What an unusual fable of the folly of blocking rivers is this little story published in an English periodical called The Prize in August 1901. Its lithographed color cover, printed in Holland, shows Georgie Mays and his sisters, Flossy and Maggie, attempting to improve a brook by shoveling rocks and dirt into it so as to create a lake to better sail their toy boats on. Unfortunately their early education has not included courses in engineering and their dam won’t hold. When kindly Aunt Edith comes over to check on the urchins, Georgie looks up and sighs:
‘Oh, dear, Aunt Edith, I wish the water would stop running for a little while. We want a wall strong enough, and high enough, to keep our boats from drifting away.’
Aunt Edith evidences an early environmental sensibility and informs the young would-be water resource developers:
‘Ah, Georgie,’ was the reply, ‘this water started a long, long way off to come to the sea, and it means to reach it, it will not be stopped, dear; your wall is useless.’
This appeal to the poetry and justice of unfettered nature awakens the lad’s organic conscience.
‘Just for a moment Georgie looked vexed, then he laughed, and said brightly, ‘Yes, of course, it has come from far off—miles and miles, and I will not try any longer to hinder it from getting to the sea, where it is meant to go. It is a brave little stream to keep on running, not letting anything stop it, is it not?’
‘Yes, it is,’ agreed the juvenile would-be dam builders. Their wise and eco-informed Aunt closes with a metaphorical platitude comparing free-flowing rivers to moral obligations.
‘I hope, little folk, you will take a lesson from it, and let nothing stop you from going on in the right way, and doing the things which you ought to do.’
It is a “brave little stream” indeed. This admonition to let the waters flow to the sea would seem to go against the spirit of technological progress of the late Victorian era. Of course at the same time there were conflicted figures like Teddy Roosevelt who simultaneously did much to preserve wilderness while building the Panama Canal. We suspect there is far more children’s fiction of this era, especially written for boys, that involves stalwart lads heroically wresting control of nature for the benefits to humanity and rewards to themselves.
LABOUR IN VAIN.
GEORGIE Mays, with his sisters, Flossie and Maggie, were spending a week with their aunt at Farcombe Bay. One of their favourite places for play there was near the sand-banks, close to the little boat-house, and not far from the foot of Potter’s Hill, down which a stream ran into the river on its way to the sea.
The children loved to watch this stream hurrying along, over mounds and stones, and down the steps, under the little wooden bridge, and they wished to sail their boats upon it, but they had been warned that, if they did so, the boats would most likely be carried out to sea; for the river made no pause, but ran along at a steady pace.
Well, after thinking over the matter, a new idea came to Georgie, and he said to his sisters,
‘I know what we must do; before we try to sail our boats here, we must make a dam—a strong wall, you know, to reach across the stream, then they cannot get away.’
‘I see what you mean, Georgie,’ answered Flossie, ‘and we had better make the wall just here,’ and she pointed where the stream was narrow and shallow.
So a few minutes later the three children had their shoes and stockings off, and tucked up their other garments, so as to have their legs quite free, and then they set to work to make a wall; but although they worked hard for quite half an hour, they did not bring the task near its end, for, as I have said, the water made no pause, and as it ran past them, it broke down their barrier almost as quickly as they built it up, and at last Maggie got vexed and she left off working, and went and sat down, then Flossie left off, too, and stood still in the water, and Georgie kept on working, and as they were watching him their auntie came upon the scene.
She guessed at once what Georgie was trying to do, and she smiled when he looked up and said with a sigh—
‘Oh, dear, Aunt Edith, I wish the water would stop running for a little while. We want a wall strong enough, and high enough, to keep our boats from drifting away.’
‘Ah, Georgie,’ was the reply, ‘this water started a long, long way off to come to the sea, and it means to reach it, it will not be stopped, dear; your wall is useless.’
Just for a moment Georgie looked vexed, then he laughed, and said brightly, ‘Yes, of course, it has come from far off—miles and miles, and I will not try any longer to hinder it from getting to the sea, where it is meant to go. It is a brave little stream to keep on running, not letting anything stop it, is it not?’
‘Yes, it is,’ agreed his companions, and Aunt Edith added—
‘I hope, little folk, you will take a lesson from it, and let nothing stop you from going on in the right way, and doing the things which you ought to do.’