302 MEN I HAVE FISHED WITH. 



but the lads and lassies were impatient; a thought struck 

 my old bosom-block, Henry. Could the landlord get a 

 fiddle? The landlord could, and did. Behold Henry 

 seated on a chair on top of a table, tuning up ! Such tun- 

 ing and such playing! He was not Ole Bull, but he 

 pame as near to him as he could. I can see him now, 

 beating time with his boot which had been cut open to 

 allow his frozen toe to expand and calling off: "First 

 two forward!" etc. After a while the missing fiddler ar- 

 rived, and relieved Henry without any perceptible im- 

 provement in the music, but there was an era of good 

 feeling, and it was 



"On with the dance! 



Let joy be unconfined! 



No sleep till morn, 



When Youth and Pleasure meet." 



We went through Pleasant Grove, where me met 

 Hiram Gilmore, of Potosi, who gave us late news of our 

 families, and on the 28th we stopped at Decorah, la. ; we 

 struck the Mississippi at Clayton City with sick horses; 

 they would neither eat nor drink, and what the matter 

 was I don't know, only that we were delayed. From 

 there we took the ice to Cassville, Wis., where we stopped 

 all night, and then struck out for home, which we reached 

 just after sundown on the last day of the year, and, as the 

 King says in "Hamlet:" 



"At night we'll feast together: 

 Most welcome home." 



