For, though Dick had never been outside the city limits, and had never seen a hill, nor a field of corn, he was a trifle romantic, I am afraid, after all.
Yes, it is true that he grew to be almost a man without having ever climbed a hill or seen a field of grain. But there was a good time coming.
"Dick," said Carl Stoffs, that true and faithful friend—"Dick, would you like to go to the country?"
"Would I like to go to the country?" he repeated, finding no words of his own to say, so great was his bewilderment at such a question—"Would I like to go to the country?"
"Any time you're ready," said the German, seating himself. "Take your time to answer, my lad."
"What would I do in the country? I was never there in my life!"
"And you don't look more pleased than though I'd asked you to go to—to—the end of the world."
"I have often wished to see the country," returned Dick, in the tone in which we might wish to see China if we had nothing else to do; "but I don't see my way to doing so at present."
"I do believe, Dick, that you have lined the walls with gold pieces, you are so miserly of your time, and so stuck to this old place. Come now, we shall take you to the country, my wife and I. Now, to think there should be one on earth who never saw the green fields and the woods! It is to me a very odd thing! You are the blind man who never saw the sun, and does not think the sun worth seeing."
"Oh! no, indeed; not so bad as that; but—"