she too timid
to mount one of the mettle-some chargers, and snuggling close to him in
one of the circling seats. The, good Got!--Dell! sitting on a prancing
white horse, with the man he knew, the man he feared, riding beside her;
a man who kept holding on her hat with fingers that trembled,--the very
hat she "'peared bride in" a man who brushed a grasshopper from her
shoulder with an air of ownership, and, when she slapped his hand
coquettishly, even dared to pinch her pink cheek,--his wife's
cheek,--before that crowd of on-lookers! Merry-go-round, indeed! The
horrible thing was well named; and life was just like it,--a whirl of
happiness and misery, in which the music cannot play loud enough to
drown the creak of the machinery, in which one soul cries out in pain,
another in terror, and the rest laugh; but the prancing steeds gallop
on, gallop on, and once mounted, there is no getting off, unless...

There were some things it was not possible for a mean to bear! The
river! The river! He could hear it rippling over the sunny sands,
swirling among the logs, dashing and roaring under the bridge, rushing
to the sea's embrace. Could it tell whither it was hurrying? NO; but it
was escaping from its present bonds; it would never have to pass over
these same jagged rocks again. "On, on to the unknown!" called the
river. "I come! I come!" he roused himself to respond, when a faint,
faint, helpless voice broke in upon the mad clatter in his brain,
cleaving his torn heart in twain; not a real voice,--the half-forgotten
memory of one; a tender wail that had added fresh misery to his night's
vigil,--the baby!

But the feeble pipe was borne down by the swirl of the water as it
dashed between the rocky banks, still calling to him. If he could only
close his ears to it! But it still called--called still--the river! And
still the child's voice pierced the rush of sound with its pitiful
flute note, until the two resolved themselves into contesting strains,
answering each other antiphonally. The river--the baby--the river--the
baby; and in and through, and betwixt and between, there spun the
whirling merry-go-round, with its curveting wooden horses, its
discordant organ, and its creaking machinery.

But gradually the child's voice gained in strength, and as he heard it
more plainly the other sounds grew fainter, till at last, thank God!
they were hushed. The din, the whirlwind, and the tempest in his brain
were lulled into silence, a