My friends appeared well pleased with their native hills and vales and I have no doubt they thought, as they expressed it to me, that they lived near the best market and that New York was ahead. But the place how changed to me! If I could have seen some wigwams and their half nude inhabitants, on the hill sides, in the room of the houses of white men, and have witnessed the waving of the feathery plume of the red man, above his long black hair, I should have thought, from the view and the face of the land, that that old country was very new and wild and that Michigan, where I lived at least, was the old country after all.
Nature seemed to be reversing the two countries. It appeared to me like the wild—wild—west Yosemite valley and mountains, or some other place. How strange! Here I am standing upon my native soil. I used to think it was the brightest spot upon this dim place men call earth.
In coming down the hill, I had to be cautious how far I stepped, in order to keep upright, as I was liable to move too fast, get up too much motion, I had to hold back on myself and keep one knee at a time crooked. In that way I got safely down. I was a little cautious, for I had on me scars made by falling on stones and cutting myself, when near that place long years before, when I was a little boy driving father's cows, to and fro, night and morning, from the new place he bought, (the buying of which was one great reason of our going to Michigan to find a new home and live where white men had never lived before.)
I went back to uncle's and told him, that I had made him a pretty good visit. I tried to get him and some of the rest of my friends to promise me to go west and see our country and judge of it for themselves. They said we western men had to bring our produce, and whatever we had to sell, down to the New York market, in order to dispose of it. I made up my mind, if New York was the head and mouth of Uncle Sam, that his body and heart were in the great central West, his hands upon the treasury at Washington and his feet were of California, like unto polished gold, washed by the surf of the Pacific Ocean. When Uncle Sam wished them wiped he could easily place them on his snow topped foot-stool, the Rocky mountains, and Miss Columbia, with a smile would wipe them with the clouds and dry them in the winds of the Nevada, while she pillowed his head softly on the great metropolis, New York, where the Atlantic breeze fans his brow and lets him recline in his glory, the most rapidly risen representation of a great nation that the world has ever seen.
When Uncle Sam brings his hand from Washington it is full of green backs and gold, which he scatters broadcast among his subjects. Here and there across the continent it flies, like the leaves in autumn, so that it can be gathered by persevering men, who till the soil or follow other pursuits of industry. It is free for all who will get it honestly.
A little east and north of the garden city, is Michigan, one of Uncle Sam's gardens. I think it is a beautiful place, dotted here and there and nearly surrounded by great fountains that sparkle, glimmer and shine, in the sun, like the rays of the morning—beautiful garden. It is interspersed, here and there, with groves of primeval evergreens and crossed now and then by beautiful valleys and dotted by flowery walks and pleasant homes of the gardeners. It abounds in picturesque scenery, has a very productive soil and helps to furnish some of Uncle Sam's family, of about forty millions, with many of the good things of life, even down in "Gotham." So we get some of their money, from down there, if they are ahead of us and the head of America. I am satisfied for one, to live in one of the peninsula gardens of the West.
As my wife wished to visit her native place on the Hudson River, we would have to stop there a short time, and as my wife and brother wished to visit the city of New York we bade good by to uncle and his family and started. Took the "Harlem Railroad" and in a short time were in the city. We put up at the "Lovejoy Hotel" opposite the City Hall. We had rooms and everything comfortable. We visited the Washington market and some of the ships that lay in the harbor. We went on board one ocean steamer, went through it and examined it. We crossed the river to Brooklyn. Visited Greenwood Cemetery and saw all the sights we could conveniently, on that side of the river. One night we visited Barnum's American Museum, after this we went to see the Central Park and other places. We made up our minds that we had seen a good deal and that New York was an immense city.
CHAPTER XXXI.
LEAVING NEW YORK CITY FOR HOME.
We thought it was about time we started for home. We began to want to get back to Michigan, so we agreed to start. Brother J. S. was to take the "Harlem Railroad," go to uncle's, stop and visit, get mother and meet us, on a certain day at Albany. My wife and I took the "Hudson River Railroad" and came as far as Peekskill. We visited together the place of her nativity, where she lived until she was twelve years old. She found many very warm friends there among her relatives. We passed through Peekskill hollow to visit some of her friends. There I saw some beautiful land. It looked nice enough for western land, if it had not been for the rugged scenery around it.