haystacks, cherry trees and cheese houses. If your judgment skimmed upon
the surface, you would even have found the advantage with the south. It was
prettier because more rolling. It was shaggier. The country to the south
tipped up to the hills, so sharply in places that it might have made its
living by collecting nickels for the slide. Indeed, one might think that a
part of the city had come bouncing down the slope, for now it lay resting
at the bottom, sprawled somewhat for its ease. Or it might appear--if your
belief runs on discarded lines--that the whole flat-bottomed earth had been
fouled in its celestial course and now lay aslant upon its beam with its
cargo shifted and spilled about.

The city streets that led to the south, which in those days ended in lanes,
popped out of sight abruptly at the top of the first ridge. And when the
earth caught up again with their level, already it was dim and purple and
tall trees were no more than a roughened hedge. But what lay beyond that
range of hills--what towns and cities--what oceans and forests--how beset
with adventure--how fearful after dark--these things you could not see,
even if you climbed to some high place and strained yourself on tiptoe. And
if you walked from breakfast to lunch--until you gnawed within and were but
a hollow drum--there would still be a higher range against the sky. There
are misty kingdoms on this whirling earth, but the ways are long and steep.

The lake lay to the north with no land beyond, the city to the east. But to
the west--

Several miles outside the city as it then was, and still beyond its
clutches, the country was cut by a winding river bottom with sharp edges of
shale. Down this valley Rocky River came brawling in the spring, over-fed
and quarrelsome. Later in the year--its youthful appetite having caught an
indigestion--it shrunk and wasted to a shadow. By August you could cross it