Returning to Chicago, Margaret once more embarked for lake travel, and her next chapter describes Wisconsin, at that time "a Territory, not yet a State; still nearer the acorn than we were."
Milwaukee was then a small town, promising, as she says, "to be, some time, a fine one." The yellow brick, of which she found it mostly built, pleased her, as it has pleased the world since. No railroads with mysterious initials served, in those days, the needs of that vast region. The steamer, arriving once in twenty-four hours, brought mails and travellers, and a little stir of novelty and excitement. Going a day's journey into the adjacent country, Margaret and her companions found such accommodation as is here mentioned:--
"The little log-cabin where we slept, with its flower-garden in front, disturbed the scene no more than a lock upon a fair cheek. The hospitality of that house I may well call princely; it was the boundless hospitality of the heart, which, if it has no Aladdin's lamp to create a palace for the guest, does him still greater service by the freedom of its bounty to the very last drop of its powers."
In the Western immigration Milwaukee was already a station of importance. "Here, on the pier, I see disembarking the Germans, the Norwegians, the Swedes, the Swiss. Who knows how much of old legendary lore, of modern wonder, they have already planted amid the Wisconsin forests? Soon their tales of the origin of things, and the Providence that rules them, will be so mingled with those of the Indian that the very oak-tree will not know them apart, will not know whether itself be a Runic, a Druid, or a Winnebago oak."
Margaret reached the island of Mackinaw late in August, and found it occupied by a large representation from the Chippewa and Ottawa tribes, who came there to receive their yearly pension from the Government at Washington. Arriving at night, the steamer fired some rockets, and Margaret heard with a sinking heart the wild cries of the excited Indians, and the pants and snorts of the departing steamer. She walked "with a stranger to a strange hotel," her late companions having gone on with the boat. She found such rest as she could in the room which served at once as sitting and as dining room. The early morning revealed to her the beauties of the spot, and with these the features of her new neighbors.