"Well, I did not think it necessary to inform her of the full extent of your delinquency; but I admitted to her that you had not the gift of saving, which she admires so much."
"She often told me that I would never acquire it."
"Oh, now I remember, she charged me to deliver to you a renewed admonition to prudence and economy. 'Tell E——,' said she, with great solemnity, made still more solemn by the huge pinch of snuff which she disposed of at the moment, 'that he must look forward to the future, and now, while he is prosperous, prepare for a less plentiful time, which may come. Tell him that, unless he studies prudence and economy, sooner or later, his nose must come to the grindstone.' I hope you will profit by the exhortation."
"I wish I could, I hope I may," said I, with something like a sigh interrupting for a moment the laugh, which I could not resist, at the expense of my good-hearted aunt Deborah.
Some further conversation occupied us for a short time, when we were admonished by the comparative quiet which had taken place of the bustle below, that it was time to seek such rest as we might find among the crowd.
Those persons who have not travelled in a "night-boat," as a steamer is called which performs its trips during the night, are probably not aware of the kind of lodgings which it affords when the number of passengers is large. The disposal of five hundred lodgers on board a steam boat is no trifling task. The berths are of course limited in number, and when crowded, the floors of the cabins are covered with sleeping contrivances of various descriptions. Settees, cots, and a kind of oblong box, having thin mattresses spread over them, with a sheet and blanket perhaps, are wedged together, each calculated to hold the body of a human being, by the most scanty and economical measurement. The berths are first exhausted by those who are most prompt in looking after their own comfort; and then comes the scramble for the cots, settees, &c. In this contest high words often occur, and in some instances I have heard of serious conflicts for the possession of one of these miserable dormitories.
On this occasion I had enlisted the good offices of the younger Captain Sherman, who promised to secure me a lodging, and when I entered the cabin it was pointed out to me. Numbers had been less fortunate, and unable to procure a place of rest below, had accommodated themselves upon benches, chairs, &c. above,—or wrapped in cloaks, had stretched themselves on the deck. Clambering over those who had already retired, I stretched myself on my pallet. In doing so I awoke my next neighbor, a gigantic Kentuckian, who lay cramped up in his scanty cot, like a stranded leviathan among a shoal of porpoises.
He cast his eyes upon me, and with an ineffectual attempt to extend his limbs, muttered, "Close stowing this, stranger."
I assented to the truth of his remark; but he seemed in no mood for conversation, and was soon fast asleep. The heat was suffocating from the effusions of so many human bodies lying in rows, almost touching each other,
| "Thick as the autumnal leaves which strow the brooks In Vallombrosa." |