mile or two on our way before the violent shower obliged us to take
refuge in a solitary house upon the prairie. In this country it is as
pleasant to stop as to go on, to lose your way as to find it, for the
variety in the population gives you a chance for fresh entertainment in
every hut, and the luxuriant beauty makes every path attractive. In this
house we found a family "quite above the common," but, I grieve to say,
not above false pride, for the father, ashamed of being caught barefoot,
told us a story of a man, one of the richest men, he said, in one of the
eastern cities, who went barefoot, from choice and taste.

Near the door grew a Provence rose, then in blossom. Other families we
saw had brought with them and planted the locust. It was pleasant to see
their old home loves, brought into connection with their new splendors.
Wherever there were traces of this tenderness of feeling, only too rare
among Americans, other things bore signs also of prosperity and
intelligence, as if the ordering mind of man had some idea of home
beyond a mere shelter, beneath which to eat and sleep.

No heaven need wear a lovelier aspect than earth did this afternoon,
after the clearing up of the shower. We traversed the blooming plain,
unmarked by any road, only the friendly track of wheels which tracked,
not broke the grass. Our stations were not from town to town, but from
grove to grove. These groves first floated like blue islands in the
distance. As we drew nearer, they seemed fair parks, and the little log
houses on the edge, with their curling smokes, harmonized beautifully
with them.

One of these groves, Ross's grove, we reached just at sunset. It was of
the noblest trees I saw during this journey, for the trees generally
were not large or lofty, but only of fair proportions. Here they were