There were anxious hearts in that lonely dwelling that night, as they listened to the rushing waters without. The baby wakened, and the elder brother, to amuse and quiet the little thing, gave it his watch to play with. Suddenly there was a crash, and the house was loosened from its foundations. There was a cry heard from the wife and mother, and then all other sounds were lost in the roar of the waters. Stunned, half unconscious, the father felt himself borne onward by the rushing flood. As the stream carried him past an overhanging tree, he caught hold of its branches, and there he hung till the morning light brought help and rescue. He was a childless man; the loving faces of wife and children he was to see no more till the morning of the resurrection. Four of the bodies were found the next morning beneath the ruins of the house. The infant’s hand clasped the watch, still ticking, while its own pulse was stopped forever. The waters of the stream, swelled by the great freshet, had been obstructed by a culvert on the railway till it gave way, and the accumulated mass of waters had swept on with resistless impetuosity, working ruin and death. And then Mr. Laurence enforced the lesson so often taught, so soon forgotten, of so living that when the cry is heard, “Behold the bridegroom cometh!” whether at midnight or in the morning, we may go forth with joy to meet him. CHAPTER VI. INDIAN STORIES. Home of the Indian’s wild-born race, The stalwart and the brave; Alike their camp and hunting-place, Their battle-field and grave; Where late gigantic warriors stood, As thick as pine-trees in the wood, Or snipes on Jersey shore; “Tecumseh,” “Beaver,” and “Split Log,” And “Keokuk,” and “Horned Frog,” And “Blackhawk,” “Wolf,” and “Yelping Dog,” And “Possum Tail,” and “Pollywog,” And many hundred more.—F. G. H. Again in the cars for a journey to St. Anthony’s Falls, and again the fertile rolling prairie met the eye on every side. The view was somewhat marred by the high board fences of the railroad, that in some places hid those broad flowery fields. Some curious mounds, round, smooth, and green, extended like a chain from east to west, and looked as if they were artificial formations, lying as they do on the bosom of the prairie; perhaps the burial-place of a departed race. Soon the high lands on the Mississippi were seen. A portly gentleman of Galena, just returning from a convention at Springfield, pointed them out to Mrs. Lester, and said, “Ma’am, there is no such river in the world; you never saw such scenery; you would not look at the Hudson after it.” “That would be unfortunate,” replied Mrs. Lester, “as my home is on the Hudson. Is the scenery finer than the Highlands and the Catskills?”