reason; and there's nothing that can withstand reason. The thing's
impossible and, therefore, it has never happened. I went over to your
place, sir, when I heard of the accident, for the misfortunes of my
neighbors interest me, no matter what may be my opinion of them,
and when I found that you had been extricated from your ridiculous
predicament, I went through your house, and I was pleased to find it
in as good or better condition than I had known it in the days of
your respected father. I was glad to see the improvement in your
circumstances; but when I am told, sir, that your apparent prosperity
rests upon such an absurdity as a glacier in a gravel hill, I can but
smile with contempt, sir.”
I was getting a little tired of this. “But the glacier is there, sir,”
I said, “and I am taking out ice every day, and have reason to believe
that I can continue to take it out for the rest of my life. With such
facts as these before me, I am bound to say, sir, that I don't care in
the least about reason.”
“And I am here, father,” said Agnes, coming close to me, “and here I
want to continue for the rest of my days.”
The old gentleman looked at her. “And, I suppose,” he said, “that you,
too, don't in the least care about reason?”
“Not a bit,” said Agnes.
“Well,” said Mr. Havelot, rising, “I have done all I can to make you
two listen to reason, and I can do no more. I despair of making sensible
human beings of you, and so you might as well go on acting like a couple
of ninny-hammers.”
“Do ninny-hammers marry and settle on the property adjoining yours,
sir?” I asked.
“Yes, I suppose they do,” he said. “And when the aboriginal ice-house,
or whatever the ridiculous thing is that they have discovered, gives
out, I suppose that they can come to a reasonable man and ask him for a
little money to buy bread and butter.”
Two years have passed, and Agnes and the glacier are still mine; great
blocks of ice now flow in almost a continuous stream from the mine to
the railroad station, and in a smaller but quite as continuous stream
an income flows in upon Agnes and me; and from one of the experimental
excavations made by Tom Burton on the bluff comes a stream of ice-cold
water running in a sparkling brook a-down my dell. On fine mornings
before I am up, I am credibly informed that Aaron Boyce may generally be
found, in season and out of season, endeavoring to catch the trout with
which I am trying to stock that ice-cold stream. The diploma case,
which I caused to be carefully removed from the ice-barrier which had
imprisoned me, now hangs in my study and holds our marriage certificate.
Near the line-fence which separates his property from mine, Mr. Havelot
has sunk a wide shaft. “If the glacier spur under your land was a
quarter of a mile wide,” he says to me, “it was probably at least a half
a mile long; and if that were the case, the upper end of it extends into
my place, and I may be able to strike it.” He has a good deal of money,
this worthy Mr. Havelot, but he would be very glad to increase his
riches, whether they are based upon sound reason or ridiculous facts. As
for Agnes and myself, no facts or any reason could make us happier than
our ardent love and our frigid fortune.
End of Project Gutenberg's My Terminal Moraine, by Frank E. Stockton