CHAPTER 3

Frescoes from the Past

APPARENTLY the river was ready for business, now. But no, the

distribution of a population along its banks was as calm and deliberate

and time-devouring a process as the discovery and exploration had been.

Seventy years elapsed, after the exploration, before the river's borders

had a white population worth considering; and nearly fifty more before

the river had a commerce. Between La Salle's opening of the river and

the time when it may be said to have become the vehicle of anything like

a regular and active commerce, seven sovereigns had occupied the throne

of England, America had become an independent nation, Louis XIV. and

Louis XV. had rotted and died, the French monarchy had gone down in

the red tempest of the revolution, and Napoleon was a name that was

beginning to be talked about. Truly, there were snails in those days.

The river's earliest commerce was in great barges--keelboats,

broadhorns. They floated and sailed from the upper rivers to New

Orleans, changed cargoes there, and were tediously warped and poled back

by hand. A voyage down and back sometimes occupied nine months. In time

this commerce increased until it gave employment to hordes of rough and

hardy men; rude, uneducated, brave, suffering terrific hardships with

sailor-like stoicism; heavy drinkers, coarse frolickers in moral sties

like the Natchez-under-the-hill of that day, heavy fighters, reckless

fellows, every one, elephantinely jolly, foul-witted, profane; prodigal

of their money, bankrupt at the end of the trip, fond of barbaric

finery, prodigious braggarts; yet, in the main, honest, trustworthy,

faithful to promises and duty, and often picturesquely magnanimous.

By and by the steamboat intruded. Then for fifteen or twenty years,

these men continued to run their keelboats down-stream, and the steamers

did all of the upstream business, the keelboatmen selling their boats in

New Orleans, and returning home as deck passengers in the steamers.

But after a while the steamboats so increased in number and in speed

that they were able to absorb the entire commerce; and then keelboating

died a permanent death. The keelboatman became a deck hand, or a mate,

or a pilot on the steamer; and when steamer-berths were not open to him,

he took a berth on a Pittsburgh coal-flat, or on a pine-raft constructed

in the forests up toward the sources of the Mississippi.

In the heyday of the steamboating prosperity, the river from end to end

was flaked with coal-fleets and timber rafts, all managed by hand,

and employing hosts of the rough characters whom I have been trying to

describe. I remember the annual processions of mighty rafts that used

to glide by Hannibal when I was a boy,--an acre or so of white,

sweet-smelling boards in each raft, a crew of two dozen men or more,

three or four wigwams scattered about the raft's vast level space for

storm-quarters,--and I remember the rude ways and the tremendous talk

of their big crews, the ex-keelboatmen and their admiringly patterning

successors; for we used to swim out a quarter or third of a mile and get

on these rafts and have a ride.

By way of illustrating keelboat talk and manners, and that now-departed

and hardly-remembered raft-life, I will throw in, in this place, a

chapter from a book which I have been working at, by fits and starts,

during the past five or six years, and may possibly finish in the course

of five or six more. The book is a story which details some passages in

the life of an ignorant village boy, Huck Finn, son of the town drunkard

of my time out west, there. He has run away from his persecuting

father, and from a persecuting good widow who wishes to make a nice,

truth-telling, respectable boy of him; and with him a slave of the

widow's has also escaped. They have found a fragment of a lumber raft

(it is high water and dead summer time), and are floating down the river

by night, and hiding in the willows by day,--bound for Cairo,--whence

the negro will seek freedom in the heart of the free States. But in a

fog, they pass Cairo without knowing it. By and by they begin to suspect

the truth, and Huck Finn is persuaded to end the dismal suspense by

swimming down to a huge raft which they have seen in the distance ahead

of them, creeping aboard under cover of the darkness, and gathering the

needed information by eavesdropping:--

But you know a young person can't wait very well when he is impatient to

find a thing out. We talked it over, and by and by Jim said it was such

a black night, now, that it wouldn't be no risk to swim down to the big

raft and crawl aboard and listen--they would talk about Cairo, because

they would be calculating to go ashore there for a spree, maybe, or

anyway they would send boats ashore to buy whiskey or fresh meat or

something. Jim had a wonderful level head, for a nigger: he could most

always start a good plan when you wanted one.

I stood up and shook my rags off and jumped into the river, and struck

out for the raft's light. By and by, when I got down nearly to her,

I eased up and went slow and cautious. But everything was all

right--nobody at the sweeps. So I swum down along the raft till I was

most abreast the camp fire in the middle, then I crawled aboard and

inched along and got in amongst some bundles of shingles on the weather

side of the fire. There was thirteen men there--they was the watch on

deck of course. And a mighty rough-looking lot, too. They had a jug, and

tin cups, and they kept the jug moving. One man was singing--roaring,

you may say; and it wasn't a nice song--for a parlor anyway. He roared

through his nose, and strung out the last word of every line very long.

When he was done they all fetched a kind of Injun war-whoop, and then

another was sung. It begun:--

'There was a woman in our towdn, In our towdn did dwed'l (dwell,) She

loved her husband dear-i-lee, But another man twysteas wed'l.

Singing too, riloo, riloo, riloo, Ri-too, riloo, rilay--She loved her

husband dear-i-lee, But another man twyste as wed'l.

And so on--fourteen verses. It was kind of poor, and when he was going

to start on the next verse one of them said it was the tune the old cow

died on; and another one said, 'Oh, give us a rest.' And another one

told him to take a walk. They made fun of him till he got mad and jumped

up and begun to cuss the crowd, and said he could lame any thief in the

lot.

They was all about to make a break for him, but the biggest man there

jumped up and says--

'Set whar you are, gentlemen. Leave him to me; he's my meat.'

Then he jumped up in the air three times and cracked his heels together

every time. He flung off a buckskin coat that was all hung with fringes,

and says, 'You lay thar tell the chawin-up's done;' and flung his hat

down, which was all over ribbons, and says, 'You lay thar tell his

sufferin's is over.'

Then he jumped up in the air and cracked his heels together again and

shouted out--

'Whoo-oop! I'm the old original iron-jawed, brass-mounted,

copper-bellied corpse-maker from the wilds of Arkansaw!--Look at me!

I'm the man they call Sudden Death and General Desolation! Sired by a

hurricane, dam'd by an earthquake, half-brother to the cholera, nearly

related to the small-pox on the mother's side! Look at me! I take

nineteen alligators and a bar'l of whiskey for breakfast when I'm in

robust health, and a bushel of rattlesnakes and a dead body when I'm

ailing! I split the everlasting rocks with my glance, and I squench the

thunder when I speak! Whoo-oop! Stand back and give me room according

to my strength! Blood's my natural drink, and the wails of the dying is

music to my ear! Cast your eye on me, gentlemen!--and lay low and hold

your breath, for I'm bout to turn myself loose!'

All the time he was getting this off, he was shaking his head and

looking fierce, and kind of swelling around in a little circle, tucking

up his wrist-bands, and now and then straightening up and beating his

breast with his fist, saying, 'Look at me, gentlemen!' When he got

through, he jumped up and cracked his heels together three times, and

let off a roaring 'Whoo-oop! I'm the bloodiest son of a wildcat that

lives!'

Then the man that had started the row tilted his old slouch hat down

over his right eye; then he bent stooping forward, with his back sagged

and his south end sticking out far, and his fists a-shoving out and

drawing in in front of him, and so went around in a little circle

about three times, swelling himself up and breathing hard. Then he

straightened, and jumped up and cracked his heels together three times,

before he lit again (that made them cheer), and he begun to shout like

this--

'Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, for the kingdom of sorrow's

a-coming! Hold me down to the earth, for I feel my powers a-working!

whoo-oop! I'm a child of sin, don't let me get a start! Smoked

glass, here, for all! Don't attempt to look at me with the naked

eye, gentlemen! When I'm playful I use the meridians of longitude and

parallels of latitude for a seine, and drag the Atlantic Ocean for

whales! I scratch my head with the lightning, and purr myself to sleep

with the thunder! When I'm cold, I bile the Gulf of Mexico and bathe

in it; when I'm hot I fan myself with an equinoctial storm; when I'm

thirsty I reach up and suck a cloud dry like a sponge; when I range the

earth hungry, famine follows in my tracks! Whoo-oop! Bow your neck and

spread! I put my hand on the sun's face and make it night in the earth;

I bite a piece out of the moon and hurry the seasons; I shake myself

and crumble the mountains! Contemplate me through leather--don't use the

naked eye! I'm the man with a petrified heart and biler-iron bowels! The

massacre of isolated communities is the pastime of my idle moments,

the destruction of nationalities the serious business of my life! The

boundless vastness of the great American desert is my enclosed property,

and I bury my dead on my own premises!' He jumped up and cracked his

heels together three times before he lit (they cheered him again), and

as he come down he shouted out: 'Whoo-oop! bow your neck and spread, for

the pet child of calamity's a-coming!'

Then the other one went to swelling around and blowing again--the first

one--the one they called Bob; next, the Child of Calamity chipped in

again, bigger than ever; then they both got at it at the same time,

swelling round and round each other and punching their fists most into

each other's faces, and whooping and jawing like Injuns; then Bob called

the Child names, and the Child called him names back again: next, Bob

called him a heap rougher names and the Child come back at him with the

very worst kind of language; next, Bob knocked the Child's hat off, and

the Child picked it up and kicked Bob's ribbony hat about six foot; Bob

went and got it and said never mind, this warn't going to be the last

of this thing, because he was a man that never forgot and never forgive,

and so the Child better look out, for there was a time a-coming, just

as sure as he was a living man, that he would have to answer to him with

the best blood in his body. The Child said no man was willinger than

he was for that time to come, and he would give Bob fair warning, now,

never to cross his path again, for he could never rest till he had waded

in his blood, for such was his nature, though he was sparing him now on

account of his family, if he had one.

Both of them was edging away in different directions, growling and

shaking their heads and going on about what they was going to do; but a

little black-whiskered chap skipped up and says--

'Come back here, you couple of chicken-livered cowards, and I'll thrash

the two of ye!'

And he done it, too. He snatched them, he jerked them this way and that,

he booted them around, he knocked them sprawling faster than they could

get up. Why, it warn't two minutes till they begged like dogs--and

how the other lot did yell and laugh and clap their hands all the way

through, and shout 'Sail in, Corpse-Maker!' 'Hi! at him again, Child of

Calamity!' 'Bully for you, little Davy!' Well, it was a perfect pow-wow

for a while. Bob and the Child had red noses and black eyes when they

got through. Little Davy made them own up that they were sneaks and

cowards and not fit to eat with a dog or drink with a nigger; then Bob

and the Child shook hands with each other, very solemn, and said they

had always respected each other and was willing to let bygones be

bygones. So then they washed their faces in the river; and just then

there was a loud order to stand by for a crossing, and some of them went

forward to man the sweeps there, and the rest went aft to handle the

after-sweeps.

I laid still and waited for fifteen minutes, and had a smoke out of a

pipe that one of them left in reach; then the crossing was finished, and

they stumped back and had a drink around and went to talking and singing

again. Next they got out an old fiddle, and one played and another

patted juba, and the rest turned themselves loose on a regular

old-fashioned keel-boat break-down. They couldn't keep that up very long

without getting winded, so by and by they settled around the jug again.

They sung 'jolly, jolly raftman's the life for me,' with a rousing

chorus, and then they got to talking about differences betwixt hogs, and

their different kind of habits; and next about women and their different

ways: and next about the best ways to put out houses that was afire; and

next about what ought to be done with the Injuns; and next about what

a king had to do, and how much he got; and next about how to make cats

fight; and next about what to do when a man has fits; and next about

differences betwixt clear-water rivers and muddy-water ones. The man

they called Ed said the muddy Mississippi water was wholesomer to drink

than the clear water of the Ohio; he said if you let a pint of this

yaller Mississippi water settle, you would have about a half to

three-quarters of an inch of mud in the bottom, according to the stage

of the river, and then it warn't no better than Ohio water--what you

wanted to do was to keep it stirred up--and when the river was low, keep

mud on hand to put in and thicken the water up the way it ought to be.

The Child of Calamity said that was so; he said there was nutritiousness

in the mud, and a man that drunk Mississippi water could grow corn in

his stomach if he wanted to. He says--

'You look at the graveyards; that tells the tale. Trees won't grow worth

chucks in a Cincinnati graveyard, but in a Sent Louis graveyard they

grow upwards of eight hundred foot high. It's all on account of the

water the people drunk before they laid up. A Cincinnati corpse don't

richen a soil any.'

And they talked about how Ohio water didn't like to mix with Mississippi

water. Ed said if you take the Mississippi on a rise when the Ohio is

low, you'll find a wide band of clear water all the way down the east

side of the Mississippi for a hundred mile or more, and the minute you

get out a quarter of a mile from shore and pass the line, it is all

thick and yaller the rest of the way across. Then they talked about how

to keep tobacco from getting moldy, and from that they went into ghosts

and told about a lot that other folks had seen; but Ed says--

'Why don't you tell something that you've seen yourselves? Now let me

have a say. Five years ago I was on a raft as big as this, and right

along here it was a bright moonshiny night, and I was on watch and boss

of the stabboard oar forrard, and one of my pards was a man named Dick

Allbright, and he come along to where I was sitting, forrard--gaping and

stretching, he was--and stooped down on the edge of the raft and washed

his face in the river, and come and set down by me and got out his pipe,

and had just got it filled, when he looks up and says--

'“Why looky-here,” he says, “ain't that Buck Miller's place, over yander

in the bend.”

'“Yes,” says I, “it is--why.” He laid his pipe down and leant his head

on his hand, and says--

'“I thought we'd be furder down.” I says--

'“I thought it too, when I went off watch”--we was standing six hours on

and six off--“but the boys told me,” I says, “that the raft didn't seem

to hardly move, for the last hour,” says I, “though she's a slipping

along all right, now,” says I. He give a kind of a groan, and says--

'“I've seed a raft act so before, along here,” he says, “'pears to me

the current has most quit above the head of this bend durin' the last

two years,” he says.

'Well, he raised up two or three times, and looked away off and around

on the water. That started me at it, too. A body is always doing what he

sees somebody else doing, though there mayn't be no sense in it. Pretty

soon I see a black something floating on the water away off to stabboard

and quartering behind us. I see he was looking at it, too. I says--

'“What's that?” He says, sort of pettish,--

'“Tain't nothing but an old empty bar'l.”

'“An empty bar'l!” says I, “why,” says I, “a spy-glass is a fool to your

eyes. How can you tell it's an empty bar'l?” He says--

'“I don't know; I reckon it ain't a bar'l, but I thought it might be,”

says he.

'“Yes,” I says, “so it might be, and it might be anything else, too; a

body can't tell nothing about it, such a distance as that,” I says.

'We hadn't nothing else to do, so we kept on watching it. By and by I

says--

'“Why looky-here, Dick Allbright, that thing's a-gaining on us, I

believe.”

'He never said nothing. The thing gained and gained, and I judged it

must be a dog that was about tired out. Well, we swung down into

the crossing, and the thing floated across the bright streak of the

moonshine, and, by George, it was bar'l. Says I--

'“Dick Allbright, what made you think that thing was a bar'l, when it

was a half a mile off,” says I. Says he--

'“I don't know.” Says I--

'“You tell me, Dick Allbright.” He says--

'“Well, I knowed it was a bar'l; I've seen it before; lots has seen it;

they says it's a haunted bar'l.”

'I called the rest of the watch, and they come and stood there, and

I told them what Dick said. It floated right along abreast, now, and

didn't gain any more. It was about twenty foot off. Some was for having

it aboard, but the rest didn't want to. Dick Allbright said rafts that

had fooled with it had got bad luck by it. The captain of the watch

said he didn't believe in it. He said he reckoned the bar'l gained on us

because it was in a little better current than what we was. He said it

would leave by and by.

'So then we went to talking about other things, and we had a song, and

then a breakdown; and after that the captain of the watch called for

another song; but it was clouding up, now, and the bar'l stuck right

thar in the same place, and the song didn't seem to have much warm-up to

it, somehow, and so they didn't finish it, and there warn't any cheers,

but it sort of dropped flat, and nobody said anything for a minute. Then

everybody tried to talk at once, and one chap got off a joke, but it

warn't no use, they didn't laugh, and even the chap that made the joke

didn't laugh at it, which ain't usual. We all just settled down glum,

and watched the bar'l, and was oneasy and oncomfortable. Well, sir, it

shut down black and still, and then the wind begin to moan around, and

next the lightning begin to play and the thunder to grumble. And pretty

soon there was a regular storm, and in the middle of it a man that was

running aft stumbled and fell and sprained his ankle so that he had

to lay up. This made the boys shake their heads. And every time the

lightning come, there was that bar'l with the blue lights winking around

it. We was always on the look-out for it. But by and by, towards dawn,

she was gone. When the day come we couldn't see her anywhere, and we

warn't sorry, neither.

'But next night about half-past nine, when there was songs and high

jinks going on, here she comes again, and took her old roost on the

stabboard side. There warn't no more high jinks. Everybody got solemn;

nobody talked; you couldn't get anybody to do anything but set around

moody and look at the bar'l. It begun to cloud up again. When the watch

changed, the off watch stayed up, 'stead of turning in. The storm ripped

and roared around all night, and in the middle of it another man tripped

and sprained his ankle, and had to knock off. The bar'l left towards

day, and nobody see it go.

'Everybody was sober and down in the mouth all day. I don't mean the

kind of sober that comes of leaving liquor alone--not that. They was

quiet, but they all drunk more than usual--not together--but each man

sidled off and took it private, by himself.

'After dark the off watch didn't turn in; nobody sung, nobody talked;

the boys didn't scatter around, neither; they sort of huddled together,

forrard; and for two hours they set there, perfectly still, looking

steady in the one direction, and heaving a sigh once in a while. And

then, here comes the bar'l again. She took up her old place. She staid

there all night; nobody turned in. The storm come on again, after

midnight. It got awful dark; the rain poured down; hail, too; the

thunder boomed and roared and bellowed; the wind blowed a hurricane; and

the lightning spread over everything in big sheets of glare, and showed

the whole raft as plain as day; and the river lashed up white as milk

as far as you could see for miles, and there was that bar'l jiggering

along, same as ever. The captain ordered the watch to man the after

sweeps for a crossing, and nobody would go--no more sprained ankles for

them, they said. They wouldn't even walk aft. Well then, just then the

sky split wide open, with a crash, and the lightning killed two men of

the after watch, and crippled two more. Crippled them how, says you?

Why, sprained their ankles!

'The bar'l left in the dark betwixt lightnings, towards dawn. Well, not

a body eat a bite at breakfast that morning. After that the men loafed

around, in twos and threes, and talked low together. But none of them

herded with Dick Allbright. They all give him the cold shake. If he come

around where any of the men was, they split up and sidled away. They

wouldn't man the sweeps with him. The captain had all the skiffs hauled

up on the raft, alongside of his wigwam, and wouldn't let the dead men

be took ashore to be planted; he didn't believe a man that got ashore

would come back; and he was right.

'After night come, you could see pretty plain that there was going to be

trouble if that bar'l come again; there was such a muttering going on. A

good many wanted to kill Dick Allbright, because he'd seen the bar'l on

other trips, and that had an ugly look. Some wanted to put him ashore.

Some said, let's all go ashore in a pile, if the bar'l comes again.

'This kind of whispers was still going on, the men being bunched

together forrard watching for the bar'l, when, lo and behold you, here

she comes again. Down she comes, slow and steady, and settles into her

old tracks. You could a heard a pin drop. Then up comes the captain, and

says:--

'“Boys, don't be a pack of children and fools; I don't want this bar'l

to be dogging us all the way to Orleans, and _you _don't; well, then,

how's the best way to stop it? Burn it up,--that's the way. I'm going

to fetch it aboard,” he says. And before anybody could say a word, in he

went.

'He swum to it, and as he come pushing it to the raft, the men spread

to one side. But the old man got it aboard and busted in the head,

and there was a baby in it! Yes, sir, a stark naked baby. It was Dick

Allbright's baby; he owned up and said so.

'“Yes,” he says, a-leaning over it, “yes, it is my own lamented darling,

my poor lost Charles William Allbright deceased,” says he,--for he could

curl his tongue around the bulliest words in the language when he was a

mind to, and lay them before you without a jint started, anywheres. Yes,

he said he used to live up at the head of this bend, and one night he

choked his child, which was crying, not intending to kill it,--which was

prob'ly a lie,--and then he was scared, and buried it in a bar'l, before

his wife got home, and off he went, and struck the northern trail and

went to rafting; and this was the third year that the bar'l had chased

him. He said the bad luck always begun light, and lasted till four men

was killed, and then the bar'l didn't come any more after that. He

said if the men would stand it one more night,--and was a-going on like

that,--but the men had got enough. They started to get out a boat to

take him ashore and lynch him, but he grabbed the little child all of a

sudden and jumped overboard with it hugged up to his breast and shedding

tears, and we never see him again in this life, poor old suffering soul,

nor Charles William neither.'

'_Who _was shedding tears?' says Bob; 'was it Allbright or the baby?'

'Why, Allbright, of course; didn't I tell you the baby was dead. Been

dead three years--how could it cry?'

'Well, never mind how it could cry--how could it _keep _all that time?'

says Davy. 'You answer me that.'

'I don't know how it done it,' says Ed. 'It done it though--that's all I

know about it.'

'Say--what did they do with the bar'l?' says the Child of Calamity.

'Why, they hove it overboard, and it sunk like a chunk of lead.'

'Edward, did the child look like it was choked?' says one.

'Did it have its hair parted?' says another.

'What was the brand on that bar'l, Eddy?' says a fellow they called

Bill.

'Have you got the papers for them statistics, Edmund?' says Jimmy.

'Say, Edwin, was you one of the men that was killed by the lightning.'

says Davy.

'Him? O, no, he was both of 'em,' says Bob. Then they all haw-hawed.

'Say, Edward, don't you reckon you'd better take a pill? You look

bad--don't you feel pale?' says the Child of Calamity.

'O, come, now, Eddy,' says Jimmy, 'show up; you must a kept part of that

bar'l to prove the thing by. Show us the bunghole--do--and we'll all

believe you.'

'Say, boys,' says Bill, 'less divide it up. Thar's thirteen of us. I can

swaller a thirteenth of the yarn, if you can worry down the rest.'

Ed got up mad and said they could all go to some place which he ripped

out pretty savage, and then walked off aft cussing to himself, and they

yelling and jeering at him, and roaring and laughing so you could hear

them a mile.

'Boys, we'll split a watermelon on that,' says the Child of Calamity;

and he come rummaging around in the dark amongst the shingle bundles

where I was, and put his hand on me. I was warm and soft and naked; so

he says 'Ouch!' and jumped back.

'Fetch a lantern or a chunk of fire here, boys--there's a snake here as

big as a cow!'

So they run there with a lantern and crowded up and looked in on me.

'Come out of that, you beggar!' says one.

'Who are you?' says another.

'What are you after here? Speak up prompt, or overboard you go.

'Snake him out, boys. Snatch him out by the heels.'

I began to beg, and crept out amongst them trembling. They looked me

over, wondering, and the Child of Calamity says--

'A cussed thief! Lend a hand and less heave him overboard!'

'No,' says Big Bob, 'less get out the paint-pot and paint him a sky blue

all over from head to heel, and then heave him over!'

'Good, that 's it. Go for the paint, Jimmy.'

When the paint come, and Bob took the brush and was just going to begin,

the others laughing and rubbing their hands, I begun to cry, and that

sort of worked on Davy, and he says--

''Vast there! He 's nothing but a cub. 'I'll paint the man that tetches

him!'

So I looked around on them, and some of them grumbled and growled, and

Bob put down the paint, and the others didn't take it up.

'Come here to the fire, and less see what you're up to here,' says Davy.

'Now set down there and give an account of yourself. How long have you

been aboard here?'

'Not over a quarter of a minute, sir,' says I.

'How did you get dry so quick?'

'I don't know, sir. I'm always that way, mostly.'

'Oh, you are, are you. What's your name?'

I warn't going to tell my name. I didn't know what to say, so I just

says--

'Charles William Allbright, sir.'

Then they roared--the whole crowd; and I was mighty glad I said that,

because maybe laughing would get them in a better humor.

When they got done laughing, Davy says--

'It won't hardly do, Charles William. You couldn't have growed this much

in five year, and you was a baby when you come out of the bar'l, you

know, and dead at that. Come, now, tell a straight story, and nobody'll

hurt you, if you ain't up to anything wrong. What _is_ your name?'

'Aleck Hopkins, sir. Aleck James Hopkins.'

'Well, Aleck, where did you come from, here?'

'From a trading scow. She lays up the bend yonder. I was born on her.

Pap has traded up and down here all his life; and he told me to swim off

here, because when you went by he said he would like to get some of you

to speak to a Mr. Jonas Turner, in Cairo, and tell him--'

'Oh, come!'

'Yes, sir; it's as true as the world; Pap he says--'

'Oh, your grandmother!'

They all laughed, and I tried again to talk, but they broke in on me and

stopped me.

'Now, looky-here,' says Davy; 'you're scared, and so you talk wild.

Honest, now, do you live in a scow, or is it a lie?'

'Yes, sir, in a trading scow. She lays up at the head of the bend. But I

warn't born in her. It's our first trip.'

'Now you're talking! What did you come aboard here, for? To steal?'

'No, sir, I didn't.--It was only to get a ride on the raft. All boys

does that.'

'Well, I know that. But what did you hide for?'

'Sometimes they drive the boys off.'

'So they do. They might steal. Looky-here; if we let you off this time,

will you keep out of these kind of scrapes hereafter?'

''Deed I will, boss. You try me.'

'All right, then. You ain't but little ways from shore. Overboard with

you, and don't you make a fool of yourself another time this way.--Blast

it, boy, some raftsmen would rawhide you till you were black and blue!'

I didn't wait to kiss good-bye, but went overboard and broke for shore.

When Jim come along by and by, the big raft was away out of sight around

the point. I swum out and got aboard, and was mighty glad to see home

again.

The boy did not get the information he was after, but his adventure has

furnished the glimpse of the departed raftsman and keelboatman which I

desire to offer in this place.

I now come to a phase of the Mississippi River life of the flush times

of steamboating, which seems to me to warrant full examination--the

marvelous science of piloting, as displayed there. I believe there has

been nothing like it elsewhere in the world.