Ten Thousand Handkerchiefs

I

THE girl removed her glance from the Ohio shore past which they were traveling, and cast a shy look at her companion, smoothing out as she did so her full-cut dress of rosebud satin trimmed with lace. She adjusted to a more becoming angle the muslin pardessus, lined with honey-colored silk, which draped her shoulders. Her lips parted as if to speak, but instead she caught her lower lip in her teeth, blushed, and again fell to gazing at the river bank.

The young man at her side on the passenger deck of the Ohio steamboat stroked the roll collar of his fawncolored frock coat and pulled down his buff waistcoat. Stealing a look at the girl’s profile as she persistently stared over the rail, he cleared his throat, reddened, then retreated again to the pensive contemplation of the brass buckles of his Monroe shoes.

Conversation is so difficult a thing! Why was it not part of the curriculum at the College of William and Mary? If only Miss Nancy Tuwaitc would let slip the copy of Affection’s Gift reposing in her lap, that he might restore it to her with a graceful phrase and a deep Virginian bow! So thought young Roger Sanders, and continued to mistake his companion’s shyness for an air of pretty assurance. He gazed despondently at his shoe toes until, with a relief that was diluted with despair, he looked up and saw approaching two men. One was dressed carelessly in a long black frock coat and a pair of baggy trousers, and wore a string tie and a slouch hat. His long legs bowed slightly, as if they were more accustomed to bestriding the barrel of a horse than walking a steamboat deck. His dress was that of a circuit-riding parson. He talked animatedly to his partner, who listened attentively, from time to time gravely nodding his head.

The latter swept off his bell-beaver hat, smiled at the girl, and patted her hand. ‘Your aunt desires me to tell you,’ he said, ‘that she will take her dinner this noon in her stateroom. I left her supplied with a mountain of comforters and a bottle of smelling salts, the better to aid her sustain the rigors of her voyage.’ With a grim smile he turned to the parson. ‘’T is well for Mrs. Pritchell that our means of transportation is not the packet of ten years ago. In those days there were but two berths in the cabin: one curtained off for the gentlemen and the other for the ladies. The whole also served, I recall, as the dining saloon. In such a case a single vial of smelling salts could hardly have sufficed my wife,’

Miss Nancy’s companion saw his opportunity. ‘Truly,’ he agreed, ‘the saloons are marvels of comfort and beauty. The richly paneled folding doors; the commodious staterooms, allowing both privacy and comfort; the carpeted floors; the walls set with mirrors — all go to make of this noble vessel a habitation of the most elegant description.’

’But you have forgotten, young Mr. Sanders,’ remarked the parson, That luxury inevitably carries with it the seeds of its downfall. Last night in the gentlemen’s saloon I witnessed a game of cards played between two planters for the highest stakes that ever I saw set.’

The young Virginian’s eyes shone. ‘May I enquire the amount of the stakes?’ he asked.

‘You may,’ said the parson gravely. ‘A human soul. A slave changed hands at the fall of the cards.’ He fell silent, and his plastic, weather-beaten face worked like putty under a glazier’s hands. ‘How long, O Lord!’ he muttered, and turned his face away.

Sanders’s eyes darkened, and he seemed on the point of blurting out an angry comment. The girl hastened to turn the subject.

‘How goes the campaign, Uncle?’ she asked. ‘ Will the lovely young Mrs. Van Buren, wife of the President’s nephew, continue to give her elegant dinners in the White House after the election, think you?’

Mr. Pritchell smiled. ‘As a good Whig, I protest your making the coming election a matter of dinners in the White House. Perhaps there are those among us merchants who consider Mr, Van Buren’s entertainments needless extravagance.’

Miss Nancy was unabashed. ‘I seem to have heard,’ she suggested, ‘that a very great deal of specie was spent by the Whigs a few days ago at Baltimore, on the occasion of their convention there. Tell me, Uncle, was it indeed very gay?’

Pritchell smiled gravely. ‘The convention seems to have stirred up much interest in our candidate, the so-called backwoodsman, General Harrison. I have in my wallet a cutting from the Baltimore Patriot, which with your permission, my dear, and that of the parson and young Mr. Sanders, I will read. The words of the anonymous delineator of that scene convey its liveliness far more eloquently than might my untutored tongue.’ The merchant drew out a folded paper, settled on his nose a pair of silver-rimmed spectacles, and began to read: —

‘Never before was seen such an assemblage of the people in whose persons are concentrated the sovereignty of the government. The excitement, the joy, the enthusiasm of every man in the procession; the shouts, the applause, the cheers of those who filled the sidewalks and crowded the windows; the waving of handkerchiefs by the ladies; the responsive cries of the people; the flaunting banners; the martial music; the loud roar at intervals of the deepmouthed cannon. In no country, in no time, never before in the history of man, was there a spectacle so full of natural glory. A thousand banners burnished by the sun, floating on the breeze, ten thousand handkerchiefs waved by the fair daughters of the city, gave seeming life and motion to the very air.’

‘I had not guessed so much enthusiasm could have been aroused by the backwoods Indian fighter,’ remarked Sanders, uncrossing his striped knees and bearing his dark eves on the merchant. ‘This inhabitant of a log hut in the wilderness of Ohio would seem to have gained no small bold upon the mind of the populace.’

The merchant looked amused, but the circuit rider stared reproachfully at the lad, his great hands drying their palms again and again on the knees of his baggy trousers. His blue eyes, set startlingly in bis wind-browned face, clouded over. His voice deepened in pitch.

‘William Henry Harrison is my friend,’ he said slowly, ‘as I am happy to say he is the friend of every other such humble man as myself. It is common knowledge that every day at his table an empty place is laid at which any hungry man may seat himself, regardless of religion or condition. I myself have stopped at his residence below Cincinnati, as have others among my brethren in the Lord. He refused all compensation from our Congress for his Tippecanoe expedition, and maintains himself solely by his efforts on his farm. For these and many other reasons, he has the support of all who dwell here in our spacious West. I am sure any thinking man deprecates many of the follies of the leaders of the Whig campaign. To portray Harrison, for the sake of a few prejudiced votes, as the untutored inhabitant of a log cabin is absurd, as anyone who has seen him can testify. That “log cabin ” is better appointed, and set in more lovely grounds, than many a Southern planter’s mansion. I shall shortly have the pleasure of pointing it out to the company. I am sure I fail to understand why he cannot rightfully command the respect and vote of a young Virginian gentleman.’

‘Especially,’ put in Pritchell slyly, ‘when the young gentleman has occasion to take the river route from Wheeling. For in the last few years no further improvement to the river bed has been made by the Government. Perhaps another administration . .

The boy leaped to his feet. ‘If you mean, sir, by your remarks to cast a slur upon the administration of Mr. Van Buren, pray understand that I, and all loyal Democrats with me, stand ready to defend him to the death.'

‘Pray be seated,’ protested the merchant. ‘I am sorry words of mine should have been taken in so deadly earnest. Permit me to remind you, as well, that we are in the presence of a lady, I trust, my young sir, that you will not fail to remember the respect due her, and hasten to make your apologies.’

The boy flushed crimson and sat down. I lis apologies lacked something of the grace that four years in William and Mary College should have lent them, but they were accepted b}' Miss Nancy Tuwaite with the most gracious of smiles. The parson hastened to fill in an embarrassing silence.

‘Pray observe, madam,’ he said, addressing himself directly to the girl for the first time, ‘ the group of men lounging on the forward part of the boat. They are a queer set of fellows, and their business is to handle the freight, of which a great quantity is carried on these vessels. The river people have honored them with the expressive epithet of “deckaneers.”’

Miss Nancy was not listening. As she leaned her head against the back of her chair, her eyes were far away. ‘Ten thousand handkerchiefs,’ she murmured. There was a faint smile on her lips. ‘Ten thousand handkerchiefs. And all waving at once! I should like to have seen them.’

II

One of the deckaneers forward returned from gazing back along the rail.

‘Look at the pretty little dears, would ye now!’ he exclaimed, settling his shoulders against the deck housing. ‘As grave and solemn they are as if they was their own grandparents. And him no bigger through the waist than me thumb. There’s the parson with his friend, come up to spoil all their fun, the crayturs.’ The others paid no attention, but watched with lazy intentness the shores past which the boat was churning.

‘ ’T is an ugly enough hitch, to be sure, this craft,’ said another of the group. ‘Built like a seegar box, she is: square at both ends and ondacintly fragrant in the middle.’

A little wisp of a man, with a gray fringe surrounding his ruddy bald head like an aureole, chuckled shortly. ‘Did ye not choose to deckaneer on the O-hi-o yourself, Jim Dorgan? ’T is late in the day to find fault with your maize bread and other heathen victuals.’

Dorgan drew sharply at his pipe, then coughed and spat as some of the foulness of the bowl worked its way up into the stem. ‘Did I, though!’ he said. ‘I was took contrary, and that was the way of my coming.’ He laughed silently, holding his pipestem at a little distance. ‘ I was took contrary,’ he repeated. ‘ T is poor consolation to find yourself the biggest fool among many. Took contrary I was, and by a better man than myself. Have any of ye heard tell of General Harrison?’

The question was a purely rhetorical one, for the coming election had been the subject of deck-hand conversation and argument all the way from Wheeling. Recognizing it as such, the group preserved an expectant silence.

‘I see ye have. ’Tis well, for I’m about to tell ye lads a tale, the which has nothing to do with the General.’

Dorgan blew strongly dowm his pipe, then drew at the stem, to be rewarded with a great whiff of smoke. After looking at the bowl with the pained expression of a man whose worst enemy has spoken a kind word, he embarked on his tale.

‘ T was late one summer in the old country, but where and when ’t would do no good to inform ye lads, for ye arc all Kerry men, onablc to onderstand what ye do not see. There was no rain, nor any sign of the same, and the sod was as parched and dry as a drinking man’s Sunday-morning gullet.

‘“Jim,” says me mother to me that day, “ye’re a strong, upright lad, and kin lick or eat your weight, and thribble,” she says, “whichever comes handiest. But the little patch is as burnt as if the Evil One had breathed upon it, bad luck to him and no fresh young souls to his cupboard,” she says, “and them that lives must eat. Ye’re a lad grown,” she tells me, and me scowling at the old woman, wondering what was coming, “and so get gone with ye,” she says, “with my blessing and this cake I have baked. And get ye up to town, where they’ll be offering fair pay and food to them will immygrate,” she says, “to the river of O-hi-o, the same being longer than it is high,” she says.

‘When I sees the old woman making her bit of a joke out of a sad matter, I knows, as every mother’s son knows, that she means what she says, and in my hurry, boylike, to be away, I sets off without the cake, waving “God be wi’ ye ” to herself on the step, and t hat’s the last I ever see of the two of them.

‘When I arrive in town, toward noon of the next day after, I walks to the square and refreshes meself in the horse trough. After drying the sweat of me face and arms with a bit of fresh water, I looks about me and sees a gang of onlikely-looking lads in yellow breeches, all in a cluster like a swarm of hornets around a drop of treacle. I elbows my way in amongst them, and soon stands in the front row of them all, feeling of a tooth that had come loose and tasting salt in my spit. Standing on a keg of nails was a soft-spoken feller, dressed somewhat atween a beetle and a bottle fly, singing a bold story out of his nose. The lad next dug me ribs with his elbow and says to look dost, for there’s a Yankee, and I may never see one again.

‘The little man on the nail keg says as how there’s good pay to be got on the river of O-hi-o, in Ameriky. He says there’s steamboats on the river, and the steamboat companies has sent him from Ameriky to injuce some passengers for their steamboats. There is no fare, says he, for them that comes, and they is given a fancy title, a kind of letters patent, and called by the name of deckaneers. Just to keep our minds off the pretty girls along the river, by day, he says, we kin turn our hand to a packing case oncet in a while, or roll a keg or two of beer out of the sun on the banks of the O-hi-o to the shady deck of the steamboat, says he. The pay’s three shilling a day, he says, and found, which we knows for a lie. “Who’ll come?” he says. “One at a time,” he says. “Take your time, boys, and don’t hender one another signing their mark on the paper I have here and accepting three shilling as first day’s pay.”

‘Nobody moves. Some of us, thinking the show was over, turns to go away. The others stands, oneasy, wondering what was coming next. All to oncet there is a hell of a commotion, and I sees the bodies of a couple of lads in the front row opposite me being stepped over ontenderly. A big blackbrowed man he was, and stood there, sucking his teeth and scowling at the lot of us as if he was trying to decide whether we was there.

‘The little man squeaks and lets out a little yelp and goes up to the man and grabs his hand. “Why, Mr. O’Connell,” he says, and seems real delighted. “I had given you up. I had just about persuaded these-here quiet, stiddy-appearing men,” he says, looking at us out of the whites of his eyes like a skittish horse, “to sign up as cleckaneers on the O-hi-o.”

‘The feller next me lets out his breath like he had been binged in the belly. “An Irishman from Ameriky,” he says. “I always suspected them children’s stories about Indians,” he says. “He’s from Ameriky, too,” the feller says, breathing hard, “and he’s as Irish as the Pope.”

‘O’Connell didn’t wait for no comments, but he pushed the little man away with the fiat of his elbow and stepped up on to the nail keg.

“‘Whatever this little ki-yi has been telling ye,” says O’Connell, looking us over careful, "’tis a damned lie, and the steamboat company from Ameriky has hired me to say so,” he says. “The pay’s three shilling a day, all right, and that’s the truth, but it ain’t no help, for the food is foul rotten, living is high, and the girls too damn particular. If ye sign on as bloody deckaneers, ye’ll wish ye was dead four times a day, and three of them four times will be mealtimes. Ye will not be allowed to sleep, and they’ll set before ye a mush made out of maize, which is a kind of bastard corn, and what ye don’t eat of it ye kin spleen against. There is a flying beast haunts the river of the O-hi-o,” says O’Connell, “that will suck your blood, and killing one gives birth to three. It’s a breaking life,” he says, “and if ye sign on ye’ll be under me, and ye’ll learn why they call me Breaker O’Connell. T is no life for a dacint man,” he says, “and I warn ye fairly.”

‘Well, all the boys liked this O’Connell first-rate, and we was all wavering. He’d put up a powerful argument, and the kind we alt understood.

‘Somebody sings out, “What about them three shilling in advance?”

‘O’Connell kind of grunts, scornful, and picks the man out of the crowd and stares him down. “Another lie,” he says. “There’s a shilling advance,” says he, and the feller looks cheerful for a minute. “A shilling advance,” says O’Connell, “to be paid into my fist by every man which signs on.”

‘At that the crowd gets real respectful. Another lad sings out, “Is there whiskey on the O-hi-o?” he says, and we all hold our breaths to listen better.

‘“There is that,” says O’Connell. “And the cost of the same is thirteen cents a gallon. If there’s any man among ye kin do sums in his head, let him figger thirteen cents into three shilling, and explain it to the rest. I will be setting here under this tree,” says he, “with my bit of paper, and them of ye that has n’t a shilling, let him stroll up the street and bring it back the handiest way. I’ll be waiting,” he says, and waiting he was when I returns with me shilling, won fair in open fight from another of the lads was resting face dowm across the horse trough. So we signs on to be deckancers on the O-hi-o. O’Connell he takes our shillings and turns us over to the little squeak was standing by all the while.

‘“Do ye take these men under your care, and ye’re responsible for them,” says he. “Ye’re a good little man, but ye ain’t learnt that an Irishman must be took contrary if he is took at all.”

‘And that,’ concluded Jim Dorgan, sighing until the ashes of his pipe fled the bowl, ‘was how I was took contrary to be a deckaneer. And that’s how it is with General Harrison,’ he explained to the loungers. ‘Everything he says is to be took contrary. “I live in a log cabin,” says he, not mentioning the long white clabberds to the outside of it, and the shingled roof, and the wings, and the pretty green lawn looking out over the river. We’ll see it presently. “I’m a farmer,” says he, and him a gentleman, not to mention a soldier. “I’m the people’s friend,” he says, and then he ups and runs for President! ’

Dorgan tapped his pipe vehemently on the deck railing. The pipe slipped out of his fingers and fell. With a curse, Dorgan leaned over the rail.

‘It’s brook,’ he said at last. ‘It’s brook clean in two, having been stopped by a naygur’s head on the deck below. Ah, well, perhaps ’t was a lucky thing. That pipe had always more heft than coolth, and’t is time I got me another.’

III

A black hand reached out. and caught a white object as it rebounded from his head. Part of the stem of a chalk pipe tinkled to the deck.

‘lies hit got liurted, Calderwell’s Joe?’ asked a voice.

The black hand brought the pipe nearer a black face. ‘De bowl’s good. De stem lies kinda sho’tened hitself. Baccy still in her, dough. Dig out flint ’n’ steel, Smalkin’s Ha’y.’

His companion produced a flint and steel. ‘Doan know’s we should keep hit,’ he muttered. ‘De Lawd may hone us dat pipe, see-en we nuther roghtlv bought ner stole hit.’

The other cast the timorous one a look of scorn. ‘Whut’s flung, pickersup kin have.’

His fellow nodded assent, enviously watching Calderw’ell’s Joe as he surrounded his bare woolly head with a nimbus of smoke.

‘Let us-all have a puff,’ he begged.

Joe drew a lingering draft, raising his arms slightly to give his lungs full play. He watched his toes intently, as if he half expected some of the smoke to trickle out from under their nails, then handed over the pipe to the eager hands of Harry. As he watched his companion suck eagerly at the bitter dregs, an annoyed look began to steal over his wide face. He sat thinking intently, and at last spoke.

‘Lemme beg to bemind you,’he said severely, ‘ I has changed my name. I no longer is n’t Calderwell’s Joe. Ise Letchford’s Joe now. Letchford’s Joe — Mister L. P. Letchford, Squire, of Natchez. Sho’ly you is ’ware of my changen hands las’ night, on a lucky turn of the cyards for the Squire.'

Smalkin’s Harry stared, then slapped his thigh in sudden mirth. ‘Letchford’s Joe!’ he wheezed. ‘De name change, un’ black boy stay whah he is. Letchford’s Joe. Calderwell’s Joe was, Letchford’s Joe is!’

He repeated the two names several times, as if he saw’ therein some subject for vast and esoteric mirth, hidden to his companion.

Joe watched his contortions with mounting anger. ‘Stop hit,’ he commanded. ‘Stop hit, you tah-faccd twister. Stop hit, will you now!’ His commands had no effect, and at last he bent over Harry’s writhing form, leaning close as if to bite his ear. ’I ’ull name you to ’um!’ he threatened. ‘I ’ull name your black name to de ’Bolishionists!’

Harry sat up suddenly, and His face changed to the gray pallor of the ashes in the pipe. ‘No!’ he choked, catching Joe by the knees. ‘ No! ’ He tried to say more, but the words would not come.

Joe solemnly nodded assent to his own words. ‘I ’ull name you to ’um,’ he said. ‘There’s one of ’um on bo’d dis boat — a long feller in a black coat. I ’ull go up to him, un’ I ’ull say, “Mister ’Bolishionist, there’s a nocount nigger on bo’d dis boat. His name,” I ’ull say, “is Smalkin’s Ha’y.” ’ Harry cowered, unable to speak. ‘ “ He laughs at he betters, un’ has no ’speck for ’um. I is on’y namen ’um to you,” I ’ull say. “Mister ’Bolishionist, you kin do de rest.’”

Harry moaned, but Joe remained inflexible. ‘I ain’t, sayen whut he ’ull do,’ he went on. ‘I does n’t know myself. But I ’ull tell, you whut he kin do.’ Joe leaned nearer, and his voice dripped a sanguinary whisper. ‘He kin buy you, un’ set you free!’

Finding his voice at last, Harry howfled in anguish. ‘Gawd, no!’ he pleaded. ‘Not dat! No, no, Joe!’

Joe nodded. ‘Un’ when you is free, you ’ull walk down de centre of de road, all alone in de No’th by you’self. “Who’s dat black boy walken down de centre of de road?” somebody ’ull say, un’ somebody ’ull answer, “Hit’s Ha’y.” Un’ dey ’ull say, “WhoseIla’y? Smalkin’s Ha’y, er Letchford’s Ha’y, er whose?” Un’ dey ’ull say, “Nobody’s Ha’y. He don’t belong nobody. He’s a free nigger. Hit ’um,” dey ’ull say. “Kick ’um,” dey ’ull say. “Stick a knife in his froat, so’s he can’t holler none, un’ string ’um up by he heels so’s he ’ull bleed away easy."'

Smalkin’s Harry began to blubber, and with a shaking hand fumbled in the pockets of his tattered janes. He brought out a piece of red string, a horn-handled knife without any blades, and part of a plug of chewing tobacco.

Joe’s eyes lit up, but his voice was steady. ‘Is dat all you got?’ he asked.

‘I — I got a cent. I was kinda saven hit.’

‘On’y a cent?’

‘I meaned three cents. I was kinda saven hit to buy me a good time wiv in Looieville.’

‘ Hand hit over.’

Smalkin’s Harry reached into his shirt and brought out a large copper. Joe grunted, and pocketed the lot.

‘Un’ whut’s my name, now?’ he demanded.

‘Calder — I means Letchford’s Joe.’

Joe grunted again, and, retrieving the broken chalk pipe, thrust it into his shirt front. He smiled broadly. ‘Wipe your nose un’ dry your sorrow,’ he advised. ‘Sho’tly we comes to Gen’l Ha’ison’s log cabin — on’y hit’s a house — un’ I shows hit you. So does de foolish profit fum de wise.’

Smalkin’s Harry brightened, and he wiped his nose with his sleeve. Soon he was smiling, too, as he wratched with interest the antics of two farmers signaling the steamboat from the bank.

IV

With a great splashing and puffing, the steamboat slowly turned, quartering the current; rounded to, and felt her way in toward the steep clay bank. A long gangway shook itself and fumbled cautiously for the shore.

Two roughly dressed men stood beside two large crates, hands in pockets, with an air of having all time to themselves. The taller of the two possessed a large mouth and a roving eye. The smaller, an intent little man, stood with a hand on the neck of a sleek cow tethered to a cottonwood. The cow and the man chewed rhythmically, keeping unconscious time, an identical expression of mild thought in their eyes.

A smart-appearing man stepped out of the pilot house.

‘What’s yer freight?’ he bawled.

The taller of the two farmers looked up unhurriedly at the pilot house towering over him, searched the sky for signs of rain, and spat to clear his throat. ‘Who said freight?’ he asked in a tone of gentle surprise. ‘My brother and me, we was jest brushen off the skceters so’s we could read the name of yur boat.’ He turned to his companion. ‘Must of thought we was signalen.’

The man on the pilot-house deck looked annoyed. ‘Don’t kill them skeeters,’ he suggested, ‘or you’ll tie up the whole traffic on the river. No nonsense, now. What’s yer freight?’

The farmer pulled one hand out of his janes pocket and scratched behind his ear. ‘Lemme thenk,’ he said. ‘A cider press, a grestmill, two barns, and a cow.’

The man on board the boat stared a moment, then grew very red. He opened his mouth as if to say something, thought better of it, hesitated, and dived for the pilot house.

The shorter of the two farmers took his eyes off space. ‘Gollup,’ he remarked, ‘you must of riled him. Mebbe she’s goen on ’uthout us.’

‘No, she es n’t. Here comes the pilot. That war n’t only the capt’in. The capt’in of thet boat can’t scratch ’uthout asken Mort Dawson.’

The brisk man reappeared from the pilot house, like a small and nervous tug at the bow of a transatlantic paddle wheeler. The pilot drifted in his wake, engines dead, large, red of face, and slow of movement. He hooked an elbow over the rail and looked down complacently.

‘Howdy, Frank,’ he said. ‘Hullo, Charley. Nice-appearing critter you got there. How’s that gangway? Sot right for her?’ Frank nodded, and the pair became very busy with their freight. The pilot turned to the captain at his side.

‘Them’s the two Barnes brothers. If you ain’t heard their joke about freighting two barns, it’s a sign you ain’t been long above the Falls. It’s the poorest joke on the upper river, and the frequentest.’ He lumbered back to the pilot house. The gangway came up and nested itself, the scape pipes sighed, and the boat got way on her.

Returned from bedding down the cow, the two brothers drifted forward on the lower deck, twiddling varnished oat straws between their teeth, a pleased and expectant look on their faces. About the forward deck, directly underneath the pilot house, lay, sat, or sprawled a few farmers and drovers, a deck hand or two, and a few men of indeterminate aspect who in one way or another got their liv ing from the river flowing past.

One of the drovers looked up lazily. ‘Et’s the Barnes brothers.’ He turned to the shorter of the two. ‘How d’ y’ aim t’ vote come illection, Charley?’ He grinned and winked at the rest.

Charley Barnes squirmed, reddened, and turned in his toes. He cleared his throat, gulped, reached for his plug, bit off a piece, chewed, cleared his throat again, and spat. ‘I’m a-consederen,’ he said.

The drover guffawed. Frank, unoffended, turned to the rest of the company.

‘My brother Charley, here,’ he explained, ‘he admires to eonseder. He conseders so much he can’t hardly make up hes mind about anythen. So we hes et all worked out, sort of. When any question comes up fer argyment, Charley he conseders, and I do the deciden. Et works out fine. Don’t et, Charley?' Charley beamed and nodded.

‘Rought now,’went on Frank, ‘he’s a-consederen about the illection. Both Harrison and Van Buren has thur points, and ef a man aims to vote honest, he should ought to try and conseder both sides.'

‘That’s fair,’said one of the farmers.

‘Me and Charley,’continued Frank, ‘we ben to buy us a grestmill and a cider press. On the way we pecked up a good cow, cheap. The cider press, she’s one of them new kind, not no hand-lever press, but a hoss press, ’uth a twelve-foot screw of black gum, ‘uth ench threads to et. A man ought to generate consederable apple butter and cider ’uth that press. Me and Charley es rought pleased ’uth et.'

Frank exchanged the frazzled end of his straw for the unfrazzled end, and chewed thoughtfully. ‘Speaken of the cider press,’he said, ‘puts me en mind of whut the feller that sold et to us said. He says, jest like you,’turning to the drover, '"Who d’ y’ aim t’ vote fer?” He spoke to Charley, kind of, and Charley he says, jest like he says to you, “I’m a-consederen.” And the feller says, “While you er’ consedereti, read this, er else git et read to you,” he says. ’Uth that, he hands Charley a piece of paper, prent on one side and blank on th’ other. And Charley takes et, and puts et en his janes. Ded n’t you, Charley?’

Charley nodded and fished in a pocket. ‘Here’t es,’ he said.

Frank took the paper. ‘I’ll read et,’ he announced, ‘be-en et’s mostly prent large.'

He cleared his throat, threw away his straw, and began to read in the laborious fashion of a man whose schooling has been sandwiched in the intervals of work on a farm. The paper was one of the inflammatory posters issued by the Whigs in the heat of the 1840 campaign.

“‘For the Battle Ground.” That’s the headen, prent in large black words. Then comes a petcher of a stagecoach, ’uth passengers en et, the males ’uth beaver hats. The four-hoss team es too heavy fer coachen work, and es checked too high. Like enough the feller that drawed et was thenken of somethen else. And underneath the stagecoach et says, “Every man to his tent!” And next et says, “To the LogCabin Boys of Ohio.” The log cabin es drawed out, and not prent at all, which makes et easier to read. “ Do you know that the greatest and most universal gathering of the People; of Farmers, Mechanics, Laborers, and all classes of the community, who are in favor of” — then thur’s one of them damn chickenstealen hawks holden a rebband en hes beak, and on the rebband es wrote out “Harrison & Tyler”; then et says “are to meet upon the Battlefield of Tippecanoe”— that’s down near Shelbyville, in Indianny, on the Michigan Road — “on the twenty-ninth of May, to welcome the Old Soldiers once more to that scene of glory, where everlasting benefits were wrought in blood for Ohio”; then thur’s a curlycue which means et’s a question.’

One of the farmers crossed his hands over his belly and spoke languorously, his eyes closed. ‘I aim to git me to the Rally,’ he said. ‘The quality of Ohio, Illinois, Indianny, Kcntuck’, and Michigan ’ull be thur. Thur’s to be a grand barbecue, ’uth shoats, oxen, and sheep roasted hull, and all the hard cider and speech-maken a man could desire. Roast shoat and speech-maken! Thur’s a well-broke team t’ hitch yur wagon to.’

‘They do say,’ observed another, ‘that the Rally ’ull be the beggest gatheren of folks ever come onto one spot en the State of Indianny. I reckon my Conestoga wagon ’ull be thur.'

With an awful suddenness, the bow of the steamboat headed for shore. A drover, busily engaged in a song and shuffle, lurched wildly, tried in vain to recover his balance, and fell heavily to the deck. His companions were thrown into various positions against the deck rail or housing. Each remained where he was, as if playing the game of ‘frozen holts.’ All had an eye or ear cocked in the direction of the pilot house. The paddle wheels stopped, threshed backward once or twice, stopped again. A plank sailed along with the current and drifted slowly past the bow. Then the scape pipes sighed, the paddles started churning again, and the steamer swung back into the middle of the stream.

‘Gollup!’ gasped the drover, picking himself up. ‘Whut was et?’

Frank Barnes went to the rail and peered back along the wake of the boat. ‘Must, of been a dost thong, what et was ever. Whur are we to? I don’t reklect thes-yur part of the rover.’

A farmer glanced ahead, where a great bluff jutted over the stream. ‘Jonas’ Point. That ’ud make us nineteen mile below Cencennaty. We ’ull raise the General’s cabin less than a mile.’

‘So ’tes,’ said Frank. ‘Priest, whut a swerve! That warn’t never Mort Dawson’s hand on her wheel.’

V

Basking in the afternoon sun streaming through the windows of the pilot house, Mort Dawson sprawled comfortably in a backless chair, a box filled with sawdust between his feet. From time to time he addressed the shoulders of his spare pilot, who stood with his feet planted wide apart before the ornate four-foot wheel. The spare said nothing, but occasionally nodded or twitched his head in reply.

‘She’s a pretty little trick, as I say,’ remarked Mort, brushing a crumb of tobacco off the fleshly stairs of his waist. ‘Don’t know’s this craft ever carried prettier. And full of fool girl idees. What do you suppose she said to me, this very while ago?’

The spare moved his head the fraction of an inch.

‘Don’t answer me,’ warned Mort. ‘If you say a word, or take your two eves off the river, I ’II learn you a couple. What do you suppose she said?’

He paused, as if tempting the silent figure before him into giving an answer. When none was forthcoming, he sighed and resumed.

‘She asked me what them cottonwoods along the river bank looked like to me. “Look like!” I says. “Like trees, of course, and quick-grown, punkhearted, good-for-nothing wood they be. They look like cottonwoods,” I says. “What else?’”

The spare scratched the back of his neck with a finger.

‘Put that hand back on the spokes!’ commanded Mort. ‘So she says, “Not to me, they don’t. When the wind comes along, and shakes ’em, and their leaves turn inside out. and show silver, the trees look like thousands of people waving their handkerchiefs,” she says. “Like ten thousand handkerchiefs,” she says. “Ten thousand handkerchiefs, all waving, and all being wove at oneet.” What do you think of that, now, for a girl’s foolishment? Don’t, answer me!’

The spare gave an almost imperceptible negative shake of his head without remov ing his eyes from the river. ‘I did n’t think you would,’ remarked Mort, adjusting the position of the sawdust-filled box.

The spare took up a point or two on the wheel as the current veered the boat off her course. Without otherwise shifting his position or moving a muscle, he began to whistle softly through his teeth: —

‘Motion!’ fumed Mort Dawson. ‘I’ll motion you. Stop letting that steam outa your scape pipes, you damned Indianny corduroy-hopper. A man steering a steamboat has no time for politics. You been listening too free to some of the talk on board. I’ll set a ball a-rolling around here that the pit of your stummick won’t like.

‘Miss Nancy Tuwaite her name is,’ continued Mort placidly, as if there had been no interruption. ‘She showed it to me, all wrote out in a book she had. Her uncle’s with her, and her aunt. I seen them come aboard, the two of them, at Wheeling. A cranky, illballasted craft her aunt is, kind of beamy for her len’th. Come from somewheres around Baltimore, they do. Her uncle’s all right. They kind of struck up acquaintance with a young dandy name of Sanders. Not a bad lad, though. You should see his eyes snap when he’s crossed. He’s from East, too, though I don’t know where. LOOK OUT, YOU DAMN FOOL!’

With a great bound, the huge body of Mort Dawson flung itself out of the chair and at the wheel. The spare was thrust spinning away, and the spokes of the great wheel blurred as they revolved under Mort’s hands. At the same time he whistled down the tube, and the scape pipes sighed, fell silent, whistled, and puffed jets of steam. The paddle wheels, thrusting backward, sent, gobbets of foam forward under the bows. Mort stood rigidly, his foot on a spoke, for a long minute. Slowly he thrust over two spokes, then two more, and finally gave the go-ahead signal and brought the boat back on her course. Without a word he handed the wheel over to his spare and resumed his scat. The spare stood as before, silent, with no change in his appearance save for a slight ruddiness of the neck.

Mort settled himself comfortably in his chair. His voice was very gentle.

‘An eddy,’ he explained, ‘ain’t a ripple, and a ripple ain’t got no resemblance to a rip. A planter and a sawyer is two different things, and a bar don’t look like neither.’

The spare’s neck grew redder.

‘If you answer me I’ll kill you,’ said Mort. ‘Next time you see a dimple in the check of Lady Ohio, don’t wait to chuck her under the chin. When she shows a dimple, you move outa wherever you be, and sudden. But for the grace of God and the eye of Mort Dawson, you’d a snagged the bottom right out. of her, and we’d all of us be feeding the catfish.’

Pacified by his outburst, Mort allowed his gaze to wander out over the river. ‘We’re nearing the bend,’ he said. ‘Look out for that bar just beyont. It keeps shifting. But you’ll run clear if you keep a line atween the bluff and the house on the bank opposite.’

He gaped and stretched sleepily. ‘Just keep a line on that house and you’ll run clear,’ he repeated. ‘A big white house it is — easy recognized. There’s two large wings to it, and it’s sot in the middle of a big green lawn. A nice-appearing house, that looks as if its owner kind of liked to take care of it. A white house, with a shingle roof, overlooking the river.’