Our voyage back was all pleasure.  It was the fairest day.  I saw the river, the islands, the clouds to the greatest advantage.

On board was an old man, an Illinois farmer, whom I found a most agreeable companion.  He had just been with his son, and eleven other young men, on an exploring expedition to the shores of lake Superior.  He was the only old man of the party, but he had enjoyed, most of any, the journey.  He had been the counsellor and playmate, too, of the young ones.  He was one of those parents,—­why so rare?—­who understand and live a new life in that of their children, instead of wasting time and young happiness in trying to make them conform to an object and standard of their own.  The character and history of each child may be a new and poetic experience to the parent, if he will let it.  Our farmer was domestic, judicious, solid; the son, inventive, enterprising, superficial, full of follies, full of resources, always liable to failure, sure to rise above it.  The father conformed to, and learnt from, a character he could not change, and won the sweet from the bitter.

His account of his life at home, and of his late adventures among the Indians, was very amusing, but I want talent to write it down.  I have not heard the slang of these people intimately enough.  There is a good book about Indiana, called the New Purchase, written by a person who knows the people of the country well enough to describe them in their own way.  It is not witty, but penetrating, valuable for its practical wisdom and good-humored fun.

[Illustration:  MACKINAW BEACH]

There were many sportsman stories told, too, by those from Illinois and Wisconsin.  I do not retain any of these well enough, nor any that I heard earlier, to write them down, though they always interested me from bringing wild, natural scenes before the mind.  It is pleasant for the sportsman to be in countries so alive with game; yet it is so plenty that one would think shooting pigeons or grouse would seem more like slaughter, than the excitement of skill to a good sportsman.  Hunting the deer is full of adventure, and needs only a Scrope to describe it to invest the western woods with historic associations.

How pleasant it was to sit and hear rough men tell pieces out of their own common lives, in place of the frippery talk of some fine circle with its conventional sentiment, and timid, second-hand criticism.  Free blew the wind, and boldly flowed the stream, named for Mary mother mild.

A fine thunder shower came on in the afternoon.  It cleared at sunset, just as we came in sight of beautiful Mackinaw, over which a rainbow bent in promise of peace.

I have always wondered, in reading travels, at the childish joy travellers felt at meeting people they knew, and their sense of loneliness when they did not, in places where there was everything new to occupy the attention.  So childish, I thought, always to be longing for the new in the old, and the old in the new.  Yet just such sadness I felt, when I looked on the island, glittering in the sunset, canopied by the rainbow, and thought no friend would welcome me there; just such childish joy I felt, to see unexpectedly on the landing, the face of one whom I called friend.