Page:Frank Stockton - Rudder Grange.djvu/28

Rh cracks in the ceiling or bottom of the deck—whichever seems the most appropriate.

But when I reached a bend in the river road whence I always had the earliest view of my establishment, I did not have that view. I hurried on. The nearer I approached the place where I lived, the more horror-stricken I became. There was no mistaking the fact.

The boat was not there!

In an instant the truth flashed upon me.

The water was very high—the rain had swollen the river—my house had floated away!

It was Wednesday. On Wednesday afternoons our boarder came home early.

I clapped my hat tightly on my head and ground my teeth.

"Confound that boarder!" I thought. "He has been fooling with the anchor. He always said it was of no use, and, taking advantage of my absence, he has hauled it up and has floated away, and has gone—gone with my wife and my home!"

Euphemia and Rudder Grange had gone off together—where I knew not—and with them that horrible suggester!

I ran wildly along the bank. I called aloud, I shouted and hailed each passing craft—of which there were only two—but their crews must have been very inattentive to the woes of landsmen, or else they did not hear me, for they paid no attention to my cries.

I met a fellow with an axe on his shoulder. I shouted to him before I reached him:

"Hello! did you see a boat—a house, I mean—floating up the river?"

"A boat-house?" asked the man.