Daily Story
Lumberman
In my early days, I knew one Jack Chase, who was a lumberman on the Illinois and, when steady and sober, the best raftsman on the river. It was quite a trick twenty-five years ago to take the logs over the rapids, but he was skilful with a raft, and always kept her straight in the channel. Finally a steamer was put on, and Jack — e’s dead now, poor fellow! — was made captain of her. He always used to take the sheel going through the rapids. One day, when the boat was plunging and wallowing along the boiling current, and Jack’s utmost vigilance was being exercised to keep her in the narrow channel, a boy pulled his coat-tail and hailed with: “Say Mister Captain! I wish you would just stop your boat a minute — I’ve lost my apple overboard!”
Francis Carpenter, Six Months at the White House, p. 252.