"Oh sing your praise of the bounding craft;
And the merry sloops afloat,
But for easy space, both fore and aft,
I'll bunk on the shanty-boat."
"Jump out there, Shawn, and take a hitch around that cottonwood with
that line--we're at the mouth of Salt River, an' no better fishin' on
the Ohio."
John Burney was standing on the bow of his shanty-boat, with a long
steering-oar in his hand.
"Jump, Shawn!" Shawn leaped to the shore and made the line fast to the
tree.
"Haul out that aft gang-plank and stake her deep on the shore, there,
steady, boy; she lays good and snug an' weather-shape--now git to your
breakfast."
Inside of the boat a wood fire was burning in the stove. The fragrant
aroma of coffee and fried fish came over the morning air. Shawn took
off one of the stove-lids, and over the burning coals toasted two or
three slices of bread. The first primrose bloom of the glowing day came
over the hills. The sunbeams rioting on the water lent an enchantment to
the autumn scene.
Further back from the river, on the hills, were the claret hues of young
oaks, and the scarlet of young maples. The morning rays sifting through
the little windows of the boat revealed the arrangement of this river
habitation. The two sleeping bunks were near the rear end of the boat;
two chairs, the stove and a rough table were in the forward end. Near
the door hung great coils of fishing line and tackle, and in the corner
was a dip-net and gig.
As Shawn sat eating his breakfast, his thoughts wandered back to Skarrow
and his mother in the little frame house on the river bank--to Mrs.
Alden and doctor Hissong. He thought of the many kindnesses shown him by
these friends, and, perhaps, wondered how his mother might have missed
him since the night he stole away with old John Burney, who made these
shanty-boat trips every autumn. It had been the dream of his life to go
down the river with Burney, for how often had he sat on the wharf-boat
at Skarrow listening to Burney's tales of shanty-boat life on the lower
Ohio. And here he was at last; he and Coaly!
"Shawn," said Burney, "I want to drop a fish-basket just below that
willer. The channel is fine up here, and I might walk up town and see if
I can get a ham-hock and some beef lights, while you look over the hooks
on the jugs--there ain't no bait like a ham-hock for juggin', fer a
channel-cat wants a meat that won't turn white in water."
In the early days of "jugging" on the Ohio, the outfit was a matter of
considerable expense, as half-gallon stone jugs were used, but as time
went on, some ingenious fisherman substituted blocks of wood, painted in
white or conspicuous colors. A stout line, some six or seven feet long,
is stapled to the block of wood, and with a good, heavy hook at the end
of the line, the outfit is complete. The jugs, some twenty or thirty,
are put out at the head of the channel, and are followed by the
fishermen in a skiff or john-boat. When a channel-cat takes the bait,
the jug stands on end and begins to scud through the water. The
fisherman pursues in his boat, and coming up, pushes his dip-net under
the fish as he draws him to the surface. It is the most exciting and
fascinating method known in river fishing.
Burney came from town with the bait. Shawn had the jugs ready and
together they rowed to the head of the channel. Shawn placed the jugs in
the water, and they floated away in a line, ranging some four or five
feet apart, Burney and Shawn lingering behind with silent oars. Suddenly
a jug stood upon end.
"Down atter him, Shawn!"
Shawn skilfully sent the boat toward the bobbing jug.
"He's heading for shoal water!" yelled Burney, "Slack your right
oar--now come ahead--hold her--ease her up to him--look at that jug!"
The jug was racing for deep water again, and disappeared from the
surface for at least half a minute.
"He's a whopper, Shawn! Yonder he goes, thirty yards away! Give me the
oars and take the dip-net. Great Hirum, boy! yonder is another jug
that's hung!"
Burney sent the boat with a bound after the whirling jug. Shawn stood in
the bow of the boat with the dip-net ready to swing. They went to the
lower side of the jug, and just as Shawn reached out for the line,
Burney, unintentionally, brought the boat to a sudden stop, and Shawn,
losing his balance, went over board, dip-net and all. Burney sprang to
the stern of the boat, and as Shawn came up he held out an oar to him,
and Shawn grasped the side of the boat. Burney took the dip-net and
paddled the boat toward the jug, and catching the line, raised the fish
to the top of the water. Shawn swam around to the other side as Burney
raised the fish. "For land sake! Look at him, boy! He's the biggest one
I ever hooked--I can't get him in this boat--we'll have to tow him
ashore!"
They fastened a stout line through the gills of the big fish and towed
him to the shore and pulled him out on the beach--a blue channel-cat of
forty pounds. "Go and get some dry clothes, while I go after the jugs,"
said Burney. Shawn went down to the boat and rummaged around for a
change of clothes. He found a suit of Burney's heavy underclothing, and
rolling them up to suit his size, got into them; then came Burney's old
corduroy trousers, and Shawn buckled them up until they hung directly
under his armpits. Building a fire in the stove and hanging his wet
clothes before it, he left the boat and ran back to the spot where they
had left the big fish. Burney returned with the jugs and threw out
another smaller fish which he had taken off. "We'll eat this one, Shawn,
and sell the other one and divide the money," and as Shawn stood before
him in the loose-fitting clothes, old Burney laughed and said, "Well,
if he ain't growed to a man since that ketch!"
They hung the big fish to the side of the boat. "I'll show you how to
skin a channel-cat," said Burney as he drew forth his steel pincers.
"We'll peddle him out this evening." It was a joyous pair that climbed
the hill leading to the little town, the big fish swinging on a pole
between them. There were plenty of buyers, and as they returned to the
boat, Burney said to Shawn, "You'll be a great fisherman some day,
Shawn," and Shawn said, "I'm goin' to be a doctor."
"What kind of a doctor, Shawn? steam or hoss doctor?"
"Neither one. I'm goin' to be a reg'ler doctor, like Doctor Hissong."
[Illustration: "You'll be a great fisherman, some day, Shawn"]
"Shawn, this doctorin' business is a good deal like hoss tradin'; you've
got to take your chance on a short hoss and blemishes, and some of the
doctors look like they interfere powerfully with themselves--you know
how a hoss _interferes_. I calkerlate that a good doctor is mighty
rare, and after all, it's a good deal more in his encouraging talk
than his medicine. You never knowed old Doc' Felix Simpson--he was away
before your time and practiced in the country four miles above Skarrow.
Doc' Simpson would have his joke, and to hear him laugh would cure 'most
any case of ailment. Lawse! how I used to love to hear him tell about
old P'silly Orton and the time she played dead. Doc' Simpson said that
aunt P'silly took a notion that she wanted her old man to raise her some
money to take a trip down to the city, and as the money wa'nt raisable,
P'silly took on and 'lowed that she was goin' to die, and she kept on
havin' sinkin' spells and such, and bye and bye she lays on the bed and
wauls up her eyes and breathes her last, to all appearances. Uncle Buck
gits skeered and digs out for Doc' Simpson, and when Doc' Simpson gits
thar, thar was the old neighbor wimmen tryin' to comfort uncle Buck and
sayin', 'Ba'r your burden, Buck; the Lord has give and the Lord has tuck
away.' Doc' Simpson goes up to P'silly, who was layin' with folded
hands, and feels her pulse, and says, 'Yes, she is dead, pore soul'; and
they all bust out cryin' and the hounds begin to howl, and Doc' comes up
to the bed and says, 'Bein' she is dead, I'll pour a little of this
nitric acid in her yeer to make shore.' And as he took the stopper out
of the bottle, P'silly opens one eye an' says, 'Doc' Simpson, if you
pour that in my yeer, you'll never straddle that hoss of yourn again.'
"There's another sort of doctor, Shawn, the magic-healers, the sort as
cures by the layin' on of hands and rubbin'. Pelican Smith was one of
this sort. He practiced up on the Kentucky river and made a sort of
circuit down in our country. Sometimes thar would come a report of
somebody gittin' well, but when anybody died, Pelican always said, 'The
Lord loved him best.' You never knowed Pelican. He was all sorts of a
character--got his nickname from his nose--they weren't no other one
like it, and him and that nose made history in the river country. His
first marriage was to Addie Stringer, up at Ball's Landing, and it was
all right as fer as it went. They started on their honeymoon from Ball's
Landing on the steamer Little Tiger. They was goin' down to Wide Awake,
some thirty miles. The boat caught fire, Pelican swum out on a
crackerbox, and when they found the body of his wife next day, Pelican
thumped the side of his nose with his thumb and said, 'Hit's a dam pity
she couldn't swim'.
"It wasn't long before he got into business by starting a 'blind tiger',
and he worked up several war dances in the community, but one night thar
was started a mild argument as to whether the Methodists or the Baptists
was the chosen of the Lord. The argument was in Pelican's place, and he
had to close up the joint, for nearly all of his best customers passed
out with the close of the argument. Pelican told me afterward that over
three hundred shots was fired, and said to me, 'I reckon the only reason
I was saved was that I didn't belong to either denomination, as I am a
Campbellite.'
"Pelican moved down on the Ohio after this, and it was there I met him.
There is always considerable interest, Shawn, in a stranger when he
moves into a community, especially if there is some mystery about him.
Pelican didn't have much to say--he had no desire to mention his past.
He was wise. It was rumored that he had left a good farm at Ball's
Landing and had moved down on the Ohio for asthma trouble that bothered
him. About the only disease he ever had was the whiskey habit, but he
did not dispute any of the statements made by an interested community.
His stock went up with the talk about the farm. He was invited to take
supper with Bill Bristow. Bill owned twenty acres of hill land, with a
small house and a mortgage on it. Old Bill's daughter, Lettie, set next
to Pelican at the table, and old Bill looked on with satisfaction at the
headway they was making. Old Bristow was thinking of the farm up at
Ball's Landing; Pelican was thinking of the one he was on. After a
time, Pelican and Lettie was married. Bristow give a dance and ice cream
supper and charged fifty cents admission. There was dancing, singing and
a cuttin' scrape and the couple felt that the occasion had been one of
success. Pelican certainly married into old Bristow's family for he
never made any move toward looking for another home, and it wasn't long
before Bristow begin to screw up his face.
"Time passed and then come the twins, a boy and a girl, and Pelican was
proud of the boy, for he had the Pelican nose, but old Bristow rose up
in his wrath and said that they would have to go, and so Pelican and his
wife come down into my neighborhood to live in a shanty-boat on the
river, but they didn't git along, and fit and cussed from mornin' till
night. Bristow come down to patch up matters. Pelican knocked him off
the boat with an oar, and as he floundered out to the shore and wrung
the water out of his whiskers he said, 'Fix yer own troubles--far'well.'
Two weeks after the fight Mrs. Pelican Smith went back to live with her
father and Pelican went into the fishin' and 'blind tiger' business. I
had two new nets and a set of trot lines, and we bunched into a sort of
partnership. I couldn't git him to say anything about his family or
whether he wanted to see them again. But one night we set together on
the shore. We had run out of bait and was tryin' to make plans to git
some, as the lines was dry upon the shore and the fish would be runnin'
with the gentle rise comin' in the river. We set on an old sycamore log
together. The moon had just swung over the hill and I could see the
white rim of it above the edge of Pelican's nose.
"'Pelican,' I said, 'why don't you go back to your wife and children and
try to live happy with them?' He made no answer and I pressed on him,
'Pelican, them two little twins air dependent on you, and if you had a
little home to yourself, where the vines could run over your doorway and
the birds sing in your own trees, with your wife and children beside
you, your life would be happy--think of them, Pelican, your wife and
children.'"
"Pelican rose up, his face turned to the river. Ah, I had him at last
thinking of his dear ones.
"'What are you thinkin' of, Pelican?'
"'I was thinkin' wher'n the hell we'd git that bait' said he."