Everything that would catch wind or water was laid aside. Machinery carefully looked to, polished and oiled. Superfluous weights removed and both crafts prepared for the contest that no one knew any thing about. As a result of all this stripping the Argenta came into St. Louis ahead of the Chief, and several thousand sanguine individuals were stripped of their spare change for many months thereafter. It was the "wind up" of Mississippi yachting. A peaceful epilogue to a long drama of bursted boilers, murdered men, scalded deck-hands and drowned passengers. Racing on the western waters is out of date and out of fashion.
With deep intonings the Argenta's great bell sounded its final notes of solemn warning. The apple venders and orange peddlers sprang to the shore. The short-card men, fakirs, and magic-knife and thimble-rig manipulators deserted their prey. The huge stage was drawn in and up. The "last man" came rushing down the levee, bag in hand, and was taken on board on a single plank. There was a great jangling of small bells—a moment's silence—and then with a rush and a roar, amid the batter of big paddle-wheels, churning of water, clank of machinery, pulsations of the great exhausts, and the shouts of the crowd on shore, the Argenta backed from her berth into the stream, lay a second or two motionless in the waters, and then turned her nose to the south, and sped for New Orleans!
CHAPTER XXIII.
A NIGHT ON DECK.
Ben sat on a barrel, looking about him in wonder. Fifty negro roustabouts, great sable Hercules they were—scarce half civilized—secured and arranged the freight and ropes on deck for their trip, talking the while a mellow-voiced gibberish that he could but half understand. The mate, as great a savage as the blacks, though wearing a white skin, and whose reputation was based upon the fact of his having killed three roustabouts, directed them something after the fashion of driving cattle. Ben thought he had a more extensive repertoire of great big round-cornered oaths than any blasphemy-belching monster he had ever seen or heard tell of. Our friend wondered the darkies stood the abuse. He thought that being freemen, brothers and voters they would have taken umbrage at the aspersions, imprecations and anathemas hurled at them. He found they rather liked it, and worked to the tune of the mate's profanity much like a mule team does to the jingling bells above its hames. Previous to the war a negro was worth more than a white man. Now a white man is worth just as much as a black. The war elevated the white race. To understand this matter the reader must know that these roustabout crews are not always composed of black men. Some steamers carry mixed crews—that is white and black men working together. Previous to the war if a mixed crew were "up cottoning" the heavy bales gathered from along the river and an accident occurred, followed by a splash and the cry "man overboard!" the captain would anxiously ask, "white or black?" If the answer was "black" the boat was stopped, life preservers flung overboard, and every exertion made to save the unfortunate from a stream that swallows up the strongest swimmer. If "white," however, the captain looked relieved and sang out to the pilot, "All right! Go ahead!" That was before the war. Now no questions are asked. It is "All right, go ahead," any way.
These hard-worked members of the lowest class of labor in the country (one of the best paid, however) passed and repassed Ben, piling up the bags of grain, tier upon tier, until they touched the bottom of the deck above. On the front of the hull, out in the open air, stood the battery of boilers, reaching back nearly to the wheel-house, the few feet of intervening space on the guards being occupied on the port side by the kitchen, and on the larboard by the bakery. The Argenta's culinary department numbering a little army of thirty persons—cooks, bakers, assistants and waiters. There were a hundred head of new milch cows on deck, each side of the battery of boilers, going south where they would continue to give milk for two or three years, and then dry up like all cows in the far south. Texas, a state with more cows in it than all the rest of the Union combined, imports her butter and cheese, and does without milk. Back, aft of the wheel-houses, on the guards were a lot of Missouri mules. These with a pet pig that followed the roustabouts around, a few dogs belonging to passengers, and several coops full of noisy chickens and geese made the boat appear to Ben something like Noah's ark. While he was amusing himself in observing these things, Tommy came to him. With his usual business energy Tommy had been looking over the vessel, selecting "stowing" places and informing himself of the clerk's movements.
"We are all safe for below Cairo, any way, Ben," said he. "The clerk don't come around until after the boat leaves there; he's too busy. We won't be in Cairo until to-morrow, so we needn't mind keeping out of the way until then. Let's go back aft and see the fun."
Night had now settled on the waters. Lamps were lit and lanterns hung about the boat. Back aft a scene that Hogarth's pencil would have revelled in, met them. Between the mountain load of grain sacks that occupied the center of the boat and the vessel's stern, was an open space about thirty feet square. In the center of this stood a long sheet-iron stove, and around this stove was gathered a motley crowd of poverty-stricken humanity, roasting potatoes and parching corn, purloined from the sacks. Care, want, dirt, and misery had established themselves on their pinched faces, and the one lantern that hung in the open space giving light to the crowd painted their tatterdemalion coverings with fantastic effect.
"Those are dead-brokes, every one of 'em," said Tommy, "going to try to beat the boat down. We will have lots of company."
Too much, entirely too much, thought Ben. He could have spared some of it. Walking about the narrow limits and seated on bags, boxes, and the floor, were a lot of migrative birds. Sailors from the Lakes, who, having spent their summer on the great "unsalted seas," were now going down to the Gulf to secure berths on "wind-jammers." Laborers, going south in search of work among the compresses and on the levees. Other professional knights of the spade and barrow, bound for the fascination of the "dumps" and the festive "jiggers." There were several of the gentler sex seated around. Not lone-lorn women, but women in collusion with members of the sterner sex who were there. Wives, perhaps. Charitably, perhaps. The yoke of wedlock is not so hard to shift on and off in a certain class of society as it is in that to which the gentle reader belongs, perchance.