Page:An Epistle to Posterity.djvu/52

Rh the "Falcon." Tennyson should have immortalized that fawn. And my friends were not, like the master of the falcon, driven to killing the fawn by poverty, for their fields were full of sheep, and their coops overladen with turkeys and geese, while the prairie swarmed with the famous grouse, brown as a berry.

I had some very tragic experiences at this log-cabin of my friends. Once, in my bed, I looked up at the logs at the head, and through the crevices I saw a black snake wriggling his dreadful head. It was a good reminder to rise early and often. After this I determined never to undertake frontier life. There were many dreary hours in spite of the romance in this visit to the then extreme West; but my father was Surveyor-General of Iowa under the Whig administration, and he had to be there.

Perpetually driving over the great prairies on his business, he often took me, and I really have seen more of the unbroken and beautiful ocean of grass, ornamented and gemmed with wild flowers, than many a frontiersman. We made a journey once of three days to Madison, Wisconsin, that pretty town of four fine lakes. We were the guests of Governor and Mrs. Doty, and I remember the house was so full that the rooms were partitioned with sheets. We slept on the way at log-cabins of settlers as we drove along; and once our little carriage, with my absurdly big trunk in front, nearly tipped into a stream we were fording. My father's great form was in the stream instantly, and he held us all up out of the water — carriage, trunk, and daughter. Fortunately, we had to drive in a burning sun for two hours, so he got thoroughly dried. The sorrowful prairie wives and mothers, mostly emigrants from New England, used to move my soul to pity in this journey. They all had the ague, were taking care of a crying baby, and yet found