She was interested in all she saw,—in watching the waves, the sailors hauling the ropes, the swelling of the great sails,—in the vessels they met or passed, the ports at which they touched,—the fort, the Indians, and the wonderfully clear depth of the water at Mackinaw. But the voyage grew tiresome toward the close, and her heart bounded with joy when the captain came into the cabin early one morning and announced that they had reached Chicago.
The great Western metropolis was then a town of no more than eight or ten thousand inhabitants, hastily and shabbily built on the low level of the plain stretching for miles back from the lake shore. In a short walk with the captain's wife, Vinnie saw about all of the place she cared to; noting particularly a load of hay "slewed," or mired, in the mud-holes of one of the principal streets; the sight of which made her wonder if a great and flourishing city could ever be built there!
Meanwhile the captain, by inquiry in the resorts of market-men, found a farmer who was going to drive out to the Long Woods settlement that afternoon, and who engaged to come with his wagon to the wharf where the Heron lay, and take off Vinnie and her trunk.
"O, how fortunate!" she exclaimed. "How good everybody is to me! Only think, I shall reach my sister's house to-night!"
CHAPTER IX.
VINNIE'S ADVENTURE.
In due time a rough farm-wagon was backed down upon the wharf, and a swarthy man, with a high, hooked nose, like the inverted prow of a ship, boarded the schooner, and scratched his head, through its shock of stiff, coarse hair, by way of salutation to Vinnie, who came on deck to meet him.
"Do' no's you'll like ridin' with me, in a lumber-wagon, on a stiff board seat."
"O, I sha'n't mind!" said Vinnie, who was only too glad to go.