“What about the people?”

“Oh, dear!  I didn’t see much of them, and that little did not make me wish to see more.  The moment you step across the south line of the Reserve you step into a foreign country, and among a foreign people, who speak a foreign language, and who know one of us as quick as they see us; and they seem to have a very prudent distrust of us.  After passing this black, Dutch region, you enter a population of emigrants from Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, and some from North Carolina, and all unite in detesting and distrusting the Reserve Yankee.

“It is singular, the difference between the lake and river side of the State.  At Cincinnati you seem to be within a step of New Orleans, and hear of no other place—­not a word of New York, and less of Boston.  There everything looks and goes south-west, while we all tend eastward.”  In reply to questions, Bart told them of Columbus and Cincinnati, giving fresh and graphic descriptions, for he observed closely, and described with a racy, piquant exaggeration what he saw.  Breaking off rather abruptly, he seemed vexed at the length of his monologue, and went on towards the post-office.

“That young man will not come to a single darn,” said Uncle Josh; “not one darn.  He is not good for anything, and never will be.  His father was a very likely man, and so is his mother, and his older brothers are very likely men, but he is not worth a cuss.”

“Uncle Josh is thinking about Bart’s sketch of him, clawing old Nore Morton’s face,” said Uncle Jonah.

“I did not like that; I did not like it at all.  It made me look like hell amazingly,” said the old man, much moved.

“You had good reason for not liking it,” rejoined Uncle Jonah, “for it was exactly like you.”

“Dr. Lyman, what do you think of this young man?  He was with you, wa’n’t he, studyin’ something or other?” asked Uncle Josh; “don’t you agree with me?”

“I don’t know,” answered the Doctor, “I am out of all patience with him.  He is quick and ready, and wants to try his hand at every new thing; and the moment he finds he can do it, he quits it.  There is no stability to him.  He studied botany a week, and Latin a month, and Euclid ten days.”

“He hunts well, and fishes well—­don’t he?” asked another.

“They say he shoots well,” said Uncle Josh, “but he will wander in the woods all day, and let game run off from under his eyes, amazingly!  They said at the big hunt, in the woods, he opened the lines and let all the deer out.  He isn’t good for a thing—­not a cussed thing.”

“Isn’t he as smart as his brother Henry?” asked Uncle Jonah.

“It is not a question of smartness,” replied the Doctor.  “He is too smart; but Henry has steadiness, and bottom, and purpose, and power, and will, and industry.  But Bart, if you start him on a thing, runs away out of sight of you in an hour.  The next you see of him he is off loafing about, quizzing somebody; and if you call his attention back to what you set him at, he laughs at you.  I have given him up, utterly; though I mean to ask him to go a-fishing one of these nights.”