At last, after wasting some two or three hours on the "short cut," we
got out by following an Indian trail,--Black Hawk's! How fair the scene
through which it led! How could they let themselves be conquered, with
such a country to fight for!

Afterwards, in the wide prairie, we saw a lively picture of nonchalance,
(to speak in the fashion of dear Ireland.) There, in the wide sunny
field, with neither tree nor umbrella above his head, sat a pedler, with
his pack, waiting apparently for customers. He was not disappointed. We
bought, what hold in regard to the human world, as unmarked, as
mysterious, and as important an existence, as the infusoria to the
natural, to wit, pins. This incident would have delighted those modern
sages, who, in imitation of the sitting philosophers of ancient Ind,
prefer silence to speech, waiting to going, and scornfully smile in
answer to the motions of earnest life,

"Of itself will nothing come,
That ye must still be seeking?"

However, it seemed to me to-day, as formerly on these sublime occasions,
obvious that nothing would come, unless something would go; now, if we
had been as sublimely still as the pedler, his pins would have tarried
in the pack, and his pockets sustained an aching void of pence!

Passing through one of the fine, park-like woods, almost clear from
underbrush and carpeted with thick grasses and flowers, we met, (for it
was Sunday,) a little congregation just returning from their service,
which had been performed in a rude house in its midst. It had a sweet
and peaceful air, as if such words and thoughts were very dear to them.