Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts 2.djvu/33

 high now; the thin woods flooded, with open water behind. See the marsh pink and apples on a flowered, apple-like tree (thorn-like) through Illinois, which may be the Pyrus coronaria. The distances on the prairie are deceptive; a stack of wheat-straw looks like a hill in the horizon, a quarter or half-mile off,—it stands out so bold and high.

There is only one boat up daily from Dunleith [now called East Dubuque] by this line,—in no case allowed to stop on the way. Small houses, without barns, surrounded and overshadowed by great stacks of wheat-straw. It is being thrashed on the ground. Some wood always visible, but generally not large. The inhabitants remind me of mice nesting in a wheat-stack, which is their wealth. Women are working in the fields quite commonly. The fences are of narrow boards; the towns are, as it were, stations on a railroad. The Staphylea trifolia is out at Dunleith.