"She was making an aeolian harp"



ROUND ANVIL ROCK



I

THE GIRL AND THE BOY


The Beautiful River grows very wide in making its great bend around
western Kentucky. On the other side, its shores are low for many miles,
but well guarded by giant cottonwoods. These spectral trees stand close
to its brink and stretch their phantom arms far over its broad waters,
as if perpetually warding off the vast floods that rush down from the
North.

But the floods are to be feared only in the winter or spring, never in
the summer or autumn. And nearly a hundred years ago, when the river's
shores were bound throughout their great length by primeval forests,
there was less reason to fear at any season. So that on a day of October
in the year eighteen hundred and eleven, the mighty stream lay safely
within its deep bounds flowing quietly on its way to join the Father of
Waters.

So gently it went that there was scarcely a ripple to break its silvery
surface. It seemed indeed hardly to move, reflecting the shadowy