Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/249

Rh blue eyes, his hair parted above his forehead, and falling straight down both sides of his face,—a strong, honest, good, and noble countenance, such as it does one good to look upon. The son was quite young, but promised to resemble his father in manly beauty. It grieved me to think that such men should leave Sweden. Yet, the new Sweden will be all the better for them!

With that ascending September sun, Mr. Lange and I advanced along the winding paths of the wood till we reached the great high road, where we were to meet the diligence by which I was to proceed to Madison, while Mr. Lange returned to Millwankee. Many incomparably lovely lakes, with romantic shores, are scattered through this district, and human habitations are springing up along them daily. I heard the names of some of these lakes—Silver Lake, Nobbmaddin Lake, as well as Lake Naschota, a most beautiful lake, on the borders of which I awaited the diligence. Here stood a beautiful newly built country-house, the grounds of which were beginning to be laid out. Openings had been made here and there in the thick wild forest, to give fine views of that romantic lake.

The diligence came. It was full of gentlemen; but they made room; I squeezed myself in among the strangers and supported by both hands upon my umbrella, as by a stick, I was shaken or rather hurled unmercifully hither and thither upon the newborn roads of Wisconsin, which are no roads at all, but a succession of hills and holes, and water-pools, in which first one wheel sank and then the other, while the opposite one stood high up in the air. Sometimes the carriage came to a sudden stand-still, half-overturned in a hole, and it was some time before it could be dragged out again, only to be thrown into the same position on the other side. To me, that mode of travelling seemed really incredible, nor could I comprehend how at that rate we should ever get along at all. Sometimes