The Jack-Knife Man

by Ellis Parker Butler

He took his few belongings from the valise and hung them before the fire and then, crawling into the bunk, settled himself comfortably, and went to sleep. When Peter came in a minute later, with feet and legs chilled, Booge was snoring.

“Get up, here!” said Peter, shaking him.

“You better not wake up Booge, Uncle Peter,” said Buddy, “he's got to get his voice rested up.”

“You get up and get your boots on quick, and come out here and help me,” Peter commanded the tramp. “We got to get this boat afloat quick or we'll be here all winter.”

“All right, Captain Kidd,” said Booge cheerfully. “And you remember to ask me to sing you that song about the funny dog,” he told Buddy.

The slough was now free from floating river ice, but Peter noticed that the wind was still from the east. This should have kept the ice running through the slough. He knew the ice must have jammed at the head of the slough, and that it might act as a dam, lowering the water in the slough enough to make it impossible to move the boat. He was working at the pike-pole, but with poor success, and when Booge came out their combined efforts seemed to accomplish no more. But Peter knew the boat must be moved, and long after Booge wanted to give it up as a bad job, Peter made him labor at the pole. By standing on the landward edge of the deck and joggling the boat as they pushed on the pole they succeeded in inching the shanty-boat toward deeper water, and at length she floated free and swung down the current. Where the lake narrowed and ended Peter ran the boat against the shore, letting her rest against a fallen tree. It was a precarious position, and one in which it would not be safe to leave the boat if the river ice ran again, but just above this where the lake widened, Peter saw a safe harbor. Fifty feet out from the southern shore of the lake a bar had formed, and between the bar and the shore there was deep water enough to float the boat. To break the ice of this cove, warp the boat around the point and into this snug harbor was Peter's intention. His only cable had snapped close to the boat when she broke away, and he made Booge hold the bow of the boat close against the bank while he hastily twisted a makeshift rope of trot-lines—hooks and all.

With Booge on the shore dragging at the rope end, and Peter breaking the ice with his pike-pole from the deck, and pushing with the pole, the shanty-boat moved slowly out of the current of the slough and into the quiet water where, as the river fell, it would be stranded with its hull in the mud, as safe from danger as if on top of one of the hills two miles back from the slough.

It was hard work—the hardest Booge had tackled for years—and it consumed the balance of the day. When the two men went inside Peter did not complain when Booge threw himself on the bunk.

If Booge imagined he had won an easy and permanent victory, leading to a life of listless ease, he misestimated Buddy and Peter. Buddy alone could have kept him busy, but Peter let Booge know immediately that if he was to stay even a day he must earn his food and lodging.

The tramp was an odd combination of good nature and laziness; of good intentions and poor fulfilments. He could twang a banjo, when he had one to twang, and his present low estate was due to the untimely end of the career of a “medicine show,” one of those numerous half-vaudeville, half-peddling aggregations that at that time filled the country, charging a dime for admission to the “show” and a dollar a bottle for the “remedy.” Out of a hidden past Booge had dropped into the position of general “roustabout” for the show, caring for the tent, doing a banjo “turn” when the “artist” went on his regular spree, and driving the wagon when the show moved from town to town. When the final catastrophe came, Booge sold his banjo and started on the trail of another medicine-show. It fled as he advanced, and his garments decayed, were replaced with cast-off clothes, until he awoke one morning with a sharp realization that he was no longer a specialist seeking a position, but a common, every-day tramp. It did not annoy him at all. Being a tramp had advantages. He accepted it as his ultimate destiny.