OUR HOMES. ' g5 



we all the way find people more restless and unsettled than our- 

 selves. In proof of this, a western man, (Samuel P. Boardman, 

 of Lincoln, 111., since deceased,) says, "Did you ever think that 

 it is not the east that emigrates and settles the west, but the west 

 settling the west ? Where one New England Yankee picks up 

 his traps and puts out for the far west, a hundred Buckeyes and 

 Hoosiers and suckers will put out some bright morning before 

 their nearest neighbors have learned that the 'notion' has 'tuck 

 'em.' Moving, to a western man, seems like a small affair ; and hav- 

 ing already ' improved ' one western farm, on. moving to a still newer 

 country, they unload their wagon, start a shanty, set a breaking- 

 plow to running, and have a team started to the nearest timber 

 for poles for a ' Shanghai fence ' before the New Englander has 

 got done meditating on his courage in pushing off from home and 

 friends into a western wilderness. However, ' use doth breed a 

 habit in man,' and the Suckers say that some Hoosiers move into 

 Illinois and back to Indiana so frequently that they can borrow 

 meal anywhere on the road, to be paid when they move back 

 again. That story with regard to their chickens coming up and 

 crossing their legs to be tied whenever they see the wagon sheet 

 bent on, I can't wholly believe." 



We should examine critically, to see if the seeming ills that op- 

 press us may not be so far overcome or modified as to render life 

 reasonably useful and comfortable without so much turmoil and 

 constant change of place as we see. 



We inherit from our European ancestry, and imbibe from Euro- 

 pean literature, certain ideals of home felicity. We now have our 

 own national ideals. In the rural districts it is made up of hill and 

 valley ; it is woodland, pasture, meadow and field ; pure springs 

 gush out in shaded places, furnishing perennial water to the trout- 

 stream that we knew so well ; the farm house and ample barns, 

 protected by forest-groves and fruit-bearing orchards, from winter 

 winds and summer heats ; clumps of trees to which cattle resort 

 for shelter ; with a conspicuous feature in the landscape of the 

 church and school-house, a sign and symbol of morality and intel- 

 ligence. 



Such an ideal is here realized ; and to many of us in our early 

 years was thrown in the additional enjoyment of an occasional 

 ramble in deep forests, boating on secluded lakes, and climbing 

 mountains for the luscious wild fruits of the season.. 

 5 



