Thursday, Dec. 10, 1903.—For two nights and a day we lay at Caruthersville, Mo., where the Desplaines had bon marche, selling 16 extinguishers and getting the promise of a dozen more. A large town, full of business and saloons, gambling houses, booths for rifle shooting and "nigger babies," etc. Tradespeople seemed surly and ungracious, except one woman who kept a restaurant and sold us oysters and bread. She was from Illinois. Still, it must be a place of unusual intelligence, as a doctor is Mayor.
Last night we had a disagreeable blow from the northwest. We went out and overhauled our mooring carefully before retiring. The back line was insecure, as there was nothing to which it could be attached, and the boys had merely piled a lot of rocks on the end; but we could see nothing better; so merely strengthened the lines fastening the fenders to the boat. It was a circular storm, apparently, as the wind died out and in a few hours returned. When we set out at 7:30 this morning it was fairly calm, but at 8:20 it is again blowing hard from the same quarter. The sun is out brightly and it is not cold. Whitecaps in plenty but little motion, as we travel across the wind. There are now no large towns before us and we hope to run rapidly to Memphis. The river is big, wide, deep and powerful. Huge trunks of trees lie along the bars. What a giant it must be in flood. Not a day or night passes without several steamers going up and down. The quantity of lumber handled is great, and growing greater as we get south. Our chart shows the levees as beginning above Caruthersville, but we saw nothing there except a little stone dumped alongshore. Waves pounding hard.
Gold Dust Landing, Tenn., Dec. 10, 1903. In spite of a head wind we made a run of 52 miles today, and moored below a Government barge. The fine steamer Robert E. Lee was at the landing and pulled out just as we ran in. The day was clear and sunny, not very cold, about 39, but whenever we ran into a reach with the west or southwest wind ahead the boat pounded most unpleasantly. No floaters afloat today, but numbers along shore in sheltered nooks. The levees here are simply banked fascines, stone land earth, to keep the river from cutting into the shores. Even at low water there is an enormous amount of erosion going on. It takes unremitting vigilance to keep the river in bounds and the snags pulled out.
Fogleman's Chute, Dec. 12, 1903.—We made a famous run yesterday of over 60 miles, and tied up here about 5 p. m. on the eastern shore, the channel being on the west. A small cabin boat stands near us, in which are a man and three boys who have come down from Indiana, intending to seek work at Memphis. Their first experience cabin boating. We asked one of the boys if he liked it, and he looked up with a sudden flash of wildness and keen appreciation.
A fierce south wind came up in the night, and there are situations more enviable than trying to sleep in a houseboat with three boats using her for a punching bag. And the little woman had asthma, badly, to make it worse. This morning it was blowing hard and raining. The rain beat in on the front deck and ran into the hold and under the quarter-rounds into the cabin. The roof leaked into the storeroom also. Millie was seasick and some one else would have been, but he took the children out for a rove. Found a walnut tree and gathered a large bag of fine nuts. The others brought in some squirrels and pocketsful of pecans, but we found neither. Stretched the skins on wood and applied alum to the raw surface, intending to make the little woman some buskins to keep her feet warm. Quantities of mistletoe grow on the trees about us. The sun came out about 2 p. m., when too late to make the run to Memphis, 22 miles, before dark. Yesterday was so warm that we could sit out in the open air without wraps. We are tied up to Brandywine Island, near the lower end.
After lunch we sallied out again and met the owner of the soil, who ordered us off in a surly manner. In the whole trip this is the first bit of downright incivility we have met. After he found we were not after his squirrels he became somewhat less ungracious. The sky soon became overcast again, and the rain returned. About sunset it set in to blow a gale from the northwest, and the billows rolled in on us. We got the launch and skiff out of danger, carefully overlooked our lines and fenders, but still the tug bumped against the side. How the wind blows, and the waves dash against the side of the tug driving her against our side with a steady succession of blows. It worried us to know that the safety of the boats depended on a single one-inch rope, and the tug lashed against the outside strained on it. The rope was tense as a fiddle-string. If it broke the stern of our boat would swing out and throw us on an ugly snag that projected slightly about six feet below us; and the tug would be thrown into the branches of a huge fallen cypress. So we took the long rope and carried it ashore to the north end, from which the wind came, and lashed it securely to a huge stump, then tied the other end through the overhang of our boat at that end. If the line parts the new line will hold us against the soft, sandy bank, and give time for further effort to keep us off the snag. As it turned out the line held, but it does no harm to take precautions, and one sleeps better.