The flow of the Mississippi River is down stream--a perfectly absurd and
trite statement at first thought. On second thought, one reverts to the
people who are always trying to fight their way up that adverse current,
with the thrust of two miles perpendicular descent and the body of a
thousand storms in its rush.
There are steamers which endeavour to stem the current, but they make
scant headway; sometimes a fugitive afraid of the rails will pull up
stream; the birds do fly with the spring winds against the retreat of
winter; but all these things are trifles, and merely accentuate the fact
that everything goes down.
The sandbars are not fixed, they are literally rivers of sand flowing
down, tormenting the current, and keeping human beings speculating on
their probable course and the effect, when after a few years on a point,
they disappear under the water. Later they will lunge up and out into
the wind again, gallumphing along, some coarse gravel bars, some yellow
sand, some white sand, some fine quicksand, some gritty mud, and others
of mud almost fit to use in polishing silver.
Thousands of people in shanty-boats, skiff's, fancy little yachts, and
jon-boats, rag-shacks on rafts, and serviceable cruisers drift down with
the flood, and are a part of it.
Autumn was passing; most of the birds had speeded south when the wild
geese brought the alarm that a cold norther was coming. When the storm
had gone by, shanty-boaters, having shivered with the cold, determined
not to be caught again. The sunshine of the evening, when the wind died,
saw boats drifting out for the all-night run. Dawn, calm and serene,
found boats moving out into mid-channel more or less in haste.
So they floated down, sometimes within a few hundred feet of other
boats, sometimes in merry fleets tied together by ropes and common
joyousness, sometimes alone in the midst of the vacant waters. The
migration of the shanty-boaters was watched with mingled hate, envy, and
admiration by Up-the-Bank folks, who pretend to despise those who live
as they please.
And Nelia Carline pulled out into the current and followed her river
friend, Lester Terabon, who had gone on ahead to save her husband from
the river pirates. She despised her husband more as she let her mind
dwell on the man who had shown no common frailties while he did enjoy a
comradeship which included the charm of a pretty woman, recognizing her
equality, and not permitting her to forget for a moment that he knew she
was lovely, as well as intelligent.
She had not noticed that fact so much at the time, as afterward, when
she subjected him to the merciless scrutiny of a woman who has
heretofore discovered in men only depravity, ignorance, selfishness, or
brutality. Her first thought had been to use Terabon, play with him,
and, if she could, hurt him. She knew that there were men who go about
plaguing women, and as she subjected herself to grim analysis, she
realized that in her disappointment and humiliation she would have hurt,
while she hated, men.
The long hours down the river, in pleasant sunshine, with only an
occasional stroke of the oar to set the boat around broadside to the
current, enabled her to sit on the bow of her boat and have it out with
herself. She had never had time to think. Things crowded her
Up-the-Bank. Now she had all the time in the world, and she used that
time. She brought out her familiar books and compared the masters with
her own mind. She could do it--there.
"Ruskin, Carlyle, Old Mississip', Plato, Plutarch, Thoreau, the Bible,
Shelley, Byron, and I, all together, dropping down," she chuckled,
catching her breath. "I'm tripping down in that company. And there's
Terabon. He's a good sport, too, and he'll be better when I've--when
I've caught him."
Terabon was just a raw young man as regards women. He might flatter
himself that he knew her sex, and that he could maintain a pose of
writing her into his notebooks, but she knew. She had seen stunned and
helpless youth as she brought into play those subtle arts which had
wrenched from his reluctant and fearful soul the kiss which he thought
he had asked for, and the phrase of the river goddess, which he thought
he had invented. She laughed, for she had realized, as she acted, that
he would put into words the subtle name for which she had played.
It all seemed so easy now that she considered the sequence of her
inspired moves. Drifting near another shanty-boat, she passed the time
of day with a runaway couple who had come down the Ohio. They had dinner
together on their boat. A solitaire and an unscarred wedding ring
attested to the respectability of the association.
"Larry's a river drifter," the girl explained, "and Daddy's one of those
set old fellows who hate the river. But Mamma knew it was all right.
Larry's saved $7,000 in three years. He'd never tell me that till I
married him, but I knew. We're going clear down to N'Orleans. Are you?"
"Probably."
"And all alone--aren't you afraid?"
"Oh, I'll be all right, won't I?" She looked at the stern-featured
youth.
"If you can shoot and don't care," Larry replied without a smile.
"I can shoot," Nelia said, showing her pistol.
"That's river Law!" Larry cried, smiling. "That's Law. You came out the
Upper River?"
"Yes," she nodded.
"Then I bet----" the girl-wife started to speak, but stopped, blushing.
"Yes," Nelia smiled a hard smile. "I'm the woman who shot Prebol above
Buffalo Island--I had to."
"You did right; men always respect a lady if she don't care who she
shoots," Larry cried, enthusiastically. "Wish you'd get my wife to learn
how to shoot. She's gun shy!"
So Nelia coaxed the little wife to shoot, first the 22-calibre repeating
rifle and then the pistol. When Nelia had to go down they parted good
friends and Larry thanked her, saying that probably they would meet down
below somewhere.
"You'll make Caruthersville," Larry told her. "There's a good eddy on
the east side across from the town. There's likely some boats in there.
They'll know, perhaps, if the folks you are looking for are around.
There's an old river man there now, name of Buck. He's a gambler, but
he's all right, and he'll treat you all right. He's from up in our
country, on the Ohio. Hardly anybody knows about him. He was always a
dandy fellow, but he married a woman that wasn't fit to drink his
coffee. She bothered the life out of him, and--well, he squared up. He
gave her to the other fellow with a double-barrelled shotgun."
When Nelia ran down to the gambling boat and found Parson Rasba there,
she enjoyed the idea. Certainly the River Prophet and the river gambler
were an interesting combination. She was not prepared to find that Buck
had taken his departure and that Parson Rasba was converting the
gambling hell into a mission boat. Least of all was she prepared when
Parson Rasba said with an unsteady voice:
"Theh's a man sick in that other boat, and likely he'd like to see
somebody."
"Oh, if there's anything I can do!" she exclaimed, as a woman does.
He led the way to the brick-red little boat, the like of which could be
found in a thousand river eddies. She followed him on board and over to
the bed. There she looked into the wan countenance and startled eyes of
Jest Prebol.
"Hit's Mister Prebol," Rasba said. "I know you have no hard feelings
against him, and I know he has none against you, Missy Carline!"
An introduction to a contrite river pirate, whom she had shot, for the
moment rendered the young woman speechless. Prebol was less at loss for
words.
"I'm glad to git to see yo'," he said, feebly. "If I'd knowed yo', I
shore would have minded my own business. I'm bad, Missy Carline, but I
ain' mean--not much. Leastwise, not about women. I reckon the boys shore
will let yo' be now. I made a mistake, an' I 'low to 'pologise to yo'."
"I was--I was scairt to death," she cried, sitting in a chair. "I was
all alone. I was afraid--the river was so big that night. I was so far
away. I should have given you fair warning. I'm sorry, too, Jest."
"Lawse!" Prebol choked. "Say hit thataway ag'in----"
"I'm sorry, too, Jest!"
"I cayn't thank yo' all enough," the man-whispered. "I've got friends
along down the riveh. I'll send word along to them, they'll shore treat
yo' nice. Treat friends of yourn nice, too. Huh! 'Pologizin' to me afteh
what I 'lowed to do!"
"We'll be good friends, Jest. The Prophet here and I are good friends,
too. Aren't we, Parson?"
"I hearn say, Missy," the Prophet said, slowly, picking his words, "I
hearn say you've a power and a heap of book learning! Books on yo' boat,
all kinds. What favoured yo' thataway?"
"Oh, I read lots!" she exclaimed, surprised by the sudden shift of
thought. "Somehow, I've read lots!"
"In my house I had a Bible, an almanac, and the 'Resources of
Tennessee,' Yo' have that many books?"
"Why, I've a hundred--more than a hundred books!" she answered.
"A Bible?"
"Yes."
"Would you mind, Missy, comin' on board this boat to-night, an' tellin'
us about these books you have? I'm not educated; my daddy an' I read the
Bible, an' tried to understand hit. Seems like we neveh did git to know
the biggest and bestest of the words."
"You had a dictionary?"
"A which?"
"A dictionary, a book that explains the meaning of all the words!"
"Ho law! A book that tells what words mean, Missy. Where all kin a man
git to find one of them books?"
"Why, I've got----I'm hungry, Mr. Rasba, I must get something to eat.
After supper we'll bring some books over here and talk about them!"
"My supper is all ready, keeping warm in the oven," Rasba said. "I
always cook enough for one more than there is. Yo' know, a vacant chair
at the table for the Stranger."
"And I came?" she laughed.
"An' yo' came, Missy!" he replied.
"Parson," Prebol pleaded, "I'm alone mos' the time. Mout yo' two eat
hyar on my bo't? The table--hit'd be comp'ny."
"Certainly we'll come," Nelia promised, "if he'd just soon."
"I'd rather," Rasba assented, and at his tone Nelia felt a curious
sensation of pity and mischievousness. At the same time, she recovered
her self-possession. She demanded that Rasba let her help him bring over
the supper, add a feminine relish, and set the table with a daintiness
which was an addition to the fascination of her presence. Gaily she fed
Prebol the delicate things which he was permitted to eat, then sat down
with Rasba, her face to the light, and Prebol could watch her bantering,
teasing, teaching Parson Rasba things he had never known he lacked.
After supper she brought over a basket full of books, twenty volumes.
She dumped them onto the table, leather, cloth, and board covers, of
red, blue, gray, brown, and other gay colours. Parson Rasba had seen
government documents and even some magazines with picture covers, but in
the mountains where he had ridden his Big Circuit with such a disastrous
end he had never seen such books. He hesitated to touch one; he cried
out when three or four slipped off the pile onto the floor.
"Missy, won't they git muddied up!"
"They're to read!" she told him. "Listen," and she began to
read--poetry, prose at random.
The Prophet did not know, he had never been trained to know--as few men
ever are trained--how to combat feminine malice and spoiled power. He
listened, but not with averted eyes. Prebol, himself a spectator at a
scene different from any he had ever witnessed, was still enough more
sophisticated to know what she was doing, and he was delighted.
By and by the injured man drifted into slumber, but Rasba gave no sign
of flagging interest, no traces of a mind astray from the subject at
hand. He felt that he must make the most of this revelation, which came
after the countless revelations which he had had since arriving down the
river. There was a fear clutching at his heart that it might end; that
in a moment this woman might depart and leave him unenlightened, and
unable ever to find for himself the unimaginable world of words which
she plucked out of those books and pinned into the great vacant spaces
of his mind which he had kept empty all these years--not knowing that he
was waiting for this night, when he should have the Mississippi bring
into his eddy, alongside his own mission boat, what he most needed.
He sat there, a great, pathetic figure, shaggy, his heart thumping,
taking from this trim, neat, beautiful woman the riches which she so
casually, almost wantonly, threw to him in passing.
The corridors of his mind echoed to the tread of hosts; he heard the
rumblings of history, the songs of poets whose words are pitched to the
music of the skies, and he hung word pictures which Ruskin had painted
in his imagination.
Fate had waited long to give him this night. It had waited till the man
was ready, then with a lavish hand the storehouses of the master
intellects of the world were opened to him, for him to help himself.
Nelia suddenly started up from her chair and looked around, herself the
victim of her own raillery, which had grown to be an understanding of
the pathetic hunger of the man for these things.
It was daylight, and the flood of the sunrise was at hand.
"Parson," she said, "do you like these things--these books?"
"Missy," he whispered, "I could near repeat, word for word, all those
things you've said and read to me to-night."
"There are lots more," she laughed. "I want to do something for your
mission boat, will you let me?"
"Lawse! Yo've he'ped me now more'n yo' know!"
She smiled the smile that women have had from all the ages, for she knew
a thousand times more than even the Prophet.
"I'll give you a set of all these books!" she said; "all the books that
I have. Not these, my old pals--yes, these books, Mr. Rasba. If you'll
take them? I'll get another lot down below."
"Lawd God! Give me yo' books!"
"Oh, they're not expensive--they're----"
"They're yours. Cayn't yo' see? It's your own books, an' hit's fo' my
work. I neveh knowed how good men could be, an' they give me that boat
fo' a mission boat. Now--now--missy--I cayn't tell yo'--I've no
words----"
And with gratitude, with the simplicity of a mountain parson, he dropped
on his knees and thanked God. As he told his humility, Prebol wakened
from a deep and restful sleep to listen in amazement.
When at last Rasba looked up Nelia was gone. The books were on the table
and he found another stack heaped up on the deck of the mission boat.
But the woman was gone, and when he looked down the river he saw
something flicker and vanish in the distance.
He stared, hurt; he choked, for a minute, in protest, then carried that
immeasurable treasure into his cabin.