“You’ve got a river, at any rate, that about comes up to one’s ideas of what a river ought to be—broad and deep and full,” he said to Arthur one day. “It kind of satisfies one to stand and look at it, so grand and powerful, and still always rolling on to the sea.”
“Yes, it is like your Father of Waters,” said Arthur, a little surprised at his tone and manner.
“One wouldn’t be apt to think of mills and engines and such things at the first glimpse of that. I didn’t see it the day when I crossed it, for the mist and rain. To-day, as we stood looking down upon it, I couldn’t but think how it had been rolling on and on there, ever since creation, I suppose, or ever since the time of Adam and Eve—if the date ain’t the same, as some folks seem to think.”
“I always think how wonderful it must have seemed to Jacques Cartier and his men, as they sailed on and on, with the never-ending forest on either shore,” said Rose. “No wonder they thought it would never end, till it bore them to the China seas.”
“A wonderful highway of nations it is, though it disappointed them in that,” said Arthur. “The sad pity is, that it is not available for commerce for more than two-thirds of the year.”
“If ever the bridge they talk about should be built, it will do something towards making this a place of importance in this part of the world, though the long winter is against, too.”
“Oh! the bridge will be built, I suppose, and the benefit will not be confined to us. The Western trade will be benefited as well. What do you think of your Massachusetts men, getting their cotton round this way? This communication with the more northern cotton growing States is more direct by this than any other way.”
“Well, I ain’t prepared to say much about it. Some folks wouldn’t think much of that. But I suppose you are bound to go ahead, anyhow.”
But to the experienced eye of the farmer, nothing gave so much pleasure as the cultivated country lying around the city, and beyond the mountain, as far as the eye could reach. Of the mountain itself, he was a little contemptuous in its character of mountain.
“A mountain with smooth fields, and even orchards, reaching almost to the top of it! Why, our sheep pasture at Merleville is a deal more like a mountain than that. It is only a hill, and moderate at that. You must have been dreadful hard up for mountains, to call that one. You’ve forgotten all about Merleville, Rosie, to be content with that for a mountain.”