The Last of the Flatboats. Eggleston George Cary
I think we can float the boat down the river without much need of a pilot anyhow. But as Hughes offers to go for his passage, we might as well take him along. We may get into a situation where his knowledge of the river, if he has any, will be of use to us.”
So Jim Hughes was shipped as pilot of The Last of the Flatboats.
When all was ready that gallant craft was cast loose at the Ferry street landing, and as she drifted into the strong current, there was a cheer from the boys on shore who had assembled to see their schoolmates off.
“She floats upon the bosom of the waters,” cried Irv Strong, “with all the grace of a cow learning to dance the hornpipe.”
Irv was in exuberant spirits, as he always was in fact. He was like soda water with all its fizz in it, no matter what the circumstances might be, and just now the circumstances were altogether favorable.
“I say, boys,” he cried, “let’s have a little dance on deck! Tune up your fiddle, Constant.”
Constant dived into the cabin and quickly returned with his violin, playing a jig even as he emerged from the little trap-door at the top of the steps.
Phil did not join in the dance, for he had discovered a cause of anxiety. Their pilot was making a great show of activity where none whatever was needed. From the Ferry street landing to “The Point” the current ran swiftly in a straight line, and if let alone, the boat would have gone in precisely the right direction. But Hughes was not letting her alone. With long sweeps of his great steering-oar he was driving her out dangerously near the head of the bar, now under water but still a shoal.
Phil, who was observing closely, called out: —
“I say, Jim, you must run further inshore, or you’ll hit the head of the bar.”
“Lem me alone,” said Jim. “I know the river.”
Just then the boat scraped bottom on the bar. Phil called out quickly: —
“All hands to the larboard oars! Give it to her hard!” and himself seizing the steering oar, he managed by a hair’s breadth to swing the great box – for that is all that a flatboat is – into the deep and rapid channel near the Indiana shore.
As she drifted into safe water, Phil said: —
“That’s incident number one in the voyage.”
“Yes, and it came pretty near being chapter first and last in the log-book of The Last of the Flatboats,” replied Irv Strong.
For several miles now there was nothing to do but float. But Phil was closely watching Jim Hughes and observed that that worthy made three visits to the hold, – as the cargo part of the boat is called, – going down each time by the forward ladder and not by the stairs leading to the cabin.
When the boat reached the big eddy about half a mile above Craig’s Landing, it was necessary for all hands to go to the oars again in order to make the landing.
Presently Phil observed that Hughes was steering wildly. His efforts with the steering oar were throwing the boat far out into the river, away from the shore on which they were to land, and directly toward the head of a strong channel which at this stage of water ran like a mill-race along the Kentucky shore on the farther side of Craig’s bar. Should the boat be sucked into that channel, she would be carried many miles down the stream before she could ever be landed even on the wrong side of the river, and she could never come back to Craig’s Landing unless towed back by a steamboat.
Phil, seeing the danger, asked: “Why don’t you keep her inshore?”
“None o’ yer business. I’m steerin’,” answered the pilot.
One quick, searching glance showed Phil the extent of the man’s drunkenness, – or his pretence of drunkenness, – for Phil had doubts of it. There were certain indications lacking. Yet if the fellow was shamming, he was doing it exceedingly well. His tongue seemed thick, his eyes glazed, and his walk across the deck appeared to be a mere stagger, supported by the great oar that he was wielding to such mischievous effect.
There was not a moment to be lost if the landing was to be made at all. Phil called all the boys to the larboard sweep and went to take possession of the steering-oar. Jim Hughes resisted violently. Phil, with a quietude that nobody had ever before seen him display under strong excitement, picked up a bit of board from the deck, and instantly knocked the big hulking fellow down by a blow on the head.
The man did not get up again or indeed manifest consciousness in any way. If this troubled the boy, as of course it must, he at least did not let it interfere with his duty. He had a difficult task to do and he must do it quickly. He gave his whole mind to that. The boys obeyed with a will his shouted orders to “pull hard!” then for two of them to go to the starboard oar and “back like killing snakes.” In a little while the boat swung round, and Phil called to Will Moreraud to “take a line ashore in the skiff and make it fast.” The youth did so, just in time to prevent the boat from grounding in the shoal water below the landing.
When everything was secure and the strenuous work done, the boy sank down upon the deck and called to his brother.
“See if I’ve killed him, won’t you, Ed? I can’t.”
A very slight examination showed that, while the blow from the bit of plank had brought some blood from the pilot’s head, it had done no serious damage. His stupor, it was Ed’s opinion, was due to whiskey, not to his chastisement.
Nevertheless it was a very bad beginning to the voyage, and Phil was strongly disposed to discharge the fellow then and there, and trust, as he put it, to “a good map, open eyes, and ordinary common sense, as better pilots than a drunken lout who probably doesn’t know the river even when he is sober.”
But the other boys dissuaded him. They thought that Jim’s intoxication was the result of his joy at getting off; that they could find his jug in its hiding-place and throw it overboard, – which presently they did, – and that after he should get sober, Jim’s experience in flat-boating might be of great advantage to them.
“You see,” said Ed Lowry, “we’ve taken a big responsibility. All this freight, worth thousands of dollars, belongs to other people, and I suppose half of it isn’t even insured because the rates on flatboats are so high. Think if we should lose it for lack of a pilot!”
“Yes, think of that!” said two or three in a breath.
“Very well,” said Phil. “I yield to your judgment. But my own opinion is that such a pilot is worse than none. I’ll keep him for the present. But I’ll watch him, and if he gets any more whiskey or plays us any more tricks, I’ll set him ashore once for all if it’s in the middle of an Arkansas swamp.”
The river was rising now, more and more rapidly every hour. There was three days’ work to do getting the rest of the cargo aboard and making room for it in the crowded hold. But at Ed Lowry’s suggestion the boys avoided overtaxing themselves. The energetic Swiss blood in the veins of Constant Thiebaud and Will Moreraud prompted them to favor long hours for work on the plea that they could make it up by rest while floating down the river.
But under Ed’s advice Phil overruled them, and it was decided to breakfast at six o’clock, work from seven to twelve, dine, rest for an hour, and work again till five.
CHAPTER VII
TALKING
The pleasantest part of the day, under this arrangement, was that between five o’clock and bedtime.
The boys talked then, and talking is about the very best thing that anybody ever does. It is by talk that we come to know those about us and make ourselves known to them. It is by talk that we learn to like our fellows, by learning what there is in them worth liking. And it is by talk mainly that we find out what we think and correct our thinking.
Ed Lowry was reading a book one day, when suddenly he looked up and said: —
“I say, fellows, this is good. Lord Macaulay said he never knew what he thought about any subject until he had talked about it. Of course that’s