f it,--a class unto
themselves, whose condition is well worthy the study of economists.

Interspersed with the houseboat folk, although of different character,
are those whose business leads them to dwell as nomads upon the
river--merchant peddlers, who spend a day or two at some rustic
landing, while scouring the neighborhood for oil-barrels and junk,
which they load in great heaps upon the flat roofs of their
cabins, giving therefor, at goodly prices, groceries, crockery, and
notions,--often bartering their wares for eggs and dairy products, to
be disposed of to passing steamers, whose clerks in turn "pack" them
for the largest market on their route; blacksmiths, who moor their
floating shops to country beach or village levee, wherever business
can be had; floating theaters and opera companies, with large barges
built as play-houses, towed from town to town by their gaudily-painted
tugs, on which may occasionally be perched the vociferous "steam
piano" of our circus days, "whose soul-stirring music can be heard
for four miles;" traveling sawyers, with old steamboats made over into
sawmills, employed by farmers to "work up" into lumber such logs as
they can from time to time bring down to the shore--the product
being oftenest used in the neighborhood, but occasionally rafted,
and floated to the nearest large town; and a miscellaneous lot
of traveling craftsmen who live and work afloat,--chairmakers,
upholsterers, feather and mattress renovators, photographers,--who
land at the villages, scatter abroad their advertising cards, and stay
so long as the ensuing patronage warrants.

A motley assortment, these neighbors of ours, an uncultivated field
for the fiction writers. We have struck up acquaintance with many of
them, and they are not bad fellows, as the world goes. Philosophers
all, and loquacious to a degree. But they cannot, for the life of
them, fathom the mystery of our cruise. We are not in trade? we are
not fishing? we are not canvassers? we are not show-people? "What 'n
'tarnation air ye, anny way? Oh, come now! No fellers is do'n' th'
river fur fun, that's sartin--ye're jist gov'm'nt agints! That's my
way o' think'n'. Well, 'f ye kin find fun in 't, then done go ahead,
I say! But all same, we'll be friends, won't we? Yew bet strangers!
Ye're welcome t' all in this yere shanty boat--ain't no bakky 'bout
yer close, yew fellers?" We meet with abundant courtesy of this rude
sort, and weaponless sleep well o' nig