"Why don't you get comfortable?" I says to Bishop. "Why don't you get
chairs and enjoy the breeze?"
"That's what I been tellin' 'em," says the Missus; "but Mr. Bishop acts
like he was married to this spot."
"I'm only thinkin' of your wife and Bessie," says Bishop. "If anything
happened, I'd want 'em to be near a lifeboat."
"Nothin's goin' to happen," I says. "They hasn't been a wreck on this
lake for over a month. And this here boat, the _City o' Benton Harbor_,
ain't never sank in her life."
"No," says Bishop; "and the _Chicora_ and _Eastland_ never sank till
they sunk."
"The boats that sinks," I says, "is the boats that's overloaded. I was
talkin' to the government checker-player down-stairs and he tells me
that you put thirteen hundred on this boat and she's perfectly safe; and
they's only eight hundred aboard now."
"Then why do they have the lifeboats?" ast Bishop.
"So's you can go back if you get tired o' the trip," I says.
"I ought to be back now," says Bishop, "where the firm can reach me."
"We ain't more'n two miles out," I says. "If your firm's any good
they'll drag the bottom farther out than this. Besides," I says, "if
trouble comes the lifeboats would handle us."
"Yes," says Bishop; "but it's women and children first."
"Sure!" I says. "That's the proper order for drownin'. The world
couldn't struggle along without us ten-thousand-dollar scenario
writers."
"They couldn't be no trouble on such a lovely day as this," says Bess.
"That's where you make a big mistake," I says. "That shows you don't
know nothin' about the history o' Lake Michigan."
"What do you mean?" ast Bishop.
"All the wrecks that's took place on this lake," I says, "has happened
in calm weather like to-day. It's just three years ago this July," I
says, "when the _City of Ypsilanti_ left Grand Haven with about as many
passengers as we got to-day. The lake was just like a billiard table and
no thought o' danger. Well, it seems like they's a submerged water oak
about three miles from shore that you're supposed to steer round it. But
this pilot hadn't never made the trip before, and, besides that, he'd
been drinkin' pretty heavy; so what does he do but run right plump into
the tree, and the boat turned a turtle and all the passengers was lost
except a tailor named Swanson."
"But that was just an unreliable officer," says Bessie. "He must of been
crazy."
"Crazy!" says I. "They wouldn't nobody work on these boats unless they
was crazy. It's bound to get 'em."
"I hope we got a reliable pilot to-day," says Bishop.
"He's only just a kid," I says; "and I noticed him staggerin' when he
come aboard. But, anyway, you couldn't ask for a better bottom than they
is right along in here; nice clean sand and hardly any weeds."
"What time do we get to St. Joe?" ast Bishop.
"About seven if we don't run into a squall," I says.
Then I and the Wife left 'em and went round to another part o' the deck
and run into squalls of all nationalities. Their mothers had made a big
mistake in bringin' 'em, because you could tell from their faces and
hands that they didn't have no use for water.
"They all look just alike," says the Missus. "I don't see how the
different mothers can tell which is their baby."
"It's fifty-fifty," I says. "The babies don't look no more alike than
the mothers. The mothers is all named Jennie, and all perfect cubes and
fond of apples, and ought to go to a dentist. Besides," I says, "suppose
they did get mixed up and swap kids, none o' the parties concerned would
have reasons to gloat. And the babies certainly couldn't look no more
miserable under different auspices than they do now."
We walked all round the deck, threadin' our way among the banana
peelin's, and lookin' our shipmates over.
"Pick out somebody you think you'd like to meet," I told the Wife, "and
I'll see if I can arrange it."
"Thanks," she says; "but I'll try and not get lonesome, with my husband
and my sister and my sister's beau along."
"It's nice for you to say it," says I; "but you want to remember that
we're leavin' Bess and Bishop to themself, and that leaves you and I to
ourself, and they ain't no two people in the world that can spend two
days alone together without gettin' bored stiff. Besides, you don't want
to never overlook a chance to meet high-class people."
"When I get desperately anxious to meet high-class people," she says,
"I'll be sure and pick out the Saturday afternoon boat from Chicago to
St. Joe."
"You can't judge people by their looks," says I. "You haven't heard 'em
talk."
"No; and couldn't understand 'em if I did," she says.
"I'll bet some o' them's just as bright as we are," I says.
"I'm not lookin' for bright companionship," she says. "I want a change."
"That's just like I told you," says I. "You're bound to get tired o' one
person, no matter how much they sparkle, if you live with 'em long
enough."
We left the deck and went down-stairs. They was two or three people
peerin' in the engine-room and the Missus made me stop there a minute.
"What for?" I ast her.
"I want to see how it works," she says.
"Well," says I, when we'd started on again, "I can drop my insurance
now."
"Why?" says the Missus.
"I don't never need to worry about you starvin'," I says. "With the
knowledge you just picked up there, I bet you could easy land a job as
engineer on one o' these boats."
"I'd do about as good as you would at it," she says.
"Sure; because I didn't study it," I says. "What makes the boat run?" I
ast her.
"Why, the wheel," she says.
"And who runs the wheel?" I ast her.
"The pilot," says she.
"And what does the engineer do?" I says.
"Why, I suppose he keeps the fire burnin'," she says.
"But in weather like this what do they want of a fire?"
"I suppose it gets colder out in the middle o' the lake," she says.
"No," says I; "but on Saturdays they got to keep a fire goin' to heat
the babies' bottles."
We went in the room next to the bar. A boy set at the piano playin'
_Sweet Cider Time in Moonshine Valley_ and some Hawaiian native melodies
composed by a Hungarian waiter that was too proud to fight. Three or
four couple was dancin', but none o' them was wry-necked enough to get
the proper pose. The girls looked pretty good and was probably members
o' the Four Hundred employed in the Fair. The boys would of been
handsomer if the laundry hadn't failed to bring back their other shirt
in time.
A big guy in a uniform come by and went into the next room. "Is that the
captain?" ast the Wife.
"No," I says, "that's the steward."
"And what does he do?" she ast me.
"He hangs round the bar," I says, "and looks after the stews."
"Have they really got a bar?" she says.
"I'll find out for sure if you'll wait here a minute," says I, and led
her to a chair where she could watch 'em wrestle.
In the other room I stood next to a Greek that charged ten cents on
Sundays and holidays. He was all lit up like the Municipal Pier.
"Enjoyin' the trip?" I ast him.
"Too rough; too rough!" he says, only I don't do the dialect very good.
"I bet you never got that shine at your own stand," says I.
"Too hot to work!" says he. "I don't have to work. I got the mon'."
"Yes," I says; "and the bun."
A little way off from us was four other political enemies o' J. Frank
Hanly, tellin' my Greek friend in tonsorial tones that if he didn't like
his Uncle Sammy he knowed what he could do.
"Don't you like your Uncle Sammy?" I ast him.
"I don't have to work," he says. "I got the mon'."
"Then why don't you take them boys' advice," I says, "and go back to your
home o'er the sea?"
"Too rough; too rough!" he says; and in the twenty minutes I stood there
with him, findin' out whether they was really a bar, he didn't say
nothin' except that he had the mon', and he didn't have to work, and
somethin' was too rough.
I and the Missus went back up on deck. I steered for the end o' the boat
that was farthest from where we'd left Bess and Bishop, but they'd began
to get restless, and we run into them takin' a walk.
"Where you been?" ast Bessie.
"Down watchin' 'em dance," says the Missus.
"Is they a place to dance aboard?" ast Bishop.
But I didn't want 'em to dance, because that'd be an excuse not to say
nothin' to each other for a w'ile. So I says:
"They's a place, all right; but five or six couple's already on the
floor, and when you get more'n that trottin' round at once it's li'ble
to rock the boat and be disastrous."