Billy's Wife [pp. 402-410]

BILL Y'S WIFE.
areas constituting so considerable a portion of the upper and rhiddle regions,
have not been denuded the one - hundredth part of an inch. Farther down
measuring tablets abound bearing the
signature of the ice. The amount of
torrential and avalanchial denudation is
also certainly estimated within narrow
limits by measuring down from the unchanged glaciated surfaces lining their
banks. Farther down the range, where
the polished surfaces disappear, we may
still reach a fair approximation by the
height of pot-holes drilled into the walls
of gorges, and by the forms of the bottoms of the valleys containing these
gorges, and by the shape and conditi9n
of the general features.
Summing up these results, we find
that the average quantity of post-glacial
denudation in the upper half of the range,
embracing a zone twenty-five or thirty
miles wide, probably does not exceed a
depth of three inches. That of the lower half has evidently been much greater
-probably several feet-but certainly
not so much as radically to alter any of
its main features. In that portion of
the range where [see study No. IV, in
the OVERLAND for August of this year]
the depth of glacial denudation exceeds
a mile, that of post-glacial denudation is
less than a foot.
From its warm base to its cold summit, the physiognomy of the Sierra is
still strictly glacial. Rivers have only
traced shallow wrinkles, avalanches have
made scars, and winds and rains have
blurred it, but the change, as a whole,
is not greater than that which comes
on a human countenance by a few years'
exposure to common Alpine storms.
BILLY'S WIFE.
ON'T know Billy? Then allow
me to introduce to you "an Irishman by trade, and a mechanic by the
grace of God;" a perfect pet among
the girls, as handsome as the day is
long, and as good as he is handsome.
That is Billy, or rather was Billy when
first I knew him. He was the youngest
of the squad of carpenters that worked
on our new building, and altogether the
most active and efficient of the party.
They sent him to all the exposed positions, and he risked his life gayly every
day. "There is a special Providence
for fools and children," said he, "and I
claim protection under the first clause
of that law."
I was watching him one day at work
on the top of the house, when his foot
slipped, and he started head foremost
for terra fiArma. When within ten feet
of the bottom he touched some scaffold
ing with his hand, "swapped ends," and
lighted on his feet, like the tumbler in a
circus, made me an elaborate salaam,
and climbed up again to his eyrie full
forty feet above my head.
Billy had not worked long for us when
it became apparent that there was something on his mind. The jolliest of fellows among the men, he yet strove to
get away from them in his leisure hours,
and passed the greater part of Sunday
out in the meadows, or under the trees.
Even in the house he was addicted to
reverie, and his absent-minded replies
to remarks made to him gave rise to
many a laugh. The query went round,
"What's the matter with Billy?" but
found no solution until I guessed it.
He was in love. The neighboring
girls, laughing- eyed, dimpled- cheeked
rustic beauties who came to visit me,
could make no impression on his faith
402
[Nov.