“I wish you had the time and money too, girls, to visit the Yellowstone this trip. If the vacation were longer, we could take the time, and drive across country to it. Father took us that way once. I remember when we came to the great Absoraka Range, with forty snow-capped peaks, like a tremendous wall from north to south. It makes you feel so little just to look at those wonders.”
There was silence for a minute, then Ruth said, soberly:
“I heard a story once in church, and I never forgot it. Our rector at Queen’s Ferry told it. It was about two very old mountains that wakened once in a thousand years, and wished each other good-morning. And they would say it this way.
“‘Good-morning, brother, how goes the world?’
“‘Well, brother, well,’ the other mountain would say, and after a time they would fall happily to sleep. But one day they wakened, and one mountain noticed a lot of little specks running around the ground at his base, so when his brother greeted him, he was disturbed, and said:
“‘I cannot say if it goes well or not, brother. There are a lot of little ants or some kind of insects running around me. They seem to be building things of little pieces of trees. And they fight, and make a lot of useless noise. I do not like them.’
“‘Never mind,’ said the other one. ‘They are bothering me too, but let us go to sleep and maybe they will be gone when we wake.’
“And it went on like that for ever so long, thousands of years, and every time the mountains wakened, they were troubled by the little specks that were always building and fighting, and making a noise. Then one morning the mountains awakened, and all was very quiet and happy.
“‘Good-morning, brother, how goes the world?’ said one, and the other was so glad to be able to answer:
“‘Well, brother, well. All those little fretful specks they call people have gone from the face of the earth, and the world is at peace with God again.’ That’s all, but doesn’t it make you respect the everlasting hills, Miss Jean?”