MR. GILDER AND HIS RUDE RECEPTION.
After emerging from the "shanty," it did not take the solitary occupant
of the raft long to discover the nature of his new predicament. The
water was sufficiently clear for him to make out an indistinct outline
of the rock on which the raft was hung, and as the rain was still
falling, he quickly regained the shelter of the "shanty," there to
consider the situation. It did not take him long to make up his mind
that this was a case in which assistance was absolutely necessary, and
that he must either wait for it to come to him or go in search of it.
First of all, though, he must have something to eat. He had no need to
look at his watch to discover that it was breakfast-time. The
condition of his appetite told him that.
Now Winn had never learned to cook. He had regarded that as an
accomplishment that was well enough for girls to acquire, but one quite
beneath the notice of a man. Besides, cooking was easy enough, and any
one could do it who had to. It was only necessary to put things into a
pot and let them boil, or into an oven to bake. Of course they must be
watched and taken from the stove when done, but that was about all
there was to cooking. There was a sack of corn-meal in the "shanty,"
and a jug of maple syrup. A dish of hot mush would be the very thing.
Then there was coffee already ground; of course he would have a cup of
coffee. So the boy made a roaring fire, found the coffee-pot, set it
on the stove, and filled a large saucepan with corn-meal.
"There may be a little too much in there," he thought; "but I can save
what I can't eat now for lunch, and then fry it, as mother does."
Having got thus far in his preparations, he took a bucket and went
outside for some water from the river. Here he remained for a few
minutes to gaze at a distant up-bound steamboat, and wondered why he
had not noticed her when she passed the raft. Although the river
seemed somewhat narrower than he thought it should be, he had no idea
but that he was still in its main channel, and that the land on his
left was the Wisconsin shore.
Still wondering how he could have missed seeing, or at least hearing,
the steamboat, the boy reentered the "shanty." Thinking of steamboats
rather than of cooking, he began to pour water into the saucepan of
meal, which at once began to run over. Thus recalled to his duties, he
removed half of the wet meal to another pan, filled it with water, and
set both pans on the stove. Then he poured a stream of cold water into
the coffee-pot, which by this time was almost red-hot. The effect was
as distressing as it was unexpected. A cloud of scalding steam rushed
up into his face and filled the room, the coffee-pot rolled to the
floor with a clatter, and there was such a furious hissing and
sputtering that poor Winn dropped his bucket of water and staggered
towards the door, fully convinced that he was the victim of a boiler
explosion.
When the cloud of steam cleared away, the boy ruefully surveyed the
scene of disaster, and wondered what had gone wrong. "I'm sure nothing
of the kind ever happened in mother's kitchen," he said to himself. In
spite of his smarting face, he determined not to be daunted by this
first mishap, but to try again. So he wiped the floor with a
table-cloth, drew another bucket of water from the river, and resolved
to proceed with the utmost care this time. To his dismay, as he
stooped to pick up the coffee-pot, he found that it had neither bottom
nor spout, but was a total and useless wreck. "What a leaky old thing
it must have been," soliloquized the boy.
Just then his attention was attracted by another hissing sound from the
stove and a smell of burning. Two yellow streams were pouring over the
sides of the saucepans.
"Hello!" cried Winn, as he seized a spoon and began ladling a portion
of the contents from each into a third pan. "How ever did these things
get full again? I'm sure I left lots of room in them."
At that moment the contents of all three pans began to burn, and he
filled them with water. A few minutes later all three began to bubble
over, and he got more pans. Before he was through with that mush,
every available inch of space on the stove was covered with pans of it,
the disgusted cook was liberally bedaubed with it, and so was the
floor. The contents of some of the pans were burned black; others were
as weak as gruel; all were lumpy, and all were insipid for want of salt.
For a moment Winn, hot, cross, and smarting from many scalds and burns,
reviewed the results of his first attempt at preparing a meal with a
comical expression, in which wrath and disgust were equally blended.
Then, yielding to an impulse of anger, he picked up one of the messes
and flung it, pan and all, out through the open door. He was stooping
to seize the next, which he proposed to treat in a similar manner, when
a hand was laid on his shoulder, and he was almost petrified with
amazement by hearing a voice exclaim:
"Hold on, young man! One at a time is enough. It's very pleasant to
be greeted warmly, but there is such a thing as too warm a reception.
I'll allow you didn't see me coming, though if I thought you did, I'd
chuck you overboard for that caper."
[Illustration: "'Hold on, young man! One at a time is enough.'"]
The speaker, who stood in the doorway striving to remove the mess of
sticky mush that had struck him full in the breast and now covered a
large portion of his body, including his face, was a man of middle age
and respectable appearance, clad in a rubber suit and a slouched hat.
Filled with shame and contrition at this unexpected result of his
foolish action, Winn was profuse in his apologies, and picking up the
useful table-cloth that had already served him in one emergency,
stepped forward with an offer of assistance. The stranger waved him
back, and removed the greater part of the mess by taking off his rubber
coat. At the same time he said:
"There's no harm done, and worse might have happened. You might have
been pitching stove lids, or hot soup, or knives and forks, you know.
So, you see, I'm to be congratulated on getting off as well as I have.
But where is the boss of this raft, and the crew? How did you happen
to run in here out of the channel? You are not alone, are you?"
"Yes, sir," replied Winn. "I'm captain and crew and everything else
just at present--excepting cook," he added, hastily, as he noted the
stranger's amused glance at the stove and its surroundings.
"Who is cook, then?"
"There isn't any," answered Winn; "and for that reason there isn't any
breakfast, nor likely to be any, for I'll starve before I try my hand
at it again."
"There seems to be plenty of breakfast, such as it is," said the
stranger, gravely, indicating by a glance the many pans of spoiled
mush. Then seeing that the boy was really in distress, and not in a
joking humor, he added, "But let me help you set things to rights, and
then I'll see if I can't show you how to get up some sort of a
breakfast. I'm not a regular cook, as perhaps you may guess; but then,
again, I am one, in a way, as all we river-traders have to be."
"Are you a river-trader?" asked Winn.
"Yes; and there are three of us. But I'll tell you all about it, and
you shall tell me your story after we've had breakfast."
To Winn, the expeditious manner in which his recent culinary disasters
were repaired and a simple but well-cooked breakfast was made ready by
this stranger was a source of undisguised admiration. Even coffee,
clear and strong, was made in a tin can. One edge of the can was bent
into the form of a rude spout; then it was filled two-thirds with
water, and set on the stove. When the water came to a boil, half a
cupful of ground coffee, tied loosely in a bit of clean muslin, was
dropped into it, and allowed to boil for three minutes. A kind of
biscuit made of flour, water, shortening, baking-powder, and salt, well
mixed, and rolled thin, was quickly baked, first on one side and then
on the other, in an iron skillet on top of the stove. At the same time
a single cupful of corn-meal, well salted, and boiled for half an hour,
furnished a large dish of smoking mush. Half a dozen thin slices of
bacon broiled on a toaster completed what Winn enthusiastically
declared was the very best breakfast he had ever eaten. Still, the boy
was so ravenously hungry that it is probable even his own burned and
lumpy mixture of corn-meal would not have tasted so bad as it looked.
While he was busy with the breakfast, the stranger, who said his name
was Gilder, talked pleasantly on many subjects. At the same time he
managed somehow to learn all about Winn and his family, the raft and
how it happened to be where it was, without giving a single item of
information concerning himself in return.
When Winn finally declared that he could eat no more, Mr. Gilder also
pushed back his chair, and said:
"Now, then, for business. First, I must tell you that you are in a
very serious predicament. I examined the position of this raft before
coming aboard, and arrived at the conclusion that both it and its cargo
are in a fair way of becoming a total loss. As soon as the river falls
again, which it is likely to do at any time, the raft will probably
break in pieces of its own weight. In that case you would lose both it
and your wheat. The only plan I can suggest for saving the raft is to
lighten it until it floats clear of the rock on which it is hung, by
throwing the wheat overboard; or, if you can manage it, land your wheat
on the island, where it can remain until you can take it away. Of
course the decision as to which of these things you will do rests
entirely with yourself; but you must make up your mind quickly, for
with this uncertain state of water there isn't an hour to lose."