At the sill of the Magan homestead the flood had stopped, hesitated, and then gone back. Maggie always said she knew it would—they always had good luck. The little woman was happier than ever when she thought of the whole train of people that might have been thrown into the ditch—of the cut-off legs, arms and heads, and the poor creatures without them that might have been cast bleeding on the track, if it had not been for her faithful old Tim—and of the home with niver a baby, and of the darlint that would have been drowned in the bottom of the Ohio with her ears and eyes full of mud, if it had not been for her slip of a boy.
As for Connor, he felt as if that bright-eyed girl belonged to him, and now that he had a watch towards it, he seemed almost a ready-made Conductor.
When the waters subsided and he went back to
school, he studied with a will. His percentage grew higher.
"Sometime," he said to himself, "I will go to Palestine. I will be somebody—maybe a Conductor! And a beautiful young woman with soft black eyes will wave her handkerchief to me as I pass by in my train! And after I make a lot of money"—how full the world is of money that young people are so sure of getting—"after I make this money I will bring Minnie back with me! And she will live in my house with me! And she will say, 'Conor I am so glad you fished me out of the Ohio with your drift-wood!' And won't that be good luck for Connor Magan!"
WHY MAMMY DELPHY'S BABY WAS NAMED GRIEF.
Mammy Delphy was sitting out under the vines that climbed over the kitchen gallery, picking a chicken for dinner, and singing. And such singing! Some of the words ran this way:
"Aldo you sees me go 'long so,
I has my trials here below,