CHAPTER IX
PEOPLE who go down the Mississippi for fun generally fall overboard when they have been drinking too many rickeys or cocktails, a very few of which are too many on board an ordinary Mississippi River cruiser or shantyboat. The lower Mississippi is no place for fun. That is why serious people, men and women with temperaments and a livid scar of a past, get on so well with the flood and wind up with such joys as mere light and frivolous people never know in the world.
Delia was sitting in the Mahna shantyboat when Murdong rowed into hail. Mrs. Mahna, her husband, and Roy had gone back into the Peninsula to line a bee tree which Roy had suspected, and Mrs. Mahna wouldn't trust any male she ever knew to line a bee tree, in late October, when the honey is sure to be at the best.
They left Delia looking after the three boats. It is never good policy to leave a boat unguarded down the Mississippi. Something might happen to it.
"Hello," Delia heard a call, and she stepped out on the stern to look and answer.
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