United States or Japan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"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.
"Why shouldn't I have?" Buck started up from shuffling and throwing a book of cards. "Look't me. If Jest Prebol's shot most daid by a woman, look't me. Do you know me where I come from, where the hell I'm goin'? Yo' bet you don't. I've been shanty-boatin' fifteen years, but I ain't always been a shanty-boater, no, I haven't. Talk to me about women. When I think what I've took from one woman Sho!"
"You write for newspapers?" she repeated. She came and sat down on the bow deck of his skiff, frankly curious and interested. "My name's Nelia Crele," she smiled. "I'm a shanty-boater. That's my boat." "I'm sure I'm glad to meet you," he bowed, "Mrs. Crele." "You find lots to write about?" "I can't write fast enough," he replied, enthusiastically, "I've been coming six weeks from St. Louis.
He knew nothing of the gossiping river people except that he despised them. He could not dream that his ignorance of things five or ten miles from his home was not typical of the shanty-boaters; he could not know that where he was a stranger in the next township to his own home, a shanty-boater would know the landing place of his friends a thousand miles or so down stream.
"Thank you, Mr. Brankeau," she said, and turned to leave. "Where are you stopping?" he asked. "I'm a shanty-boater." "You mean it? Not alone?" "Yes," she admitted. "I wish I were twenty years younger," he mourned. "Do you, why?" she looked at him, and, turning, fled.
Word Of The Day