"What the dyvil did yez go for to tip the plank over on the min for?" he asked.
Ben replied that it was an accident.
"An occident! Howly Mother! An wazn't the plank afoor yer nose? Would yez want a barn flure to roll the barry on?"
Ben mollified the boss's wrath by telling him of his late shipwreck and the weakness caused thereby.
"Well, ye poor dyvil, yez doan't want to be stoppin' on the livy. Every year there do be rigimints of min that's not fit to shovel sawdust, come tramping along, and aten' the camps up. But you've been missfourtinate. The best yez'll do for yersel will be to get to New Orleans and pick up a job yez 'ud be more used to. Go yez now to the cook's shanty and tell thim to give yez bread and mate; that'll stay by yez till ye make Baton Rouge, and then yez can get on a boat the night and be in New Orleans in the mornin'."
Ben thanked the kind hearted boss, and started down the levee with a big package of bread and "salt-horse" under his arm. He arrived at Baton Rouge, the former capital of the State of Louisiana, after dusk, and during the evening, crawled in among the cotton-bales of a Yazoo River stern-wheel freight-boat. No one was on the lookout for passengers, as the boat carried none, so he was left undisturbed, and soon fell into a sound sleep.
Daylight was beaming upon him when he was awakened by a rough shake.
"Git up boss, git up. We muss have dis yere bale ob cotton!"
He awoke to find the boat stopped, and a gang of black long-shore men unloading her.
"Where am I?" he asked.