It was early evening when we passed Madison, Ind. (553 miles), a fairly-prosperous factory town of about twelve thousand souls. Scores of the inhabitants were out in boats, collecting driftwood; and upon the wharf was a great crowd of people, waiting for an excursion boat which was to return them to Louisville, whence they had come for a day's outing. It was a lifeless, melancholy party, as excursion folk are apt to be at the close of a gala day, and they wearily stared at us as we paddled past.
Just below, on the Kentucky shore, on my usual search for milk and water, I landed at a cluster of rude cottages set in pleasant market gardens. While the others drifted by with Pilgrim, I had a goodly walk before finding milk, for a cow is considered a luxury among these small riverside cultivators; the man who owns one sells milk to his poorer neighbors. Such a nabob was at last found. The animal was called down from the rocky hills, by her barefooted owner, who, lank and malaria-skinned, leaned wearily against the well-curb, while his wife, also guiltless of hose and shoes, milked into my pail direct from the lean and hungry brindle.
By the time the crew were reunited, storm-clouds, thick and black, were fast rising in the west. Scudding down shore for a mile, with oars and paddle aiding the swift current, we failed to find a proper camping-place on the muddy bank of the far-stretching bottom. Rain-drops were now pattering on our rubber spreads, and it was evident that a blow was coming; but despite this, we bent to the work with renewed vigor, and shot across to the lee shore of Indiana—finally landing in the midst of a heavy shower, and hurriedly pitching tent on a rocky slope at the base of a vertical bank of clay. Above us, a government beacon shines brightly through the persistent storm, with the keeper's neat little house and garden a hundred yards away. In the tree-tops, up a heavily-forested hill beyond, the wind moans right dismally. In this sheltered nook, we shall be but lulled to sleep with the ceaseless pelting of the rain.
Louisville, Monday, May 28th.—At midnight, the heavens cleared, with a cold north wind; the early morning atmosphere was nipping, and we were glad of the shelter of the tent during breakfast. The river fell eight inches during the night, and on either bank is a muddy strip, which will rapidly widen as the water goes down.
Below us, twenty rods or so, moored to the boulder-strewn shore, was a shanty-boat. In the bustle of landing, last night, we had not noticed this neighbor, and it was pitch-dark before we had time to get our bearings. I think it is the most dilapidated affair we have seen on the river—the frame of the cabin is out of plumb, old clothes serve for sides and flap loudly in the wind; while two little boys, who peered at us through slits in the airy walls, looked fairly miserable with cold.
The proprietor of the craft came up to visit us, while breakfast was being prepared, and remained until we were ready to depart—a tall, slouchy fellow, clothed in shreds and patches; he was in the prime of life, with a depressed nose set in a battered, though not unpleasant countenance. None of our party had ever before seen such garments on a human being—old bits of flannel, frayed strips of bagging-stuff, and other curious odds and ends of fabrics, in all the primitive colors, the whole roughly basted together with sack-thread. He was a philosopher, was this rag-tag-and-bob-tail of a man, a philosopher with some mother-wit about him. For an hour, he sat on his haunches, crouching over our little stove, and following with cat-like care W——'s every movement in the culinary art; she felt she was under the eye of a critic who, though not voicing his opinions, looked as if he knew a thing or two.
As a conversationist, our visitor was fluent to a fault. It required but slight urging to draw him out. His history, and that of his fathers for three generations back, he recited in much detail. He himself had, in his best days, been a sub-contractor in railway construction; but fate had gone against him, and he had fallen to the low estate of a shanty-boatman. His wife had "gone back on him," and he was left with two little boys, whom he proposed to bring up as gentlemen—"yaas, sir-r, gen'lem'n, yew hear me! ef I is only a shanty-boat feller!"
"I thote I'd come to visit uv ye," he had said by way of introduction; "ye're frum a city, ain't yer? Yaas, I jist thote hit. City folks is a more 'com'dat'n' 'n country folks. Why? Waal, yew fellers jist go back 'ere in th' hills away, 'n them thar country folks they'd hardly answer ye, they're thet selfish-like. Give me city folks, I say, fer get'n' long with!"
And then, in a rambling monologue, while chewing a straw, he discussed humanity in general, and the professions in particular. "I ain't got no use fer lawyers—mighty hard show them fellers has, fer get'n' to heaven. As fer doctors—waal, they'll hev hard sledd'n, too; but them fellers has to do piles o' dis'gree'bl' work, they do; I'd jist rather fish fer a liv'n', then be a doctor! Still, sir-r, give me an eddicated man every time, says I. Waal, sir-r, 'n' ye hear me, one o' th' richest fellers right here in Madison, wuz born 'n' riz on a shanty-boat, 'n' no mistake. He jist done pick up his eddication from folks pass'n' by, jes' as yew fellers is a passin', 'n' they might say a few wuds o' information to him. He done git a fine eddication jes' thet way, 'n' they ain't no flies on him, these days, when money-gett'n' is 'roun'. Jes' noth'n' like it, sir-r! Eddication does th' biz!"