All The Phenomena Which
Surround Him Are Simple And Grand, And There Is Something
Impressive, Even Majestic, In The Very Motion He Causes, Which
Will Naturally Be Communicated To His Own Character, And He Feels
The Slow, Irresistible Movement Under Him With Pride, As If It
Were His Own Energy.
The news spread like wildfire among us youths, when formerly,
once in a year or two, one of these boats came up the Concord
River, and was seen stealing mysteriously through the meadows and
past the village.
It came and departed as silently as a cloud,
without noise or dust, and was witnessed by few. One summer day
this huge traveller might be seen moored at some meadow's wharf,
and another summer day it was not there. Where precisely it came
from, or who these men were who knew the rocks and soundings
better than we who bathed there, we could never tell. We knew
some river's bay only, but they took rivers from end to end.
They were a sort of fabulous river-men to us. It was
inconceivable by what sort of mediation any mere landsman could
hold communication with them. Would they heave to, to gratify
his wishes? No, it was favor enough to know faintly of their
destination, or the time of their possible return. I have seen
them in the summer when the stream ran low, mowing the weeds in
mid-channel, and with hayers' jests cutting broad swaths in three
feet of water, that they might make a passage for their scow,
while the grass in long windrows was carried down the stream,
undried by the rarest hay-weather.
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