at the theatres, in the streets, everywhere. Now and then
some southerner with whom I had become acquainted would try to draw me
out to ascertain my sentiments on the subject, but I always laughed, and
said good naturedly:

"My dear sir, I didn't come down here to talk about secession, but to
see if the southern climate would benefit my sick son."

The fact was that I minded my own business, and minded it so well that
while I was in New Orleans I managed to find a few patients and sold
recipes and medicines enough to pay the entire expenses of our journey
thus far, from the North.

Almost every day my son and I drove somewhere up to Carrolton, down to
the battle-ground, or on the shell road to Lake Ponchartrain. It was a
month of genuine enjoyment to us both; of profit to me pecuniarily; and
of the best possible benefit to Henry's health.

Early in January we took passage on one of the finest of the Mississippi
steamboats for St. Louis. The boat was crowded, and among the passengers
were a good many merchants, Northern men long resident in New Orleans,
who thought they saw trouble coming, and accordingly had closed up their
business in the Crescent City, and were now going North to stay there.
We had on board, too, the usual complement of gamblers and amateur or
professional poker-players, who kept the forward saloon near the bar,
and known in the river vernacular as the "Texas" of the boat, lively all
day long and well into the night, or rather the next morning. It was ten
or eleven days before we reached St. Louis. Nothing notable occurred
on the trip; but day after day, as we proceeded northward, and left
the soft, sunny south behind us, with the daily increasing coldness and
wintry weather, Henry seemed to decline by degrees, and gradually to
lose nearly all that he had gained since we left New York. When we
reached St. Louis he was seriously sick. I was very sorry we had come
away so soon in the season, and proposed that we should return and stay
in the south till spring; but Henry would not consent. There was nothing
to be done, then, but to hurry on to the east, and when we arrived in
New York Henry would not go home to his mother in Unadilla, but insisted
upon accompanying me to Boston. I was willing enough that he should go
with me, for then I could have him under my exclusive care; but when we
arrived in Boston he was so overcome by the excitement of travel, and
was so feeble from fatigue as well as diseas