The Canard de France, or Mallard, and the Brancheuse, or Wood Duck, are of different habits from the foregoing, flying in pairs. Indeed, the constancy of the latter is said to be so great that if he loses his mate he never takes another partner, but goes mourning to the end of his days.
A VISIT TO GREEN BAY—MAU-ZHEE-GAW-GAW SWAMP
The payment over, and the Indians dispersed, we prepared ourselves to settle down quietly in our little home. But now, a new source of disturbance arose.
My husband’s accounts of disbursements as Agent of the Winnebagoes, which he had forwarded to the Department at Washington, had failed to reach there, of which he received due notice—that is to say, such a notice as could reach us by the circuitous and uncertain mode of conveyance by which intercourse with the eastern world was then kept up. If the vouchers for the former expenditures, together with the recent payment of $15,000, annuity money, should not be forthcoming, it might place him in a very awkward position, so he decided to go at once to Washington, and be the bearer himself of his duplicate accounts.
“Should you like to go and see your father and mother,” said he to me, one morning, “and show them how the west agrees with you?”
It was a most joyful suggestion after a year’s separation, and in a few days all things were in readiness for our departure.