Esther. "Fred, I believe one reason is that no one has asked them to
stop. See how good Harry Wainwright has been since he found that so many
people were interested in him that day!"
"Ye--es," drawled Fred, evidently with a suspicion of what was coming,
and trying to change the subject by suddenly burying himself in his
memorandum-book. But this ruse did not succeed, for Esther crossed the
room to where Fred sat, placed her hands on his shoulders, and a kiss on
his forehead, and exclaimed:
"Fred, _you're_ the proper person to reform those two men!"
"Oh, Ettie," groaned Fred, "you're entirely mistaken. Why, they'd laugh
right in my face, if they didn't get angry and knock me down. Reformers
want to be older men, better men, men like your father, for instance, if
people are to listen to them."
"Father says they need to be men who understand the nature of those they
are talking to," replied Esther; and you once told me that you
understood Moshier and Crayme perfectly."
"But just think of what they are, Ettie," pleaded Fred. "Moshier is a
contractor, and Crayme's a steamboat captain; _such_ men never reform,
though they always are good fellows. Why, if I were to speak to either
of them on the subject, they'd laugh in my face, or curse me. The only
way I was able to make peace with them for stopping drinking myself, was
to say that I did it to please my wife."
"Did they accept that as sufficient excuse?" asked Esther.
"Yes," said Fred reluctantly, and biting his lips over this slip of his
tongue.
"Then you've set them a good example, and I can't believe its effect
will be lost," said Esther.
"I sincerely hope it won't," said Fred, very willing to seem a reformer
at heart, "nobody would be gladder than I to see those fellows with
wives as happy as mine seems to be."
"Then why don't you follow it up, Fred, dear, and make sure of your
hopes being realized? You can't imagine how much happier _I_ would be if
I could meet those dear women without feeling that I had to hide the joy
that's so hard to keep to myself."
The conversation continued with considerable strain to Fred's
amiability; but his sophistry was no match for his wife's earnestness,
and he was finally compelled to promise that he would make an appeal to
Crayme, with whom he had a business engagement, on the arrival of
Crayme's boat, the _Excellence_.
Before the whistles of the steamer were next heard, however, Esther
learned something of the sufferings of would-be reformers, and found
cause to wonder who was to endure most that Mrs. Crayme should have a
sober husband; for Fred was alternately cross, moody, abstracted, and
inattentive, and even sullenly remarked at his breakfast-table one
morning that he shouldn't be sorry if the _Excellence_ were to blow up,
and leave Mrs. Crayme to find her happiness in widowhood. But no such
luck befell the lady: the whistle-signals of the _Excellence_ were again
heard in the river, and the nature of Fred's business with the captain
made it unadvisable for Fred to make an excuse for leaving the boat
unvisited.
It _did_ seem to Fred Macdonald as if everything conspired to make his
task as hard as it could possibly be. Crayme was already under the
influence of more liquor than was necessary to his well-being, and the
boat carried as passengers a couple of men, who, though professional
gamblers, Crayme found very jolly company when they were not engaged in
their business calling. Besides, Captain Crayme was running against time
with an opposition boat which had just been put upon the river, and he
appreciated the necessity of having the boat's bar well stocked and
freely opened to whoever along the river was influential in making or
marring the reputation of steamboats. Fred finally got the captain into
his own room, however, and made a freight contract so absent-mindedly
that the sagacious captain gained an immense advantage over him; then he
acted so awkwardly, and looked so pale, that the captain suggested
chills, and prescribed brandy. Fred smiled feebly, and replied,
"No, thank you, Sam; brandy's at the bottom of the trouble. I"--here
Fred made a tremendous attempt to rally himself--"I want _you_ to swear
off, Sam."
The astonishment of Captain Crayme was marked enough to be alarming at
first; then the ludicrous feature of Fred's request struck him so
forcibly that he burst into a laugh before whose greatness Fred trembled
and shrank.
"Well, by thunder!" exclaimed the captain, when he recovered his breath;
"if that isn't the best thing I ever heard yet! The idea of a steamboat
captain swearing off his whisky! Say, Fred, don't you want me to join
the Church? I forgot that you'd married a preacher's daughter, or I
wouldn't have been so puzzled over your white face to-day. Sam Crayme
brought down to cold water! Wouldn't the boys along the river get up a
sweet lot of names for me--the 'Cold-water Captain,' 'Psalm-singing
Sammy!' and then, when an editor or any other visitor came aboard,
_wouldn't_ I look the thing, hauling out glasses and a pitcher of water!
Say, Fred, does your wife let you drink tea and coffee?"
"Sam!" exclaimed Fred, springing to his feet, "if you don't stop
slanting at my wife, I'll knock you down."
"Good!" said the captain, without exhibiting any signs of trepidation.
"_Now_ you talk like yourself again. I beg your pardon, old fellow; you
know I was only joking, but it _is_ too funny. You'll have to take a
trip or two with me again, though, and be reformed."
"Not any," said Fred, resuming his chair; "take your wife along, and
reform yourself."
"Look here, now, young man," said the captain, "_you're_ cracking on
too much steam. Honestly, Fred, I've kept a sharp eye on you for two or
three months, and I am right glad you can let whisky alone. I've seen
times when I wished I were in your boots; but steamboats can't be run
without liquor, however it may be with woolen mills."
"That's all nonsense," said Fred. "You get trade because you run your
boat on time, charge fair prices, and deliver your freight in good
order. Who gives you business because you drink and treat?"
The captain, being unable to recall any shipper of the class alluded to
by Fred, changed his course.
"'Tisn't so much that," said he; "it's a question of reputation. How
would I feel to go ashore at Pittsburgh or Louisville or Cincinnati, and
refuse to drink with anybody? Why, 'twould ruin me. It's different with
you who don't have to meet anybody but religious old farmers. Besides,
you've just been married."
"And you've been married for five years," said Fred, with a sudden sense
of help at hand. "How do you suppose _your_ wife feels?"
Captain Crayme's jollity subsided a little, but with only a little
hesitation he replied:
"Oh! she's used to it; she doesn't mind it."
"You're the only person in town that thinks so, Sam," said Fred.
Captain Crayme got up and paced his little stateroom two or three times,
with a face full of uncertainty. At last he replied:
"Well, between old friends, Fred, I don't think so very strongly myself.
Hang it! I wish I'd been brought up a preacher, or something of the
kind, so I wouldn't have had business ruining my chances of being the
right sort of a family man. Emily _don't_ like my drinking, and I've
promised to look up some other business; but 'tisn't easy to get out of
steamboating when you've got a good boat and a first-rate trade. Once
she felt so awfully about it that I _did_ swear off--don't tell
anybody, for God's sake! but I did. I had to look out for my character
along the river, though; so I swore off on the sly, and played sick. I'd
give my orders to the mates and clerks from my bed in here, and then I'd
lock myself in, and read novels and the Bible to keep from thinking.
'Twas awful dry work all around; but 'whole hog or none' is _my_ style,
you know. There was fun in it, though, to think of doing something that
no other captain on the river ever did. But thunder! by the time night
came, I was so tired of loafing that I wrapped a blanket around my head
and shoulders, like a Hoosier, sneaked out the outer door here, and
walked the guards, between towns; but I was so frightened for fear some
one would know me that the walk did me more harm than good. And blue!
why a whole cargo of indigo would have looked like a snowstorm alongside
of my feelings the second day; 'pon my word, Fred, I caught myself
crying in the afternoon, just before dark, and I couldn't find out what
for, either. I tell _you_ I was scared, and things got worse as time
spun along; the dreams I had that night made me howl, and I felt worse
yet when daylight came along again. Toward the next night I was just
afraid to go to sleep; so I made up my mind to get well, go on duty, and
dodge everybody that it seemed I ought to drink with. Why, the Lord
bless your soul! the first time we shoved off from a town I walked up to
the bar just as I always did after leaving towns; the barkeeper set out
my particular bottle naturally enough, knowing nothing about my little
game; I poured my couple of fingers, and dropped it down as innocent as
a lamb before I knew what I was doing. By George! my boy, 'twas
like-opening the lock-gates; I was just heavenly gay before morning.
There was one good thing about it, though--I never told Emily I was
going to swear off; I was going to surprise her, so I had the
disappointment all to myself. Maybe she isn't as happy as your wife; but
whatever else I've done, or not done, I've never lied to her."
"It's a pity you hadn't promised _her_ then, before you tried your
experiment," said Fred. The captain shook his head gravely, and replied:
"I guess not; why, I'd have either killed somebody or killed myself if
I'd gone on a day or two longer. I s'pose I'd have got along better if
I'd had anybody to keep me company, or reason with me like a
schoolmaster; but I hadn't. I didn't know anybody that I dared trust
with a secret like that."
"_I_ hadn't reformed then, eh?" queried Fred.
"You? why you're one of the very fellows I dodged! Just as I got aboard
the boat--I came down late, on purpose--I saw you out aft. I tell you, I
was under my blankets, with a towel wrapped around my jaw, in about one
minute, and was just _a-praying_ that you hadn't seen me come aboard."
Fred laughed, but his laughter soon made place for a look of tender
solicitude. The unexpected turn that had been reached in the
conversation he had so dreaded, and the sympathy which had been awakened
in him by Crayme's confidence and openness, temporarily made of Fred
Macdonald a man with whom Fred himself had never before been acquainted.
A sudden idea struck him.
"Sam," said he, "try it over again, and _I'll_ stay by you. I'll nurse
you, crack jokes, fight off the blues for you, keep your friends away.
I'll even break your neck for you, if you like, seeing it's you, if
it'll keep you straight."
"Will you, though?" said the captain, with a look of admiration,
undisguised except by wonder. "You're the first friend I ever had, then.
By thunder! how marrying Ettie Wedgewell _did_ improve you, Fred! But,"
and the captain's face lengthened again, "there's a fellow's reputation
to be considered, and where'll mine be after it gets around that I've
sworn off?"
"Reputation be hanged!" exclaimed Fred. "_Lose_ it, for your wife's
sake. Besides, you'll _make_ reputation instead of lose it: you'll be as
famous as the Red River Raft, or the Mammoth Cave--the only thing of the
kind west of the Alleghanies. As for the boys, tell them I've bet you a
hundred that you can't stay off your liquor for a year, and that, you're
not the man to take a dare."
"_That_ sounds like business," exclaimed the captain springing to his
feet.
"Let me draw up a pledge," said Fred, eagerly, drawing, pen and ink
toward him.
"No, you don't, my boy," said the captain, gently, and pushing Fred out
of the room and upon the guards. "Emily shall do that. Below
there!--Perkins, I've got to go uptown for an hour; see if you can't
pick up freight to pay laying-up expenses somehow. Fred, go home and get
your traps; 'How's the accepted time,' as your father-in-law has dinged
at me, many a Sunday, from the pulpit."
As Sam Crayne strode toward the body of the town, his business instincts
took strong hold of his sentiments, in the manner natural alike to
saints and sinners, and he laid a plan of operations against whisky
which was characterized by the apparent recklessness but actual prudence
which makes for glory in steamboat captains, as it does in army
commanders. As was his custom in business, he first drove at full speed
upon the greatest obstacles; so it came to pass he burst into his own
house, threw his arm around his wife with more than ordinary tenderness,
and then looking into her eyes with a daring born of utter desperation,
said:
"Emily, I came back to sign the strongest temperance-pledge that you can
possibly draw up; Fred Macdonald wanted to write out one, but I told him
that nobody but you should do it; you've earned the right to, poor
girl." No such duty and surprise having ever before come hand-in-hand to
Mrs. Crayme, she acted as every true woman will imagine that she herself
would have done under similar circumstances, and this action made it not
so easy as it might otherwise have been to see just where the pen and
ink were, or to prevent the precious document, when completed, from
being disfigured by peculiar blots which were neither fingermarks nor
ink-spots, yet which in shape and size suggested both of these
indications of unneatness. Mrs. Crayme was not an adept at literary
composition, and, being conscious of her own deficiency, she begged that
a verbal pledge might be substituted; but her husband was firm.
"A contract won't steer worth a cent unless it's in writing, Emily,"
said he, looking over his wife's shoulder as she wrote. "Gracious, girl,
you're making it too thin; _any_ greenhorn could sail right through that
and all around it. Here, let _me_ have it." And Crayme wrote, dictating
aloud to himself as he did so, "And the--party--of the first
part--hereby agrees to--do everything--else that the--spirit of
this--agreement--seems to the party--of the second--part to--indicate
or--imply." This he read over to his wife, saying:
"That's the way we fix contracts that aren't ship-shape, Emily; a
steamboat couldn't be run in any other way." Then Crayme wrote at the
foot of the paper, "Sam Crayme, Capt. Str. _Excellence_" surveyed the
document with evident pride, and handed it to his wife, saying:
"Now, you see, you've got me so I can't ever get out of it by trying to
make out that 'twas some other Sam Crayme that you reformed."
"Oh husband!" said Mrs. Crayme, throwing her arms about the captain's
neck, "_don't_ talk in that dreadful business way! I'm too happy to bear
it. I want to go with you on this trip."
The captain shrank away from his wife's arms, and a cold perspiration
started all over him as he exclaimed:
"Oh, don't, little girl! Wait till next trip. There's an unpleasant set
of passengers aboard; the barometer points to rainy weather, so you'd
have to stay in the cabin all the time; our cook is sick, and his cubs
serve up the most infernal messes; we're light of freight, and have got
to stop at every warehouse on the river, and the old boat'll be either
shrieking, or bumping, or blowing off steam the whole continual time."
Mrs. Crayme's happiness had been frightening some of her years away,
and her smile carried Sam himself back to his pre-marital period as she
said:
"Never mind the rest; I see you don't want me to go," and then she
became Mrs. Crayme again as she said, pressing her face closely to her
husband's breast, "but I hope you won't get _any_ freight, _anywhere_,
so you can get home all the sooner."
Then the captain called on Dr. White, and announced such a collection of
symptoms that the doctor grew alarmed, insisted on absolute quiet, and
conveyed Crayme in his own carriage to the boat, saw him into his berth,
and gave to Fred Macdonald a multitude of directions and cautions, the
sober recording of which upon paper was of great service in saving Fred
from suffering over the Quixotic aspect which the whole project had
begun, in his mind, to take on. He felt ashamed even to look squarely
into Crayme's eye, and his mind was greatly relieved when the captain
turned his face to the wall and exclaimed:
"Fred, for goodness' sake get out of here; I feel enough like a baby
now, without having a nurse alongside. I'll do well enough for a few
hours; just look in once in a while."
During the first day of the trip, Crayme made no trouble for himself or
Fred; under the friendly shelter of night, the two men had a two-hour
chat, which was alternately humorous, business-like, and retrospective,
and then Crayme fell asleep. The next day was reasonably pleasant out of
doors, so the captain wrapped himself in a blanket and sat in an
extension-chair on the guards, where with solemn face he received some
condolences which went far to keep him in good humor after the
sympathizers had departed. On the second night the captain was restless,
and the two men played cards. On the third day the captain's physique
reached the bottom of its stock of patience, and protested indignantly
at the withdrawal of its customary stimulus; and it acted with more
consistency, though no less ugliness, than the human mind does when
under excitement and destitute of control. The captain grew terribly
despondent, and Fred found ample use for all the good stories he knew.
Some of these amused the captain greatly, but after one of them he
sighed.
"Poor old Billy Hockess told me that the only time I ever heard it
before, and _didn't_ we have a glorious time that night! He'd just put
all his money into the _Yenesei_--that blew up and took him with it only
a year afterward--and he gave us a new kind of punch he'd got the hang
of when he went East for the boat's carpets. 'Twas made of two bottles
of brandy, one whisky, two rum, one gin, two sherry, and four claret,
with guava jelly, and lemon peel that had been soaking in curacoa and
honey for a month. It looks kind of weak when you think about it, but
there were only six of us in the party, and it went to the spot by the
time we got through. Golly, but didn't we make Rome howl that night!"
Fred shuddered, and experimented upon his friend with song; he was
rewarded by hearing the captain hum an occasional accompaniment; but, as
Fred got fairly into a merry Irish song about one Terry O'Rann, and
uttered the lines in which the poet states that the hero
"--took whisky punch
Ivery night for his lunch,"
the captain put such a world of expression into a long-drawn sigh that
Fred began to feel depressed himself; besides, songs were not numerous
in Fred's repertoire, and those in which there was no allusion to
drinking could be counted on half his fingers. Then he borrowed the
barkeeper's violin, and played the airs which had been his favorites in
the days of his courtship, until Crayme exclaimed:
"Say, Fred, we're not playing church; give us something that don't bring
all of a fellow's dead friends along with it."
Fred reddened, swung his bow viciously, and dashed into "Natchez Under
the Hill," an old air which would have delighted Offenbach, but which
will never appear in a collection of classical music.
"Ah! that's something like music," exclaimed Captain Crayme, as Fred
paused suddenly to repair a broken string. "I never hear that but I
think of Wesley Treepoke, that used to run the _Quitman_; went afterward
to the _Rising Planet_, when the _Quitman's_ owners put her on a new
line as an opposition boat. Wess and I used to work things so as to make
Louisville at the same time--he going up, I going down, and then turn
about--and we always had a glorious night of it, with one or two other
lively boys that we'd pick up. And Wess had a fireman that could fiddle
off old 'Natchez' in a way that would just make a corpse dance till its
teeth rattled, and that fireman would always be called in just as we'd
got to the place where you can't tell what sort of whisky 'tis you're
drinking; and I tell you, 'twas so heavenly that a fellow could forgive
the last boat that beat him on the river, or stole a landing from him.
And _such_ whisky as Wess kept! used to go cruising around the back
country, sampling little lots run out of private stills. He'd always
find nectar, you'd better believe. Poor old boy! the tremens took him
off at last. He hove his pilot overboard just before he died, and put a
bullet into Pete Langston, his second clerk--they were both trying to
hold him, you see--but they never laid it up against him. I wish I knew
what became of the whiskey he had on hand when he walked off--no, I
don't either; what am I thinking about? But I do, though--hanged if I
don't!"
Fred grew pale: he had heard of drunkards growing delirious upon ceasing
to drink; he had heard of men who, in periods of aberration, were
impelled by the motive of the last act or recollection which strongly
impressed them; what if the captain should suddenly become delirious,
and try to throw _him_ overboard or shoot him? Fred determined to get
the captain at once upon the guards--no, into the cabin, where there
would be no sight of water to suggest anything dreadful--and search his
room for pistols. But the captain objected to being moved into the
cabin.
"The boys," said the captain, alluding to the gamblers, "are mighty
sharp in the eye, and like as not they'd see through my little game, and
then where'd my reputation be? Speaking of the boys reminds me of Harry
Genang, that cleaned out that rich Kentucky planter at bluff one night,
and then swore off gambling for life, and gave a good-by supper aboard
the boat. 'Twas just at the time when Prince Imperial Champagne came
out, and the whole supper was made of that splendid stuff. I guess I
must have put away four bottles, and if I'd known how much he'd ordered,
I could have carried away a couple more. I've always been sorry I
didn't."
Fred wondered if there was any subject of conversation which would not
suggest liquor to the captain; he even brought himself to ask if Crayme
had seen the new Methodist Church at Barton since it had been finished.
"Oh, yes," said the captain; "I started to walk Moshier home one night,
after we'd punished a couple of bottles of old Crow whisky at our house,
and he caved in all of a sudden, and I laid him out on the steps of that
very church till I could get a carriage. Those were my last two bottles
of Crow, too; it's too bad the way the good things of this life paddle
off."
The captain raised himself in his berth, sat on the edge thereof, stood
up, stared out of the window, and began to pace his room with his head
down and his hands behind his back. Little by little he raised his head,
drooped his hands, flung himself into a chair, beat the devil's tattoo
on the table, sprang up excitedly, and exclaimed:
"I'm going back on all the good times I ever had."
"You're only getting ready to try a new kind, Sam," said Fred.
"Well, I'm going back on my friends."
"Not on all of them; the dead ones would pat you on the back, if they
got a chance."
"A world without whisky looks infernally dismal to a fellow that isn't
half done living."
"It looks first-rate to a fellow that hasn't got any backdown in him."
"Curse you! I wish I'd made _you_ back down when you first talked
temperance to me."
"Go ahead! Then curse your wife--don't be afraid; you've been doing it
ever since you married her."
Crayme flew at Macdonald's throat; the younger man grappled the captain
and threw him into his bunk. The captain struggled and glared like a
tiger; Fred gasped between the special efforts dictated by
self-preservation:
"Sam, I--promised to--to see you--through--and I'm--going to--do it,
if--if I have to--break your neck."
The captain made one tremendous effort; Fred braced one foot against the
table, put a knee on the captain's breast, held both the captain's
wrists tightly, looked full into the captain's eyes, and breathed a
small prayer--for his own safety. For a moment or two, perhaps longer,
the captain strained violently, and then relaxed all effort, and cried:
"Fred, you've whipped me!"
"Nonsense! whip yourself," exclaimed Fred, "if you're going to stop
drinking."
The captain turned his face to the wall and said nothing; but he seemed
to be so persistently swallowing something that Fred suspected a
secreted bottle, and moved an investigation so suddenly that the captain
had not time in which to wipe his eyes.