Life on the Mississippi

Chapter 3 Frescoes from the Past-2

I laid still and waited for fifteen minutes, and had a smoke out of a pipe that one of them left in reach; then the crossing was finished, and they stumped back and had a drink around and went to talking and singing again. Next they got out an old fiddle, and one played and another patted juba, and the rest turned themselves loose on a regular old- fashioned keel-boat break-down. They couldn’t keep that up very long without getting winded, so by and by they settled around the jug again.

They sung ‘jolly, jolly raftman’s the life for me,’ with a musing chorus, and then they got to talking about differences betwixt hogs, and their different kind of habits; and next about women and their different ways: and next about the best ways to put out houses that was afire; and next about what ought to be done with the Injuns; and next about what a king had to do, and how much he got; and next about how to make cats fight; and next about what to do when a man has fits; and next about differences betwixt clear-water rivers and muddy-water ones. The man they called Ed said the muddy Mississippi water was wholesomer to drink than the clear water of the Ohio; he said if you let a pint of this yaller Mississippi water settle, you would have about a half to three-quarters of an inch of mud in the bottom, according to the stage of the river, and then it warn’t no better than Ohio water—what you wanted to do was to keep it stirred up—and when the river was low, keep mud on hand to put in and thicken the water up the way it ought to be.

The Child of Calamity said that was so; he said there was nutritiousness in the mud, and a man that drunk Mississippi water could grow corn in his stomach if he wanted to. He says—

‘You look at the graveyards; that tells the tale. Trees won’t grow worth chucks in a Cincinnati graveyard, but in a Sent Louis graveyard they grow upwards of eight hundred foot high. It’s all on account of the water the people drunk before they laid up. A Cincinnati corpse don’t richen a soil any.’

And they talked about how Ohio water didn’t like to mix with Mississippi water. Ed said if you take the Mississippi on a rise when the Ohio is low, you’ll find a wide band of clear water all the way down the east side of the Mississippi for a hundred mile or more, and the minute you get out a quarter of a mile from shore and pass the line, it is all thick and yaller the rest of the way across. Then they talked about how to keep tobacco from getting moldy, and from that they went into ghosts and told about a lot that other folks had seen; but Ed says—

‘Why don’t you tell something that you’ve seen yourselves? Now let me have a say. Five years ago I was on a raft as big as this, and right along here it was a bright moonshiny night, and I was on watch and boss of the stabboard oar forrard, and one of my pards was a man named d**k Allbright, and he come along to where I was sitting, forrard—gaping and stretching, he was—and stooped down on the edge of the raft and washed his face in the river, and come and set down by me and got out his pipe, and had just got it filled, when he looks up and says—

‘”Why looky-here,” he says, “ain’t that Buck Miller’s place, over yander in the bend.”

‘”Yes,” says I, “it is—why.” He laid his pipe down and leant his head on his hand, and says—

‘”I thought we’d be furder down.” I says—

‘”I thought it too, when I went off watch”—we was standing six hours on and six off—”but the boys told me,” I says, “that the raft didn’t seem to hardly move, for the last hour,” says I, “though she’s a slipping along all right, now,” says I. He give a kind of a groan, and says—

‘”I’ve seed a raft act so before, along here,” he says, “’pears to me the current has most quit above the head of this bend durin’ the last two years,” he says.

‘Well, he raised up two or three times, and looked away off and around on the water. That started me at it, too. A body is always doing what he sees somebody else doing, though there mayn’t be no sense in it. Pretty soon I see a black something floating on the water away off to stabboard and quartering behind us. I see he was looking at it, too. I says—

‘”What’s that?” He says, sort of pettish,—

‘”Tain’t nothing but an old empty bar’l.”

‘”An empty bar’l!” says I, “why,” says I, “a spy-glass is a fool to your eyes. How can you tell it’s an empty bar’l?” He says—

‘”I don’t know; I reckon it ain’t a bar’l, but I thought it might be,” says he.

‘”Yes,” I says, “so it might be, and it might be anything else, too; a body can’t tell nothing about it, such a distance as that,” I says.

‘We hadn’t nothing else to do, so we kept on watching it. By and by I says—

‘”Why looky-here, d**k Allbright, that thing’s a-gaining on us, I believe.”

‘He never said nothing. The thing gained and gained, and I judged it must be a dog that was about tired out. Well, we swung down into the crossing, and the thing floated across the bright streak of the moonshine, and, by George, it was bar’l. Says I—

‘”d**k Allbright, what made you think that thing was a bar’l, when it was a half a mile off,” says I. Says he—

‘”I don’t know.” Says I—

‘”You tell me, d**k Allbright.” He says—

‘”Well, I knowed it was a bar’l; I’ve seen it before; lots has seen it; they says it’s a haunted bar’l.”

‘I called the rest of the watch, and they come and stood there, and I told them what d**k said. It floated right along abreast, now, and didn’t gain any more. It was about twenty foot off. Some was for having it aboard, but the rest didn’t want to. d**k Allbright said rafts that had fooled with it had got bad luck by it. The captain of the watch said he didn’t believe in it. He said he reckoned the bar’l gained on us because it was in a little better current than what we was. He said it would leave by and by.

‘So then we went to talking about other things, and we had a song, and then a breakdown; and after that the captain of the watch called for another song; but it was clouding up, now, and the bar’l stuck right thar in the same place, and the song didn’t seem to have much warm-up to it, somehow, and so they didn’t finish it, and there warn’t any cheers, but it sort of dropped flat, and nobody said anything for a minute. Then everybody tried to talk at once, and one chap got off a joke, but it warn’t no use, they didn’t laugh, and even the chap that made the joke didn’t laugh at it, which ain’t usual. We all just settled down glum, and watched the bar’l, and was oneasy and oncomfortable. Well, sir, it shut down black and still, and then the wind begin to moan around, and next the lightning begin to play and the thunder to grumble. And pretty soon there was a regular storm, and in the middle of it a man that was running aft stumbled and fell and sprained his ankle so that he had to lay up. This made the boys shake their heads. And every time the lightning come, there was that bar’l with the blue lights winking around it. We was always on the look-out for it. But by and by, towards dawn, she was gone. When the day come we couldn’t see her anywhere, and we warn’t sorry, neither.

‘But next night about half-past nine, when there was songs and high jinks going on, here she comes again, and took her old roost on the stabboard side. There warn’t no more high jinks. Everybody got solemn; nobody talked; you couldn’t get anybody to do anything but set around moody and look at the bar’l. It begun to cloud up again. When the watch changed, the off watch stayed up, ‘stead of turning in. The storm ripped and roared around all night, and in the middle of it another man tripped and sprained his ankle, and had to knock off. The bar’l left towards day, and nobody see it go.

‘Everybody was sober and down in the mouth all day. I don’t mean the kind of sober that comes of leaving liquor alone—not that. They was quiet, but they all drunk more than usual—not together—but each man sidled off and took it private, by himself.

‘After dark the off watch didn’t turn in; nobody sung, nobody talked; the boys didn’t scatter around, neither; they sort of huddled together, forrard; and for two hours they set there, perfectly still, looking steady in the one direction, and heaving a sigh once in a while. And then, here comes the bar’l again. She took up her old place. She staid there all night; nobody turned in. The storm come on again, after midnight. It got awful dark; the rain poured down; hail, too; the thunder boomed and roared and bellowed; the wind blowed a hurricane; and the lightning spread over everything in big sheets of glare, and showed the whole raft as plain as day; and the river lashed up white as milk as far as you could see for miles, and there was that bar’l jiggering along, same as ever. The captain ordered the watch to man the after sweeps for a crossing, and nobody would go—no more sprained ankles for them, they said. They wouldn’t even walk aft. Well then, just then the sky split wide open, with a crash, and the lightning killed two men of the after watch, and crippled two more. Crippled them how, says you? Why, sprained their ankles!

‘The bar’l left in the dark betwixt lightnings, towards dawn. Well, not a body eat a bite at breakfast that morning. After that the men loafed around, in twos and threes, and talked low together. But none of them herded with d**k Allbright. They all give him the cold shake. If he come around where any of the men was, they split up and sidled away. They wouldn’t man the sweeps with him. The captain had all the skiffs hauled up on the raft, alongside of his wigwam, and wouldn’t let the dead men be took ashore to be planted; he didn’t believe a man that got ashore would come back; and he was right.

‘After night come, you could see pretty plain that there was going to be trouble if that bar’l come again; there was such a muttering going on. A good many wanted to kill d**k Allbright, because he’d seen the bar’l on other trips, and that had an ugly look. Some wanted to put him ashore. Some said, let’s all go ashore in a pile, if the bar’l comes again.

‘This kind of whispers was still going on, the men being bunched together forrard watching for the bar’l, when, lo and behold you, here she comes again. Down she comes, slow and steady, and settles into her old tracks. You could a heard a pin drop. Then up comes the captain, and says:—

‘”Boys, don’t be a pack of children and fools; I don’t want this bar’l to be dogging us all the way to Orleans, and YOU don’t; well, then, how’s the best way to stop it? Burn it up,—that’s the way. I’m going to fetch it aboard,” he says. And before anybody could say a word, in he went.