When they reached the city of Wheeling the family were again distributed among the homes of the people who were desirous that they should remain so that they might hear Dr. Beecher preach. At this place the family had expected to take the canal boat down the Ohio. But either because the water was too low or because of a rumor that cholera was becoming prevalent down the river, they decided against the great waterway as a means of travel. And if the canal boat experience would have been like that described by Dickens in his “American Notes” or even like the short sketch that Harriet Beecher made in her little story, “The Canal-boy,” the Beecher party had little to regret in being compelled to go a roundabout way, in a comfortably airy stage-coach, even though the journey by this method did take longer. After a busy week in Wheeling, they chartered a coach again and went on westward. This time they verged a little northward and took in Granville, Ohio, where they stayed a while to attend a protracted meeting. Here there was more and more preaching. For the rest of the way there was a corduroy road, made of logs laid crosswise. George said, “They make the roads this way for the benefit of the dyspeptics out here.” But never mind! That corduroy road led over the most beautiful rolling prairie, and down along pleasant river courses, till it came in view of a wide valley through which the great Ohio, La Belle Rivière, swept with a great curve, leaving a charmed space for the building of a city. Here the stage-coach swung along through streets between rows of neat red brick houses surrounded by abundant gardens, and paused at last for rest after the long pilgrimage. Here the Beecher home was to be for eighteen years. CHAPTER X THE WESTERN HOME On arriving in this western metropolis, the Beechers were not entirely like strangers in a strange land. The Doctor, accompanied by Catherine, had made a tour of inspection the year before, and had made many acquaintances with whom they had talked over their educational plans. Besides this, Harriet had two prosperous uncles in Cincinnati, who were taking part in all the most vital concerns of the city; one was that fascinating Uncle Samuel Edmonds Foote, and the other was Mr. John Parsons Foote, brother of Uncle Samuel, who was also a highly cultivated gentleman. These uncles welcomed the wanderers and made them at home in their comfortable residences on the heights where the view of the whole city was spread out beneath their windows. Uncle John and Uncle Samuel, said Harriet, were the “intelligent, sociable, free, and hospitable sort of folk that everybody likes and everybody feels at home with.”