Life on the Mississippi
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