He had supposed them a class
to be envied.
This grievance put the robbers out of his mind when they trotted
ahead next day. The Wabash River could scarcely soothe his ruffled
complacence. And never an inch of the Wabash River have I seen that
was not beautiful and restful to the eye. It flows limpidly between
varying banks, and has a trick of throwing up bars and islands,
wooded to the very edges--captivating places for any tiny Crusoe to
be wrecked upon. Skiffs lay along the shore, and small steamers felt
their way in the channel. It was a river full of all sorts of
promises; so shallow here that the pebbles shone in broad sheets like
a floor of opals wherever you might wade in delight, so deep and
shady with sycamore canopies there, that a good swimmer would want to
lie in ambush like a trout, at the bottom of the swimming hole, half
a June day.
Perhaps it was the sight of the Wabash River which suggested washing
clothes to Grandma Padgett. She said they were now near the Illinois
State line, and she would not like to reach the place with everything
dirty. There was always plenty to do when a body first got home,
without hurrying up wash-day.
So when they passed a small place called Macksville, and came to
Sugar Creek, she called a halt, and they spent the day in the woods.
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