and then
look out! Pony had now no more to expect in the way of
mouthfuls till he reached the stack-yard, and so, go ahead
was his motto—and, with him, no idle sentiment! True,
the machine wabbled and bounced—that was owing to the
inartificiality of the workmanship, and the asperities of the
ground; the load jumped over the sides or rattled from the
tail—that was because the sides were too low, and there
was no tail-board; perhaps, even the collar broke, and little
shaggy was released—the collar should have been leather:
his duty was plain—to get to the stack-yard as
speedily as possible, with or without a cart, or with it full
or empty.

How my nameless quadrupedal old friend would have
relished and adorned this areadian life! What a theatre
for his abilities and accomplishments! It may be

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

something to live in clover; but what is life in a clover-patch
of a dozen rods, to life in a prairie corn-field of a thousand
acres?

But this is digression, of which, indeed, other examples
occurred on our way home.

A friend of ours, a citizen of Woodville, returning now
from Vincennes, and who travelled in a small one-horse-wagon,
had told us of a short cut across the prairie; and
had stated also that, while the path was an almost imperceptible
trace, being used only by a few horsemen, still we
should easily follow the marks of his wheels—and thus a
whole hour could be gained. Passing us, therefore, on
the evening we had reached Razorville, he went by the
short cut to “ole man Stafford's,” a distance of seven miles,
intending there to stay all night and await our arrival to a
very early breakfast next morning,—the remainder of the
journey to be made in company.

Well, an hour before day-break on Tuesday morning we
put out, and in half an hour came to the “blind path,” into
which we struck bold enough, considering we had to dismount
to find it, and that from the dimness of the early
morn, no wagon ruts could yet be discerned. But as the
light increased, we could see here and there in the grass
traces of a light wagon; and that emboldened us to trot on
very fast, in the comfortable assurance of rapidly approaching
a snug breakfast of chicken fixins, eggs, ham-doins,
and corn slap-jacks. By degrees the prairie turned into
timber land; but that had been expected, although the
woods were rather more like thickets and swamps than
ought to be encountered on entering the Stafford country.
Still, every two or three rods was some mark of our friend's
wagon; and as short cuts often pass through out-of-the-way
districts, and we travelled now not by stars, or sun, or compass,
but by wheel-ruts, we deemed it best to stick to our

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

guide and Uncle John's old saw—“'tis a long lane that
has no turn.”

At last we came to the edge of a dense and dark thicket;
and here, at right angles with the ruts, (for long since the
six-inch horse-path had run out, or sunk, or evaporated, or
something,) ran a deep and wide gulley blocked with fallen
trees and brushwood; over which of course the wagon had
got somehow, and, as was natural, without leaving any
visible trace. This deficiency was, however, not important,
because, you know, we should find the wagon tracks
on the far side of the ravine; and so over we went working,
where the impediments seemed fewest, in a zig-zag
method, for about two hundred yards, when all at once we
rose, large as life, up the opposite bank, and instantly began
talking:—

“See any ruts?”

“No,—do you?”

“No,—let's ride to the left.”

“Through that papaw and spice!—no, no, try the right.”

“The right!—look at the grape and green briar—better
keep straight ahead.”

“Straight ahead, indeed!—that's worse than the other
courses.”

“Why, how in the name of common sense did Mr.
Thorn ever get his wagon through here!—come, you go
right and I'll go left, and let's see if we can't find the wheel-ruts.”

And then we separated; but after hard “scrouging”
each way some hundred yards, and halloing questions, answers,
doubts, guesses, &c., &c., in a very unmealy-mouthed
manner, till we became hoarse, and withal finding
no ruts, nor even hoof-marks, we came together and
held a council. The result of the deliberation was:

1. That we were probably—(Uncle J. being a woodsman
would allow only a probability)—were probably lost:

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

2. That maybe we might have followed a wrong wagon,
and maybe we might not:

3. That maybe we had better go back, and maybe we
had not:

4. That as it was likely we had been spirited into the
Great Thicket of the White River, it would be best to work
ahead, and strike the river itself now, up or down which
(I forget which Uncle J. said) was a settlement maybe.

This last proposition having a decided majority of two
voices, we began to work our passage into the river, Mr.
Seymour as general in the van, Mr. C. as rear-guard.

Now how shall our swamp be described? What language
can here be an echo to the sense? Any attempt of
the sort would be so complicated an implexicity in the interwovenness
of the circularity, that should give the sight,
and sound, and fragrance of the maziness in that most amazing
of mazes, where all sorts of crookednesses made contortion
worse in its interlacings, that—that—one would go
first this way, and then some other way, and then back
again once more towards the end, side, middle and beginning
of the sentence, and yet fail to discover the—the—
echo,—and be no more able to get through with so labyrinthical
unperiodical a period, in any other way than we were
to get out of the thicket, and that was by bursting out—so!

However, you've picked black-berries?—gone after
chicken-grapes or something, in your early days? You've
set snares in pretty thick thickets, where you went on all-fours
through prickle-bushes to save your face? Well—
aggregate the trifling impediments of your worst entanglements;
then colour matters a little, and you approximate a
just conception of our thicket. In this, all sorts of trees,
bushes, briars, thorns, and creepers, the very instant their
seeds were dropped or roots set by nature,—and some without
staying for either root or seed,—started right up and
off all at once a growing with all their might, each and

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

every struggling, like all creation for the ascendancy, and
thus preventing one another and all others from getting too
large; yea, in haste and eagerness, like candidates climbing
a hickory-pole, all wrapping, and interlacing, and interweaving
trunks, boughs, branches, arms, roots and shoots,
till no eye could tell whether, for instance, the creeper
produced the thorn, or the thorn the creeper, or the vine
the scrub-oak, or the oak the grapes—and till the shaking,
or pulling, or touching, of a single branch, vine, root, or
briar shook a thousand!—ay! like the casting of a pebble
into a lake, till it disturbed in some degree the whole immensity
of the thicket! And so all, in sheer rage, malice,
and vexation, sent forth all manners, kinds and sorts of
prickers and scratchers, and thorns, and scarifiers; and began
to bear all manners and kinds and sorts of flowers,
and poisonous berries, and grapes!

In places, a black walnut, or hackberry, or sycamore,
having, like a Pelagian, an intrinsic virtue had got the start
of nature by a few hours at the beginning of the swamp;
and had ever since kept a head so elevated as now to be
overlooking miles around of the mazy world below, and
presenting a trunk and boughs so wrapped in vines and
parasites as to form a thicket within a thicket, an imperium
in imperio; while coiled and wreathed there into fantastic
twistings, immense serpentine grape vines seemed like
boas and anacondas, ready to enfold and crush their victims!
Nay, in every labyrinth were concealed worlds of
insects, reptiles, and winged creatures; and some, judging
from their hisses, and growls, and mutterings, as they darted
from one concealment to another at the strange invasion
of their dens and lairs, were doubtless formidable in aspect,
and not innoxious in bites and stings.

Through this apparently impervious wilderness of the
woven world twist, however, we did—onward, as Uncle
John said. I thought it was a vain struggle, like striving

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

to free one's self from the meshes of a giant's net! Yet I
kept close in the rear of his horse; for Mr. Seymour insisted
on being pilot, and politeness yields to elders even
in wriggling through a swamp. But what need be told our
contrivances to work through? Never in words can be
painted the drawing up of our legs!—the shrinking of our
bodies!—the condensation of our arms!—the bowings
down of our heads, with compressed lips and shut eyes!
But still we talked thus:

“Oh! hullow! stop, won't you?”

“What's the matter?”

“My hat's gone.”

“There it is, dangling on that branch—look up—higher!—
higher yet!”

“Oh! yes—I see:—lucky the hat wasn't tied under a
fellow's chin, hey?—how the thing jerked!”

“Ouch!—what a scratch!—just get out your knife and
cut this green-briar.”

“I've cut it—go on:—look out, you'll lose your right
leggin.”

“Whi-i-i-rr!—what's that?”

“A pheasant!”

“H-i-i-ss!—what's that?”

“A snake!”

“Haw! haw! haw!—if your trousers aint torn the
prettiest!”

“Don't taste them!—they aint grapes!—they are poison
berries!”

“Look—quick!—what an enormous lizard!”

And then such knocks on the head! Did I ever think
heads, before the aid of phrenology, could bear such
whacks! Soft heads, surely, must have been mashed, and
hard ones, cracked; and, therefore, Uncle John and I
had medium sculls, and the precise developments to go
through thickets. I had always disbelieved the vulgar
saying about “knocked into a cocked hat,”—deeming it,

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

indeed, possible to be knocked out of one; but my infidelity
left me in that swamp, when I saw the very odd figures
we made after our squeezings, abrasions, and denudings.
The shape of a cocked hat was not at all like them! and
yet, in about three hours from the starting at the gulley,
we somehow or other stood on the summit of a bold bluff,
and beheld the river coolly and beautifully flowing beneath
our feet away below! Here we halted, first to repair
apparel, wipe off perspiration, and pick out briars and thorns
from the hands and other half-denuded parts; and, secondly,
to determine the next movement, when—hark! the
sound of an axe!—yes! and hark!—of human voices!

Between us and the sounds, evidently not more than
two hundred yards up the river, interposed a dense and
thorny rampart; but with coats fresh buttoned to our
throats, hats half-way over the face, and leggins rebound
above the knee and at the ankle, we, in the saddles, and
retired within ourselves, like snails, the outer man being
thus contracted into the smallest possible dimension, and
with heads so inclined as to render following the nose alike
impossible and useless, we charged with the vengeance of
living battering rams against and into the matted wall of
sharp and sour vegetables; and onward, onward, went we
thus, till all at once, the impediment ceasing, we burst and
tumbled through into an open circular clearing of about fifty
yards diameter!

In one part was a rude shantee or temporary lodge of
poles and bark, a la Indian, having in front, as cover to a
door-way, a suspended blanket, perhaps to keep out mosquitoes;
for I could neither see nor imagine any other use.
On one side the area, were large heaps of hoop-poles, on
another, of barrel-staves; while in several places stood
gazing at us three squatter-like personages, and evidently
not gratified at our unceremonious visit. The nature of
their employment was manifest—the preparation of some

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

western “notions and ideas” for the Orleans market. And
down the bluff was a grand fleet of flat boats, ready to float
whenever the water chose to come up to them, and convey
to market a whole forest, in the shape of hoop-poles, staves,
and other raw material, not only now being prepared, but
which had been being prepared and was yet to be being
pre-prepared in all the fashionable modern tenses!

“Well, what of that?”

Nothing; it was very correct, except in one small particular,
although not a grammatical one; this snug little
swamp and thicket, some thirty miles by two in extent, and
full of choice timber, happened to belong to our Great
Father's elder brother, the venerable dear good old Uncle
Sam! And these reprobate nephews, our cousins, were
simply busy in taking more than their share of the common
heritage—in short, they were poaching and stealing!
Now, kind reader, for the last three hours, we had passed
through a considerable scrape; nay, as we had shrunk up,
it may be called a narrow scrape, but on comprehending
the present affair, it seemed not improbable that we had
only come out of the scrape literal, into the scrape metaphorical.

“How so?” Why you see, a large penalty was incurred
for cutting down and stealing public timber; and the informer
got a handsome share of the fine as reward; so that our
industrious kinsmen taking us, at first, for spies and informers,
not only looked, but talked quite growly; and we both
felt a little nervous at sight of the rifles and scalping knives
in the shantee! Here is a first-rate temptation to make a
thrilling story; but I must not forget the dignity of history—
(although Uncle John and I both thrilled at the time without
any story)—and so I proceed to say, that we soon satisfied
our free traders who we were; and that they condescended
not only to laugh, but to sneer at us, and then
pointed to a nice little wagon that one of them had driven

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

yesterday from near Razorville, with their supplies for the
current week! And that was the identical rut-making
machine, that, so contrary to every body's wishes had
coaxed us into the thicket!

We were then taught how to return on its trace, by a
kind of opening through the maze; and received ample
directions where and how to cross the ravine. We accordingly
hastened away; but we never felt perfectly easy, or
ventured to laugh honestly, till full two hundred yards
beyond the longest rifle shot, which might very accidentally
take our direction, and, may be, hit us. The path over
the ravine was, indeed, less tangled, where the wagon had
passed; yet it was a quarter of a mile above our crossing
place, and concealment had evidently been studied in the
way the stave-maker's vehicle had put off, even at an acute
angle, at the point where we had lost its trail; and in the
windings we had to thread among the high grass before we
again reached that point. After having thus lost a wagon
in a prairie, I felt inclined to believe in the difficulty of finding
a needle in a hay-stack. But we came, finally, to a
deserted cabin; and there, after a keen look, discovered a
little path laid down for us in the late verbal chart. Here,
confident from experience, that this rabbit track of a road,
some two inches wide was yet one of fifty similar ones
leading to the grand trace, path, or way, we struck off at a
rapid gait; and in an hour came to the open wagon road,
which we knew conducted to Mr. Stafford's Public.

Revived we now cantered on, and not long after reached
our breakfast-house, just as the sun was going down—having
in the day's navigation with all our tackings made precisely
seven miles, by the short cut, in the homeward direction.
Since Monday night, we had eaten nothing, and
were naturally ready now for three meals in one; and yet
were we destined to wait a little longer, and condense into
one four repasts—like ancient Persians when hunting.

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

For, either not liking our appearance, or vexed at our not
having come earlier to breakfast, we were here most pertinaciously
refused any entertainment whatever, and even
peremptorily ordered away; and were, indeed, compelled
to put off for the nearest house, some eight miles farther at
the ferry! Half a mile from Stafford's, we met a young
fellow, evidently in an ill humour at something, who did,
verily, condescend to direct us how to steer through a sea
of grass, rolling its waves over the prairie's bosom in the
haze of the approaching night; but whether the rascal sent
us wrong purposely, or we had so practiced getting lost as
to render the thing easy, after seeming to come duly to
expected points, in about six miles we could find no more
points, and so began again travelling at a venture; and at
ten o'clock at night, it being then profoundly dark, we resigned
our reason to the horses' instinct to take us where
they listed. We knew the creatures would follow some path
and carry us, some time or other, to a human habitation, if
that of a poacher or squatter; and any thing seemed then
preferable to the wilds of the prairie!

In about two hours my horse, now in the lead, suddenly
halted, when dismounting, I tried first with my feet, and
then my hands, and quickly had by these new senses a
feeling sense of our situation, viz. that we stood at the diverging
point of two paths running from one another at
nearly a right angle!

“Well, what do you say—which shall we take?”

“Hem!—what do you say? Don't it seem damp towards
the right?”

“I think it does—and maybe the river is that way,
Don't it seem like rising ground towards the left, to
you?”

“It does—let's try the left—we've had enough of thickets
for one day—hark! hark!!”

“Bow-wow-wow! bow-wow!” on the left.

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

“Sure enough! a dog towards the left! push a-head that
way.”

The canine outcry was reduplicated and prolonged; and
we were soon rewarded for our sagacity in going to
the left by coming whack up against a worm-fence! But
groping our way through this impediment, a light was
soon discerned gleaming through some crevice; and the
noise of the dog then subsided into an angry growl—which
growl was again exchanged into a bark, as we let out our
hearty and door penetrating “Hullow!” This backwood's
sonnet had soon the desired effect on the clap-board shutter;
for it now creaked slowly open, and allowed to issue
from the cabin the following reply in a strong soprano, yet
vibratory from apprehension—

“Well—who be you? what's a wantin?”

“Strangers, ma'am, from the Big Meeting at Vincennes;
we've been lost all day in the Swamp below Stafford's—
and we're lost now. Will you be so kind as to let us stay
the rest of the night here?”

“Well, it's most powerful onconvenent—couldn't you
a sort a keep on to Fairplay—'taint more nor two miles no
how, and you'd git mighty good 'comedashins thar?”

“Oh! ma'am, we'd never find the way in the dark. Besides,
our horses are nearly given out; and we ourselves
haven't touched food for nearly two days—”

“Well! now! if that aint amost too powerful hard like!—
I'm a poor lone woman body—but I can't let you go on—
so come in. But, strangers, you'll find things right down
poor here, and have to sleep on the floor, as 'cos I've no
more nor two beds and them's all tuk up by me and the
childurn. Howsever, thar's a corn heap over thar to feed
your critturs; but we're now teetotally out of meal;—and
Bill's to start in the morning for a grist—and I'm powerful
sorry we've nothin to eat—”

“Oh! thank you, ma'am—never mind us—thank you—
never mind! If we get corn for our poor brutes, and shelter

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

for ourselves that will do—thank you, ma'am—never
mind!”

Having fed our jaded animals we entered the cabin, and
depositing our saddles and furniture in one corner, we sat
down on two rude stools, like some modern ottomans in the
city; being so low as to force one's knees and chins into
near proximity. They had, indeed, no covering or cushion,
unless such be considered the lone woman's indescribable,
lying on the one, and Bill's tow-linen breeches on the
other—articles we considerately, however, removed for fear
of soiling.

The next thing we did was to poke up the slumbering
fire; by the light of which we first cast rueful looks on
one another, and then some sideway glances around the
apartment. In one spot, stood a barrel with an empty bag
of dim whiteness, hanging partly in and partly out, while
across its top was laid a kneading bowl, and in that a small
washing machine;—the barrel being manifestly the repository
of meal, and the bag the very affair Bill was to ride,
in the morning, to mill. Near us was a shelf holding a
few utensils for mush and milk, several tin cups, a wooden
bowl in need of scouring, and some calabashes; a large
calabash we had noticed outside the door, having a small
grape vine for a handle, and intended to represent a bucket
for water and other wet and dry uses. In a strap of deer-skin
nailed under the shelf were stuck certain knives,
some ornamented with buck-horn handles, one or two with
corn-cob handles, and one handleless; and interspersed
judiciously in the same strap were pincushions, scissors,
comb, and a few other et ceteras of a hoosiery toilette.

But the curiosities were “the two beds and all tuk up
by the mother and the childurn.” What the bedsteads were
made out of was not ascertained. Ricketty they were,
screeching, squirming, and wriggling at every slight motion
of the sleeping household; but tough and seasoned too

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

must they have been to bear up under their respective
loads, especially considering the way some that night kicked
under the covers, and, occasionally over them!

In one bed were the lone (?) woman and two children;
and in this I am confident having counted three heads, and
one with a cap on. In the other were three or four bodies—
Uncle John insisted on, four—but I only counted three
heads at the bolster; yet Uncle John in his very last letter
holds to it, that he saw another head sticking out near the
foot, and two or three legs in such direction as could come
only from a head in that latitude. Strong presumptive
evidence, granted;—yet only presumptive, for a real backwood's
boy can twist himself all round; beside the fleas[11]
that night made the bed loads twist their utmost, and legs
and arms became so surprisingly commingled, that no ordinary
spectator could tell to what bodies they severally pertained.
And never were beds so “all tuk up,” nor so wonderfully
slept all over, till by daylight the whole of their sleep
must have been fully extracted; and hence, it was plain
enough there was no room for Uncle John or me in either
bed; and that if we wanted any sleep we must get it out of
the puncheons. We spread, therefore, our horse-blankets
each on a puncheon, our separating line being an interstice
of three inches; and, transforming saddlebags into pillows,
we essayed to sleep away our weariness and hunger. But
the “sweet restorer's” balmy influences were all confined
that night, to the two regular beds; and that among other
causes owing to a motherly she-swine with a litter of ever
so many pigs, and some other bristled gentry in the basement,
whence ascended an overpowering dry hickory nut
fragrance, and endless variations of grunt, squeak, and shuffle—
and in all likelihood the oceans of fleas disturbing us!

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

If not thence, I leave it to such critics to ascertain, who
delight in saying and finding smart things.

Upon the whole it was not, then, so odd that about an
hour before dawn, we made ready to set out in search of
Fairplay. And of course our preparations awaked the
lone woman; when the “cap,” already named, being elevated
above the sleeping line of the other heads, and also
several capless pates of dirty matted hair—(gender indeterminate)—
being also raised and thrust forth in the other bed,
we thus held our farewell colloquy:

“Well, my good friend, we thank you kindly for your
hospitality, and we are about starting now;—what shall we
pay you?”

“Laws! bless you, stranger! how you talk!—why do
y' allow I'd axe people what's lost anything?—and for sich
'comedashins?”

Oh! ma'am—but we put you to trouble—”

“Trouble!—I don't mind trouble now no how—I've had
too big a share on it to mind it any more amost—”

“Why, ma'am, you've been very kind—and we really
can't go away till we pay you something—”

`Stranger!—I sees you wants to do what's right—but
you needn't take out that puss—I'll have to be a most powerful
heap poorer nor I'm now, afore I'll take anything
for sich a poor shelter to feller critturs what's lost—and
them a comin from meetin too! Ain't that oldermost stranger
a kinder sort a preacher?”

“No, my friend, I'm only a member—”

“Well—I couldn't axe meetin folks nothin for the best.
I'm right glad you didn't take the right hand trail below our
fence, you'd a got into the swamp agin. Now jist mind
when you come to a big sugar what blow'd down by the
harricane, and take the left, and that will git you clear of
the bio—and then keep rite strate on forrerd and you'll soon
git to Fairplay.”

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

Farewells were then cordially exchanged, and we left
the poor lone woman with emotions of pity, gratitude, and
admiration; and we thought too of “the cup of cold water”—
“the two mites”—of “one half the world knows not
how the other lives”—and “man wants but little here below”—
and of all similar sacred and secular sayings, till
we came to the prostrate sugar-tree. There we made a
judicious digression to avoid miring and suffocating in the
morass, and then shortly after dismounted safe and sound,
but frightfully hungry, at Fairplay.

And here we rest awhile to devour two breakfasts and
repair if possible the loss of dinner and supper; and in the
meanwhile we shall speak of the village.

Fairplay was a smart place, consisting of two entirely
new log houses, built last summer, in spite and opposition
to Briarton concealed in the bushes on the other side of
the river: and also a public or tavern—in futuro, however,
as it was only now a-building. As yet it was not roofed entirely,
nor were the second story floors laid, nor had it
any chimneys. Indeed, its walls were incomplete, the
daubing being—ah! what is the fashionable grammar here,
for the case absolute? I do not wish to be behind the age
too far, and am desirous of having the Fairplay hotel grammatically
daubed. “Daubing being done?” No, it was
not completed. “Daubing doing?”—that would make mud
an active agent; whereas, in the operation, it is the most
passive subject in the world, and is dreadfully trampled,
pounded, beat, splashed, scattered and smeared. “Daubing
a-doing?” no: the work had ceased for the present, and
the clay was actually dry where the work had been “being”
done. Stop! I have it—the daubing “being” being
done! and so all eating and sleeping were in one large airy
room below, with a flooring of unnailed boards, and half a
dozen windows full of sashes but destitute of glass; and

p111-407 [figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

having also two doors closed with sheets instead of shutters.

Cooking was performed to day out of doors; hence, while
waiting for breakfast we inhaled the savory essence of
fried chickens, fried bacon, roasted potatoes, herb-tea, store-coffee,
and above all, of slap-jacks compounded from cornmeal,
eggs and milk, and fried in a pan—thus in a measure
getting two breakfasts out of one. True, with the fragrance
entered the smoke; yet what great pleasure is
without its concomitant pain! Beside—but take care! take
care! here comes the breakfast, and we are ordered:—

“Well, strangers! come, sit up and help yourselves. I
allow you're a sorter hungry after sich a most powerful
starvation.”

Breakfast among the Stars

“Landlord! our horses, if you please.”

“They're at the door—they look a right smart chance
wusted—but maybe they'll take you home—wish you a
pleasant journey and no more scrapes.”

The landlord's wishes were not disappointed, for in due
time we were snug at home.

eaf111v2.n10

[10] All minute pieces of granite, &c., are called rocks out there—
but even little things there are big.