All the next day they rode at thirty-five miles an hour through the “Bad Lands” and across North Dakota, reaching Minneapolis the following morning.
“I tell you, it’s good to see green grass again, after those scorched-up prairies!” exclaimed Tom; and the rest echoed his words. For weeks not a drop of rain had fallen in the Northwest, and our New Englanders had longed for a sight of the fresh verdure of their own homeland.
There was plenty of sightseeing in Minneapolis to crowd the few hours allowed there. The younger Percivals, in particular, rushed furiously about the city, visited the Falls of Minnehaha, “which were extremely interesting,” Fred Seacomb remarked, “except that there were no falls there”—only a narrow rivulet trickling over some mossy rocks in a park; and climbed (by elevator) to the top of a twelve-story building on the roof of which was a flourishing garden, as well as an elegant restaurant. Later in the day they hurriedly inspected one of the great “Pillsbury” mills, which turn out seven thousand barrels of flour a day.
“I like this better than even the Falls in the Grand Cañon,” whispered Bess to Kittie, as they watched the flour pouring down through the boxes in a beautiful white flood. “There it was a great Power, you know; as if you were somehow seeing the world made; but here is where He makes answers for prayers for daily bread—just think, seven thousand people a day getting a whole barrel apiece, somewhere!”
I am glad Mr. Selborne happened to hear that last sentence. He was learning to know the little Captain better and better every day; and he understood what she meant, perhaps even better than bright, saucy Pet did.
“It is pleasant to remember, Miss Bessie,” he said, taking up the conversation very simply, “that the power and the giving are not separate, but each a part of the great, lovely Plan that guides the world’s living. ‘He watereth the hills,’ you know, ‘from His chambers,’ and the flood that roared over the brink of that precipice is sure to fall somewhere on the earth, at some time, in gentle rain.”
“I know,” said Bess, catching her breath a little, as she has a pretty way of doing when she is deeply moved; “and there was the blade of grass!”
She might have said “is,” for don’t I know that that self-same blade was safely pressed in her little Testament, in the steamer trunk that she had shared with Kittie throughout the journey?