Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Keith M. Eckrich, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
[Illustration: THE FORD.]
[Note: Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by J.B.
LIPPINCOTT & Co., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at
Washington.]
"And if you do get lost after that, it's no great matter," said thecounty clerk, folding up his map, "for then all you've got to do is tofind William Townsend and inquire."
He had been giving us the itinerary for our "cross-country" journey, byway of the Lakes, to Ekoniah Scrub. How many of all the Floridatourists know where that is? I wonder. Or even what it is—thestrange amphibious land which goes on from year to year"developing"—the solid ground into marshy "parrairas," the prairiesinto lakes, bright, sparkling sapphires which Nature is threading, oneby one, year by year, upon her emerald chaplet of forest borderland?How many of them all have guessed that close at hand, hidden away amidthe shadows of the scrub-oaks, lies her laboratory, where any day theymay steal in upon her at her work and catch a world a-making?
There are three individuals who know a little more about it now thanthey did a few weeks since—three, or shall we not rather say four? Forwho shall say that Barney gained less from the excursion than theArtist, the Scribe and the Small Boy who were his fellow-travellers?That Barney became a party to the expedition in the character, so tospeak, of a lay-brother, expected to perform the servile labor of theestablishment while his superiors were worshipping at Nature's shrines,in nowise detracted from his improvement of the bright spring holiday.It was, indeed, upon the Small Boy who beat the mule, rather than uponthe mule that drew the wagon, that the fatigues of the expedition fell."He just glimpses around at me with his old eyeball," says the SmallBoy, exasperate, throwing away his broken cudgel, "and that's all thegood it does."
We knew nothing more of Ekoniah when we set out upon our journey thanthat it was the old home of an Indian tribe in the long-ago days beforeprimeval forest had given place to the second growth of "scrub," andthat it was a region unknown to the Northern tourist. It lies to thesouth-west of Magnolia, our point of departure on the St. John's River,but at first our route lay westerly, that it might include thelake-country of the Ridge.
"It's a pretty kentry," said a friendly "Cracker," of whom, despite thecounty clerk's itinerary, we were fain to ask the way within two hoursafter starting—"a right pretty kentry, but it's all alike. You'll betired of it afore you're done gone halfway."
Is he blind, our friend the Cracker? Already, in the very outset of ourjourney, we have beheld such varied beauties as have steeped our soulsin joy. After weeks of rainless weather the morning had been showery,and on our setting forth at noon we had found the world new washed anddecked for our coming. Birds were singing, rainbows glancing, inquivering, water-laden trees; flowers were shimmering in the sunshine;the young growth was springing up glorious from the blackness ofdesolating winter fires. Such tender tones of pink and gray! suchfiery-hearted reds and browns and olive-greens! such misty vagueness inthe shadows! such brilliance in the sun