My Terminal Moraine | Page 7

depression did not extend further
up toward the spot where the foot of the glacier was supposed to have
been. This end of the fragment, being sunk in deeper and afterward
covered up more completely, probably never melted at all."

"It is amazing--astounding," said I; "but what of it, now that we have
found it?"
"What of it?" cried Tom, and his whole form trembled as he spoke.
"You have here a source of wealth, of opulence which shall endure for
the rest of your days. Here at your very door, where it can be taken out
and transported with the least possible trouble, is ice enough to supply
the town, the county, yes, I might say, the State, for hundreds of years.
No, sir, I can not go in to supper. I can not eat. I leave to you the
business and practical part of this affair. I go to report upon its
scientific features."
"Agnes," exclaimed, as I walked to the house with my hands clasped
and my eyes raised to the sky, "the glacial period has given thee to
me!"
This did not immediately follow, although I went that very night to Mr.
Havelot and declared to him that I was now rich enough to marry his
daughter. He laughed at me in a manner which was very annoying, and
made certain remarks which indicated that he thought it probable that it
was not the roof of the cave, but my mind, which had given way under
the influence of undue pressure.
The contemptuous manner in which I had been received aroused within
me a very unusual state of mind. While talking to Mr. Havelot I heard
not far away in some part of the house a voice singing. It was the voice
of Agnes, and I believed she sang so that I could hear her. But as her
sweet tones reached my ear there came to me at the same time the harsh,
contemptuous words of her father. I left the house determined to crush
that man to the earth beneath a superincumbent mass of ice--or the
evidence of the results of the ownership of such a mass--which would
make him groan and weep as he apologized to me for his scornful and
disrespectful utterances and at the same time offered me the hand of his
daughter.
When the discovery of the ice-mine, as it grew to be called, became
generally known, my grounds were crowded by sightseers, and
reporters of newspapers were more plentiful than squirrels. But the

latter were referred to Burton, who would gladly talk to them as long as
they could afford to listen, and I felt myself at last compelled to shut
my gates to the first.
I had offers of capital to develop this novel source of wealth, and I
accepted enough of this assistance to enable me to begin operations on
a moderate scale. It was considered wise not to uncover any portion of
the glacier spur, but to construct an inclined shaft down to its wall-like
end and from this tunnel into the great mass. Immediately the leading
ice company of the neighboring town contracted with me for all the ice
I could furnish, and the flood-gates of affluence began slowly to rise.
The earliest, and certainly one of the greatest, benefits which came to
me from this bequest from the unhistoric past was the new energy and
vigor with which my mind and body were now infused. My old,
careless method of life and my recent melancholy, despairing mood
were gone, and I now began to employ myself upon the main object of
my life with an energy and enthusiasm almost equal to that of my
friend, Tom Burton. This present object of my life was to prepare my
home for Agnes.
The great piles of gravel which my men had dug from the well-like pit
were spread upon the roadways and rolled smooth and hard; my lawn
was mowed; my flower-beds and borders put in order; useless bushes
and undergrowth cut out and cleared away; my outbuildings were
repaired and the grounds around my house rapidly assumed their old
appearance of neatness and beauty.
Ice was very scarce that summer, and, as the wagons wound away from
the opening of the shaft which led down to the glacier, carrying their
loads to the nearest railway station, so money came to me; not in large
sums at first, for preparations had not yet been perfected for taking out
the ice in great quantities, but enough to enable me to go on with my
work as rapidly as I could plan it. I set about renovating and
brightening and newly furnishing my house. Whatever I thought that
Agnes would like I bought and put into it. I tried to put