smiling in the sun, and the songbirds just going it!

A little smoke couldn’t be noticed now, so we would take some fish off of the lines and cook up a hot breakfast. And afterwards we would watch the lonesomeness of the river, and kind of lazy along, and by and by lazy off to sleep. Wake up by and by, and look to see what done it, and maybe see a steamboat coughing along upstream, so far off towards the other side you couldn’t tell nothing about her only whether she was a stern-wheel or sidewheel; then for about an hour there wouldn’t be nothing to hear nor nothing to see⁠—just solid lonesomeness. Next you’d see a raft sliding by, away off yonder, and maybe a galoot on it chopping, because they’re most always doing it on a raft; you’d see the axe flash and come down⁠—you don’t hear nothing; you see that axe go up again, and by the time it’s above the man’s head then you hear the k’chunk