“What work have they to do, then, now?”
“I set ’em to clairin’, but they aint doin’ a dam thing—not a dam thing, they aint; that’s wat they are doin’, that is—not a dam thing. I know that, as well as you do. That’s the reason time’s an object. I told the capting so, wen I came aboard: says I, ’capting,’ says I, ‘time is in the objective case with me.’ No, sir, they aint doin’ a dam solitary thing; that’s what they are up to. I know that as well as anybody; I do. But I’ll make it up, I’ll make it up, when I get thar, now you’d better believe.”
Once, when a lot of cotton, baled with unusual neatness, was coming on board, and some doubt had been expressed as to the economy of the method of baling, he said very loudly:
“Well, now, I’d be willin’ to bet my salvation, that them thar’s the heaviest bales that’s come on to this boat.”
“I’ll bet you a hundred dollars of it,” answered one.
“Well, if I was in the habit of bettin’, I’d do it. I aint a bettin’ man. But I am a cotton man, I am, and I don’t car who knows it. I know cotton, I do. I’m dam if I know anythin’ but cotton. I ought to know cotton, I had. I’ve been at it ever sin’ I was a chile.”
“Stranger,” he asked me once, “did you ever come up on the Leweezay? She’s a right smart pretty boat, she is, the Leweezay; the best I ever see on the Alabamy river. They wanted me to wait and come down on her, but I told ’em time was in the objective case to me. She is a right pretty boat, and her capting’s a high-tone gentleman; haint no objections to find with him—he’s a high-tone gentleman, that’s what he is. But the pilot—well, damn him! He run her right out of the river, up into the woods—didn’t run her in the river, at all. When I go aboard a steamboat, I like to keep in the river, somewar; but that pilot, he took her right up into the woods. It was just clairin’ land. Clairin’ land, and playin’ hell ginerally, all night; not follering the river at all. I believe he was drunk. He must have been drunk, for I could keep a boat in the river myself. I’ll never go in a boat where the pilot’s drunk all the time. I take a glass too much myself, sometimes; but I don’t hold two hundred lives in the holler of my hand. I was in my berth, and he run her straight out of the river, slap up into the furest. It threw me clean out of my berth, out onter the floor; I didn’t sleep any more while I was aboard. The Leweezay’s a right smart pretty little boat, and her capting’s a high-tone gentleman. They hev good livin’ aboard of her, too. Haan’t no objections on that score; weddin’ fixins all the time; but I won’t go in a boat war the pilot’s drunk. I set some vally on the life of two hundred souls. They wanted to hev me come down on her, but I told ’em time was in the objective case.”
There were three young negroes, carried by another Texan, on the deck, outside the cabin. I don’t know why they were not allowed to be with the other emigrant slaves, carried on the lower deck, unless the owner was afraid of their trying to get away, and had no handcuffs small enough for them. They were boys; the oldest twelve or fourteen years old, the youngest not more than seven. They had evidently been bought lately by their present owner, and probably had just been taken from their parents. They lay on the deck and slept, with no bed but the passengers’ luggage, and no cover but a single blanket for each. Early one morning, after a very stormy night, when they must have suffered much from the driving rain and cold, I saw their owner with a glass of spirits, giving each a few swallows from it. The older ones smacked their lips, and said, “Tank ’ou massa;” but the little one couldn’t drink it, and cried aloud, when he was forced to. The older ones were very playful and quarrelsome, and continually teasing the younger, who seemed very sad, or homesick and sulky. He would get very angry at their mischievous fun, and sometimes strike them. He would then be driven into a corner, where he would lie on his back, and kick at them in a perfect frenzy of anger and grief. The two boys would continue to laugh at him, and frequently the passengers would stand about, and be amused by it. Once, when they had plagued him in this way for some time, he jumped up on to the cotton-bales, and made as if he would have plunged overboard. One of the older boys caught him by the ankle, and held him till his master came and hauled him in, and gave him a severe flogging with a rope’s end. A number of passengers collected about them, and I heard several say, “That’s what he wants.” Red River said to me, “I’ve been a watchin’ that ar boy, and I see what’s the matter with him; he’s got the devil in him right bad, and he’ll hev to take a right many of them warmins before it’ll be got out.”
The crew of the boat, as I have intimated, was composed partly of Irishmen, and partly of negroes; the latter were slaves, and were hired of their owners at $40 a month—the same wages paid to the Irishmen. A dollar of their wages was given to the negroes themselves, for each Sunday they were on the passage. So far as convenient, they were kept at work separately from the white hands; they were also messed separately. On Sunday I observed them dining in a group, on the cotton-bales. The food which was given to them in tubs, from the kitchen, was various and abundant, consisting of bean-porridge, bacon, corn bread, ship’s biscuit, potatoes, duff (pudding), and gravy. There was one knife used only, among ten of them; the bacon was cut and torn into shares; splinters of the bone and of fire-wood were used for forks; the porridge was passed from one to another, and drank out of the tub; but though excessively dirty and beast-like in their appearance and manners, they were good-natured and jocose as usual.
“Heah! you Bill,” said one to another, who was on a higher tier of cotton, “pass down de dessart. You! up dar on de hill; de dessart! Augh! don’t you know what de dessart be? De duff, you fool.”