The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1871-11-22
April Flowers.

| I'LL i 1OWO1N d
Bertha Burton had been sitting b,
the open window of stately bricl
mansion for hours, looking out upor
the great swollen stream that appeared
to be wide enough, and certainly long
enough, to float the armada of the
world; wondering to herself why peo-
pie, perfectly familiar with the charac-
ter of the Mississippi and its tributa-
rles, would persist in building houses
and Stacking hay and grain upon the
banks, to be carried away by the spring
freslets, as they were being carried
now. For, upon her right hand and
but. a few hundred yards away, the
Mad Warrior-a mere creek at ordina-
~ times-was rushing out of its high
banks, pouring its reddish, muddy wa
ter into the river with snch violence
that the hen-coops, the fish traps, the
barrels, aud other spoils, wrested from
the unrefecting denizens of its shores,
whirled and turned and twisted and
bobhed up and down, till appearing
weary of the bufietings of the "Mad
Warrior" they consented to sail grace
fully out into the current of the great
river, aud falling into line with innu-
merable wrecks of RATS and boats,
stacks of hay, and stacks of grain,
trees with great branches, and branch
less trees, to go off into sort of giddy
race toward the gulf.
Miss Burton was not very amiable
Young lady, and she was less amiable
upon this morning than was usual for
when with peek at her open door,
like the peek of a wren, there came in
a smiling, well-preserved man, with
the whitest of white porcelain teeth,
the blacklist of dyed whiskers, and the
sleekest of brown hair, carefully comb
ed over the large, veiuous, bare spot
on the top of his forehead, and asked
her with the blanlest of voices, would
she like to go down to the river and
see "!ighter" pass, with people upon
it, who would certainly be drowned,
seeing that they had neither oar nor
paddle.
She said ''No," in a very emphatic
way, and never SO much as looking at
the man, she turued her back upon
him, and leaned from the window,
with her eyes turned listlessly up the !
stream.
Active men had been riding up the
river, since daylight, aiding some,
warming others, and exciting them
selves to the last degree; and now
some of these had just brought word
hat a steamer, heavily laden and slow
y working up stream, had suddenly
burst her boiler, careened, and gone
lown, leaving, of all her passengers,
,nly six upon one of the lighters.
All this Miss Burton had heard only
few minutes before the advent of the
man, but when COVER
ne under her rebuff, he left the room,
he began to be conscious of feeling a
TRANCE interest in these men abroad
N the great, terrible river, the wretch
d playthings of its power, helpIessly
irving WHITTIER its wild, swift waters
LEASED. For she knew that the boats
ad all been lost by the sudden rising
t the waters IN the night, and that {
here could be no rescue for these men.
Mess some messenger should ride
18th speed to the village of Gladstone,
nd warn the men there, to watch for, :
nd iescue these people. s
Miss Burton strained her vision up t
he river, till she grew giddy. Often $
nd often she took some mutilatcd |
aystack, as it slowly turned and shift t
in its downward passage, for the 4
lighter" and its occupants, and often /
me broken-up raft would dclude her t
to the belief that it was the s'lighter" U
batting bottom upwards, and that the e
tive hands and hopeful hearts that Il
I'd manned it,. were lying pulseless t
I'd still among the ooze and the slime t
the bottom of the river. h
There was a point of land, steep and t
'avily wooded, about mile above II
e mouth of Mad Warrior, and the t