Chapter IX: Letter VI: July 2, 1840 (3)

‘I reckon the Ottowa folks are pretty considerably nettled,’ said our old traveller, in a voice which rendered ‘night hideous’ with its harshness. ‘They thought the canal would end there, and they would git all the trade.’ ‘The Ottowa folks don’t depend on no canals, I guess,’ replied another passenger, apparently a neighboring farmer, taking up the cudgels for his favorite town. ‘Ottawa’s a great and increasing place, which will beat _Chicorgo_ yet. Wait a while and you’ll see rows of factories and mills upon the Fox, and you’ll see the rapids scooped out below, so that the steamboats can come up at all times, and then I wouldn’t give a cent for your Peru. Ottawa folks keep their eyes skinned I tell you!’ ‘Oh! you prairie chickens crow loud; you are always laying out for mills to grind the grain what you mean to raise. You’d better come and open a shop now, or a bank, at Peru; things will rise when old Tippecanoe comes to the white house.’ ‘Tip me none of your old ginerals, if you please,’ said his opponent. ‘Van’s the man for me. Give me Van Buren for President and things will rise enough.’ The gurgling of water, as we forded the Little Vermillion, drowned the noise of these village politicians much to my comfort. Soon after we found ourselves in the midst of a group of Irish shantees, occupied by the canal laborers, flanked by a row of low wooden tenements, upon the bank of the moon-illumined Illinois. ‘This, ladies and gentlemen,’ said the farmer, in a tone of derision, ‘is the grand town of Peru!’ ‘Yes, and bigger than Ottawa was, when it was as newly settled as Peru,’ answered the Peruvian disdainfully. As I looked around me, I thought of Tinkerville and its public square in the forest; but every thing must have a beginning. The steamboat frontier was waiting to receive us, and we were soon, with our luggage, translated to her deck. Fatigued as we were we could not leave the deck for some time, for the _night sun_, as the Indians call the moon, was shining brightly down upon the smooth surface of the Illinois, lighting up her forest glades as we passed, and throwing fantastic shadows over the silver water. However, a night and a day in a stage coach has beaten all romance out of us, and we at length retreated to our snug state-room. The mosquitoe nets were drawn over us, and we soon bid to nature and to you a fair good-night.