University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.

He arrived at the landing, met the steam-boat, closed
the contract with the captain, and found the tender
thoughts of home and parting partially erased by occupations,
as different from his former pursuits, as can be
imagined. Instead of the silence and seclusion of a
small clearing in the forest, instead of the loved and
infantine voices of his brothers, and the silver tones of
his mother and sister, he is in the midst of a confusion
of sounds, which could scarcely be paralleled in Babel.
Above, below, around is the incessant babble of human
voices. Oaths, catches of songs, reckless laughter, the
prattle of a score of ladies, incessant beating upon a
piano, the roaring of the furnace, the sharp and horrid
hissing of the steam, the eternal pounding of the machinery,
the unceasing dashing of the wheels in the water,
the bustle of the fire-men, the boat-men, and the
deck passengers—all this, rendered more impressive by
immediate contrast with the silence of the woods, is
now continually in his ears and before his eyes. Long
habit has rendered these sounds familiar to me, and his
ear too became, after a while, accustomed to them.
But he never paused to think of such an immense machine,
borne so majestically down the Mississippi forests,
but what this impressive manifestation of the triumph
of art over nature, struck him with a feeling of sublimity
and profound respect for the powers of the human
mind.

But he was the same person in the silence of his
woods, and in the midst of this new and most singular
form of society. In this place the repulsiveness of vice
kept him as firmly in the habits of virtue, as the absence

of temptation, reflection, and right views of things had
at home. He was never out of temper, but always
calm and collected. With all the wayward spirits,
with which he had to deal, he still possessed the incalculable
advantage of retaining entire possession of
himself. The consequence was such, as self-control,
good judgment, right principles, and correct deportment
seldom fail to produce. He grew rapidly in the esteem
of the captain and crew, and almost invariably
secured the good will of the passengers. Among the
most dissipated people, and in the midst of lax and
even corrupt societies, sobriety, good morals, good feelings,
and good principles are invariably respected.
Young men are apt to make ruinous mistakes upon this
subject and to think that the abandoned best love those,
who are most like themselves. Virtue levies every where
her proper dues of homage from vice.

The accounts of the boat were kept in the most perfect
order. The most contentious, dishonest, and even
intemperate found his book so clear, his representations
so unanswerable, his feelings so under command, and
his firmness and moderation so unalterable, that no such
difficulties, as disputes, occurred. By a kind of intuition
he comprehended the sharpers, vagabonds, and gamblers,
that, under the appearance of gentlemen, are occasionally
seen in such places. He always had these people
manageable, and at arms length. They were scarcely
allowed a chance to go in debt beyond their means of
paying, or impose upon the unsuspecting passengers,
without a warning from him, sufficient to enlighten them
without in any way committing himself. This calmness
of manner, this discriminating judgment, exercised
with suavity and good feeling, soon obtained for
him the same influence among the rough people on deck,
as he possessed in the cabin. Of course, when the passengers
were discharged at New-Orleans, the number
of his friends might almost be said to equal that of the
passengers.

Many of the circumstances of these new and strange
modes of life were positively painful, and that in no
small degree. There were others, that so long as they
retained the charm of novelty, were delightful. He
never wearied in contemplating the noble river. When
he sat on deck in his night-watch, and every thing on
board the boat, that had life was still, but the fire-men—
it was a spectacle, that filled his whole mind, to see the
great and powerful vehicle, by the light of the moon,
borne down with such rapidity and force, between the
dim and misty outlines of the forest, on either hand.
By day the verdant banks, the ever varying scenery,
the ambrosial fragrance of the willow-skirted shores,
the cries of the water-fowls, wheeling their courses
over-head, were circumstances of delightful contemplation
to a musing mind, like his. The variety of
characters on board, the different opinions, tempers, and
passions, developed by the incidents and conversations
on the trip, were a constant study to him. Books, too,
were accessible. The boat itself carried a considerable
library. Most of the passengers had a select assortment
of books, and I hardly need add of such a character,
that every moment of his time, that was not necessarily
devoted to the duties of his employment, and the occasions
of food and sleep, was occupied either with reading,
or the intense study of the ever open book of human
life before him.

The crowded and bustling city of New-Orleans presented
a new page of the great volume of human
nature. He saw himself amidst a moving mass of life,
of people of all nations, languages, and manners. When
borne along with the tide, and seeing among the hundreds,
that surrounded him, not an individual who knew
him, or cared for him, or was connected with him in any
other way, than as being a common heir of mortality,
then it was, that a sense of loneliness and home-sickness
pressed upon him. Then it was, that the comparison
of this world of strangers, that seemed in his eye almost

like foes, forced upon him a contrast of it with
that dear little world, which was engraven, like the lines
of a map, upon his heart—the little square enclosure
cut out of the forest—the lonely ones dragging themselves
with painful remembrances to their task, and
thinking affectionately of him. Then it was, that his
heart cried out in the earnest petition of the Scriptures,
“Oh! that I had the wings of a dove, that I might fly
away,” and be with them.

In the steam-boat, amidst the passengers playing their
cards, and resorting to all the customary expedients to
kill time, or in the city, when the crowd was rushing to
the theatre on the Sabbath evening, he remained still
the same. He uniformly spent his Sabbaths as nearly
according to his former habits, as his present pursuits
would admit. He had his bible. Still more; he had
his assigned hour and the privacy of his birth, where,
on his knees before God, all the restrained feelings of
his affectionate and filial heart were poured forth to the
Almighty. Then before him he called up to remembrance
his mother's necessities, and the determination,
that no guilty fear of the charge of meanness should
tempt him to squander any part of his wages. Here
he determined, that profusion and extravagance should
seduce him in vain from his purpose to carry home to
her all that he could save from expenditures that were
indispensable.

He had another object in view from the first. His cherished
purpose was to become a captain of a steam-boat.
His intention was to quality himself thoroughly for that
post. With this view he spent much of his time on
deck, gleaning information concerning the river from
experienced boatmen. He studied the currents, the
boils, and eddies, the marks of shallow and deep water,
the indications for steering in the night, and all the hundred
complicated physical aspects of this sweeping and
dangerous stream. The captain and pilot were pleased
to impart to him all necessary instruction, touching the

art and mystery of steersmanship and the management
of the boat. He made the powers and capabilities of
the engine a thorough study. His eye saw all, and he
ceased not until he comprehended all, that could be
learned on board of the boat. So well had he profited by
these lessons, that on his return trip, he found himself
invited to take his watch at steering along with the pilot.
He managed his watch in such a way, as to show how
rapidly he had profited by his lessons. Time with him,
as it ought to be with every intelligent and virtuous
young man, was seen in its true value. He perceived,
that it was all the estate to which he was born, and he
determined, that not a fragment of this precious patrimony
should be lost. When not occupied with one
kind of duties, he immediately sped to another. He
was reading, writing, gathering information about the
country, or in some way engaged in steady reference
to his future views in life. He was absent on this trip
two months. Good sons, in whose bosoms the heart
throbs naturally under the left breast, can tell how he
felt, as the boat was at last rounding to the Iron Banks.
The passengers, observing the changes from crimson to
paleness in his cheek, jested with him about some sweetheart
there. But George's was a still profounder and
holier feeling, too deep even to endure a jest. The
boat would lie by for repairs one day. The only requisite,
which he sought in the horse that was to carry him
out to the settlement, was fleetness. For once he was
a hard rider, and drove his horse to the top of his speed.

I can see the tears of tenderness rush to his eye; I
can see the heaving of his bosom, as he came in view
of the clearing. He sprang over the stile, and in the
next moment he was in the arms of his mother. My
dear young reader, such a meeting is worth more, than
all the pleasures of dissipation and vice for an eternity.
Besides God, religion, and the hope of indulging friendship
and these delightful feelings in eternity, there is nothing
worth living for on the earth, but the love springing

from such relations. All on this earth is a dream but
virtuous affection and the charities of home. Riches,
power, distinction, are all cold externals. This thing is
home-felt. It reaches the heart. How proud and how happy
felt Mrs. Mason to fold this dear son to her maternal
bosom! How innocent were the caresses of the charming
Eliza! How boisterous the joy of the young children!
How proud was Henry to give an account of
his stewardship. It was a full hour, before the books,
toys, and dresses, the fruit and rarities, brought from
the far city were even contemplated. The pure in
heart only know the pleasures of real and deep enjoyment;
and such high satisfactions as these, are only to
be bought by absence and privation. It was long before
the mother and sister remarked how much he had improved
in appearance, now, that he was plainly, but respectably
dressed. Besides smaller articles, he had
brought some books, a box of paints, and drawing paper,
a present for his sister from a friend, whom he had acquired
on his passage, and to his mother forty dollars.

To follow his fortunes through the three succeeding
years would be little more, than a repetition of similar
incidents with those I have just related. All the while
he continued in the same employment, running between
L. and New Orleans eight months in the year; and
between that place and P. on the Ohio, during the
sultry months. A character, genuinely good, needs no
artificial blazoning. George was already a great man
in the estimation of the settlement. All accounts of
him tended to one point. All agreed, that he was an
excellent young man. The planters agreed, that he
had the “gab,” like a lawyer, and Hercules Pindall
quailed in view of his manly form and flashing eye.
The threat of ejectment was hushed, and his pursuit of
Eliza was distant and respectful. The family exercised
the most rigid and careful economy; but by the
aid of their ground, and the assistance derived from the
wages of George, and the proceeds of the industry of

the children, of which he had every chance to dispose
in New Orleans, they were not only comfortable, but
were laying by a little fund. Eliza was appointed
school-mistress, and applied herself with assiduous industry
to the instruction of the children, and many of
the silent hours of the night she spent in reading, and
in close application to her studies to inform herself.
The people of the settlement in general looked to them
as people, the aspect of whose fortune was brightening.
Almost every return trip of the boat allowed George
some little time to spend with them. For fear he would
not be allowed sufficient time to go out to the cabin,
they always made it a point to be on the bank, at the
time when his boat was expected. There are many
mothers, who can imagine the impatience, with which
they used to gaze on the point below, round which his
boat first hove in sight. There are many who can
imagine the meeting which took place between the parties
when he did actually arrive. There are many
who can imagine the pangs of separation, when these
short meetings terminated. I need only add, that, to
soften them as much as possible, he kept a detailed
journal of all that he saw, enjoyed, suffered, and felt—
a history of events, thoughts, and actions. The mother,
between every passage, had conned this journal
a dozen times. Each of the children was familiar with
all the words and phrases in it; and in their own essays
at letter writing all the thoughts of brother George
became matters of classical quoting and illustration.
Even Hercules Pindall and Jethro Garvin, now, that
they had become somewhat tamed and modest in their
deportment, were occasionally admitted. Even they
had heard George's journal. The crafty young men
pretended to admire the style and the manner of it prodigiously.
In this way, through the honest pride and
affection of the mother, they more than once brought
about their real object, which was to read a few moments
in the eye of Eliza, instead of hearing the journal
of her brother.

With respect to my hero, I need only remark, that
his progress in gaining the confidence of his captain,
and the general regard of all, with whom he became
associated, was steady and unvarying. After the first
trip, his wages, in consequence of his uniting the duties
of clerk and pilot, were increased to forty-five dollars a
month. While at New Orleans in 1822, he received
by mail the offer of the command of a beautiful new
steam-boat, which had just arrived at L. with an ample
salary and perquisites. It was the point to which he
had been constantly reaching, and was of course not
to be refused. He would have found it difficult, to
obtain a release from his present captain, had it not
been, that his boat was condemned, as no longer sea-worthy.
When he had settled with George, he gave
him demonstrations of affectionate friendship at parting,
equally honorable to both.

The ill-fated steam-boat Tennessee was just starting
at this juncture for the Ohio, and with the multitude of
passengers in that boat, he took his passage. I was at
New-Orleans, and on the levée, when she swept round
for display in the river, fired her gun, and with her deck
and cabin crowded with passengers, moved off amidst
the shouts, acclamations, and boisterous gaiety of those
on board, answered by waving of hats, handkerchiefs,
and all the usual demonstrations on the shore. Never
was a more beautiful winter morning seen in that climate,
so fruitful in beautiful winter mornings. Little
could any one have foreseen, or conjectured the terrible
catastrophe, that was but a few days behind such demonstrations
and such a jubilee of joy. Every one in
that region has heard, that in a dark, stormy, and sleety
night, in one of the most furious cypress bends above
Natchez, she struck a snag, and burst in her bow.
Among the numerous passengers were many women
and children. What a scene of horror to these unfortunate
beings! The midnight cry reached them, while
asleep in their births. The water poured in upon them

and all was wailing, confusion, and despair. Some exhibited,
in this terrible emergency, that presence of
mind, and that noble forgetfulness of self, that belong to
superior natures. Others manifested the extremes of
cowardice and selfishness united. On such occasions
it is, that we see the dignity and the degradation of human
nature brought together, and grouped in the strongest
contrast. Every one has heard, that that there was
one person paddling about the sinking boat in a skiff, in
which he might easily have saved a dozen persons—
keeping at a distance, however, to allow no one to get
on board. He was calling, the while, most earnestly
upon some of the drowning passengers, to throw into
his skiff his saddlebags, in which was a paltry sum of
dollars!

Amidst the screaming, agony, and distraction of the
scene, George remained calm and self-possessed. To
some he imparted counsel respecting the best mode of
getting on shore without a boat, on a timber or a plank.
In many cases he saved the parties by repressing resolutions
resulting from the counsels of distraction. When
his presence was no longer useful on board the sinking
boat, he swam on shore behind a periogue, which was
so overloaded as to upset. It had already arrived near
the shore, and he saved a mother and her child from
those that were on board. When the boat first came
to the shore, he assisted to pass her cable round a tree.
Had his directions been followed, the boat had been
saved. But other counsels prevailed, and it was determined
to loose the cable from the first tree, to get a
fast round one that was deemed more favorable for
bringing the boat to shore. The cable once loosed
from the first tree, the boat whirled off into the stream
with such power, that they were unable to make fast
to another. Her fate was soon consummated. The
engineer conducted like a patriot, or a martyr. Universally
beloved on board, there were friends, who, in
escaping themselves, thought of him, and besought him

to save himself in the periogue, which saved so many of
the passengers. His answer was noble. “There is no
chance for her if I quit the engine,” and he kept the
wheels in motion, until they were choked with water,
and was drowned in the engine-room, struggling to the
last moment to perform his duty. The dwellers on the
Mississippi ought to raise a statue to his memory.

When all, that remained on board, in the darkness and
in the storm, and in the whirling wrath of that mighty and
sweeping river, were plunged into its waves, it needs little
effort of imagination, to conceive what a scene it must
have been. The mother was whirled under the current,
among the sawyers, with her babe clinging to her neck;
and between thirty and forty perished. How many our
hero saved, we cannot tell. There were other generous
spirits, beside him, exerting themselves to the utmost to
save all in their power. He was sometimes swimming behind
a canoe full of people, and paddling it to the shore.
Relinquishing the canoe to some person who could not
swim, he was next seen dragging some rescued victim
ashore by his hair. One poor wretch, who had floated
a considerable distance down stream, had caught upon
a sawyer, and amidst the general uproar, had been crying
for help a long time in vain. George heard him,
and carried a canoe to his relief, and brought him safely
ashore, after he was so far exhausted by his exertions
and sufferings, as to be unable to speak, when
brought to the land. It cannot be doubted, but he suffered
much himself from cold, exposure, fatigue, and
exertion in swimming against the current. But he enjoyed
the most exquisite satisfaction, that a good mind can
experience on the earth, meriting the gratitude, and receiving
the blessings of many, saved by his exertions,
when they were ready to perish.

Having done every thing, that benevolence and humanity
could dictate for the people that had been saved
from the foundered boat, and having bestowed his tribute
of unavailing sorrow upon the many that perished, notwithstanding

all exertions, he set off on his way back to
Natchez. Thence he took passage on the first boat to L.
The pilot engaged for that boat was found, on trial, to be
inadequate to the duties, which he had assumed. George
was engaged in his place, which once more put him on
pay. This was a circumstance, which remembrance of
his mother's condition forbade him ever to forget.
This boat could not stop at the Iron Banks. From a
certain point, indeed, where they took in wood, he had
a chance to send a billet to his mother, informing her
of his fortunes, and that he should be back in a fortnight
from that day, requesting her at that time to be at
the Iron Banks with the children.

I hope there are many of my youthful readers who
can enter into the feelings of this good young man, as
the boat thundered by the Iron Banks, without stopping,
and how he strained his eyes to discern the path over
the hill, that led out to the settlement, and with what
gloomy and disappointed feelings he saw that, and the
bluff, and the forests, and all the landmarks, so dear to
memory, disappear in the distance.

He had a short and pleasant trip to L. and a safe
return in his own large, new, and handsome boat.
Madam Mason and the family were on the banks of the
river, some hours before the time advertised for his
return. The mother and the four children were seated
under a spreading oak a little below the summit, on the
eastern declivity of the Iron Banks, eagerly looking up
the bend, affording a reach of vision of about five miles,
to a point where the further view of the river was obstructed
by the woods of the opposite shore. Every
one has perceived, that in a state of extreme impatience
a minute lengthens to an hour. The children complained
of delay. Even the equanimity of the mother
was vanquished, and she fidgeted, and wondered what
detained the boat. Half a dozen times the children
had imagined the column of smoke above the trees,
and had cried, clapping their hands, “There she

comes!” By and by, there is no mistake, and a column
of smoke is really seen; and the children begin to
caper for joy. In a few moments afterwards the white
bow is just seen shooting from behind the trees. In a
minute afterwards a noble steam-boat `stands confessed,'
with her colors and pennons flying, and an immense
cylindrical column of pitchy smoke streaming away behind,
and bearing down upon them, under a movement
of twelve miles an hour. The mother's heart still flutters
in suspense, for it may not be her son's boat. In
another instant, that doubt is dispelled. A burst of white
smoke shoots from the bow, and the children admire at
the length of time, before her cannon is heard. Then
they are sure it is the boat, they expect. By this
time, there are a hundred people on the bank, watching
the approach of the new steam-boat. I could almost
envy the allowable pride and enthusiasm of the mother
and the son, as the noble boat rounded to the shore, and
as the latter descried her and the children under the
tree, and as they distinguished him standing on the bow-deck.
In another moment the son was ashore, and
folded in his mother's arms. Every one of the family
was plainly, but respectably dressed. The hundred
spectators, who, in such cases, are uniformly seen lounging
on the shore, to witness the landing of a steam-boat,
shrunk back from the affecting spectacle and the
tender greetings of this interesting group. Hercules
Pindall and Jethro Garvin, and two or three other
young creoles, eyed the scene at a distance, and
askance, with mingled feelings of love, hate, and envy,
exhibiting faces, not unlike those usually assigned by
painters to Judas Iscariot.

The interest of this spectacle was strong evidence,
that the amount of deference, respect, and homage in
common minds is chiefly regulated by external appearance.
The family was now considered a rising one,
and made as much show, as the wealthiest among them.
Three years before, in the same place, the same family

would have appeared either objects of indifference or
derision. To the dwellers on the shores of the Mississippi
and the Ohio, there are but few personages, entitled
to higher and more heart-felt homage than the
captains of steam-boats. The coming of a steam-boat
breaks the silence of the forest. It brings the population
and the fashions and the news and the show of a
city among them. It purchases their wood, milk, meats,
eggs, and vegetables, and it sells them groceries, finery,
and whiskey. For a half hour they exult in the bustle
and traffic and news of a city. It is intensely enjoyed for
the time, for they are aware, that the pleasure is transitory.
The cannon is fired. The boat is under way,
and in ten minutes nothing interrupts the silence of the
forest again, but the screaming of the jays.

In the short interview, which George had with his
mother, entirely new arrangements were made for the
future. He had taken a handsome house, in a large
and thriving village near L. which had the advantage of
schools, of a higher class, and respectable society, and
here he proposed to place his mother, and to take the
family up to their residence on his return from New-Orleans.
She was to sell the establishment there for
whatever it would bring, and to be on the bank, ready
to embark, when the boat should return. It need not
be doubted, that all this arrangement was entirely satisfactory
to her, on its own merits, even had it not been
made by one, who, in her eye, was little apt to make
wrong decisions.

Mr. Pindall purchased the claim to the cabin and
clearing, giving something more than half its fair value.
Hercules had his last interview with Eliza. The avowal
of his continued and ill requited devotion was rather
noted for its strength, than its delicacy. Having perused
it in black and white, I find, however, that it was
substantially the same sort of harangue, that has been
said and sung in all languages, in all ages, and by all
people. His movements wanted something of grace,

and his genuflections were not managed upon system,
it is true. But what the affair wanted in polish, it
gained in energy. His tears soiled no bandkerchief,
and he told her, that she might go farther, and fare
worse. In conclusion he assured her, he hoped, she
would not forget him altogether; and for himself, he
promised to forget her, as soon, as he could. “For,”
said he, “I would have had you if I could. But, by
gosh, I will now marry Debby Sweetser, off hand.”

The voyage to New-Orleans was marked by no accident,
and the boat hove in sight of the Iron Banks
within two hours, after the assigned time for her return.
The family had made every preparation for removal,
and were on the bank, awaiting the return of the boat.
A great many respectable passengers came up in her.
The family meeting took place a little removed from
the public gaze, and when the first transports were over,
George led his mother and sister, followed by three fine,
brown, healthy-looking creole boys, into the cabin.
Mrs. Mason was richly dressed in black, and though
pale and care-worn had a face and figure, in which
dignity and interest were united in an uncommon degree.
The younger children were clad in new suits of
blue, and looked a little shy and awkward at first, especially
when they caught the first glimpse of the
splendid cabin. It was seventy feet in length, supported
by pilasters, and ornamented with mirors. At one
end was a considerable library in an open alcove, and
at the other a circular arcade, beyond which was the
bar, making a great display of liquors, refreshments of
all kinds, and fruits, among which were oranges, pine
apples, and bananas. The finishings were fine to gaudiness,
and the floor was carpeted with Venetian carpeting.
The curtains in front of the births were of
yellow silk, drawn up with tassels and festoons. Folding
doors led to the ladies' cabin, in which some one
was playing the piano. The furnishings and the doors
were of mahogany. Such were the splendor and luxury,

that had already made their way into the Mississippi
forests.

Eliza Mason, now fully formed and turned of
eighteen, was exquisitely beautiful. Her complexion
had received a slight tinge of olive from the climate.
Seclusion, solitude, and the deeply remembered loss
of her father had imparted to her countenance a
look of pensive meditation, which threw an inexpressible
charm over it. She had hitherto been as rustic in
her dress, as a shepherdess. On the present occasion
her mother had taken great pains to have her plainly,
but fashionably dressed. Hercules sighed and Jethro
sighed most pastorally, and the young planters gazed
upon her, as she went on board the boat, as on a passing
vision.

It may be imagined, that the young children had all
their eyes in operation, when just coming from their
humble cabin to a scene of so much gaudiness of display.
The flame-colored curtaining, the splendid furniture,
all the gay accompaniments, the handsomely
dressed ladies and gentlemen, opened upon them at
once. As they approached a large mirror, they were
ready to retreat in dismay from the sight of three handsome,
stiff boys in blue, apparently just like themselves,
and who advanced upon them, as they advanced.
Their sister perceived them just ready to cry out in
amazement, and held up her finger, which was a preconcerted
signal, when they were to be silent. Their
hearts palpitated a little, at first, in view of the black
machinery, pounding its cranks and whirling its wheels,
with such prodigious force. The sooty faces of the
savage-looking and bearded firemen, the glowing of the
furnace fires, the hissing of the steam, the croaking of
the escape steam, the trembling and recoil of the boat
under so much power, and the dashing of the water
from the buckets, are all, naturally, circumstances of
astonishment and terror to children, until they are used
to them. But they had come on board with a feeling,

that all this tremendous power was under the beneficent
control of brother George, and this association soon
rendered this otherwise formidable spectacle, this clatter
and power, an object of pride rather than terror.

The captain led his mother, and the children into
the ladies' cabin. Eliza walked through the long cabin
full of gentlemen, as timid as a fawn, and as beautiful
as the red-bird of her own woods. She had as yet
seen nothing to love, but her mother and brothers, and
imagined, that there was not another fine young man in
the world, but brother George. As she passed, she
could not but be sensible of that almost inaudible, yet
clear and sensibly felt expression of admiration, which
accompanied her to the cabin door, and it brought the
crimson of confusion into her cheek. We may remark,
in passing, that one of the passengers, his name was
Leonard, was an uncommonly fine young man, whose
expressive countenance was rendered more interesting
by a flush of hectic floridness in his cheek, and a touch
of debility in his eye, who was returning from a winter's
excursion to Havanna, where he had been for his
health, to his home in the state of Maine. It is said,
that love, and poetry, and madness, and various other
endowments, and inflictions, walk in darkness, like pestilence,
and come, no one can tell how nor whence.
Certain it is, that Mr. Leonard was returning to the
North comparatively cured of the hectic weakness at
his breast, only to suffer from a passing glance of this
rural damsel, as she went by to her cabin, an infliction
upon the heart, as deep, if not as difficult to cure, as
that in the breast, from which he had just escaped.

Mrs. Mason had never been in a steam-boat before.
She felt the common feminine terrors in the case. But
she soon began to feel assured, by perceiving how manageable,
as well as swift, was this mighty movement
against the current of the Mississippi. A certain confidence
and pride, dear to the maternal heart, began to be
felt in the reflection, that her good son, hardly yet arrived

at majority, had the command of this powerful
machinery, that pushed on this floating city. Deference
and attention are naturally grateful to all, who
have been once accustomed to them. They are peculiarly
so to the female heart, and more than all, after
a long deprivation of them. None but those who have
seen, have imagined the sumptuousness of a dinner on
board a first-rate Mississippi steam-boat. At dinner,
Mrs. Mason was led by her son to the head of the table,
and saw ranged below her eighty well-dressed and
genteel-looking people. She was once more seated at
a table, where every thing was in order, and where she
was respectfully and assiduously helped, and where all
the observances of society were understood and practised.
Her heart expanded, at what she saw, and the
pleasant recollections of other days. The simplicity
and poverty of a backwoods life had not been the offensive
features of that condition to her. But she was
perfectly willing to resign to the disciples of Rousseau
their admiration of savage and demi-savage life. It is
true, she watched her beautiful daughter with an anxious
and painful solicitude, lest her inexperience in the
forms of society should show itself in awkwardness and
rusticity. It is true, too, that her daughter had seen
but little for a long period of that important time, when
her mind was unfolding from childhood to maturity, except
woods, Indians, and the coarse young men in the
settlement. But it is also true, that she had read some
of the smuggled novels of her mother, that she had
thought a great deal, and that she had had abundant
leisure to study the innocent novel of her own heart.
It is equally true, that there are some young ladies,
who seem to be instinctively endowed with native grace
and tact, to comprehend the proprieties of deportment,
and Miss Eliza knew a great many things, with perfect
clearness, which no one could have expected from her
condition and advantages. For instance, amidst all the
clatter, bustle, and novelty of this dinner, and a position,
which it may be supposed, was not a little embarrassing
to her, she had not failed to discover, and had
she chosen she could have told a confident as much,
that a young man sat opposite her with the prettiest
velvet softness and smoothness of manner and voice imaginable,
and that he had evidently wished to anticipate
her wants, &c. She could have admitted, that there was
another fine-looking young man in the world, beside her
brother. She would not, probably, have allowed to that
confidant, or even to her own conscience, what was
nevertheless a fact, that her eye had caught a glance
of his, and read, and interpreted the expression and
import of that glance.

Young ladies of a certain age and character, it must
be confessed, are much more adroit at comprehending
and practising the decencies and proprieties of deportment,
than young men. Nature, if she has fair play,
knows better, what she is about, than art with all her
vile instructions in grimace and affectation. Be it as it
may, the natural grace, sensibility, and elegance of this
untaught wood-nymph did the business for poor Mr.
Leonard,—for it was he who sat opposite her,—more
effectualy than if she had been trained to murder at a
fashionable boarding-school. To prove in fact, a priori,
as they say, that Eliza Mason knew a thing or two, in
the way of management, it is only necessary to relate one
fact, that anticipating, that her three young brothers
brought with devouring appetites from the simple diet
of their cabin to such a sumptuous dinner, might create
unpleasant notice, by their voraciousness, she had given
them their fill of sweet cake and raisins three times in
the forenoon. Her mother had aimed at the same result
by giving them an emphatic lecture, in the privacy
of the cabin, touching the manner, in which they must
behave themselves at table. I will not say, which management
had the most efficacy upon the deportment of
the boys. After all, Eliza cast an anxious eye upon
them, as they sat below her at table, and saw with infinite

satisfaction, that their total want of appetite gave
their sylvan rusticity an air of well-bred indifference and
fastidiousness.

I can imagine few conditions more favorable to enjoyment,
than this trip of Mrs. Mason to her new residence
on the Ohio. A steam-boat under such circumstances,
as the present, is always delightful at first. In
most instances it completely fills the imagination, and
wears as well as most pleasant earthly things. It is
true, time and repetition dispel at least the charm of
novelty. But the first two days of a steam-boat trip in
the spring, under favorable circumstances, are even yet
after such long use to them, delightful to me. Every
thing conspired to render this a charming voyage to
Mrs. Mason. The season was the pleasantest in the
year, that is to say, Spring, and that season is nowhere
more delightful, than on the shores of the Ohio. An
uncommon proportion of the passengers were of the
most respectable class. The boat was in fine order,
The river was full to the brim. The vernal gales were
breathing their sweetest influences from the south. The
verdure of the forests, as far as they could see from the
boat, had that depth and grandeur which are peculiar
to the lower course of the Ohio and the Mississippi.
With the exception of two or three solitary bluffs on the
Mississippi, the children had but once seen hills, since
they had lived in the country. The first bluffs that are
seen on ascending the Ohio, are singularly magnificent
and grand. There is deep water, as every one, accustomed
to the scenery, knows, directly on the verge
of the shore, at the foot of these bluffs. They have a
nobleness of rounding, and a whimsical variety of summits,
which I want words to describe. The boat sweeps
along at their base, and early in the afternoon is completely
in the shade. Oftentimes, these bluffs have an
aspect, as if they would roll down upon the boat, and
dam up the beautiful river. I have never seen spring
more charming, and I have no more pleasant associations

with the mere physical enjoyment of existence
than in sitting on the guard in mild weather in the
spring, after the sun has sunk behind these noble hills.
At this season, on pleasant evenings, there is an ineffable
softness and mildness in the temperature, and a
bland and balmy fragrance in the atmosphere. To my
eye there is not a more beautiful shrub in nature than
that of the red-bud in full blossom. It is a perfect tuft
of beautiful peach-blossom flowers, and they show on
the precipitous declivities of these bluffs, strung one
above another, and diffused on every side through the
forest, so that, taken into the eye along with the splendid
white flowers of the dog-wood, the wilderness at
this season may literally be said to blossom. A hundred
romantic stories, told by the boatmen, about the
“house of nature,” “the cave in rock,” and the residences
of robbers, and their exploits of blood, and attacks
of the Indians in former days, concur to give impression
and interest to this scenery.

Madam Mason was this evening sitting on the guards
of the boat, as it was gliding swiftly along, in the shade
of the lofty and flowering bluffs, on the north bank of
the Ohio. She sat in a cushioned settee with her two
younger children on her right hand, and Eliza and
Henry on her left. The scene was full of sublimity
and repose, and the sbrubs, the flowers, the cliffs, the
trees, the sky, and the columns of smoke spouted up
from the tubes of the furnace, were beautifully painted
in the water, as the boat seemed to fly over the painting,
and yet to transport it, as it went. The children
expressed their untrained admiration, by interjections;
the mother by the calm and pleasing silence of contemplation,
and communion with the Author of this beautiful
nature. Half way up the cliffs, the birds were singing
their “vesper hymns,” undisturbed by the uproar
of the passing boat.

After the sun no longer gilded the springing verdure
on the summit of the bluffs, and as the repose and beauty

of the scene, along with the increasing dusk of twilight,
gave confidence to the timidity of incipient love,
young Mr. Leonard so contrived it, that he was introduced
by the captain to Mrs. Mason. Of course, he
took a seat between the settee and the guards. He
soon found where Mrs. Mason was born. It was next
discovered, that they were both Yankees; thirdly, that
their parents were acquainted; fourthly, that they were
related within the degree of twentieth cousins; fifthly,
that he had taken a strong liking to the captain all the
way from New Orleans. From these circumstances of
affinity, and as he was, moreover, a remarkably good-looking
young man, gentle, mild, quiet, and sweet spoken,
handsomely dressed, and of elegant manners, and as he
so warmly liked George, it was natural, that Mrs. Mason
should take a motherly interest in him. When he
painted the mental anguish it had cost him, to tear himself
away from a widowed mother at home, of whom he
was the only child, for an absence so long, as a six
months' excursion to a distant and strange island, and
the agony of his mother's farewell, at a parting under
such just grounds of apprehension, that she should never
see him again in the flesh, it is natural, that Mrs. Mason,
should remember certain passages in her own life,
and that her eyes should fill at the recollection. Nor
could Eliza, as she reached her mother her handkerchief,
forbear to notice the kindling suffusion in the still
delicate cheek of Mr. Leonard. This interesting young
man was a subject of contemplation ten times more
dangerous to such a girl as Eliza, while relating the incidents
of such a parting, with a countenance and form
indicative of convalescence only partially established,
than he would have been in the perfect glow of the
most robust health.

Two or three such “sentimental” evenings followed in
succession, and astronomy, and the starry heavens, and
the spirits that dwell in those twinkling orbs, and communion

of spirit by moon-light, and domestic happiness,
and green hills, and sheltered valleys, and many other
pretty and tender talks, that fall in with the feelings of
a certain age, drawing from the speakers a kind of half
sigh after them, never forgetting, towards the close, the
delectableness of “Platonic friendship,” made the general
burden of these conversations. However the other
young men on board envied young Leonard, it soon
came to be a matter of common understanding, that he
was the person, whose participation in these evening
sittings was the most acceptable. Nor had Eliza failed
to receive many witty compliments in the ladies' cabin,
from the young ladies, upon her conquest. Nor had
she failed to be informed of the immense wealth of
young Leonard, his fine education, winning manners,
&c. Nor did she fail to receive representations, darkened
by the tints of envy, of the faithlessness of such
rich young men, and the multitudes of bonnets that were
set for them, thrown in by way of damper to her rising
hopes, if any she had. This charming girl knew a good
many things, that she did not tell every body, and had
an eye, that flashed both wit and good nature. She
heard all, understood all, and smiled, and parried these
representations, affirming, not exactly according to sincerity,
that she had no interest in the question of any
one's constancy. The truth is, even they believed
much more in his being in earnest, than they wished to
believe.

“Sentimental evenings” are wonderful squanderers
of time, and before they thought of such a thing, the
captain announced, that they would arrive at L. the
next day, and of course, that his mother would leave
the boat for their new residence, early in the morning.
No time was to be lost for certain purposes of Mr.
Leonard, and he found an opportunity to say things to
Eliza in private, that called both for courage and recollection,
on her part, to answer properly. For my part,

I am at a loss to account for her self-possession in this
case. But true it is, that she answered certain questions
as much to the point, as if she had been trained
for years to indite the answers, and on the whole, I
have been led to believe, that she had, in some measure,
prepared herself to hear such conversations, and
to answer such questions, as were now proposed to her.
The whole of this conversation has not been reported
to me. But it is said, that she reminded him, that he
was educated, and that she was not; that he was reputed
rich, and that she was poor; and that she could
never think, were there no other impediments in the
way of what he proposed, of being in any way instrumental
in inducing such a mother, as he described his
to be, to reproach him with marrying unequally and
unworthily. In saying all this, it is true, she was much
flurried, and seemed for a moment to labor under difficulty
of breathing. But as the children soon made
light of the first terrors of the machinery of the boat, so
this timid girl began to recover breath and self-possession.
In fact, he interrupted her, and proved to her,
that she was finely educated, that she was rich in
charms, and rich in endowments, and rich in native tact,
and rich in every thing, which he cared any thing about;
and that the very thing, that made his mother good and
dear to him, was, that she always thought just as he
did, and that he was sure to a demonstration, that she
would view this matter, as he did, and love her as
well—and a great many more last words, which took
up a full hour in the saying. It is generally believed,
that she threw no more discouragement and denial into
her remarks and answers, than just enough to operate,
according to her understanding of the doctrine of mind
and heart, as the most effectual means to fix him in his
present purposes, and that, though she never confessed
as much to any one, notwithstanding all that she had
heard about the infidelity of such persons, and the little
reliance to be placed upon their promises, she did most
implicitly believe, that she should both hear from, and
see him again.

On arriving at her place, Mrs. Mason found herself
comfortably situated in a good house, and in a large
and populous village. The children were forthwith put
to school. Eliza, amply supplied with books, and with
a powerful mind to apply to them, studied, as one who
had not been informed to no purpose, that Mr. Leonard
was an accomplished scholar. Late, as it was, in the
day, to begin, she took lessons in music, and to purpose
too. I do not say, that I understand all the motives,
that led her to apply herself so closely, as to make the
roses in her cheek give place to the lilies. I am clear,
that an intelligent and good young girl, who aspires to
become a companion to such a husband as Mr. Leonard,
ought to study, that the husband may not find, on intimate
acquaintance after marriage, a total disparity in
the mind of his wife. This incessant occupation occasioned
her to hear many witty remarks from the gentlemen
of the village about “concealment” and a “worm
in the bud,” &c. and the young ladies, when they passed
her chamber, and saw her at her book, looked significantly
at each other, and pronounced her a “would-be
blue stocking.” Some of them at length divined
the secret, and though she seemed to understand nothing
of their insinuations, whenever Mr. Leonard's name
and town were mischievously mentioned, certain fugitive
tell-tale roses in her cheek said more than met the
ear. But her mother's family ranked, on the whole,
with the best in the village, and was, in many respects,
as eligibly situated as it could expect to be in a place
of that size. In the course of the summer, George
made two trips to New Orleans, on both of which he
was uncommonly fortunate, and in that time he became
half owner of his steam-boat, and was well understood
to be a young man, who was making money, and the

knowing ones pointed him out, as one who knew what
he was about, and would be sure to be rich. Among
the ladies he bore the name of the “handsome captain.”
But he sustained the severe temptation of their
unequivocal favor, as he had sustained his other temptations,
with the same simple habits of modesty and sobriety.