In the midst of this little cabin or saloon was placed the box containing my piano, and on it a mattress, which was to furnish us a divan through the day and a place of repose at night, should the weather at any time prove too wet or unpleasant for encamping.  The boxes of silver, with which my husband was to pay the annuities due his red children, by treaty-stipulation, were stowed next.  Our mess-basket was in a convenient vicinity, and we had purchased a couple of large square covered baskets of the Waubanakees, or New York Indians, to hold our various necessary articles of outward apparel and bedding, and at the same time to answer as very convenient little work or dinner-tables.

As a true daughter of New England, it is to be taken for granted I had not forgotten to supply myself with knitting-work and embroidery.  Books and pencils were a matter of course.

The greater part of our furniture, together with the various articles for housekeeping with which we had supplied ourselves in New York and Detroit, were to follow in another boat, under the charge of people whose business it professed to be to take cargoes safely up the rapids and on to Fort Winnebago.  This was an enterprise requiring some three weeks of time and a great amount of labor, so that the owners of the goods transported might think themselves happy to receive them at last, however wet, broken, and dilapidated their condition might be.  It was for this reason that we took our choicest possessions with us, even at the risk of being a little crowded.

Until now I had never seen a gentleman attired in a colored shirt, a spotless white collar and bosom being one of those “notions” that “Boston,” and consequently New England “folks,” entertained of the becoming in a gentleman’s toilette.  Mrs. Cass had laughingly forewarned me that not only calico shirts but patch-work pillow-cases were an indispensable part of a travelling equipment; and, thanks to the taste and skill of some tidy little Frenchwoman, I found our divan-pillows all accommodated in the brightest and most variegated garb.

The Judge and my husband were gay with the deepest of blue and pink.  Each was prepared, besides, with a bright red cap (a bonnet rouge, or tuque, as the voyageurs call it), which, out of respect for the lady, was to be donned only when a hearty dinner, a dull book, or the want of exercise made an afternoon nap indispensable.

The Judge was an admirable travelling companion.  He had lived many years in the country, had been with General Cass on his expedition to the head-waters of the Mississippi, and had a vast fund of anecdote regarding early times, customs, and inhabitants.

Some instances of the mode of administering justice in those days, I happen to recall.

There was an old Frenchman at the Bay, named Reaume, excessively ignorant and grasping, although otherwise tolerably good-natured.  This man was appointed justice of the peace.  Two men once appeared before him, the one as plaintiff, the other as defendant.  The justice listened patiently to the complaint of the one and the defence of the other; then rising, with dignity, he pronounced his decision: