P.5  After dinner.  I have not yet learned anything with regard to our destination.  We are camping in a verry fine place, a thick forest of young oak.  There are some verry substantial buildings both in town & in the country.  Their orchards & vineyards are what take me.  I would not wish to live among dutch & French, but I would like verry much to live in a country where I could raise all kinds of fruit.  But we can raise Apples & Grapes in Iowa & I guess I will not talk any more about fruit in Mo.  I have a notion to tell you something about our time in camp among our selves.  You know that Marion is a great fellow - to argue, he has been an annoyance to me all the time, it seems that he takes a particular delight in it.  There are so many little instances of this kind, he will listen to loafers talk awhile about "the Niger" & after a while he will begin to ask them questions, then snap them up & get animated, & he thinks it sharp, & then if any of us say any thing about, the war that it will be done as god wills it &c.  Then in his time, he will say "then you don't think that man has anything to do with it", then there will be a discussion on the decrees & foreknowledge of god, becomes animated, face gets red
