Andy tried to comfort her. The howls increased. Parthy tried stern measures. Hysteria. The two united then, and alarm brought pleadings, and pleadings promises, and finally the three sat intertwined, Andy’s arm about Magnolia and Parthenia; Parthenia’s arm embracing Andy and Magnolia; Magnolia clinging to both.
“Come get your hair combed. Mama’ll change your dress. Now stop that crying.” Magnolia had been shaken by a final series of racking sobs, real enough now that the mechanics had been started. Her lower lip quivered at intervals as the wet comb chased the strands of straight black hair around Mrs. Hawks’ expert forefinger. When finally she appeared in starched muslin petticoats and second best plaid serge, there followed behind her Parthy Ann herself bonneted and cloaked for the street. The thing was done. The wife of a showman. The Puritan in her shivered, but her curiosity was triumphant even over this. They marched down Oak Street to the river-landing, the child skipping and capering in her excitement. There was, too, something of elation in Andy’s walk. If it had not been for the grim figure at his side and the restraining hand on his arm, it is not unlikely that the two—father and child—would have skipped and capered together down to the water’s edge. Mrs. Hawks’ tread and mien were those of a matronly Christian martyr on her way to the lions. As they went the parents talked of unimportant things to which Magnolia properly paid no heed, having had her way. . . . Gone most of the time. . . . It wouldn’t hurt her any, I tell you. . . . Learn more in a week than she would in a year out of books. . . . But they ain’t, I tell you. Decent folks as you’d ever want to see. Married couples, most of ’em. . . . What do you think I’m running? A bawdy-boat? . . . Oh, language be damned! . . . Now, Parthy, you’ve got this far, don’t start all over again. . . . There she is! Ain’t she pretty! Look, Magnolia! That’s where you’re going to live. . . . Oh, all right, all right! I was just talking . . .
The Cotton Blossom lay moored to great stobs. Long, and wide and plump and comfortable she looked, like a rambling house that had taken perversely to the nautical life and now lay at ease on the river’s broad breast. She had had two coats of white paint with green trimmings; and not the least of these green trimmings comprised letters, a foot high, that smote Parthy’s anguished eye, causing her to groan, and Magnolia’s delighted gaze, causing her to squeal. There it was in all the finality of painter’s print:
CAPT. ANDY HAWKS COTTON BLOSSOM FLOATING PALACE THEATRE
Parthy gathered her dolman more tightly about her, as though smitten by a chill. The clay banks of the levee were strewn with cinders and ashes for a foothold. The steep sides of a river bank down which they would scramble and up which they would clamber were to be the home path for these three in the years to come.
An awninged upper deck, like a cosy veranda, gave the great flatboat a curiously homelike look. On the main deck, too, the gangplank ended in a forward deck which was like a comfortable front porch. Pillars, adorned with scroll-work, supported this. And there, its mouth open in a half-oval of welcome, was the ticket window through which could be seen the little box office with its desk and chair and its wall rack for tickets. There actually were tickets stuck in this, purple and red and blue. Parthy shut her eyes as at a leprous sight. A wide doorway led into the entrance hall. There again double doors opened to reveal a stairway.
“Balcony stairs,” Andy explained, “and upper boxes. Seat hundred and fifty to two hundred, easy. Niggers mostly, upstairs, of course.” Parthy shuddered. An aisle to the right, an aisle to the left of this stairway, and there was the auditorium of the theatre itself, with its rows of seats and its orchestra pit; its stage, its boxes, its painted curtain raised part way so that you saw only the lower half of the Venetian water scene it depicted; the legs of gondoliers in wooden attitudes; faded blue lagoon; palace steps. Magnolia knew a pang of disappointment. True, the boxes bore shiny brass railings and boasted red plush upholstered seats.
“But I thought it would be all light and glittery and like a fairy tale,” she protested.
“At night,” Andy assured her. He had her warm wriggling little fingers in his. “At night. That’s when it’s like a fairy tale. When the lamps are lighted; and all the people; and the band playing.”
“Where’s the kitchen?” demanded Mrs. Hawks.