lling empty barrels
down stairs--where it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you
know.

"Jim, this is nice," I says. "I wouldn't want to be nowhere else but
here. Pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot corn-bread."

"Well, you wouldn't a ben here 'f it hadn't a ben for Jim. You'd a ben
down dah in de woods widout any dinner, en gittn' mos' drownded, too; dat
you would, honey. Chickens knows when it's gwyne to rain, en so do de
birds, chile."

The river went on raising and raising for ten or twelve days, till at
last it was over the banks. The water was three or four foot deep on the
island in the low places and on the Illinois bottom. On that side it was
a good many miles wide, but on the Missouri side it was the same old
distance across--a half a mile--because the Missouri shore was just a
wall of high bluffs.

Daytimes we paddled all over the island in the canoe, It was mighty cool
and shady in the deep woods, even if the sun was blazing outside. We
went winding in and out amongst the trees, and sometimes the vines hung
so thick we had to back away and go some other way. Well, on every old
broken-down tree you could see rabbits and snakes and such things; and
when the island had been overflowed a day or two they got so tame, on
account of being hungry, that you could paddle right up and put your hand
on them if you wanted to; but not the snakes and turtles--they would
slide off in the water. The ridge our cavern was in was full of them.
We could a had pets enough if we'd wanted them.

One night we catched a little section of a lumber raft--nice pine planks.
It was twelve foot wide and about fifteen or sixteen foot long, and the
top stood above water six or seven inches--a solid, level floor. We
could see saw-logs go by in the daylight sometimes, but we let them go;
we didn't show ourselves in daylight.

Another night when we was up at the head of the island, just before
daylight, here comes a frame-house down, on the west side. She was a
two-story, and tilted over considerable. We paddled out and got aboard
--clumb in at an upstairs window. But it was too dark to see yet, so we
made the canoe fast and set in her to wait for daylight.

The light begun to come before we got to the foot of the island. Then we
looked in at the window. We could make out a bed, and a table, and two
old chairs, and lots of things around about on the floor, and there was
clothes hanging against the wall.