"And he says he's a sinner himself," Nelia repeated, when she returned
on board her cabin-boat in the sheltering safety of Wolf Island chute,
with Mamie Caope, Parson Rasba, and the other shanty-boaters within a
stone's toss of her.
Till she was among them, among friends she trusted, she had not noticed
the incessant strain which she endured down those long, grim river
miles. Now she could give way, in the privacy of her boat, to feminine
tears and bitterness. Courage she had in plenty, but she had more
sensitiveness than courage. She was not yet tuned to the river
harmonies.
Something in Rasba's words, or it was in his voice, or in the quick,
full-flood of his glance, touched her senses.
"You see, missy, I'm a sinner myse'f!"
What had he meant? If he had meant that she, too, was a sinner, was that
any of his business? Of course, being a parson--she shrugged her
shoulders. Her thoughts ran swiftly back to her home that used-to-be.
She laughed as she recalled the deprecatory little man who had preached
in the church she had occasionally attended. She compared the trim,
bird-like perspicuity and wing-flap gestures of Rev. Mr. Beeve with the
slow, huge turn and stand-fast of Parson Rasba.
She was glad to escape the Mississippi down this little chute; she was
glad to have a phrase to puzzle over instead of the ever-present problem
of her own future and her own fate; she was glad that she had drifted in
on Mrs. Mame Caope and Jim and Mr. Falteau and Mrs. Dobstan and Parson
Rasba, instead of falling among those other kinds of people.
Mrs. Caope was an old acquaintance of her mother who had lived all her
life on the rivers. She was a better boatman than most, and could pilot
a stern-wheel whiskey boat or set hoop nets for fish.
"If I get a man, and he's mean," Mrs. Caope had said often, "I shift
him. I 'low a lady needs protection up the bank er down the riveh, but I
'low if my cookin' don't pay my board, an' if fish I take out'n my nets
ain't my own, and the boat I live in ain't mine--well, I've drapped two
men off'n the stern of my boat to prove hit!"
Mrs. Caope had not changed at all, not in the years Nelia could recall,
except to change her name. It was the custom, to ask, perfectly
respectfully, what name she might be having now, and Mrs. Mame never
took offence, being good natured, and understanding how hard it was to
keep track of her matrimonial adventures, episodes of sentiment but
without any nonsense.
"Sho!" Mrs. Caope had said once, "I disremember if I couldn't stand him
er he couldn't stand me!"
Nelia, adrift in her own life, and sure now that she never had really
cared very much for Gus Carline, admitted to herself that her husband
had been only a step up out of the poverty and misery of her parents'
shack.
"You see, missy, I'm a sinner myse'f!"
Her ears had caught the depths of the pathos of his regret and sorrow,
and she pitied him. At the same time her own thoughts were ominous, and
her face, regular, bright, vivacious, showed a hardness which was alien
to it.
Nelia went over to Mrs. Caope's for supper, and Parson Rasba was there,
having brought in a wild goose which he had shot on Wolf Island while
going about his meditations that afternoon. Mrs. Caope had the goose
sizzling in the big oven of her coal range--coal from Pittsburgh barges
wrecked along the river on bars--and the big supper was sweeter smelling
than Rasba ever remembered having waited for.
Mrs. Caope told him to "ask one of them blessin's if yo' want, Parson!"
and the four bowed their heads.
Jim Caope then fell upon the bird, neck, wings, and legs, and while he
carved Mrs. Caope scooped out the dressing, piled up the fluffy
biscuits, and handed around the soup tureen full of gravy. Then she
chased the sauce with glass jars full of quivering jellies, reaching
with one hand to take hot biscuits from the oven while she caught up the
six-quart coffee pot with the other.
"I ain't got no patience with them women that don't feed their men!" she
declared. "About all men want's a full stomach, anyhow, an' if you could
only git one that wa'n't lazy, an' didn't drink, an' wasn't impedent,
an' knowed anything, besides, you'd have something. Ain't that so,
Nelia?"
"Oh, indeed yes," Nelia cried, from the fullness of her experience,
which was far less than that of the hostess.
After they had eaten, they went from the kitchen into the sitting room,
where Rasba turned to Nelia.
"You came down the river alone?" he asked.
"Yes," she admitted.
"I wonder you wouldn't be scairt up of it--nights, and those lonesome
bends?"
"It's better than some other things." Nelia shook her head. "Besides,
you've come alone down the Ohio yourself."
He looked at her, and Mrs. Caope chuckled.
"But--but you're a woman!" Rasba exclaimed.
"Suppose a mean man came aboard your boat, and--and tried to rob you,"
Nelia asked, level voiced, "what would you do?"
"Why, course, I'd--I'd likely stop him."
"You'd throw him overboard?"
"Well--if hit were clost to the bank an' he could swim, I mout."
Nelia and the Caopes laughed aloud, and Rasba joined in the merriment.
When the laughter had subsided, Rasba said:
"The reason I was asking, as I came by the River Forks I found a little
red boat there with a man on the cabin floor shot through----"
"Dead?" Nelia gasped.
"No, just kind of pricked up a bit, into one shoulder. He said a lady
shot him because he 'lowed to land into the same eddy with her."
"But--where----?" Nelia half-whispered. "Where did he go?"
"Hit were Jest Prebol," Mrs. Caope said. "You was tellin' of him,
Parson."
"Hit were Prebol," Rasba nodded, "an' he shore needed shooting!"
"Yas, suh. That kind has to be shot some to make 'em behave
theirselves," Mrs Caope exclaimed, sharply. "If it wa'n't fer ladies
shootin' men onct in awhile, down Old Mississip', why, ladies couldn't
git to live here a-tall!"
"And women, sometimes, don't do men any good," Rasba mused, aloud, "I've
wondered right smart about hit. You see, a parson circuit rides around,
an' he sees a sight more'n he tells. Lawse, he shore do!"
The two women glared at him, but he was studying his huge hands, first
the backs and then the calloused palms. He was really wondering, so the
two women glanced at each other, laughing. The idea that probably some
men needed protection from women could not help but amuse while it
exasperated them.
"Prebol said," Rasba continued, "hit were a pretty woman, young an'
alone. 'How'd I know?' he asked. 'How'd I know she were a spit-fire an'
mean, theh all alone into a lonesome bend? How'd I know?'"
"I 'low he shore found out," Mrs. Caope spoke up, tartly, and Nelia
looked at her gratefully. "Hit takes a bullet to learn fellers like Jest
Prebol--an' him thinkin' he's so smart an' such a lady killer. I bet he
knows theh's some ladies that's men killers, too, now. Next time he
meets a lady he'll wait to be invited 'fore he lands into the same eddy
with her, even if hit's a three-mile eddy."
"Theh's Mrs. Minah," Jim Caope suggested.
"Mrs. Minah!" Mrs. Caope exclaimed. "Talk about riveh ladies--theh's
one. She owns Mozart Bend. Seventeen mile of Mississippi River's her'n,
an' nobody but knows hit, if not to start with, then by the end. She
stands theh, at the breech of her rifle, and, ho law, cayn't she shoot!
She's real respectable, too, cyarful an' 'cordin' to law. She's had
seven husbands, four's daid an' two's divorced, an' one she's got yet,
'cordin' to the last I hearn say about it. I tell you, if a lady's got
any self-respect, she'll git a divorce, an' she'll git married ag'in.
That's what I say, with divorces reasonable, like they be, an' costin'
on'y $17.50 to Mendova, or Memphis, er mos' anywheres."
"How long--how long does it take?" Nelia asked, eagerly.
"Why, hardly no time at all. You jes' go theh, an' the lawyer he takes
all he wants to know, an' he says come ag'in, an' next day, er the next
trip, why, theh's yo' papers, an' all for $17.50. Seems like they's got
special reg'lations for us shanty-boaters."
"I'm glad to know about that," Nelia said. "I thought--I never knew much
about--about divorces. I thought there was a lot of--of rigmarole and
testimony and court business."
"Nope! I tell yo', some of them Mendova lawyers is slick an'
'commodatin'. Why, one time I was in an awful hurry, landin' in 'long of
the upper ferry, an' I went up town, an' seen the lawyer, an' told him
right how I was fixed. Les' see, that wa--um-m----Oh, I 'member now,
Jasper Hill. I'd married him up the line, I disremember--anyhow, 'fore
I'd drapped down to Cairo, I knowed he'd neveh do, nohow, so I left him
up the bank between Columbus an' Hickman--law me, how he squawked! Down
by Tiptonville, where I'd landed, they was a real nice feller, Mr.
Dickman. Well, we kind of co'ted along down, one place an anotheh, an'
he wanted to git married. I told how hit was, that I wasn't 'vorced, an'
so on, but if he meant business, we'd drap into Mendova, which we done.
He wanted to pay for the divorce, but I'm independent thataway. I think
a lady ought to pay for her own 'vorces, so I done hit, an' I was
divorced at 3 o'clock, married right next door into the Justice's, an'
we drapped out an' down the riveh onto our honeymoon. Mr. Dickman was a
real gentleman, but, somehow, he couldn't stand the riveh. It sort of
give him the malary, an' he got to thinking about salmon fishin' so he
went to the Columbia. We parted real good friends, but the Mississippi's
good 'nough for me, yes, indeed. I kind of feel zif I knowed hit, an'
hit's real homelike."
"It is lovely down here," Nelia remarked. "Everything is so kind
of--kind of free and easy. But wasn't it dreadful--I mean the first
time--the first divorce, Mamie?"
"Course, yes, course," Mrs. Caope admitted, slowly, with a frown, "I
neveh will forget mine. I'd shifted my man, an' I was right down to
cornmeal an' bacon. Then a real nice feller come along, Mr. Darlet. I
had to take my choice between a divorce an' a new weddin' dress, an' I
tell you hit were real solemocholy fer me decidin' between an' betwixt.
You know how young gals are, settin' a lot by dresses an' how they look,
an' so on. Young gals ain' got much but looks, anyhow. Time a lady gits
experience, she don't set so much store by looks, an' she don't have to,
nohow. Well, theh I was, with a nice man, an' if I didn't divorce that
first scoundrel where'd I be? So I let the dress go, an' mebby you'll
b'lieve hit, an' mebby yo' won't, but I had $18.97, an' I paid my $17.50
real reg'lar, an' I had jest what was left, $1.47, an' me ready to bust
out crying, feelin' so mean about marryin' into an old walking skirt.
"I was all alone, an' I had a good notion to run down the back way, an'
trip off down the riveh without no man, I felt so 'shamed. An' theh,
right on the sidewalk, was a wad of bills, $99 to a penny. My lan'! I
wropped my hand around hit, an' yo' should of seen Mr. Darlet when he
seen me come walking down, new hat, new dress, new shoes, new silk
stockings--the whole business new. I wa'n't such a bad-lookin' gal,
afteh all. That taught me a lesson. I've always be'n real savin' sinct
then, an' I ain't be'n ketched sinct with the choice to make of a 'vorce
er a weddin' dress. No, indeed, not me!"
Parson Rasba looked at her, and Nelia, her eyes twinkling, looked at the
Parson. Nelia could understand the feelings in all their minds. She had
her own viewpoint, too, which was exceedingly different from those of
the others. The strain of weeks of questioning, weeks of mental
suffering, was relieved by the river woman's serious statement and
Parson Rasba's look of bewilderment at the kaleidoscopic matrimonial
adventuring. At the same time, his wonder and Mrs. Caope's unconscious
statement stirred up in her thoughts a new questioning.
When Nelia returned on board her boat, and sat in its cabin, a freed
woman, she very calmly reckoned up the advantages of Mrs. Caope's
standards. Then seeing that it was after midnight, and that only the
stars shone in that narrow, wooded chute, she felt she wanted to go out
into the wide river again, to go where she was not shut in. She cast off
her lines and noiselessly floated out and down the slow current.
She saw Parson Rasba's boat move out into the current behind her and
drift along in the soft, autumn night. Her first thought was one of
indignation, but when a little later they emerged into the broad river
current and she felt the solitude of the interminable surface, her mood
changed.
What the big, quizzical mountain parson had in mind she did not know. It
was possible that he was a very bad man, indeed. She could not help but
laugh under her breath at his bewilderment regarding Mrs. Caope, which
she felt was a genuine expression of his real feelings. At the same
time, whatever his motive in following her, whether it was to protect
her--which she could almost believe--or to court her, which was not at
all unlikely, or whether he had a baser design, she did not know, but
she felt neither worry nor fear.
"I don't care," she shook her head, defiantly, "I like him!"