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Most of the country is a desert, and but for a mighty
river all would be so."
"Yes; rivers are rare gifts to such as till the ground, as any one may
see who journeys far atween the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi.
But how do you account for these changes on the face of the 'arth
itself, and for this downfall of nations, you men of the schools?"
"It is to be ascribed to moral cau--"
"You're right--it is their morals; their wickedness and their pride,
and chiefly their waste that has done it all! Now listen to what the
experience of an old man teaches him. I have lived long, as these grey
hairs and wrinkled hands will show, even though my tongue should fail
in the wisdom of my years. And I have seen much of the folly of man;
for his natur' is the same, be he born in the wilderness, or be he
born in the towns. To my weak judgment it hath ever seemed that his
gifts are not equal to his wishes. That he would mount into the
heavens, with all his deformities about him, if he only knew the road,
no one will gainsay, that witnesses his bitter strivings upon 'arth.


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