I chose a route which led me some distance north of the one we travelled when we came west, but it was about the same.  Every house was a new settler, and hardly one who had yet produced anything to live upon.  In due time I came to the Rock River, and the only house in sight was upon the east bank.  I could see a boat over there and so I called for it, and a young girl came over with a canoe for me.  I took a paddle and helped her hold the boat against the current, and we made the landing safely.  I paid her ten cents for ferriage and went on again.  The country was now level, with burr-oak openings.  Near sundown I came to a small prairie of about 500 acres surrounded by scattering burr-oak timber, with not a hill in sight, and it seemed to me to be the most beautiful spot on earth.  This I found to belong to a man named Meachem, who had an octagon concrete house built on one side of the opening.  The house had a hollow column in the center, and the roof was so constructed that all the rain water went down this central column into a cistern below for house use.  The stairs wound around this central column, and the whole affair was quite different from the most of settlers’ houses.  I staid here all night, had supper and breakfast, and paid my bill of thirty-five cents.  He had no work for me so I went on again.  I crossed Heart Prairie, passed through a strip of woods, and out at Round Prairie.  It was level as a floor with a slight rise in one corner, and on it were five or six settlers.  Here fortune favored me, for here I found a man whom I knew, who once lived in Michigan, and was one of our neighbors there for some time.  His name was Nelson Cornish.  I rested here a few days, and made a bargain to work for him two or three days every week for my board as long as I wished to stay.  As I got acquainted I found some work to do and many of my leisure hours I spent in the woods with my gun, killing some deer, some of the meat of which I sold.  In haying and harvest I got some work at fifty cents to one dollar per day, and as I had no clothes to buy, I spent no money, saving up about fifty dollars by fall.  I then got a letter from Henry saying that I could get work with him for the winter and I thought I would go back there again.

Before thinking of going west again I had to go to Southport on the lake and get our clothes we had left in our box when we passed in the spring.  So I started one morning at break of day, with a long cane in each hand to help me along, for I had nothing to carry, not even wearing a coat.  This was a new road, thinly settled, and a few log houses building.  I got a bowl of bread and milk at noon and then hurried on again.  The last twenty miles was clear prairie, and houses were very far apart, but little more thickly settled as I neared Lake Michigan.  I arrived at the town just after dark, and went to a tavern and inquired about the things.  I was told that the warehouse had been broken into and robbed, and the proprietor had fled for parts unknown.  This robbed me of all my good clothes, and I could now go back as lightly loaded as when I came.  I found I had walked sixty miles in that one day, and also found myself very stiff and sore so that I did not start back next day, and I took three days for the return trip—­a very unprofitable journey.