Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1892-07-21
A FLOOD MYSTERY.
TRAGIC FATE OF A COUPLE ABOUT
WHOM LITTLE WAS KNOWN.

Ons Incident Only of the Terrible De-
struction of Property and Loss of Life
| by the Rise of Water in Western Rivers.
| Heroism and Death.
During the floods of the Mississippi
and Missouri rivers and their tributa-
ries the daily papers chronicled hun
dreds of cases, humorous, tragic and
pathetic. which occurred along the
banks of these streams from the juno
ton of the two great bodies of water to
points below st. Louis. But while hun
dreds of cases have been described, there
have been also hundreds of cases that
have not been mentioned.
Homes have been swept away, pros
porous men made paupers within few
hours and poor dumb brutes drowned
while pleading in their pitiful way for
aid. Among the incidents of the food,
| too, have been few instances of gen
uine heroism which stand out as a well
come relief to the usual somber hues of
life.
Among the strangers recently located
in this locality just above st. Louis was
a man from Iowa. He had settled in a
little cabin near the river, and knowing
no one was unaware of his danger till
he found himself in the center of sheet
of water five miles wide and rapidly ris-
ing. Unable to escape, he was step by
step driven with his few effects to the
fiat roof of his cabin, and prepared his
frugal meals there for two days. Two
men who saw him finally risked their
lives to save him, and succeeded in
bringing him safe to dry land.
Other similar cases have occurred, in
striking contrast with those numerous
instances where the possessors of small
boats and skiffs have compelled un-
happy wretches to give them almost
their entire possessions for merely pas
sage to land.
A pathetic and mysterious incident
occurred in a southern suburb of st.
Louis, known as Happy Hollow,
where poverty and squalor usually
reign, which embodied in itself very
evidently the elements of an interesting
romance. Happy Hollow on one side of
the street or alley or creek River Du
Peres) doesn't know Happy Hollow on
the other side, and doesn't desire to.
The poverty and misery, and usually
the crime, of each individual is surly
and desires no companionship. Hence
when a gray haired gentleman and
young girl moved into the neighbor-
hood and took a littlSShanty down ON
the levee no one asked any questions,
for no one cared anything about them.
They attracted no attention except for
their neat appearance. Their clothes
were clean IL spite of their manifest
poverty, as were also their hands and
faces. After Happy Hollow recovered
from its shock of surprise at this phe-
nomenal cleanliness, it went its way
without another thought of the
strangers.
The new residents of Happy Hollow
had not been there long when the food
came. By the end of a second day they
are cut off from escape and on the third
their little shanty was swaying to and
fro. The few rough spectators who
cared enough to note their distress were
Indifferent. One or two who had boats
called over and asked how much money
he had, and when the old man shook his
head sadly, they turned off with laugh
and went to the nearest saloon.
One man, less brutal than the others,
sprang into skiff and started over, but
he was drunk and, capsizing the little
boa, he went to the bottom like a lump
of lead. The skiff righted itself and
fioated along on the water, and the old
man saw the only chance for escape
drifting away. Springing into the mud
dy, seething waters, he succeeded by al
most superhuman efforts in reaching the
little boat, only to find that the oars had
been lost out. Just as he became aware |
of this fact he turned and saw the little |
shanty, washed from its foundations, |
come drifting down the resistless stream, |
while the young girl stood in the door
way.
Casting a look of regret behind him,
he sprang from his boat, which was a |
haven of safety, into the water once |
more and caught the edge of his shanty
as it came past Climbing into the rick |
ETY. doorway, ne had just clasped his
companion in his arms when pile of |
driftwood struck the little building. tore
it to pieces like child's playhouse and
the muddy, roaring waters swallowed
up forever two human lives.
A reporter for a morning paper found
among the debris washed ashore next
day several books with other things
from the little shanty. Among them
were "Histoire de La Poesie Provencale,"
by Fauriel; Kant's 'Kritik der Keinen
Vernunft," and well thumbed copies of
Homer and Shakespeare. Each work
was in its original tongue, and had evi-
IDENTIFY been read before. The name of
the owner on the fly leaves or inner
cover had been carefully cut out, and
the secret of their lives, if there was
one, was buried with the owners in the
muddy and turbulent waters of the
great Mississippi.-Detroit Free Press.