Down the river,
Down the river,
Down the O-hi-o.
Down the river,
Down the river,
Down the O-
hi-
O!”
Three tremendous pulls accompanied those last three long-drawn syllables. Magnolia found it most invigorating. Doc had told her, too, that the Ohio had got its name from the time when the Indians, standing on one shore and wishing to cross to the other, would cup their hands and send out the call to the opposite bank, loud and high and clear, “O-HE-O!”
“Do you think it’s true?” Magnolia would say; for Mrs. Hawks had got into the way of calling Doc’s stories stuff-and-nonsense. All those tales, it would seem, to which Magnolia most thrilled, turned out, according to Parthy, to be stuff-and-nonsense. So then, “Do you think it’s true?” she would demand, fearfully.