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And that, mom, would shet any woman up in jail as you well know. And you know, Cleopatra," sez I, "jest how you went on and behaved, and your example is a-floatin' down the River of Time to-day, same as you sailed down the Sydnus in that barge of yourn.

I see a light, fust of all, a-leapin' an' a-dancin' about 'mong the trees ah! an' I 'eerd shouts as was enough to curdle a man's good blood. 'Pooh! what's lights? says Joel Amos, cockin' 'is eye into 'is empty tankard; 'that bean't much to frighten a man, no, nor shouts neither. 'Aren't it? says John Pringle, fierce-like; 'what if I tell ye the place be full o' flamin' fire what if I tell ye I see the devil 'isself, all smoke, an' sparks, an' brimston' a-floatin' an' a-flyin', an' draggin' a body through the tops o' the trees? 'Lord! says everybody, an' well they might, Peter, an' nobody says nothin' for a while.

But while I was goin' over all this in my mind, an' wonderin' if the cap'n ever could git us into port, along comes Andy Boyle, an' sits down beside me. `It drives me pretty nigh crazy, says he, `to think that to-morrer's Christmas, an' we've got to feed on that sloppy stuff we fished out of our stores, an' not much of it, nuther, while there's all that roast turkey an' plum-puddin' an' mince-pie a-floatin' out there just afore our eyes, an' we can't have none of it. `You hadn't oughter think so much about eatin', Andy, says I,`but if I was talkin' about them things I wouldn't leave out canned peaches.

"I dunno rightly, sir, an' never shall this side o' glory, but 'twere a shape, a thing I might call it a ghost an' I might call it a phanitum; hows'ever 't were a shape, sir, as I seed a-floatin' an' a-wailin' Lord, I'll never forget 'ow it wailed!" Here he mopped his brow at the mere recollection. "But do you never see any one about by day?"

But he don't notice 'em much, an' he's not so keen on his water-lilies as I thought he would be, for they're promisin' better this year than they've ever done before, an' the buds all a-floatin' up on top o' the river just lovely.

"De Titanic's sinkin' in de deep blue, Sinkin' in de deep blue, deep blue, Sinkin' in de sea. O de women an' de chilen a-floatin' in de sea, O de women an' de chilen a-floatin' in de sea, Roun' dat cole iceberg, Sung 'Nearer, my gawd, to Thee, Sung 'Nearer, my gawd, to Thee, Nearer to Thee." The guitar was strumming the hymn-tune.

I've heard ez how Aunt Sally Day's boy Ben, who was a-fishin' that evenin, says ez how he seed Isom's harnt a-floatin' across the river in it, without techin' a paddle." The Marcum laughed. "Idgits is thick over hyeh," he said. "Ben's a-gittin' wuss sence Isom was killed.

"I come down out of Tug River; I am looking for Jock Drones; he's down thisaway, somewheres; can yo' all tell me whichaway is the Mississippi River?" "I don't know him," the fisherman shook his head. "But this yeah is Wolf Island Chute; the current caught you off of Columbus bluffs, and you drifted in yeah; jes' keep a-floatin' an' d'rectly you'll see Old Mississip' down thataway."

Kittridge, "that when her husband had been out a month, she dreamed she see him, and three other men, a-floatin' on an iceberg."

Little the worse for his watery pilgrimage, Joe Hawkridge explained at his leisure: "Ned Rackham took the others away in the snow, as I tell ye, Cap'n Bonnet, and there was I in the doleful dumps. Prayers get answered and miracles do happen, for next day there come a-floatin' to the beach a cask full of grub and water.