THE SECOND ADVENT! TOM BANGALL, THE ENGINEER, AND MILLERISM.
About the period fixed upon by Father Miller, for the general blowing up of the world, some of the engineers upon our western waters, who had been used to blowing up its inhabitants, became a little frightened at the prospect of having to encounter, in another world, the victims of steamboat disaster. Among these was Tom Bangall, the engineer of the Arkansas Thunder. Tom was a rearing, tearing, bar state scrouger—could chaw up any single specimen of the human race—any quantity of tobacco, and drink steam without flinching!—A collapsed flue had blown him once somewhere in the altitude of an Alpine height, but dropped him unharmed into the Arkansas, and he used to swear that after the steam tried to jerk him apart and found it couldn't do it, why, it just dropped the subject, as the stump speakers say, by dropping him into the “drink”—he therefore incontinently set water, hot or cold, at defiance. Tom was, withal, a generous, open-hearted, whole-souled fellow, and his cheering words to the emigrants on the boiler deck, and many a kind act to a suffering passenger, proved that beneath his rough exterior he had a heart open to gentle influences. As a further proof of this, Tom had a wife, a good wife, too, and what's more he tenderly loved her; but she in vain tried to cure him of drinking and swearing. Tom swore that he would swear, that a steamboat wouldn't work without some swearing, and if a fellar didn't drink he'd bust, and, therefore, it was necessary to take a bust now and then to keep out of danger. “There is no use,” he would say, “in blowing off steam from your 'scape-pipe agin it, for it has to be did!”
One day on Tom's return home, he found Mrs. Mary Bangall weeping bitterly, and Tom became, instantly, correspondingly distressed.
“Why, Polly,” inquired he, “what's the matter, gal?—what's hurt you?—is anythin' broke loose that can't be mended?—what the thunder makes you take on so?—Come, out with the cause, or I shall git a blubberin' too.”
“Only look here, Tom,” said Mary, “here's a whole account of how the world is going to be destroyed this April.—Every thing has been counted up by Father Miller, and the sum total's a general burn! Now, Tom, don't swear, nor drink any more or you won't be able to stand the fire no more than gunpowder!”
Tom indulged in a regular guffaw at her distress, and told her she was a fool to be frightened at that—it was all moonshine, humbug—smoke,— that Father Miller was an old granny, and it warn't possible—anyhow he warn't afraid of fire, “so it might fire away!”
“But, Tom,” continued Mary, “let me read to you the proof—it's irresistible, Tom,—the times and the half times, are so correctly added up that there can be no mistake, and if you don't make some preparation we will be separated for ever.”
The idea of a separation from Mary troubled Tom, but full of incredulity he sat down to listen, more to please her, and find something in the adding up of the catastrophe that would upset it. Mary commenced reading, and Tom quietly listening, but as she read the awful evidences of a general conflagration, the signs of the times, the adding up of the times, the proof of their meaning, and the dreadful consequences of being unprepared—with ascension robes, Tom grew serious, and at length looked a little frightened. He didn't want Mary to see its effect upon him, and so assumed an over quantity of indifference, but it was useless for him to attempt hiding his feelings from her prying eyes—she saw Miller's doctrine was grinding a hopper of fear in Tom's heart, and felt glad to see its effect. When she ceased he remarked, with a half-frightened laugh, that Father Miller ought to be burnt for thus trying to frighten people, and, “as for them eastern fellars, they are half their life crazy any how!”
Having tried thus to whisper unconcern to his troubled spirit, Tom set out for the boat, with the firm resolve, if he caught a Millerite to save him from the threatened burning by drowning him, for disseminating any such fiery doctrines. When he got on board he told the captain what had transpired at home,—how his wife had got hold of a Miller document from a travelling disciple, and, as well as he could, rehearsed the awful contents which she had read to him. The captain, observing the effect they had produced on Tom, seriously answered that the matter looked squally, and he was afraid them documents were all too true.
“True!” shouted Tom, “why, you aint green enough to swallow any such yarn—its parfectly rediculous to talk about burnin' every thing up. I'd like to see old Miller set fire to the Massissippi!”
“Its 110 funny matter, Tom,” replied the captain, “and if you keep going on this way you will find it so.”
“Here, give us somethin' to drink!” shouted Tom to the bar-keeper, (he began to get terrified at the serious manner with which the captain treated Millerism) “come, Bill,” said he, addressing the clerk, “let's take a drink.”
The clerk, who was a wag, saw through the captain's joke in a minute and when he winked at him, refused to taste, adding as an apology that “on the eve of so awful an event as the destruction of the world, he couldn't daringly indulge as he formerly did, so he must excuse him.”
“Well, go to h—ll, then,” says Tom, half mad.
The captain sighed, and the clerk put his hand upon his heart, and turned his eyes upward, as if engaged in inward prayer for his wicked friend. Tom swallowed his glass, and bestowing a fierce look upon the pair remarked, that “they couldn't come any of them thar shines over him, he wasn't any of that chicken breed!”
“Poor fellow,” muttered the captain.
“Alas! Thomas,” chimed in the clerk.
Tom slammed the cabin door after him as he went out to descend below, swearing at the same time that all the rest of the world were turning damned fools as well as old Miller.
Steam was raised and the Thunder started. For a time Tom forgot the predicted advent, but every time he came up to the bar to get a drink, the serious look of the captain and the solemn phiz of the clerk, threw a cold chill over him, and made him savage with excitement. Every passenger appeared to be talking about Millerism, besides, a waggish friend of the captain's, a passenger on board, having been informed of the engineer's state of mind, passed himself off as a preacher of the doctrine, and talked learnedly on the prophecies whenever the engineer was nigh. It was comic to see the fierce expression of their victim's countenance, and how, in spite of himself, he would creep up to the circles where they were discussing the Second Advent, and listen with all ears to the rehearsal of its terrible certainty, then making for the bar, take another drink, and thrusting his hands deep into his pockets start down to the engine, with a scowl upon his swart countenance that would almost start a flue head from its fastenings.
“I'd quit this boat,” said Tom to his assistant, “if it warn't so near 'the 25th of April,'—cuss me if I'd stay aboard another minit, fur captain and all hands are a set of cowardly pukes!”
“Why, what's the 25th of April got to do with your leavin', Tom?” inquired his partner.
“Nothin' particular, but if this confounded blow up or burn up should come off on that day, I wan't to be on the river—its safer; but if I should leave now I couldn't get on another boat by that time, and then I'd be in a hot fix.”
Here was a tacit confession by Tom, that he thought there was danger, and that there might be some truth in old Miller's prediction. The fact of his fears was forthwith communicated to the captain and clerk by Tom's partner, and his sufferings became increased—he could hear no sounds but—advent—Miller—bloe-up—dreadful destruction!—until his suspense became so horrible, that he wished for any termination so it would put an end to his dread. His partner ventured to increase his uneasiness by talking to him on the subject, but Tom threatened to brain him if he said anything about it in his presence—he remarked that “the noise of the engine was his only peace, and no frightened, lubberly sucker should disturb it by talking Millerism—if Miller was a goin' to burn the world, why, let him burn and be-(here, Tom for the first time checked an oath, and finished the sentence with) never mind, just let him burn, that's all.”
Starting up to the bar, without looking to right or left, he presented a bottle, had it filled with liquor and retreated, resolved to go as little as possible near either captain or clerk, for their solemn looking faces were contagious—they looked disaster.
At length the 25th of April dawned, and with its advancing hours Tom got tight, that is to say, so near intoxicated that he could only move around with extreme difficulty—he knew what he was about, but very little more. Sundry mutterings which he gave voice to, now and then, proclaimed the spirit at work within, and it would say:—
“Burn, ha!—burn up, will it?—goin' to take a regular bust and blow itself out! Great world, this!—g-r-e-a-t world, and a nice little fire it will be!” Then, thinking of Mary, he would continue—“Poor Mary—what a shock it will be to her, but she's on the safe side, for she belongs to meetin,”—and then he would get wrathy—“Let the old world burn, and go to splintered lightnin'—who cares?—The captain and clerk's got on the safe side, too,—they're afraid of the fire, eh?” Then he would cautiously emerge from his place by the engine, and peep out upon the sky, to see if the work of destruction was about to commence, and then returning, take another pull at the whiskey, until, by his frequent libations, he not only got blue, but every thing he looked at was multiplying—he was surrounded by a duplicate set of machinery—even his fist, that he shook at the intruding cylinder and piston rod, became doubled before his eyes, and all assumed the color of a brimstone blue! Tom became convinced, in his own mind, that the first stage of the general convulsion had commenced!
“Hello!—back her!” shouted the captain, “give her a lick back!—starboard wheel, there!”
“It's all up, now,” muttered Tom, “let's see you lick her back out of this scrape,” and staggering towards the steam valves, to try the amount of water in the boilers, he fell sprawling; at that moment the boat struck the bank with a bang that shook every timber in her; the concussion, also, injured a conducting steam-pipe just enough to scald Tom's face and hands severely, without endangering his life. As the stream of hot vapour hit him, he rolled over, exclaiming:—
“Good God!—it's all up, now!” and soon became utterly insensible
Tom was picked up and carried into the Social Hall, where restoratives were administered to recall him to consciousness, and remedies applied to heal his burns. All gathered in silence and anxiety around his pallet, watching for returning sensibility, the captain and clerk among the number, really grieved at the mishap, which they had no doubt was caused by their jest. While all breathlessly looked on, Tom gave manifestations of returning consciousness: of course, with sensibility returned feeling, and his burns appealed, most touchingly, to that sense. Twisting himself up, and drawing his breath through his teeth, he slowly remarked:—
“Jest as I thought—the d———l's got me, s-l-i-c-k enough, and I'm burnt already to a cinder!”
There was no resisting this—all hands burst into a roar of laughter. Tom couldn't open his eyes, but he could hear, and after they had done laughing, he quietly remarked:—
“These imps are mightily glad because they've got me! Here followed another roar, and when it subsided, the captain approached him, and called his name—
“Tom, old fellow,” said he, “you're safe!”
“What, you here, too, captain? I thought you had jined meetin' and saved your bacon.—So they've got you, too,—well, a fellar aint alone then.”
Here the clerk spoke to him.
“What, you, too, Bill?—well, 'there's a party of us,' any how, but it's so confounded dark I can't see you, and its hotter than-(here he checked himself with a shudder, and added,) Yes, I'm certain we're thar!” sighing heavily, he murmured—“Poor Mary—Oh, my Mary.”
By the efforts of the captain and clerk Tom was made to understand the true state of the case, and through their kindness and attention, was soon able to return to duty, and though he would after laugh at a jest about old Father Miller, yet he was never again known to drink whiskey. When irritated now, Tom always shuts his lips tight, and chokes down the rising oath. Mary is gratified with the change, although she wept at the severity of the means by which he was converted.