I have been bothered up to now by feeling that I have not been making much progress; but now there will be no need for me to skip anything.

I begin, just as that canvassing rascal said, a long way from Vandemark Township, and many years ago in point of time; but I am afloat with my prow toward the setting sun on that wonderful ribbon of water which led to the West.

I was caught in the current.

Nobody could live along the Erie Canal in those days without feeling the suck of the forests, and catching a breath now and then of the prairie winds.

So all this really belongs in the history.
J.T.