Library of the best American literature / Containing the lives of our authors in story form, their portraits, their homes, and their personal traits, how they worked and what they wrote; choice selections from eminent writers, embracing great American poets and novelists, foremost women in American letters, distinguished critics and essayists, our national humorists, noted journalists and magazine contributors, popular writers for young people, great orators and public lecturers

by Unknown

And her day come at last—

The Movastar was a better boat,

But the Belle she wouldn’t be passed,

And so she come tearin’ along that night—

The oldest craft on the line—

With a nigger squat on her safety-valve,

And her furnace crammed, rosin and pine.

A fire burst out as she cl’ared the bar,

And burnt a hole in the night,

And quick as a flash she turned, and made