Page:Six months in Kansas.djvu/30

26 City, and other landings. The rain poured in torrents. St. Louis looked like a dirty slattern, as we drove to the boat; and the temperature was that of a close August day at home.

Everything seemed new. "Old things," had indeed passed away. Half the faces we saw were black. The horses seemed to have run quite entirely to ears and tails; and such queer looking carriages! The boat was another kind of thing, too, from ours at home. It looked all out of the water, and on that account awkward. The saloon is one hundred and thirty feet long, with nice little state-rooms on each side, opening not only into the saloon, but also on to the deck, with a blind to that door through which you can get whatever of air there may be astir, with the strictest privacy to your apartment at the same time.

The weather is intolerably hot. I never felt anything like it. We have three dozen children on board. This saloon is the sitting-room and eating-room combined. The children have no resort, not even at meal-time; and as the passengers are mostly families of