ACT II.
Cabin of the Creole Bride, a Mississippi steamboat cosily furnished. Doors R. and L. Table and cradle C. Pictures. Four books on a little shelf. A parasol and handkerchief lie on the table. Mary, the Captain’s wife, sits by the cradle sewing.
Mary (sings).
“By low baby,
By low baby,
By low baby,
By low by.”
(Rises.)
There! he’s asleep at last. He keeps awake just as long as he can, I do believe. (Takes a book from the shelf.) I don’t know what I should do this stormy weather, I am sure, if it weren’t for these books. Away up here, on this river, where we don’t get a newspaper but once in two weeks! (Turns over the books.) I am tired of “Baxter’s Saint’s Rest,” and I know “Alonzo and Melissa” by heart. I suppose I ought to read my Bible more, but here’s this book on navigation. (Reads.) “Thoms’ Navigator,” by Janet Thorms, a Yankee schoolmarm, they say, up near Boston. It seems fresh all the time. I like to study it, too, when I am rocking the cradle. (Sits and reads.) Somehow, it seems to come natural to me to know all about a boat, and I love any kind of a one. How they skip round the bend of the river, and over the sea, at home! I wonder why they call a vessel she! Father says they ought to call steamboats he, because they smoke so. Dear father! how I should like to see him, and hear him sing!
(Enter Phus, R.)