Beaufort Chums

"The river is coming up at the rate of an inch an hour!" announced Mr. Miller, reading from the evening paper. "At one o'clock it was eighteen feet, and reports from the north indicate the highest water ever known on the Upper Mississippi."

"Hurrah!" cheered Ned, who was sitting on the porch steps, waiting for supper, and had heard through the open window.

"Why, Ned!" rebuked his mother. "Think of all the suffering this means!"

"Well, anyway, the river's booming," ventured Ned, abashed. "It's even with the railroad tracks. I was down looking at it after school."

"I'm sorry for the poor people on the flats--the lowlands must be flooded," continued Mrs. Miller.

"But they tie their houses to trees with ropes, and move into the second stories, and go about on rafts," explained Ned, to whom such a plight was not without fun.

"Still, I fancy that these people don't find their fix very amusing, Ned," commented his father. "Nor is it humorous to the merchants to have their cellars swamped and their goods damaged."

Ned temporarily subsided--meekly convinced of the serious phase of a freshet, but nevertheless seeing sport in prospect.

"Say, father," he blurted out, in the midst of supper, "Hal----"

"Neddie! How often have I told you not to address anybody with 'say'?" interrupted his mother, severely.

"Oh!" admitted Ned, guilt in his tones. Rallying from the setback he resumed:

"I only wanted to ask if I couldn't go over on Eagle Island to-morrow with Hal, in our boat. It's all under water, and every one has moved off."

"_I_ have no special objection," answered his father, "if you'll promise to be careful."

"Neddie, do be careful," implored his mother. "You surely will, won't you?"

"Of course," assured Ned. "But, pshaw, there isn't any danger. You couldn't tip over the boat if you tried!"

"However, I wouldn't try, if I were you," remarked his father. Then he added, teasingly:

"We'll let him have this Saturday for his fun, Helen, and next Saturday he'll have some wood to pile! I've ordered eleven loads, and it will be hauled during the week."

"Oh, father! Eleven loads!" exclaimed Ned, in dismay.

The next day, Saturday, dawned clear and soft, a typical June morning. Ned turned out early, and had most of his chores done before breakfast, despite the fact that a double supply of wood was necessary for the kitchen stove, in order to last over Sunday.

When, at eight o'clock, Hal Lucas whistled for him, in front, he was ready to start. Stuffing his lunch, wrapped in two packages, into his side coat-pockets, he rushed through the house, kissing his mother on his way, and out of the gate.

"Now, be careful, Ned!" called his mother, after him.

"I will," he shouted. "Good-bye."

Mrs. Miller stood on the porch, watching the two boys as they merrily trudged off. Ned had many a time asserted, with truth, that although he might go upon the river every day for fifty years, each time his mother would be worried about him until he came home again. A mother's heart is a very anxious heart.

Ned and Hal hastened down the street. Ahead of them they could see the river sparkling under the rays of the sun. Ordinarily it was not visible from this distance; but at present, far out of its bed, it was right on a level with the railroad skirting it.

"My! She's on a tear, isn't she!" said Hal, enthusiastically.

"If ever she gets over the tracks she'll come whooping, my father says," responded Ned. "She's higher than the street, now!"

Without question the river was, to use Hal's expression, "on a tear." People along the Mississippi expect, as a matter of course, high water in the spring and early summer. Moderate high water is welcomed. It enables the logging companies to float their stranded logs; it washes clean the banks and the lowlands, carrying away tons of stuff that otherwise might breed illness; it is one of nature's thorough purifiers.

But here was a "June rise" with a vengeance. Up in the northern pineries the heavy snows of the past winter were melting all at once beneath long-continued rains. Every stream was a torrent, pouring its swollen tide into the Mississippi. As a consequence of this hearty diet, the old Father of Waters had increased his girth enormously. Never was a prize grunter fattened so rapidly.

His bulk began to take up more room than was comfortable for his neighbors. Some persons were forced to flee for their lives; others were prepared to leave their homes at a moment's notice. Whole towns were in danger of being flooded.

At Beaufort the sewers were being filled and the water, creeping through them, flowed out far inland. Cellars were being invaded; and seeping up, the crafty flood inundated great tracts of street and yard in the lower-lying resident portions of the town.

When, after school on the previous afternoon, Ned had gone down to look at the river, there had been hardly any water inside the tracks at the foot of Maple Street. But this morning the boys found quite a pond had gathered during the night. In places the board walks on either hand were afloat, and children were running back and forth over them, shouting with delight as the water spurted up between the cracks.

"She's soaking through," commented Hal.

Ned nodded, and saying, "Come on," deliberately continued on the route, over the wavy, unsteady walk. Hal followed. Both boys disdained to hurry their pace one bit, even to avoid wet feet. They deemed that a show of dignity was necessary, to impress the scampering, screaming youngsters who were spectators.

With a spring they leaped the open space between the end of the walk and the railroad embankment. Their feet sank deep into the mushy cinders as they scrambled to the top.

This was four tracks wide, and usually was a good stone's throw from the river's edge. To-day the water was lapping at the rails. North and south were scattered gangs of men with shovels, watching to patch the slightest break. Seemingly the embankment was all that kept the water from rushing into the principal streets.

Ned and Hal stood and gazed in silent wonder at the scene before them. The river was not that friendly river to which they were accustomed. It was a sullen, menacing monster, without a single familiar aspect. The water was an opaque, ugly yellow, and was thickly charged with sediment. Extending as far as eye could reach it swept past, bearing on its mighty breast trunks of trees, pieces of lumber, fragments of buildings, and not infrequently an entire shed or small house.

There was no levee, no shore, no anything--save water. The big Diamond Jo warehouse, with its basement story completely submerged, was secured by a hawser encircling it.

Commodore Jones' little fish-market and boats-to-hire establishment, a few rods below, also was anchored by a rope. The water was within a couple of inches of its platform; but nevertheless, river threatening each moment to carry him away, here sat the commodore, smoking his pipe.

The boys strolled to a point on the embankment opposite him.

"Good-morning, commodore," they called.