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But we have been so long hard at work on our farm, that we have surely earned a holiday. We will go a plumming, and the fame of our plums shall resound afar. It is amusing to put Minnesoteans to a cross-examination on the fruit-crops. Apples? O yes! Certainly. There is no reason why she should not have as fine a crop of apples as the East or the South. Still,
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one cannot help noticing that, however large may be her potential fruit crop, the apples that you actually see come from the lower States. And it must be admitted that the fruit of Minnesota is at least a little coy. It will not unsought be won.
This is a general fact, but there is one illustrious exception, for Minnesota is prodigal of plums. Wild in the woods, like berries, the great, beautiful red globes hang on the trees in tempting abundance,--almost as luscious as their cultivated kin-folk. Out we go in the pleasant afternoon of the Indian summer, strolling through the brown, sunshiny fields, crisp and warm to the feet,--aromatic with the essence of the thousand flowers which the summer has distilled; wandering along the steep banks of the blue rushing river, roaring over his rocks, and whirling with many an eddy and many a soft ripple round his green little islands; winding in single file along the narrow path through the copse at the foot of the hill, on whose southern slope the mingled shade and sunshine of oak groves flicker softly around a pleasant home. The copse is aglow now with
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splendid colors, and its burnished leaves shine ruddy and dazzling in the sun. But its saucy fingers play witch-work with straying garments, and twitch at Jamie's curls most teasingly, as his bright little head goes bobbing along the path before me, just on a level with the shrubs, and the spring of his swift feet is as evasive and as fascinating as heat-lightning. Now the sheltering woods enclose us, and we part the bright boughs above our bending heads, and now we come to green open spaces, and the trees droop before us, heavy laden with their pulpy fruit. Carelessly and quickly we strip it from them by handfuls; ever mind if a few are crushed or lost,--there are bushels more than the most provident house-mother can ever use, let her fashion them never so cunningly. Plum preserves, plum jellies, plum pickles, plum butter,--so the female Minnesotean tricks out her solitary drupe in "troublesome," but most toothsome "disguises." And so the male Minnesotean brings himself to believe and proclaim that Minnesota is a great fruit state!
Or, if you prefer it, we will take our wheat and drive to mill. Bring up the big farm-wagon,
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with its span of strong horses; for we are in the country of magnificent distances, and must have ample room and verge enough. Lay in the bags transversely, leaving space for the seats,--though it is no uncommon thing to meet men, and women too, driving teams with no other seats than their piled-up bags of wheat. We ford the river, creeping cautiously down one steep bank, and struggling up the other. The water comes over the hub of the wheel, but the wagon is an ark of safety, and if Robbie must needs give his tail a smart flourish just in the deepest part of the stream, and so administer to the whole party an unwelcome shower-bath, why, we do not mind it, but plod on, jolting and sidling, yet never sidling over,--up hill and down, across the rough breaking, across the grass-matted prairie, twisting and turning through the woods, along roads sometimes firm and smooth, and sometimes given to ruts and gullies; and sometimes we crash through the low brushwood without any road at all,--sidling and uncertain still, but never sidling over, till we come out at last upon a ruined city. Yes, Minnesota, young as she is, has already set up her antiquities. Of
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insatiate ambition, she is not content to emulate Boston with her Saint Paul, but she must have her Nineveh too,--a city that stood at the parting of the ways, and somehow went down instead of up, till now it is but the forlorn simulcrum of a city that never is, and never to be blest. Yet is has a charming site. I stand at the back door of one of her deserted houses, and far down at my feet the Mississippi rolls brightly between its gayly bedecked banks, and the steamers steam slowly up, and the land stretches back green and level, high and airy from the river, and I think no city under the sun could have a more sightly home. Yet I am glad, too, that the city ahs dissolved away. Under the levelling influence of trade, I fear the wild bright tangle of these precipitous shores would have been tames down into prosy landings, and deformed with ugly warehouses, and profaned with foul-mouthed men swearing at their patient horses. As it is, we have this brilliant repose. No rude humanity disfigures the grace of nature. Perhaps, too, it is well we should sometimes learn that man proposes, but God disposes. Doubtless, many castles in the
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air hung gorgeous above this metropolis that was to be, and when it failed and fell, they too crumbled into dust, and great was the fall thereof. I am glad for no man's sorrow, but we need to learn that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. Even Western energy cannot do all things; even Yankee enterprise sometimes fails. And so for all hopes and plans and efforts this city has played a losing game, and is gradually walking off house by house to swell the ranks of a happier sister, who enlarges her borders on the ruins of her unfortunate neighbor. To-day, as we drive by, the big hotel is rattling down, board and plank and joist and beam, preparatory to migration and transmigration. Grass is growing in the broad, level streets, that knew desolation almost before they had learned population. But from the cupola of a barn that has not yet set out on its travels we see a broad and beautiful expanse of country, with blue hills rising far off, like the beloved hills of home, hopelessly far! Through the clear air we catch here our first glimpse of St. Paul, thirty miles away. It nestles among the hills, a shimmering cloud-city, faint but fair, the
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central city of the universe to oru provincial eyes.
Then we drive again through the oak openings, low woods all aflame with the declining sun, and always we seem to be riding on high table-land, above all the rest of the country, and often flat and smooth like a floor. On such a bit of plateau, we leave our horses under the trees, and pick our way cautiously down the steep rocky bank of the Vermilion River. Stones and shrubs aid our tortuous descent, and we stand at length deep down amid the swirl and sweep and roar of falls, that would make the fortune of an Eastern river. The stream that we forded just now, that murmured along afterwards by our side, busy, gentle, and unassuming, here puts on another guise, and comes dashing over the cliffs with a fury of energy. The river is low, and there are numberless little terraces, curves, and hollows, which fashion each a little cascade of his own. The rocky cliff juts out in the centre, breaking the stream apart, and shaping itself into the likeness of a huge sounding-board; and a royal sounding-board it is, echoing the voice of many
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waters, from the deafening roar of the main overflow to the soft tinkle of silver drops trickling over the green moss and the bare, brown cliff, or the modest purl of a wavelet stealing into some quiet pool among the rocks. The sun shines brightly among the swaying boughs far overhead, but down among the surges and foam we stand in the twilight of the shadows. Little sprays of verdure, all cool and dewy with the constant moisture, swing down from the crevices of the rocks, delicate wild-flowers nestle in sheltered nooks, and little caves open black and beckoning under the overhanging bank, but theya re too small for human feet to tempt. Somewhat sobered by its swift descent, the river rolls through a deep gorge, enamelled with trees and vines and numberless nameless forest growths,--and never heeds that its romantic beauty has been utilized by human hands,--that, disdainful of its untamed grace, but deeply conscious of its motive power, a huge flouring-mill springs up plumb with its sharpest precipice,--eighty-eight feet of brick and stone and glass,--and mingles its ceaseless whirr with the music of the falling waters.
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Or instead of wandering about aimlessly among the woods and waters, perhaps it would be more appropriate to our agricultural pursuits to go to the County Fair at Prescott. It will be edifying, doubtless, to compare our own farm products with those of our neighbors. We shall be glad also, to see a Minnesota Fair as against the background of a Massachusetts Cattle-show, and I especially have a great desire to see a Minnesota crowd. I want to see the faces and hear the voices, the ways and walks and talks of Western farmers, male and female, and see whether there is really engendered of latitude and longitude any difference in the same stock. Characteristics come out so strongly and broadly in masses; and to see any large numbers of individuals in this sparsely settled State, one must travel much and tarry long,--individuals I mean who are really individual, who have the stamp and flavor of the soil, unmodified by large association or education. To be sure, Prescott is on the other side of the river, and the other side of the river is Wisconsin; but the river-banks are friendly, and keep up a constant kindly interchange, and we shall likely enough
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find as many of our own as of our neighbor State men there. Yes, by all means let us go to the County Fair.
The same doughty farm-wagon is our steam-car, horse-car, and family coach, and we climb over its familiar, hospitable sides with ever fresh delight. It has already come to have a prairie look to us. It is airy and roomy and open like the prairie, and like it never full. We drive across country to the river. Here and there we chance upon groups of Norwegian and Irish farmers, coming in from their wilderness farms, a week's journey perhaps, to bring their wheat to market. They travel independently, taking with them their cold meat, potatoes, and bread, and camping wherever hunger or the night overtakes them. With their abundant produce they make heavy draughts on the currency. A merry time they seem to have of it,--sometimes a little too merry. Having exchanged their wheat for currency, they occasionally exchange their currency for something even more worthless; and, with fire in the blood and fight in the fists, merriment is apt to become boisterous, not to say belligerent.
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Reaching the river, we descend to the flat-bottomed ferry-boat, and are somehow pulled to the other side; and then we drive along the pleasant bottom-lands, low and level, and heavily timbered, smooth almost as a floor, and intersected by good hard roads, winding in and out among the trees, and seeming stable as the solid earth. Yet, in spring, when the river is high, this very land over which we now pass so securely is six feet under water. The tide mark is plainly to be seen upon the trees, and large logs and prostrate tree-trunks lie still scattered and tilted in rough heaps by the action of the late-retreating water. But the water gives abundant fatness to the soil, and rich grasses spring here far into the autumn, as the sharp-nosed cows divine. They are not usually considered a predatory, or even an enterprising race, but they will swim across the river, Leander-like, for love of these juicy feeding-grounds. Here too, at high tide, the Mississippi straightens out his crooked sides, and we have the somewhat curious fact of steamers taking short cuts through the woods. I wonder what the Naiads and Dryads think the creature is, with its puffs and snorts and un-
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earthly shrieks, its decks and windows and pilot-house, as it comes picking its way among the trees. On blithely through the pleasant grove, till we approach the St. Croix River. Here we find horses feeding and wagons resting in the shade,--prudently left this side the river to save ferriage. It is the outskirts of the Fair Grounds. We are safely conveyed across the second river, sidle up the steep, rocky bank, and are in Prescott. We counted on finding the Fair by following the crowd; but we see no crowd, and, after exploring the street on our own account for a while, we are at length reduced to the humiliation of inquiring the way. The street we are in runs parallel with the river, and travelling is very toilsome. Perhaps the roads have just been mended, for they are deep with gravel and coarse dust, through which we slowly plod back again to find the hill which we are directed to ascend. The town, it seems, is built on another terrace, as high and steep as the one we have already mounted from the river. Ascending, we find ourselves on another of those strange smooth, vast plateaus, which seem as if they were levelled by art,--and so they were, by Divine, not
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human art. It must be pleasant living on these table-lands. It seems like a great pleasure-ground, as if you were all by yourself "up stairs," a sort of family circle secluded from the outside world. Still, our guiding crowd does not appear. Have we taken the wrong road? It is a pleasant one at any rate; let us try it a little farther. Yes, we are right, for here is the race-course, detected only by initiated eyes, though indeed the whole plain is eminently fitted for a race-course. But where is the crowd? We must have mistaken the day. Here is the high enclosure, here the main entrance; but there is not a man to be seen. We send out to reconnoitre. A man is at length discovered. He is a door-keeper, or book-keeper, or some sort of official, and therefore trustworthy person. This is the day for the Fair, but they never expect to do much the first day. Evidently they will not be disappointed to-day. There is one advantage, however, for we are permitted to enter without fee. It is a highly respectable enclosure, with stalls and booths, and everything arranged in the regular manner. Everything in this instance means eight sheep, one colt,--a tame and
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beautiful creature, who rests his head against you like a little child, and whom we are loath to leave in his loneliness,--one heifer, one pumpkin, four squashes, and six cabbages. I took the inventory myself. The crowd consisted of ourselves and a bevy of boys, perhaps four, counting in the stragglers. There was also a fruit and candy stand, where, after mature deliberation and discussion, we bought ten cents' worth of candy. For orderliness, I think a Western Fair compares favorably with an Eastern; but for quantity and variety of natural products on exhibition, perhaps the East may be considered as rather bearing away the palm.
We mark well the bulwarks of Prescott, the clean, sunny, open village that keeps house on the third floor, and then we go down the first flight of stairs to the road, and then the second flight, and are on the river, ferrying back again through the still noon, to piece out our day by a visit to the Mounds.
We can see them any time, purple in the hazy air. They are singular isolated hills, rising abruptly from the prairie. One is of a somewhat irregular oblong shape, the other as round
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apparently as if it had been fashioned with chalk and line. So they look twelve miles off, and we have a mind to examine their pretensions near at hand. The road to the Mounds leads through a valley as curious as they. Certainly, it must at some time have been a river-bed. It is now, lacking only the water. It is a flat valley or ravine, with banks on each side, rising exactly like the present banks on each side, rising exactly like the present banks of the Mississippi, as high and steep. From the top of these banks the land stretches back level, as from the Mississippi banks. The plain is now filled with oak-trees, and our road lies diagonally across it. As you stand on the floor of that valley, and look up and down along its winding length, and up to the heights on each side, you have no feeling of being in a new State. The grain and growth and energy of the West all fade away from your mind, and you are back again among the unknown geologic ages. O, we know so little of anything! There must have been a river here. Where was it? Whence did it come? Whither did it go? What dried it up? What security have we that the Mississippi will not disappear in the same way, and the Missouri,--
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which they say is the true Mississippi,--and the Ohio, and the Hudson, and you, little Merrimack, laurel-crowned among rivers for the songs you sing? And what world was it when this vanished river was young? What people builded on its banks and floated on its waters? O tantalizing footprints of antiquity, Vestiges of Creation! we track you a little way, just a rod or two out among our common roads, and then you fade again into obscurity, and wild, fascinating conjecture. Great Agassiz, mighty Fisherman, Prince of the Powers of the Deep, Kingfisher among men! leave your cold-blooded pets, and tell me the story of this ghostly river. Create again the world through which its bright waters flowed. People again its shores with life, if any life was here. Give outline and color to the pale shades that haunt this voiceless valley, and let us give up our prating of old times and young States, in the presence of this relic of a time that was old or ever a State was born.
Up again the horses climb fiercely almost, out of the silent valley, that just wanders on its way and gives no answer for all our questioning, and we draw near the Mounds. A few white
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stones on the side of one of them show where our Irish brethren have chosen a burial-place for their dead. One or two homely cottages stand among the Mounds, and only increase the loneliness of these waste places. The Mounds are an example of the bad effect produced by overdoing. One mound would be a mystery. It is as round near as far, and very steep. The top is almost a point. It is like a knob set up on the prairie. At top or bottom there seems to be no irregularity, and by the different color of the grass you tell exactly where the Mound proper begins. If this were the only one, what a romance of past ages could we readily conjure up. Depository of a dead civilization, fortress, beacon-hill, tomb, round tower,--what might not this Mound have been to the wonderful pre-Aztec, pre-historic, pre-every-thing-that-we[-]know-about-ic race which built it? As it is, there are two or three other mounds so palpably Nature's own honest hills, that we must relinquish any human origin to this. Nature twirled it out of her thumb and finger like a top, and it stuck where it fell. The others just dropped flat from her hand, and came down rather sprawling. That
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is my explanation of the phenomena, and there are the Mounds to confirm it. If you do not choose to accept it, go back and look at them, and invent a theory for yourself.