Page:Six months in Kansas.djvu/21

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IN KANSAS.
17


she could hardly hover even a little woman. As for Ella, she is not of the sort to be hovered, now or at any future time. I conjure up the picture of her, left behind in that bedlam of a Depot. What is to be done? ah, there comes the knight-errant of our party. I will report. He makes a rapid tramp through the whole train, and returns; she is safe! My heart settles down in its place, making the resolve, to look better after her in future.

Now then for a peep at the country Central New York, with its fine farms, its hills., reminding one so much of the best cultivated portions of Maine ; its canals, bearing along little arks, such as the old primer gave to us in a wood-cut of quaint device, as the especial model of Noah's; its immense fields of broomcorn, hanging its richly-tasselled heads in most wondrous profusion! Ah, it was all very beautiful, and to me new; but the dearest memento I treasure in my memory of our ride through central New York, is the mullenstalk, by the wayside. A rough and hairy leaf it has, a tall and coarse blossom and seed-vessel; but down in the old pasture-lane we