Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 25, 2025
Sometimes an unlucky shanty-boat was caught in an eddy by the mass of floating timber, and at once becoming an integral portion of the whole, would float with the great raft for two or three days.
If there be a religious meeting in the vicinity of the shanty-boat, the whole family attend it with alacrity, and prove that their BELIEF in honest doctrines is a very different thing from their daily PRACTICE of the same.
Just as they began to move with the current they heard a loud yell from the shore, and looking up saw one of their late visitors standing there, surveying the vanishing shanty-boat with manifest dismay and anger. His shout was evidently understood by the others, for they could be heard tearing along down the shale heading for the scene.
It was all a new experience, and its novelty compelled him at times to pause in his efforts to jot down a few hasty words by light of a little electric flash to preserve in his memory the sequence of the constantly varying features of the night, beginning with the curtain of the shanty-boat which flicked its good luck after him, passing the bright, clear lights of New Madrid.
Looks to me like he might be a wild dog; but perhaps he belongs to some shanty-boat crowd below here. I wouldn't be too ready to tell about this until we're well away. It might breed trouble for us, you see," said Maurice, sagely. "But he tackled you without cause, and any fellow is allowed to defend himself," expostulated the other.
He was wistful for human companionship, but as he looked at the distant shanty-boats, and passed a river town or two, he found himself diffident and shamed. He saw a woman in a blue mother-hubbard dress leaning against the cabin of her low, yellow shanty-boat, a cap a-rake on her head, one elbow resting on her palm, and in the other a long-stemmed Missouri meerschaum.
But not a thing could he see at first; it was as though those treacherous waters had swallowed up his friend forever! And just then he became aware of the fact that there was a sudden change in the movement of the shanty-boat, which instead of continuing to whirl down-stream seemed to be brought to a stop, and was tugging violently at some object that persisted in restraining her onward progress!
The time that elapsed until the hour of ten arrived was about as weary a stretch as either of our lads ever knew; indeed, Thad afterward declared that it was worse than on the occasion when they had to put in an hour of dreadful suspense in the cabin of the shanty-boat while the storm raged on the river, and it was doubtful whether they would ever see daylight again.
"Yes, that's so; but seems to me he said we'd better keep our eyes and ears open all the way down, and ask questions. Sometimes these cut-offs fill up, and then a shanty-boat gets lost in a heap of cross canals. He says they're like hen tracks sometimes." "Well," remarked Maurice, thoughtfully, "it would be a pretty tough deal if WE ever got mixed up in one of those puzzles.
In this descent of the river, many persons, who have clubbed together to meet the expenses of a shanty-boat life for the first time, and who are of a sentimental turn of mind, look upon the voyage as a romantic era in their lives. Visions of basking in the sunlight, feasting, and sleeping, dance before their benighted eyes; for they are not all of the low, ignorant class I have described.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking