Partners of Providence

Front matter

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Contents

CHAPTER ] PAGE 1 Sam APOLOGIZES TO THE PUBLIC, AND BE- ES ee m1 THe Urs AND Downs oF CLANCY THE Ca 7h im Sam Stops To VINDICATE THE MISSOURI; BuT Gets STarTED AGAIN .... . 36 Syme PATO VINEYARD... 5. ee we ow ee 48 eeerieretpny WAS Her SAY... ... . .. 62 vi A Sounp IN THE DisTANCE— WHat CAME IT Gilg ise a ies) pein ue AE vn A Buack FourtH or Junby . ..... 90 vi TrRouBLE Dors Some More Brewine . . 103 1x THr Pigs anp THEIR Purpose ... .115 x Tue Sprep Has A Run ror Her Bacon . 137 xI Sam Tatks HimsetF to Sueep ... . 150 xm THe Bucker Takes A Hand ....:. . 158 xu Tuer Victory oF Rep, WuiTe AND BuuE . 166 xiv Sam MAxes Some FINE Distincrions . . 177 xv THe WHEEL Takes A TuRN .... . 194 xvi Sam Runs Down THE Mississipp1 .. . 204 Mumerenoy DOBS UP. . 9... . . .. . 213 xviit_ THr CONSOLIDATED AGGREGATION. . . . 226 xIx THE PROFESSOR IN ACTION. ... . . 240 xx Mary McKay on Ipiors anp OruErRS . . 260 KXI BUSTING INTO TENNESSEE ..... . 272 vii vill CHAPTER

XLI XLII

CONTENTS

Chapter I Sam Apologizes To The Public, And Begins

LKINS says to me ‘‘ Why don’t you write a book about it?”’ | He claims that if I would oe) just start in and tell the whole ING i) | business and let out about all the VE! Ih ili low-down people and the way-up Seats Wael folks I got in with, and how it a ll happened, nobody would believe Bede it, and they would all say it was a great story book.

My name is Sam Daly and it is over a year now since I got into the Valdes mix-up: because I was only going on fourteen then and now I am going on fifteen. Elkins is head pilot on the Woodland: he has got a day and night license and knows the river like a book from St. Louis down to the foot of A

Canal Street. That is about twelve hundred miles— it usually stays about that. He knows the number of any island from Number One down into the Hundred-and-twenties, and what Elkins says is all right. And they only numbered the ones that did n’t have any names.

Well, I chewed up pretty near all of a Gee cent lead pencil and did n’t get anything down; and then Elkins come along and said it was all foolishness to do so much thinking about it. He told me how.

‘Start her up full steam ahead,’’ he says, ‘‘and take what comes. You was raised on a crooked river and so you have got to tell a crooked story. Nobody would expect you to go straight ahead at it, like a fellow that was raised on a canal.’’

Elkins meant the Mississippi, I guess—and that is pretty crooked when it tries. Half the time you ’d think you was traveling on a return-trip ticket and using it all up at once. I am with him now; but by rights I was raised on the Missouri, where it is so crooked you cross your own smoke. You can lay in your bunk and tell the name of a boat that has got miles to come around a bend—that is, if you know her pipes. But crooked or no crooked I have noticed that, however it does it, the Missouri always manages to come out just above St. Louis at the waterworks; and Clancy (which ain’t no pilot at all, but I will tell you about him afterwards), he said it was a wise old river to know the way to its mouth. It is pretty uncertain and shifty and sometimes that Valdes trouble looked the same way to me—you could n’t tell HOW it was going to come out.

Elkins is kind of that way himself—which I mean that he is hard to make out—and after he has

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Writing a book about it told you to grease the rudders and find the ld to the smoke-stack you don’t know any more when he IS serious. But he kept at me about the book; so I guessed he meant it. But I did n’t really know whether he was giving me the wrong bell or not.

After I was at it and did n’t come along, he opened it up and seen it was all blank.

‘*What is the matter; why don’t you go ahead ?’’ he says.

‘““That is all right,’’ I says, ‘‘but I can’t find the place.’’

“What place?’’ he says.

‘‘The place to begin,’’ I says. -

You see I never knew when I was doing them things that it would ever be a story; so I just let things fool along. Why, when I first met Clancy the Tosser I did n’t know he was going to be in a book.

‘‘Go ahead,’’ Elkins says. ‘“‘If you run up against it, spar off and keep a-going. Knowing how ain’t necessary when you are just sticking to facts. Spar off and keep trying till you get into the main channel; you ’Il strike it easy and get to New Orleans in the end. And if anybody asks questions, tell them I signed your papers.’’

When he said that I seen he meant it; so here goes. But the clerk on the Speed would n’t ’a’ let me write a bill of lading.

One time when I was a cub on the Speed I missed the boat on accounts of staying up-town too long. I got back to the St. Louis levee just in time to see her heading for the Missouri and kicking her skirts up behind her at the rate of twelve miles an hour. That was along towards early in summer, which I remember because it was going to be Fourth of July that trip and the captain had taken on a coop of chickens at Biggs’ Landing to give the niggers a feed; and besides it would make them hustle at the landings. Ours was a crap-shooting boat— which can get niggers easier than some—and our captain done them things and knew his business. I thought of the chickens the first thing because I was hungry and did n’t have any money except what I had spent; and I says to myself, ‘‘That is what you get for looking at John L. Sullivan’s pants.’’ They were hanging in a window with a sign saying, ‘‘ These pants made for John L. Sullivan’’; and I got so interested in them that I forgot the time to get back.

¢¢ I missed the boat’’

Well, there was n’t anything for me to do but work my way up on the Muscoutah, that was running opposition to us on the lower river. I thought I ’d get off at Madison City and catch the Speed on the down trip. She was sure to stop there; and that way I would n’t be gone from her so long.

The captain of the Muscoutah did n’t answer me for a while. He just let me stand around and then he says, ‘‘Go and see the pilot.’’ Well, I knew how to do that. You don’t want to get too familiar with a pilot unless you ’ve got a license to talk. He ’s a man’ that is used to being in a glass ease, and all he wants is a pitcher of ice-water and a place to spit. He was sitting up there all alone waiting to start and reading the river news; so I did n’t say nothing but took his water-pitcher and came back up the stairs with the ice clinking in it and got him a fresh box of sawdust. Then I sat down at the other end of the leather seat to see how it would maybe turn out.

He did n’t say anything. I did n’t say anything too; and we kept it up for a long time till we were both pretty well acquainted. Then he turned the paper over and spit and took a drink of water and said, ‘‘The hell with the insurance companies.”’ I could see right away that he was going to take me; that showed it was all right for me to be around. So then I spit in the box and made myself at home.

That ’s how I got on that boat and came to get acquainted with a man by the name of Manuel Valdes. There were only a few other passengers, and I took notice of him right away when I seen him coming up the gang-plank. He was pretty fine looking, and dark, and had a high-toned way that showed he was n’t common folks—and I did n’t know but he might be a down-river gambler. Some of them are pretty tony gentlemen, and as cool as a pilot. I have seen some that could let a thousand come or go without seeming to notice it. You ’d think they did n’t mind it no more than scraping on a mud-bank.

Well, that afternoon I got to talking to him and I found that he had intended to take the Speed, but missed it. And when he found out that I was left by the boat, too, he sort of took up with me, saying something or nodding whenever he passed. And after a while, when the Muscoutah was laying down to a good steady gait up the Missouri—but you bet she can’t ever come it over the Speed— he asked a lot of questions about my boat; and when he found I knew some people he did, he got to talking about old times and people that was.away before my day.

‘Come on up with me to Biggs’ Landing,’’ he says.

‘*What for?’’ I says.

*‘Just for company and to pass the time,’’ he says. ‘‘I ’m going back to my place and I ’ll take you up there.’’

‘“Where is your place?’’ I says.

“It is n’t a great distance from the Landing— half a mile or so below. Do you know where the range of bluff is that is all flat rock, like a wall to the river, with the bore-hole away up on the face OL itt’? |

Well, I should say I did. But I did n’t let on what I knew about it. There ’s too many bore-holes for anybody to think that you kept track of them, anyway; but I knew that one because that was where I threw the hog-chain bolt. It went all the way up and plump into the mouth of it—I knew how to swing it between my legs—and when the captain missed it he raised Cain about where it was gone to. And the mate, that I caught seeing me, never told—and that was mighty strange till I found out some things. But I did n’t say nothing about that part.

We always ran in close to the face of that bluff on the down trip, because the current works against it and scoops out the main channel there. And it is so high and flat that you can watch the smoke climbing up the wall to the scrub pine at the edge. And the bore-hole looks out over the river as round and dark as a well, and as perfect as if somebody had made it. But it is smoothed off nicer at the edges than anybody but God would take the trouble to do. All of them are, and you want to throw something into them. Well, I always wanted to let myself down and look into one of them bore-holes and see how they was made and what for; I would ’a’ gone in a minute but I guessed I had better think it over.

‘“Yes, I ’ve seen it once or twice,’’ I says. ‘‘But I ain’t going up that far. I am going to get off at Madison City. And I am going to wait there beeause the Speed always stops there on the downtrip. And she don’t often stop at that other place.’’

‘You want to eatch her soon, don’t you? Well, that is one reason I asked you to come; I am going to flag her on the way down. So if you went up that far you ’d catch your boat that much sooner. You can come with me if you want to: I ‘Il see you on her, my boy. Think it over.’’

Well, I did n’t care very much whether I caught

SAM APOLOGIZES TO THE PUBLIC UL the Speed sooner or not, as far as I was concerned ; but I was worrying about Rags. Rags is kind of ka— 5 VE

‘¢'You watch the smoke climbing up the wall’”

deaf, so that he can’t always hear when you tell him to get out of the way; and I was afraid that maybe the mate or some of the niggers would be

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‘© Then Valdes laid back again and just watched ** kicking him around while I was away. He got deaf swimming too much with Clancy; and he is so bad that when you put him through his tricks you have to give him the commands like he was a whole regiment. He is a smart dog, though, even if the captain does say he looks like a Yak. I never seen a Yak. But when I got to thinking about him being alone, I guessed maybe I had better get back as soon as possible.

So that afternoon when Valdes came up and sat down on the big leather seat that is built along one side of the pilot-house back of the wheel, I got to studying him out. He had on a fine ring, and a _gold-tipped pencil sticking out of his pocket. It seemed like I could smell paper money whenever he was around. He looked to me like he was pretty much on the square if he liked you; but I bet he would be a bad one to play crooked with. He had a steady eye like a pilot, but darker, and I made up my mind he would be pretty cool taking chances; so I liked him first-rate. I guessed I had better go; but I did n’t exactly get a chance to start to talking to him again.

There was a wide spread of water ahead where you could n’t tell whether it was ten feet deep or two inches, and the pilot was bringing her along cautious, studying her out ahead and ringing the bell in the engine-room. Then it would be quiet and he would feel his way wherever he seen a patch of water that frowned or smiled or showed a riffle or looked sluggish. You have to know the Missouri by the expression of her face a good deal of the time—you can’t tell how she has changed since you seen her last. You can’t see your own finger in a glassful of her; and that is the way she is. So you ’ve got to guess on snags and sand bars. But he guessed it out all right and got across to the easy water nearer to where the channel follows the bluffs; then he put her full steam ahead and whistled a little to himself and just held her to it.

Then Valdes laid back again with his hands in his pockets and just watched the scenery. Everybody can’t sit up there; they have to be importantlooking passengers like him; and it ’s a great place to sit and smoke and watch the scenery winding past all day on both sides. It ’s all panes of glass on the sides and there is lots of room on the seat: it is sort of like a greenhouse, except that the green stuff is outside and you ’re inside.

Valdes was always interested in the high rocks; anyways I noticed that whenever the bluffs would peter out on one side and start up on the other, he ’d turn his head and keep looking over that way. I made up my mind I would go along with him; but just when I was going to tell him about it he got up and gave me a look like we was acquainted and went down into the cabin again.

But I had decided to go; so I watched for a chance to tell him so. And after a while, when he came out and took a chair on the upper guards— which our old mountain boat did n’t have any— I went down.

‘Guess I 71] go on up to Biggs’ Landing along with you,’’ I says. ‘‘It ’s important for me to get back to that boat as soon as possible.’’

** All right, my boy; I ’ll see that you get on the Speed,’’ he says.

Then we got to talking about things—specially about bore-holes. I never come across anybody that ‘knew the explanation of how they got up there; so I guessed I would try him. Well, he said that Geology done it; and he knew something about that on accounts of him mining so much. But he eould n’t say exactly how the bore-holes got up there. I seen he did n’t know neither. So I said I guessed the only way out of it was that God made them. Anyways it would look like he done it, because they are round; and he makes everything round. Look at the earth.

Well, he said he guessed that was as good an explanation as any; and from that we got to talking right along. I could n’t see what a high-toned man hke him was going up to that jumping-off place for—and by rights it was n’t none of my lookout— ; but from my asking him questions he got more friendly and interested in telling me things; and that way he let out what he was going up there for. I found out the whole business.

A good many years ago, when he was making a trip up the river to find out what there was in that part of the country, he got off and stopped a while at Madison City. And while he was there he come across a young lady which was the daughter of old Colonel Barry. He was n’t looking for her; he was looking for a mine; but he decided to get married to her and settle down. So they.took a big trip all over; and then he brought her back to live in her own country.

He had n’t found nothing to mine; but when he looked at the rocks he seen it was a good place for grapes. He knew all about wine. You see, when there ’s rock right under the soil that way it stores up the sunshine on summer days and keeps getting. warmer and warmer and holds a lot of it. Then when night comes, or a long chilly spell when there is n’t any sun, the rock keeps letting out its own heat and warming up the roots just about so—same as a flat-iron which you have got in bed to keep your feet warm. That is what grapes likes. You have got to keep vines good-natured that way; and afterwards the sunshine and stuff comes out good and strong in the wine. Well, Valdes was n’t looking for vineyards neither; but after he come across her he seen he had such a pile of money that the best thing was to settle down; he was satisfied. .

When they come back from traveling they did n’t stop at Madison City; they kept right on up the river to the bluffs where Valdes had picked out a place for the vineyard. While his vines was growing up he blasted a fine big wine-cellar right down into the solid rock and put a stone house over it. It was a first-class one. That house could have stood in line with any row of stone fronts in St.. Louis and looked like the head of the class; but out there it was the only house in sight and everybody around them was their help. He fixed it up lke a city house inside, too; and Griswold—which was now our mate on the Speed—came to be their overseer. He bossed things around and was first mate of the vineyard.

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They had a little girl, too; and

I guess Valdes and her thought they was going to live with each other in the middle of that vine-

*¢ Things did come along pretty good for a while yard right along. Things did come along pretty good for a while.

about the time that she was learning to play some on the piano and everything was getting to be what they looked forward to, the vines got blighted— whatever that is. They all stopped having grapes and died. So there they were living in the middle of it with everything dead around them and nothing on the vines but last year’s leaves. It was n’t any fun, I bet, when that happened. You can’t plant no vineyard seed in the spring and get your crops in the fall. It would have to be all started over again; and it did n’t look like a very sure thing to start over again. The worst of it was that Valdes had put a lot of his money into that place and he always spent pretty free on his family. It come natural to him to be rich, and he did n’t have much use for being poor. But there was the house sitting on its big wine-cellar in the rock and putting on as much style as ever and nothing to go with it. _ When things got that far Valdes took what money he had left and went down the Mississippi where the big games were going; and Griswold went along. He thought the best thing to do was to take a last chance on pulling out of the hole before he was all in. He won a while and things looked like they was going to pick up and start themselves over again. Then he lost till he was broke. But a good thing about it was that Griswold won; he won two thousand of what Valdes lost after his luck changed. That was how Griswold had money to lend to Valdes on a mortgage.

But after Valdes got that money he stopped gambling right there. He used to do it when he had plenty and it did n’t make much difference; ° but now he seen he could n’t afford to take them kind of chances; things was different from what they used to be and this was his last stake. So he guessed he would strike out again for South America. So he told his wife about it and he said he knew he could rough it down there and make money again, like he done it before. It takes money to make money and this was his last chance; and they decided that if he did n’t prize off a fortune before his capital got too short they would be poor for keeps. His wife would n’t ’a’ let him go just on her own account; but now she had the little girl to think about. And Valdes did n’t like to go and leave them, neither; but he said things would more than even themselves up when he got back. She wanted money on account of her daughter, and he wanted it for both of them; so he said good-by and went. And he said he would more than make up for it when he got back.

So here he was back again. No wonder I smelt money. He seemed to have his mind all made up to settle down with his wife and little girl again and have things fine like they intended to do in the first place. He did n’t talk much to the other people on the Muscoutah; but he did n’t mind me. And while he was getting nearer and nearer to the place he seemed to like to tell me about it.

‘‘T am glad I come across you,’’ I says. ‘‘It is important for me to get back as soon as possible; and half a day is a good deal.’’

‘“So?’’ he says. ‘‘Something special ?’’

‘Ves’? I says. ‘‘ Accounts of my dog. I never left him alone before; and them other people don’t care for him.”’

CHAPTER II’

THE UPS AND DOWNS OF CLANCY THE TOSSER kind of a dog he was, which I could n’t tell him, except he was spaniel on the outside, but would fight—but the main thing about him is what he knows. So I. ex- Na plained that to him and

W)) all the tricks he could do. He got pretty interested.

he says.

Well, I thinks to myself, I better tell him the whole story. When anybody tells you any of their business it don’t seem polite to sit and listen and not offer to tell none of yours. ‘‘He has been telling me how he come across his wife; so I will tell him how I come across Rags,’’ I thinks. It did n’t seem no more than fair. SoIdoneit. After I got started I seen he was interested; so I told the whole business.

"The way I come across Rags was this: 21

One morning, when the Speed got into St. Louis, I done my chores up quick and went for a walk along the levee. Down under the approach to the

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«¢¢ The way I came across Rags,” I says,

‘ was this bridge I seen a fellow throwing red-hot rivets up into the air; and there was a fellow up above holding the tin bucket to catch them. The fellow that was doing the pitching would take one of them hot bolts in a pair of tongs and give it a swing between his legs just so; and it would go up lke a skyrocket and plunk into the bucket. He could do it every time. And if he had n’t done it right the rivets would a-come down into the river. So I sat down and hoped maybe he would miss the bucket. Each one would go up and seem to stop

-a second at the top and then dive into the bucket like a bird into its nest. But I kept on wishing and trying to make him miss.

After a while I thinks to myself, ‘‘ Maybe this is a better trade than pilot.’’ You see I had to flunkey around a good deal on the Speed and carry out hominy and hog to the niggers at meal-times; and that ain’t rightly a pilot’s business. But the . captain and the day pilot would tell me to go ahead and do such things and keep on waiting tili I ’d get a little more sense; and then they ’d start me to learning the river for sure and nothing else. But I knew a whole lot more about the crossings than they thought I did; and I was getting already so that I held the wheel some. So you see I was pretty near started to be a pilot, and I says to myself, I ’d hate to keep on and get the river all learned and then come across something like this and find out I had made a mistake. So I sat down and watched and thought it over. It looked like a pretty good thing to do.

After a while there was some kind of a hitch in things up above; and that give the tosser time to reach quick into his pocket for a chew of tobacco and snap the sweat off of his forehead into the river and get ready for a new start. Things was delayed a little longer; so then he put his thumb into his belt with the tongs at his hip and looked around him for a change. Pretty soon he seen me and he took me in with his eye a couple of seconds.

**Do you go in?’’ he says.

‘*Pretty much,’’ I says.

‘What ’s the score?’’ he says.

‘<Three to one—favor of Pittsburgh,’’ I says.

Then he snapped off some more sweat and wiped his face with his finger.

‘The Catcher

‘‘They keep it warm in this man’s town,’’ he says.

“| You, bet;’”7: I says,

‘‘Well, I wish they ’d turn it off at night,’’ he says.

‘‘So do I,’’ I says. ‘‘But they can’t. This town is built all on limestone rock. In the day the heat shines down; and at night it shines up.’’

‘‘ Just what I was thinking,’’ he says. ‘‘It ’s a pretty fair town, though—all but the going in.’’

‘«These cobbled levees slope out slow to so-deep,”’ I says. ‘‘And that ain’t no good.”’

‘Tt ’s like wading out to be baptized,’’ he says. ‘Tt always makes me feel solemn.”’

‘“‘Why don’t you go off the elevator platform,’’ I says. ‘‘It ’s right down deep into catfish water.’’

‘Good diving?’’ he says. ‘‘And a high place to go off of ?”’