"Now," said Richard Percival, as he and Norris stowed themselves away in
his automobile, "we shall leave the city, in which are contained how
many loves and struggles and silk umbrellas at reasonable prices, and go
to the lake where there is no civilization to bother and distract. The
lake is 'The Lake' par excellence to St. Etienne. It was created by
Providence for summer homes. Therefore it was placed only ten miles from
the Falls. Providence was a good business woman. Generations of savages
lived and died--chiefly died--here. They came where the Father of Waters
roared and tumbled and they made their prayers to the Great Spirit, but
the sight never suggested to them a great city. Then came the
Anglo-Saxon, whatever he is, and harnessed the power of the river, and
built ugly gray mills, dusty with flour, and turned his log huts into
houses of brick and stone, and erected saloons and department stores.
And when he had worked like Dædalus--and you've probably forgotten who
Dædalus was, now that you have been a few weeks out of college--when he
had worked like Dædalus, I say, and got the hardest of it done, he began
to look at something besides the Falls and to pine for means of
dalliance. Behold then at his hand, Lake Imnijaska! And now Madeline
Elton is the best thing on its shore. Gee up, old motor!"
They sped along and Dick took up the tale. He was used to talking while
Norris listened and appreciated.
"Evidently you don't know who Dædalus was or you would have answered
back. What kind of an omniscient editor are you going to make, think
you? Never mind, Dædalus is dead; and, anyway, Edison has beaten him by
six holes.
"The lake, as I was saying, twists and turns so that it gets in more
shore to the square inch than any other known sheet of water. Therefore
the real-estate dealer loves it. And if you elevate your longshore nose
and sniff at our lake because no salt codfish dry upon smelly wharves
and no sea anemones or crabs appear and disappear with the tides, then
will the entire population of St. Etienne rise and howl anathemas at
you. They will run you out of town on the Chicago Express, and as you
fly for your life they will shriek after you, 'Well, anyway, we feed the
world with flour!' Yes, sir, that is the way we Westerners argue."
Dick halted at the top of the hill up which the faithful motor had
coughed, and the two looked down on the shimmering blue that stretched
below them with arms of broken opals sprawling for miles, now here, now
there. Long tortuous passages opened out anew into ever more bays, as
though the water were greedy to explore. Around it rolled the woodland
in billows of intense green with sandy beaches in the troughs and
straight cliffs at the crests. The green islands were vivid in color. So
was the sky above, like the flash in a sapphire. A half-dozen sails
fluttered gull-like, and as many launches darted along, suggesting
living water creatures.