the railroad I'm interested in,--down along the line--and it's all I

want, too. It's enough, I should judge. Now here we are at Napoleon.

Good enough country plenty good enough--all it wants is population.

That's all right--that will come. And it's no bad country now for

calmness and solitude, I can tell you--though there's no money in that,

of course. No money, but a man wants rest, a man wants peace--a man

don't want to rip and tear around all the time. And here we go, now,

just as straight as a string for Hallelujah--it's a beautiful angle

--handsome up grade all the way--and then away you go to Corruptionville,

the gaudiest country for early carrots and cauliflowers that ever--good

missionary field, too. There ain't such another missionary field outside

the jungles of Central Africa. And patriotic?--why they named it after

Congress itself. Oh, I warn you, my dear, there's a good time coming,

and it'll be right along before you know what you're about, too. That

railroad's fetching it. You see what it is as far as I've got, and if I

had enough bottles and soap and boot-jacks and such things to carry it

along to where it joins onto the Union Pacific, fourteen hundred miles

from here, I should exhibit to you in that little internal improvement a

spectacle of inconceivable sublimity. So, don't you see? We've got the

rail road to fall back on; and in the meantime, what are we worrying

about that $200,000 appropriation for? That's all right. I'd be willing

to bet anything that the very next letter that comes from Harry will--"

The eldest boy entered just in the nick of time and brought a letter,

warm from the post-office.

284

The Gilded Age