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it's pretty deep along this stretch. Weak as you
are,--and as hot as you are,--you'd get cramps in less'n a minute."
"I happen to be a good swimmer."
"So was Bart Edgecomb,--best swimmer I ever saw. He could swim
back an' forth across this river half a dozen times,--and do you know
what happened to him last September? He drowned in three foot of
water up above the bend, that's what he did. Come on. Let's be movin'.
It'll be hotter'n blazes by eleven o'clock, and you oughtn't to be walkin'
in the sun."
The young man settled himself a little more comfortably against the
tree.
"I think I'll stay here in the shade for a while longer. Don't be uneasy. I
shan't go popping into the water the minute your back's turned. What
was it you said early this morning about sniffing rain in the air?"
"Thunderstorms today, sure as my name's Brown. Been threatening rain
for nearly a week. Got to come some time, and I figure today's--"
"Threats are all we get," growled the young man peevishly. "Lord, I
never dreamed I could get so sick of white skies and what you call
fresh air. You farmers go to bed every night praying for rain, and you
get up in the morning still praying, and what's the result? Nothing
except a whiter sky than the day before, and a greater shortage of fresh
air. Don't talk to me about country air and country sunshine and
country quiet. My God, it never was so hot and stifling as this in New
York, and as for peace and quiet,--why, those rotten birds in the trees
around the house make more noise than the elevated trains at the rush
hour, and the rotten roosters begin crowing just about the time I'm
going to sleep, and the dogs bark, and the cows,--the cows do whatever

cows do to make a noise,--and then the crows begin to yawp. And all
night long the katydids keep up their beastly racket, and the frogs in the
pond back of the barns,--my God, man, the city is as silent as the grave
compared to what you get in the country."
"I manage to sleep through it all," said the old man drily. "The frogs
and katydids don't keep me awake."
"Yes, and that reminds me of another noise that makes the night
hideous. It's the way you people sleep. At nine o'clock sharp, every
night, the whole house begins to snore, and--Say, I've seen service in
France, I've slept in barracks with scores of tired soldiers, I've walked
through camps where thousands of able-bodied men were snoring their
heads off,--but never have I heard anything so terrifying as the racket
that lasts from nine to five in the land of my forefathers. Gad, it
sometimes seems to me you're all trying to make my forefathers turn
over in their graves up there on the hill."
"You're kind of peevish today, ain't you?" inquired the other, grinning.
"You'll get used to the way we snore before long, and you'll kind of
enjoy it. I'd be scared to death if I got awake in the night and didn't hear
everybody in the house snoring. It's kind of restful to know that
everybody's asleep,--and not dead. If they wasn't snoring, I'd certainly
think they was dead."
The young man smiled. "I'll say this much for you farmers,--you're a
good-natured bunch. I ought to be ashamed of myself for grousing. I
suppose it's because I've been sick. You're all so kind and
thoughtful,--and so darned GENUINE,--even when you're asleep,--that
I feel like a dog for finding fault. By the way, you said something
awhile ago about that big black cliff over yonder having a history. I've
been looking at that cliff or hill or rock, or whatever it is, and it doesn't
look real. It doesn't look as though God had made it. It's more like the
work of man. So far as I can see, there isn't another hill on either bank
of the river, and yet that thing over there must be three or four hundred
feet high, sticking up like a gigantic wart on the face of the earth. What
is it? Solid rock?"

"Sort like slate rock, I guess. There's a stretch of about a mile on both
sides of the river along here that's solid rock. This bank we're standin'
on is rock, covered with six or eight foot of earth. You're right about
that big rock over there being a queer thing. There's been college
professors and all sorts of scientific men here, off and on, to examine it
and to try to account for its being there. But, thunderation, if it's been
there for a million years as they say, what's the sense of