The review. [volume] (High Point, N.C.) 1908-19??, 1920-12-02
Prologue.

II one can just lie close enough to the
breast OF the wilderness, he cant help
put be lmbued with some of the life that
pulses therein.-From a Frontiersman's
Diary.
Long ago, when the great city of
Gltcheapolis was a rather small, un-
tidy hamlet in the middle of a plain,
tt used to be that pool of water,
possibly two hundred feet square,
gathered every spring Immediately
back of the courthouse. The snow
falls thick and heavy in Gitcheapolis
In winter; and the pond was nothing
more than snow water that the ineffi-
cient drainage system Of the city did
not quite absorb. Besides being the
despair of the plumbers and the city
engineer, 1t was a severe strain on
the beauty-lOving instincts of every
inhabftant ia the town who had any
such instincts. 1t was muddy and
murky and generally distasteful.
A little boy played at the edge of
the water, this spring day of long ago.
Except for his interest in the pO1d, it
would have been scarcely worth while
to go to the trouble of explaining that
1t contained no fish. He, however,
bitterly regretted the fact. In truth,
he sometimes liked to believe that it
did contain fish, very sleepy fish that
never made q ripple. and as he had an
uncommon imagination he was some
times able to convince himself that
this was so. But he never took hook
and line and played at fishing. He
Of n Of III
Of his boy friends. His mother prob
ably wouldn't object if he tished here,
he thought, particularly if he were
careful not to get his shoes covered
with mud. But she wouldn't let him
go down to GitcheapOlis creek to fish
with the other boys for mud cat. He
was not very strong, she thought and
1t was rough sport anyway, and be-
sides-she didn't think he wanted to
go very badly. AS mothers are usual
~ particularly understanding, this
WAS a curious thing.
The truth was that little Dan Fail
ing wanted to fish almost as much as
he wanted to live. He would dream
about it of nights. His blood would
glow with the thought Of it in the
springtime. Women the world over
will have hard time believing what
an intense, heaTt-devouring passion
the love of the chase can be, whether
It is for fishing or hunting or merely
knocking golf balls into a little hole
upon a green. Sometimes they don't
remember that this instinct is just as
much part of most men, and thus
most boys. as their hands or their
lips. It was acquired by just as la
bOriOuS a prOcess-the lives of I'M
counted thousands of ancestors who
fsh&l and hunted for living.
It was true that little Dan didn't
look the part Even then he showed
signa of physical frailty. His eyes
looked rather large, and his cheeks
we're not the color of fresh SirlOin, as
they shOnld have been. In fact. one
would ha We had to look very hard to
see any solor in them at all. These
facts are interesting from the light
they tfrUy upon the next glimpse Of
Dan, fully twenty years later.
EXCEPT for the fact that it was the
background for the earliest picture of
little TeBn, the pool back Of the court
house has very little importance in
his story. It did, however. afford an
to him of one of the real
" astonishing truths Of life. He saw
q shadow in the water that he pre-
tended he thought might be fish. He
threw stone at 1t.
The only thing that happened was
a splash, and then slowly widening
ripple. The circumference of the rip
pfe grew ever larger. extended and
widened, and finally 1ied at the edge
Of the shore. It set little Dan to
thinking. He wondered if. had. the
nool been larger. the ripple still would
have spread; and If the pool had been
eternftv. whether the ripple would
hove rome on forever At the time he
tf4d net know the laws Of cause and
effect. Later. when Gtcheapoffs was
great and prosperous and no longer
untidy, he was going to find out that
a cause is nothing but rock thrown
lrato q pond of inf1nity, and the ripple
that Is It's effect keeps growing and
rowing forever.
The little incident that is the real
hecfnnfng Of this story was Of no
more Importance than a pebble thrown
Ipto the snow water pond; but Its ef-
roct was TO remove the life Of Dan
rnfrtng, slnct, grown up, far out OF
he realms of the ordinary.
And that brings all matters down
!, 1919. I'll the last days Of particu-
rYANIH