Page:The Prairie Flower; Or, Adventures In the Far West.djvu/16

vi AUTHOR. (Rising to bow him out.) But your name, stranger, if you please?

STRANGER. (Hesitating.) I am called the Wanderer. Good morning, Mr. Scribblepen!

AUTHOR. Good morning Mr. "Wanderer! (Returns to the mysterious pack age, opens, examines it, begins to read, gets interested, and goes to bed the night following minus dinner and supper.)

Having shown you how he became possessed of the facts of the story, the author would say a few words more as regards the characters set forth in the following pages, he would state, that, being all real, some represent a class, and some an individual only. Prairie Flower is of the latter, and is drawn from real life. That the proceedings of herself and tribe may appear mysterious, and, to some, at first thought, (her locality and everything considered) out of place, the author does not doubt; but he believes that no one who is conversant with Indian history, and especially with that relating to the Northwestern Tribes and the Moravian Missions, during the early settlement of Ohio, will find in this character or her tribe anything that may be termed overstrained or unnat ural. That she is a marked character, distinct and peculiar, and liable to be mis construed by those who do not take every thing into consideration, but allow a first fancy to have full sway he admits; but at the same time would desire such to withhold an expression of opinion, until they shall have read to the end, when he trusts they will find the explanation satisfactory.

With these remarks, and the simple statement that the reader may look upon the scenes described as real, the author would take his respectful leave for the present, hoping the reader may find, if nothing else of interest, information re garding life in the Far West, sufficient to repay a perusal.

CINCINNATI.

The foregoing was affixed to the first edition of "PRAIRIE FLOWER," which appeared in 1849, and which, though a large one, \va exhausted in a little over three months. And the Author would here take occasion to say, that the success tin's work has met with from the reading community the high mark of .popular favor which ht.s been bestowed upon it by an intelligent and discriminating public together with th friendly notices it has received from the Press, and the eulogistic remarks of correi pendents, both known and unknown to the Author, from all parts of the country hav been the green OASES in the desert of life of one who toils only to please, and who herewith returns his humble thanks to each and all, coupled with his regrets that the work in question is not more worthy of the eulogiums that greeted its first appearance.

To those unknown friends at a distance who have made kindly inquiries by letter, concerning the strange individual from whom the author obtained the manuscripts referred to in the foregoing note as also in reference to the present whereabouts of "Prairie Flower" herself, and others but which a press of business has prevented him from answering as he otherwise would have done the author takes reason to say, to one and all, that as respects the "Wanderer," having never heard from him eince, he congratulates himself on having given no offense, in working up the material! he furnished; and that, with regard to Prairie Flower and the rest, he knows nothing additional to the facts recorded in the following pages.

ClKCIKNATI, O..