Now you may laugh—but that child’s favorable verdict, after looking at me so intently, gave me more pleasure than I know how to tell you; had she jumped down off my lap—I shouldn’t have dared to face my looking-glass that day, lest some hateful passion, born of the world’s strife, had written its satanic “Get thee behind me,” on my face.
ABOUT A JOURNEY I TOOK.
When I was a little girl, I disliked traveling, above all things; the very idea of going away from the chimney-corner, gave me a homesick feeling at once. I would rather have stayed all alone in the house, than ridden off with the merriest party that ever wore traveling dresses. I had a kind of cat-liking for my corner, and as I always had plenty to think about, I was never troubled at being left alone. Now, that I have girls of my own, I like “my corner” better than ever, but I have changed about traveling, which I like very much in pleasant company. By “traveling” I don’t mean going round the country with heaps of dresses in big trunks, and parading up and down on the piazza of a hotel, to show them off. Not at all. I mean that I like to take as few changes of garments as I can possibly get along with, and putting on some very plain dress, which it will not fret me to have trod on, and rained on, and powdered with dust, with a nice book or two in my trunk, in case of a rainy day, start off to see what beautiful things nature has hidden away for those of her children who love to search them out. In this way, I started last summer to make the trip of the Northern lakes. That was something new for me. I had seen Niagara, and the Catskills, and been to Saratoga, Lake George, and all the places where people usually go in the summer months; now I wanted something entirely different. I found it in Toronto; and the difference, I am sorry to say, did not please me. The city wore to me a very dilapidated and tumble-down air; the houses, with scarcely an exception, looked streaked and shabby; pigs ran loose about the streets, and over the plank sidewalks. Now and then I saw a handsome private carriage, or a large hotel-looking house; but the high walls about the grounds looked forbidding, gloomy and unsocial; not a peep was to be had of the pretty flowers behind, if indeed there were any. In that it seemed to me a very desolate kind of place; and the mammoth hotel where we stayed, with its immensely high, wide halls, echoing back the footsteps of the few travelers who walked through them, to their large, dreary, immense rooms, seemed to make me still gloomier. For all that, the people whom I met in the street had fine broad chests, and a healthy color in their faces, and looked out of their clear bright eyes as if life were a pleasant thing to them; as I doubt not it is. Still, I would rather not live in Toronto; and after spending two days in it, I was very willing to get into the cars, and rush through the backwoods country, on my way to Detroit. Such splendid trees as I saw in those backwoods! I could only think of the “cedars of Lebanon,” tall, straight, green columns of foliage, that looked as if they had grown, and would continue to grow hundreds of years. Nestled under them, were now and then rude log huts. In the doorway stood the stately mother with her bronzed face, and clinging to her skirts, rosy little barefooted children, rugged as the wild vine that twisted its arms round the huge trees before their door.
Near by, stood their father, the woodman, resting on his ax, to look at the cars, as the shrieking whistle sent the cattle bounding through the clearing, and the train disappeared, leaving only a wreath of smoke behind. And so on, for miles and miles through that bright day, we never wearied of gazing till the sun went down. Once I caught a glimpse of a tiny log hut, the low roof festooned with morning glories—pink, blue, and white. I cannot tell you what a look of refinement it gave the little place, or how pretty a little, curly, golden-haired girl, in a red frock, and milk-white feet, looked, standing in the doorway. Some gentle heart beat there, in the lone wilderness, I knew by those morning glories. The pretty picture has often come up before me; and I have wished I were an artist, that I might show you the lovely lights and shadows of that leafy backwoods home. When we reached the pretty city of Detroit, it was so dark we could only dimly see it. We were very tired, too, having ridden in the cars from early morning till nearly nine in the evening. So we gazed sleepily out the carriage windows, as we were being rattled through the streets to the hotel, now and then seeing a church-spire, now a garden, now a brilliantly lighted row of stores, now a large square, and passing groups of men, women, and children, of whom we knew no more than of the man in the moon, and who had eaten their breakfasts, dinners and suppers, and had been born, vaccinated, baptized, and married, all the same as if they did not know we were in existence. It is a strange feeling, this coming into a strange place, and at night, and wondering what daylight will have to show to us the next morning, as we sleepily close the bedroom shutters, and lie down in that strange bed.
The familiar picture, your eyes have opened upon so many mornings, does not hang on that wall; it is hundreds of miles away. Joseph and his brethren, or Henry Clay, or the Madonna, or the Benicia Boy, may be there; but you don’t feel acquainted with them, and feel a strange delicacy about washing, and combing your hair, in their company. Breakfast, however, above all things! especially when you have not dared to eat heartily the night before. So we got ready, and, having satisfied ourselves, took a carriage to see Detroit. I liked it very much; the people were wide awake, and not content with tumble-down old institutions. New handsome buildings were being put up, besides many that were already finished. The streets were clean, and prettily set off by little garden-patches, with flowers, trees and vines about the houses. There was selling and buying too, and a thorough go-ahead air, in the place, as if this world was not yet finished by any manner of means, as they seemed to think in Toronto. Our coachman was very intelligent and civil, so I catechized him to my heart’s content as to who lived here, and who lived there, and what this church steeple believed, and who worshiped in the other; or why General Cass, being such a big man, didn’t live in a bigger house, and where all the nice peaches came from, about the streets, and where I could find some nice crackers to nibble, when I went off in the steamboat that afternoon, and where were the bookstores, and how much we were to pay for asking so many questions!
Exchanging our carriage for a steamboat, or “propeller” as they called it, we bade good by to Detroit, and glided away up to Lake St. Clair; to the head of Lake Superior. Eleven days we were on the water, more than long enough to cross the ocean to Old England. I was very fearful I should not prove a good sailor, particularly as I was told, before starting, that the lakes sometimes had a touch of old Ocean’s roughness. My fear was lost in delight as our boat plowed its way along so gently, day after day, and I sat on deck, the fresh wind blowing over my face, looking down upon the bright foam-track of the vessel, or upon the pretty sea-gulls which with untiring wing followed us hundreds of miles, now and then dipping their snowy breasts in the blue waves, or riding securely on their foaming tops. Sometimes little tiny brown birds flew upon the deck of the vessel, as if glad to see human faces, in their trackless homes. Winter begins very early up on these lakes; so while it was still sweltering weather in New York, we were not surprised to see the gay autumn leaves hung out, like signal flags, here and there on the shore, warning us not to stay too long, where the cold winds lashed the waves so furiously, or without a word of warning locked them up in icy fetters without asking leave of any steamboat. It was hard to believe it, even in sight of the pretty autumn leaves, so soft was the wind, so blue was the sea and sky, so gently were we rocked and cradled. Now and then an Indian, a real live Indian, in a real Indian canoe, would pass us with a blanket for a sail, shouting us a rough welcome in his own way, as he passed. Now and then a little speck, just on the edge of the water where it seemed to meet the sky, would gradually grow larger and larger till it turned out to be another boat, and with a burst of music, from the band on board, they too would pass away, and leave us silent as before. Now, where the lake grew narrow, we saw little huts, dotted in and out along the line of shore. There life and death with its solemn mysteries went on, just as it does in your home or mine. Now and then we stopped at what the captain called “a landing,” for wood or coal or freight for the boat. Then the people who lived there flocked down to see us, and to buy melons of us, which were a great treat, where nothing but pines and potatoes would grow. Then we would leap over the gangway to the wharf, and scamper up into the town, to take the exercise we needed after being lazy so long, and then “all hands on board!” and away we glided again; the strange friendly faces on the pier smiling as we passed away.
Oh, it was lovely! I never wanted to leave the boat; I wanted you, and every body else, who enjoy such things, to come there and float on those blue waters, with me forever.
Oh, had you only been there beside me on one of many heavenly evenings, you would never, never have forgotten it! The red sun sank slowly into the blue waves, on one side of us, while the moon rose majestically out of the water, on the other; and before us the beautiful island of “The Great Spirit” was set like an emerald in the sapphire sea. Then, when all this glory passed away into the darkness, and I sat marveling if Heaven with “its golden streets and gates of pearl,” could be fairer, up flashed “the Aurora” in long quivering lines of light, rose-color and silver, till earth and sea and sky were all ablaze with glory!
My heart beat quick, I held my breath, as though some great being were sweeping past, whose glorious silken robe I would, but dare not, bow my lips to press.
Now I must tell you, that I went into an Indian wigwam, where the door was a blanket; where the bedstead was made of twigs and branches; where a big brown woman was stirring something, witch-fashion, in a boiling pot over the fire; where copper-colored children, with diamond eyes, and long, black, snaky locks, were squatted in the sun, outside the wigwam, while the square-cheeked men caught fish in the little canoes, from the sparkling “rapids,” that seemed just going to wash away their bird’s-nest looking huts. As to the “romantic Indian maid” we read about, I am sorry to tell you that she wears a hoop! for I saw it with my own eyes. However, she seemed so proud and well pleased with her first attempts at the genteel, that I wouldn’t smile, as I felt like doing.