970 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[June 24, 1911. 
On a Houseboat on Alabama Rivers 
By ROLAND M. HARPER 
In Two Parts—II. 
“Just hold still a minute,” said Heacock, “and 
I’ll kill that fellow,” and giving it a clip with 
his cap he knocked it to the ground. “Wait till 
I unjoint my rod,” he continued, “and I think 
I’ll claim that seat alongside you. Guess no 
one’s worked harder to-day than I have. That 
fly seems to be a tough customer.” 
Stooping down he picked the fly out of the 
dust and held it by the feet, watching it work 
its wings. Unreeling about ten feet of line, Hea¬ 
cock carelessly hooked the fly just back of the 
head, stepped to the edge of the bridge and cast 
down stream into one of those pebbly bottoms. 
Swish! Everybody wanted to help. Whir-r-r 
went the reel. Heacock grabbed for the line 
and dropped the rod, and it fell into the water. 
It took him just about three seconds to run 
around and fall down the bank into the stream. 
By this time he had recovered his nerve, and 
clutching the rod he prepared to fish his trout. 
But it did not require any expert handling, ap¬ 
parently. Back and forth, up and down, with 
sometimes scarcely water enough to cover him, 
and not a rock or tree to hide him, the fish 
tugged and pulled till exhausted, Heacock calmly 
letting the trout have his own way, “because,” 
as he remarked, when asked why he did not land 
him, “I’ve never had this experience before, and 
I never hope to have it again.” 
“Biggest fish I ever saw in this brook,” said 
their landlord, when the trout was finally laid 
out on the grass, the hook still deep in his gills, 
“and on a hoss-fly. Well, of all things in Israel,” 
which was the farmer’s extreme expletive. “He’ll 
make you a fine meal.” 
“He’ll do nothing of the kind. That fish is 
going on my dining room wall down home, and 
although he was wholly unexpectedly hooked, 
and somewhat ungracefully handled, he will 
serve to remind me of the meals some other 
people will not eat—on me. Someone else may 
have my seat. I’m going to walk now.” 
The Rill. 
There’s something so cheerful 
With yonder queer rill, 
That always will chatter 
And never be still. 
It breaks on the view 
Like a radiant smile, 
And cheers me each time 
That I hop o’er the stile. 
Or winter or summer, 
Or spring or the fall, 
Its musical story 
It babbles to all. 
As it winds ’mid the cresses 
And forget-me-nots, 
Or slips in the winter 
Thro’ frost-bitten plots. . 
Full oft, when I ponder 
O’er knolls and thro’ dells, 
’Mid patches of cedar. 
Or grass in the fells, 
With spirit bowed down 
With the sorrows of earth, 
My heart is made lighter 
At sound of its mirth. 
’Tis like the sweet blab 
Of a meaningless child, 
Whose very weak lisp 
Makes the sternest man mild, 
Whose aimless sweet talking 
Oh—never can pall, 
But makes this dull living 
Worth while after all. 
Darius Dalrymple. 
O N the 13th we made only ii l / 2 miles during 
the day, being delayed by several gravelly 
bars or shoals where the skiff had to 
be sent ahead to make soundings. We had no 
trouble at all comparable with that of Saturday 
and Monday, however, and some of these delays 
gave those of us who were not doing the sound¬ 
ing a good chance to take pictures, examine our 
specimens or write up our notes. About dinner 
time we passed the site of Lock 3, still far from 
complete, though the work was being pushed as 
rapidly as possible. There we were able to send 
off some mail, buy a few provisions from the 
commissary, and refill our water bottles. Up to 
this time we had been getting artesian water at 
the locks and more important landings, but Lock 
3 had no artesian well as yet, and we were given 
cistern water instead. This naturally had a sort 
of dark brown taste, but most of the scientists 
preferred it to branch water, which could have 
been obtained almost anywhere, because they 
were afraid of malaria in the latter (regardless 
of the mosquito theory). 
At this lock one of the engineers in charge 
of the construction kindly offered to' go with 
us and pilot us through a shoal a few miles be¬ 
low after which he expected to take a short cut 
across a bend of the river and get back to his 
quarters in less time than it took to come down 
in the boat. The channel at this shoal must have 
shifted since he had last traversed it, however, 
for in the midst of it we suddenly ran aground 
without warning. In this emergency the first 
thing to be done was to cast off the houseboat 
and float it to a place of safety. We then fast¬ 
ened one end of the 500-foot rope to the stern 
of the launch as usual and took the other end 
to the nearest bank and walked upstream with 
it as far as possible. By the united strength of 
ten men we were then able to pull the boat back 
off the bar and let it drop down to one side, 
where the water was a little deeper. All this 
delayed us nearly two hours, and doubtless made 
our accommodating friend, the engineer, late to 
his supper. 
We tied up for the night at Beck’ey’s Land¬ 
ing, which is about a mile from Myrtlewood, 
the end of a branch of the L. & N. R. R. Wed¬ 
nesday morning the preacher and I, wishing to 
see more of the country than was possible from 
the river, and not caring so much about the 
bluffs as the geologists did, decided to walk over 
to Myrtlewood and across the country to 
Naheola, which was about fifteen miles down 
the river, but not more than half that distance 
in a direct line. We started early enough, but 
took the wrong road through the post oak flat- 
woods by mistake and went three or four miles 
instead of one to get to Myrtlewood, where we 
sent off some mail again and bought a few light 
groceries. From there to Naheo'a our route was 
mostly through river bottoms, inhabited only by 
negroes whose knowledge of the geography of 
the country was very rudimentary. Some of 
those we interrogated had apparently never heard 
of Naheola—which is, indeed, a very sma'l p’ace, 
scarcely a settlement at all—but by good luck we 
managed to keep the right road through the 
bottoms, and reached the ferry opposite Naheola 
at noon, which, however, was a couple of hours 
later than we had anticipated. No boat or 
human being was in sight, but as our comrades 
had promised to wait there for us if they ar¬ 
rived first, we concluded that they too had been 
delayed considerably beyond their expectations. 
There seemed to be nothing for us to do but 
wait. After forty minutes we were surprised to 
hear the whistle of the launch down the river, 
and hastening down the left bank we found our 
party at a bluff on the opposite side, about a 
quarter of a mile below the ferry and just out 
of sight from the place where we had been 
sitting. We afterward learned that they had. 
also met with some delay, and had been waiting 
only about an hour, during which time they had 
found plenty to occupy them at the bluff, so our 
failure to arrive on time caused no derangement 
of their plans. 
Our troubles with shoals were now over, and 
for the next hundred miles or so we had plain 
sailing. The only drawback to our perfect en¬ 
joyment from now on was that some of us had 
to be called away from our contemplation of the 
scenery once or twice a day to pump out the 
hull of the houseboat, which had seen years of 
service and was naturally somewhat leaky. Lock 
2, which was not more than half completed, was 
passed during the afternoon. The river by this 
time was about twice as wide as the Warrior 
between Tuscaloosa and Demopolis, and the 
banks not so high, but the appearance of the 
vegetation had not changed much. 
Wednesday night we tied up opposite Tusca- 
homa, a cotton warehouse landing 190 miles 
from Tuscaloosa and 171 from Mobile. Having 
heard that one or two steamboats were expected 
to pass during the night, we fastened our craft 
securely to two snags which happened to be in 
just the right position several feet from the 
bank, so that we would not be pounded against 
the bottom by the waves. The steamboats passed 
without disturbing us much, but some time dur¬ 
ing the night we were awakened by the voice of 
a negro who had probably rowed across from 
Tuscahoma, ostensibly in quest of tobacco, but 
perhaps bent on robbery. He was immediately 
ordered away in a stern voice, with a threat to 
put a hole through him, or something to that 
effect, and was not heard from again. 
Thursday morning was foggy before sunrise 
as usual, but clear and pleasant later. We did 
a little geologizing at Tuscahoma b’uff, bought a 
turkey, which was shot for us on the spot, from 
the people at the warehouse, and started off 
about 8 o’clock. We were now approaching the 
long leaf pine region, and log, stave and wood’ 
landings became frequent, and logging railroads 
were occasionally seen. We also passed a few 
cotton warehouses every day, these usually on 
top of a bluff, with a cable track leading down 
to the water’s edge at an angle of 30 to 45 
degrees. Although the Warrior River below 
