The Americans - LightNovelsOnl.com
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You don't have strikes up there?
GOVERNOR BRADDOCK.
Well, Egerton, This is the grandest thing I ever saw.
EGERTON.
I made my mind up, Braddock, years ago That when I'd sawed my fortune out of lumber I'd build a mansion where a man could see Just how I'd done it, starting with the raw, The standing timber, every phase of it; A sort of record of these busy times: For they won't last forever, these great days.
GENERAL CHADBOURNE.
We never see the giants till they're gone.
BISHOP HARDBROOKE.
The day will come when we'll appreciate them.
RALPH ARDSLEY.
Three cheers for one of them.
GUESTS.
Hurrah! Hurrah!
EGERTON.
(_Goes back a little, the group following him, and points right rear_)
Back there you see the swamper clearing brush, Man's first a.s.sault upon primeval forests.
And then the feller with his broader stroke Hewing a way for apple trees and cities, And incidentally moving on himself.
And here you see my teams. And, by the way, They talk of how the horse has followed man In his march across the ages, but the tree That sheltered the lost saurian, think of that!
GOVERNOR BRADDOCK.
You must have been a tree in some past life; You seem to love them so and understand them.
EGERTON.
There's nothing in this world so beautiful As a pine forest, gentlemen, just at dawn; The infant breathing of a million needles.
It's like our organ, Bishop, those soft tones.
(_Comes forward_)
BISHOP HARDBROOKE.
He ought to have lived in old cathedral days.
EGERTON.
And here the rising rollways; then the drive, The river man.
(_Points across left_)
GOVERNOR BRADDOCK.
Come out to get a view, A broader view.
THIRD STAFF MEMBER.
You had men pose for this?
EGERTON.
I'm following the tree.
FOURTH STAFF MEMBER.
That fellow's face.
EGERTON.
These 'broader views' don't interest me much.
GOVERNOR BRADDOCK.
And you think this idea's capable of extension?
EGERTON.
How do you mean?
GENERAL CHADBOURNE.
(_Returning from a word with the Butler, to Ardsley who comes to meet him_)
I don't see what's the matter.
GOVERNOR BRADDOCK.
A while ago you said----
RALPH ARDSLEY.
O it's all right.
GOVERNOR BRADDOCK.
You were the first Captain of Industry In all America to build a house.
