DOWN THE BIG MUDDY.
It is more than six hundred miles from Leavenworth to St. Louis by the river. And as the river is crooked exceedingly, a steamboat travelling that route points her bow at every point of the compass, north, south, east, and west, before the voyage is finished. The boys were impatient to reach home, to be back in dear old Dixon, to see the mother and the fireside once more. But they knew that days must pass before they could reach St. Louis. The three lads settled themselves comfortably in the narrow limits of their little stateroom; for they found that their passage included quarters really more luxurious than they had been accustomed to in their Kansas log-cabin.
“Not much army blanket and buffalo-robe about this,” whispered Oscar, pressing his toil-stained hand on the nice white spread of his berth. “Say, wouldn’t Younkins allow that this was rather comfortable-like, if he was to see it and compare it with his deerskin coverlet that he is so proud of?”
“Well, Younkins’s deerskin coverlet is paid for, and this isn’t,” said Charlie, grimly. 216
But the light-hearted younger boys borrowed no trouble on that score. As Sandy said, laughingly, they were all fixed for the trip to St. Louis, and what was the use of fretting about the passage money until the time came to pay it?
When the lads, having exchanged their flannel shirts for white cotton ones, saved up for this occasion, came out from their room, they saw two long tables covered with snowy cloths set for the whole length of the big saloon. They had scanned the list of meal hours hanging in their stateroom, and were very well satisfied to find that there were three meals served each day. It was nearly time for the two o’clock dinner, and the colored servants were making ready the tables. The boat was crowded with passengers, and it looked as if some of them would be obliged to wait for the “second table.” On board of a steamboat, especially in those days of long voyages, the matter of getting early to the table and having a good seat was of great concern to the passengers. Men stood around, lining the walls of the saloon and regarding with hungry expectation the movements of the waiters who were making ready the tables. When the chairs were placed, every man laid his hand on the top of the seat nearest him, prepared, as one of the boys privately expressed it, to “make a grab.”
“Well, if we don’t make a grab, too, we shall get left,” whispered Sandy, and the boys bashfully 217 filed down the saloon and stood ready to take their seats when the gong should sound.
To eyes unused to the profuseness of living that then prevailed on the best class of Western steamboats, the display on the dining-tables of the “New Lucy” was very grand indeed. The waiters, all their movements regulated by something like military discipline, filed in and out bearing handsome dishes for the decoration of the board.
“Just look at those gorgeous flowers! Red, white, blue, purple, yellow! My! aren’t they fine?” said Sandy, under his breath.
Oscar giggled. “They are artificial, Sandy. How awfully green you are!”