After the little river had been running down hill for ever so long, it
came to a place where the banks went up very high and steep on each side
of it. Here something strange happened. The little river was stopped by
an enormous wall. The wall was made of stone and cement and it stretched
right across the river from one bank to the other. The little river
couldn't get through the wall, so it just filled up behind it. It filled
and filled until it found that it had spread out into a real little
lake. Only the people who walked around it called it a reservoir!

Now in the wall was just one opening down near the bottom. And what
do you suppose that led to? A pipe! But the pipe was so big that an
elephant could have walked down it swinging his trunk! Only, of course,
there wasn't any elephant there.

Now the little river didn't like to have his race down hill stopped. So
he began muttering to himself:

"What shall I do, oh, what shall I do?
Here's a big dam and I can't get through!
Behind the dam I fill and fill
But I want to go running and running down hill!
If the pipe at the bottom will let me through
I'll run through the pipe! That's what I'll do!"

So he rushed into the pipe as fast as he could for there he found he
could run down hill again! He ran and he ran for miles and miles. Above
him he knew there were green fields and trees and cows and horses. These
were the things he had sung to before he rushed into the pipe. Then
after a long time he knew he was under something different. He could
feel thousands of feet scurrying this way and that; he could feel
thousands of horses pulling carriages and wagons and trucks; he could
feel cars, subways, engines;--he could feel so many things crossing him
that he wondered they didn't all bump each other. Then he knew he was
under the Big City. And this is the song he shouted then:

"Way under the street, street, street,
I feel the feet, feet, feet.
I feel their beat, beat, beat,
Above on the street, street, street."

And then again something queer happened. Every once in a while a pipe
would go off from the big pipe. Now one of these pipes turned into a
certain street and then a still smaller pipe turned off into a certain
house and a still smaller pipe went right up between the walls of the
house. And in this house there lived the dirty little boy.

[Illustration]

The water flowed into the street pipe and then it flo