“Sing louder,” he commanded, tramping up and down and scowling at his companions.
A young man of the party who had a reputation as a dancer refused to perform when commanded. Springing forward Sam dragged him out on the deck before the shouting crowd.
“Now dance!” he growled, “or I will throw you into the river.”
The young man danced furiously, and Sam marched up and down and looked at him and at the leering faces of the men and women lounging along the deck or shouting at the dancer. The liquor in him beginning to take effect, a queerly distorted version of his old passion for reproduction came to him and he raised his hand for silence.
“I want to see a woman who is a mother,” he shouted. “I want to see a woman who has borne children.”
A small woman with black hair and burning black eyes sprang from the group gathered about the dancer.
“I have borne children—three of them,” she said, laughing up into his face. “I can bear more of them.”
Sam looked at her stupidly and taking her by the arm led her to a chair on the deck. The crowd laughed.
“Belle is after his roll,” whispered a short, fat man to his companion, a tall woman with blue eyes.
As the steamer, with its load of men and women drinking and singing songs, went up the river past bluffs covered with trees, the woman beside Sam pointed to a row of tiny houses at the top of the bluffs.