Mr. Oscar Bryant was a tall, spruce-looking, and severe man in appearance. His hair was gray and brushed stiffly back from his forehead; and his precise, thin, white whiskers were cut “just like a minister’s,” as Sandy afterwards declared; and when he said that going to Kansas to make it a free State was simply the rankest kind of folly, Charlie’s heart sunk, and he thought to himself that the chance of borrowing money from their stern-looking uncle was rather slim. 248
“But it doesn’t make any difference to you boys whether slavery is voted up or down in Kansas, I suppose,” he continued, less sternly. “You will live to see the day when, if you live in Kansas, you will own slaves and work them. You can never clear up a wild country like that without slave-labor, depend upon it. I know what I am talking about.” And Uncle Oscar stroked his chin in a self-satisfied way, as if he had settled the whole Kansas-Nebraska question in his own manner of thinking. Sandy’s brown cheeks flushed and his eyes sparkled. He was about to burst out with an indignant word, when Charlie, alarmed by his small brother’s excited looks, blurted out their troubles at once, in order to head off the protest that he expected from Sandy. The lad was silent.
“Eh? what’s that?” asked the formal-looking merchant. “Busted? And away from home? Why, certainly, my lads. How much do you need?” And he opened his pocket-book at once. Greatly relieved, perhaps surprised, Charlie told him that they thought that fifty dollars would pay all their bills and get them back to Dixon. The money was promptly handed over, and Charlie, emboldened by this good nature, told his uncle that they still owed for their passage down the river from Leavenworth.
“And did they really trust you three boys for your passage-money? How did that happen?” asked the merchant, with admiration. 249
Charlie, as spokesman, explained that Sandy had “sparred” their way for them; and when he had told how Sandy still owed for a pack of cards, and how it was his honest face and candid way of doing things that had brought them thus far on their homeward journey, Uncle Oscar, laughing heartily and quite unbending from his formal and dry way of talking, said, “Well done, my little red-hot Abolitionist; you’ll get through this world, I’ll be bound.” He bade the wanderers farewell and goodspeed with much impressiveness and sent messages of good-will to their parents.
“How do you suppose Uncle Oscar knew I was an Abolitionist?” demanded Sandy, as soon as they were out of earshot. “I’m not an Abolitionist, anyhow.”
“Well, you’re a free-State man; and that’s the same thing,” said Charlie. “A free-State boy,” added Oscar.
With a proud heart the cashier of the Boy Settlers paid their bill at the hotel, and reclaimed their valise from the porter, with whom they had lodged it in the morning before going out. Then they hurried to the levee, and, to their surprise, found that the little steamer that conveyed passengers across the river to the East St. Louis railway station lay close alongside the “New Lucy.” Their task of transferring the baggage was easy.
“Say, Sandy, you made the bargain with the clerk to bring us down here on the security of our 250 luggage; it’s nothing more than business-like that you should pay him what we owe,” said Charlie.
“Right you are, Charlie,” added Oscar, “and it’s fair that Sandy, who has had the bother of sparring our way for us, should have the proud satisfaction of paying up all old scores.” So Sandy, nothing loth, took the roll of bills and marched bravely up to the clerk’s office and paid the money due. The handsome clerk looked approvingly at the boy, and said: “Found your friends? Good boy! Well, I wish you good luck.”