Children of the Market Place | Page 5

I did not sleep. The city had 600 night watch, so the manual said, and I could hear some of them going their rounds. At last ... I awoke and it was morning. I awoke with a sense of delight in the strength and vitality which sleep had restored to me.... I went below to breakfast and to find the way to travel to Illinois.

CHAPTER IV
The clerk of the hotel told me that the best route was by way of Albany, the canal, the Great Lakes to Chicago; that when I got there I would likely find a boat or stage service to Jacksonville. I could leave at noon for Albany if I wished. Accordingly, I made ready to do so.
I was entranced with the river boat. It was longer than the Columbia and Caledonia. And it was propelled by steam. It had the most enormous wheels. And no sooner were we under way than I found that we were gliding along at the rate of twenty miles an hour. The swiftly passing hills and palisades of the Hudson served to mark our speed. There were great saloons, lovely awnings under which to read or lounge, promenade decks. And there was a gay and well-behaved crowd of passengers.... At dinner we were seated at long tables, and served with every luxury. And the whole journey cost me less than seven shillings.
On arriving at Albany that night at about nine o'clock I found myself in the best of luck. I could get passage on a canal boat the next morning for Buffalo; rather I was permitted to sleep on board.... I got on and retired. I awoke just as the boat was beginning to start. I had never seen anything like this before. The boat was narrow, sharp, gayly painted. It was drawn by three horses, each ridden by a boy who urged the horses forward. We traveled at the great speed of five miles an hour.
But it was delightful. We were more than three days going from Albany to Buffalo. The time was well spent. The scenery was varied and beautiful. All the while we were climbing, for Lake Erie, to which we had to be lifted, was much above us. We went through lovely valleys; we ran beside glistening streams and rivers; we wound around hills. The farms were large and prosperous. The villages were new, fresh with white paint and green blinds, hidden among flowers and shrubbery.
You see, I am eighteen and these external objects realize my dreams and stimulate them. I do not know these people. They are frank, talkative, often vulgar and presuming. But they are friendly. There is much merriment on board, for we have to dodge down frequently to save our heads from the bridges which the farmers build right across the canal. The ladies have to be warned and assisted. There are narrow escapes and shouts of laughter. And when the dinner bell is rung by a comical negro every one rushes for the dining room. I am introduced again to the American oyster, raw, fried, and stewed. It is the most delicious of discoveries among the new viands. Then we have wonderful roast turkey, chicken, and the greatest variety of vegetables and sweets. I am keeping a daily record of events and impressions to mail to my dear grandmother when I shall arrive at Buffalo....
Sometimes I get tired of the boat. Then I go on land and run along the path behind the horses. A young woman on her way to Michigan to teach school joins me in these reliefs from the tedium of the boat. We exchange a few words. But I see that I am not old enough for her. I have already observed her in confiding conversation with a man about the age of Yarnell. And soon they go together to trot along the path, to stray off a little into the meadows, or at the base of the picturesque hills.... I am interested in the talk of the passengers, and cannot choose but follow it at times.... One man has been reading the _New Yorker_, printed by H. Greeley and Company. I learn that Horace Greeley is his full name, and he comes in for a berating at the hands of a man with one of the characteristic goatees that I first observed at Castle Garden. The Whigs! I had always associated this party with latitudinarian principles. Now I hear it called a centralist party, a monarchist party. A voluble man, who chews tobacco, curses it as a mask for the old Federalist party, which tried to corrupt America with the British system, after it had failed as a combination of Loyalists to keep America under the dominion of Great Britain.... This is all a maze to me,