Dunleith, Ill. Thoreau writes in his journal:
Much pink, flowered, apple-like tree (thorn-like) thru Illinois, which may be the Pyrus coronaria.
Distances on the prairie deceptive. A stack of wheat straw looks like a hill in the horizon ¼ or ½ mile off, It stands out so bold and high.
Only one boat up daily from Dunleith by this line. In no case allowed to stop on the way.
Small houses without barns, surrounded & overshadowed by great stacks of wheat straw, it being threshed on the ground. Some wood always visible, but generally not large. The inhabitants remind you of mice nesting in a wheatstack which is their wealth. Women working in fields quite commonly. Fences of narrow boards. Towns are, as it were, stations on a rail-road.
Staphylea trifolia out at Dunleith.
Chicago, Ill. Horace Mann Jr. writes to his mother Mary in reply to her letter of 18 May:
I have just this minute [7:45 a.m.] been down to the post office & got your letter sent on the 18th. I was very glad to hear from you. I walked around most all day yesterday and saw considerable of Chicago. I went to Mr. Clarke’s in the afternoon after considerable trouble in finding it and found he had gone out but I saw his wife. I saw him later in the afternoon in town. I saw also Mr. Carter who let me have a check for a $100 which I got turned into gold. The Chicago banks are having a good deal of trouble just now and I suppose most of them must fail so I was very lucky in getting gold as it is scarce in the city. I got it of a Mr. [B. B.] Wiley, a kind of banker, a friend of Mr. Thoreau’s. We go this morning at 9:15 A.M., so I am in a good deal of a hurry and therefore write with a pencil as it is easier. you had better direct your next letter to St. Anthony, Minnesota. I cannot write you much about what I am doing till we get where we shall stay a while. It was a beautiful day here yesterday, but it is a little cloudy this morning though I do not think it will rain. I may write to you again from the boat on the Mississippi though perhaps not till I get to St. Paul. I am very well and Mr. Thoreau is getting along very well also, excepting a little trouble that the water gives him in the bowels, though that is of no account. I do not know as I can say anything more now, so
Good bye
Your loving son
Horace Mann
