The Last of the Flatboats. Eggleston George Cary
they lived night and day in the open air. They worked all day, of course, leaving one of their number on guard, but when night came, they had what Homer calls a “great bearded fire,” built against a fallen sycamore tree of gigantic size, and after supper they sat by it chatting till it was time to sleep.
They were usually tired, but they were excited also, and that often kept them awake pretty late. The vision of the voyage had taken hold upon their imaginations. They pictured to themselves the calm joy of floating fifteen hundred miles and more down the great river, of seeing strange, subtropical regions that had hitherto been but names to them, seeming as remote as the Nile country itself until now.
And as they thought, they talked, but mainly their talk consisted of questions fired at Ed Lowry, who was very justly suspected of knowing about ten times as much about most things as anybody else in the company.
Finally, one night Irv Strong got to “supposing” things and asking Ed about them.
“Suppose we run on a sawyer,” he said. Ed had been telling them about that particularly dangerous sort of snag.
“Well,” said Ed, “we’ll try to avoid that, by keeping as nearly as we can in the channel.”
“But suppose we find that a particularly malignant sawyer has squatted down in the middle of the channel, and is laying for us there?”
“I doubt if sawyers often do that,” said Ed, meditatively.
“Well, but suppose one cantankerous old sawyer should do so,” insisted Irv. “You can ‘suppose a case’ and make a sawyer anywhere you please, can’t you?”
Everybody laughed. Then Ed said: “Now listen to me, boys. I’ve been getting together all the books I can borrow that tell anything about the country we’re going through, and I’ll have them all on board. My plan is to lie on my back in the shade somewhere and read them while you fellows pull at the oars, cook the meals, and do the work generally. Then, when you happen to have a little leisure, as you will now and then, I’ll tell you what I’ve learned by my reading.”
“Oh, that’s your plan, is it?” asked Phil.
“Yes, I’ve thought it all out carefully,” laughed Ed.
“Well, you’ll find out before we get far down the river what the duties of a flatboat hand are, and you’ll do ’em, too, ‘accordin’ to the measure of your strength,’ as old Mr. Moon always says in experience meeting.”
“But reading and telling us about it is what Ed can do best,” said Will Moreraud, “and that’s what we’re taking him along for.”
“Not a bit of it,” quickly responded Phil. “We’re taking him along to make him well and strong like the rest of us, and I’m going to keep him off his back and on his feet as much as possible, and besides – ”
“But, Phil, old fellow,” Ed broke in, “didn’t you understand that I was only joking?”
Ed asked the question with a tender solicitude to which Phil responded promptly.
“Of course I did,” he replied. “You always do your share in everything, and sometimes more. But I don’t think you understand. You know we started this thing for you. I don’t know – maybe you’ll never get well if we don’t do our best to make you – ” but Phil had choked up by this time, and he broke away from the group and went down by the river. A little later Ed joined him there and, grasping his hand, said: —
“I understand, old fellow.”
“No, you don’t; at least not quite,” replied the boy, who had now recovered control of his voice. “You see it’s this way. You and I are twins. You’re some years older than I am, of course, but we’ve always been twins just the same.”
“Yes, I understand all that, and feel it.”
“No, not all,” persisted the younger boy. “You see I’ve got all the health there is between us, and it isn’t fair. If you should – well, if anything should happen to you, I’d never forgive myself for not finding out some way of dividing health with you – ”
“But, my dear brother – ” broke in Ed.
“Don’t interrupt me, now,” said Phil, almost hysterically, “because I must tell you this so that you will understand. When we made up this scheme and you fellows chose me captain, I got to thinking how much depended on me. There was the cargo, representing other people’s money, and I was responsible for that. There was the safety of the boat and crew, and that depended upon me, too. But these weren’t the heavy things to me. There was your health! That depended on me in a fearful way. I felt that I must find out what was best for you to do and then make you do it.” He laughed a little. “That sounds funny, doesn’t it? The idea of my ‘making’ you do things! – Never mind that. I went to Dr. Gale – ”
“What for?” asked Ed, in astonishment at this new revelation of the change in Phil’s happy-go-lucky ways.
“To find out just what it would be best for you to do and not to do, in order to make you well and strong like me.” He choked a little, but presently recovered himself and continued. “I found out, and I mean to make you do the things that will save you, even if you hate me for my – ”
He could say no more. There was no need. Ed, with his ready mind and big, generous heart, understood, though he wondered. He grasped his brother’s hand again and said, between something like sobs: —
“And I’ll obey you, Phil! Thank you, and God bless you! Be sure I could never hate you or do anything but love you, and you must always know that I understand.”
Then the two turned away from each other.
On their return to Vevay a few evenings later, Ed said to his mother: —
“You were right, mother; responsibility has already worked a miracle in Phil’s character.”
“No, you are wrong,” said the wise mother. “It is only that you have never quite understood your brother until now. Nothing really changes character – at least nothing changes it suddenly. Circumstances do not alter the character of men or women or boys. They only call out what is already there. Responsibility and his great affection for you have not changed your brother in the least. They have only served to make you acquainted with him as you never were before.”
“Be very sure I shall never misunderstand him again!” said the boy, with an earnestness not to be mistaken.
CHAPTER VI
THE PILOT
The boys went hurriedly back to Vevay. They had cargo enough and to spare. Indeed, they feared they might have difficulty in bestowing it all on their boat. And the rise in the river was coming even earlier and faster than Phil had calculated. They must get the Vevay part of their load on board and drop down to Craig’s Landing before the water should reach their freight there, which lay near the river. So they hired a farm hand to watch the goods at the landing and hastened to town.
There they worked like beavers, getting cargo aboard, for it was no part of their plan to waste money hiring anybody to do for them anything that they could do for themselves. They loaded the boat under Perry Raymond’s supervision, for even the tightest and stiffest boat can be made to leak like a sieve if badly loaded.
Finally, everything was ready. The town part of the cargo was well bestowed. Ed Lowry had deposited his books on top of tiers of hay bales, in between barrels, and in every other available space, for there was no room for them in the little cabin at the stern, where the boys must cook, eat, sleep, and live. The cabin wasn’t over twelve feet by ten in dimensions, and a large part of its space was taken up by the six sleeping-bunks. For besides themselves there was a pilot to be provided for.
His name was Jim Hughes. Beyond that nobody knew anything about him. He had come to Vevay, from nowhere in particular, only a few days before the flatboat’s departure, and asked to be taken as pilot. He was willing to go in that capacity without wages. He wanted “to get down the river,” he said, and professed to know the