Some seeds of all growths that have ever been known in this world might, no doubt, already be found in these Western wilds, if we had the power to call them to life.

I saw, in the newspaper, that the American Tract Society boasted of their agent’s having exchanged, at a Western cabin door, tracts for the “Devil on Two Sticks,” and then burnt that more entertaining than edifying volume.  No wonder, though, they study it there.  Could one but have the gift of reading the dreams dreamed by men of such various birth, various history, various mind, it would afford much, more extensive amusement than did the chambers of one Spanish city!

Could I but have flown at night through such mental experiences, instead of being shut up in my little bedroom at the Milwaukie boarding-house, this chapter would have been worth reading.  As it is, let us hasten to a close.

Had I been rich in money, I might have built a house, or set up in business, during my fortnight’s stay at Milwaukie, matters move on there at so rapid a rate.  But being only rich in curiosity, I was obliged to walk the streets and pick up what I could in casual intercourse.  When I left the street, indeed, and walked on the bluffs, or sat beside the lake in their shadow, my mind was rich in dreams congenial to the scene, some time to be realized, though not by me.

A boat was left, keel up, half on the sand, half in the water, swaying with each swell of the lake.  It gave a picturesque grace to that part of the shore, as the only image of inaction,—­only object of a pensive character to be seen.  Near this I sat, to dream my dreams and watch the colors of the lake, changing hourly, till the sun sank.  These hours yielded impulses, wove webs, such as life will not again afford.

Returning to the boarding-house, which was also a boarding-school, we were sure to be greeted by gay laughter.

This school was conducted by two girls of nineteen and seventeen years; their pupils were nearly as old as themselves.  The relation seemed very pleasant between them; the only superiority—­that of superior knowledge—­was sufficient to maintain authority,—­all the authority that was needed to keep daily life in good order.

In the West, people are not respected merely because they are old in years; people there have not time to keep up appearances in that way; when persons cease to have a real advantage in wisdom, knowledge, or enterprise, they must stand back, and let those who are oldest in character “go ahead,” however few years they may count.  There are no banks of established respectability in which to bury the talent there; no napkin of precedent in which to wrap it.  What cannot be made to pass current, is not esteemed coin of the realm.

To the windows of this house, where the daughter of a famous “Indian fighter,” i.e. fighter against the Indians, was learning French, and the piano, came wild, tawny figures, offering for sale their baskets of berries.  The boys now, instead of brandishing the tomahawk, tame their hands to pick raspberries.