The first part of my trip up to the time that we embarked on the river
at Keokuk was just about in the ordinary style. I had continually to
rush out to wave at the people at the towns through which the train
passed. If the train stopped anywhere I had to make a very short speech
to several hundred people who evidently thought they liked me, and whom
I really liked, but to whom I had nothing in the world to say. At Canton
and Keokuk I went through the usual solemn festivities--the committee of
reception and the guard of honor, with the open carriage, the lines of
enthusiastic fellow-citizens to whom I bowed continually right and left,
the speech which in each case I thought went off rather better than I
had dared hope--for I felt as if I had spoken myself out. When I got
on the boat, however, times grew easier. I still have to rush out
continually, stand on the front part of the deck, and wave at groups
of people on shore, and at stern-wheel steamboats draped with American
flags and loaded with enthusiastic excursionists. But I have a great
deal of time to myself, and by gentle firmness I think I have succeeded
in impressing on my good hosts that I rather resent allopathic doses of
information about shoals and dykes, the amount of sand per cubic foot of
water, the quantity of manufactures supplied by each river town, etc.