"Oh, are you going to ride away? Come over to-night. Grandad is going to the meeting where they will spout like a leaky gargoyle. Or stay, your father will go too. I'll come over instead."
Daffodil mounted Dolly, who certainly had not grown fat in her absence. Felix had attended to that. "Dear old Dolly!" patting her neck, and the mare whinnied as if overjoyed.
"You haven't forgotten, dear old Dolly;" and Daffodil was minded to lean over and give her a hug as she had times before.
"We'll go down town. We are stretching out our borders. Here is the new dock. We are building boats for the western trade, and here is the shipyard."
It had doubled itself since spring. Everybody seemed hurrying to and fro. Brawny, sunburned men with shirt sleeves rolled nearly to the shoulders, jesting, whistling, sometimes swearing, the younger ones pausing now and then to indulge in a few jig steps. There were boats loading with a variety of freight, but largely whiskey. Carrick took some drawings out of his memorandum book.
"Look them over sharp, Cap'n Boyle, though I think you'll find them all right."
There was the long point, the two rivers flowing into the Ohio, the murmur like the undertone of the sea. And over beyond, far beyond an endless stretch. There were some Indian wigwams, there were long reaches of cornfields yet uncut, a few stacked; apples ripening in the mellow sunshine, a wild kind of fruit, great tangles of grapevine enough to smother any tree.
"It is beautiful," she said with deep feeling. "Oh, do you suppose there'll ever be anything—over there—like a town, houses and such?"
She nodded upward. That was her portion.
"If we go on this way. There's a line for trade between this and Cincinnati all planned out, boats being built, there's coal and iron to supply places around, and they're talking about glass even. We shall be the head centre. Oh, land doesn't cost much since taxes are so light. Yes, some likely young fellow will take it in hand and evolve a fortune for you. Daffodil, you will not go back to de Ronville?"