course," she said.

"Is that over there?" Boris asked, pointing across the Hudson. "And do
they really go under the Hudson River?"

"Yes, to be sure they do. Where do you want to go?" she answered and
then Boris remembered what he had been hunting for. "I want to go to a
wide green country where there is grass everywhere. But every way I walk
in New York I come to water. I know because I've walked east and I've
walked west and I've walked north and I've walked south," he said,
feeling a little like crying for he was very tired and he _was_ only a
little boy too. The woman smiled and she looked nice when she smiled.
"You see, boy," she said, "New York is an island, so of course, you come
to water every way you walk. And it's so full of people that there isn't
any wide green country left,--except the Parks of course."

"Yes, I know the Parks," said Boris, "but that isn't quite what I mean!"

The woman smiled again. "There _is_ a wide green country when you get
out of the island," she said. "You'll find it some day I'm sure," and
then the woman hurried away. Boris was very, very tired. So he took the
subway home. When he came in his mother called out, "Did you find the
wide green country, Boris?"

"No," said Boris, "I couldn't, you see. Because what do you think New
York is?"

"What do I think New York is, Boris? Why, it's the biggest city in the
world!"

"That's not what I mean. What do you think it _is_? What is it built on
I mean?"

"What is it built on? On good sound rock I suppose!"

Boris laughed and laughed. "No, no," he said. "I mean it's an island.
Every way you walk, if you walk long enough, you come to water. Now
isn't that the funniest thing?" And Boris's mother thought it was funny
too.

"So many people and all to live on an island!" she kept saying to
herself. "I should think it would make them a lot of work!"

And Boris who remembered the bridges and the ferry boats and the "tubes"
thought so too!

Boris, he went out to walk
To find the country wide
And he walked west and west he walked
But he found the Hudson wide!
And so he turned himself about
And walked the other way
And he walked east and east he walked
And there East River lay!

But Boris he went out again
To find the country wide
And he went north and north he went
To Harlem River's side.
Again he turned himself about
And went the other way
And he went s