It is not witty, but penetrating, valuable for its practical
wisdom and good-humored fun.
[Illustration: MACKINAW BEACH]
There were many sportsman stories told, too, by those from Illinois and
Wisconsin. I do not retain any of these well enough, nor any that I
heard earlier, to write them down, though they always interested me from
bringing wild, natural scenes before the mind. It is pleasant for the
sportsman to be in countries so alive with game; yet it is so plenty
that one would think shooting pigeons or grouse would seem more like
slaughter, than the excitement of skill to a good sportsman. Hunting
the deer is full of adventure, and needs only a Scrope to describe it to
invest the western woods with _historic_ associations.
How pleasant it was to sit and hear rough men tell pieces out of their
own common lives, in place of the frippery talk of some fine circle with
its conventional sentiment, and timid, second-hand criticism. Free blew
the wind, and boldly flowed the stream, named for Mary mother mild.
A fine thunder shower came on in the afternoon. It cleared at sunset,
just as we came in sight of beautiful Mackinaw, over which a rainbow
bent in promise of peace.
I have always wondered, in reading travels, at the childish joy
travellers felt at meeting people they knew, and their sense of
loneliness when they did not, in places where there was everything new
to occupy the attention. So childish, I thought, always to be longing
for the new in the old, and the old in the new.
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