The Mail Carrier

by Harry Castlemon

When Bob said “nice things,” he meant breech-loading shot-guns, sail-boats, jointed fish-poles, and handsome saddle-horses.

“But I would change places to-night with any bootblack in St. Louis who has a home and a kind father and mother,” said George, earnestly. “What surprises me is that not one boy in ten appreciates his blessings.”

“That’s so,” thought Bob. “You don’t, for one. You have money and don’t care for it. If I had it I shouldn’t be here now.”

“There’s Tony Richardson, for example,” continued George. “I used to run on one of his father’s boats, and became well acquainted with him. I envied him, and often thought he must be the happiest boy in the world; but he was the most discontented. He wanted to go to sea, but his father wouldn’t let him; and the next I heard of Tony was that he had stolen fifty dollars and run away. But he didn’t stay long, I tell you. The next trip but one that I made down the river, I saw somebody on the levee in New Orleans whom I thought I recognised; and when I went up closer to him I found that it was Tony Richardson. But he didn’t look much like the spruce young fellow who used to come into the pilot-house when we were running up to the coal fleet, and ask me to let him steer for me. He looked worse than any tramp I ever saw. He felt so ashamed of himself that at first he denied that he was Tony Richardson; but I very soon gave him to understand that he couldn’t fool me, and then he told me the story of his adventures. He had shipped at New Orleans on a coasting vessel bound to Rio, but before he had been twenty-four hours out of port one of the crew stole the money he had left, the mate gave him a black eye because he didn’t obey some order he did not understand, and by the time Tony reached Havana he had had quite enough of the sea. He deserted as soon as his vessel touched the shore, and hunted up a steamer that was about to start for the States. He tried to ship on her, but she didn’t want any more hands, so Tony stowed himself away in the hold, and never came out until the vessel was three or four hours out at sea. Of course the captain couldn’t turn back to put him ashore, so he had to bring him on. When I found him Tony was looking for a chance to ship as deck hand in order to work his way back to St. Louis. He is at home now, and the last time I saw him he told me that he had made up his mind to stay there.”

“But what makes you think that your uncle wants to get rid of you?” asked Bob, who did not care to hear any more about runaways and their experience. He knew more about the matter already than George could have told him if he had talked until daylight.

“I know it because he has shown it so plainly. Everybody in our neighborhood knows what he is trying to do, and I have been warned more than once. I shouldn’t be here now if I hadn’t had somebody besides Uncle John to look out for me. Mr. Gilbert, our nearest neighbor, used to be one of father’s herdsmen. He has exercised a fatherly care over me for years; and when I told him that I was going to leave home to become a pilot, he declared that it was the best thing I could do. I would be safer anywhere in the world, he said, than I was there in Texas.”

“Then I should think you would be afraid to go back,” said Bob, who now wished that George had not taken so great a liking to him. If he was in danger of his life, as his conversation seemed to imply, Bob did not want to go with him any nearer to Texas than he was at that moment. He did not long for a life of adventure as he did a few days before.

“I am going back because Mr. Gilbert advises it,” replied George. “I am going to have a new guardian appointed in Uncle John’s place. He is selling off everything he can lay his hands on, and the first I know I’ll not have a single head of stock left.”

This was but one of the many topics of conversation which engrossed the attention of the two boys during the half hour that they stood there on the bank, beating their hands and stamping their feet to keep them warm, and even this was not carried on as connectedly as we have written it. They would talk awhile about the steamer (all they could see of her now was a bed of coals, which marked the spot where her bow was still hard aground), and speculate concerning the fate of her passengers and crew. Then they wished that Bob had a coat, and that they had some matches, so that they could start a fire; wondered how far away, and in what direction, the nearest house lay from them, and asked each other how long it would be before a boat would come along and pick them up, and, when she came, whether she would carry them up or down the river. Then there would be long intervals of silence, during which their very ideas seemed to freeze up, so that they could not talk at all. George had a good deal to say about himself, hoping that he might induce Bob to give him some scraps of his own history; but in this he was disappointed. Bob preferred to listen.

The story of the young pilot’s life, as Bob heard it that night, made him open his eyes. We should be glad to report it here, but it is too long. We may take it up again at some future time, together with the history of the adventures and exploits of that other runaway, Tony Richardson. Our business, just at present, is to see what became of Bob in the end, and how much he increased his happiness by running away from home; and what we have told of George’s story is simply to explain what happened afterward.