In the forenoon I went out on the lake in a small yacht; but finding the little craft unequal to the heavy waves which were rushing in from the north, I soon turned back, having gained by the venture a better idea of the dunes and of their extent as they stretch along the western shore.
The fact that they are "building upon the sand" gives the people of Michigan City very little concern, probably because they know there is terra firma somewhere beneath their foundations.
Ames College occupies a site here, and the Car Shops are important and extensive.
One hundred and Ninth Day.
Duncombe House,
Decatur, Michigan,
August Twenty-eighth.
Taking an early train, I returned to this place in the morning, where I had decided to remain for a few days in order to allow more time for the treatment of my horse, and to give my brother and Babcock an opportunity to insure a full house at Farwell Hall, Chicago, where I was announced to lecture on the eleventh of September.
I had begun to fear that the irritation on Paul's back would develop into that most disgusting and painful disease of horses known as fistula; and although he never showed any impatience, I had not the heart to ride him while in this condition.
My quarters were quite comfortable at the only hotel in town, and I thanked my stars that I was not stranded in some little backwoods place with the choice of "the softest boards on the floor for a bed," and other accommodations to match—a state of affairs which a waylaid journeyman once had to face, who, with the soul of a Stoic, left on his window-pane the comforting couplet:
"Learn hence, young man, and teach it to your sons:
The easiest way's to take it as it comes."
In fact I was doubly fortunate. No sooner had I reached Decatur than I lost the consciousness of being "a stranger within the gates," having been so cordially made to feel that I was among friends, and that the cause which I had taken up in Michigan met with their hearty sympathy.