The boys drank deeply and gratefully. No such refreshing stream had ever flowed down their throats before.
“Ohio,” said Dick, “you’re a lovely, dirty angel.”
“I guess I am,” said Ohio, “’cause I found the spring. It turned me from an old man back to a boy again. Cold as ice, ain’t it? I can tell you why. This spring starts right at the North Pole, right under the pole itself, dives away down into the earth, comes under Bering Sea and then under British America, and then under the lakes, and then under Ohio, and then under a part of Kentucky, and then comes out here especially to oblige us, this being a dry season.”
“I believe every word you say, Ohio,” said Warner, “since your statements are proved by the quality of the water. I could easily demonstrate it as a mathematical proposition.”
“Don’t you pay any attention to him, Ohio,” said Dick. “He’s from Vermont, and he’s so full of big words that he’s bound to get rid of some of them.”
“I’m not doubting you, Vermont,” said Ohio. “As you believe every word I said, I believe every word you said.”
“There’s nothing extraordinary about them things,” said another Ohio boy belonging to a different brigade, who was sitting near. “Do you know that we swallowed a whole river coming down here? We began swallowing it when we crossed the Ohio, just like a big snake swallowing a snake not quite so big, taking down his head first, then keeping on swallowing him until the last tip of his tail disappeared inside. It was a good big stream when we started, water up to our knees, but we formed across it in a line five hundred men deep and then began to drink as we marched forward. Of course, a lot of water got past the first four hundred lines or so, but the five hundredth always swallowed up the last drop.”
“We marched against that stream for something like a hundred and fifty miles. No water ever got past us. We left a perfectly dry bed behind. Up in the northern part of the state not a drop of water came down the river in a month. We followed it, or at least a lot of us did, clean to its source in some hills a piece back of us. We drank it dry up to a place like this, only bigger, and do you know, a fellow of our company named Jim Lambert was following it up under the rocks, and we had to pull him out by the feet to keep him from being suffocated. That was four days ago, and we had a field telegram yesterday from a place near the Ohio, saying that a full head of water had come down the river again, three feet deep from bank to bank and running as if there had been a cloudburst in the hills. Mighty glad they were to see it, too.”
There was a silence, but at length a solemn youth sitting near said in very serious tones:
“I’ve thought over that story very thoroughly, and I believe it’s a lie.”
“Vermont,” said the first Ohio lad, “don’t you have faith in my friend’s narrative?”
“I believe every word of it,” said Warner warmly. “Our friend here, who I see can see, despite the dim light, has a countenance which one could justly say indicates a doubtful and disputatious nature, wishes to discredit it because he has not heard of such a thing before. Now, I ask you, gentlemen, intelligent and fair-minded as I know you are, where would we be, where would civilization be if we assumed the attitude of our friend here. If a thing is ever seen at all somebody sees it first, else it would never be seen.Quod erat demonstrandum. You remember your schooldays, of course. I thank you for your applause, gentlemen, but I’m not through yet. We have passed the question of things seen, and we now come to the question of things done, which is perhaps more important. It is obvious even to the doubtful or carping mind that if a new thing is done it is done by somebody first. Others will do it afterward, but there must and always will be a first.