of 



and snags were stranded. I determined, when it 

 should come aground, to see the character of the 

 cargo that it carried. 



Now and then, as I sat there, the heavy round 

 nuts like merry boys came bounding and rattling 

 down the hillside, which rose from the water's 

 edge. Occasionally as a nut dropped from the 

 tree- top he struck a limb spring board and from 

 this made a long leap outward for a roll down 

 the hillside. These nuts were walnut and hick- 

 ory ; and like most heavy nuts they traveled by 

 rolling, floating, and squirrel carriage. 



One nut dropped upon a low limb, glanced 

 far outward, and landed upon a log, from which 

 it bounced outward and went bouncing down 

 the hillside aplunk into the river. Slowly it 

 rolled this way and that in the almost currentless 

 water. At last it made up its mind, and, with 

 the almost invisible swells, commenced to float 

 slowly toward the floating log out in the river. 

 By and by the current caught it, carried it 

 toward and round the sand-bar, to float away 

 with the onsweep toward the sea. This nut may 

 have been carried a few miles or a few hundred 



293 



