[Illustration: "CONNOR."]
"I'm in luck, hurrah!" cried Connor Magan, as he threw up his brimless
hat into the air--the ringing, jubilant shout he sent after it could
only spring from the reservoir of glee in the heart of a twelve-year-old
boy. Giving a push to the skiff in which his father sat waiting for him,
he jumped from the shore to the boat, and struck out into the Ohio
river.
Tim Magan, father, and Connor Magan, son, were central figures in a very
strange picture.
Let us take in the situation.
It was a Western spring freshet. The Ohio was on a rampage--a turbulent,
coffee-colored stream, it had risen far beyond its usual boundaries,
washed out the familiar land-marks, and, still insolent and greedy, was
licking the banks, as if preparatory to swallowing up the whole country.
Trees torn up by the roots, their green branches waving high above the
flood, timbers from cottages, and wrecks of bridges, were floating down
to the Gulf of Mexico.
It was curious to watch the various things in the water as they sailed
slowly along. Demijohns bobbed about. Empty store boxes mockingly
labelled _dry goods_ elbowed bales of hay. Sometimes a weak
cock-a-doodle-doo from a travelling chicken-coop announced the
whereabouts of a helpless though still irrepressible rooster. Back yards
had been visited, and oyster-cans, ash-barrels and unsightly kitchen
debris brought to light. It was a mighty revolution where the dregs of
society were no longer suppressed, but sailed in state on the top wave.
"It is an idle wind which blows no one good," and amid the general
destruction the drift-wood was a God-send to the poor people, and they
caught enough to supply them with fire-wood for months. Logs, fences,
boards and the contents of steamboat woodyards were swept into the
current. On high points of land near the shore were collected piles
bristling with ragged stumps and limbs of trees. The great gnarled
branches of forest trees sometimes spread over half the river, while
timbers lodging among them formed a sort of raft which kept out of the
water the most wonderful things--pieces of furniture, and kitchen
utensils which shone in the sun like silver.
Cullum's Ripple is a few miles below Cincinnati. Here the deep current
sets close to the shore, making a wild kind of whirlpool or eddy that
brings drift-wood almost to land; the rippling water makes a sudden turn
and scoops out a little cove in the sand. It is a splendid place for
fishermen, but quite dangerous for boats.
Not far above Cullum's Ripple is situated the Magan family mansion, or
shanty. The river is on one side, and two parallel railroads are on the
other. On the top of the bank, and on a level with the railroads, is a
piece of land not much longer or wider than a rope-walk, and on this
only available scrap the Railroad Company have built a few temporary
houses for their workmen. They are all alike, except that a
morning-glory grows over Magan's door.
The colony is called Twinrip possibly the short of "Between Strip." (If
the name does not mean that, will some one skilled in digging up
language roots, please tell me what it does mean?) The atmosphere around
these cabins is as filled with bustling, whistling confusion as a
chimney with smoke.
Besides the water highway, on the other side, just a few feet beyond the
iron roads, a horse-car track and a turnpike offer additional facilities
for locomotion. Birds perch on the numerous telegraph wires amid wrecks
of kites and dingy pennons--once kite-tails--nothing hurts them; and
below the children of Twinrip appear just as free and safe, and seem to
have as much delight in mere living as their feathered friends.
The Magans were a light-hearted Irish family, whose cheerfulness seemed
better than eucalyptus or sunflowers to keep off the fever and ague, and
who made the most of the little bits of sunshine that came to them. Tim,
a strong-armed laborer, was brakeman on the Road. His wife, a hopeful
little body, a woman of expedients, was voted by her neighbors the
"cheeriest, condolingest" woman in Twinrip.
Good luck, according to her, was always coming to the Magans. It was
good luck brought them to America--by good luck Tim became brakeman. It
was good luck that the school for Connor was free of expense, and so
convenient.
Her loyalty to her husband rather modified the expression of her views,
yet she often expatiated to her eldest on his advantages, beginning,
"There's your father, Connor--I hope you'll be as good a man! remember
it wasn't the fashion in the ould country to bother over the little
black letters--people don't _have_ to read there--but you just mind your
books, and some day you may come to be a conductor, and snap a punch of
your own."
No doubt Connor made good resolutions, but when he sat by the window in
the school-room and looked at the dimpling, sparkling river, so
suggestive of fishing, or at the green trees filled with birds, he was
not as devoted to literature as a free-born expectant American citizen
ought to be. The teacher was somewhat strict, and it may have been in
some of her passes with Connor, the "bubblingoverest" of all her
youngsters, that she earned the name of a "daisy lammer."
But the boy knew some things by heart that could not be learned at
school. To his ear, the steam whistle of each boat spoke its name as
plainly as if it could talk. He need not look to tell whether a passing
train was on the O. & M. or on the I.C. & L. He knew the name of every
fiery engine, and felt an admiration--a real friendship for the
resistless creatures.
To climb a tree was as easy for him as if he were a cat; there were
rumors that he had worked himself to the top of the tall
flag-staff--which was as smooth as a greased pole--but I will not vouch
for their truth. He could swim like a duck, and paddled about on a board
in the river till an ill-natured flat-boatman often snarled out that
"that youngster would certain be drowned, if he wasn't born to be
hanged."
But the delight of Connor's life was to "catch the first wave" from a
big steamer. Dennis Maloney was his comrade in this perilous game. They
rowed their egg-shell of a boat close to the wheel. Drenched with
spray--for a moment they felt the wild excitement of danger. Four alert
eyes, four steady hands kept them from being sucked under--then came the
triumph of meeting the first wave that left the steamboat, and the
extatic rocking motion of the skiff as she rode the other waves in the
wake--but to catch the first was the point in the frolic! Connor was
known to many of the pilots as an adept in "catching the first wave."
Sometimes he was "tipped" by an unlooked for motion of the machinery,
but was as certain as an india-rubber ball to rise to the surface, and
a swim to shore was but fun to the young Magan.
In the house, Mother Maggie was happy when little Mike was tied in his
chair, and a bar put in the doorway to keep him from crawling into the
attractive water, if he should break loose; and when the door was bolted
on the railroad side, he was allowed to gaze through the window at the
engines smoking and thundering by all day, and fixing each blazing red
eye on him at night--an entrancing spectacle to the child. And when the
still younger Pat was tucked up in bed sucking a moist rag, with sugar
tied up in it, her world was all right, and at rest.
But it would have taken a person of considerable penetration, or as
Maggie said one who knew all "the ins and the outs" to see the peculiar
good luck of _this_ day. The water was swashing round within a few feet
of the door. Some of the workmen had moved their beds to the space
between the tracks, which was piled up with kitchen utensils, and looked
like a second-hand store.
In these days of devotion to antiques, we hear dealers in such wares say
that things are more valuable for being carefully used. This would not
apply to Twinrip's relics. The poor shabby furniture looked more than
ever dilapidated in the open daylight. The social air of a home that was
lived in, pervaded this temporary baggage-room between the tracks. One
child was asleep in a cradle, others were eating their coarse food off a
board. When a sprinkling of rain fell, an old grandmother under an
umbrella fastened to a bed-post went on knitting, serenely.
Youngsters who needed rubbers and waterproofs about as much as did
Newfoundland dogs, enjoyed the fun. One four-year old, sitting on a tub
turned upside down, was waving a small flag, a relic of the Fourth of
July--and looking as happy and independent as a king.
It took all his wife's hopeful eloquence to comfort Tim. There was no
water in Tim's cellar, because he had no cellar. The cow, their most
valuable piece of property, was taken beyond the tracks up on the
hillside, and fastened to a stake in a deserted vineyard. If the worst
came to the worst, and they were drowned out of house and home, their
neighbors were no better off, and they would all be lively together.
That was the way Maggie put it.
[Illustration: INDEPENDENT AS A KING.]
"Do you moind, Tim," she said, "when Keely O'Burke trated his new wife
to a ride on a hand-car? Soon as your eyes lighted on him you shouted
like a house-a-fire, 'Number Five will be down in three minutes!'
Didn't Keely clane lose his head? But between you, you pushed the car
off the track in a jiffy. And Mrs. O'Burke's new bonnet was all smashed
in the ditch, an' the bloody snort of Number Five knocked you senseless.
Who would have thought that boost of the cow-catcher was jist clear good
luck? And you moped about with a short draw in your chist, and seemed
bound to be a grouty old man in the chimney corner that could niver
lift a stroke for your childer, ah' you didn't see the good luck, you
know, Tim--but when the prisident sent the bran new cow with a card tied
to one horn, an' Connor read it when he came home from school: '_For Tim
Magan, who saved the train. Good luck to him!_'--wasn't it all right
then? Now you are as good as new, and our mocley is quiet as a lamb, and
if I was Queen Victoria hersel, she couldn't give any sweeter milk for
me. She's the born beauty."
Well, Connor was his mother's own boy for making the most and the best
of everything, and _he_ saw several items of good luck this day.
First: The river had risen so near the school-house that the desks and
benches were moved up between the tracks and the school dismissed;
therefore there was perfect freedom to enjoy the excitement of the
occasion. It was as good as a move or a fire.
Second: There was so much danger that the track might be undermined that
all trains were stopped by order of the Railroad Company; therefore his
father was at liberty.
Third, and best of all: Larry O'Flaherty, who lived up Bald Face Creek,
had lent him his skiff for the day. The boys had had an extatic time the
evening before, hauling in drift-wood. Though the coal-barges had
bright red lights at their bows, and the steamboats were ablaze with
green and red signals, and blew their gruff whistles continually, yet it
was hardly safe to go far from the shore at night because the Ripple was
so near. When the river was _rising_ the drift was driven close to land,
while _falling_ it floated near the middle of the river. Connor could
see the flood was still rising, and there were possibilities of a
splendid catch, for it was daylight, and they could go where they
pleased with Larry's boat.
Father and son pushed out into the river. Connor felt as if he owned the
world. Short sticks and staves were put in the bottom of the boat. Both
fishermen had a long pole with a sharp iron hook at the end with which,
when they came close to a log, they harpooned it. Bringing it near, they
drove a nail into one end, and tying a rope round the nail, they
fastened their prize to the stern of the boat. They took turns rowing
and spearing drift-wood; and when the log-fleet swimming after them
became large, they went to shore and secured it.
When the dripping logs were long and heavy, it was the custom to fasten
them with the rope close to a stake in the bank, and leave them
floating. At low water they were left high and dry on the sand.
No other drift-wood gatherers meddled with such logs. They were
considered as much private property as if already burning on the hearth.
"I'm going up the hill to feed the cow, Connor," said his father, after
a great deal of wood of every size and shape had been landed. "Mind what
you are about, and take care of Larry's gim of a boat. It was mighty
neighborly to lind it for the whole day. See now, how much drift you can
pick up by yourself."
Connor felt the responsibility, and worked diligently. He had twice
taken a load to shore, and was quite far again in the stream, when he
saw a strange sight. It was not Moses in the bulrushes, to be sure--but
a child in a wicker wagon, floating down the current amid a lot of
sticks and branches. The hoarse whistle of a steamboat near meant
danger; and to the eye of Connor the baby-craft seemed but a little
above the water, and to be slowly sinking.
Connor's shout rang back from the Kentucky hills as if it came from the
throat of an engine.
No one answered.
There were great logs between his skiff and the child--logs and child
were all moving together. Should he abandon Larry's precious boat?
Connor could not consider this. He plunged into the water and swam round
the logs. He never knew how he did it--he never knew how he cut his
hand--he never felt the pounding of the logs--he only knew that he
caught the wagon, kept those black eyes above the water, and pulled the
precious freight to shore. Then, while the water was streaming from him
in every direction, he sprang up the few steps to his mother's cabin,
and without a word placed the child, still in the wagon, inside the
door!
Running back as swiftly as his feet would carry him, Connor had the good
luck to find the deserted boat close to shore, jammed in a mass of
drift-wood, just in the turn of the Riffle.
Dragging it up and along the shore, he fastened it to a fisherman's
stake just by Twinrip. Then Connor felt he had discharged his
duty--Larry O'Flaherty's boat was safe--high and dry out of reach of
eddying logs.
Now, eager, dripping, and breathless--with eyes like stars, he flew home
again.
"Oh, mother," he said, "she's fast to the post and not a hole knocked
into her, and ain't her eyes black and soft as our mooley cow's and I
found her before the General Little ran her down--and I'm going to keep
her always--_I found her_--isn't it lucky we have a cow?"
What the boy said was rather mixed--you could not parse it, but you
could understand it.
The baby's big black eyes looked around, and she acknowledged a cup of
milk and her deliverer by a smile. It was a strange group. In the midst
of a puddle of water Mother Maggie was leaning over the new comer and
trying to untie the numerous knots in a shawl which had kept the child
in her wicker nest. Little Mike was staring open-eyed at the beads round
baby's neck, and at the coral horseshoe which hung from them. The pretty
little girl seemed quite contented, and with the happy unconsciousness
of infancy was evidently quite at home.
"Poor baby, where did she come from?" said Mother Maggie. "Won't her
mother cry her eyes out when she can't see her? We must advertise her in
one of those big city papers."
"I found her," said Connor, "she's mine."
"Why, my boy," said his mother, "she's not a squirrel--you can't keep
her as you did the bunny you found in the hickory tree, and not ask any
questions!"
[Illustration]
"I wish there were no newspapers, and that people couldn't read
besides," wrathfully exclaimed Connor.
"Maybe," he added, with hopeful cheerfulness, "both her father and
mother are drowned. May I keep her then? She may have half of my bread
and milk."
Babies were no great rarity in Twinrip, but never was there such a
happy, bright-eyed little maiden as this waif proved to be. Among the
children she glowed like a dandelion in the grass, and reigned like a
queen among her subjects.
Connor was the scholar of the family, and at length his conscience was
sufficiently roused to make him indite an advertisement which did him
much credit. He hoped it might be placed in some obscure corner of the
paper where it would be overlooked.
But next day, in a conspicuous part of the _Cincinnati Commercial_, with
four little hands pointing to it, appeared this rather unusual notice:
"_Found in the Ohio river a baby in white dress with black eyes and
red horseshoe round her neck, now belonging to Connor Magan. If the
father and mother are not drowned they can enquire at the house of
Tim Magan in Twinrip, where all is convenient for her with a cow
given by the President. None others need apply._"
It was but the very next day after the "ad" appeared that a wagon drove
down to Twinrip, with the father and mother of the baby.
Didn't they cry and kiss and hug the lost, the found child! They lived
on a farm in Palestine, a few miles up the river. A little stream ran
into the Ohio close by their door, and the baby was often tied in her
carriage and placed on the bridge under the charge of a faithful dog. It
was a great amusement for her to watch the ducks and geese in the water.
A sudden rise swept bridge and all away. Search had been made
everywhere, but nothing had been heard of little Minnie. It had seemed
like a return from death to read Connor's advertisement.
And was not the brave lad that saved their child a hero! Again and again
they made him tell all about the rescue. Of course they had to take
their daughter home, but they made Connor promise to visit them at
Palestine.
Soon after the happy parents left, a watch came by express to the Magan
homestead, and when Connor opened the hunting-case cover, after changing
its position till he could see something besides his own twisted face
reflected in it, and after wiping away the spray that would come into
his eyes, he read:
_CONNOR MAGAN._
_From the grateful parents of MINNIE RIVERS._
Was not her name a prophecy?
At the sill of the Magan homestead the flood had stopped, hesitated, and
then gone back. Maggie always said she knew it would--they always had
good luck. The little woman was happier than ever when she thought of
the whole train of people that _might_ have been thrown into the
ditch--of the cut-off legs, arms and heads, and the poor creatures
without them that _might_ have been cast bleeding on the track, if it
had not been for her faithful old Tim--and of the home with niver a
baby, and of the darlint that would have been drowned in the bottom of
the Ohio with her ears and eyes full of mud, if it had not been for her
slip of a boy.
As for Connor, he felt as if that bright-eyed girl belonged to him, and
now that he had a watch towards it, he seemed almost a ready-made
Conductor.
When the waters subsided and he went back to school, he studied with a
will. His percentage grew higher.
"Sometime," he said to himself, "I will go to Palestine. I _will_ be
_somebody_--maybe a Conductor! And a beautiful young woman with soft
black eyes will wave her handkerchief to me as I pass by in my train!
And after I make a lot of money"--how full the world is of money that
young people are so sure of getting--"after I make this money I will
bring Minnie back with me! And she will live in my house with me! And
she will say, 'Conor I am so glad you fished me out of the Ohio with
your drift-wood!' And won't _that_ be good luck for Connor Magan!"