"I don't want to, Jake Packard. I'm for killin' him-and didn't he kill old Hatfield jist for the same way-and don't he deserve it?" "But I don't want him killed, and I've got my reasons for it." "Bless yo' heart for them words, Jake Packard! I'll never forgit you long's I live!" says the man on the floor, sort of blubbering. is this: it ain't good sense to go court'n' around after a halter if you can git at what you're up to in some way that's just as good and at the same time don't bring you into no resks. Ain't that so?" "You bet it is. But how you goin' to manage it this time?" "Well, my idea is this: we'll rustle around and gather up whatever pick10 in's we've overlooked in the staterooms, and shove for shore and hide the truck. Then we'll wait. Now I say it ain't a-goin' to be more'n two hours befo' this wrack breaks up and washes off down the river. See? He'll be drownded, and won't have nobody to blame for it but his own self. I reckon that's a considerable sight better 'n killin' him. I'm unfavorable to killin' a man as long as you can git aroun' it; it ain't good sense, it ain't good morals. Ain't I right?" Packard didn't take no notice of that, but hung up his lantern on a nail and started toward where I was, there in the dark, and motioned Bill to come. I crawfished as fast as I could about two yards, but the boat slanted so that I couldn't make very good time, so to keep from getting run over and catched I crawled into a stateroom on the upper side. The man came a-pawing along 20 in the dark, and when Packard got to my stateroom, he says: "Here come in here." And in he come, and Bill after him. But before they got in I was up in the upper berth, cornered, and sorry I come. Then they stood there, with their hands on the ledge of the berth, and talked. I couldn't see them, but I could tell where they was by the whiskey they'd 30 been having. I was glad I didn't drink whiskey; but it wouldn't made much difference anyway, because most of the time they couldn't 'a' treed me because I didn't breathe. I was too scared. And, besides, a body couldn't breathe and hear such talk. They talked low and earnest. Bill wanted to kill Turner. He says: "Yes, I reck'n you are. But s'pose she don't break up and wash off?" "Well, we can wait the two hours anyway and see, can't we?" "All right, then; come along." So they started, and I lit out, all in a cold sweat, and scrambled forward. It was dark as pitch there; but I said, in a kind of a coarse whisper, "Jim!" and he answered up, right at my elbow, with a sort of a moan, and I says: "Quick, Jim, it ain't no time for fooling around and moaning; there's a gang of murderers in yonder, and if we don't hunt up their boat and set her drifting down the river so these fellows can't get away from the wreck there's one of 'em their boat we can put all of 'em in a bad fix-for the sheriff'll get 'em. Quick -hurry! I'll hunt the labboard side, you hunt the stabboard. You start at the raft, and "He's said he'll tell, and he will. If 40 going to be in a bad fix. But if we find we was to give both our shares to him now it wouldn't make no difference after the row and the way we've served him. Shore's you're born, he'll turn state's evidence; now you hear me. I'm for putting him out of his troubles." "So'm I," says Packard, very quiet. "Blame it, I'd sorter begun to think you wasn't. Well, then, that's all right. Le's go and do it." "Hold on a minute; I hain't had my say yit. You listen to me. Shooting's good, but there's quieter ways if the thing's got to be done. But what I say 50 "Oh, my lordy, lordy! Raf'? Dey ain't no raf' no mo'; she done broke loose en gone!-en here we is!" CHAPTER XIII Well, I catched my breath and most fainted. Shut up on a wreck with such a gang as that! But it warn't no time even breathe. We went gliding swift along, dead silent, past the tip of the paddle-box, and past the stern; then in a second or two more we was a hundred yards below the wreck, and the darkness soaked her up, every last sign of her, and we was safe, and knowed it. When we was three or four hundred yards downstream we see the lantern door for a second, and we knowed by that that the rascals had missed their boat, and was beginning to understand that they was in just as much trouble now as Jim Turner was. to be sentimentering. We'd got to find that boat now-had to have it for ourselves. So we went a-quaking and shaking down the stabboard side, and slow work it was, too-seemed a week before we got to the stern. No sign of a boat. Jim said he didn't believe he could go any farther-so scared he hadn't hardly any strength left, he said. But I said, come on, if we get left on 10 show like a little spark at the texas this wreck we are in a fix, sure. So on we prowled again. We struck for the stern of the texas, and found it, and then scrabbled along forwards on the skylight, hanging on from shutter to shutter, for the edge of the skylight was in the water. When we got pretty close to the cross-hall door there was the skiff, sure enough! I could just barely see her. I felt ever so thankful. In 20 before. I begun to think how dreadful another second I woud'a' been aboard of her, but just then the door opened. One of the men stuck his head out only about a couple of foot from me, and I thought I was gone; but he jerked it in again, and says: "Heave that blame lantern out o' sight, Bill!" He flung a bag of something into the boat, and then got himself in and set 30 down. It was Packard. Then Bill he come out and got in. Packard says, in a low voice: "All ready-shove off!" I couldn't hardly hang on to the shutters, I was so weak. But Bill says: "Hold on-'d you go through him?" "No. Didn't you?" "No. So he's got his share o' the cash vet." "Well, then, come along; no use to take truck and leave money." "Say, won't he suspicion what we're up to?" "Maybe he won't. But we got to have it anyway. Come along." So they got out and went in. Then Jim manned the oars, and we took out after our raft. Now was the first time that I begun to worry about the men-I reckon I hadn't had time to it was, even for murderers, to be in such a fix. I says to myself, there ain't no telling but I might come to be a murderer myself yet, and then how would I like it? So says I to Jim: "The first light we see we'll land a hundred yards below it or above it, in a place where it's a good hiding place for you and the skiff, and then I'll go. and fix up some kind of a yarn, and get somebody to go for that gang and get them out of their scrape, so they can be hung when their time comes." But that idea was a failure; for pretty soon it begun to storm again, and this time worse than ever. The rain poured down, and never a light showed; everybody in bed, I reckon. We boomed along down the river, 40 watching for lights and watching for our raft. After a long time the rain let up, but the clouds stayed, and the lightning kept whimpering, and by and by a flash showed us a black thing ahead, floating, and we made for it. The door slammed to because it was on the careened side; and in a half second I was in the boat, and Jim come 50 tumbling after me. I out with my knife and cut the rope, and away we went! We didn't touch an oar, and we didn't speak nor whisper, nor hardly It was the raft, and mighty glad was we to get aboard it again. We seen a light now away down to the right, on shore. So I said I would go for it. The skiff was half full of plunder which that gang had stole there on the wreck. We hustled it on to the raft in a pile, and I told Jim to float along down, and It was a show a light when he judged he had I He stirred up in a kind of a startlish way; but when he see it was only me he took a good gap and stretch, and he 20 says: "Hello, what's up? Don't cry, bub. What's the trouble?" I says: "Pap, and mam, and sis, and-" Then I broke down. He says: "Oh, dang it now, don't take on so; we all has to have our troubles, and this'n 'll come out all right. What's the matter with 'em?" "They're they're watchman of the boat?" are you the "Yes," he says, kind of pretty-wellsatisfied like. "I'm the captain and the owner and the mate and the pilot and watchman and head deck-hand; and sometimes I'm the freight and passengers. I ain't as rich as old Jim Hornback, and I can't be so blame' generous Miss Hooker; and if you'd take your "What wreck?" "Why, there ain't but one." "What, you don't mean the Walter Scott?" "Yes." "Good land! what are they doin' there, for gracious sakes?" "Well, they didn't go there a-purpose." "I bet they didn't! Why, great goodness, there ain't no chance for 'em if they don't git off mighty quick! Why, how in the nation did they ever git into such a scrape?" "Easy enough. Miss Hooker was a-visiting up there to the town "Yes, Booth's Landing-go on." "She was a-visiting there at Booth's Landing, and just in the edge of the evening she started over with her nigger woman in the horse-ferry to stay all night at her friend's house, Miss Whatyou-may-call-her-I disremember her name-and they lost their steering-oar, and swung around and went a-floating 30 down, stern first, about two mile, and saddle-baggsed on the wreck, and the ferryman and the nigger woman and the horses was all lost, but Miss Hooker she made a grab and got aboard the wreck. Well, about an hour after dark we come along down in our tradingscow, and it was so dark we didn't notice the wreck till we was right on it; and so we saddle-baggsed; but all of us and good to Tom, Dick, and Harry as 40 was saved but Bill Whipple-and oh, what he is, and slam around money the way he does; but I've told him many a time 't I wouldn't trade places with him; for, says I, a sailor's life's the life for me, and I'm derned if I'd live two miles out of town, where there ain't nothing ever goin' on, not for all his spondulicks and as much more on top of it. Says I” I broke in and says: he was the best cretur!-I most wish 't it had been me, I do." "By George! It's the beatenest thing I ever struck. And then what did you all do?" "Well, we hollered and took on, but it's so wide there we couldn't make nobody hear. So pap said somebody got to get ashore and get help somehow. I 50 was the only one that could swim, so I "They're in an awful peck of trouble, made a dash for it, and Miss Hooker and-" "Who is?" "Why, pap and mam and sis and she said if I didn't strike help sooner, come here and hunt up her uncle, and he'd fix the thing. I made the land about a mile below, and been fooling along ever since, trying to get people to do something, but they said, 'What, in such a night and such a current? There ain't no sense in it; go for the steamferry.' Now if you'll go and-" "By Jackson, I'd like to, and, blame it, I don't know but I will; but who in the dingnation's a-going to pay for it? Do you reckon your pap "Why that's all right. Miss Hooker, she tole me, particular, that her uncle Hornback Then here comes the ferryboat; so I shoved for the middle of the river on a long down-stream slant; and when I judged I was out of eye-reach I laid on my oars, and looked back and see her go and smell around the wreck for Miss Hooker's remainders, because the captain would know her uncle Hornback would want them; and then pretty soon 10 the ferryboat gave it up and went for the shore, and I laid into my work and went a-booming down the river. "Great guns! is he her uncle? Looky here, you break for that light over yonder-way, and turn out west when you git there, and about a quarter of a mile out you'll come to the tavern; tell 'em to dart you out to Jim Hornback's, and he'll foot the bill. And don't you 20 fool around any, because he'll want to know the news. Tell him I'll have his niece all safe before he can get to town. Hump yourself, now; I'm a-going up around the corner here to roust out my engineer." I struck for the light, but as soon as he turned the corner I went back and got into my skiff and bailed her out, and then pulled up shore in the easy 30 water among some wood-boats-for I couldn't rest easy till I could see the ferryboat start. But take it all around, I was feeling ruther comfortable on accounts of taking all this trouble for that gang, for not many would 'a' done it. I wished the widow knowed about it. I judged she would be proud of me for helping these rapscallions, because rapscallions and dead-beats is the kind the 40 widow and good people takes the most interest in. Well, before long here comes the wreck, dim and dusky, sliding along down! A kind of cold shiver went through me, and then I struck out for her. She was very deep, and I see in a minute there warn't much chance for anybody being alive in her. I pulled all around her and hollered a little, but there wasn't any answer; all dead still. I felt a little bit heavy-hearted about the gang, but not much, for I reckoned if they could stand it I could. The first time I saw Whittier was in Fields's room at the publishing office, where I had come upon some editorial errand to my chief. He introduced me to the poet: a tall, spare figure in black of Quaker cut, with a keen, cleanshaven face, black hair, and vivid black eyes. It was just after his poem, SnowBound, had made its great success, in the modest fashion of those days, and had sold not two hundred thousand but twenty thousand, and I tried to make my compliment. I contrived to say that I could not tell him how much I liked it; and he received the inadequate expression of my feeling with doubtless as much effusion as he would have met something more explicit and abundant. If he had judged fit to take my contract 50 off my hands in any way, I think he would have been less able to do so than any of his New England contemporaries. In him, as I have suggested, the Copyright by Harper & Brothers, 1900. Quaker calm was bound by the frosty Puritanic air, and he was doubly cold to the touch of the stranger, though he would thaw out to old friends, and sparkle in laugh and joke. I myself never got so far with him as to experience this geniality, though afterwards we became such friends as an old man and a young man could be who rarely 10 Our better acquaintance began with some talk, at a second meeting, about Bayard Taylor's Story of Kennett, which had then lately appeared, and which he praised for its fidelity to Quaker character in its less amiable. aspects. No doubt I had made much of my own Quaker descent (which I felt was one of the things I had to be proud of), and he therefore spoke the more frankly of those traits of brutality into 20 which the primitive sincerity of the sect sometimes degenerated. He thought the habit of plain-speaking had to be jealously guarded to keep it from becoming rude-speaking, and he matched with stories of his own some things I had heard my father tell of Friends in the backwoods who were Foes to good manners. like the trembling of a flame, or the quivering of midsummer sunshine. It was hard to associate with the man as one saw him, still, shy, stiff, the passion of his verse. This imbued not only his anti-slavery utterances, but equally his ballads of the old witch and Quaker persecution, and flashed a far light into the dimness where his interrogations of Mystery pierced. Whatever doubt there can be of the fate of other New England poets in the great and final account, it seems to me that certain of these pieces make his place secure. There is great inequality in his work, and I felt this so strongly that when I came to have full charge of the Magazine,1 I ventured once to distinguish. He sent me a poem, and I had the temerity to return it, and beg him for something else. He magnanimously refrained from all show of offence, and after a while, when he had printed the poem elsewhere, he gave me another. By this time, I perceived that I had been wrong, not as to the poem returned, but as to my function regarding him and such as he. I had made my reflections, and never again did I ven his quality sent me. I took it and printed it, and praised the gods; and even now I think that with such men it was not my duty to play the censor in the periodical which they had made what it was. They had set it in authority over American literature, and it was not for me to put myself in authority over them. Their fame was in their own keeping, and it was not my part to guard it against them. Whittier was one of the most gen- 30 ture to pass upon what contributors of erous of men towards the work of others, especially the work of a new man, and if I did anything that he liked, I could count upon him for cordial recognition. In the quiet of his country home at Danvers he apparently read all the magazines, and kept himself fully abreast of the literary movement, but I doubt if he so fully appreciated the importance of the social 40 movement. Like some others of the great anti-slavery men, he seemed to imagine that mankind had won itself a clear field by destroying chattel slavery, and he had no sympathy with those who think that the man who may any moment be out of work is industrially a slave. This is not strange; so few men last over from one reform to another that the wonder is that any 50 should, not that one should not. Whittier was prophet for one great need of the divine to man, and he spoke his message with a fervor that at times was After that experience I not only practised an eager acquiescence in their wish to reach the public through the Atlantic, but I used all the delicacy I was master of in bowing the way to them. Sometimes my utmost did not avail, or more strictly speaking it did not avail in one instance with Emerson. He had given me upon much entreaty a poem which was one of his greatest and best, but the proof-reader found a nominative at odds with its verb. We had 1 The Atlantic Monthly |