A NIGHT ON DECK.
Ben sat on a barrel, looking about him in wonder. Fifty negro
roustabouts, great sable Hercules they were--scarce half
civilized--secured and arranged the freight and ropes on deck
for their trip, talking the while a mellow-voiced gibberish that
he could but half understand. The mate, as great a savage as the
blacks, though wearing a white skin, and whose reputation was based
upon the fact of his having killed three roustabouts, directed them
something after the fashion of driving cattle. Ben thought he had a
more extensive repertoire of great big round-cornered oaths than any
blasphemy-belching monster he had ever seen or heard tell of. Our
friend wondered the darkies stood the abuse. He thought that being
freemen, brothers and voters they would have taken umbrage at the
aspersions, imprecations and anathemas hurled at them. He found they
rather liked it, and worked to the tune of the mate's profanity much
like a mule team does to the jingling bells above its hames. Previous
to the war a negro was worth more than a white man. Now a white man
is worth just as much as a black. The war elevated the white race.
To understand this matter the reader must know that these roustabout
crews are not always composed of black men. Some steamers carry mixed
crews--that is white and black men working together. Previous to the
war if a mixed crew were "up cottoning" the heavy bales gathered from
along the river and an accident occurred, followed by a splash and
the cry "man overboard!" the captain would anxiously ask, "white or
black?" If the answer was "black" the boat was stopped, life preservers
flung overboard, and every exertion made to save the unfortunate from
a stream that swallows up the strongest swimmer. If "white," however,
the captain looked relieved and sang out to the pilot, "All right! Go
ahead!" That was before the war. _Now_ no questions are asked. It is
"All right, go ahead," any way.
These hard-worked members of the lowest class of labor in the country
(one of the best paid, however) passed and repassed Ben, piling up the
bags of grain, tier upon tier, until they touched the bottom of the
deck above. On the front of the hull, out in the open air, stood the
battery of boilers, reaching back nearly to the wheel-house, the few
feet of intervening space on the guards being occupied on the port
side by the kitchen, and on the larboard by the bakery. The Argenta's
culinary department numbering a little army of thirty persons--cooks,
bakers, assistants and waiters. There were a hundred head of new milch
cows on deck, each side of the battery of boilers, going south where
they would continue to give milk for two or three years, and then dry
up like all cows in the far south. Texas, a state with more cows in it
than all the rest of the Union combined, imports her butter and cheese,
and does without milk. Back, aft of the wheel-houses, on the guards
were a lot of Missouri mules. These with a pet pig that followed the
roustabouts around, a few dogs belonging to passengers, and several
coops full of noisy chickens and geese made the boat appear to Ben
something like Noah's ark. While he was amusing himself in observing
these things, Tommy came to him. With his usual business energy Tommy
had been looking over the vessel, selecting "stowing" places and
informing himself of the clerk's movements.
"We are all safe for below Cairo, any way, Ben," said he. "The clerk
don't come around until after the boat leaves there; he's too busy. We
won't be in Cairo until to-morrow, so we needn't mind keeping out of
the way until then. Let's go back aft and see the fun."
Night had now settled on the waters. Lamps were lit and lanterns hung
about the boat. Back aft a scene that Hogarth's pencil would have
revelled in, met them. Between the mountain load of grain sacks that
occupied the center of the boat and the vessel's stern, was an open
space about thirty feet square. In the center of this stood a long
sheet-iron stove, and around this stove was gathered a motley crowd
of poverty-stricken humanity, roasting potatoes and parching corn,
purloined from the sacks. Care, want, dirt, and misery had established
themselves on their pinched faces, and the one lantern that hung in
the open space giving light to the crowd painted their tatterdemalion
coverings with fantastic effect.
"Those are dead-brokes, every one of 'em," said Tommy, "going to try to
beat the boat down. We will have lots of company."
Too much, entirely too much, thought Ben. He could have spared some
of it. Walking about the narrow limits and seated on bags, boxes, and
the floor, were a lot of migrative birds. Sailors from the Lakes, who,
having spent their summer on the great "unsalted seas," were now going
down to the Gulf to secure berths on "wind-jammers." Laborers, going
south in search of work among the compresses and on the levees. Other
professional knights of the spade and barrow, bound for the fascination
of the "dumps" and the festive "jiggers." There were several of the
gentler sex seated around. Not lone-lorn women, but women in collusion
with members of the sterner sex who were there. Wives, perhaps.
Charitably, perhaps. The yoke of wedlock is not so hard to shift on and
off in a certain class of society as it is in that to which the gentle
reader belongs, perchance.
The lady voyagers were travelling on various businesses. To "keep
shanty" at some levee camp; or pass the winter south with some
friends--not exactly a visit of pleasure either. Rather antiquated
and a trifle worse for wear they were too. But the gentlemen treated
them gallantly. Passed them the circulating bottle with a "Drink
hearty, miss! It's paid for!" and boiled coffee in pots and oyster cans
for them on the stove. Expectorating tobacco-juice and depositing
superanuated quids outside the limits of their immediate vicinity, and,
in fact, "paid them those thousand and one little attentions which
are so grateful to the gentler sex when coming from gentlemen." (The
last expression is in quotations on account of not being altogether
original.)
There was one female present whom there could be no doubts about,
however, even had she not loudly pronounced herself "A high old gal,
you bet!" several times, greatly to the edification of the crowd about
the stove, and the virtuous indignation of the members of her own sex,
who carefully withdrew their skirts from her. This woman, though young
and not ill-looking, was a "gun boat" fragment that had drifted off and
found herself on board the Argenta.
Gun boats? In every large city there is a portion of the town that
visiting officials from other cities are not driven through on
aldermanic rides of courtesy. Perhaps the local dignitaries would think
it derogatory to have a knowledge of them--perhaps they leave their
visitors to hunt up the town for themselves. So have the water-ways
of the west a floating life upon them to which we are not anxious
to introduce the reader on this trip down the river. The young lady
in question circulated among the crowd with a freedom and ease of
deportment that astonished Ben.
"It is terrible," said he to Tommy.
"It's disgusting!" replied Tom.
"And yet how many poor lost ones there are who come down this low,"
continued Cleveland.
And Tommy, growing a little pale, and looking upon the "fragment" with
loathing and pity said quietly: "Yes, man's victim has no half-way
station on the road to wreck and ruin," and the boy walked away, to the
forward part of the boat, where he sat down on a coil of rope and gazed
fixedly at the black river.
There was much drinking and subdued carousing being indulged in. Songs
were sung and jigs were danced, and the crowd seemed determined to
inaugurate their pilgrimage by a general time of festivities. The
center of attraction, however, was a negro, black as black could be,
who was conducting the fascinating game of chuck-a-luck in one corner;
a cadaverous countenanced, thin-lipped, hawk-nosed white man acting
as banker. The chuck-a-luck bank was not a very extensive affair,
consisting simply of an empty cracker box mounted on a grain sack,
with numerals from one to six inscribed upon it with chalk. Behind the
box the black dealer manipulated the dice, and at his side the white
hawk drew in the nickels and small change of those in front. Two short
stumps of tallow candles, permanently located in their own grease,
stood on the box and illuminated proceedings. This scene, peculiar to
the river, was a novel one to Ben. It was full of life and full of vice.
As the night advanced the crowd thinned. Some went to sleep on the
mountain of grain sacks. Others cleaned up a place on the floor and
lay down, while others went forward and crept under the boilers, for
their warmth. Black and white lay down together. Ben still watched
the scene, which though quieted down, was still attractive from its
novelty. The gunboat visitor having satisfied every one that she
was a "High old gal, you bet!" borrowed a nickel from a susceptible
tourist and proceeded to invest in the chuck-a-luck bank. She won,
and greeted her success with a shout of triumph that startled the
sleepers. But luck soon turned against her and she became peevish,
abusive and belligerent; claimed that the black dealer "fingered" his
dice, and suggested the propriety of dispensing with his services and
devoting his body to the flood. She became an annoyance to the game,
and the hawk tried to buy her off with a bribe of two nickels, which
she accepted, but immediately staked them on the ace. The ace lost, and
with a whoop, the damsel sent the box spinning toward the boiler-deck
by a kick, scattering dice, candles, nickels and small change in
all directions. In the crowd of tatterdemalions toasting potatoes,
and parching corn at the stove, were men of action--men who seize
opportunities. The single lantern went out in a twinkle, and in black
darkness, Ben felt a writhing, struggling, kicking mass of humanity
on the floor. Blows, yells, laughter, curses and groans filled the
confined limits of the "deck." A pistol was discharged. Some one cried,
"I'm shot!" And the mate with half a dozen watchmen appeared with
lanterns and clubs upon the scene. With the clubs they untied the human
knot on the floor. The gunboat visitor being dragged from the bottom
of the heap in a sadly demoralized condition, but stoutly clutching
a handful of curly black wool. The tatterdemalions looked still
more tattered, but happy and contented, as though they had enjoyed
themselves. The hawk and the banker arose bankrupt. All struggled
to their feet. No. Not all. One man did not move; not even after the
mate kicked him several times. They then rolled him over and pointed
out the bullet hole in his head. The man was dead. No one knew who
fired the shot, or why. No particular investigation was made. He was
a deck passenger, and what are deck passengers? Human live stock--and
not a very choice breed either. So they rolled the dead man off to
one side and at Cairo he received about fifteen minutes' attention
from a coroner's jury, (who made the discovery that he was killed by
being shot) and about twenty-five minutes from a jobbing undertaker.
The captain of the Argenta paid all expenses rather than have the boat
detained, and who the dead man was or where he lived are secrets buried
with him.
Ben climbed the mountain of grain sacks in company with Tommy, the two
went to sleep immediately under one of the exhaust pipes, where it was
warm and comfortable; for the night air on the river grew quite chilly.