Fancy To
Yourself A Little Swift Stream, Working Its Devious Way Down A Woody
Valley; Sometimes Wholly Hidden Under Logs
And fallen trees,
sometimes issuing forth and spreading into a broad, clear pool; and
on its banks in little nooks
Cleared away among the trees, miniature
log-houses in utter ruin and neglect. A labyrinth of narrow,
obstructed paths connected these habitations one with another.
Sometimes we met a stray calf, a pig or a pony, belonging to some of
the villagers, who usually lay in the sun in front of their
dwellings, and looked on us with cold, suspicious eyes as we
approached. Farther on, in place of the log-huts of the Kickapoos,
we found the pukwi lodges of their neighbors, the Pottawattamies,
whose condition seemed no better than theirs.
Growing tired at last, and exhausted by the excessive heat and
sultriness of the day, we returned to our friend, the trader. By
this time the crowd around him had dispersed, and left him at
leisure. He invited us to his cottage, a little white-and-green
building, in the style of the old French settlements; and ushered us
into a neat, well-furnished room. The blinds were closed, and the
heat and glare of the sun excluded; the room was as cool as a cavern.
It was neatly carpeted too and furnished in a manner that we hardly
expected on the frontier. The sofas, chairs, tables, and a well-
filled bookcase would not have disgraced an Eastern city; though
there were one or two little tokens that indicated the rather
questionable civilization of the region.
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