the little mountain stream from its birth way up in the clouds, her
imagination rushing with it through sweetening forest and tumbling
with it down cooling rocks until finally strong, bold, wise men guided
it to the desert which had yearned for it through all the years, and
the grateful desert smiled rich smiles of grain and flowers. She could
make it more like a story than any story in any book. And she could
always breathe better in thinking of the pine forests of Oregon. There
was something liberating--expanding--in just the thought of them. She
dreamed cooling dreams about them, dreams of their reaching farther
than one's fancy could reach, big widening dreams of their standing
there serene in the consciousness of their own immensity. They stood
to her for a beautiful idea: the idea of space, of room--room for
everybody, and then much more room! Even one's understanding grew
big as one turned to them.

And she loved to listen for the Pacific Ocean, coming from
incomprehensible distances and unknowable countries, now rushing
with passion to the wild coast of Oregon, again stealing into the
Washington harbours. She loved to address the letters to Portland,
Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma--all those pulsing, vivid cities of a
country of big chances and big beauty. She loved to picture Seattle,
a city builded upon many hills--how wonderful that a city should be
builded upon hills!--in Chicago there was nothing that could
possibly be thought of as a hill. And she loved to shut her eyes and
let the great mountain peak grow in the distance, as one could see
it from Portland--how noble a thing to see a mountain peak from a
city! Sometimes she trembled before that consciousness of a
mountain. Often when so tired she scarcely knew what she was doing
she found she was saying her prayers to a mountain. Indeed, Out
There seemed the place to send one's prayers--for was it not a place