It seemed sad to part with Willie Wallace at the depot, but things was
changed. He wasn't rollickin' and free no more, but looked serious and
busy. Havaner was a big town, so there was a lot of switchin' to do, and
Willie just said, "Good luck, boys," and disappeared sommers between
cars. Then we started up the street, goin' to the steamboat landin'.
It must have been more'n a mile; and the sun was goin' down now and we
began to wonder about the night. By and by, after inquirin' several
times, we found the street that went to the landin' and hurried down.
Well, here was a river! How could the Mississippi be much bigger? It was
twict as big as the Sangamon, or bigger, and the big sycamore trees on
the other side looked a mile away. And here was a bridge way up in the
air crossin' the river for wagons and people, and furder down a railroad
bridge, and you could look up or down the river for miles. Says I to
Mitch, "How do you like this?" Says he, "Wal, sir, I just feel as if I
could fly, I am that happy." There was lots of house boats on the shore,
where fishermen lived; there was nets stretched out on the sand; and
some wound up on reels, and there was just sloughs of row boats, and a
good many people movin' around, and some dogs barkin', and the sun was
just gettin' behind the woods on the other side of the river.
So then we began to ask when there was a steamboat to St. Louis. And a
man said, "To-night. Hey, Bill," he called to another feller, "ain't the
_City of Peoria_ goin' down to-night?" The feller called back "yes."
Mitch's eyes just glowed. He just stepped aside and I did and he said,
"Now luck is with us." Then I said, "Let's ask somebody else about the
boat, we might as well be sure." Just then a big boy came along, about
eighteen, so we asked him. He was carryin' some fish and was in a hurry,
and he said, "No boat for a week, kids," and went right on. That took
the spirit out of us. So we went to a house-boat and asked a woman who
was cookin' supper and she said she didn't know whether the St. Louis
boat was a day late or not; that sometimes it was a day late, and if it
was, it wouldn't be in till day after to-morrow. Just then her husband
came up and heard us, and he said, "'Pears to me the boat went down last
night. I can't ricollect. We don't pay much attention to the boats,
havin' our own business to watch. But," says the man, "if you go up to
the hotel, they have a time card up there; or I'll tell you, go over
there to the landing, and look on the door of the office, and see if
there ain't a time card tacked up." So we hurried over there, but some
one had torn off the card, and the office was closed. Then we went up to
the hotel.
We could see into the dinin' room and see the waitress girls carryin'
trays and the food smelt wonderful, but it was fifty cents to eat and we
couldn't afford it. Anyway we came up to ask about the boat. There was a
gray-haired little feller standin' behind the desk, and awful busy with
people comin' and goin', and we stood there tryin' to get in a word; but
just as one of us would say, "What time--" a man would step up and say:
"I'm checkin' out," or "Let me have 201 again," or somethin' like that.
Finally nobody was there and Mitch got it out, "When does the steamboat
go to St. Louis?"
The little feller didn't look at Mitch, he looked at me stiddy a long
while. Then he looked at Mitch and back again at me. And he says: "Ain't
you the son of States Attorney Kirby?" He got me so quick I couldn't say
nothin', so I says, "Yes, sir." "Wal," says he, "I thought so. You look
like him. And I believe you boys are runnin' away. I think I'll turn you
over to the policeman."
So I stood there and said to myself, "It's ended--we're done." And I was
so scared I couldn't move. And just then Mitch began to talk, and he
says: "You can't, because we just talked to him ourselves, and asked him
about the boat, and he's gone home to supper, and he knows us and knows
where we're visitin' with my aunt here in Havaner. And if you don't want
to tell us when the boat comes in so we can go down and look at her and
really see a steamboat, all right."
Just then the bus backed up to the hotel and a lot of men got out with
satchels and came hurryin' in and writin' their names in the book and
gettin' rooms and things--and while the clerk was flustered with this
business, we sneaked out.
[Illustration: "Ain't You the Son of States Attorney Kirby?"]
So then we was pretty hungry and we went back to the river, I don't know
just why. But we came to the fisherman's boat again, where the woman was
cookin' supper, and said she, "Did you find out when the boat comes?"
And we said no, but we asked her if we could have some fried fish for a
nickel and she says "yes," and asked us in, and so Mitch and me sat with
the fambly and looked out of the little winder at the river and et all
the cat fish we wanted, with corn bread and onions and things. There was
a baby at the table and his nose kept runnin' and his ma just let it;
and besides there was a little girl with hands as little as a bird's and
black eyes and a pig tail, which made her hair as tight around her head
as a drum; and besides them, two boys and a man who boarded there and
the husband. And we could see the bed to one side and some cots. They
all lived here together, right on the river, with the mosquitoes and the
flies, which was awful. And at supper the man said: "Now ain't it funny
that nobody can tell about the boat! She's comin' in to-night from St.
Louis and will land about 11, like she allus does. And she goes back
to-morrow, or the next day, I forget which. Sometimes she changes her
schedule and don't go back till Saturday--and sometimes they get up an
excursion here to go up to Copperas Creek, and then she don't go back
until that's over. But when she gets in, just ask the captain, and he'll
know for sure."
[Illustration: Looking Straight up into the Sky]
After supper, we walked out by the river. We waited till about eight
o'clock and then took a swim, and I was beginnin' to think where we was
goin' to sleep. But Mitch had decided that. There was a shed near the
shore with the slant away from the river, and Mitch says, "That's the
place. The water moccasins won't bother us there, and the mosquitoes
won't, after a bit, and we can see down the river for miles, and see
the _City of Peoria_ when she first turns the bend down there." So we
got up on the shed and lay down lookin' straight up into the sky at the
stars. It was a clear night and as quiet as a graveyard, only now and
then we heard a voice, or a dog bark, or the dip of an oar in the river.
And Mitch lay with his hands under his head lookin' up at the stars and
not sayin' anything. After a while he says: "Skeet, I told you there was
somethin' on my mind, and there is. There's more than one thing on my
mind, but I'm just wonderin' whether I'll tell you all of it or not."
"Why not?" says I.
"Because about one thing I don't know what I'm goin' to do myself, and
if I talk about it, I'm likely to say I'll do this or that, and then if
I don't you'll wonder; and I believe until I know just what I'm goin' to
do, I'd better keep still. And as far as that goes, this goin' to see
Tom Sawyer might have something to do with it. We might not come
back--or get back in time for this thing that's in my mind. Although it
don't take long to come back. And so, considerin' everything, I decided
I'd take a chance, for we must see Tom Sawyer, Skeet; it must be and it
has to be now. You see I'm a little mixed up after all; and ain't grown
folks mixed up? I never see anybody more mixed about what to do than my
pa sometimes. But I'll tell you this much, Skeet, we wouldn't be here
to-night, and we wouldn't be on our way now to see Tom Sawyer if it
warn't for one thing."
"What's that?" says I.
"Zueline," says Mitch. Then Mitch began to shake, and I knew he was
cryin', and he took his hands from under his head and put them over his
eyes, and everything was so still it scared me. Then Mitch quit shakin'
and took his hands off his eyes and looked straight up and was still for
a long while. I couldn't guess what was the matter. Had Zueline died,
maybe, or gone visitin', or quarreled with Mitch? So after a bit I says:
"Well, Mitch, you know me--I'm true blue, and I'll stand by you, and if
you want to tell me, just tell me, and I'll never peach as long as I
live."
So Mitch says: "Well, Skeet, I have a different feelin' toward you from
what I have towards Zueline. You see I don't want to protect you, or
take care of you, and of course I'd fight for you, or help you any way I
could. But it's different with Zueline--I'd die for her, and sometimes I
want to, specially if she'd die at the same time, and our funerals could
be together and we could be buried in the same grave. I have the same
feelin' about her that I have when I look at them stars, I just get full
in the throat, and don't know what I am or where I am, or what to do."
"Well," says I, "I know that, Mitch, leastways I suspicioned it--or
somethin' like it, from the way you always treated Zueline, but tell me
what in the world has happened."
"The worst has happened," says Mitch. "They've taken her away from me."
"How do you mean?" says I.
"Well," says Mitch, "the day before I came out to the farm to get you,
Mrs. Hasson came over to see ma. I was out in the yard gettin' some
kindlin' for the wood box, and I saw Mrs. Hasson coming. She never comes
to see ma, and I wondered what it could be about. So I went up-stairs
and looked down into the settin' room through the pipe-hole in the
floor and heard everything they said. And this is about it.
"Mrs. Hasson began by sayin' to ma: 'I think you have a very remarkable
boy, and I don't want to see any harm come to him, and so I've come over
here, Mrs. Miller, to talk about your boy and Zueline.' 'What's the
matter?' says ma, in a scared way. 'Nothing,' says Mrs. Hasson, 'except
I never see a boy of his age so attached to a girl, so in love with
her,' she says, 'for that's it; and it won't do.' And ma says, 'I never
noticed it. Of course I knew they played together and was little
sweethearts like children will be. All the children play together just
like lambs, as you might say.' 'Well,' says Mrs. Hasson, 'they are
lambs; Zueline is a lamb and so is Mitch. But it's clear out of the way
for children to have such a deep feelin' for each other--it scares me.
And while I don't think Zueline feels exactly the same way, it's not the
thing for a girl of twelve to be so much taken up with a little boy; nor
for a little boy to be so completely absorbed in a little girl. So I've
come over to tell you that we must work together to separate 'em; and to
begin with, I'm goin' to take Zueline away for a visit, and that will
help to break it, and by the time she gets back, it will be over or
nearly so; and if it ain't, we must work together to keep them away from
each other. Zueline can't come here any more; and Mitchie mustn't come
to our house, and they mustn't go to parties where they meet.' So ma
said she thought so too."
Here Mitch grew still and he began to shake again, and I just lay there
and looked at the stars and waited. Finally Mitch started again:
"Skeet, when I heard this, I grew cold all over--my whole body got
prickly, my brain began to tingle, the sweat started out on my face, I
was just as weak as a cat. I just rolled over on my back as if I was
dead. It was just the same as if you said to a feller: 'you have just a
minute to live.' I lay there and heard 'em talk about church and a lot
of other things, and then I heard Mrs. Hasson say she had to go, and I
heard her walk out, and down the walk, and I heard the gate click. She
was gone. The thing was done. I had lost Zueline. And I'll never get
over it. It don't make no difference if I live to be a thousand years
old, I'll never get over it. I'll never love any one else; I'll never
feel the same again. And when I went down-stairs and began to carry in
the kindlin', ma came into the kitchen. And after a bit she said:
'Mitchie, I want you to do a lot in school this fall and winter. I want
you to put your mind on it, for I think you're goin' to be a man in the
world and I want you to get ready. And you mustn't waste so much time on
Zueline. She's just a little girl and you're just a little boy; and she
seems awful pretty to you now, but she ain't really pretty. She won't be
a pretty woman. I can see that now, but you can't. She's goin' to have
more or less of a hard face like her mother. And if she was the girl for
you, and I could see it, I wouldn't say this. But I know she isn't. She
won't be good enough for you. And, besides, this boy and girl business
is all foolishness and you must stop it. I've already told Mrs. Hasson
that I think it ought to be stopped.' Do you see how good ma was? She
wanted me to think it was her and not Mrs. Hasson that was interferin'.
But I was cold all through, and turned to stone like. My eyes felt hard
and tight like buttons, and I laughed--Yep, I really laughed, and said
to ma--'All right, ma. I'll obey you.' And she says: 'You're a good boy,
and I love you most to death.' So then I couldn't sleep that night, and
the next mornin' I started early for the farm, to get you to go now to
see Tom Sawyer; for when a thing like this happens, the only thing to do
is to go away, just as fur as you can."
Mitch had been talkin' slower and slower, and finally he gave a kind of
long breath, and I knew he was asleep. I crawled to the edge of the roof
and looked out at the river, at the red lanterns on the bridge which was
reflected in the water, at the river, which I could see movin' like a
tired snake, at the dark woods across the river. Then I slid back near
to Mitch and fell asleep too.