The following evening a few of our immediate friends gathered to congratulate us, among whom were two of Vida's college chums, (Bob) Barbary Beaver and (Peter) Fannie Peterson, who with our Weiders made an interesting trio of entertainers.

Really, when Bob was acting "When Angelina Johnson Came Swinging Down the Line," one could see the pretty colored girl, right from the cotton fields, shaking her heels to the tune of the "Old Virginia Reel."

Peter singing "Maggie, Maggie, the Cows Are in the Clover," was enough to make the most sedate forget themselves, especially the last verse, where Maggie had gone to the county fair and was up in a balloon spooning with her lover, when away in the distance from the kitchen door she faintly heard that old familiar scream, "Maggie, Maggie"—

The cows are in the clover,

They've trampled there since morn.

Go and drive them, Maggie,

To the old red barn.

Thus ended our glad, eccentric lark to Channel Lake, but our hikes still continue. Since our Channel Lake episode, our neighbor, Mrs. Wm. F. Kraft, together with Mrs. Richardson and myself, walked in one day to Elgin, thirty miles, and really these two interesting dames did give me a right lively chase.

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I close this book with regret that I am unable, through language, to express my conviction of the immortality of the soul of both man and beast. Consummated life on earth consists of coming from and returning to; creation, action and dissolution of the body do not account for the personal, invisible cause of action. You, dear reader, and myself are now cloaked in garments of dust. When this mantle is laid aside we shall know each other. We shall remember more distinctly; see more clearly; love more dearly; enjoy more purely and wonder that our faith while on earth was so weak.

Merrick Abner Richardson.

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