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STARRY FLAG SERIES
OLIVER OPTIC
[Illustration: THE SETTLEMENT.--Page 52.]
DOWN THE RIVER;
OR,
BUCK BRADFORD AND HIS TYRANTS.
BY
OLIVER OPTIC,
AUTHOR OF "YOUNG AMERICA ABROAD," "THE ARMY AND NAVY STORIES,"
"THE WOODVILLE STORIES," "THE BOAT-CLUB STORIES,"
"THE RIVERDALE STORIES," ETC.
BOSTON
LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by
WILLIAM T. ADAMS.
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the
District of Massachusetts.
COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY WILLIAM T. ADAMS.
All rights reserved.
DOWN THE RIVER.
TO
MY YOUNG FRIEND
_WILLIAM H. LOW_
This Book
IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.
PREFACE.
"DOWN THE RIVER" is the sixth of the continued stories published in "OUR
BOYS AND GIRLS," and the last of "THE STARRY FLAG SERIES." It is the
personal narrative of Buck Bradford, who, with his deformed sister, made
an eventful voyage down the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers, to New
Orleans. The writer's first book--not a juvenile, and long since out of
print--was planned during a long and tedious passage up the Father of
Waters; and it seems like going back to an old friend to voyage again,
even in imagination, upon its turbid tide.
Buck Bradford tells his story to suit himself; and the author hopes it
will also suit the young reader. Whatever moral it may contain will be
found in the reading; and the writer trusts it will impart a lesson of
self-reliance, honesty, and truth, and do something towards convincing
the young reader that it is best always to do right, whatever the
consequences may be, leaving results, in the choice between good and
evil, to take care of themselves.
However often the author may be called upon to thank the juvenile public
for the generous favor bestowed upon his books, he feels that the
agreeable duty cannot be so frequently repeated as ever to become a mere
formality; for with each additional volume he finds his sense of
obligation to them for their kindness renewed and deepened.
WILLIAM T. ADAMS.
HARRISON SQUARE, MASS.,
October 28, 1868.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
CHAPTER I.
TWO OF THE TYRANTS. 11
CHAPTER II.
FLORA BRADFORD. 21
CHAPTER III.
ON THE DEFENSIVE. 32
CHAPTER IV.
WHO IS MASTER. 44
CHAPTER V.
A BATTLE AT LONG RANGE. 55
CHAPTER VI.
SQUIRE FISHLEY. 66
CHAPTER VII.
AFTER MIDNIGHT. 77
CHAPTER VIII.
MISS LARRABEE'S LETTER. 88
CHAPTER IX.
THE HUNGRY RUNAWAY. 99
CHAPTER X.
WHAT SIM GWYNN WANTED TO SEE ME FOR. 110
CHAPTER XI.
BUILDING THE RAFT. 121
CHAPTER XII.
SQUIRE FISHLEY MAKES IT RIGHT. 132
CHAPTER XIII.
NEAR UNTO DEATH. 143
CHAPTER XIV.
WHO ROBBED THE MAIL. 154
CHAPTER XV.
THE DEPARTURE. 166
CHAPTER XVI.
DOWN THE RIVER. 178
CHAPTER XVII.
NIGHT ON THE RIVER. 189
CHAPTER XVIII.
AT THE MOUTH OF THE OHIO. 201
CHAPTER XIX.
AFTER THE EXPLOSION. 212
CHAPTER XX.
EMILY GOODRIDGE. 223
CHAPTER XXI.
FLORA AND HER PATIENT. 234
CHAPTER XXII.
THE END OF THE VOYAGE. 245
CHAPTER XXIII.
CLARENCE BRADFORD. 256
CHAPTER XXIV.
UP THE RIVER. 268
CHAPTER XXV.
TWO HOURS IN JAIL. 279
CHAPTER XXVI.
CONCLUSION. 290
DOWN THE RIVER:
OR,
BUCK BRADFORD AND HIS TYRANTS.
CHAPTER I.
TWO OF THE TYRANTS.
"Here, Buck Bradford, black my boots, and be quick about it."
That was what Ham Fishley said to me.
"Black them yourself!"
That was what I said to Ham Fishley.
Neither of us was gentlemanly, nor even civil. I shall not apologize for
myself, and certainly not for Ham, though he inherited his mean,
tyrannical disposition from both his father and his mother. If he had
civilly asked me to black his boots, I would have done it. If he had
just told me that he was going to a party, that he was a little late,
and asked me if I would assist him, I would have jumped over his head to
oblige him, though he was three inches taller than I was. I am willing
to go a step farther. If this had been the first, or even the twentieth,
time that Ham had treated me in this shabby manner, I would have
submitted. For three years he had been going on from bad to worse, till
he seemed to regard me not only as a dog, but as the meanest sort of a
dog, whom he could kick and cuff at pleasure.
I had stood this sort of thing till I could not stand it any longer. I
had lain awake nights thinking of the treatment bestowed upon me by
Captain Fishley and his wife, and especially by their son Ham; and I had
come deliberately to the conclusion that something must be done. I was
not a hired servant, in the ordinary sense of the term; but, whether I
was or was not a servant, I was entitled to some consideration.
"What's that you say?" demanded Ham, leaping over the counter of the
store.
I walked leisurely out of the shop, and directed my steps towards the
barn; but I had not accomplished half the distance before my tyrant
overtook me. Not being willing to take the fire in the rear, I halted,
wheeled about, and drew up in order of battle. I had made up my mind to
keep perfectly cool, whatever came; and when one makes up his mind to be
cool, it is not half so hard to succeed as some people seem to think.
"I told you to black my boots," said Ham, angrily.
"I know you did."
"Well, Buck Bradford, you'll do it!"
"Well, Ham Fishley, I won't do it!"
"Won't you?"
"No!"
"Then I'll make you."
"Go on."
He stepped up to me; but I didn't budge an inch. I braced up every fibre
of my frame in readiness for the shock of battle; but there was no shock
of battle about it.
"I guess I'll let the old man settle this," said Ham, after a glance at
me, which seemed very unsatisfactory.
"All right," I replied.
My tyrant turned on his heel, and hastened back to the store. Ham
Fishley's father was "the old man," and I knew that it would not be for
the want of any good will on his part, if the case was not settled by
him. I had rebelled, and I must take my chances. I went to the barn,
harnessed the black horse to the wagon, and hitched him at a post in the
yard, in readiness to go down to Riverport for the mail, which I used to
do every evening after supper.
Of course my thoughts were mainly fixed upon the settlement with the old
man; and I expected every moment to see him rushing upon me, like an
untamed tiger, to wreak his vengeance upon my head. I was rather
surprised at his non-appearance, and rather disappointed, too; for I
preferred to fight the battle at the barn, or in the yard, instead of in
the house or the store. Though my thoughts were not on my work, I busied
myself in sweeping out the horse's stall, and making his bed for the
night.
"Buck! Buck! Buck!" called Mrs. Fishley, from the back door of the
house.
She always called three times; for she was a little, snappy, snarling
woman, who never spoke pleasantly to any one, except when she had
company, or went to the sewing circle.
"Here, marm!" I replied.
"Come here; I want you!" she added, clear up in the highest tones of her
voice, which sounded very much like the savage notes of an angry wasp.
It was some consolation to know, under the peculiar circumstances, that
she wanted me, instead of "the old man," her lord and master, and that I
was not called to the expected settlement, which, in spite of my fixed
determination, I could not help dreading. Mrs. Fishley wanted me--not
her husband. She was always wanting me; and somehow I never happened to
be in the right place, or to do anything in the right way.
Mrs. Fishley believed she was one of the most amiable, self-denying,
self-sacrificing, benevolent women in the world. Nobody else believed
it. She had to endure more trials, bear more crosses, undergo more
hardships, than any other housekeeper in town. She had to work harder,
to think of more things, stagger under more burdens, than all her female
neighbors put together. If she ever confessed that she was sometimes
just a little cross, she wanted to know who could wonder at it, when she
had so much to do, and so many things to think of. Job could be patient,
for he had not her family to look after. The saints and martyrs could
bow resignedly at the stake in the midst of the flaming fagots; but none
of them had to keep house for a husband and three children, and two of
them not her own.
To make a fair and just division of Mrs. Fishley's cares, one tenth of
them were real, and nine tenths of them were imaginary; and the
imaginary ones were more real to her than the actual ones. They soured
her temper,--or, more properly, her temper soured them,--and she
groaned, complained, snarled, snapped, and fretted, from very early on
Sunday morning to very late on Saturday evening. Nothing ever went right
with her; nothing ever suited her. If a thing was one way, that was the
especial reason why it ought to have been some other way.
She always wanted her own way; and when she had it--which she generally
did--it did not suit her any better. I am inclined to think that Captain
Fishley himself, at some remote period, long before I was born, had
been a more decent man than he was at the time of which I write. If he
ever had been, his degeneracy was easily explained; for it would not
have been possible for a human being, in daily contact with such a
shrewish spitfire as his wife, to exist untainted in the poison which
floated in the atmosphere around her.
This was the woman who inflicted herself upon the world, and upon me,
though I was by no means the greatest sufferer. If the mischief had
stopped here, I could have borne it, and the world could not have helped
itself. To me there was something infinitely worse and more intolerable
than my own trials--and they were the trials of my poor, dear, deformed,
invalid sister. Tender, loving, and patient as she was under them, her
sufferings made my blood boil with indignation. If Mrs. Fishley had
treated Flora kindly, she would have been an angel in my sight, however
much she snapped and snarled, and "drove me from pillar to post." The
shrew did not treat her kindly, and as the poor child was almost always
in the house, she was constantly exposed to the obliquities of her
temper.
My mother, for several years before her death, had been of feeble
constitution, and Flora had the "rickets" when she was a babe. She was
now twelve years old, but the effects of the disease still lingered in
her frame. Her limbs were weak, her breast-bone projected, and she was
so drawn up that she looked like a "humpback." But what she lacked in
body she more than made up in spirit, in the loveliness of an amiable
disposition, in an unselfish devotion to others, in a loving heart, and
a quick intelligence. She endured, without complaint, the ill nature of
Mrs. Fishley, endeavoring, by every means in her power, to make herself
useful in the house, and to lighten the load of cares which bore down so
heavily upon her hostess.
Mrs. Fishley called me, and I hastened to attend upon her will and
pleasure, in the back room. I knew very well that it would make no
difference whether I hurried or not; I should "have to take it" the
moment she saw me. If I was in the barn, I ought to have been in the
shop; if in the shop, then I should have been in the barn--unless she
had company; and then she was all sweetness, all gentleness; then she
was all merciful and compassionate.
"What are you doing out there?" snarled she. "I've been out in the
street and into the store after you, and you always are just where no
one can find you when you are wanted."
I didn't say anything; it wasn't any use.
"Take that bucket of swill out, and give it to the pigs; and next time
don't leave it till it is running over full," she continued, in the same
amiable, sweet-tempered tones. "It's strange you can't do anything till
you are told to do it. Don't you know that swill-pail wants emptying,
without being told of it?"
"I always feed the pigs three times a day whether the pail wants
emptying or not," I ventured to reply, in defence of the pigs rather
than myself.
"There, carry it along, and don't spill it."
The pail was filled even with the brim, and it was simply impossible to
avoid spilling it.
"What a careless fellow you are!" screamed she, her notes on the second
added line above the treble staff. "You are spilling it all over the
floor! I wish you could learn to do anything like folks!"
I wished I could too; but I did not venture to suggest that if she had
not filled the pail so full, and even run it over herself before I
touched it, I might have carried it "like folks." It was no use; she
always got the better of me in an argument. I fed the pigs, as I always
did, before I went after the mail, and carried the pail back to the
shed. The door of the kitchen was open, and Mrs. Fishley was returning
to her work as I entered.
"You careless child! What do you mean by letting those cakes burn?" I
heard her cry to poor Flora, who was sitting in her arm-chair by the
cooking-stove, whereon Mrs. Fishley was baking flapjacks for supper.
"I didn't know--"
"You didn't know, you careless hussy!" exclaimed Mrs. Fishley, seizing
her by the arm, and lifting her roughly out of her chair.
"O, don't!" groaned poor Flora.
I could not stand that. I rushed into the kitchen, seized poor Flora's
tyrant by the shoulders, and hurled her half way across the room. My
blood was up to the boiling point.