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 temp
|