learn more of him. We give you here his ] 
trait, set in a frame, ornamented with the figi 
of creatures he loved, and with which he bee; 
so familiar. 
LETTERS FROM THE WEST-NO. I. 
Dear Rural: Now that the Mississippi 
sweeps between us, your face is just twice as 
handsome as it was in New York. 
The. unprotected female, sitting among her 
boxes and bundles in some bustling depot, is, or 
ought always to be, the subject of kindly interest. 
Made up as she is of nerves, inefficiency, head¬ 
aches, cold feet,, anxiety, and scepticism, (as for 
instance, if an ollicial says “yes." in reply to some 
interrogation, aforementioned female Is sure he 
meant no, and rice versa,) she has “ a title clear” 
to your candid opinion, my dear sir, as to 
whether the cars are moving cast or due west, 
or even to express her conviction that they are 
stationary and surrounding objects marching on. 
But don't think your “fair correspondent,” 
though belonging to the species, is able to 
answer “here” to a roll-call including all the 
above-named personalities. 
The DOLEFUL family were well represented; 
four of them sat just in front of me. “ Our 
tickets cost $—'* said Mr. Dolkkul to his wife. 
“ How dreadful dear," was her solemn response. 
After a grim silence one of the little Dolkfuls 
said to his brother, 
GOD’S LITTLE MESSENGER. 
A sick soldier had captured one of these 
little creatures, hoping to be cheered and re¬ 
minded of home by his little pleasant chirp 
during the tedious voyage. But the little insect 
was myte as a fly, and all the satisfaction the 
poor soldier had was in looking at his little 
prisoner. But all ot a sudden he changed his 
behavior, and rung his clear rattle as loud as a 
cricket could. It was instantly surmised that 
he scented the land, and on examination, sure 
enough they were in the neighborhood of dan¬ 
gerous rocks, where they would soon have been 
dashed to pieces. God put it into the heart of 
the man to bring that vigilant'little watchman 
with him, and he proved of more service than 
the unfaithful look-out man. Surely, God hath 
chosen the weak things of the world to confound 
the tilings that are mighty. 
“ This little story reminds me of still another,” 
continued Grandpa, “ in which a curious beetle 
was made to save Che life of a very great scholar 
and naturalist. He found a very rare one in his 
little cell, where he had been maliciously im¬ 
prisoned, and told his surgeon he wished very 
much to have it sent to two naturalists, who 
would prize it highly. The simple request was 
complied with: and by this means the two 
friends were made acquainted with the fate’of 
the other. This led them to take most vigorous 
measures to have him released; and at last 
they were successful. The poor companions of 
the prisoner were shipped for banishment to 
some far-off' land a few weeks afterward, and 
the ship foundered at sea, and all on board were 
lost.” 
How plainly we see the hand of God in All 
these little occurrences. You cannot learn to 
believe too early, my children, that “ not a spar¬ 
row falls to the ground without His notice, and 
that even the ‘very hairs of your head are num¬ 
bered.' ”— Presbjjteri.au. 
worse 
and worse where the old cat scratched it,” and 
the reply was, “ My boot pinches my foot 
awfully.” The mother had a huge willow 
basket in her lap which she clung to as affection¬ 
ately as a young lady does to a poodle. Presently 
she begat) to look it over and over, and through 
and through. “Gone, gone,” 1 heard hpr say. 
The search was renewed and the dirge repeated, 
“gone, gone." Poor woman. I soliloquized, 
something valuable is lost, like enough the deed 
to their farm. “What is it 5"’ I asked, with 
feminine curiosity. “Why, I can’t find Rob¬ 
bie’s mittens,—they was new ones, striped, 
yaller and white, an' I wouldn’t, a’lost 'em for 
the world.” 
The Sunny family had some representatives, 
and when our engine, for private reasons of its 
own, suspended walk, they wore all the merrier. 
And so on and on wc came, passing the broad 
fields of Ohio, the well-tilled acres ot'tho Penin¬ 
sular State, the homes of the eom-craekers and 
the prairie farms of Illinois. My heavily bound 
trunk, -which had survived a trip to Pike’s Peak 
and back again, refused to bo comforted under 
the affectionate treatment of the Chicago hag- 
gage-master, and manifested a severe desire to 
disgorge its entire contents: but the trunk of 
some fellow-passenger, which bad been carefully 
encircled w ith ropes, was partially relieved that 
the battered sides of my own might be bound 
together. The best preventive for this kind of 
accident, I am told, is to put two or three hands 
of hooping-iron about the trunk and fasten with 
a nail. 
At Davenport, we crossed the Mississippi, the 
only bridge that spans Its waters; it is about 
three-fourths of a mile long. What other river 
bears on its bosom the products of so thrifty a 
people and so varied a clime? Its wonders of 
vegetable existence have a tropical growth and 
luxuriance, coming upon the eye. at some sea- 
AUDUBON, THE ORNITHOLOGIST, 
to any considerable extent, but are thought to 
be the best in the State. The city is grow ing 
rapidly and steadily in substantial prosperity; 
new buildings are going up, new firms are being 
established, and boarding houses are crowded. 
The people arc social, hospitable, intelligent and 
friendly, and many of them believe that the 
“ Star of Empire’’ will yet culminate above 
Des Moines. The population reaches nearly six 
thousand. 
The school buildings of Iowa are mostly good 
structures, on the principle that the miller’s pig 
grew fat,—the money of non-resident landhold¬ 
ers has built them. 
Covered wagon-a, drawn by mules or horses, 
containing emigrants or freight to and from the 
depot, attract one’s attention tis they come in 
from the East. This is the only way families 
move west hereabouts, -and the mania for 
moving west prevails extensively,—there is such 
a broad, grand sweep of virgin soil lying west¬ 
ward, there “ remains so much land yet to be 
possessed," that one cannot wonder. 
Very truly, yours on the wing, 
Des Molnca, Iowa, Dec. 3,1S68. M. J. C. 
lur persecution of such a family, annoying them 
in every possible way. They keep coffee, burnt 
and ground, sugar, powdered and in lumps, 
tobacco, liquors, and every household article in 
infinitely small quantities.— N. Y. Com. Adv. 
JOHN JAMES AUDUBON, 
Who was John James Audubon, boys? 
Who holds up his hands first? Every boy and 
girl who loves birds ought to know all about 
him. And while we eaunot give space to tell 
all that is interesting in his history here, we can 
urge each oue of the young Roll a lists to find 
out something more concerning him. 
Audubon— for he is known by that name in 
the scientific world—was born in New Orleans 
the 4th of May. 1730. He was the son of French 
parents. He was sent to Paris to school, and 
received a good education. He came back to 
America after several years absence, and with 
knapsack, rifle, net and snares, he roamed the 
prairies of the West for the purpose of complet¬ 
ing his education. “Completing his education 
on the prairies, with net and rifle:’’ exclaims 
some bright-eyed little Rural reader. Yes, 
indeed: He went out into the prairie wilds to 
study. “Study what?” Why, Nature, to be 
sure. He studied the birds that sang to him— 
their habits, and distinguishing traits. He 
studied how one bin! differed from another, in 
color, size, the eons true lion of their bodies, and 
by this means learned their uses in this great 
world which God has created. He shot or 
caught every new bird that he could find—not 
simply for the pleasure of shooting it. but that 
he might learn something about it. He huuted 
their nests and kept specimens of all the eggs he 
could get, and carefully recorded the residts of 
all his labors and studies, for the good and use 
of all young people who choose to study Orni¬ 
thology. And because he had such a passion 
for the study of birds he was called an Ornitho¬ 
logist. He was a great adventurer. Did you 
ever see the Mississippi river? You can point 
it out on the map. It is a great river, and its 
waters flow with wonderful momentum towards 
the Gulf of Mexico. But as early as the year 
lsto, Audubon was sailing down the Upper 
Mississippi in a birch canoe—a frail boat for so 
long a voyage on so great a river. But in this 
si range, ad venturous way,he visited almost every 
part of these United States and Territories, con¬ 
stantly studying the birds and insects. For a 
man so fond of God’s wonderful creations could 
not confine his studies to one class of his crea¬ 
tures. The tiny insects were regarded by him 
with great interest. But it was his main effort 
to complete his Ornithological education. 
Audubon knew how to persevere. He was 
not easily overcome by difficulties. There is a 
storv told illustrating his perseverance. IIo had 
toiled for long years to get accurate^representa¬ 
tions of American birds to be used to illustrate 
bis great work on American Ornithology, when, 
one night, two Norway rats destroyed two 
hundred of his original drawings, containing 
the forms of more than a thousand of the birds 
which he had studied during the long years. 
All were gone except a few bits of gnawed 
paper—all the labor of long years gone in a 
single night,destroyed by two insignificant rats! 
How he suffered! Would it not have discour¬ 
aged you. boys? But it did not him. lie soon 
recovered his usual good nature, took up his 
gun and note-book again, and w ent into the 
woods and wilds to recover what he had lost by 
the rats. It took him nearly three years to fill 
liis portfolio again with the lost sketches. But 
he did it! And there is a lesson for you, boys. 
If you are interested in this brief sketch of 
this great man, vou should make an effort to 
There is no greater fallacy in the world than 
that entertained by young men that some pur¬ 
suit in life can be found wholly suited to their 
tastes, whims and fancies. This philosopher’s 
stone can never be discovered, and every one 
who makes his life a search for it w ill be ruined. 
Much trutli is contained in the Irishman’s re¬ 
mark:—“Tt is never aisy to work hard.” Let, 
therefore, the fact always be remembered by the 
young, that no life work can be found entirely 
agreeable to man. Success always lies at the 
top of a hill; if we would reach it, w r e can do so 
only by hard, persevering effort, while beset 
with difficulties of every kind. Genius counts 
nothing in the battle of life; determined, obsti¬ 
nate perseverance in one single channel is every¬ 
thing. Hence, should any of our young readers 
be debating in his mind a change of business, 
imagining he has a genius for some ’other, let 
him at once dismiss the thought as he w'ould a 
temptation to do evil. 
If you think you have made a mistake in 
choosing the pursuit or profession you did, don’t 
make another by leaving it. Spend all your 
energies in working for and clinging to it, as 
you would to the life-boat that sustained you in 
the midst of the ocean. If you leave it, it is 
almost certain that you will go down; but if you 
cling to it, informing yourself about it till you 
are its master, bending your every energy to the 
work, success is certain. Good, hard, honest 
effort, steadily perserved in, will make your love 
for your business or profession grow: since no 
oue should expect to reach a period when he 
could have done best and would have liked the 
best. We are allowed to see and feel the rough¬ 
ness in our own pathway, but none in others; 
yet all have them.— Hunt's Merchants' Magazine. 
I have an affection for a great city. I feel 
safe in the neighborhood of man. and “the 
sweet security of streets.” The excitement of 
the crowd is pleasant to me, i find sermons in 
the stones of the pavement, and in the continu¬ 
ous sound of voices and wheels and footsteps, 
hear “ the sad music of humanity.” Feel that 
life is not. a dream but a reality; that the beings 
around me are not the insects of an hour, but the 
pilgrims of an eternity; each with his history 
of thousandfold occurrences, insignificant it may 
be to others, but all-important to himself; each 
with a human heart whose fiber.- arc woven into 
the great web of human sympathies; and none 
so small that, when he dies, some of the myste¬ 
rious meshes are not broken. The green earth, 
and the air, and the sea, all living and all life¬ 
less things, preach the doctrine of a good Provi¬ 
dence; but most of all does man, in his crowded 
cities, and in his manifold powers and wants and 
passions and deeds preach this same gospel. 
The greatest works of his handicraft delight me 
hardly less than the greatest work of nature. 
They are “the master-pieces of her own master¬ 
pieces.” Architecture and painting and sculp¬ 
ture and music and epic poems and all the forms 
of art, wherein the hand of genius is visible, 
please mo evermore, for they conduct me into 
the fellowship of great minds. And thus my 
sympathies are with men and streets and city 
gates and towers from which the great bells 
sound solemnly and slow; and cathedral doors 
where venerable statues, holding books in their 
hands, look down like sentinels upon the church- 
going multitude, and the birds of the air come 
and build their nests in the arms of saints and 
apostles. 
And more than all this, in great cities we learn 
to look the world in the face. We shake hands 
with stern realities. We see ourselves with 
others. We become acquainted with the motley, 
many-sided life of man; and finally learn, like 
Joan Paul, “to look at. a metropolis as a collec¬ 
tion of villages; a village as some blind alley in 
a metropolis: fame as the talk of nuighbors at 
the street door; a library as a learned conversa¬ 
tion; joy as a second; sorrow ns a minute; life 
as a day ; and three things as a day—God. Crea¬ 
tion. V irtue.— LongfelloK ." 
old Spanish adventurers patiently rowed far lip 
toward Its mount.iin source—since Dk Soto 
found a grave in its waters, und Chateaubri¬ 
and wrote of it as “ a river of mighty and 
unbroken solitudes.” “ And the Father of Waters 
goes umtxed to the sea." 
Staging is a great institution in the West. It 
always has some pleasant features, but they 
“ grow small by degrees and beautifully less” 
after one has enjoyed them awhile. A night or 
two aboard the cars is endurable, for there one 
can, at least, like James Furz James, 
“ Consign to heaven his cares and woes. 
And sink in undisturbed repose." 
but cramped up In a stage that is bounding 
over a road that must have beeu laid out with 
the old mathematical definition in view, “a 
straight line is the shortest distance between 
two points,” isn’t at all favorable to nature’s 
sweet restorer, when the straight line leads over 
corduroy bridges, steep knolls, gorges, gullies, 
or anything in its way. 
Des Moines, the capital city of Iowa, is prin¬ 
cipally on the west side of the Des Moines 
river. In time of high water tlio river is navi¬ 
gable to the Mississippi, The country round 
about is very well timbered, the surface quite 
undulating, favoring ready drainage and relieving 
it of that pain fill sameness which is a feature of 
Middle and Southern Illinois. The eapitol is 
built mi a bluff east of the river and about a 
mile from the Post-Office. The land along the 
river is flat, but back a little distance the bluffs 
ascend to a considerable height and are being 
improved by tine dwellings and ornamented 
grounds. There are large commercial blocks 
containing wholesale 
HOW THE FRENCH ECONOMIZE. 
There are few American families who know 
exactly the expenses of the year; they all know, 
probably, that it costs about so many hundred or 
thousand dollars on the whole. But every Eu¬ 
ropean family knows the expense of every year, 
of every month, day or hour—the exact cost of 
every breakfast, dinner or supper, of every mor¬ 
sel they eat, of every drop they drink. Every 
Goman or French housewife knows not only 
how much the meat, potatoes and bread of any 
meal may cost, but also the water in which she 
has cooked them, and the Coal or wood she has 
burned to boil the water 
It is infinitely amus¬ 
ing to an American to observe such a menage. 
In Paris there is no uequeduet, the fountains 
ol the city belong to the Government, and the 
water i* sold by barrels and pailsfuls to water 
carriers, who supply families at so much a gal¬ 
lon. In a house of five stories, there arc two 
families on each floor, making ten who ascend 
the same staircase, up which all articles for 
family use must be carried. It is a rule that 
water, coal, and all heavy articles must be taken 
up before noon, as about that time the coiwierge 
cleans the hall and stairs, and they must be 
kept clean for callers in the afternoon. In every 
kitchen is a receptacle for water, consisting of 
an oblong box, containing two or more pailsful. 
according to the means of the family, and their 
ideas of cleanliness. In one corner of the box 
is a small portion of porous stone, which serves 
as a filter, and to which is a separate faucet. 
The partem brings two largo pailsful of water 
for three cents, and comes every morning. It. 
is. therefore, very easy to know how much the 
water costs in which the dinner is boiled. 
In the same kitchen is a box for coal, which 
contains the quantity for which they pay forty 
cents, and they know exactly how many meals 
can be cooked with this quantity. If they have 
guests to dinner, they use an extra quantity of 
coal, and know how many cents’ worth are de¬ 
voted to each guest, and then, of course, they 
know if they can afford to invite anybody aguiit^ 
They know exactly how much of every arti¬ 
cle is used every day. The streets of Paris are 
lined with small groceries, where everything is 
purchased by the cents’ worth, and are cer¬ 
tainly very convenient for people who earn only 
a few cents tier day. If a family comes into the 
neighborhood who does not patronize these small 
shopkeepers, it is considered a great injustice, 
and we have known thorn to commence a regu- 
“ Sometime.” — Only a word, and] yet no 
magician’s wand ever conjured up fairer pictures 
than it brings to human mind. All the trea¬ 
sures of earth arc gathered iujshining richness 
at our feet, and we see a flower-wreathed path 
winding beneath the fern-leaved oak and feath¬ 
ery pine, where the music of foaming waters, 
and cheery bird voices gladden tho senses; and 
joyously we linger amid the mazyjlabyrintha of 
imagination.^ S 
" Sometime.” — Softly the mother breathes it, 
and to her it speaks of a time far away in the 
future, when the child she now folds so lovingly 
and tenderly in her arms shall have reached the 
pride of manhood, and shall go forth before the 
multitude to fight a glorious battle for truth, 
freedom and justice: and the voice, which can 
now scarce lisp its mother’s name, shall awaken 
the echo of earth's farthest shore, with the glad 
news of the world’s redemption. 
Paris. —Of the hundreds of elegiuit seats put 
up all over the city for the repose of the public, 
1 have not seen one disfigured by a pen-knife. 
From one end of the town to the other, every¬ 
where, the choicest flowers are blooming, with 
only a barrier a foot high around the beds, and 
yet not a single plant or flower is ever touched. 
Paris has become the best-lighted city in the 
world, and will soon be, if not already, the best 
ventilated. Its drainage is known to be nearly 
perfect. The policemen are not ruffians, but as 
civil as gentleman ushers of the block and white 
rod. lu the most polite and obliging maimer all 
your inquiries are answered, and every reasona¬ 
ble assistance is rendered if you get into a strait. 
and retail stores, nice 
hotels—one or two of which would compete with 
those of the far-lamed Flour City. 
Ladies sweep the pavement hero as elsewhere 
with their dresses: social position is an especial 
end to lie kept in view. Many who in the East 
had served behind the milliner’s counter, 
acquiring a grace and ease of maimer really 
winning, and others, who for various reasons of 
family relation could never vise out of a certain 
sphere, come M ost, put on style, dress to tho 
h €xte tit of their means and are tho elite of the 
i or t h0 ‘own. But they labor here for the 
/ Si ' , hlieis with a zeal as uoble as it is untiring; 
’1 the alabaster box containing ointment of spike- 
'j niml - v «y precious, has been broken without 
) reserve, and when the bloody struggle ceases, 
). when Liberty stands up disenthralled, tho sister 
% ‘States will say of Iowa, “She hath done what 
w she could." 
& One natural advantage Des Moines possesses 
¥ are its coal beds. These have not been worked 
The Fireside. — The fireside has always 
been regarded os the altar of home—the seat of 
all the domestic virtues. Round that hallowed 
spot are supposed to be nourished all those ten¬ 
der feelings and sentiments which soften the 
harder features of humanity.There it is that 
tho true father, the true mothoi\Jhe t rue sister, 
anil tho true brother are grown, and there it is 
that society looks for its brightest ornaments. 
No patriot or philanthropist, worthy of tho 
name, ever sprung from any other soil, or was 
really moulded by any other influence. 
W isdom and Virtue are the greatest beauty; 
but it is an advantage to a diamond to be icell set. 
—Matthew Henry. 
