m whistle of each boat spoke its name as
plainly as if it could talk. He need not look to tell whether a passing
train was on the O. & M. or on the I.C. & L. He knew the name of every
fiery engine, and felt an admiration--a real friendship for the
resistless creatures.

To climb a tree was as easy for him as if he were a cat; there were
rumors that he had worked himself to the top of the tall
flag-staff--which was as smooth as a greased pole--but I will not vouch
for their truth. He could swim like a duck, and paddled about on a board
in the river till an ill-natured flat-boatman often snarled out that
"that youngster would certain be drowned, if he wasn't born to be
hanged."

But the delight of Connor's life was to "catch the first wave" from a
big steamer. Dennis Maloney was his comrade in this perilous game. They
rowed their egg-shell of a boat close to the wheel. Drenched with
spray--for a moment they felt the wild excitement of danger. Four alert
eyes, four steady hands kept them from being sucked under--then came the
triumph of meeting the first wave that left the steamboat, and the
extatic rocking motion of the skiff as she rode the other waves in the
wake--but to catch the first was the point in the frolic! Connor was
known to many of the pilots as an adept in "catching the first wave."
Sometimes he was "tipped" by an unlooked for motion of the machinery,
but was as certain as an india-rubber ball to rise to the surface, and
a swim to shore was but fun to the young Magan.

In the house, Mother Maggie was happy when little Mike was tied in his
chair, and a bar put in the doorway to keep him from crawling into the
attractive water, if he should break loose; and when the door was bolted
on the railroad side, he was allowed to gaze through the window at the
engines smoking and thundering by all day, and fixing each blazing red
eye on him at night--an entrancing spectacle to the child. And when the
still younger Pat was tucked up in bed sucking a moist rag, with sugar
tied up in it, her world was all right, and at rest.

But it would have taken a person of considerable penetration, or as
Maggie said one who knew all "the ins and the outs" to see the peculiar
good luck of _this_ day. The water was swashing round within a few feet
of the door. Some of the workmen had moved their beds to the space
between the tracks, which was piled up with kitchen utensils, and looked
like a second-hand store.

In these days of d