About forty miles above Indianapolis, in a sparsely settled district, I passed a small church filled to overflowing with people, and a little further on I met a funeral procession. It had been raining during the morning, but among the fifty or more teams that formed the procession, there was but one top carriage, two buggies, and the rest were all heavy team-wagons. In these farm wagons with boards for seats, were whole families that had come a dozen miles, probably, to attend the funeral. From this it seems that buggies and business wagons are luxuries that the average Western farmer does not yet feel able to afford. At Lafayette, I called at the home of Mr. Frank A. Lewis, to inquire as to the condition of the roads farther on, and his mother kindly asked me in to supper. Before that was finished, Frank returned with several wheelmen, among them Mr. Wal. Wolever, a young photographer. Here the pikes or gravel roads which made the riding excellent so far came to an end, and there was nothing before me for 120 miles to Chicago but black clay roads. It had rained heavily for three successive nights, and after riding over 1,300 miles to reach a city that is not 1,000 miles by direct routes from Hartford, I may, perhaps, be forgiven for wishing to avoid three hard days' work, without any practical return for it in knowledge or experience by taking the train to Chicago. After reaching that city, and being kindly received by friends and old schoolmates, it was with a strong feeling of thankfulness for my own safety, that I read the accounts of the terrible cyclones and floods that had passed through sections of Ohio and Indiana, carrying away bridges that I had so lately ridden over in safety, and perhaps killing men and women from whom I had so recently received kind treatment.