Recollecting that this audience represented a breaking of strong family ties and friendly ties, I sang Tom Moore's hymn to friendship:
There's not in this wide world a valley so sweet
As the vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet;
The last ray of feeling, even life, shall depart
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.
Yet it was not that nature had spread o'er the scene
Her purest of crystal and brightest of green;
'T was not her soft magic of streamlet or rill,
Oh! no,—it was something more exquisite still:
'T was that friends, the beloved of my bosom, were near;
Who made every dear scene of enchantment more dear;
And who has felt how the best charms of nature improve
When we see them reflected from looks that we love?
Sweet vale of Avoca! how calm could I rest
In thy bosom of shade, with the friends I love best,
Where the storms that we feel in this cold world should cease,
And our hearts, like the waters, be mingled in peace.
As to Mr. Morrison, the man with whom I had made the verbal agreement, which was not fully filled in less than one year, I had found before the day was out, that he was one of the foremost and most trusted men, and a pioneer of Andrew County, Missouri. He had sold his farm for cash and was investing the most of its price in his outfit. For the three weeks prior to his vacating his premises there was an increasing stream of friends and family connections, or persons on business, visiting his place. Some were parties with articles to sell, which they considered specially fit for the trip to Oregon. This increased so much that on the last Sunday, as mentioned above, the family were hardly able to occupy their home.
I think the tables were set four times for dinner that day, the oldest men—according to the prevailing custom—being served first. After dinner, as the day was warm, these ranged themselves on extemporized seats on the shady side of the house. I had taken a stroll in the woods with a youth of about my own age, a cousin of the family.
