Down the River by Oliver Optic

For the week preceding the arrival of the raft, Emily Goodridge had been improving in health, though she was still quite feeble. She sat up part of the day, and spent an hour or two in the forenoon in the open air. As we approached the city, the excitement of being so near home buoyed her up, and seemed to give her an unnatural strength.

For my own part, I was in a whirl of excitement. The end of the voyage was a tremendous event in itself; but, as I thought of the astonishment of my brother when he should see Flora and me, and of the meeting between Mr. Goodridge and his daughter, I could hardly contain myself. The sights along the river, too, were sufficiently wonderful to keep my eyes wide open, and my heart leaping. For the first time in my life I saw a ship -- hundreds of them, whose forest of masts and spars was as strange to me as though I had been transported to the centre of the Celestial Empire.