The River and I
THE RIVER OF AN UNWRITTEN EPIC
I
t was Carlyle-was it not?-who said that all great works produce an un-
pleasant impression onfirst acquaintance. It is sowith theMissouri River.
Carlylewas not, I think, speaking of rivers; but hewas speaking of masterpieces-
and so am I.
It makes little difference to me whether or not an epic goes at a hexameter
gallop through the ages, or whether it chooses to be a flood of muddy water,
ripping out a channel from the mountains to the sea. It is merely a matter
of how the great dynamic force shall express itself.
I have seen trout streams that I thought were better lyrics than I or any of
my fellows can ever hope to create. I have heard the moaning of rain winds
among mountain pines that struck me as being equal, at least, to Adonais. I
have seen the solemn rearing of a mountain peak into the pale dawn that gave
me a deep religious appreciation of my significance in the Grand Scheme,
as though I had heard and understood a parable from the holy lips of an
Avatar. And the vast plains of my native country are as a mystic scroll un-
rolled, scrawled with a cabalistic writ of infinite things.
3 JOHN G. NEIHARDT
In the same sense, I have come to look upon theMissouri as something more
than a stream of muddy water. It gave me my first big boy dreams. It was
my ocean. I remember well the first time I looked upon my turbulent friend,
who has since become as a brother to me. It was from a bluff at Kansas City.
I know I must have been a very little boy, for the terror I felt made me reach
up to the saving forefinger of my father, lest this insane devil-thing before me
should suddenly develop an unreasoning hunger for little boys. My father
seemed as tall as Alexander-and quite as courageous. He seemed to fear it
almost not at all. And I should have felt little surprise had he taken me in
his arms and stepped easily over that mile or so of liquid madness. He talked
calmly about it-quite calmly. He explained at what angle one should hold
one's body in the current, and how one should conduct one's legs and arms
in the whirlpools, providing one should swim across.
Swim across! Why, it took a giant even to talk that way! For the summer
had smitten the distant mountains, and the June floods ran. Far across the
yellow swirl that spread out into the wooded bottom-lands, we watched the
demolition of a little town. The siege had reached the proper stage for a
sally, and the attacking forces were howling over the walls. The sacking was
in progress. Shacks, stores, outhouses suddenly developed a frantic desire to
go to St. Louis. It was a weird retreat in very bad order. A cottage with a
garret window that glared like the eye of a Cyclops, trembled, rocked with
the athletic lift of the flood, made a panicky plunge into a convenient tree;
groaned, dodged, and took off through the brush like a scared cottontail. I
felt a boy's pity and sympathy for those houses that got up and took to their
legs across the yellow waste. It did not seem fair. I have since experienced
the same feeling for a jack-rabbit with the hounds a-yelp at its heels.
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