Considering it simply as an excursion, George Scott thought, leaning over the side of the canal-boat and looking at the shadow of the hills in the water, his plan for spending his summer vacation might be a success, but he was not so sure about his opportunities for studying human nature under the worst conditions.
He had been in the habit of saying that nothing interested him as much as the study of his fellows. But George had higher aspirations, and was not disposed to be satisfied with the opportunities presented by crude collegians or even learned professors, and so meant to go out among men. When he was younger, he had dreamed of a mission among the Indians, but the Modocs and Captain Jack had lowered his faith, while the Rev. Dr. Buck’s story of how the younger savages had been taught to make beds and clean knives had dispelled more of the glitter, and he had resolved to confine his labours to his white brethren.
He did not mean to seek his opportunities among the rich, nor among the monotonously dreary poor of the city, but in a fresher field. Like most theological students, he was well read in current literature, and he had learned how often the noblest virtues are found among the roughest classes. He had read of California gamblers who had rushed from tables to warn a coming train of broken rails, and, when picked up maimed and dying, had simply asked if the children were saved. He knew the story of the Mississippi engineer who saved his boat from wreck by burning his wedding clothes and fortune for fuel. When men are capable of such heroism, George would say, they are open to true reformation.
About noon he had not been quite so sanguine regarding his mission. The sun was then pouring down directly on the boat, the cabin was stifling, the horses crept sluggishly along, the men were rude and brutal, and around him was an atmosphere of frying fish and boiling cabbage. The cabbage was perhaps the crowning evil. There seemed to be little, he thought, to reward his quest or maintain his theory that every one had at least one story to tell.
He had hinted something of this to Joe Lakin early in the morning, when the mist was rising off the hills and the air was fresh and keen. Joe was the laziest and roughest of the men on the boat, but he sometimes had such a genial and even superior manner, that George had felt sure that he would comprehend his meaning. Thus when noon came, hot, close, and heavy with prophecy of dinner, George had sickened of human nature and of psychological studies; but now the sun had set, and a golden glory lit the sky; the fields on one side of the river rolled away green in clover and wavy in corn, the hills heavily wooded rose high and picturesquely on the other side, and the little island in the bend of the river seemed the home of quiet and of peace.
The horses plodded patiently through the water, and the boys, forgetting to shout and swear, rode along softly whistling. Over by the hills stood a cottage, and in the terraced garden a group of girls with bright ribbons in their hair were playing quoits with horseshoes.