CHAPTER XXIII.
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.Nowno 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.