It has majesty, breadth. The farming has nothing apparently petty
about it. All seems vigorous, youthful, and prosperous. Mr.
Howard McLane in his chair let his newspaper fall on his lap and
gazed out upon it with dreaming eyes. It had a certain mysterious
glamour to him; the lakes were cooler and brighter to his eye, the
greens fresher, and the grain more golden than to anyone else, for
he was coming back to it all after an absence of ten years. It was,
besides, his West. He still took pride in being a Western man.
His mind all day flew ahead of the train to the little town far on
toward the Mississippi, where he had spent his boyhood and youth.
As the train passed the Wisconsin River, with its curiously carved
cliffs, its cold, dark, swift-swirling water eating slowly under
cedar-clothed banks, Howard began to feel curious little
movements of the heart, like a lover as he nears his sweetheart.
The hills changed in character, growing more intimately
recognizable. They rose higher as the train left the ridge and
passed down into the Black River valley, and specifically into the
La Crosse valley. They ceased to have any hint of upheavals of
rock, and became simply parts of the ancient level left standing
after the water had practically given up its postglacial, scooping
action.
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