Jackson lies in the coal fields that reach down through several of the southern counties. This deposit is not rich, owing to the amount of sulphur in it, and the demand is chiefly local. The Grand River divides the town and, with the bridge that spans it, adds much to the picturesque effect.
Ninety-first Day.
Cooley House,
Parma, Michigan,
August Tenth.
Spent the forenoon in my room at the Hurd House, Jackson, writing letters to my wife, Major Hastings and others. In the afternoon there was a street parade of Howe's London Circus which was a very fantastic affair, but which seemed to be hugely enjoyed by everybody. Later in the day the great tent was upset by a gust of wind, accompanied by a thunder-shower, and a droll scene followed, which caused considerable excitement. The people were left exposed with the rain coming down upon them in torrents. So far I have seen nothing more amusing than the country boys and girls rushing up town drenched, and for once at least indifferent to the charms of the "big show."
The storm having passed, I ordered Paul after supper, rode down to the office of the Patriot and Citizen, and after a few minutes' conversation with the editor, hurried on toward Parma, which was reached late in the evening. The ride in the dark was cool, but somewhat lonely.
It was probably on such nights as this that young Dean, the enterprising settler of years ago, played his nocturnal tricks upon his neighbors. He came out to Michigan when it was a wilderness, to make his fortune by clearing land at ten dollars an acre, and while he was drudging he expected to have a little fun. It was his habit to work away all day chopping trees within an inch of the falling point, and then about ten o'clock, when the settlers were well asleep, to go out and give a blow to the end tree, so that it would fall against the others and send them crashing like a row of ninepins. How the old forests must have rung with their thundering and how that plotter Dean must have relished his mischief!
As I approached Parma, in the darkness I could see nothing about the village to suggest that other Parma, far away under an Italian sky, but there is a resemblance, for the European duchy and its modest American namesake both lie in a rich agricultural region; and if I mistake not the dull white freestone that is quarried here in such large quantities, finds a prototype over the sea.
