They returned to Thebes in February. Magnolia longed to be near her father. She even felt a pang of loneliness for her mother. The little white cottage near the river, at Thebes, looked like a toy house. Her bedroom was doll-size. The town was a miniature village, like a child’s Christmas set. Her mother’s bonnet was a bit of grotesquerie. Her father’s face was etched with lines that she did not remember having seen there when she left. The home-cooked food, prepared by Parthy’s expert hands, was delicious beyond belief. She was a traveller returned from a far place.
Captain Andy had ordered a new boat. He talked of nothing else. The old Cotton Blossom, bought from Pegram years before, was to be discarded. The new boat was to be lighted by some newfangled gas arrangement instead of the old kerosene lamps. Carbide or some such thing Andy said it was. There were to be special footlights, new scenery, improved dressing and sleeping rooms. She was being built at the St. Louis shipyards.
“She’s a daisy!” squeaked Andy, capering. He had just returned from a trip to the place of the Cotton Blossom’s imminent birth. Of the two impending accouchements—that which was to bring forth a grandchild and that which was to produce a new show boat—it was difficult to say which caused him keenest anticipation. Perhaps, secretly, it was the boat, much as he loved Magnolia. He was, first, the river man; second, the showman; third, the father.
“Like to know what you want a new boat for!” Parthy scolded. “Take all the money you’ve earned these years past with the old tub and throw it away on a new one.”
“Old one ain’t good enough.”
“Good enough for the riff-raff we get on it.”
“Now, Parthy, you know’s well’s I do you couldn’t be shooed off the rivers now you’ve got used to ’em. Any other way of living’d seem stale to you.”
“I’m a woman loves her home and asks for nothing better.”
“Bet you wouldn’t stay ashore, permanent, if you had the chance.”
He won the wager, though he had to die to do it.