u had on May day, or the Fourth if
you were going to the Sunday-school picnic. Dave wanted him to tell what
he looked like, but Jake could not say anything except that he was very
smiling-looking, and seemed as if he would like to be with him; Jake said
he was just going to hollo for him to come over when the rainbow began to
go out; and then the fellow slipped back into the woods; it was more like
melting into the woods.

"And how far off do you think you could see a boy smile?" Dave asked,
scornfully.

"How far off can you say a rainbow is?" Jake retorted.

"I can say how far off that piece of woods is," said Dave, with a laugh.
He got to his feet, and began to pull at the other boys, to make them get
up. "Come along, if you're ever goin' to the swimmin'-hole."

[Illustration: "VERY SMILING-LOOKING"]

The sun was bright and hot, and the boys left the barn, and took across
the field to the creek. The storm must have been very heavy, for the creek
was rushing along bank-full, and there was no sign left of Dave's
swimming-hole. But they had had such a glorious shower-bath that they did
not want to go in swimming, anyway, and they stood and watched the yellow
water pouring over the edge of a mill-dam that was there, till Dave
happened to think of building a raft and going out on the dam. Jake said,
"First rate!" and they all rushed up to a place where there were some
boards on the bank; and they got pieces of old rope at the mill, and tied
the boards together, till they had a good raft, big enough to hold them,
and then they pushed it into the water and got on it. They said they were
on the Ohio River, and going from Cincinnati to Louisville. Dave had a
long pole to push with, like the boatmen on the keel-boats in the early
times, and Jake had a board to steer with; Frank had another board to
paddle with, on the other side of the raft from Dave; and so they set on
their journey.

The dam was a wide, smooth sheet of water, with trees growing round the
edge, and some of them hanging so low over it that they almost touched it.
The boys made trips back and forth across the dam, and to and from the
edge of the fall, till they got tired of it, and they were wanting
something to happen, when Dave stuck his pole deep into the muddy bottom,
and set his shoulder hard against the top of the pole, with a "Here she
goes, boys, over the Falls of the Ohio!" and he ran along the edge of the
raft from one end to the other.

Frank