232 EAST PRUSSIA TO THE GOLDEN GATE 



Oil the log sat an old man, dressed in a suit of coarse 

 gray cloth, a brown felt hat covering his white hair. On 

 his knees he held several open letters, one of which he 

 seemed to be reading aloud to the persons surrounding 

 him. These were a young woman, of twenty years or 

 more, dressed as the wives of American farmers are 

 usually dressed; she had dropped her needlework in her 

 lap, leaning forward with her intelligent, sunburnt face 

 turned fully to'wards the old man, the better to listen to 

 his words. On the opposite side of the patriarch— on 

 the ground— sat a boy about 14 or 15 years of age, his 

 knees drawn up to his chin, and his hands folded in front, 

 so as not to lose his balance. Behind the boy stood a man 

 leaning on a long rifle, with which he had probably at 

 that moment returned from a hunt, dressed like a farmer, 

 the broad-brimmed hat shading a handsome, manly face 

 — and also listening attentively to the reading of the let- 

 ters. A few yards away two children— a boy about six 

 and a little girl about four years old— were playing near 

 a draw well, constructed just as we have them in the 

 country at home, and this gave to the whole scene some- 

 thing very pleasant and homelike. The last figure of the 

 group, a young man about 20 years old, stood near the 

 road unharnessing a pair of mules. 



For a short time I forgot everything in looking at the 

 lovely idyll, and it was only when the old man folded up 

 his letters and turned around that I awoke from my rev- 

 erie, and following a natural impulse I approached them. 

 My first expedient was to ask for some water, and much 

 quicker than I could have hoped, I found myself engaged 

 in a, conversation with the old man and his daughter, the 

 wife of the farmer. The latter was very communicative, 

 and still excited by the good news received, and appar- 

 ently forgetting that I was a stranger, she let me into 

 some of the family affairs by telling me how the letters 

 said that her sister Lucy had married a rich fanner in 

 Missouri, and the other sister Clara was engaged to a 

 young German locksmith at such a place, and that her 

 brother Charles would probably be soon out here on a 



