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But this picture passed away, and he saw that maddening circle with the caracoling steeds. He head the discordant music, the monotonous creak of the machinery, the strident laughter of the excited riders. As first the thing was a blur, a kaleidoscope of whirling colors, into which there presently crept form and order. . . . A boy who had cried to get on, and was now crying to get off. . . . Old Rube Hobson and his young wife; Rube looking white and scared, partly by the whizzing motion, and partly by the prospect of paying out ten cents for the doubtful pleasure. . . . Pretty Hetty Dunnell with that young fellow from Portland; she too timid to mount one of the mettle-some chargers, and snuggling close to him in one of the circling seats. The, good Got!– Dell! sitting on a prancing white horse, with the man he knew, the man he feared, riding beside her; a man who kept holding on her hat with fingers that trembled,–the very hat she “‘peared bride in” a man who brushed a grasshopper from her shoulder with an air of ownership, and, when she slapped his hand coquettishly, even dared to pinch her pink cheek,–his wife’s cheek,– before that crowd of on-lookers! Merry-go-round, indeed! The horrible thing was well named; and life was just like it,– a whirl of happiness and misery, in which the music cannot play loud enough to drown the creak of the machinery, in which one soul cries out in pain, another in terror, and the rest laugh; but the prancing steeds gallop on, gallop on, and once mounted, there is no getting off, unless . . .

There were some things it was not possible for a mean to bear! The river! The river! He could hear it rippling over the sunny sands, swirling among the logs, dashing and roaring under the bridge, rushing to the sea’s embrace. Could it tell whither it was hurrying? NO; but it was escaping from its present bonds; it would never have to pass over these same jagged rocks again. “On, on to the unknown!” called the river. “I come! I come!” he roused himself to respond, when a faint, faint, helpless voice broke in upon the mad clatter in his brain, cleaving his torn heart in twain; not a real voice,–the half-forgotten memory of one; a tender wail that had added fresh misery to his night’s vigil,–the baby!

But the feeble pipe was borne down by the swirl of the water as it dashed between the rocky banks, still calling to him. If he could only close his ears to it! But it still called– called still–the river! And still the child’s voice pierced the rush of sound with its pitiful flute note, until the two resolved themselves into contesting strains, answering each other antiphonally. The river –the baby– the river–the baby; and in and through, and betwixt and between, there spun the whirling merry-go-round, with its curveting wooden horses, its discordant organ, and its creaking machinery.

But gradually the child’s voice gained in strength, and as he heard it more plainly the other sounds grew fainter, till at last, thank God! they were hushed. The din, the whirlwind, and the tempest in his brain were lulled into silence, as under a “Peace, be still!” and, worn out with the contest, the man from Tennessee fell asleep under the grateful shade of the nooning tree. So deep was the slumber that settled over exhausted body and troubled spirit that the gathering clouds, the sudden darkness, the distant muttering of thunder, the frightened twitter of the birds, passed unnoticed. A heavy drop of rain pierced the thick foliage and fell on his face, but the storm within had been too fierce for him to heed the storm without. He slept on.