There probably was much that was sordid about the life. But to the imaginative and volatile little girl of ten or thereabouts it was a combination playhouse, make-believe theatre, and picnic jaunt. Hers were days of enchantment—or would have been were it not for the practical Parthy who, iron woman that she was, saw to it that the child was properly fed, well clothed, and sufficiently refreshed by sleep. But Parthy’s interests now were too manifold and diverse to permit of her accustomed concentration on Magnolia. She had an entire boatload of people to boss—two boatloads, in fact, for she did not hesitate to investigate and criticize the manners and morals of the crew that manned the towboat Mollie Able. A man was never safe from her as he sat smoking his after-dinner pipe and spitting contemplatively into the river. It came about that Magnolia’s life was infinitely more free afloat than it had ever been on land.
Up and down the rivers the story went that the Cotton Blossom was the sternest-disciplined, best-managed, and most generously provisioned boat in the business. And it was notorious that a sign back-stage and in each dressing room read: “No lady of the company allowed on deck in a wrapper.” It also was known that drunkenness on the Cotton Blossom was punished by instant dismissal; that Mrs. Captain Andy Hawks was a holy terror; that the platters of fried chicken on Sunday were inexhaustible. All of this was true.
Magnolia’s existence became a weird mixture of lawlessness and order; of humdrum and fantasy. She slipped into the life as though she had been born to it. Parthy alone kept her from being utterly spoiled by the members of the troupe.
Mrs. Hawks’ stern tread never adjusted itself to the leisurely rhythm of the show boat’s tempo. This was obvious even to Magnolia. The very first week of their initial trip she had heard her mother say briskly to Julie, “What time is it?” Mrs. Hawks was marching from one end of the boat to the other, intent on some fell domestic errand of her own. Julie, seated in a low chair on deck, sewing and gazing out upon the yellow turbulence of the Mississippi, had replied in her deep indolent voice, without glancing up, “What does it matter?”
The four words epitomized the divinely care-free existence of the Cotton Blossom show-boat troupe.
Sometimes they played a new town every night. Sometimes, in regions that were populous and that boasted a good back-country, they remained a week. In such towns, as the boat returned year after year until it became a recognized institution, there grew up between the show-boat troupe and the townspeople a sort of friendly intimacy. They were warmly greeted on their arrival; sped regretfully on their departure. They almost never travelled at night. Usually they went to bed with the sound of the water slap-slapping gently against the boat’s flat sides, and proceeded down river at daybreak. This meant that constant warfare raged between the steamboat crew of the Mollie Able and the show-boat troupe of the Cotton Blossom. The steamer crew, its work done, retired early, for it must be up and about at daybreak. It breakfasted at four-thirty or five. The actors never were abed before midnight or one o’clock and rose for a nine o’clock breakfast. They complained that the steamer crew, with its bells, whistles, hoarse shouts, hammerings, puffings, and general to-do attendant upon casting off and getting under way, robbed them of their morning sleep. The crew grumbled and cursed as it tried to get a night’s rest in spite of the noise of the band, the departing audience, the midnight sociability of the players who, still at high tension after their night’s work, could not yet retire meekly to bed.
“Lot of damn scenery chewers,” growled the crew, turning in sleep.
“Filthy roustabouts,” retorted the troupers, disturbed at dawn. “Yell because they can’t talk like human beings.”
They rarely mingled, except such members of the crew as played in the band; and never exchanged civilities. This state of affairs lent spice to an existence that might otherwise have proved too placid for comfort. The bickering acted as a safety valve.
It all was, perhaps, the worst possible environment for a skinny, high-strung, and sensitive little girl who was one-quarter French. But Magnolia thrived on it. She had the solid and lumpy Puritanism of Parthy’s presence to counteract the leaven of her volatile father. This saved her from being utterly consumed.