"
Uncle Jonah, as Bart usually called him, was one of his very few
recognized friends, and asked in a way that induced him to make a
serious answer.
"I walked the most of the way there, and all the way back. I went by
way of Canton, Columbus, Dayton, and so to Cincinnati, and returned
the same way."
"What do you think of that part of the State which you saw?"
"Unquestionably we have the poorest part of it. As our ancestors
landed on the most desolate part of the continent, so we took the
worst part of Ohio. If you were to see the wheat-fields of Stark, or
the corn on the Scioto, and the whole of the region about Xenia and
Dayton, and on the Miami, you would want to emigrate."
"What about the people?"
"Oh, dear! I didn't see much of them, and that little did not make
me wish to see more. The moment you step across the south line of the
Reserve you step into a foreign country, and among a foreign people,
who speak a foreign language, and who know one of us as quick as they
see us; and they seem to have a very prudent distrust of us. After
passing this black, Dutch region, you enter a population of emigrants
from Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, and some from North Carolina, and
all unite in detesting and distrusting the Reserve Yankee.
"It is singular, the difference between the lake and river side of the
State. At Cincinnati you seem to be within a step of New Orleans, and
hear of no other place--not a word of New York, and less of Boston.
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