E-text prepared by Bill Tozier, Barbara Tozier, Pilar Somoza, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustrations. See 16576-h.htm or 16576-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/5/7/16576/16576-h/16576-h.htm) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/5/7/16576/16576-h.zip) The Table of Contents was not in the original edition. CONNOR MAGAN'S LUCK And Other Stories by M.T.W. Boston: D. Lothrop & Company, Franklin St., Corner of Hawley. 1881 [Illustration: CONNOR DREAMS A DAY-DREAM.] [Illustration] CONTENTS Connor Magan's Luck Why Mammy Delphy's Baby Was Named Grief Sammy Sealskin's Enemy Nannette's Live Baby Brothers For Sale A Story of a Clock Naughty Zay The Legend of the Salt Sea The Man with the Straw Hat Ruffles and Puffs Sugar River A Pioneer "Wide Awake" Surprised April Fools and Other Fools CONNOR MAGAN'S LUCK. [Illustration: "CONNOR."] "I'm in luck, hurrah!" cried Connor Magan, as he threw up his brimless hat into the air--the ringing, jubilant shout he sent after it could only spring from the reservoir of glee in the heart of a twelve-year-old boy. Giving a push to the skiff in which his father sat waiting for him, he jumped from the shore to the boat, and struck out into the Ohio river. Tim Magan, father, and Connor Magan, son, were central figures in a very strange picture. Let us take in the situation. It was a Western spring freshet. The Ohio was on a rampage--a turbulent, coffee-colored stream, it had risen far beyond its usual boundaries, washed out the familiar land-marks, and, still insolent and greedy, was licking the banks, as if preparatory to swallowing up the whole country. Trees torn up by the roots, their green branches waving high above the flood, timbers from cottages, and wrecks of bridges, were floating down to the Gulf of Mexico. It was curious to watch the various things in the water as they sailed slowly along. Demijohns bobbed about. Empty store boxes mockingly labelled _dry goods_ elbowed bales of hay. Sometimes a weak cock-a-doodle-doo from a travelling chicken-coop announced the whereabouts of a helpless though still irrepressible rooster. Back yards had been visited, and oyster-cans, ash-barrels and unsightly kitchen debris brought to light. It was a mighty revolution where the dregs of society were no longer suppressed, but sailed in state on the top wave.