KANSAS LAWS—GOV. SHANNON. 
91 
return. Would there be such a crowding of duties then ? One 
grows weary of doing; also of leaving duties undone. 
The loveliness of the weather, the few T months I have been here, 
has never been surpassed. Although the heat often rises high, a 
fresh breeze makes it in reality seem much less. I have never 
passed a summer with so little inconvenience from the heat, and 
have heard many people from Pennsylvania, as well as more 
northern states, say the same. Coming from the bleak and hilly 
north, where four months are all we boast of genial weather, free 
from frosts and north-east winds, — where we cherish with utmost 
care our garden flowers, protecting them from summer’s heat and 
winter’s cold, — where, of wild dowers, we have many a time re¬ 
turned rich, after a long tramp, with short-stemmed violets, one¬ 
sided dandelions, and blear-eyed daisies, — to this country, where 
charming weather predominates from early spring until the new 
year comes, displacing the old, we have grown w T ild in our enthu¬ 
siasm of this beautiful land. We have revelled in flowers grow¬ 
ing under our windows and at our doors, which, with much 
tending, we have tempted to bloom meagerly in garden-borders 
and green-houses in New England, such as verbenas, —velvet and 
sweet-scented, — petunias, fox-gloves, phlox, larkspurs, spider- 
wort, etc., an endless variety. 
In the pillared clouds of morning and evening, when the golden 
and sapphire mingle, we are reminded of the burnished gates, and 
the streets inlaid with pearl, of the New Jerusalem. 
While watching the changing, flitting shadows, which at one 
moment make the distant landscape of a deep blue, and then 
of a brown color, with little green spots like oases in the desert, 
life’s changes have been typified in the shadows and sunny light, 
and we have grown wiser, treasuring the lesson. 
9th. — Near the close of an unusually quiet Sabbath, we w r ere 
attracted by the hasty, furious riding of a horseman upon the 
prairie going toward town. He soon returned, and others followed 
in squads of three and four. We heard the merry laugh, and 
occasional snapping of a gun. They were going out to the claim 
where the hunted negro lives. It was the hour for the meeting 
here; but owing to the excitement, few came. A lady, who came 
