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He sat just inside the kitchen door, out of the sunshine, in a comfortable rocking chair. Two windows and the stern door gave him a wide view of the river, sandbars and eddy. It seemed but a minute, but he had fallen into a doze, when the splash of a shanty-boat sweeps awakened all the crew with a sudden, frightened start. Whispers, hardly audible, hailed in alarm.
At the same moment he thought he heard some sound outside, as if a floating object had struck against the anchored shanty-boat. It might be a log, as frequently happened, for there were many such drifting on the surface of the big river, washed from the banks above by some local flood. Thad, without wasting any time in thought, sprang to the door.
These scows are calked with oakum and rags, and the seams are made water-tight with pitch or tar. A small, low house is built upon the boat, and covers about two- thirds of it, leaving a cockpit at each end, in which the crews work the sweeps, or oars, which govern the motions of the shanty-boat.
When she was a safe distance down the river, she ventured to look up stream, and saw that the little red shanty-boat had left its mooring, and that the man was coming down the current astern of her.
And thus early in their experience in the world our boys realized what a splendid thing it is at any and all times to have a friend at court, ready to speak a good work in one's favor. They could tie up in the yard, and he would see to keeping the shanty-boat with some things aboard, to be given to their friend, Bob Archiable, when he arrived.
The birds were left for my quondam friends of the shanty-boat, they being the happy possessors of more TIME than they could well handle, and the killing of it the aim of their existence. The soft shores of alluvium were constantly caving and falling into the river, bringing down tons of earth and tall forest-trees.
"There's a shanty-boat tied up yonder," whispered Thad, suddenly, pointing to a place where the gleam of a light through a small window could be seen. "Let her float down a bit farther. We don't want too close neighbors, especially when we know nothing about them. There, listen to that dog bark; the little rat sees us all right.
Now he is the slave of responsibilities and cares which press heavily upon his heretofore unthinking nature. To-day he has a future IF he can make it. During the day, a lone woman on a shanty-boat, which was securely fastened to an old stump, volunteered much information in regard "her man," and the money he expected to receive for the skins he had been collecting during the winter.
There was no doubt of it. Nelia had been there, but no one had happened to think to tell Carline about it. She had landed in a pretty shanty-boat, the wharf-master said, and had pulled out just before a river man in a brick-red cabin-boat of small size had left the eddy.
Another shanty-boat is built by a party of young men suffering from impecuniosity. They are "out of a job," and to them the charms of an independent life on the river is irresistible. Having pooled their few dollars to build their floating home, they descend to New Orleans as negro minstrels, trappers, or thieves, as necessity may demand.
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