The river wasn't a big river as I look back at it now, yet it was wide
and wandering and deep, and flowed quietly along through a wonderful
Middle West valley, dividing the Little Old Town geographically and
socially. Its shores furnished such a boy playground as never was known
anywhere else in all the world--for it was a gentle river, a kindly
playfellow, an understanding friend; and it seemed fairly to thrill in
responsive glee when I plunged, naked and untamed, beneath the eddying
waters of the swimming-hole under the overhanging wild-plum tree.
Its banks, curving in a semi-circle around the village, marked the
borders of the whole wide world. There were other rivers, other
villages, other lands somewhere--all with strange, queer
names--existing only in the geographies to worry little children. The
real world, and all the really, truly folks and things, were along the
far-stretching banks of this our river. Down by the flats, where the
tiny creek widened to a miniature swamp and emptied its placid waters
into the main stream, the red-wing blackbirds sounded their strange cry
among the cat-tails and the bull-rushes; the frogs croaked in ceaseless
and reverberant chorus; the catfish were ever hungry after dark, and
the night was broken by the glare of torches along the little bridge or
in a group of boats where fisher-lads kept close watch upon their
corks. Far below The Dam, where the changeful current had left a wide
sand-bar and a great tree-trunk stretched its fallen length across from
the shore to the water's edge, the mud-turtles basked in the sun-shine,
and, at the approach of Boyhood, glided or splashed to the safety of
the water.
The banks of the river were a deep and silent jungle wherein all manner
of wild beasts and birds were hunted; its bosom was the vasty deep out
upon which our cherished argosies were sent. And how often their prows
were unexpectedly turned by some new current into mid-stream; sometimes
saved by an assortment of missiles breathlessly thrown to the far side,
to bring them, wave-washed, back to us; sometimes, alas, swept
mercilessly out to depths where only the eye and childish grief could
follow them over the big dam to certain wreckage in the whirlpools
below, but even then not abandoned until the shore had been patrolled
for salvage as far as courage held out.
Let's go back to the banks of our beloved river, you and I--and get up
early in the morning and run to the riffles near the old cooper-shop
and catch a bucket of shiners and chubs, and then hurry on to Boomer's
dam--or 'way upstream above the Island where we used to have the
Sunday-school picnics--or, maybe just stay at the in-town dam near the
flour mills and the saw-mills where old Shoemaker Schmidt used to catch
so many big ones--fat, yellow pike and broad black-bass. We will climb
high up on the mist-soaked timbers of the mill-race and settle
ourselves contentedly with the spray moistening our faces and the warm
sun browning our hands--and the heavy pounding of falling waters
sounding in our ears so melodiously and so sweetly. Lazily, drowsily
we'll hold a bamboo pole and guide out shiner through the foam-crowned
eddies of the whirlpool, awaiting the flash of a golden side or a lusty
tug at the line; and dreamily watch a long, narrow stream of shavings
and sawdust, loosed from the opposite planing-mill, float away on the
current. And here, in the dear dream-days, the conquering of the world
will be a simple matter; for through the mist-prisms that rise from the
foaming waters below the dam only rainbows can be seen--and there is
Youth and the Springtime, and the new-born flowers and mating birds,
and The River....
And when the sun is low we'll wind our poles, at the end of a rare and
great day--one that cannot die with the sunset, but that will live so
long as Memory is. Tonight we need not trudge over the fields toward
home, in happy weariness, to Her who waited and watched for us at the
window, peering through the gathering dusk until the anxious heart was
stilled by the sight of tired little legs dragging down the street past
the postoffice. We'll stay here in the twilight, and watch the
fire-flies light their fitful lamps, and the first stars blinking
through the afterglow; and when the night drops down see the black bats
careening weirdly across the moon.... And we'll stretch out again on
the wild grass--soothed by the fragrance of the Mayapple and the
violets, and the touch of the night-wind... How still it is ... and The
River doesn't seem to sound so loud when your head's on the ground--and
your eyes are closed--and you're listening to the far, far, far-off
lullaby of tumbling waters--and you're a bit tired, Perhaps ... a bit
tired....
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