My dear tourist friend—farewell! Farewell perhaps forever. Farewell! I am still camping! In the cool shade of the cottonwoods beside the Platte, I am camping. I who erstwhile in careless youth’s hilarious days, a handsome book of verse and prose did write and print, a book that has neither brought me fame nor fortune as yet; nay, nay, and it never will.
Ha, ha, ha! Yes, I am still camping. In delightful tranquility and in the generous shelter of the tall timber close down by the clear blue water’s side, my humble little abode is still standing. Its dingy white-washed walls may yet be seen peeping out pleasingly from among the thick green leaves of the patriarchal trees of the forest.
Yes, yes; I am still camping. Pegasus, my “broncho plug” (my vaunted poet’s steed!), has long since been turned loose to browse on the luxurious sage-brush, and the crisp buffalo-grass of the Great Plains. Genevieve, my docile cow, too, has strayed away, or else she has been stolen, which I know not, neither do I care, as I am in the “stock business” no longer.
To-day, to-day, just as of yore; seated still on the same old log,—silently—silently, still, I am angling in the Platte. Angling still for “suckers” in the eddying tide, but alas! alas! they do not bite. They seem to realize perfectly, clearly, that I have been along this way before. They seem, metaphorically, to say, “No, sir, no; we respectfully decline your book-worm-bait, and your cunningly contrived fly-productions.”
Yea, yea; it is the same old story—“a fisherman’s luck! A fisherman’s luck!” Yet, nevertheless, I am ever hopeful and content to wait. God’s good will will be done, no doubt in his own good time. This is my consolation. “Nor cease I yet to wander where the Muses haunt—clear brook and shady rill.” Green bank and blue, unclouded sky. Quiet grove and breezy hill. Fresh flowers and the songs of birds. These all make musical and brighten still my dreams, and gladden likewise my long-expectant eye.
But farewell, my dear tourist friend—-farewell, perhaps forever! And when back again unto “orient realms” thou shalt soon have returned,—