Now, just notice how things happen in this world sometimes. Mr. Edwin Skreever was on the porch of our cottage, behind the wire screens where the mosquitoes could not get at him, and he was not very quiet. I guess he was thinking of how he would have to be married the next day. Anyway, he was walking up and down the porch, putting his hands into his pockets and taking them out again. Every minute or so he would say something to us, as a man does when he is nervous. First he would tell us to tie up the dog, then he would say he hoped the dog did wander away, and that he would be glad if he never saw the dog again. “And just you let me tell you one thing!” he said. “I’m not going to have that dog jumping all over me at my wedding. I’m not going to have that dog clawing all over me and clawing all over May and making a general nuisance of himself. And I won’t have him tied up and howling. I’m not going to let that dog spoil my wedding. You understand that!” I just said “Aw!” and went on talking with Wampus and wrestling with Rover. So, in a little while, the Bright Star came along down the river with a couple of Government barges loaded with willows. There are not many boats on the river now, so Wampus and I looked at the Bright Star as she went by, and when she reached the lower end of our island she veered in and laid the two barges alongside the ripraps. The men ran a couple of cables ashore and made the two barges fast by hitching the cables to a couple of trees and then the Bright Star sheered off and crossed the chute and went out of sight behind Buffalo Island, across the chute. It was no fun sitting where we were listening to Mr. Edwin Skreever scold, so Wampus and I got up and went down the path to take a look at the two barges. They were like plenty of other Government barges we had seen. These two had their numbers painted on them--“U.S. 420” and “U.S. 426”--and they were seventeen feet wide and eighty-two feet long. Wampus and I had been in and over those very two barges more than once. We knew just how they were made and all about them. The two barges, as they lay along the shore there, were piled high with cut willows. The Government men cut the willows where they grow at the lower ends of islands and take them on the barges to places where they are repairing dams or ripraps. They throw the willows on the dams, butt end upstream, and dump rocks on them. Ripraps along the banks are made that same way. It is not often you see two barges alone; the steamer usually tows four or six at a time. All these barges are decked over. The decks are made of four-inch planks, and at each end of this flooring are two hatches, with lids. When nobody is around to order a fellow off the barges, he can pull up these hatch covers and get inside the barges.