turned by some new current into mid-stream; sometimes
saved by an assortment of missiles breathlessly thrown to the far side,
to bring them, wave-washed, back to us; sometimes, alas, swept
mercilessly out to depths where only the eye and childish grief could
follow them over the big dam to certain wreckage in the whirlpools
below, but even then not abandoned until the shore had been patrolled
for salvage as far as courage held out.

Let's go back to the banks of our beloved river, you and I--and get up
early in the morning and run to the riffles near the old cooper-shop
and catch a bucket of shiners and chubs, and then hurry on to Boomer's
dam--or 'way upstream above the Island where we used to have the
Sunday-school picnics--or, maybe just stay at the in-town dam near the
flour mills and the saw-mills where old Shoemaker Schmidt used to catch
so many big ones--fat, yellow pike and broad black-bass. We will climb
high up on the mist-soaked timbers of the mill-race and settle
ourselves contentedly with the spray moistening our faces and the warm
sun browning our hands--and the heavy pounding of falling waters
sounding in our ears so melodiously and so sweetly. Lazily, drowsily
we'll hold a bamboo pole and guide out shiner through the foam-crowned
eddies of the whirlpool, awaiting the flash of a golden side or a lusty
tug at the line; and dreamily watch a long, narrow stream of shavings
and sawdust, loosed from the opposite planing-mill, float away on the
current. And here, in the dear dream-days, the conquering of the world
will be a simple matter; for through the mist-prisms that rise from the
foaming waters below the dam only rainbows can be seen--and there is
Youth and the Springtime, and the new-born flowers and mating birds,
and The River....

And when the sun is low we'll wind our poles, at the end of a rare and
great day--one that cannot die with the sunset, but that will live so
long as Memory is. Tonight we need not trudge over the fields toward
home, in happy weariness, to Her who waited and watched for us at the
window, peering through the gathering dusk until the anxious heart was
stilled by the sight of tired little legs dragging down the street past
the postoffice. We'll stay here in the twilight, and watch the
fire-flies light their fitful lamps, and the first stars blinking
through the afterglow; and when the night drops down see the black bats
careening weirdly across the moon.... And we'll stretch out