was rightly golden; had it not produced her? But other products,--iron,
coal, wheat,--these were stuffs too base to fellow in the same mind with
her. Had it principal industries, like any red, or green, or blue state
on that pedantic map? I could no longer recall them. Formally confronted
with this problem, I muttered shamefully again that day in the valley
of Humiliation. There was, I knew, a picture at the top of the page in
which strong, rugged men toiled at various tasks; but the natures of
these had escaped me. Were they mining coal or building ships, catching
fish or ploughing furrows in God's green earth? Out of my darkness I
stammered, "Principal industries, agriculture and fish-building--"

"That will _do_, Calvin! You may remain after school to-night." I had
never less liked the way she said this, as if it were a boon at which I
would snatch, instead of a penalty imposed.

Solon Denney followed me, glibly enumerating the industries of a great
and busy state. But I could not listen. Phantom-like in my poor mind
floated a wordless conviction that, however it might once have been, the
state would immediately abandon its industries now that she had come
away from it. I beheld its considerable area desolated, the forges cold,
the hammers stilled, the fields overgrown, the ships rotting at their
docks, the stalwart mechanics drooping idly above their unfinished
tasks. It was not possible to suppose that any one could feel, in a
state which she had left, that interest which good work demands.

My disgrace brought me respite for fresh adventure. I was let alone. The
world could still be peopled; even Solon Denney might survive a little
time, for another picture in the same geography now reproduced itself in
my inflamed mind--the picture of a South Sea island, a sandy beach with
a few indolent natives lolling, negligent of tasks, in the shade of