Christian life -- Fiction; Conduct of life -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
"Yes, it's the very same. It's the crookest thing you ever
saw. It runs over there," said the speaker, pointing with her
arm, "and then it takes a turn and goes that way, and then it
comes round so, and then it shoots off in that way again and
passes by your house; and after that, the dear knows where it
goes, for I don't. But I don't suppose it could run straight,
if it was to try to."
"Can't we get down to it?" said Ellen.
"To be sure we can, unless you're as afraid of steep banks as
you are of fences."
Very steep indeed it was, and strewn with loose stones; but
Ellen did not falter here, and though once or twice in
imminent danger of exchanging her cautious stepping for one
long roll to the bottom, she got there safely on her two feet.
When there, everything was forgotten in delight. It was a wild
little place. The high, close sides of the dell left only a
little strip of sky overhead; and at their feet ran the brook,
much more noisy and lively here than where Ellen had before
made its acquaintance; leaping from rock to rock, eddying
round large stones, and boiling over the small ones, and now
and then pouring quietly over some great trunk of a tree that
had fallen across its bed and dammed up the whole stream.
Ellen could scarcely contain herself at the magnificence of
many of the waterfalls, the beauty of the little quiet pools
where the water lay still behind some large stone, and the
variety of graceful tiny cascades.
"Look here, Nancy!" cried Ellen; "that's the Falls of Niagara
do you see? that large one; oh, that is splendid! And this
will do for Trenton Falls what a fine foam it makes! isn't
it a beauty? And what shall we call this? I don't know what to
call it; I wish we could name them all. But there's no end to
them. Oh, just look at that one! That's too pretty not to have
a name; what shall it be?"
"Black Falls," suggested the other.
"Black," said Ellen, dubiously, "why! I don't like that."
"Why, the water's all dark and black, don't you see?"
"Well," said Ellen; "let it be Black, then; but I don't like
it. Now, remember, this is Niagara, that is Black, and this
is Trenton; and what is this?"
"If you are going to name them all," said Nancy, "we shan't
get home to-night; you might as well name all the trees
there's a hundred of 'em, and more. I say, Ellen, suppos'n' we
follow the brook instead of climbing up yonder again; it will
take us out to the open fields by and by."
"Oh, do let's!" said Ellen; "that will be lovely."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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