THE FERRY AT DECKER
Is it an illusion of romance, merely, or is it true that, in spite of
the fact that the French, governmentally speaking, have been out of old
Vincennes—the very region of it—for over a hundred and fifty years, and
that nearly all we know of the town of twenty thousand has come into
existence in the last fifty years, there still exists in it, hovers over
it, the atmosphere of old France? Do we see, always, what we would like
to see, or is there something in this matter of predisposition, the
planting of a seed, however small, which eventually results in a tree of
the parent stock? I was scarcely prepared to believe that there was
anything of old France about this town—it seemed quite too much to ask,
and yet rolling leisurely through these streets, it seemed to me that
there was a great deal of it. The houses, quite a number of them, had
that American French Colonial aspect which we have all come to associate
with their forbears, the palaces and decorative arts of the high Louis!
France, the modifier of the flamboyant dreams of the Renaissance!
France, the mother, really, of the classic styles of England! The
cooler, more meditative and Puritan spirit took all that was best in the
dreams and super-grand taste of the France of the Kings and Emperors and
gave us Hepplewhite and Sheraton, and those charming architectural
fancies known as Georgian. Or am I wrong?
And here in Vincennes, in the homes at least, there was something
reminiscent of this latter, while in the principal streets—Third and
Second—and in the names of some of the others, there was a suggestion of
such towns or cities as Rouen and Amiens—a mere suggestion, perhaps,
some might insist, but definite enough to me. As a matter of fact,
tucked away in this southern river region of Indiana, it seemed very
French, and I recalled now that my first and only other connection with
it had been through a French woman, a girl protégé of my mother, who had
married (she was a wild, pagan creature, as I can testify) the manager
or captain of the principal fire station in the then city of twelve
thousand. Before her marriage, at Terre Haute, she had done sewing for
my mother, in our more prosperous days, and when conditions grew so bad
that my mother felt that she must get out of Terre Haute, instead of
going to Sullivan direct (I do not think her original intention was to
go to Sullivan at all) she wrote this French woman of her troubles, and
upon her invitation visited her there. For a period of six weeks, or
longer, we lived in the apartment which was a part of the fire captain’s
perquisites, and a part of the central fire station itself—the rear half
of the second floor. There must have been some unimportant connection
between this and the county jail or central police station, or both, for
in a building adjoining at the rear I remember there was a jail, and
that I could go back, if I chose, downstairs and out, and see some of
the incarcerated looking out through the bars. It was a pleasant enough
place as such things go, and my mother must have had some idea of
remaining in Vincennes, for not long after we arrived my sister and
brother and I were put in another Catholic School,—the bane of my
youthful life. This did not last very long, however, for shortly
thereafter we were taken out and removed to Sullivan. Eleven years
later, at the time of my mother’s death in Chicago, this woman, who was
then and there a dressmaker, came to cry over her coffin and to declare
my mother the best friend she ever had.
My youthful impressions of Vincennes, sharp as they may have been at the
time, had by now become very vague. I remember that from the fire tower,
where hung an alarm bell and to which we were occasionally permitted to
ascend, the straight flowing Wabash River was to be seen; also that
northward, toward Sullivan, were Merom Bluffs, where pleasure seekers
from Vincennes were accustomed to drive. My mother went once. Also, that
certain tow headed and dark girls seemed very numerous about the fire
station at night. Also that once, during our stay, there was a big fire,
and that we all arose and went out to join the great throng watching it.
Our host, the captain, was seen to mount a ladder and break in a window
and disappear in a red glow, much to my mother’s and my own horror. But
he came back alive.
In ambling about, I found the exact firehouse, enlarged and improved,
“where it has always been,” as one of the neighboring tradesmen told
me—new automobile engines and trucks in it—and then I was ready to go. I
had seen all I could hope to remember, even dimly. We hurried to a
neighboring garage, took on a store of oil and gasoline, and were off in
the twilight and the moonlight, for Evansville.
Uncertain is the outcome of all automobilists' plans forever and ever,
as with all other plans. Although we had inquired and inquired, getting
the exact way (and Franklin’s conferences on these matters were always
extended and minute) we were soon safely on the wrong road. We had been
told to make for a place called Decker, via a town called Purcell, but
soon in the shades of a fast falling night we were scuttling up a
cowpath, under dark and ghostly trees.
“How would it do to call on some squirrel or chipmunk and pay our
respects?” suggested Franklin. “They appear to be about the only people
living here.”
We decided to go back.
Once more on a fairly good road again, a mile or so back, we met a
charming milkmaid, with fine arms, pink cheeks, and two brimming buckets
of milk. Modestly, she told us we were on the wrong road.
“You should have kept the macadam road to Purcell. This goes to St.
Francisville across the river. But if you go up here a mile or two and
take the first road to your left, it will bring you to St. Thomas, and
there’s a road on from there to Decker. But it would be better if you
went back.”
“Back? Never!” I said to Franklin, as the girl went on, and thinking of
the miles we had come. “It’s a fine night. Look at the moon.” (There was
an almost full moon showing a golden tip in the eastern sky.) “Soon it
will be as bright as day. Let’s ride on. We’ll get to Evansville by
morning, anyhow. It’s only sixty miles or so.”
“Yes, if we could go straight,” amended Bert, pessimistically.
“Oh, we’ll go straight enough. She says St. Thomas is only eight miles
to our left.”
So on we went. The moon rose. Across flat meadows in the pale light,
lamps in distant houses looked like ships at sea, sailing off a sandy
coast. There were clumps of pines or poplars gracefully distributed
about the landscape. The air was moist, but so fragrant and warm! These
were the bottom lands of the White and Wabash Rivers, quite marshy in
places, and fifteen miles farther south we would have to cross the White
River on a ferry.
We sped on. The road became sandy and soft. Now and then it broke into
muddy stretches where we had to go slow. From straggling teamsters we
gathered characteristic and sometimes amusing directions.
“Yuh go up here about four miles to Ed Peters' place. It’s the big white
store on the corner—yuh can’t miss it. Then yuh turn to yer left about
three miles, till yuh come to the school on the high ground there (a
rise of about eight feet it was). Then yuh turn to yer right and go down
through the marsh to the iron bridge, and that’ll bring yer right into
the Decker Road.”
We gathered this as we were leaving St. Thomas, a lonely Catholic
outpost, with a church and sisters' school of some kind.
On and on. Riding is delightful in such a country. In lovely cottages as
we tore past I heard mellifluous voices singing in some archaic way. You
could see lighted lamps on the family tables,—a man or woman or both
sitting by reading. On doorsteps, in dooryards now and then were
loungers, possibly indifferent to the mosquitoes. The moon cleared to a
silvery perfection and lighted all the fields and trees. There were owl
voices and bats. In Ed Peters' place a crowd of country bumpkins were
disporting themselves.
“Har, har, har! Whee-oh!”
You should have heard the laughter. It was infectious.
A man outside directed us further. We came to the school, the iron
bridge in the marsh, and then by a wrong road away from Decker, but we
found it finally.
It was a railroad town. On the long steps of a very imposing country
store, lighted by flaring oil lamps, a great crowd of country residents
(all men) were gathered to see the train come in,—an event soon to
happen, I gathered. They swam in a Vierge or Goyaesque haze,—a full
hundred of them, their ivory faces picked out in spots by the uncertain
light. We asked of one the road to Evansville, and he told us to go back
over the bridge and south, or to our left, as we crossed the bridge.
“The ferry hain’t here. It may be as ye can’t get across t’night. The
river’s runnin' purty high.”
“That would be a nice note, wouldn’t it?” commented Bert.
“Well, Decker looks interesting to me,” observed Franklin. “What’s the
matter with Decker? I’d like to sketch that crowd anyhow.”
We went on down to the ferry to see.
[Illustration: THE FERRY AT DECKER]
En route we encountered a perfectly horrible stretch of road—great,
mucky ruts that almost stalled the car—and in the midst of it an oil
well, or the flaring industry of driving one. There was a great towering
well frame in the air, a plunger, a forge, an engine, and various
flaring torches set about and men working. It was so attractive that,
although up to this moment we had been worrying about the car, we got
out and went over, leaving it standing in inches and inches of mud.
Watching the blaze of furnaces for sharpening drills and listening to
the monotonous plunging of the drill, we sat about here for half an hour
basking in the eerie effect of the torches in the moonlight and against
the dark wood. It was fascinating.
A little later we came to the waterside and the alleged ferry. It was
only a road that led straight into the river—a condition which caused
Franklin to remark that they must expect us to drive under. At the shore
was a bell on a post, with a rope attached. No sign indicated its
import, but since far on the other side we could see lights, we pulled
it vigorously. It clanged loud and long. Between us and the lights
rolled a wide flood, smooth and yet swiftly moving, apparently. Small
bits of things could be seen going by in the pale light. The moon on the
water had the luster of an oyster shell. There was a faint haze or fog
which prevented a clear reflection.
But our bell brought no response. We stood here between bushes and trees
admiring the misty, pearly river, but we wanted to get on, too. On the
other side was a town. You could hear laughing voices occasionally, and
scraps of piano playing or a voice singing, but the immediate shore line
was dark. I seized the rope again and clanged and clanged “like a house
afire,” Bert said.
Still no response.
“Maybe they don’t run at night,” suggested Bert.
“He said the water might be too high,” commented Franklin. “It looks
simple enough.”
Once more I pulled the bell.
Then after another drift of moments there was a faint sound as of
scraping chains or oars, and after a few moments more, a low something
began to outline itself in the mist. It was a flat boat and it was
coming, rigged to an overhead wire and propelled by the water. It was
coming quite fast, I thought. Soon it was off shore and one of the two
men aboard—an old man and a young one—was doing something with the rear
chain, pulling the boat farther upstream, nearer the wire.
“Git that end pole out of the way,” called the older of the two men, the
one nearer us, and then the long, flat dish scraped the shore and they
were pushing it far inland with poles to make it fast.
“What’s the matter? Couldn’t you hear the bell?” I inquired jocundly.
“Yes, I heard the bell, all right,” replied the older man truculently.
“This here boat ain’t supposed to run nights anyhow in this here flood.
Y'can’t tell what’ll happen, logs and drifts comin' down. We’ve lost
three automobiles in her already as it is.”
I speculated nervously as to that while he grumbled and fussed.
“Hook ’er up tight,” he called to his assistant. “She might slip out
yet.”
“But up at Decker,” I added mischievously, “they said you ran all
night.”
“They said! They said! Whadda they know about this here ferry? I’m
runnin' this, I guess. Havin' to git out here nights, tar-erd (he was
meaning tired) as I am, an' take this thing back an' forth. I’m gittin'
sick on it. I hain’t got to do it.”
“I know,” observed Franklin, “but we’re very anxious to get across
tonight. We have to be in Evansville by morning anyhow.”
“Well, I don’t know nothin' about that. All I know is everybody’s in a
all-fired hurry to git across.”
“Well, that’s all right now, doctor,” I soothed. “We’ll fix this up on
the other side. You just take us over like a good sort.”
The aroma of a tip seemed to soothe him a little.
“Be keerful how you run that car,” he commented to Bert. “One feller ran
his car on an' up-ended this thing an' off he went. We never did get the
machine out. She was carried on down stream.”
Bert manœuvred the car very gingerly. Then we poled off in the
moonlight, and I could see plainly that there was a flood. We were slow
getting out to where the main current was, but once there its speed
shocked me. A vast, sullen volume of water was pouring down—on and away
into the Wabash, the Ohio, the Mississippi, the Gulf. I was thinking how
wonderful water is anyhow—out of the unknown, into the unknown, like
ourselves, it comes and goes. And here, like petty actors in a passing
play, we were crossing under the moon—the water as much a passing actor
as any of us.
“Better pay out more at the stern there,” called the old man to his
helper. “She’s pushin' her pretty hard.”
The water was fairly boiling along the upstream side.
“At any minute now,” he continued, “a bundle of drift or logs or weeds
is like to come along and foul us, and then if that there wire gave way,
where’d we be?”
I felt a little uncomfortable at the thought, I confess—Franklin’s good
machine, his inability to swim, the eddying swiftness of this stream.
Fortunately, at this rate, the center was soon passed and we began to
near the other shore. The current drove us up into a deep-cut shallow
inlet, where they poled the punt close to shore and fastened it.
Then Bert had to make a swift run with the machine, for just beyond the
end of the boat was a steep incline up which we all had to clamber.
“Don’t let ’er slip back on yer,” he cautioned. “If yer do, she’s like
to go back in the water” ... and Bert sent “her” snorting uphill.
We paid the bill—fifty cents—(twentyfive of that being tacked on as a
penalty for routing him out “tar-erd as he was” and fifteen cents extra
for disturbing observations about drifts, lost automobiles, and the
like). Then we bustled up and through an interesting, cleanly looking
place called Hazleton (population twentyfive hundred) and so on toward
Evansville, which we hoped surely to reach by midnight.