| | 1 | Author: | Woolson
Constance Fenimore
1840-1894 | Requires cookie* | | | Title: | Castle nowhere  | | | | Published: | 2003 | | | | Subjects: | University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 | | | | Description: | NOT many years ago the shore bordering the head
of Lake Michigan, the northern curve of that
silver sea, was a wilderness unexplored. It is a wilderness
still, showing even now on the school-maps
nothing save an empty waste of colored paper, generally
a pale, cold yellow suitable to the climate, all
the way from Point St. Ignace to the iron ports on
the Little Bay de Noquet, or Badderknock in lake
phraseology, a hundred miles of nothing, according to
the map-makers, who, knowing nothing of the region,
set it down accordingly, withholding even those
long-legged letters, “Chip-pe-was,” “Ric-ca-rees,” that
stretch accommodatingly across so much townless territory
farther west. This northern curve is and always
has been off the route to anywhere; and mortals, even
Indians, prefer as a general rule, when once started,
to go somewhere. The earliest Jesuit explorers and
the captains of yesterday's schooners had this in common,
that they could not, being human, resist a crosscut;
and thus, whether bark canoes of two centuries
ago or the high, narrow propellers of to-day, one and
all, coming and going, they veer to the southeast or
west, and sail gayly out of sight, leaving this northern
curve of ours unvisited and alone. A wilderness
still, but not unexplored; for that railroad of the
future which is to make of British America a garden
of roses, and turn the wild trappers of the Hudson's
Bay Company into gently smiling congressmen, has it
not sent its missionaries thither, to the astonishment
and joy of the beasts that dwell therein? According
to tradition, these men surveyed the territory, and
then crossed over (those of them at least whom the
beasts had spared) to the lower peninsula, where,
the pleasing variety of swamps being added to the
labyrinth of pines and sand-hills, they soon lost
themselves, and to this day have never found what
they lost. As the gleam of a camp-fire is occasionally
seen, and now and then a distant shout heard
by the hunter passing along the outskirts, it is supposed
that they are in there somewhere, surveying
still. “Respected Sir, — I must see you, you air in
danger. Please come to the Grotter this afternoon
at three and I remain yours respectful, “Mr. Solomon Bangs: My cousin Theodora Wentworth
and myself have accepted the hospitality of
your house for the night. Will you be so good as
to send tidings of our safety to the Community, and
oblige, “E. Stuart: The woman Dorcas Bangs died this
day. She will be put away by the side of her husband,
Solomon Bangs. She left the enclosed picture,
which we hereby send, and which please acknowledge
by return of mail. | | | Similar Items: | Find |
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