CHAPTER XIX
TWO or three days and nights went by; I reckon I
might say they swum by, they slid along so quiet and
smooth and lovely. Here is the way we put in the
time. It was a monstrous big river down there --
sometimes a mile and a half wide; we run nights, and
laid up and hid daytimes; soon as night was most
gone we stopped navigating and tied up -- nearly
always in the dead water under a towhead; and then
cut young cottonwoods and willows, and hid the raft
with them. Then we set out the lines. Next we slid
into the river and had a swim, so as to freshen up
and cool off; then we set down on the sandy bottom
where the water was about knee deep, and watched the
daylight come. Not a sound anywheres -- perfectly
still -- just like the whole world was asleep, only
sometimes the bullfrogs a-cluttering, maybe. The
first thing to see, looking away over the water, was
a kind of dull line -- that was the woods on t'other
side; you couldn't make nothing else out; then a
pale place in the sky; then more paleness spreading
around; then the river softened up away off, and
warn't black any more, but gray; you could see
little dark spots drifting along ever so far away --
trading scows, and such things; and long black
streaks -- rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep
screaking; or jumbled up voices, it was so still,
and
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-157-
sounds come so far; and by and by you could see a
streak on the water which you know by the look of
the streak that there's a snag there in a swift
current which breaks on it and makes that streak
look that way; and you see the mist curl up off of
the water, and the east reddens up, and the river,
and you make out a log-cabin in the edge of the
woods, away on the bank on t'other side of the
river, being a woodyard, likely, and piled by them
cheats so you can throw a dog through it anywheres;
then the nice breeze springs up, and comes fanning
you from over there, so cool and fresh and sweet to
smell on account of the woods and the flowers; but
sometimes not that way, because they've left dead
fish laying around, gars and such, and they do get
pretty rank; and next you've got the full day, and
everything smiling in the sun, and the song-birds
just going it!
A little smoke couldn't be noticed now, so we would
take some fish off of the lines and cook up a hot
breakfast. And afterwards we would watch the
lonesomeness of the river, and kind of lazy along,
and by and by lazy off to sleep. Wake up by and by,
and look to see what done it, and maybe see a
steamboat coughing along up-stream, so far off
towards the other side you couldn't tell nothing
about her only whether she was a stern-wheel or
side-wheel; then for about an hour there wouldn't be
nothing to hear nor nothing to see -- just solid
lonesomeness. Next you'd see a raft sliding by, away
off yonder, and maybe a galoot on it chopping,
because they're most always doing it on a raft;
you'd see the axe flash and come down -- you don't
hear nothing; you see that axe go up again, and by
the time it's above the man's head
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-158-
then you hear the k'chunk! -- it had took all that
time to come over the water. So we would put in the
day, lazying around, listening to the stillness.
Once there was a thick fog, and the rafts and things
that went by was beating tin pans so the steamboats
wouldn't run over them. A scow or a raft went by so
close we could hear them talking and cussing and
laughing -- heard them plain; but we couldn't see no
sign of them; it made you feel crawly; it was like
spirits carrying on that way in the air. Jim said he
believed it was spirits; but I says:
"No; spirits wouldn't say, 'Dern the dern fog.'"
Soon as it was night out we shoved; when we got her
out to about the middle we let her alone, and let
her float wherever the current wanted her to; then
we lit the pipes, and dangled our legs in the water,
and talked about all kinds of things -- we was
always naked, day and night, whenever the mosquitoes
would let us -- the new clothes Buck's folks made
for me was too good to be comfortable, and besides I
didn't go much on clothes, nohow.
Sometimes we'd have that whole river all to
ourselves for the longest time. Yonder was the banks
and the islands, across the water; and maybe a spark
-- which was a candle in a cabin window; and
sometimes on the water you could see a spark or two
-- on a raft or a scow, you know; and maybe you
could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one
of them crafts. It's lovely to live on a raft. We
had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and
we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and
discuss about whether they was made or only just
happened. Jim he allowed they was made, but I
allowed they happened;
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-159-
I judged it would have took too long to make so
many. Jim said the moon could a laid them; well,
that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn't say
nothing against it, because I've seen a frog lay
most as many, so of course it could be done. We used
to watch the stars that fell, too, and see them
streak down. Jim allowed they'd got spoiled and was
hove out of the nest.
Once or twice of a night we would see a steamboat
slipping along in the dark, and now and then she
would belch a whole world of sparks up out of her
chimbleys, and they would rain down in the river and
look awful pretty; then she would turn a corner and
her lights would wink out and her powwow shut off
and leave the river still again; and by and by her
waves would get to us, a long time after she was
gone, and joggle the raft a bit, and after that you
wouldn't hear nothing for you couldn't tell how
long, except maybe frogs or something.
After midnight the people on shore went to bed, and
then for two or three hours the shores was black --
no more sparks in the cabin windows. These sparks
was our clock -- the first one that showed again
meant morning was coming, so we hunted a place to
hide and tie up right away.
One morning about daybreak I found a canoe and
crossed over a chute to the main shore -- it was
only two hundred yards -- and paddled about a mile
up a crick amongst the cypress woods, to see if I
couldn't get some berries. Just as I was passing a
place where a kind of a cowpath crossed the crick,
here comes a couple of men tearing up the path as
tight as they could foot it. I thought I was a
goner, for whenever
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-160-
anybody was after anybody I judged it was me -- or
maybe Jim. I was about to dig out from there in a
hurry, but they was pretty close to me then, and
sung out and begged me to save their lives -- said
they hadn't been doing nothing, and was being chased
for it -- said there was men and dogs a-coming. They
wanted to jump right in, but I says:
"Don't you do it. I don't hear the dogs and horses
yet; you've got time to crowd through the brush and
get up the crick a little ways; then you take to the
water and wade down to me and get in -- that'll
throw the dogs off the scent."
They done it, and soon as they was aboard I lit out
for our towhead, and in about five or ten minutes we
heard the dogs and the men away off, shouting. We
heard them come along towards the crick, but
couldn't see them; they seemed to stop and fool
around a while; then, as we got further and further
away all the time, we couldn't hardly hear them at
all; by the time we had left a mile of woods behind
us and struck the river, everything was quiet, and
we paddled over to the towhead and hid in the
cottonwoods and was safe.
One of these fellows was about seventy or upwards,
and had a bald head and very gray whiskers. He had
an old battered-up slouch hat on, and a greasy blue
woollen shirt, and ragged old blue jeans britches
stuffed into his boot-tops, and home-knit galluses
-- no, he only had one. He had an old long-tailed
blue jeans coat with slick brass buttons flung over
his arm, and both of them had big, fat,
ratty-looking carpet-bags.
The other fellow was about thirty, and dressed about
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-161-
as ornery. After breakfast we all laid off and
talked, and the first thing that come out was that
these chaps didn't know one another.
"What got you into trouble?" says the baldhead to
t'other chap.
"Well, I'd been selling an article to take the
tartar off the teeth -- and it does take it off,
too, and generly the enamel along with it -- but I
stayed about one night longer than I ought to, and
was just in the act of sliding out when I ran across
you on the trail this side of town, and you told me
they were coming, and begged me to help you to get
off. So I told you I was expecting trouble myself,
and would scatter out with you. That's the whole
yarn -- what's yourn?
"Well, I'd ben a-running' a little temperance
revival thar 'bout a week, and was the pet of the
women folks, big and little, for I was makin' it
mighty warm for the rummies, I tell you, and takin'
as much as five or six dollars a night -- ten cents
a head, children and niggers free -- and business
a-growin' all the time, when somehow or another a
little report got around last night that I had a way
of puttin' in my time with a private jug on the sly.
A nigger rousted me out this mornin', and told me
the people was getherin' on the quiet with their
dogs and horses, and they'd be along pretty soon and
give me 'bout half an hour's start, and then run me
down if they could; and if they got me they'd tar
and feather me and ride me on a rail, sure. I didn't
wait for no breakfast -- I warn't hungry."
"Old man," said the young one, "I reckon we might
double-team it together; what do you think?"
"I ain't undisposed. What's your line -- mainly?"
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-162-
"Jour printer by trade; do a little in patent
medicines; theater-actor -- tragedy, you know; take
a turn to mesmerism and phrenology when there's a
chance; teach singing-geography school for a change;
sling a lecture sometimes -- oh, I do lots of things
-- most anything that comes handy, so it ain't work.
What's your lay?"
"I've done considerble in the doctoring way in my
time. Layin' on o' hands is my best holt -- for
cancer and paralysis, and sich things; and I k'n
tell a fortune pretty good when I've got somebody
along to find out the facts for me. Preachin's my
line, too, and workin' camp-meetin's, and
missionaryin' around."
Nobody never said anything for a while; then the
young man hove a sigh and says:
"Alas!"
"What 're you alassin' about?" says the bald-head.
"To think I should have lived to be leading such a
life, and be degraded down into such company." And
he begun to wipe the corner of his eye with a rag.
"Dern your skin, ain't the company good enough for
you?" says the baldhead, pretty pert and uppish.
" Yes, it IS good enough for me; it's as good as I
deserve; for who fetched me so low when I was so
high? I did myself. I don't blame you, gentlemen --
far from it; I don't blame anybody. I deserve it
all. Let the cold world do its worst; one thing I
know -- there's a grave somewhere for me. The world
may go on just as it's always done, and take
everything from me -- loved ones, property,
everything; but it can't take that. Some day I'll
lie down in it and forget it all, and my poor broken
heart will be at rest." He went on a-wiping.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-163-
"Drot your pore broken heart," says the baldhead;
"what are you heaving your pore broken heart at us
f'r? We hain't done nothing."
"No, I know you haven't. I ain't blaming you,
gentlemen. I brought myself down -- yes, I did it
myself. It's right I should suffer -- perfectly
right -- I don't make any moan."
"Brought you down from whar? Whar was you brought
down from?"
"Ah, you would not believe me; the world never
believes -- let it pass -- 'tis no matter. The
secret of my birth -- "
"The secret of your birth! Do you mean to say -- "
"Gentlemen," says the young man, very solemn, "I
will reveal it to you, for I feel I may have
confidence in you. By rights I am a duke!"
Jim's eyes bugged out when he heard that; and I
reckon mine did, too. Then the baldhead says: "No!
you can't mean it?"
"Yes. My great-grandfather, eldest son of the Duke
of Bridgewater, fled to this country about the end
of the last century, to breathe the pure air of
freedom; married here, and died, leaving a son, his
own father dying about the same time. The second son
of the late duke seized the titles and estates --
the infant real duke was ignored. I am the lineal
descendant of that infant -- I am the rightful Duke
of Bridgewater; and here am I, forlorn, torn from my
high estate, hunted of men, despised by the cold
world, ragged, worn, heart-broken, and degraded to
the companionship of felons on a raft!"
Jim pitied him ever so much, and so did I. We tried
to comfort him, but he said it warn't much use,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-164-
he couldn't be much comforted; said if we was a mind
to acknowledge him, that would do him more good than
most anything else; so we said we would, if he would
tell us how. He said we ought to bow when we spoke
to him, and say "Your Grace," or "My Lord," or "Your
Lordship" -- and he wouldn't mind it if we called
him plain "Bridgewater," which, he said, was a title
anyway, and not a name; and one of us ought to wait
on him at dinner, and do any little thing for him he
wanted done.
Well, that was all easy, so we done it. All through
dinner Jim stood around and waited on him, and says,
"Will yo' Grace have some o' dis or some o' dat?"
and so on, and a body could see it was mighty
pleasing to him.
But the old man got pretty silent by and by --
didn't have much to say, and didn't look pretty
comfortable over all that petting that was going on
around that duke. He seemed to have something on his
mind. So, along in the afternoon, he says:
"Looky here, Bilgewater," he says, "I'm nation sorry
for you, but you ain't the only person that's had
troubles like that."
"No?"
"No you ain't. You ain't the only person that's ben
snaked down wrongfully out'n a high place."
"Alas!"
"No, you ain't the only person that's had a secret
of his birth." And, by jings, he begins to cry.
"Hold! What do you mean?"
"Bilgewater, kin I trust you?" says the old man,
still sort of sobbing.
"To the bitter death!" He took the old man by
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-165-
the hand and squeezed it, and says, "That secret of
your being: speak!"
"Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin!"
You bet you, Jim and me stared this time. Then the
duke says:
"You are what?"
"Yes, my friend, it is too true -- your eyes is
lookin' at this very moment on the pore disappeared
Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of Looy the Sixteen
and Marry Antonette."
"You! At your age! No! You mean you're the late
Charlemagne; you must be six or seven hundred years
old, at the very least."
"Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done
it; trouble has brung these gray hairs and this
premature balditude. Yes, gentlemen, you see before
you, in blue jeans and misery, the wanderin',
exiled, trampled-on, and sufferin' rightful King of
France."
Well, he cried and took on so that me and Jim didn't
know hardly what to do, we was so sorry -- and so
glad and proud we'd got him with us, too. So we set
in, like we done before with the duke, and tried to
comfort him. But he said it warn't no use, nothing
but to be dead and done with it all could do him any
good; though he said it often made him feel easier
and better for a while if people treated him
according to his rights, and got down on one knee to
speak to him, and always called him "Your Majesty,"
and waited on him first at meals, and didn't set
down in his presence till he asked them. So Jim and
me set to majestying him, and doing this and that
and t'other for him, and standing up till he told us
we might set down. This done him heaps of good,
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-166-
and so he got cheerful and comfortable. But the duke
kind of soured on him, and didn't look a bit
satisfied with the way things was going; still, the
king acted real friendly towards him, and said the
duke's great-grandfather and all the other Dukes of
Bilgewater was a good deal thought of by his father,
and was allowed to come to the palace considerable;
but the duke stayed huffy a good while, till by and
by the king says:
"Like as not we got to be together a blamed long
time on this h-yer raft, Bilgewater, and so what's
the use o' your bein' sour? It 'll only make things
oncomfortable. It ain't my fault I warn't born a
duke, it ain't your fault you warn't born a king --
so what's the use to worry? Make the best o' things
the way you find 'em, says I -- that's my motto.
This ain't no bad thing that we've struck here --
plenty grub and an easy life -- come, give us your
hand, duke, and le's all be friends."
The duke done it, and Jim and me was pretty glad to
see it. It took away all the uncomfortableness and
we felt mighty good over it, because it would a been
a miserable business to have any unfriendliness on
the raft; for what you want, above all things, on a
raft, is for everybody to be satisfied, and feel
right and kind towards the others.
It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these
liars warn't no kings nor dukes at all, but just
low-down humbugs and frauds. But I never said
nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it's the
best way; then you don't have no quarrels, and don't
get into no trouble. If they wanted us to call them
kings and dukes, I hadn't no objections, 'long as it
would
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-167-
keep peace in the family; and it warn't no use to
tell Jim, so I didn't tell him. If I never learnt
nothing else out of pap, I learnt that the best way
to get along with his kind of people is to let them
have their own way.
|
|
