The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1858-09-02
They appeared to regard him with sod

~nas oi suPerstiiious VenefatloD, ano somewhat
Of compassion, as being wise as to the otter
world, and foolish as to this; respected and Fo,
t,c'ed him; brought him botanical specimens
collected at random ducked him when in bis
near sightedness he stumbled upon wild bees'
nests; found his epectacles when he had hid
them down upon the mountains and forgottento
| take them up again listened with courtesy IL
not complete conviction to his attempts to in
part to them religious instruction and cheri.b.
ed him generally. On his side, NAL props.
as he often was with the rest of the world, TO-
wards them affection taught him tact, and be
was not only forbearing and forgiving, but con
siderate usually, and strictly observant of their
rules of punctilio and etiquette
little thing will make love, if little thi ag
will break it. Good feeling may often prac-
tically moe than fiji the place of good sense.
Can any amount of abstract good sense gil the
place of good feeling? Herman thought that
he had never fully perceived how truly the senti-
ments which others entertain for us are apt to
be, in the long run, the echo of those which we
entertain for them, until he witnessed the in
tercourse between these often ferocious and 60.
called unmanageable. savsges, and their fond
but ia some respects very foolish old friend.
II, as a recent traveller has asserted, "no man
is philanthropist on the prairie" it is very
illwill and alienation must have been in all
probability wrought, by the hosts of upgovern-
ed white men perpetually trooping, for years
past, over their desert domain, in these tribes
of undisciplined and passionate red brethren Of
ours, whose code of honor seems to exact the
return of wrong for wrong IS rigidly as that Of
any Christian duellist.
Mr.. Grubbe was born with love of adven.
ture, which was much developed and colored
by the perusal at odd minutes Of an odd volume
of the curious and kindly narrative of Lewis
and Clark's peaceful early exploding expedition
among the Indians of the West. 1t was given
him-the other volume being lost-by the wife
of the shoemaker to whom he was apprenticed,
as reward for his kindness in drawing about
sick child of hers, in a little wagon, out of
working hours. He dreamed of il by night,
and logged by day, as he patiently drudged
over bis last and lap board, for the time when
he should be free, and able to go ont with his
knapsack on bis shoulder and verify all the
wild story for himself That time was long in
coming for his father died; his brother was
sot his sisters were many; his mother was
poor. 1t came at last, however. He earned
and saved enough to portion and provide for
them all, and set forth with an easy conscience
and thankful heart to refresh himself with the
contemplation in others of the free, fresh life,
the spirits, and spontaneousness which monot
onous hard, and sedentary toll, hope deferred,
and advancing age, had forever driven out of
him. Of this refreshment he was never weary,
nor of those who afforded it to him.
Herman, too, felt as if he could never have
too much of it. 1t was an auodyne, if not an
antidote, to the pain still lurking at his heart
and young yet, uncrushed, and ancrushable, be
threw himse into it hear! ard seq etaliHR a sy
story, which he soon began to learn rapidly to
understand, went round the FIRE; and, by day,
sketching their picturesque, symmetrical, fault
less forms, deckei in their best for the pur.
pose, in all their barbaric pomp of skins, fringes,
beads, and plumes, or as they sat proudly,
halfstripped for the course, upon their paving
horses; or climbing by himself to catch the
likenesses of the wild mountains in every vsrie-
ty of their frowning, spllen, or smiling express
sion or, above all, after they recrossed the
mountains, as they did in day or two, rushing
on his own fosming little steed, like spirit of
the storm, through the break-neck buffalo-hunts
with dim whisking of tails and up and down
fitting of shaggy launches before him, and
clouds of dust and thunder of hoob all
around.
TO BE CONTINUED ...