hit's my last chance!'

"I started across with a young couple once, but the girl's daddy beat
'em to the river, and drawed down on the young man with a hoss-pistol.
The young man didn't flinch, but folded his arms and looked that old
galoot in the eye as cool as ever I see. The father ordered his girl to
come back with him, but she ketched holt of her lover's arm and said,
'If you are goin' to shoot, I bid for the fust fire--I'm goin' to have
this man!' Her old daddy swelled up and bust out cryin' and begged them
to go back home and git married, but they wouldn't do it, and he went
across with us, and after he got four or five drinks, he like to bought
out the town for them. Don't never run off to git married, Shawn. As for
myself, they ain't no sort of weddin' to my likin'. I never got sot on
but one girl, but I got sot on her for all time to come, and dad-scat
her, she run away with another feller just about a week before we was to
be hitched. Wimmen is curious. Some say as how we couldn't git along
without 'em, and it looks like it's mighty hard for some to git along
with 'em, an' seems as after some people gits the ones they's after,
that somethin' comes along to take away their happiness before it has
begun. There was Ann Coffee. Her and Eli Travis must a courted nigh onto
ten year. It was away back yonder in '52, but I can see 'em now settin'
out thar on the bank, holdin' hands. They went down to Madison and was
married at last. They took the Redstone for Cincinnati. The boat was
full of people; it was in the spring, and a happy crowd was aboard, with
music and dancin', and people come out all along the shore to see the
boat pass. Just four miles below here, on the Kentucky side, the
Redstone landed to take a young preacher aboard. His name was Perry
Scott, and he come up the swingin'-stage wavin' his han'kerchief to his
father and mother on the shore. Suddenly, there comes a mighty roar on
the air. The steamer was hid from view as the explosion shook the earth
and splashed water everywhere. The b'ilers of the Redstone had bust, and
all around you could hear the groans of the dyin'. The young preacher
was never heard of again, and nothin' but his white han'kerchief,
hangin' in a tree, was ever found. There was over seventeen people
killed outright. Eli Travis went down to death, and strange to say, Ann,
his wife, who was standin' by his side, was saved. She was blowed high
up in the air, but come down close to shor