At the end of what seemed a tedious while, I had managed to pack my head full of islands, towns, bars, 'points,' and bends; and a curiously inanimate mass of lumber it was, too.

However, inasmuch as I could shut my eyes and reel off a good long string of these names without leaving out more than ten miles of river in every fifty, I began to feel that I could take a boat down to New Orleans if I could make her skip those little gaps.

But of course my complacency could hardly get start enough to lift my nose a trifle into the air, before Mr.Bixby would think of something to fetch it down again.

One day he turned on me suddenly with this settler-- 'What is the shape of Walnut Bend ?' He might as well have asked me my grandmother's opinion of protoplasm.
I reflected respectfully, and then said I didn't know it had any particular shape.

My gunpowdery chief went off with a bang, of course, and then went on loading and firing until he was out of adjectives.
I had learned long ago that he only carried just so many rounds of ammunition, and was sure to subside into a very placable and even remorseful old smooth-bore as soon as they were all gone.