ts our town,--I am told few of the
historic streams are imposing,--and there was hardly more of it then.
It yielded adequate power to run the sawmills only during the spring
freshets when the swamps overflowed, and it was our ill luck that the
legislative commission decided to visit Tuscarora in dog-days while
Etruria's stage line was doing a land-office business and our poor
little resource was wasted to a long-drawn-out puddle choked with
cat-tails and lily-pads. But what dismayed other men seemed to spur
Israel Booth, and one night, a bare fortnight before the commissioners'
coming, his great conception saw its birth. Before he slept he took
counsel with the leading settlers."

Shelby broke off to address one of his audience.

"Your father was in the secret, Mr. Hewett," he said; "and yours, Dr.
Crandall--and my grandfather, and many another upright citizen."

The gentlemen singled out for reflected fame stirred consciously in the
effort to appear unconscious.

"Now Red Jacket Creek woke from its summer sleep. The spiders in the
mill yards were dispossessed; lumber that had been hauled away was
replaced and piled conspicuously; the dams and flumes were repaired,
and the water-gates were shut; the backwater began to flood the ponds
and agitate the colony of frogs; prominent men were heard to pray for
rain, and Israel Booth was seen carrying water by night from his well
to the raceway; New Babylon was big with mystery. You all know the
sequel. You know how the commissioners came to us hungry from Etruria;
how Booth and his helpers met them in Sunday butternut and shirt frills
without spot; how we flattered our visitors' distinguished yet entirely
human stomachs with the toothsome dishes of our grandmothers; how we
cracked dusty bottles of Madeira brought years before from New England;
and how we brewed a waggish punch from the output of our rival's own
distillery. You know how they were driven presently about our cleanly
streets, every dooryard raked spick and span against their coming, and
were brought at last to the mills. You know how the Red Jacket, pent
to bursting from a providential thunder-storm of the night, blustered
down through the race with the pride of a Danube; how the saws sang,
the logs rolled, the teamsters shouted, and the commissioners admired.
You know, too, that the guests left before the waters abated or the
punch-bowl knew drought; and that by the same token we won our fight.
Does any