litician led off in his shirt-sleeves; and it
was as if my boy should now see the Emperor of Germany in his
shirt-sleeves pushing a wheelbarrow, so high above all other men had
that exalted Whig always been to him. But the Hydraulic, I believe, was
a town work, and everybody felt himself an owner in it, and hoped to
share in the prosperity which it should bring to all. It made the people
so far one family, as every public work which they own in common always
does; it made them brothers and equals, as private property never does.

Of course the boys rose to no such conception of the fact before their
eyes. I suspect that in their secret hearts they would have been glad to
have seen that whole embankment washed away, for the excitement's sake,
and for the hope of catching the fish that would be left flopping at the
bottom of the Reservoir when the waters were drained out, I think that
these waters were brought somehow from Old River, but I am not sure
how. Old River was very far away, and my boy was never there much, and
knew little of the weird region it bounded. Once he went in swimming in
it, but the still, clear waters were strangely cold, and not like those
of the friendly Miami. Once, also, when the boys had gone into the vast
woods of that measureless continent which they called the Island, for
pawpaws or for hickory-nuts, or maybe buckeyes, they got lost; and while
they ran about in terror, they heard the distant lowing and bellowing of
cattle. They knew somehow, as boys know everything, that the leader of
the herd, which ranged those woods in a half-savage freedom, was a
vicious bull, and as the lowing and bellowing sounded nearer, they
huddled together in the wildest dismay. Some were for running, some for
getting over a fence near by; but they could not tell which side of the
fence the herd was on. In the primitive piety of childhood my boy
suggested prayer as something that had served people in extremity, and
he believed that it was the only hope left. Another boy laughed, and
began to climb a tree; the rest, who had received my boy's suggestion
favorably, instantly followed his example; in fact, he climbed a tree
himself. The herd came slowly up, and when they reached the boys' refuge
they behaved with all the fury that could have been expected--they
trampled and tossed the bags that held the pawpaws or buckeyes or
hickory-nuts; they gored the trees where the boys hung trembling; they
pawed and tossed the soft