A Bright September Sun Glittered Upon The Spires Of Cincinnati As I
Reluctantly Bade It Adieu, And Set Out In
The early morning by the cars to
join my travelling companions, meaning to make as long a détour as
Possible, or, as a "down-east" lady might say, to "make a pretty
considerable circumlocution." Fortunately I had met with some friends,
well acquainted with the country, who offered to take me round a much
larger circle than I had contemplated; and with a feeling of excitement
such as I had not before experienced, we started for the Mississippi and
the western prairies en route to Detroit.
Bishop M'Ilvaine, anxious that a very valued friend of his in England
should possess something from Ohio, had cut down a small sapling, which,
when divested of its branches and otherwise trimmed, made a very
formidable-looking bludgeon or cudgel, nearly four feet long. This being
too lengthy for my trunks was tied to my umbrella, and on this day in the
cars excited no little curiosity, several persons eyeing it, then me, as
if wondering in what relation we stood to each other. Finally they took it
up, minutely examining it, and tapping it as if to see whether anything
were therein concealed. It caused me much amusement, and, from its size,
some annoyance, till at length, wishing to leave it in my room at a
Toronto hotel while I went for a visit of a few days, the waiter brought
it down to the door, asking me "if I wished to take the cudgel?" After
this I had it shortened, and it travelled in my trunk to New York, where
it was given to a carver to be fashioned into a walking-stick; and, unless
the tradesman played a Yankee trick, and substituted another, it is now,
after surviving many dangers by sea and land, in the possession of the
gentleman for whom it was intended.
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