Gratitude

Our bosom heaves with unutterable gratitude with the reflection that the season of boating and skiffing across the Flat is now over! It is to be hoped that no more inundations, for the present year at least, will overwhelm the Des Moines valley. To persons living on the other side, whose business is on the west side of the river, the flood has imposed a considerable tax. To pay from 20 to 40 cents a day for the simple item of having your physical system transferred from one side to the other, is no small bill of expense when kept up protractedly, in these hard times. But this expense and annoyance are trifling when compared with those graver evils and sacrifices of property from which our citizens have suffered whose residences were invaded by the flood!

– Published in the Daily State Register, Des Moines, Iowa, Thursday, April 24, 1862