United States or Guinea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He was an unusual figure for a woodsman or river-man he did not wear ear-rings or a waist-sash as did the river-men, and he did not turn in his toes like a woodsman. Yet he was plainly a man from the far mountains. The man with the dogs did not heed the few curious looks turned his way, but held his head down as though walking in familiar places.
They went over to the rooms of the pilots' association, where the river-men gathered in force to celebrate his return. Then he took train for Hannibal. He spent several days in Hannibal and saw Laura Hawkins Mrs. Frazer, and a widow now and John Briggs, an old man, and John RoBards, who had worn the golden curls and the medal for good conduct.
Others delivered great quantities of coals in particular places where the ships could come to the shore, as at Greenwich, Blackwall, and other places, in vast heaps, as if to be kept for sale; but were then fetched away after the ships which brought them were gone, so that the seamen had no communication with the river-men, nor so much as came near one another.
I looked again upon the familiar rows of trees which shaded the gravelled promenades where Nick had first seen Antoinette. Then we were under it, for the river was low, and the dingy-uniformed officer was bowing over our passports beneath the awning. We walked ashore, Monsieur Vigo and I, and we joined a staring group of keel boatmen and river-men under the willows.
Then the conversation turned upon the feud that existed between Viking and Sunburst, the river-drivers and the fishers. During the last few days, owing to the fact that there were a great many idle river-men about, the river-driving for the season being done, there had been more than one quarrel of a serious nature at Sunburst. It had needed a great deal of watchfulness on the part of Mr.
This was the flood-tide wharf, but it was used now only by loiterers, who lay upon it to bask dog-like in the sun. The long intervening stretch between the builded city and the river was covered with boats and river-men. Fishers mending nets were grouped together, but they talked with one another as if each were a furlong away from his fellow.
But this had been mere gossip, and after twenty-five years she came back to Pontiac, a half-mad creature, and took up the thread of her life alone; and Parpon and the Cure saw that she suffered nothing in the hard winters. Valmond left the river-men to the tyranny of her tongue and stick, and came on to where the red light of the forge showed through the smithy window.
Those who recognised him in passing took off their bonnets rouges, some saying, "Good-night, your Highness;" some, "How are you, monseigneur?" some, "God bless your Excellency;" and a batch of bacchanalian river-men, who had been drinking, called him "General," and insisted on embracing him, offering him cognac from their tin flasks.
There were times when he longed for the backwoods life; when the smell of the pines and the firs and the juniper got into his nostrils; when he heard, in imagination, the shouts of the river-men as they chopped down the trees, sawed the boles into standard lengths, and plunged the big timbers into the stream, or round the fire at night made call upon the spirit of recreation.
The boatmen were reckless of life, limb, and reputation, and were often more numerous than those of the villagers who cared to enforce the laws; while there was always present an element which abetted and throve on the vice of the river-men. The result was that mischief, debauchery, and outrage ran riot, and in the inevitable fights the citizens were generally beaten.
Word Of The Day