Only a single one of the original inhabitants remained, and he, although he might have chosen the best of the abandoned houses for his residence, or even the elegant but deserted “company’s store,” continued to inhabit the cabin he had built upon his arrival. The solid business men of the neighboring town of Mount Pisgah, situated upon a bluff, voted him a fool whenever his name was mentioned; but the wives of these same men, when they chanced to see old Wardelow passing by, with the wistful face he always wore, looked after him tenderly, and never lost an opportunity to speak to him kindly. When they met at tea-parties, or quilting-bees, or sewing-societies, or in other gatherings exclusively feminine, there were not a few of them who had the courage to say that the world would be better if more men were like old Wardelow.
For love seemed the sole motive of old Wardelow’s life. The cemetery which the thoughtful projectors of New Boston had presented to the inhabitants had for its only occupant the wife of old Wardelow; and she had been conveyed thereto by a husband who was both young and handsome. The freshet which had, soon afterward, swept the town, had carried with it Wardelow’s only child, a boy of seven years, who had been playing in a boat which he, in some way, unloosed.
From that day the father had found no trace of his child, yet he never ceased hoping for his return. Every steamboat captain on the river knew the old man, and the roughest of them had cheerfully replied in the affirmative when asked if they wouldn’t bring up a small boy who might some day come on board, report himself as Stevie Wardelow, and ask to be taken to New Boston.
Almost every steamboat man, from captain and pilot down to fireman and roustabout, carried and posted Wardelow’s circulars wherever they went—up Red River, the Yazoo, the White, the Arkansas, the Missouri, and all the smaller tributaries of the Mississippi.
New Boston had long been dropped from the list of post-towns, but every cross-road for miles around had a fingerboard showing the direction and telling the distance to New Boston. Upon a tall cottonwood-tree on the river-bank, and nearly in front of Wardelow’s residence, was an immense signboard bearing the name of “New Boston Landing,” and on the other side of the river, at a ferry-staging belonging to a crossing whose other terminus was a mile further down the river, was a sign which informed travelers that persons wishing to go to New Boston would find a skiff marked “Wardelow” tied near the staging.
The old man never went to Mount Pisgah for stores, or up the river to fish, or even into his own cornfield and garden, without affixing to his door a placard telling where he had gone and when he would return.
When he went to the cemetery, which he frequently did, a statement to that effect, and a plan showing the route to and through the cemetery, was always appended to his door, and, as he could never clearly imagine his boy as having passed the childhood in which he had last seen him, all the signboards, placards, and circulars were in large capital letters.
Even when the river overflowed its banks, which it did nearly every Spring, the old man did not leave his house. He would not have another story built upon it, as he was advised to do, lest Stevie might fail to recognize it on his return; but, after careful study, he had the house raised until the foundation was above high-water mark, and then had the ground made higher, but sloped so gradually that the boy could not notice the change.
When one after another of the city’s “plots,” upon which deserted houses stood, were sold for default in payment of taxes, old Wardelow bought them himself—they always went for a song, and the old man preferred to own them, lest some one else might destroy the ruins, and thus make the place unfamiliar to the returning wanderer.
