"Now," said Richard Percival, as he and Norris stowed themselves away in

his automobile, "we shall leave the city, in which are contained how

many loves and struggles and silk umbrellas at reasonable prices, and go

to the lake where there is no civilization to bother and distract. The

lake is 'The Lake' par excellence to St. Etienne. It was created by

Providence for summer homes. Therefore it was placed only ten miles from

the Falls. Providence was a good business woman. Generations of savages

lived and died--chiefly died--here. They came where the Father of Waters

roared and tumbled and they made their prayers to the Great Spirit, but

the sight never suggested to them a great city. Then came the

Anglo-Saxon, whatever he is, and harnessed the power of the river, and

built ugly gray mills, dusty with flour, and turned his log huts into

houses of brick and stone, and erected saloons and department stores.

And when he had worked like Dædalus--and you've probably forgotten who

Dædalus was, now that you have been a few weeks out of college--when he

had worked like Dædalus, I say, and got the hardest of it done, he began

to look at something besides the Falls and to pine for means of

dalliance. Behold then at his hand, Lake Imnijaska! And now Madeline

Elton is the best thing on its shore. Gee up, old motor!"

They sped along and Dick took up the tale. He was used to talking while

Norris listened and appreciated.

"Evidently you don't know who Dædalus was or you would have answered

back. What kind of an omniscient editor are you going to make, think

you? Never mind, Dædalus is dead; and, anyway, Edison has beaten him by

six holes.

"The lake, as I was saying, twists and turns so that it gets in more

shore to the square inch than any other known sheet of water. Therefore

the real-estate dealer loves it. And if you elevate your longshore nose

and sniff at our lake because no salt codfish dry upon smelly wharves

and no sea anemones or crabs appear and disappear with the tides, then

will the entire population of St. Etienne rise and howl anathemas at

you. They will run you out of town on the Chicago Express, and as you

fly for your life they will shriek after you, 'Well, anyway, we feed the

world with flour!' Yes, sir, that is the way we Westerners argue."

Dick halted at the top of the hill up which the faithful motor had

coughed, and the two looked down on the shimmering blue that stretched

below them with arms of broken opals sprawling for miles, now here, now

there. Long tortuous passages opened out anew into ever more bays, as

though the water were greedy to explore. Around it rolled the woodland

in billows of intense green with sandy beaches in the troughs and

straight cliffs at the crests. The green islands were vivid in color. So

was the sky above, like the flash in a sapphire. A half-dozen sails

fluttered gull-like, and as many launches darted along, suggesting

living water creatures.




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