dry local peculiarities not
mentioned in the company's circular, they might have remained, had not a
mighty freshet, in June, driven them away, and even saved some of them
the trouble of moving their houses.

When, however, most of the residences floated down the river, some of
them bearing their owners on their roofs, such of the inhabitants as had
money left the promised land for ever; while the others made themselves
such homes as they could in the nearest settlements which were above
water, and fraternized with the natives through the medium of that
common bond of sympathy in the Western lowlands, the ague.

Only a single one of the original inhabitants remained, and he,
although he might have chosen the best of the abandoned houses for his
residence, or even the elegant but deserted "company's store," continued
to inhabit the cabin he had built upon his arrival. The solid business
men of the neighboring town of Mount Pisgah, situated upon a bluff,
voted him a fool whenever his name was mentioned; but the wives of these
same men, when they chanced to see old Wardelow passing by, with the
wistful face he always wore, looked after him tenderly, and never lost
an opportunity to speak to him kindly. When they met at tea-parties, or
quilting-bees, or sewing-societies, or in other gatherings exclusively
feminine, there were not a few of them who had the courage to say that
the world would be better if more men were like old Wardelow.

For love seemed the sole motive of old Wardelow's life. The cemetery
which the thoughtful projectors of New Boston had presented to the
inhabitants had for its only occupant the wife of old Wardelow; and she
had been conveyed thereto by a husband who was both young and handsome.
The freshet which had, soon afterward, swept the town, had carried with
it Wardelow's only child, a boy of seven years, who had been playing in
a boat which he, in some way, unloosed.

From that day the father had found no trace of his child, yet he never
ceased hoping for his return. Every steamboat captain on the river knew
the old man, and the roughest of them had cheerfuly replied in the
affirmative when asked if they wouldn't bring up a small boy who might
some day come on board, report himself as Stevie Wardelow, and ask to be
taken to New Boston.

Almost every steamboat man, from captain and pilot down to fireman and
roustabout, carried and posted Wardelow's circulars wherever they
went--up Red River, the