We shall not attempt to describe that meeting, for we could not do it justice. Just consider that they have got through gushing over each other, and that they are sitting down quietly, talking like veterans who have seen fifteen months of the hardest kind of service.
“I don’t know how I missed seeing you,” said Rodney, “for I was on the levee almost all day yesterday, and saw every boat that came in. How did you get home? and where did you leave your folks?”
“I got home easy enough, and left the folks in St. Louis. My discharge from Bragg’s army put me on the right side of both rebs and Yanks, and the money you so generously[generously] provided brought me all the grub I wanted. I found the folks at home, but they didn’t remain there long after I joined them, for there was almost too much guerilla warfare going on in Kansas and western Missouri to make it pleasant for non-combatants. So we dug out for St. Louis, and we’ve been there ever since. I couldn’t get a letter to you, but I knew I could come myself as soon as the river was opened, and here I am. A pass from the provost marshal took me through the lines, and Mr. Turnbull was kind enough to hitch up a team and bring me to your father’s house, where I stopped last night. I heard some astonishing stories about Marcy and that sailor brother of his, and am sorry indeed that Marcy has gone home to stay. I should like much to see him.”
“And he would be delighted to see you, but I don’t look for him until this trouble is all over. Sailor Jack is liable to come along any day; and Dick, we’ll go with him and help him buy cotton.”
“Oh, you needn’t think that you and Jack are going to have a picnic,” replied Dick with a smile. “I talked with some of the officers of the boat on my way down, and they seemed to think that Uncle Sam’s tin-clads will have all they can do to keep the river clear of guerillas. They’ll not let traders take cotton out of the country if they can help it.”
It goes without saying that in Dick Graham’s company Rodney was almost as happy as he desired to be. He was blessed with perfect health, his family had in a great measure escaped the horrors of war which fell to the lot of so many others, there was no cotton in the woods for him to worry over, the man Lambert, who was a thorn in his side for so many months, had been sent to Camp Douglas for his merciless persecution of the Union people in the settlement, his father’s check was good at the bank for a larger amount than it had ever been before, and one of the few things Rodney had to wish for now was that the war might end with the battle of Gettysburg. Many brave soldiers on both sides declared that would have been the result of the fight if the arrogance of Jeff Davis had not stood in the way. He continued to slaughter men and desolate homes in the vain effort to make himself the head of a new nation. Great battles were yet to be fought to satisfy one man’s ambition and desire for power. Hood’s army of forty-five thousand men was to be annihilated at Nashville, and Sherman’s march to the sea accomplished before the “day of Appomattox” dawned upon the country. And Sailor Jack was to try his hand at being a trader.
He made his appearance about a week after Dick Graham did, and quite as unexpectedly, and so the boys were not on the levee to meet him. He secured a pass from the provost marshal, borrowed a horse, and rode out to his uncle’s plantation. Dick Graham had never seen him before, but when he got through shaking hands he was willing to believe that the sailor was glad to make his acquaintance.
“If I do say it myself I think I am well equipped for the business,” said Jack in response to Rodney’s inquiries. “My boat is the Venango, which is guaranteed to carry a full deck-load on a heavy dew, my officers are all river men and my deck-hands whites; for I wasn’t going to take darkies among the rebels to be captured and sent back into slavery.”
“Why, Jack,” said Mrs. Gray, “you talk as if you were going into danger.”
“Well, I am not as sanguine of keeping out of it as I was a few weeks ago,” said the sailor. “If I can hold fast to the Venango until I can load up the Hyperion twice, I shall think myself lucky. And I shall make a good thing out of it besides.”