Raymond S. Spears

“ As Sibley talked about these things with his mother, his face would light up at the wonder of some one man’s idea going out to hundreds and thousands of other people, resulting at last in holding a river bend against the encroachments of the sawing current, or in converting the whole current of the upper Mississippi into a force to furnish power for machinery, to run cars, to supply cities with light—as at Keokuk. ”

“ Carruth, when she had explained that fact and told that anecdote to Sibley, wondered if there was already in his head some glimmering of an idea that he would work over and study and learn all about, and at last—What might not Sibley do some day? Mothers like to think that their sons will become useful citizens!
Now Sibley was taking part in the control of the flood that was sweeping down the Mississippi. He was going down the river with the engineer whose knowledge of the river was superior to that of any other man. ”

“ People who take care of babies for parents find they love them as much as the parents do."
Boys were an enigma to Mrs. Carruth. She professed not to understand them at all. Sibley possessed for his mother the attraction not only of a good son, but of a fascinating puzzle, or rebus. How many boys would be interested in Mississippi River Commission Reports, and would pore over the "Summary of Cost" of a revetment, "Cost per Unit Statement," "Material per Unit Expended"?
She had worried a good deal lest Sibley should grow up in ignorance, because he lived on a shanty-boat and attended no school ”

“ Everywhere hosts of men were fighting against the peril, which in some places grew more and more imminent, until, as at Reelfoot levee, the crevasse opened the way to disaster from which the people had hoped to protect themselves by enormous expenditure in heaping up banks of earth. ”

“ Why, they’ll run our cabin-boat clear down to New Orleans if we don’t stop them! If I’d been sure about the boat’s being at New Madrid, I’d have gone down there, of course. But, the way things are, I know the New Madrid people don’t want strangers coming in, making more mouths to feed, and more beds to furnish. I wonder where Jep will go."
"I wish we could find out whose baby it is they’ve found. I haven’t heard anything about a baby being missing," Mrs. ”