were not strong enough to hold them.  It was about the middle of the afternoon when we reached the Blue Mound.  I rejoiced much to have got so far, for I was sadly fatigued, and every mile now seemed like two to me.  In fact, the miles are unconscionably long in this country.  When I was told that we had still seven miles to go, to “Morrison’s,” where we proposed stopping for the night, I was almost in despair.  It was my first journey on horseback, and I had not yet become inured to the exercise.

When we reached Morrison’s I was so much exhausted that, as my husband attempted to lift me from the saddle, I fell into his arms.

“This will never do,” said he.  “To-morrow we must turn our faces towards Fort Winnebago again.”

The door opened hospitably to receive us.  We were welcomed by a lady with a most sweet, benignant countenance, and by her companion, some years younger.  The first was Mrs. Morrison—­the other, Miss Elizabeth Dodge, daughter of General Dodge.

My husband laid me upon a small bed, in the room where the ladies had been sitting at work.  They took off my bonnet and riding-dress, chafed my hands, and prepared me some warm wine and water, by which I was soon revived.  A half-hour’s repose so refreshed me that I was able to converse with the ladies, and to relieve my husband’s mind of all anxiety on my account.  Tea was announced soon after, and we repaired to an adjoining building, for Morrison’s, like the establishment of all settlers of that period, consisted of a group of detached log houses or cabins, each containing one or at most two apartments.

The table groaned with good cheer, and brought to mind some that I had seen among the old-fashioned Dutch residents on the banks of the Hudson.

I had recovered my spirits, and we were quite a cheerful party.  Mrs. Morrison told us that during the first eighteen months she passed in this country she did not speak with a white woman, the only society she had being that of her husband and two black servant-women.

A Tennessee woman had called in with her little son just before tea, and we amused Mr. Kinzie with a description of the pair.  The mother’s visit was simply one of courtesy.  She was a little, dumpy woman, with a complexion burned perfectly red by the sun, and hair of an exact tow-color, braided up from her forehead in front and from her neck behind.  These tails, meeting on the top of her head, were fastened with a small tin comb.  Her dress was of checkered homespun, a “very tight fit,” and, as she wore no ruff or handkerchief around her neck, she looked as if just prepared for execution.  She was evidently awestruck at the sight of visitors, and seemed inclined to take her departure at once; but the boy, not so easily intimidated, would not understand her signs and pinches until he had sidled up to Mrs. Morrison, and, drawing his old hat still farther over his eyes, begged for a whang, meaning a narrow strip of deer-skin.  The lady very obligingly cut one from a large smoked skin, which she produced from its receptacle, and mother and son took their leave, with a smiling but rather a scared look.