I had begun to see the power in the man Pearl himself, young as I was. It is clear to me now: the genius of the Republic, soon to express itself in dauntless enterprise, in prodigious and unheard-of enginery, had begun to stir in him; the imagination that builds and discovers, the humor that accepts failure without discouragement, the energy which may not be overcome were all in this man.
“If I had capital,” Mr. Pearl added, presently, “I'd show ye some actions which speak louder than words.”
“What would you do with it?” I asked.
“Well, here's the river,” he said, mapping it on a stretch of sand with his finger. “Here's the falls at your house. Here's the town o' Heartsdale, about half a mile up the river—shops an' mills an' stores an' houses an' two thousand people, all about as slow as West Injy molasses.”
He looked up at us, and took another bite.
“What they need is power,” he went on. “That's what 'll put the zip into a town. It 'll wake up the people, an' shake 'em off the cracker-barrels an' tumble 'em out o' the rockin'-chairs. It 'll set a pace for 'em.”
I began to wonder what rude miracle he proposed for the dreaming village of Heartsdale.
“It was located wrong,” he went on; “but there it is, an' I know how to shove some power into it—power enough to put everything on the jump.” He turned to Mr. McCarthy, and added: “Make a note in your history that H. M. Pearl, Esquire, said it, an' that a full account of his actions will appear in a later volume.”
I asked him how he proposed to do this wonderful thing.
“How, wherefore, and, also, why,” he said, as he took another bite of cheese. “Well, ye know where the river jumps over the rocks an' stands up like a man thirty feet tall, there by your house? That's where I'll perform my actions—right there.” He drew a line in the sand.