AN ADVENTURE IN ST. LOUIS
Though the adventure with the dam shook the young sailors’ nerves
somewhat, still it served to give them increased confidence in their
boat. Distinctly, a craft that behaved so well under such trying
circumstances was worth sticking to, they argued, and not unreasonably.
When the boys saw how little shipping there was moving, they realized
that winter was coming apace, and that if they were to enjoy the balmy
South without a spell of Arctic journeying no time must be lost. A skin
of ice on the water was now a common occurrence, and it took a
considerable amount of courage to crawl out from under the warm blankets
and go on deck to wash o’ mornings.
Therefore, the stops along the Illinois River were cut as short as
possible, and only the difficulties of navigating a strange stream
prevented them from sailing at night. As it was, not a few risks that
would otherwise have been carefully avoided were taken in order to gain
time.
At Beardstown, Illinois, they came to two fine bridges across the
stream, but built too low to allow of even the “Gazelle’s” short spar
passing underneath.
The yacht was sweeping along at a merry pace, wind astern, and current
aiding. Frank, who was doing lookout duty forward, caught sight of the
up-stream bridge first, and blew a long, unmelodious note on the ship’s
fog horn.
“What do you think of that for nerve?” shouted Frank to his companions
in the cockpit aft. “Here we are, four chaps in a thirty-foot toy boat,
blowing a horn to make a thousand-ton bridge make an opening for us.”
“Yes, we’re little, I know, but oh, my!” Arthur answered. “Just give
them another blow. They are fearful slow. Guess they don’t know we’re in
a hurry.”
The yacht sped on at a splendid gait, and the draw opened none too soon,
for the “Gazelle” slid through before the great span had stopped
swinging round. She made a gallant sight, her mainsail and jigger spread
out wide wing and wing and rounded out like the cheeks of Boreas, her
round, spoon bow slipped over rather than cut through the water, and the
easy lines of her stern left but little wake behind. “His Nibs,” towing
behind, made enough fuss, however, to supply several boats many times
its size. It fairly strutted along in its importance.
The pedestrians on the footpath forgot in their interest to be impatient
at the delay caused by the opening of the bridge, and watched the yacht
flying along, more like a live creature than a thing of mere wood and
canvas.
A few hundred yards below, another bridge spanned the stream, and Frank,
still forward, blew another long, open sesame blast. In answer, the draw
began to move; so slowly, however, that the crew were troubled. It
seemed as if it would never open in time to let them through. But the
boys figured that the draw moved faster than they realized, and that the
space was wider than it seemed. They therefore held on their course, and
the “Gazelle,” appearing to understand that she was watched, fairly
outdid herself. Her crew became exhilarated, and watched with flushed
cheeks and shining eyes the water as it rushed past. “Great Scott, look
at that!” suddenly Frank shouted. “Come about, for Heaven’s sake!” The
other three looked where he pointed, and saw that the draw had stopped
moving and that it would be impossible to go through the narrow opening.
The men on the bridge, seeing the danger—it was growing each second so
terribly imminent—worked desperately to set the machinery which turned
the bridge going.
The boat was within seventy-five feet of the low trusses that would
undoubtedly shatter its spars to kindling wood and tear the sails to
rags, and still the “Gazelle” flew along, joyously careless of all save
the buoyancy of the moment. She was sailing down the right side of the
river in order to follow the motion of the draw, which was from left to
right. The pier which supported the middle span was in midstream—a
massive stone structure with a prow like the ram of a battleship;
planned, in fact, to break up and separate the ice.
“Come about, Ken, quick, or you’ll carry away your stick,” Frank waved
his arms and pointed frantically to the bridge.
Ransom paused a minute and measured the distance between his craft and
the bridge, glanced at the stone pier and hesitated. He was pale, but
outwardly calm. At last he put the tiller over to port, and the gallant
little craft swung round on her heel like a dancer—her pace slackened;
but the current and wind still carried her onward nearer and nearer the
bridge, her momentum spinning her round until she was headed straight
for the beak of the stone pier, jutting out wicked and green with river
slime. On she went, her crew watching breathlessly to see if she would
come round and tack into the wind in time. Yes, she would! No; no; yes!
Half a dozen times in as many seconds the chances changed, but still she
swept on.
Suddenly, with a bump that threw all four boys prone on the deck, she
struck the pier, and as they lay half dazed, she slid up the inclined
stone, greased, as it was, with slime, until the forward part of her
underbody was clear out of water and her stern deep in. With a jar, the
motion ceased, and then she began to slide backward. Deeper and deeper
went her stern, until it seemed as if she would dive backward. At last,
she slid off altogether, and turned round into the wind by the impact
with the pier, and began to pay off on the other tack. Ransom jumped up
and seized the tiller, amazed and delighted that the boat still held
together, and that he and his companions were uninjured. The draw now
commenced to swing again, and Ransom, watching it over his shoulder, saw
it open wider and wider till the channel was clear. Then he put the boat
about again, and she sailed calmly through the gap; Arthur at the main
sheet, Clyde tending the jib, and Frank forward as before.
A prolonged cheer rose from the men on the draw, and a faint shout came
down the wind from the people on the other bridge.
Cheer on, if the gallant little ship was not racked to pieces and
strained beyond repair.
“Arthur, get below and sound the pump,” said Ransom, anxiously. The mate
flew down the companionway, and the boys on deck soon heard the suction
of the pump and the swish of the stream thrown in the centre-board
trunk. It was a time of suspense until the sucking sound was heard that
betokened that she was dry. The good Michigan white oak held true, and
beyond some slackened stays and a broken turnbuckle, the yacht was
uninjured.
“By George, boys!” exclaimed Arthur, as he came from below, “she’s the
stuff! You can’t hurt her. She’s as sound as can be—not a seam started.”
From here on, the Illinois was plain sailing. Wafted by favoring winds
and a swift current, the “Gazelle” made fast time and reached the
Mississippi on Thanksgiving Day.
“Boys,” said Ransom, as he came up from examining the charts, “if we
have luck to-day, we’ll be sailing on the Mississippi.”
“A mighty good way to celebrate the day,” suggested the mate.
“I wonder what it looks like,” Clyde speculated.
“Oh! I think it’s very broad, and very muddy, with low banks covered
with colored people singing songs to a banjo.” This was Arthur’s
contribution.
“No, I think that we’ll find the banks lined with wood piles; with here
and there a plantation landing——”
“And boats, great flat-bottomed things,” Frank interrupted Clyde to say;
“with tall chimneys instead of stacks belching rolls of black smoke.”
“You fellows have been reading Mark Twain, and think you know it all,”
Kenneth remarked from his place at the tiller. “But where do you suppose
we are now? Look around.”
The boys had been so busy making up an imaginary river, that they did
not notice when they passed a low point and entered into what appeared
to be a wider part of the stream.
“Why, you don’t know the Mississippi when you see it. Let’s give three
cheers for it,” cried the captain.
“Hip-Hip, Hurrah!” The cheers rang out together, with a will.
“Now, three more for the boat.”
Again they rang out—undignified, perhaps, but fitting, in that they
voiced the thanksgiving which all four of the crew felt, but could not
express in words.
As the sun sank, turning the brown waters of the mighty river to crimson
and gold, the “Gazelle” dropped her anchor in a little cove and rested,
while her crew partook of mallard duck, shot during the day—their
Thanksgiving dinner.
“People said we wouldn’t be able to cross the Lake safely, eh?” said
Frank, exultingly; “and here we are anchored to the bottom of the
Mississippi. We’re the people.”
“Going to take on a pilot, Ken?” suggested Arthur.
“Sure!” returned the captain. “Who will give up his berth to him?”
“Oh, I guess we can get along without one,” Arthur interposed hastily.
“Clyde, give me some more duck.”
“This mallard is all right, Clyde,” remarked Kenneth rather
thoughtfully. “But I confess I’d swap it for a home-made pumpkin pie.”
“Now, drop that, Ken,” said Clyde, “I object to your invidious
comparisons. It isn’t a square deal to call to mind home feasts on
Thanksgiving night anyway.”
After dinner they all went on deck and looked for a long time on the
mighty river, about which they had heard and read so much, but which
none of them had seen before. The river that was to carry them to the
salt water, which, in spite of the 1,300 odd miles that lay between it
and them, seemed nearer now that they were on the direct course. It
appeared an easy thing for them to float down that great stream, and let
the resistless current carry them down to the Gulf.
The four turned in elated; a feeling that was tempered, however, by the
thought that they were far from home, and were widening the distance
between them and it at a rapidly increasing pace. Had they foreseen what
was before them on this steadily flowing, almost quiet stream, they
would have slept even less quietly.
Early morning saw them busy washing down decks, airing the bedding,
etc., while a savory odor rose on the quiet air. As soon as this
fragrance spread itself, it might be noticed that the crew accelerated
their motions, the brooms and brushes were plied with greater zeal, the
sails were raised to dry them with greater vigor, and, in fact, all the
morning chores were hastened with tell-tale rapidity.
But before any one got any breakfast—unless it was a surreptitious bite
taken by the cook himself—the anchor was tripped, the jib hauled up, all
the sail sheeted home and the run to St. Louis begun.
Sailing on the Mississippi seemed an easy thing. It was broad and deep
and smooth. Indeed, the boys were congratulating themselves on the ease
with which they had conquered the terrible “Father of Waters,”
Mississippi, when there was a crash in the cabin and a terrible bump
from below. Frank jumped down the companionway with a single leap, and
found the centre-board bobbing up and down in its trunk, and the ship’s
best china cup lying in fragments on the floor. It was resting on the
top of the trunk, the centre-board had struck a sand bar, had bobbed up
and knocked the cup to flinders.
Their overconfidence was gone in a minute, and soon they were paying the
customary tribute to that always uncertain stream—heaving the lead and
taking soundings.
The “Gazelle” got over the bar all right, but the lesson was not
forgotten.
The second day after leaving the mouth of the Illinois River they passed
under the great Eads Bridge and anchored a little below St. Louis.
“Who’s going ashore?” Clyde looked around from one to the other of his
companions. “I think it is our turn. The starboard watch ought to have a
loaf once in a while, you know.”
“Not by a jugful! Hasn’t the port watch been at the helm all day?”
Arthur was more vehement than it was necessary he should be.
“Well, we did all the dirty work; cooked the meals and washed the
dishes.” Frank was getting interested.
“Here, here, let’s quit this squabbling. We all have worked hard, and we
all want to go ashore, and each has an equal right, but some of us must
stay.” Ransom realized that quarrelling would spoil the trip quicker
than anything else.
The three stood in an attitude that said as plainly as words: “What are
you going to do about it?”
“Leave it to these.” Kenneth showed four ends of rope yarn sticking out
of his closed hand. “These yarns are of different lengths. The two that
get the shortest will have to stay aboard—the lucky two who pull the
longest can go ashore. See?”
“It goes,” the three answered.
The upshot of it was that Clyde and Frank went ashore, and the other two
remained to keep ship and do chores.
It was late when “the liberty party” returned with pockets bulging with
letters and papers, with heads full of the things they had seen, and
tongues aching to tell of them; and last, but not least, with
able-bodied appetites and stomachs ready for the meal which the
“left-behinders” had prepared.
It would be hard to tell whether the tongues or the knives and forks won
the race, but certainly both did valiant service. By way of
compensation, the starboarders washed the dishes, while the port did the
heavy looking on. Soon things were cleared away, and the hinged table
was lined with boys reading letters.
“Look at this,” said Kenneth, after a time of quiet, broken only by the
crackle of stiff paper. “I had hoped that this would show up about this
time. We need it in our business.”
It was a check for $125, and was expected to last them many weeks. The
money that Kenneth had saved for this trip had been left in his father’s
hands, to be forwarded from time to time as needed, and almost every
cent of the little hoard had its particular use.
“Well, don’t be proud,” exclaimed Arthur, “you are not the only one,”
and he flourished a money order.
Frank, too, produced one.
“We are bloated bondholders,” the captain said smiling. “But we won’t
spend it on riotous living now, or we’ll have to eat and drink
Mississippi River water later.”
Arthur was under the weather next day, so Ransom went ashore alone,
taking the precious check and money orders with him. He rather despaired
of finding any one who would identify him so that he could cash the
check; but as luck would have it, he met an acquaintance on the street
who made him all right with the bank officials at once. John Brisbane
was a pleasant fellow and knew the city thoroughly. He towed Ransom
round the town and showed him most of the sights, and even introduced
him to some Mississippi pilots. They listened to his tale of what he and
the crew had done and intended still to do with polite incredulity for a
while, but finally concluding that he was telling them a “tall story,”
they began to jeer openly.
“That’s right,” Ransom protested earnestly, a little vexed but still
smiling. “We are planning to go around the Eastern United States, and
we’ll do it, too.”
After the river men saw that he was in earnest, and that he really
intended to put the trip through, they began to tell him things about
the river: where to look for this bar, how to avoid that eddy, and where
deep water ran round the other bend. Indeed, they gave him so much
information about the Mississippi between St. Louis and New Orleans that
he was bewildered, and felt as if he were waking up from a dream wherein
some one was reading a guide-book of the river, while another called off
the soundings of the charts.
When he finally bid good-by to the pilots Ransom felt thankful to get
away with his reason intact.
Then John Brisbane showed him the Post Office, and after bidding him
good-bye and good luck, went off.
Ransom found that he had barely time to cash his money orders, and
feared that when he got on the end of the long line in the crowded
waiting-room the window would be closed before he got to it.
One by one the people stepped up to the narrow window and held what
seemed to be long conversations with the official behind the glass.
First it was a woman with a baby, which had to be held by some one else
while the mother signed her name, the baby meanwhile objecting
vigorously; then a man with a lot of bundles, which he was constantly
dropping and as often picking up, delayed the line; and then one thing
and another until Ransom, who watched the hands of the big clock
approach nearer and nearer four o’clock, fingered his money orders
nervously and grew nearly frantic with apprehension.
At last he reached the window and got his money just in time. He put it
in the inside pocket of his coat and buttoned it up, but pulled it open
again when he went over to the stamp window to buy stamps for the crew
and for himself. The crowd was unaccountably thick, and he wondered at
it, as a man was pushed against him so heavily that he grunted. The
stamps once bought, he rushed out to buy some greatly needed supplies
for the ship’s larder.
“It’s lucky I got that money,” he said to himself, as he opened the door
of a grocery shop. “We would have about starved to death if it had not
come.”
“How much is it?” Ken asked of the grocery man when the goods had been
selected.
“Three forty-eight,” was the reply.
Ransom went into his vest pocket, where he usually carried a small
amount of money for everyday purposes, and pulled up two quarters, a
nickel and two pennies.
“Fifty-seven cents,” he laughed, while the grocery man watched him
narrowly.
“Well, it is lucky that check came. What we should have done without it,
I don’t know.” He reached for his inside pocket as he spoke. “But it
did, so it’s all right. How much did you——”
He stopped in the middle of the sentence—the pocket was empty! He ran
his hand way down in—empty. He turned the pocket inside out—not a thing
in it. Then he felt each pocket in turn rapidly, then carefully—no
money. The grocery man began putting away the things which Kenneth had
bought. Ransom did not notice him, but kept up his frantic search—no
result. He stopped to think. The perspiration stood in drops on his
brow, and a leaden weight had settled down on his heart as he realized
that he had been robbed of over a hundred dollars of his earnings; every
cent of which was needed to carry him through. He felt sure that his
pocket had been picked at the Post Office. Then the thought came to him
with crushing force that he had lost the money of the other boys, and
that he would have to make it up out of what was left of his small hoard
at home.
“Perhaps I dropped it,” he thought to himself, and he rushed back to the
Post Office to see.
He searched the big room desperately, and was so evidently troubled that
the watchman asked him what he was looking for.
“I lost some money here; have you seen anything of it? I will pay a
reward.”
The man looked at him incredulously, and then laughed in his face.
“Found any money? I guess not! Why, there’s been a thousand people in
this room to-day. Found any money? Just listen to that!” He broke into a
laugh again, and turned his back on the distracted boy.
Kenneth wandered aimlessly out into the corridor, every nerve racking
with agony. As he walked along, he saw among a lot of names, titles of
departments and court rooms, “U.S. Marshal.”
“I guess I’ll ask him; he ought to know if there are pickpockets around
here, and he may help me,” and suiting the action to the word, Ransom
made for the room.
The assistant marshal, a small, keen-eyed, albeit kindly man, was just
closing the office when the boy burst in.
“I have lost some money,” Ransom began right away. “Stolen out of my
pocket, I think.”
“When?”—the question came out like a pistol shot.
“This afternoon, when I——”
“Where?” the other interrupted in the same sharp way. He acted as if he
was specially interested.
“Down-stairs, in the money order and stamp room.” Ransom was getting
even more excited—the other’s manner was catching.
“Describe it.”
Ransom paused to think a minute, and then began slowly as the
denominations of the bills came to him.
“One twenty, eight tens, four fives, two twos and a dollar bill—then,”
and he paused again, “there was besides two fives and five twos and
three fives.”
As he spoke, the marshal began fingering the combination of the safe,
his back to Kenneth; but the boy was so engrossed that he did not notice
what he was doing.
“Well, you’ve got a good memory, youngster, here’s the money.” As he
spoke, the marshal turned and handed out a bunch of bills and some
letters.
“What!” the boy exclaimed amazed, his cheeks flushing, and his breath
coming in quick gasps as he dropped into a chair. “Oh!”
“Your name is Kenneth, you said?” The official was smiling. “Well, I am
going to name my youngest Kenneth, so that he will always come out on
top—congratulate you.”
He put out his hand, and Kenneth, half dazed with his unexpected good
fortune, grasped it with both his. In his gratitude he felt the
uselessness of words; and though he tried on all the different ones he
could think of that would apply to the situation, not one of them seemed
adequate.
“How did it happen?” his curiosity made him ask at last.
“Oh, I saw a fellow in a dark corner looking over something,” the
marshal explained, “and I did not just like his looks; he must have been
a green hand to be looking at his graft in the open like that; so I went
up to him and asked him if he had found something. The fellow looked up,
saw my uniform, and got a case of cold feet right away. ‘Yes,’ he said,
half scared, ‘I found this by the money order window.’ All the same, he
still held onto the wad—he hated to give it up—so I remarked, quiet
like, ‘I guess you found it in somebody’s pocket.’ Well, I got the roll
quick enough then, and put it in the safe; but I never expected the
owner would run it to earth as quickly as you did.”
Kenneth thanked him again, and gave him a bill from the roll which he
was holding.
The marshal had to finally cut off his torrent of thanks with a short,
“Young man, this office closed an hour ago.”
Ransom from the door shouted an invitation to visit the yacht, and then
went back to the grocery man and made him do up the things he had
ordered before with elaborate care; he paid his three dollars and
forty-eight cents and went off, the most thankful boy in town.