Cupid of Campion

Clarence obligingly and with some attention to elocution repeated the famous stanza.

“Who said that?” asked Abe.

“Tennyson.”

“What was he chattering for?”

“He wasn’t chattering; it was the brook that chattered.”

“Well, why didn’t he say so, then? He said, ‘I chatter.’”

“Oh, hang it! He put those words into the mouth of the brook.”

“But a brook ain’t got no mouth.”

“Yes; but he put himself in place of the brook. He just imagined what the brook would say, if it could talk. Listen once more.” And for the third time and still more melodramatically Clarence gave voice to the quatrain.

“Tennysee was a fool. The idea of a feller taking himself to be a brook. Why, if he was a brook, he couldn’t talk anyhow.”

“Abe, you’re hopeless.”

“See here, don’t you call me no names.”

“You’re a literalist!”

“You’re another, and you’re a liar!”

“Oh!” cried Clarence, gurgling with delight, “here are the Pictured Rocks, sure enough. And a cave!”

Beside the stream, a vast bed of rocks in veritable war-paint, hollowed at the centre into a rather large cavern, greeted the eyes of the astonished youth. The colors in horizontal layers were gay and well-defined, red being predominant.

“This is where the Injuns used to come for their paint,” explained Abe, forgetting his grievance in the pleasure of being a cicerone. “They used to come down this path and daub themselves up, and then cross the river to Wisconsin, and shoot the Injuns on the other side with their bows and arrers.”

Clarence was examining the surface of the rock. It was easy to rub away the outer part of the soft layers.

“Say, Abe, let me paint you. I think you’d make a fine Indian.” And Clarence with a handful of red sand sprang smilingly at his guide.

“You go on and paint yourself,” growled Abe, backing quickly. As a result, he missed his footing, slipped and fell into the tiny stream, where he sat for several seconds before it occurred to him to rise.

“Ha, ha, ha!” screamed Clarence. His silvery laughter, clear and sweet, was caught up by the echoes and came back translated into the merriment of elfland.

Much as the echoes seemed to appreciate his burst of glee, it did not appeal at all to the wrathful guide. His face had grown red as a turkey-cock’s; his fists doubled, and he was on the point of assaulting the unsuspecting Clarence.

“Oh, hark, oh, hear!” cried Clarence with a gesture and in a voice so high and ringing that Abe was startled, and paused in the execution of his revenge.

“Did you hear ’em?”

“Hear what?”

“The echoes. They’re the horns of elfland, you know.”

“The what!” exclaimed Abe. He had a dread of the unknown word.

“The horns of elfland faintly blowing.”

“You’re blowing yourself. Here you” – Abe stooped, picked up a small twig and placed it on one shoulderband of his blue overalls – “Knock that chip off’n my shoulder!”

Clarence surveyed his offended companion severely.

“Abe, come on; let’s go up. You know, I owe you a dollar. If you were to put one of my beautiful blue eyes into mourning, I think I’d claim that dollar for damages and then where would you be?”

“Well, then, you stop using them big words.”

“All right, Abe.”

With an occasional shout to set the wild echoes flying, the two pursued their steep upward way. For the most part, there was no conversation.

When they reached the waterfall, nothing would do Clarence but at the risk of life and limb to get under the hollow rock, over which fell the water in a wide but thin stream, and, extending his head and opening his mouth, catch what drops he could as they fell.

“Abe!” he suddenly said, “I think I know now where the goddess of adventure lives.”

“Eh? What?”

“If ever I wish to communicate with that bright-eyed lady, I’ll address my letters thus:

“‘To the Goddess of Adventure,

The Bright-eyed Waterfall,

Pictured Rocks,

Iowa, U. S. A.’”

“You drop that goddess of adventure. I don’t believe in no such foolishness as that.”

“All right, Abe, if you don’t believe in her, she doesn’t exist. Now for the top.”

Up they went, with quick steps and, as regards Clarence, steady breathing. Abe was puffing. Loose living had reached out into the future and gained for him the “far off interest of years.” Abe belonged to that steadily increasing class of Americans who, growing up without recognition of any law of God or man are destined to be short-lived in the land.

Presently, they were at the summit.

“Look,” cried Abe, his sulkiness yielding momentarily to a spark of enthusiasm. He led the way forward a few feet and paused.

“Oh-h-h-h-!” cried Clarence.

Far, far below, the river rolled its flashing length, the broad river, silvery in the sun, the broad river with its green wooded islands, its lagoons, its lesser streams, its lakes. To the southeast another body of water, yet more silvery, emptied itself into the Mississippi. Beside both and around both and all the way that eye could see up and down the Mississippi River rose the full-bosomed hills, older than the Pyramids, holding their secrets of the past in a calm not to be broken till the day of judgment. Between the hills and the river, on the Wisconsin side, lay the valley, rich in golden grain, dotted here and there with granary and farm-house. It was in very deed a panorama beautiful in each detail, doubly so in its variety.

“What river is that?” asked Clarence.