Christmas on the Singing River by Maud Van Buren

_Jefferson Lee Harbour_

There was always a crowd in waiting when the stage-coach arrived in / the shabby little mining-camp of Singing River. As a rule, the crowd / assembled on the long, wide platform in front of the post-office, which / was also the stage-office, the hotel, the general store, and the center / from which radiated the social life of the camp. Above the post-office / was a small and dingy hall lighted with dripping tallow candles; and / such public amusements or entertainments as there were in Singing / River were given in this hall. The platform in front of the building / was the favorite "loafing-place" of the miners. The arrival of the / stage-coach was the connecting-link between Singing River and the great / outside world from which the little mining-camp was so far removed. / The nearest railroad station was one hundred miles distant, and there / was no town within fifteen miles any larger than Singing River, which / was but a little hamlet of log-cabins, tents, and slab shanties far / up the mountainside above the little Singing River in the rocky gulch / below. The Singing River was a narrow and shallow stream; but its / crystal-clear waters surged in foamy wavelets around moss-covered / boulders and went singing on so merrily that there was perpetual music / in even the darkest and gloomiest parts of the gulch. But there was ice / over the river for seven months of the year, and then nothing was to be / heard but the dreary sound of the wind as it went moaning or shrieking / up and down the long, dark cañon.[2]