Page:Memorials of a Southern Planter.djvu/265

Rh case, most deplorable. But—bah! This does no good; so let me hear from you. This pear-silk-dress-bottom-of-the-trunk-express business is quite too interesting to admit of the introduction of any other topic in this missive, and so I will conclude."

"Burleigh, 19th October, 1871. "I reached the Pass on the night of Monday. I got there in a storm, and when I awoke on Tuesday morning the equinox was upon us. The wind howled and the rain came down—just as it can when it chooses—through that day and most of the night. On Wednesday morning it was not raining, but there had been no abatement of the wind. It came from the east, piling the water up in Lake Ponchartrain at such a rate that on Wednesday morning it was found surrounding the Clay statue in New Orleans. But I had two enthusiastic friends at the Pass, who, like myself, had gone there to fish, and would not be balked. They called for me in their carriage, and I jumped in, as a matter of course, being but a boy myself, as you know. As we knew the woods were flooded and the bayous out of their banks, the only chance was the railroad bridge over the bay of St. Louis; and so we struck out for that, but, on our arrival at the bridge, neither of my friends would venture on it, for fear of being blown off. We should then have gone home, but did not. We went to one of the bayous, and found it exactly as we expected. We threw in, though (having plenty of shrimp), but 'nary' bite had we. We determined to try it lower down, where the bayou was wider, and could hold more water. But that cost me a walk through a marsh of a mile, the grass from waist to shoulder-high, and very stubborn and thick, and the water shoe-deep every step, except when I trod in a hole, and then I did not measure it. Meanwhile I had a three-gallon bucket of water to carry (with my shrimp) in one hand, and my angle in the other. 'Nary' fish again! I have a faint recollection of getting out of that marsh, and of drinking some excellent brandy in commemoration of the auspicious