AN AFTERNOON BY THE RIVER. 



To an idler desirous of seeing wild life on 

 easy terms Chattanooga offers this advan- 

 tage, that electric cars take him quickly out 

 of the city in different directions, and drop 

 him in the woods. In this way, on an after- 

 noon too sultry for extended travel on foot, 

 I visited a wooded hillside on the further 

 bank of the Tennessee, a few miles above 

 the town. 



The car was stiU turning street corner 

 after street corner, making its zigzag course 

 toward the bridge, when I noticed a rustic 

 old gentleman at my side looking intently 

 at the floor. Apparently he suspected some- 

 thing amiss. He was unused to the ways 

 of electricity, I thought, — a verdancy by no 

 means inexcusable. But as he leaned far- 

 ther forward, and looked and listened with 

 more and more absorption, the matter — not 

 his ignorance, but his simple-hearted betrayal 

 of it — began to seem amusing. For myself, 

 to be sure, I knew nothing about electricity, 



