Down The River Part 22

AT THE MOUTH OF THE OHIO.

It must have been eight o'clock when Flora opened the window of her room. She told me she had slept soundly, and felt as well as ever she did in her life. I think Sim would have snored till noon if I had not called him; but he had slept at least six hours, and I concluded that he could stand it till night. I gave him the steering oar, and Flora and I got breakfast. Our first meal on board was not entirely satisfactory, for we had no table, and only one chair.

I took the helm again while Sim ate his breakfast, and then went to bed myself; for I found, after my night of watching and excitement, I was in no condition to work. My companions were as considerate of me as I had been of them, and permitted me to sleep till the middle of the afternoon. I was "as good as new" then; and, after we had dined, I put up a table, and made a couple of stools.

During the day, we met two steamboats, and pa.s.sed a huge flat-boat loaded with grain; but no one on board of them seemed to take any particular notice of us. Every kind of a craft is seen on the great western rivers, and none is so strange as to excite a sensation in the mind of the beholder. At six o'clock we had been afloat about twenty hours; and, according to my estimate, it was nearly time for us to see the Mississippi. The Wisconsin had widened as we advanced, and I was sure that we should be in the great river before midnight.

After supper, I discussed with Sim the subject of keeping watch during the night, and we decided that four hours were enough for each of us to steer at one time. But we had no means of measuring time in the night, and we could only guess at the length of the watch. I was to serve from eight till twelve, and Sim from twelve till four, when I was to take my place again.

Flora retired early on the second night, and I sent Sim to bed as soon as it was fairly dark. I was alone again, in the solitude of that waste of waters. The novelty of the scene had in some measure worn off. I had nothing but my own thoughts to amuse me. The river appeared still to be widening, and, as I had antic.i.p.ated, before my watch had ended, the raft entered the Mississippi. The river was high, the current much stronger than it had been in the Wisconsin, and the progress of the raft was correspondingly increased. I met a steamboat struggling against the stream, and pa.s.sed quite near to her. The swell that she left behind her caused the raft to roll heavily for a moment; but it did not disturb the sleepers in the house.

I called Sim at twelve o'clock, as nearly as I could judge, and he faithfully promised me that he would keep awake till daylight. I left him alone on the platform, and turned in, though not without some doubts in regard to his ability to be true to his promise. I went to sleep very promptly, and I must do Sim the justice to say that I found the raft all right when he called me at sunrise, an hour later than the time agreed upon. He told me that nothing had happened during the night, except that a steamboat had nearly upset the raft.

I do not intend to make a daily record of our voyage down the river. One day was very much like the next day, and all days were alike. On the afternoon of the first day on the Mississippi, we approached a village, where there was a steamboat landing. We were in want of supplies for our table, and I decided to stop for an hour or two. But I found that it was an easier matter to go ahead than it was to stop, for the raft had got into the habit of doing so. The water was too deep to permit the use of poles, and we were helplessly carried past the village.

I was vexed at this mishap, for I did not like to drink my coffee without milk. However, we came to another and a larger village about sundown, and, making my calculations in good season, I succeeded in driving the raft into the shallow water where we could use the poles. We struck the sh.o.r.e some distance above the place; but a walk of half a mile was not objectionable, after our long confinement on the raft.

At this town I purchased a cheap clock, and an old, patched sail, which had been used on a wood-boat, as well as some provisions and groceries.

Sim and I lugged these articles to the raft, and immediately cast off again. I put the clock up in the house, where it could be seen through the door without leaving the platform. The lantern hung over it, so that we could tell the time by night.

I had great hopes of the sail, and the next day I rigged it upon two poles, serving as yards. On one corner of the sail I found a block, which had been used for the sheet. I fastened it at the masthead, so that we could hoist and lower the sail at pleasure. I was no navigator, and no sailor; and I had to experiment with the sail and rigging for a long while before I could make them work to my satisfaction.

My inventive powers did not fail me, and by attaching a rope to each end of the two yards, I obtained the control of the canvas. When I had completed the work, and hoisted the sail, I was delighted with its operation. The wind came pretty fresh from the north-west, and I think the raft made five, if not six miles an hour with its help. With the sail drawing well, the labor of steering was reduced more than half. The raft had no tendency to whirl round, and it was really a pleasure to steer her. We were not obliged to follow the current in its broad sweeps around the bends of the river, and we saved many miles by taking "short cuts." I found, too, that the raft was under better control, and, instead of being at the mercy of the current, we could go where we pleased. When there was any wind, and it came from the right direction, I could make a landing where and when I wished with very little difficulty.

Day after day we continued on our voyage, Sim and I dividing equally between us the labor at the steering oar. We could not use the sail all the time, but it was a vast help to us when the wind was favorable. As time permitted, I made improvements on the house, which added to our comfort. I put up two berths, which we filled with hay obtained from the prairies. I made a closet for the dishes, and a well in the body of the raft, where the kettle of milk could be kept cool in the water.

We made a landing almost every day at some town, and on Sunday we hauled up and went to church, whenever we were in a place where we could do so.

On our sixth day it rained in torrents, and I hauled up at the bank of a river, and made fast to a tree. It was not comfortable to stand on the platform, wet to the skin, and steer. Sim and I slept nearly the whole day, while Flora read the books and newspapers which I had bought at the towns. I had done all the work I could find to do on the raft, and had fitted up the house to my mind. I had an easy time of it.

At one of the large towns I found what was called "A Panorama of the Mississippi River," which I bought and put up in the house. After this we knew just where we were, for the Panorama was a kind of chart, with all the towns on the river, the streams which flowed into it, and the distances from place to place, indicated upon it. With a good breeze we made about a hundred miles in twenty-four hours, and when we could not use the sail, the current carried us sixty miles.

When we reached the mouth of the Missouri, the prospect seemed to me, who had never seen a considerable body of water, to be like a great inland sea. Flora was appalled at our distance from the land, and Sim shouted, "Hookie!" Our raft, which had seemed so large on the stream where it had been built, now loomed puny and insignificant. Great steamboats, three times as large as any I had ever seen, and looming up far above the water, dashed by us. Huge flat-boats floated lazily down the river, and the scene became more lively and exciting as we advanced.

A new world had opened to us.

From the broad river we saw the great city of St. Louis, and we gazed with wonder and astonishment at its dense ma.s.s of houses, its busy levee, and the crowds of steamboats which thronged it. We had never seen the great world before, and we were overwhelmed with surprise. Flora was silent, and Sim cried "Hookie" a hundred times within an hour.

The swift current and the steady breeze carried us away from this stormy scene into the quiet of nature; for the great river has its solitudes, though many times in the day we saw steamboats going up and down, or encountered other craft voyaging towards the Gulf.

On the tenth day we approached the mouth of the Ohio. Again the expanse of waters increased, till it seemed to my narrow vision to be almost an ocean. It was nearly dark, and the weather was as pleasant as a maiden's dream. We had advanced about seven degrees of lat.i.tude towards the south, and Nature was clothed in her brightest green. We had stepped from the cold spring of Wisconsin to the mild summer of the South. Ten days before we had been among leafless trees; now we were in the midst of luxuriant foliage. Flora sat in her arm-chair, near the platform, enjoying the scene with me.

"If you are tired of the raft, Flora, we will go the rest of the way in a steamboat," I said, after we had spoken of the changing seasons we had experienced.

"I am not tired of it--far from it," she replied.

"We have over a thousand miles farther to go."

"I think I shall only regret the river was not longer when we get to New Orleans."

"I wonder what Captain Fishley thinks has become of us," I added, chuckling, as I thought of the family we had left.

"He and his wife must be puzzled; but I suppose they won't find out where we are till we write to them."

"They will not know at present then. We have got rid of our tyrants now, and I am in no hurry to see them again."

"Twig the steamers!" shouted Sim, from the roof of the house, where he had perched himself to observe the prospect. "They are having a race."

I had seen them before, and I wished they had been farther off, for one of them seemed to be determined to run over the raft, in her efforts to cut off her rival. Our craft was in the middle of the channel, and one of the steamers pa.s.sed on each side of us, and so close that we were nearly swamped in the surges produced by their wheels. I breathed easier when the boats had pa.s.sed, for I knew how reckless they were under the excitement of a race. I could hear them creak and groan under the pressure, as they went by.

We watched them as they rushed forward on their course. They were just rounding into the Ohio, on their mad career, when we saw one of them suddenly fly in pieces, torn, rent, s.h.i.+vered, the atmosphere filled with fragments. Then came a terrific explosion, like the din of an earthquake, shaking the raft with its violence. The boiler of the steamer had exploded.

CHAPTER XIX.

AFTER THE EXPLOSION.

When the explosion occurred, the wind was nearly dead ahead, and we were floating with the current, which was the particular reason why we had come so near being run down by the contestants.

"What's the matter?" asked Flora, alarmed by the noise, but unable to explain the cause of it.

"One of those steamers has burst her boiler. Didn't you see the pieces fly?" I replied.

"But where are the people we saw laughing and talking as she went by?"

continued she, with a shudder.

"A good many of them will never laugh and talk any more."

"Hookie!" shouted Sim, as soon as he comprehended the nature of the disaster. "That's wus'n fallin' in the river."

"Get out the sail, Sim!" I added, sharply.

"What you want the sail for?" inquired he. "The wind ain't right for it."

"Up with it, and we will talk about that afterwards."

Letting go the steering oar, I hastened to Sim's a.s.sistance, while the raft whirled in the current as she went down the mighty river. We hoisted the sail, hauled in the braces, and I took my place on the platform again. After no little labor at the steering oar, I succeeded in putting the raft before the wind, thus heading her up the river.

"What are you going to do, Buckland?" asked Flora, who was watching the scene of the accident with the most painful interest.

"Hundreds of those poor people have already perished, and more will be drowned, unless they have some help," I replied, much excited. "I am going to try and get up there, so as to be of some service."

"O, I hope you will! But there are boats out picking them up already,"

added she, wringing her hands, as she realized more vividly the nature of the terrible catastrophe.

"I'm going to do all I can," I replied, thrilled by the exciting scene, which, though a mile distant, we could understand and realize.