At four o'clock I reached the summit of a hill on the border of a prairie from which I could look off for fifteen or twenty miles over a fertile country through which two silver streams wound to unite just below—the Kankakee here paying tribute to the Illinois. The atmosphere was perfect—clear and pure; the trees were tinged red and yellow with the first frosts, and to all this was added the glory of the sunset which I lingered to admire before turning away from so charming a scene.
Such a view leaves a deep impress on the memory, and stirs recollections of more youthful days. Emotions like these have a purifying effect upon all men.
AN ILLINOIS HOME.
One hundred and Thirty-second Day.
Clifton House,
Ottawa, Illinois,
September Twentieth.
I rode out of Morris in the morning just as the public school bells were ringing nine o'clock. My journey now lay along the north bank of the Illinois River, and took me through some of the finest cornfields I had ever seen. Acres and acres, miles and miles stretched in all directions as far as the eye could reach whenever the elevation of the road was high enough above this waving sea of grain to permit of my looking about. Otherwise I passed through it completely shut in, except as I could look ahead and behind and see the avenue of giant stalks. My horse, sixteen hands high, did not elevate me sufficiently to enable me, sitting in the saddle, to look over the corn tops, and they still towered above my head like so many small trees.
Those who are privileged to see this agricultural wonder must, however, associate it with that other source of pride among Illinois farmers—the "hogs"—for most of this splendid harvest is fed to these animals and they, well-fattened thereby, are driven to market. Thus the enterprising farmer is saved the expense of hauling his corn to Chicago or other points, as the pork, into which it has been transformed, is able to carry itself.
All along my route across the "Sucker State," I encountered, day after day, white hogs and black hogs, hogs of every grade and shade, my horse often stepping aside in equine dignity to allow a drowsy or pugnacious porker to pass.