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You see, that sandbar up in Little Prairie Bend has cut loose from Island No. 15, and moved down three miles, and we're at the foot of this bar, here. That's moved down, too, and that big bar down there was made between the surveys. You see, they had to move the levee back, and Caruthersville moved over the new levee " "Sho!" Rasba gasped. "What ails this old riveh?"
"Slip's going up on the steamboat." "For good?" "So'm I!" Buck continued, breathlessly; "I'm quitting the riveh, too! I've been down here a good many years. I've been thinking. I'm going back. I'm going up the bank again." "What'll you do with the boat?" Grell continued. "Slip and I've been talking it all over. We're through with it. We guessed the Prophet, here, could use it.
I've be'n happier, jes' a-settin' an' lookin' at that old riveh, hearin' the wild geese flocking by! "That old riveh Lawse!
"A purty woman, livin' alone on this riveh. Do many do that?" "Riveh ladies all do, sometimes. I tripped from Cairo to Vicksburg into a skift once," a tall, angular woman said. "My man that use to be had stoled the shanty-boat what I'd bought an' paid for with my own money. I went up the bank at Columbus Hickories, gettin' nuts; I come back, an' my boat was gone.
Leaning against the wall of the cabin-boat was a tall, slender young man with arms folded. "How's he comin' Doc'?" the young man was saying. "He'll be all right. How long has he been this way?" "Don't know, Doc; he come down the riveh an' drifted into this eddy. I see his lips movin', so I jes' towed 'im in an' sent fo' yo'!" "Just as well, for that wound sure needed dressing.
"They've woven a willow mattress and weighted it down with broken rock from up the river more than a mile of it, now, and they'll have to put down another mile before they can head the river off there." "Put a carpet down. How wide?" "Four hundred feet probably " "An' a mile long!" Rasba whispered, awed. "Every thing's big on the riveh!" "Yes, sir that's it big!" Buck laughed.
The good that's into a man keeps a-runnin', to git shut of the sin that's in him, an' theh's a heap of wrestlin' when one an' tother catches holt an' fights." "Hit's seo!" Prebol admitted, reluctantly. He didn't have much use for religious arguments. "I wisht yo'd read them books to me, Parson. I ain't neveh had much eddycation. I'll watch the riveh, an' warn ye, 'gin we make the crossin's."
"All about a river woman?" Rasba asked, as he hesitated. "I wasn't thinking that." Terabon shook his head, his colour coming a little. "I had in mind, all about a River Prophet!" "Sho!" Rasba exclaimed. "What could you all find to write about a Riveh Prophet?"
"A man believes a heap more after he's tripped the riveh once or twice, than he ever believed in all his borned days, eh, Buck?" "It's so!" Buck cried out. "Last night I was thinking that I'd wasted my life down here; years and years I've been a shanty-boater, drifter, fisherman, trapper, market hunter, and late years, I've gambled. I've been getting in bad, worse all the while.
I was afraid the river was so big that night. I was so far away. I should have given you fair warning. I'm sorry, too, Jest." "Lawse!" Prebol choked. "Say hit thataway ag'in " "I'm sorry, too, Jest!" "I cayn't thank yo' all enough," the man-whispered. "I've got friends along down the riveh. I'll send word along to them, they'll shore treat yo' nice. Treat friends of yourn nice, too. Huh!
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