CHAPTER 32

The Disposal of a Bonanza

'SUCH was Ritter's narrative,' said I to my two friends. There was a

profound and impressive silence, which lasted a considerable time; then

both men broke into a fusillade of exciting and admiring ejaculations

over the strange incidents of the tale; and this, along with a rattling

fire of questions, was kept up until all hands were about out of breath.

Then my friends began to cool down, and draw off, under shelter of

occasional volleys, into silence and abysmal reverie. For ten minutes

now, there was stillness. Then Rogers said dreamily--

'Ten thousand dollars.'

Adding, after a considerable pause--

'Ten thousand. It is a heap of money.'

Presently the poet inquired--

'Are you going to send it to him right away?'

'Yes,' I said. 'It is a queer question.'

No reply. After a little, Rogers asked, hesitatingly:

'_All _of it?--That is--I mean--'

'Certainly, all of it.'

I was going to say more, but stopped--was stopped by a train of thought

which started up in me. Thompson spoke, but my mind was absent, and I

did not catch what he said. But I heard Rogers answer--

'Yes, it seems so to me. It ought to be quite sufficient; for I don't

see that he has done anything.'

Presently the poet said--

'When you come to look at it, it is more than sufficient. Just look at

it--five thousand dollars! Why, he couldn't spend it in a lifetime! And

it would injure him, too; perhaps ruin him--you want to look at that.

In a little while he would throw his last away, shut up his shop, maybe

take to drinking, maltreat his motherless children, drift into other

evil courses, go steadily from bad to worse--'

'Yes, that's it,' interrupted Rogers, fervently, 'I've seen it a hundred

times--yes, more than a hundred. You put money into the hands of a man

like that, if you want to destroy him, that's all; just put money into

his hands, it's all you've got to do; and if it don't pull him down,

and take all the usefulness out of him, and all the self-respect and

everything, then I don't know human nature--ain't that so, Thompson?

And even if we were to give him a _third _of it; why, in less than six

months--'

'Less than six _weeks_, you'd better say!' said I, warming up and

breaking in. 'Unless he had that three thousand dollars in safe hands

where he couldn't touch it, he would no more last you six weeks than--'

'Of _course _he wouldn't,' said Thompson; 'I've edited books for

that kind of people; and the moment they get their hands on the

royalty--maybe it's three thousand, maybe it's two thousand--'

'What business has that shoemaker with two thousand dollars, I should

like to know?' broke in Rogers, earnestly. 'A man perhaps perfectly

contented now, there in Mannheim, surrounded by his own class, eating

his bread with the appetite which laborious industry alone can

give, enjoying his humble life, honest, upright, pure in heart; and

_blest_!--yes, I say blest! blest above all the myriads that go in silk

attire and walk the empty artificial round of social folly--but just

you put that temptation before him once! just you lay fifteen hundred

dollars before a man like that, and say--'

'Fifteen hundred devils!' cried I, '_five _hundred would rot his

principles, paralyze his industry, drag him to the rumshop, thence to

the gutter, thence to the almshouse, thence to----'

'_Why _put upon ourselves this crime, gentlemen?' interrupted the poet

earnestly and appealingly. 'He is happy where he is, and _as _he is.

Every sentiment of honor, every sentiment of charity, every sentiment of

high and sacred benevolence warns us, beseeches us, commands us to leave

him undisturbed. That is real friendship, that is true friendship. We

could follow other courses that would be more showy; but none that would

be so truly kind and wise, depend upon it.'

After some further talk, it became evident that each of us, down in his

heart, felt some misgivings over this settlement of the matter. It

was manifest that we all felt that we ought to send the poor shoemaker

_something_. There was long and thoughtful discussion of this point; and

we finally decided to send him a chromo.

Well, now that everything seemed to be arranged satisfactorily to

everybody concerned, a new trouble broke out: it transpired that these

two men were expecting to share equally in the money with me. That was

not my idea. I said that if they got half of it between them they might

consider themselves lucky. Rogers said--

'Who would have had _any _if it hadn't been for me? I flung out the

first hint--but for that it would all have gone to the shoemaker.'

Thompson said that he was thinking of the thing himself at the very

moment that Rogers had originally spoken.

I retorted that the idea would have occurred to me plenty soon enough,

and without anybody's help. I was slow about thinking, maybe, but I was

sure.

This matter warmed up into a quarrel; then into a fight; and each man

got pretty badly battered. As soon as I had got myself mended up after

a fashion, I ascended to the hurricane deck in a pretty sour humor. I

found Captain McCord there, and said, as pleasantly as my humor would

permit--

'I have come to say good-bye, captain. I wish to go ashore at Napoleon.'

'Go ashore where?'

'Napoleon.'

The captain laughed; but seeing that I was not in a jovial mood, stopped

that and said--

'But are you serious?'

'Serious? I certainly am.'

The captain glanced up at the pilot-house and said--

'He wants to get off at Napoleon!'

'Napoleon?'

'That's what he says.'

'Great Caesar's ghost!'

Uncle Mumford approached along the deck. The captain said--

'Uncle, here's a friend of yours wants to get off at Napoleon!'

'Well, by--?'

I said--

'Come, what is all this about? Can't a man go ashore at Napoleon if he

wants to?'

'Why, hang it, don't you know? There _isn't_ any Napoleon any more.

Hasn't been for years and years. The Arkansas River burst through it,

tore it all to rags, and emptied it into the Mississippi!'

'Carried the _whole _town away?-banks, churches, jails,

newspaper-offices, court-house, theater, fire department, livery stable

_everything _?'

'Everything. just a fifteen-minute job.' or such a matter. Didn't leave

hide nor hair, shred nor shingle of it, except the fag-end of a shanty

and one brick chimney. This boat is paddling along right now, where the

dead-center of that town used to be; yonder is the brick chimney-all

that's left of Napoleon. These dense woods on the right used to be a

mile back of the town. Take a look behind you--up-stream--now you begin

to recognize this country, don't you?'

'Yes, I do recognize it now. It is the most wonderful thing I ever heard

of; by a long shot the most wonderful--and unexpected.'

Mr. Thompson and Mr. Rogers had arrived, meantime, with satchels and

umbrellas, and had silently listened to the captain's news. Thompson put

a half-dollar in my hand and said softly--

'For my share of the chromo.'

Rogers followed suit.

Yes, it was an astonishing thing to see the Mississippi rolling between

unpeopled shores and straight over the spot where I used to see a good

big self-complacent town twenty years ago. Town that was county-seat

of a great and important county; town with a big United States marine

hospital; town of innumerable fights--an inquest every day; town where

I had used to know the prettiest girl, and the most accomplished in the

whole Mississippi Valley; town where we were handed the first printed

news of the 'Pennsylvania's' mournful disaster a quarter of a century

ago; a town no more--swallowed up, vanished, gone to feed the fishes;

nothing left but a fragment of a shanty and a crumbling brick chimney!