Six miles up the river at the bend, a little steamboat whistle squalled at them through the still July atmosphere. The quartette promptly sat down and watched the boat’s approach.
The boat was about thirty feet long and about eighteen feet wide, was built with a flat keel which made it float on the top of the water like a cigar box, and was propelled by a paddle wheel in the rear about as big as a barrel.
Some river fishermen own such boats, living in them, and peddling their fish to the negroes on the plantations along the river. The vessel could ride the current down-stream and make six miles an hour; going up-stream, it hugged the bank, navigated the slack water, and got there as soon as it could. Three miles an hour up-stream was going some.
As the boat drew near, the quartette noticed that the machinery was protected by a rudely-built roof, and the crew consisted of one man who sat on a three-legged stool, smoked a pipe, shoveled coal, steered, and pulled the whistle-cord, and still had plenty of time to watch the scenery.
“Dat’s de life fer me,” Skeeter Butts exclaimed. “Up ’n’ down de river, fishin’ an’ swimmin’ an’ sleepin’. Ef I owned a steamboat like dat, I’d go right back to Tickfall an’ ax all my friends good-bye.”
“Me, too!” Vinegar Atts rumbled. “Ef I had a boat, I’d trabbel dis river givin’ religium advices to all de niggers on de river plantations. I’d preach eve’y night an’ I wouldn’t fergit to ax some hones’ brudder to pass de hat.”
“Steamboats is got some good p’ints over autermobiles,” Hitch Diamond growled. “You don’t got to lift ’em outen de mud or push ’em up-hill through de sand.”
“Ef I had a boat,” Figger Bush cackled, pulling at his little shoe-brush mustache, “I’d buy me a derby hat an’ a grassaphome, an’ a long-tail prancin’-albert coat, an’—an’—I’d climb up on top of it an’ sing all de songs I knows.”
The whistle squalled again.
“She’s fixin’ to make a landin’!” Skeeter exclaimed.