“U-whoo!”
A lank, stoop-shouldered woman emerged from the craft and fixed the well-favoured young woman with keen, bright eyes.
“You-all know if there’s a shanty-boat here for sale—cheap?” Nelia asked, without eagerness.
The woman looked at the bank, reflectively.
“I expect,” she admitted at last. “This un yaint, but theh’s two spo’ts down b’low, that’s quittin’ the riveh, that blue boat theh, but theh’s spo’ts.” 18
“I ’lowed they mout be,” Nelia dropped into her childhood vernacular as she looked down the bank, “Likely yo’ mout he’p me bargain, er somebody?”
“I ’low I could!” the river woman replied. “Me an’ my ole man he’ped a feller up to St. Louis, awhile back, who was green on the river, but he let us kind of p’int out what he’d need fo’ a skift trip down this away. Real friendly feller, kind of city-like, an’ sort of out’n the country, too. ’Lowed he was a writin’ feller, fer magazines an’ books an’ histries an’ them kind of things. Lawsy! He could ask questions, four hundred kinds of questions, an’ writin’ hit all down into a writin’ machine onto paper. We shore told him a heap an’ a passel, an’ he writes mornin’ an’ nights. Lots of curius fellers on Ole Mississip’. We’ll sort of look aroun’. Co’se, yo’ got a man to go ’long?”
“No.”
“Wha-a-t! Yo’ ain’ goin’ to trip down alone?”
“I might’s well.”