came to. But dey don't! Some o' de bes' _believes_ dey believes, dat's
all. Oh, I 'llow you, lots o' white folks is got--oh, Lawd! _don't_
spile my breas'-han'kercheh!--is got mo' feelin's dan some niggehs; but
lots o' niggehs is got _lots_ mo' feelin's dan some white folks. Mo' an'
betteh! Now, my sisteh, my yalleh sisteh----"
"Oh, never mind, there's the rising gong! I know your yellow sister must
have had feelings. Tell about Phyllis--and the Courteneys--and the
_Quakeress_."
"Well, I will! Yo' plumb sot on gitt'n' de thing, an'----"
"Yes, and it's not a fit story for me to ask _him_ about and you know
I'll ask him if I have to! And besides, I just know mom-a's told you to
keep me off the hurricane roof any way you can and as long as you
can--listen! the big bell! we're meeting a boat, maybe half a dozen! And
we're passing to labboard. Come! Come on!"
At their own door they espied the passing craft: a single boat, not six;
a tiny, cabinless, one-funnelled, unclean, crawling thing, dimly made
out in the early dusk of the forested shore which it servilely hugged as
if doing all it could to hide its grimy name and identity.
"The _Fly-up-the-Creek_!" gasped Ramsey. "Oh, that _can't_ be all!" She
sprang up a stair, dragging the old woman after, and on the
hurricane-deck, near a paddle-box, stood for a moment in the wide glory
of water, land, and early sky, agape again at the squalid object. Then,
as the full humor of the thing struck her--but her behavior may as well
go undescribed. Yet it could not have been so very bad, for the pilot
high above at the wheel, Watson's "partner," glancing down from his side
window, enjoyed it much; silently, it is true, unsmilingly; yet so
heartily that he took a fresh bite of tobacco, chewed with energy, and
thought of home.
When the fit was over, old Joy had been pressed into a chair and the
theme was once more Phyllis.
"Why did they bring her to New Orleans?" was the question.
"Who, Phyllis? She wuz fotch down fo' to be sold."
Ramsey's gaze was roaming every sky-line, but at that word it flashed
back: "How, sold? Pop-a's told me, himself, he never in his life sold
one of his negroes!"
"Is I said he did? Is I call' heh his niggeh? Ain't I done say she wuz a
quadroom?"
"Why," laughed Ramsey, "a quadroon's a negro!"
"Not in de sight o' Gawd! My Lawd, dat's de shame on it!--dat de likes
o' my baby kin say de likes o' dat! Oh, you kin _make_ a niggeh out'n a
simon-pyo' white gal ef you dess raise heh wid de niggehs and treat heh
like a niggeh; but----"
Ramsey flushed: "Oh, I don't believe that!"
"Look hyuh, chile! I ain't choosin' to tell about dat, but--I's seen it
done! Time an' ag'in! An' Phyllis she see it done! Dat's how come
Phyllis to be de kind o' Phyllis she come to be!"
"What kind? Good, or bad? I don't want to hear about her if she was
good."
"She was bofe. But I ain't hawngry to tell about heh, naw 'bout de
_Quak'ess_." The narrator shut her lips tight.
The morning air was like a sparkling wine. Ramsey squared her slim
shoulders and drank it. The turbid waters next the sunrise showed a
marvellous lilac hue, their myriad ripples tipped with pink, silver, and
gold. Up-stream the river opened widely to the west, but the _Votaress_
bore northward across the foot of the reach, and soon it was plain that
she was about to enter a "chute," whose vividly green, low, wooded shore
on her larboard bow was a large island: an island of swamp and jungle,
ancient fastness of an Indian prophet, hiddenly swarming with all the
ravening and venomous brute, reptile, and insect life possible to the
region. Prophet's Island, it was, yet no senator, bishop, general,
judge, or squire was in sight.
Ramsey had seen it on her down trip, when the boat, as required by law
when descending the stream there, went eight miles round it in the main
river. She had heard with awe that bit of history--not this
history,--the drowning, by collision of a steamboat and a ship, of four
hundred Creek Indians who were being deported to make room for the white
man, and had felt herself grow older while she listened. But now what
unmixed raptures awaited her in the narrow short cut! The recent
presence of the _Fly-up-the-Creek_ away over here on this morning side
of the flood was made clear; she had run the chute, where she had no
right to be, coming down-stream.
"My!" cried the girl, "I wish--oh, my, my, _my_, I wish I could be five
people at once!"
For here the boat's watchman sauntered by--a boat's watchman must be a
world in himself! Yonder at the forward rail the first mate still paced
athwart the deck. By the captain's chair stood both the elder
Courteneys, their enthralling conversation all going to waste. Here
rushed and quivered all the beautiful boat, her great human menagerie
still unviewed, her cabin-boys laying her breakfast table, her
cook-house smelling of hot rolls, the miracles of machinery pulsing on
her lower deck, and down there an awful tragedy going on, with the sweet
mother playing angel--oh, my, my!--and here, up yonder, was the pilot,
by whose side one might presently look right into the narrow chute's
greenwood walls and out over their tops--"Go on, mammy Joy, I can't ever
listen to you, once we're in the chute!"
"I ain't bust'n' to tell noth'n'. Phyllis ain't belong to yo' pa, nohow.
She belong' fust to yo' grampa Hayle, same like my sisteh do, my yalleh
sisteh--aw rutheh to yo' gramma. Yo' gramma she own' a place back o'
Vicksbu'g, same like _us_ got back o' Natchez, whils' yo' grampa he
stick to de riveh, same like yo' pa do now. But yo' grampa he outlive'
yo' gramma nigh twen'y-five yeah'. An' 'bout two yeah' ayfteh yo' gramma
die' my sisteh, my yalleh sisteh, she housekeep fo' yo' grampa--a shawt
spell. Yo' ma she soon bruk dat up."
"Why, that was a funny thing for mom-a to do."
"H-it wuz a right thing! Dat's what it wuz."
"But, mammy, grandpa died before I was born!"
"An' what dat got to do wid de price o' beeswax? Yo' a-mixin' me up
a-puppose! Afo' yo' grampa die'--well, I'll stop tell you quits de
giggles.... Afo' he die', when Phyllis wuz growed up, an' 'bout a yeah
ayfteh y'uncle Dan--de bacheldeh--de pilot--quit de riveh a spell fo' to
run de Vicksbu'g plantation, yo' ma, down on de Natchez place, she speak
up ag'in, an' ax' yo' grampa fo' to loan Phyllis to she. An' yo' grampa,
sho' enough, sawnt heh down, bofe Phyllis an' de chile."
"Chi--you skipped! You're skipping! like fury!"
"Ef I skips I skips fo' de good o' yo' soul."
Ramsey stared. "Why did mom-a borrow her?"
"'Caze she couldn' buy heh. Yo' gramma she die' leavin' dat whole
Vicksbu'g place an' people, bawn an' unbawn, to yo' grampa, fo' to pass,
when he die', to y'uncle Dan, an' y'uncle Dan he wouldn' even 'a' loan'
Phyllis ef he could 'a' perwent. Humph-ummm! he tuck on 'bout his
'rights' like a sett'n' hen."
"But what did mom-a _want_ to borrow her for?"
"Well, I mowt say, fo' heh beauty; but ef I don't skip noth'n' I got to
say she 'llow to p'otect heh."
Ramsey stared again and suddenly fell into that soft, rippling laugh,
keen, merry, self-oblivious, which forty excusing adjectives would not
have excused to her nurse.
"Protect her from--from wha-at?" She rippled again.
"F'om herseff!--an' f'om him!--an' him f'om heh!--and de whole Hayle
fambly an' de law o' Gawd f'om bofe! An' she done it, yo' ma!--up to de
wery day he meet his awful en' in dat bu'nin' pilot-house, when----"
"Ah-h-h! what pilot-house? You never told me----"
"Anybody else eveh tol' you? No. Us Hayles-es ain't fon' o' dat story.
What I ain't tell you ain't be'n ripe to tell. I don't tell noth'n'
'tell it's ripe to tell, me!"
"Oh, it's dead ripe now. Go on, go on!--Burning pilot-house--my uncle
Dan--stop!... Hmm!... That's funny.... Why, mammy, how could he be my
uncle if he--was burnt up--before I was born?"
"Dat's yo' lookout. He wa'n't bu'nt up tell you wuz goin' on five. Yo'
mixin' his las' en' wid yo' grampa's."
"Oh, I see-ee! He was lost on the _Quakeress_!"
"Well, thaynky, ma'am! Yo' perceivin' powehs is a-gitt'n' ahead o' de
hounds. I wuz a-comin' to dat----"
Ramsey interrupted. Her cry of ecstasy was not for the breakfast bell,
which on the deck next below rang joyously up and down both guards and
died away in the ladies' cabin. It was for a vision that rose before her
and the _Votaress_; an illusion of the boat's whole speed being lost to
the boat and given to the shore. Suddenly the fair craft seemed to stop
and stand, foaming, panting, quivering like a wild mare, while the
green, gray-bearded, dew-drenched forest--island and mainland--amid a
singing of innumerable birds, glided down upon her, opening the chute to
gulp her in without a twang of her guys or a stain upon her beauty.
"Go on!" cried Ramsey, her eyes enthralled by the scene, her ears by the
story:--"Mom-a borrowed Phyllis--go on!"
"When yo' grampa gone," said Joy, "an' de will is read, yo' ma tell
y'uncle Dan fo' to neveh mine his rights aw his lef's; he kin go on
ownin' Phyllis and de chile, but, all de same, he cayn't have 'em. An'
when he paw de groun' an' th'ow dus' on his back yo' pa dess--go an' see
him. Wheneveh yo' pa dess go an' see anybody, you know----"
Ramsey knew. She tinkled with delight.
"But den come wuss trouble. 'Caze 'bout dat time----"
About that time Ramsey whisked round and stood so as to give Hugh
Courteney, as he came on deck, a square view of her young back. He
noticed her better length of skirt.
"Go on," she murmured. "Is he coming this way?"
"Co'se he ain't. He gwine up to de pilot-house."
"Humph, how _awful_ busy! That's just for grandeur. Go on." And while
the leafy jaws of the chute drew them in and all the air was suddenly
filled with the boat's sounds flung back from every rippling bough, tree
top, and mass of draping vines, the nurse went on:
"'Bout dat time yo' pa he git de hahdess ovehseeh he eveh did git, an'
you can't 'spute de fact dat yo' pa he take' natchiully to hahd men, an'
hahd men take natchiully to him. You kin say dat to his credits."
"Yes," replied Ramsey, "yes," sighing, gesticulating, whimpering in
ecstasies of sight as the walls of the watery lane cramped in to half
its first width. They seemed to rush past of their own volition, while
out beyond them on either hand the whole dense gray-green interwoven
wilderness, with ceremonial stateliness, swung round on itself in slow
time to the windy speed of the _Votaress_.
XVII
"IT'S A-HAPPMIN' YIT--TO WE ALL"
Nevertheless, "Go on!" cried Ramsey. "How could the overseer be hard on
Phyllis if Phyllis was mom-a's maid?"
"Phyllis fo'ce' him to it! 'Caze all dat time, while she sweet as roses
wid yo' ma--so's to keep in cahoots wid heh an' not have noth'n' to do
wid niggehs o' no breed, pyo', half, quahteh, aw half-quahteh--she so
wild to git back to y'uncle Dan dat she----"
"And to leave mom-a! The goosy-goosy! What for?"
"Well, for one thing, by bad luck, f'om fus' sight, de ovehseeh he
_fancy_ Phyllis. Y'un'stan'----"
"I don't! I don't want to--Go on!"
"Humph! Phyllis un'stan'. She un'stan' so well an' so quick dat de fus'
drizzly night when de rain 'u'd spile de trail--de scent--she up wid de
chile an' putt out."
"For my uncle Dan! Walnut Hills! Go on!" The moving scene was forgotten
though the chute was widening again.
"Well, de ovehseeh, o' co'se, he _got_ to run heh down an' fetch heh
back. An' same time de creeks an' bayous----"
"Oh, now, that's the same old----"
"Yass, oh, yass, de same ole! So ole an' common dat you white
folks--what has all de feelin's----"
"Now, just hush! You don't know anything about it! Go on! Go on! The
bayous were--what?"
"Bank full, dat's all. One place Phyllis an' him nigh got swep' away an'
he drap' de chile."
"Oh!... Oh!... Oh!"
"He bleeged to do it, he tell yo' ma, fo' to save Phyllis--what ain't
want'n' to be save'. Whils' de chile--wuz--de chile wuz drownded." The
old woman moved to rise, but the girl, with a new expression in her
face, prevented her.
"Go on! What did mom-a do?"
"Lawd, what could she do--widout yo' pa?"
"Oh, I'd have done something. What did Phyllis do?"
"Phyllis? Dess th'ash' de bed fo' th'ee days--eyes a-blazin' murdeh;
th'ee days and de Lawd know' how many night'. Yo' ma done one thing but
you don't want to know dat, I reckon."
"What did she do? Did she turn Whig?"
"Wuss!--ef wuss kin be. She tu'n'--dat day--Abolitionless. Ain't neveh
tell me, but--you ax heh. Mebbe it wa'n't all 'count o' Phyllis. Mebbe
it wa'n't plumb hoss-sensible nohow. But dat day-- You ax heh!"
Ramsey flashed: "What are you telling me all this for?"
"Lawd! An' how many time' is you say, 'Go on'?"
"I meant about the _Quakeress_."
"Well, ain't dis de story o' de _Quak'ess_? When----"
"Stop! I'll tell it to you. I see it all."
"You! Y'ain't see it de quahteh o' half a quahteh. Dat story is
a-happmin' yit--to we-all--on dis boat!"
The breakfast-bell rang again, and Hugh started down from the
pilot-house. But Ramsey would ask the old woman one more question: "Is
it happening to him, too?"
"Co'se, him; all o' us; twins an' all. When us brung Phyllis down de
riveh yo' ma wuz dead ag'in sellin' heh, an' when us git win' dat de
Co'teneys want' a nuss yo' pa he dat glad he snap his fingehs. 'Us'll
rent Phyllis to 'em!' he say. 'Dey's Hendry Clay Whigs; dey'd ought to
treat heh fine.' (Dat wuz his joke.) An' yo' ma make answeh: 'Ef dey
don't, us kin take heh back! Betteh dat dan sell heh! Nobody o' de Hayle
blood shayn't do dat whils' I live.'"
Hugh was near. "Good morning!" sang Ramsey. They met at the head of a
stair. She turned away and looked out beyond the jack-staff as radiantly
as if she had just alighted on the planet. The chute was astern. A new
reach of open water came, sun-gilt, to meet them, and on either hand the
low, monotonous green shores crept southward a mile apart.
She faced again to Hugh. "Isn't this God's country?"
"In a way," the youth admitted with a scant smile.
She glanced about. "Most beautiful river in the world!" she urged, and
when he faltered she cried: "Oh, you're prejudiced!" She turned half
away. "I know one thing; I wouldn't let _my_ grandfather prejudice
_me_."
A new thought struck her: "Oh!... I've just heard all about it!... And
it helps to explain--you!"
He enjoyed the personality. "Heard all about what?"
"Phyllis!" She jerked up and down. His smile vanished; his lips set; he
turned red.
Ramsey was even more taken aback than he or old Joy. She knew the pilot
was looking down on her, the mate glancing back at her. Yet she laughed
and prattled and all at once frowningly said: "But one thing I just
can't make out! What on earth had the _Hayle blood_ to do with any right
or wrong of selling Phyllis? Do you know?"
Hugh reddened worse, and in that instant, outblushing him, she saw the
truth. "Never mind!" she cried. "Oh, did I stop you? Go on!--I--I mean
go on down--to breakfast!"
"Won't you go first?"
"No, thank you; go on! Please, go on!" Glancing up to the pilot and
catching his amused eye, she pointed distantly ahead. "What is that high
bank on the--the stabboard shore?" she asked him.
"Why"--his tobacco caused but a moment's delay--"nothing much. They call
that Port Hudson."
"Thank you!" She darted below, where Hugh was already gone. As she
started she caught sight of the twins. They had just come up on the far
side of the boat and were approaching the mate. Still flushed, but
straight as a dart, at the stair's foot she turned on her attendant and
with brimming eyes said softly: "I don't want any breakfast. I'm going
to the lower deck--to find mom-a."
"You shayn't! You'll git de cholera!"
"Pooh, the cholera!--after what I've got!--I'm going to tell mom-a on
you!"
"On me--me! Good Lawd! Go on, I's wid you!"
"You'd no right to tell me that story!"
"Missie, I on'y tol' you fo' to stop you. You said yo'se'f you gwine ax
him all about it."
"Oh, him!" The girl laughed, yet showed new tears. "I don't mind him; I
mind the story! I don't even care who it's about, Hayles or no Hayles!"
"Why, den, what does you care----?"
"I care _what_ it's about." She suddenly looked older. "Oh, I'm all over
bespattered with the horrid----"
"Y'ain't. Y'ain't de sawt fo' dat. Look at yo' ma. She have bofe han's
in it. Is she all oveh bespattud?"
"Oh, you! You know nothing could ever bespatter mom-a!... I'm going to
her to get clean!"
"Dat's good!" A shrewd elation lit up the black face. "Go on! As you say
yo'se'f, go on!"
Ramsey started away but with an overjoyed gasp found herself in her
mother's arms. She pressed closer while the three laughed, and when the
other two ceased she still mirthfully clung in that impregnable
sanctuary. Suddenly she hearkened, tossed her curls, and stood very
straight. Two male voices were coming down the stairs.
"We cannot," said one, "submit to this alive!"
"Yes," said the other, "we can. It's just _we who_ can--till the day we
catch them where they've got us to-day!"
"And what, now, is this?" smilingly inquired Madame Hayle as her twin
sons halted before her.
The young men uncovered. They were surprisingly presentable after the
night they had spent. Julian, in particular, looked capable and proud of
their waywardness.
"Good morning," put in Ramsey, on her mother's arm. "See those little
houses up on that bank? That's Port Hudson. Up there they can see away
down the river, past Prophet's Island, and at the same time away
up-stream. If we were on the hurric--" She made a start, but her mother,
while addressing the twins, restrained her.
"Well," she asked, "you cannot submit--to what?"
"We are ordered ashore!" said Julian.
"At the next landing!" quavered Lucian--"Bayou Sara!"
Ramsey slipped from her mother and gazed at the twins with her eyes as
large as theirs. "You shan't go!" she broke in. "Where's Hugh?" She
darted for the cabin, old Joy following. Julian glared after them.
"See?" he said to his mother. "You don't see--the plot? It's a plot!--to
compromise us!--you and her included!"
"Before this boat-load of witnesses!" chimed Lucian.
Him the mother waved to a remote chair. "Bring me that," she said, for a
pretext, and turned privately to Julian, speaking too swiftly for him to
reply: "Was it part of that plot that you was both on that lower deck
laz' night? No? But in the city those laz' two-three day' in how many
strenge place' you was--lower deck of the whole worl'--God only know',
eh?--unless maybe also the devil--an' the scavenger? That was likewise
part of that plot aggains' us? No? But anny'ow that comity of
seven--h-ah!"--she made a wry face--"that was cause' by the wicked
plotting of those Courteney'? An' that diztrac' you so bad this morning
that you 'ave not notiz' even that change' face on yo' brotheh?--or that
change' voice, eh? An' him he's too affraid to tell you how he's feeling
bad! As faz' as you can, take him--to his room--his bed--an' say you,
both, some prayers. He's godd the cholera."
XVIII
RAMSEY WINS A POINT OR TWO
There was half an hour yet before the first mate's watch would end.
He had risen from the captain's seat on the approach of that middle-aged
pair who in the first hour of the voyage had enjoyed seeing Hugh and
Ramsey together; a couple whose home evidently was far elsewhere--if
anywhere--and who as evidently had seen the world to better advantage
than most of the _Votaress's_ passengers. As he rose Hugh and Ramsey
came up near one of the wheels. Seeing them start directly for him, he
made a heavy show of attention to the married pair.
While the quick step of the two younger people brought them near, the
husband began to reply to the mate: "Why, to the common eye, tiresome, I
dare say. To the artist--I wonder! It's the only much-travelled river in
the world whose most imposing sight is always the boat."
"It isn't!" whispered Ramsey to Hugh. Then openly, yet decorously,
"Ahem!" she said as they lapsed into waiting attitudes. But the mate was
not to be ahemmed, and while he hearkened on to the critic she could do
no better than hammer the small of her back and smooth into it a further
perfection.
"At the same time," continued the stranger, "it's immensely interesting;
politically as to its future, scientifically as to its past." He turned
to his wife: "Look, for instance, at this bit of it right here." A
trained art in his pose and gesture caused Ramsey and old Joy to look as
he prompted. "This is Fausse Rivière Cut-off," he continued, and the
mate said it was--'False River'.
"Yes. Now, barely two generations ago"--he animatedly took Ramsey into
his glance--"this stream suddenly abandoned twenty-odd miles of its own
tremendous length and width and sprang through this two-mile cut-off."
There was such fervor in his tone, and in his wife's mien such vivacity
of interest, that the amazing event stood before Ramsey as if it had
just occurred.
"You've read books about this river!" she said.
"A few, drifting down it by flatboat."
"Oh, by Christopher!" broke out the mate, "I remember you now! Yo're
that play-actor! Yo're the man, by gad! who hauled me into yo' skiff
half roasted and half drownded when the _Quakeress_ was a-burnin'! By
George, look here! What do you want on this boat, that you ain't already
got? Name it, sir, just name it! Oh, by hokey, sir, I----!"
Smilingly the actor shook his head while his wife beamed delightedly.
"We haven't a want ungratified," he answered.
"Oh, please!" put in Ramsey, "yes, you have--one!"
"Have we, mademoiselle? Surely we have if you have."
The mate interposed. "That's a daughter of Gideon Hayle, sir--as good a
captain, by Joe, as ever took out a boat----"
The wife nodded gayly. "We know him," she said.
"Oh!" laughed Ramsey, scanning the pair up and down.
"What is it we want, worthy daughter of Gideon Hayle?" asked the
player--"you and my wife and I--and your--this is your brother, is he
not?"
Ramsey's mouth and eyes spread wide. She turned to Hugh and at sight of
his heavy face whisked round again with her handkerchief to her lips.
The mate spoke for her:
"That's Captain Courteney's son, sir."
"What Miss Hayle wants--" began Hugh----
"What _we_ want," said Ramsey----
"Yes," said Hugh, "what we want is the recall of----"
"An order," broke in the mate. "I know; my order for them two twins to
go ashore. You can't have that, Hugh."
"We can!" said Ramsey, with tears in her laugh.
"No, sir-ee!" said the mate. "Ashore they go!"
"Ashore they don't!" said Ramsey. "You just told this gentleman you'd do
anything he----"
"I'd do anything he--yes, but"--the speaker looked beyond her--"Why, Mr.
Play-actor, them two young Americans come up here a-smellin' o'
buckwheat cakes and golden syrup, when they and some others--a general
and a senator, wa'n't they?--had had some political tiff with you----"
"Oh, not political at all! There's a proposition--I had no idea it was
theirs--to land our deck passengers on----"
"On Turnbull's or Natchez Island!"
Ramsey breathed an audible amazement.
"Exactly," said the player. "Well, I had the ill luck to call their
scheme a bad name or two."
"Good! Now, sir, up they come here _a-demanding_ o' me to put you
ashore, 'where he'll get himself lynched,' says they."
"Oh, bless my soul!" cried the actor. "If that was all and you want to
please us, just let them alone."
The mate smiled to Hugh and shook his head. "It wa'n't all. _You_ know
it wa'n't. Gad, Mr. Hugh, they got to go!"
"Oh, they must not!" begged both players. A few steps away the bishop
and the judge were holding an earnest conversation with the grandfather
Courteney, and his eye tried to call the mate. But Ramsey, holding to
Hugh by his sleeve, gave the old gentleman a toss of her chin, a jerk of
her curls, and took the mate by a coat button. Her slim, silken figure
intercepting him, and his rude bulk smiling down into her upturned face
with a commanding yet amiable restiveness, made a picture to the players
and to the distant pilot, but much more than a picture to the captive
himself. He had thought he had been fending off the banter of a child,
but now, suddenly, this was not a child. A being was here not entirely
mundane nor quite supernal yet surpassing all his earlier knowledge of
feminine quality, something for which a year's hard thinking would not
have found him a definition. Holding his button, she spoke low: