University of Virginia Library

Chapter XIX.

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hiding day-times.

Two or three days and nights went by;
I reckon I might say they swum by,
they slid along so quiet and smooth
and lovely. Here is the way we put
in the time. It was a monstrous big
river down there—sometimes a mile
and a half wide; we run nights, and
laid up and hid day-times; soon as
night was most gone, we stopped
navigating and tied up—nearly always
in the dead water under a towhead;
and then cut young cottonwoods
and willows and hid the raft
with them. Then we set out the
lines. Next we slid into the river
and had a swim, so as to freshen up
and cool off; then we set down on
the sandy bottom where the water
was about knee deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a sound, anywheres
—perfectly still—just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the
bull-frogs a-cluttering, maybe. The first thing to see, looking away over the
water, was a kind of dull line—that was the woods on t'other side—you couldn't
make nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more paleness,
spreading around; then the river softened up, away off, and warn't black
any more, but gray; you could see little dark spots drifting along, ever so far

away—trading scows, and such things; and long black streaks—rafts; sometimes
you could hear a sweep screaking; or jumbled up voices, it was so still,
and sounds come so far; and by-and-by you could see a streak on the water
which you know by the look of the streak that there's a snag there in a swift
current which breaks on it and makes that streak look that way; and you see
the mist curl up off of the water, and the east reddens up, and the river, and you
make out a log cabin in the edge of the woods, away on the bank on t'other side
of the river, being a wood-yard, likely, and piled by them cheats so you can
throw a dog through it anywheres; then the nice breeze springs up, and comes
fanning you from over there, so cool and fresh, and sweet to smell, on account of
the woods and the flowers; but sometimes not that way, because they've left
dead fish laying around, gars, and such, and they do get pretty rank; and next
you've got the full day, and everything smiling in the sun, and the song-birds
just going it!

A little smoke couldn't be noticed, now, so we would take some fish off of the
lines, and cook up a hot breakfast. And afterwards we would watch the lonesomeness
of the river, and kind of lazy along, and by-and-by lazy off to sleep.
Wake up, by-and-by, and look to see what done it, and maybe see a steamboat,
coughing along up stream, so far off towards the other side you couldn't tell
nothing about her only whether she was stern-wheel or side-wheel; then for about
an hour there wouldn't be nothing to hear nor nothing to see—just solid lonesomeness.
Next you'd see a raft sliding by, away off yonder, and maybe a galoot on it
chopping, because they're most always doing it on a raft; you'd see the ax flash, and
come down—you don't hear nothing; you see that ax go up again, and by the time
it's above the man's head, then you hear the k'chunk!—it had took all that time
to come over the water. So we would put in the day, lazying around, listening
to the stillness. Once there was a thick fog, and the rafts and things that went
by was beating tin pans so the steamboats wouldn't run over them. A scow or a
raft went by so close we could hear them talking and cussing and laughing—
heard them plain; but we couldn't see no sign of them; it made you feel crawly,
it was like spirits carrying on that way in the air. Jim said he believed it was
spirits; but I says:

"No, spirits wouldn't say, 'dern the dern fog.'"

Soon as it was night, out we shoved; when we got her out to about the
middle, we let her alone, and let her float wherever the current wanted her
to; then we lit the pipes, and dangled our legs in the water and talked about
all kinds of things—we was always naked, day and night, whenever the
mosquitoes would let us—the new clothes Buck's folks made for me was
too good to be comfortable, and besides I didn't go much on clothes, nohow.

Sometimes we'd have that whole river all to ourselves for the longest
time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water; and maybe a
spark—which was a candle in a cabin window—and sometimes on the water
you could see a spark or two—on a raft or a scow, you know; and maybe
you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one of them crafts. It's
lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky, up there, all speckled with stars,
and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about
whether they was made, or only just happened—Jim he allowed they was made,
but I allowed they happened; I judged it would have took too long to make
so many. Jim said the moon could a laid them; well, that looked kind of
reasonable, so I didn't say nothing against it, because I've seen a frog lay
most as many, so of course it could be done. We used to watch the stars that
fell, too, and see them streak down. Jim allowed they'd got spoiled and was
hove out of the nest.

Once or twice of a night we would see a steamboat slipping along in the
dark, and now and then she would belch a whole world of sparks up out
of her chimbleys, and they would rain down in the river and look awful pretty;
then she would turn a corner and her lights would wink out and her pow-wow
shut off and leave the river still again; and by-and-by her waves would get to
us, a long time after she was gone, and joggle the raft a bit, and after that you
wouldn't hear nothing for you couldn't tell how long, except maybe frogs
or something.

After midnight the people on shore went to bed, and then for two or
three hours the shores was black—no more sparks in the cabin windows. These

sparks was our clock—the first one that showed again meant morning was coming,
so we hunted a place to hide and tie up, right away.

One morning about day-break, I found a canoe and crossed over a chute to
the main shore—it was only two hundred yards—and paddled about a mile up
a crick amongst the cypress woods, to see if I couldn't get some berries. Just
as I was passing a place where a kind of a cow-path crossed the crick, here comes
a couple of men tearing up the path as tight as they could foot it, I thought
I was a goner, for whenever
anybody was after anybody
I judged it was me—or
maybe Jim. I was about
to dig out from there in a
hurry, but they was pretty
close to me then, and sung
out and begged me to save
their lives—said they hadn't
been doing nothing, and was
being chased for it—said there
was men and dogs a-coming.
They wanted to jump right
in, but I says—

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"and dogs a-coming."

"Don't you do it. I
don't hear the dogs and
horses yet; you've got
time to crowd through the
brush and get up the crick
a little ways; then you take
to the water and wade down
to me and get in—that'll throw the dogs off the scent."

They done it, and soon as they was aboard I lit out for our tow-head, and
in about five or ten minutes we heard the dogs and the men away off, shouting.
We heard them come along towards the crick, but couldn't see them; they

seemed to stop and fool around a while; then, as we got further and further
away all the time, we couldn't hardly hear them at all; by the time we had
left a mile of woods behind us and struck the river, everything was quiet,
and we paddled over to the tow-head and hid in the cotton-woods and was
safe.

One of these fellows was about seventy, or upwards, and had a bald head
and very gray whiskers. He had an old battered-up slouch hat on, and a greasy
blue woolen shirt, and ragged old blue jeans britches stuffed into his boot tops,
and home-knit galluses—no, he only had one. He had an old long-tailed blue
jeans coat with slick brass buttons, flung over his arm, and both of them had
big fat ratty-looking carpet-bags.

The other fellow was about thirty and dressed about as ornery. After breakfast
we all laid off and talked, and the first thing that come out was that these
chaps didn't know one another.

"What got you into trouble?" says the baldhead to t'other chap.

"Well, I'd been selling an article to take the tartar off the teeth—and it does
take it off, too, and generly the enamel along with it—but I staid about one night
longer than I ought to, and was just in the act of sliding out when I ran across
you on the trail this side of town, and you told me they were coming, and begged
me to help you to get off. So I told you I was expecting trouble myself and
would scatter out with you. That's the whole yarn—what's yourn?"

"Well, I'd ben a-runnin' a little temperance revival thar, 'bout a week, and
was the pet of the women-folks, big and little, for I was makin' it mighty warm
for the rummies, I tell you, and takin' as much as five or six dollars a night—ten
cents a head, children and niggers free—and business a growin' all the time;
when somehow or another a little report got around, last night, that I had a way
of puttin' in my time with a private jug, on the sly. A nigger rousted me out
this mornin', and told me the people was getherin' on the quiet, with their dogs
and horses, and they'd be along pretty soon and give me 'bout half an hour's
start, and then run me down, if they could; and if they got me they'd tar and
feather me and ride me on a rail, sure. I didn't wait for no breakfast—I warn't
hungry."

"Old man," says the young one, "I reckon we might double-team it
together; what do you think?"

"I ain't undisposed. What's your line—mainly?"

"Jour printer, by trade; do a little in patent medicines; theatre-actor—
tragedy, you know; take a turn at mesmerism and phrenology when there's a
chance; teach singing-geography school for a change; sling a lecture, sometimes
—oh, I do lots of things—most anything that comes handy, so it ain't work.
What's your lay?"

"I've done considerble in the doctoring way in my time. Layin' on o' hands is
my best holt—for cancer, and paralysis, and sich things; and I k'n tell a
fortune pretty good, when I've got somebody along to find out the facts for
me. Preachin's my line, too; and workin' camp-meetin's; and missionaryin
around."

Nobody never said anything for a while; then the young man hove a sigh and
says—

"Alas!"

"What 're you alassin' about?" says the baldhead.

"To think I should have lived to be leading such a life, and be degraded
down into such company." And he begun to wipe the corner of his eye with a
rag.

"Dern your skin, ain't the company good enough for you?" says the baldhead,
pretty pert and uppish.

"Yes, it is good enough for me; it's as good as I deserve; for who fetched
me so low, when I was so high? I did myself. I don't blame you, gentlemen—
far from it; I don't blame anybody. I deserve it all. Let the cold world do its
worst; one thing I know—there's a grave somewhere for me. The world may go
on just as its always done, and take everything from me—loved ones, property,
everything—but it can't take that. Some day I'll lie down in it and forget it all,
and my poor broken heart will be at rest." He went on a-wiping.

"Drot your pore broken heart," says the baldhead; "what are you heaving
your pore broken heart at us f'r? We hain't done nothing."

"No, I know you haven't. I ain't blaming you, gentlemen. I brought

myself down—yes, I did it myself. It's right I should suffer—perfectly right—I
don't make any moan."

"Brought you down from whar? Whar was you brought down from?"

"Ah, you would not believe me; the world never believes—let it pass—'tis
no matter. The secret of my
birth—"—

"The secret of your birth?
Do you mean to say—"

"Gentlemen," says the young
man, very solemn, "I will reveal
it to you, for I feel I may have
confidence in you. By rights I
am a duke!"

Jim's eyes bugged out when
he heard that; and I reckon
mine did, too. Then the baldhead
says: "No! you can't
mean it?"

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"by rights i am a duke!"

"Yes. My great-grandfather,
eldest son of the Duke of Bridgewater,
fled to this country about
the end of the last century, to
breathe the pure air of freedom;
married here, and died, leaving a
son, his own father dying about the same time. The second son of the late duke
seized the title and estates—the infant real duke was ignored. I am the lincal
descendant of that infant—I am the rightful Duke of Bridgewater; and here am
I, forlorn, torn from my high estate, hunted of men, despised by the cold world,
ragged, worn, heart-broken, and degraded to the companionship of felons on
a raft!"

Jim pitied him ever so much, and so did I. We tried to comfort him, but he
said it warn't much use, he couldn't be much comforted; said if we was a mind to

acknowledge him, that would do him more good than most anything else; so we
said we would, if he would tell us how. He said we ought to bow, when we
spoke to him, and say "Your Grace," or "My Lord," or "Your Lordship"—
and he wouldn't mind it if we called him plain "Bridgewater," which he said
was a title, anyway, and not a name; and one of us ought to wait on him at
dinner, and do any little thing for him he wanted done.

Well, that was all easy, so we done it. All through dinner Jim stood
around and waited on him, and says, "Will yo' Grace have some o' dis, or
some o' dat?" and so on, and a body could see it was mighty pleasing to
him.

But the old man got pretty silent, by-and-by—didn't have much to say,
and didn't look pretty comfortable over all that petting that was going on around
that duke. He seemed to have something on his mind. So, along in the afternoon,
he says:

"Looky here, Bilgewater," he says, "I'm nation sorry for you, but you ain't
the only person that's had troubles like that."

"No?"

"No, you ain't. You ain't the only person that's ben snaked down
wrongfully out'n a high place."

"Alas!"

"No, you ain't the only person that's had a secret of his birth." And by
jings, he begins to cry.

"Hold! What do you mean?"

"Bilgewater, kin I trust you?" says the old man, still sort of sobbing.

"To the bitter death!" He took the old man by the hand and squeezed it,
and says, "The secret of your being: speak!"

"Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin!"

You bet you Jim and me stared, this time. Then the duke says

"You are what?"

"Yes, my friend, it is too true—your eyes is lookin' at this very moment
on the pore disappeared Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of Looy the Sixteen
and Marry Antonette."

"You! At your age! No! You mean you're the late Charlemagne; you
must be six or seven hundred
years old, at the very least."

"Trouble has done it,
Bilgewater, trouble has done
it; trouble has brung these
gray hairs and this premature
balditude. Yes, gentlemen,
you see before you, in blue
jeans and misery, the wanderin',
exiled, trampled-on and
sufferin' rightful King of
France."

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"i am the late dauphin."

Well, he cried and took on
so, that me and Jim didn't
know hardly what to do, we
was so sorry—and so glad and
proud we'd got him with us,
too. So we set in, like we done
before with the duke, and tried
to comfort him. But he said
it warn't no use, nothing but to be dead and done with it all could do him any
good; though he said it often made him feel easier and better for a while if
people treated him according to his rights, and got down on one knee to speak to
him, and always called him "Your Majesty," and waited on him first at meals,
and didn't set down in his presence till he asked them. So Jim and me set to
majestying him, and doing this and that and t'other for him, and standing up till
he told us we might set down. This done him heaps of good, and so he got
cheerful and comfortable. But the duke kind of soured on him, and didn't look a
bit satisfied with the way things was going; still, the king acted real friendly
towards him, and said the duke's great-grandfather and all the other Dukes of
Bilgewater was a good deal thought of by his father and was allowed to come to

the palace considerable; but the duke staid huffy a good while, till by-and-by
the king says:

"Like as not we got to be together a blamed long time, on this h-yer raft,
Bilgewater, and so what's the use o' your bein' sour? It'll only make things
oncomfortable. It ain't my fault I warn't born a duke, it ain't your fault you
warn't born a king—so what's the use to worry? Make the best o' things the
way you find 'em, says I—that's my motto. This ain't no bad thing that we've
struck here—plenty grub and an easy life—come, give us your hand, Duke, and
less all be friends."

The duke done it, and Jim and me was pretty glad to see it. It took away all
the uncomfortableness, and we felt mighty good over it, because it would a been
a miserable business to have any unfriendliness on the raft; for what you want,
above all things, on a raft, is for everybody to be satisfied, and feel right and
kind towards the others.

It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no kings
nor dukes, at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. But I never said
nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it's the best way; then you don't have
no quarrels, and don't get into no trouble. If they wanted us to call them kings
and dukes, I hadn't no objections, 'long as it would keep peace in the family;
and it warn't no use to tell Jim, so I didn't tell him. If I never learnt nothing
else out of pap, I learnt that the best way to get along with his kind of people
is to let them have their own way.

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