There they paddle their birch canoes among the coasting-schooners , and build their wigwam beside some roaring mill-dam , and drive a little trade in basket-work where their fathers hunted deer . Our new visitor was probably wandering through the country toward Boston , subsisting on the careless charity of the people while he turned his archery to profitable account by shooting at cents which were to be the prize of his successful aim . The Indian had not long been seated ere our merry damsel sought to draw him into conversation . She , indeed , seemed all made up of sunshine in the month of May , for there was nothing so dark and dismal that her pleasant mind could not cast a glow over it ; and the wild man , like a fir tree in his native forest , soon began to brighten into a sort of sombre cheerfulness . At length she inquired whether his journey had any particular end or purpose . `` I go shoot at the camp-meeting at Stamford , '' replied the Indian . `` And here are five more , '' said the girl , `` all aiming at the camp-meeting too . You shall be one of us , for we travel with light hearts ; and , as for me , I sing merry songs and tell merry tales and am full of merry thoughts , and I dance merrily along the road , so that there is never any sadness among them that keep me company . But oh , you would find it very dull indeed to go all the way to Stamford alone . '' My ideas of the aboriginal character led me to fear that the Indian would prefer his own solitary musings to the gay society thus offered him ; on the contrary , the girl 's proposal met with immediate acceptance and seemed to animate him with a misty expectation of enjoyment . I now gave myself up to a course of thought which , whether it flowed naturally from this combination of events or was drawn forth by a wayward fancy , caused my mind to thrill as if I were listening to deep music . I saw mankind in this weary old age of the world either enduring a sluggish existence amid the smoke and dust of cities , or , if they breathed a purer air , still lying down at night with no hope but to wear out to-morrow , and all the to-morrows which make up life , among the same dull scenes and in the same wretched toil that had darkened the sunshine of today . But there were some full of the primeval instinct who preserved the freshness of youth to their latest years by the continual excitement of new objects , new pursuits and new associates , and cared little , though their birthplace might have been here in New England , if the grave should close over them in Central Asia . Fate was summoning a parliament of these free spirits ; unconscious of the impulse which directed them to a common centre , they had come hither from far and near , and last of all appeared the representatives of those mighty vagrants who had chased the deer during thousands of years , and were chasing it now in the spirit-land . Wandering down through the waste of ages , the woods had vanished around his path ; his arm had lost somewhat of its strength , his foot of its fleetness , his mien of its wild regality , his heart and mind of their savage virtue and uncultured force , but here , untamable to the routine of artificial life , roving now along the dusty road as of old over the forest-leaves , -- here was the Indian still . `` Well , '' said the old showman , in the midst of my meditations , `` here is an honest company of us -- one , two , three , four , five , six -- all going to the camp-meeting at Stamford . Now , hoping no offence , I should like to know where this young gentleman may be going ? '' I started . How came I among these wanderers ? The free mind that preferred its own folly to another 's wisdom , the open spirit that found companions everywhere -- above all , the restless impulse that had so often made me wretched in the midst of enjoyments , -- these were my claims to be of their society .
`` My friends , '' cried I , stepping into the centre of the wagon , `` I am going XXXXX you to the camp-meeting at Stamford . ''
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