We are off early in the morning, feeling a little sore in spots. The first thump extorts a sudden oh! from a member of Congress, but we are philosophic, and accommodate ourselves to circumstances, tell stories between the bumpings, and make the grand old forest ring with our laughter. It is glorious to get away from the town, and out into the woods, where you can shout and sing and let yourself out without regard to what folks will say! The fountain of perennial youth is in the forest,--never in the city. Its healing, beautifying, and restoring waters do not run through aqueducts; they are never pumped up; but you must lie down upon the mossy bank beneath old trees and drink from the crystal stream to obtain them. We quench our thirst from gurgling brooks, pick berries by the roadside, walk ahead of the lumbering stage, and enjoy the solitude of the interminable forest. Eighteen miles of travel brings us to Kettle River Crossing, where we sit down to a dinner of blackberries and milk, bread and butter, and blackberry-pie, in a clean little cottage, with pictures on the walls, books on a shelf, a snow-white cloth on the table, and a trim little woman waiting upon us. "May I ask where you are from?" "Manchester, New Hampshire." It was Lord Morpeth or the Duke of Argyle, I have forgotten which, who said that New England looked as if it had just been taken out of a bandbox; so with this one-storied log-house and everything around it. We had sour-krout at Grindstone, but have blackberries here; and that is just the difference between Dutchland and New England, whether you seek for them on the Atlantic slope or in the heart of the continent. Space is wanting to tell of all the incidents of a three days' forest ride,--how we trolled for pickerel on a little lake, seated in a birch-bark canoe, and hauled them in hand over hand,--bouncing fellows that furnished us a delicious breakfast; how we laughed and told stories, never minding the bumping and thumping of the wagon, and came out strong, like Mark Tapley, every one of us; how we gazed upon the towering pines and sturdy oaks, and beheld the gloom settling over nature when the great eclipse occurred; and how, just as night was coming on, we entered Superior, and saw a horned owl sitting on the ridge-pole of a deserted house in the outskirts of the town, surveying the desolate scene in the twilight,--looking out upon the cemetery, the tenantless houses, and the blinking lights in the windows. Superior has been, and still is, a city of the Future, rather than of the Present. It was laid out before the war on a magnificent scale by a party of Southerners, among whom was John C. Breckenridge, who is still a large owner in corner lots.