Why, if anybody had told them little free, sparklin’ rivulets that leap along up in the hills, foamin’ and chatterin’ of liberty and freedom, and sech—if anybody had throwed it into their bright, sparklin’ faces that they wuz a-goin’ to be ketched and tackled up with some kind of riggin’ and carry Josiah Allen’s Wife and her pardner, and the world at large, them rivulets would have resented it—they would have laughed and gurgled and swept on indifferent and onbelievin’.
But so it wuz, they had to come to it.
And after they got broke in they didn’t seem to mind it, for they bore us on so smooth and easy and noiseless, that it wuz a perfect treat.
No steamin’, no smokin’—they learnt that up in the hills. It wuz a comfort to ride after ’em.
And we had nothin’ to hender us from thinkin’ of the Giants and talkin’ about ’em.
Josiah said that he had always approved of giants, and that he would love to see one or two of ’em.
Adrian didn’t git real reconciled to goin’ till after we got started, then he got real excited, and got the idee that we wuz goin’ to see Jack the Giant Killer, and asked me quite a number of questions about it.
Runnin’ sunthin’ like this—How big wuz the Giants, and where did they come from, and what wuz their names, and how long did it take ’em to build the Causeway, and—
“What is the Causeway made of?”
“Of rocks.”