I play with
dolls now--a little. And then I can do something to repay my new father
and mother for all they are doing for me. And you must come to
church, Teunis."
"Virginia says," said the elder, "that you have a good voice. I wish
you'd come and help out with the singing."
"Oh, I can't sing," I demurred; "but I'd like to come. I will come, when
I get back."
"Yes, you can sing," said Virginia. "Here's a song he taught me back on
the prairie:
"'Down the river, O down the river, O down the river we go-o-o;
Down the river, O down the river, O down the Ohio-o-o!
"'The river was up, the channel was deep, the wind was steady
and strong,
The waves they dashed from shore to shore as we went sailing along--
"'Down the river, O down the river, O down the river we go-o-o;
Down the river, O down the river, O down the Ohio-o-o!'"
"I think you learned a good deal--for one day," said Mrs. Thorndyke,
coming in. "How do you do, Jacob? I'm glad to see you."
Thus she again put forth her theory that Virginia and I had been
together only one day. It is what N.V. Creede called, when I told him of
it years afterward, "a legal fiction which for purposes of pleading was
incontrovertible."
The river of immigration was still flowing west over the Ridge Road,
quite as strong as earlier in the season, and swollen by the stream of
traffic setting to and from the settlements for freight. People I met
told me that the railroad was building into Dubuque--or at least to the
river at Dunlieth.
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