Читать книгу Vagabond Adventures - Ralph Keeler - Страница 7

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DESERTING entirely the haunts of my play-fellows, I stole down to the wharves. Here the sight of the crowded shipping brought back, more strongly than ever, the memory of that exhilarating trip on the old Indiana, with her sublime brass-band and warlike sheet-iron Indian; and I tried to “hire out” on a steamboat.

The people to whom I made application eyed me suspiciously, for I was very small of my age. They also asked me a great many disagreeable questions, and generally ended by advising me to go home to my friends, if I had any. My size was manifestly against me. Vainly I assured them I was eleven years old, and my own master. They shook their heads, and told me brusquely to “go ashore.”

At last I went on board of a steamer called the Diamond, and, after a little inquiry, found the steward—a man with a face like the old steamer itself, with just seams enough in it, from long battling with the lake breezes, to give hints of sturdy timbers, or, I should say, of hidden strength. His determined mouth ran across his face like one of the bolted arches across the hurricane-deck—large, strong, firm. His hair may be thin and gray now, and his back bent with the years—if they have not beached him as they have the old steamer, and carried him away altogether; but so great was the impression this man made on me then, that I think I should still recognize him whenever or wherever we might chance to meet.

Having, I remember, gone through the usual colloquy with him as a steward, I assured him as a man, that I did not know where to go if I did go ashore, that I had no home and no friends, and, in a word, so played upon his good nature that he told me to go into the pantry and go to work. I obeyed; that is, I went into the pantry, and went to work—upon the heartiest meal that I had ever partaken of up to that date.

The steward meant that I should help a greasy-looking fellow, whom I found washing dishes there when I entered. Overcome, however, by the savory smell of meats and other remains of dinner, which had not yet gone down again to the kitchen, the first words I said to the succulent pantryman were framed into a demand for something to eat.

As soon as he recovered his equanimity and his dish-cloth, which latter he had dropped in sheer surprise at what he evidently considered my stupendous impudence, the pantryman wanted to know, bluntly, what I was doing there; the while he gave his foot such a preliminary flourish as plainly indicated his intention to accelerate my motion thence. I informed him, in considerable haste, that I came by the steward’s order. This straightway altered the case in the opinion of the obsequious menial. He now pointed at a row of chafing-dishes, and said, “There it is; pitch in!”

A few moments afterward the steward found me so absorbed in my “work” that I did not notice his entrance into the pantry. Bread-and-butter in small quantities, and at irregular intervals, had been, it must be owned, rather poor satisfaction to the appetite of a growing boy. The steward must have watched me some time in silence; for my eyes, happening to float away at random in an ecstasy of pleased and vigorous mastication, encountered him, standing not far from my side gazing at me earnestly. I dropped my knife and fork in fear, as he had talked to me like a rough, surly fellow. His voice was wholly changed now, when he spoke; and I noticed it. “Why,” he asked, “didn’t you tell me you was hungry?”

My only answer was to let my eyes fall from his face to the roast beef and potatoes yet undevoured before me.

“There, eat as much as you want,” said the steward, in a softer voice still. “Come to think,” he added, “you needn’t wash dishes: I’ll use you in the cabin.”

For some reason, I had gained a friend in that gruff fellow. Three days later he knocked that same greasy pantryman down for abusing me. Indeed, he fought for me many times afterward as I would gladly fight for him now if I knew where to find him, and if I were sure of the success which always attended him as my champion.

On this craft I must have been working for general results, or for the amateur delight of forming one of a steamboat’s crew. I do not remember that anything was ever said about wages, either by myself or the steward. If, in fact, I were called upon to-morrow to make out such a bill for my services as should claim conscientiously just what I earned, I think I should be very much embarrassed; and it would, too, I fancy be a fine piece of mental balancing to decide whether the amateur delight alluded to above was at all equal to the utter sea-sick misery I was called upon to endure.

My duties in the cabin were bounded only by my capacity. I had to help set the table, wait on it, and clear it away; sweep, dust, and make myself generally useful. I did well enough, I suppose, so long as we were in port; but out on the lake, if the waves were at all turbulent, I was much worse than useless. It took me longer to get my sea-legs on than almost any one I have ever known. Some allowance was made for me the first trip; I was permitted, that is, to be as miserable as I could be, and take to my berth as often as I liked.

In the course of time—and it seemed a very long time—we arrived at Cleveland, where part of our freight and passengers were landed. No sooner had the steamer touched the wharf than I sprang ashore, as the best means of curing my nausea. By the time I had reached what I take now to have been Superior Street, I was congratulating myself on my sudden restoration to a better understanding with my rebellious stomach; and for the next hour I was at liberty, in the language of an admired poet of our day, to “lean and loaf at my ease,” flattening my nose against shop-windows.

In connection with my sanitary stroll through the pretty city of Cleveland, I may mention a phenomenon—both physical and metaphysical—which occurred to me, with some of the surprise, if not the delight, of a discovery. And I look upon it still as a striking instance of the power, not only of association, but of the mind over the body. Happening, in a short, narrow street, on my return toward the wharves, to pass a sort of junk-shop and second-hand clothing-store combined, my nose became cognizant of a stale, tarry, water-logged smell, at the same moment that my eyes lighted upon a sailor hat, shirt, and pantaloons dangling from a hoop at the door; and—be it believed or not—I am telling the truth, when I say that I became instantly as sea-sick as ever!

Whether the relapse came from the kelpy scent of the shop and neighborhood, or from the sight of the suit of clothes relict of the mariner, or from the mental and stomachic association of both with scenes I had just passed through on the lake, I cannot of course, at this distance of time, presume to determine. I recollect, however, I had a droll, boyish impression, for a long while afterward, in connection with those second-hand, sail-cloth trousers. There was, indeed, as I recall them even now, something strangely suggestive of hopeless infirmity about them. As they flapped and bulged wearily in the tar-laden zephyrs, the knees would become full and, in some inexplicable way, would give ghostly hints of the knock-kneed idiosyncrasies of the late wearer. Then the whole garment would become mysteriously distended, as if some poor mariner were being hanged by the neck, and the choking and plethora had reached even to the very ends of his pantaloons; reminding me quite vividly, the while, of a pair of piratical legs—which a sailor in the forecastle of our steamer, the Diamond, had shown me in the frontispiece of a very greasy book—dangling pictorially from the gibbet of the lamented Captain Kidd.

Well, what I set out to say is, that for a long time afterward I held the juvenile opinion that those same second-hand sailor trousers, big at the bottom, and little at the top, like the churn in the venerable riddle, were alone what made me then so suddenly and so mysteriously sea-sick. I did not, however, think much about it at the time, or of anything else, but getting back with all possible expedition to the steamer and to bed.

Sea-sickness, you may have observed, is very much like first love. While it lasts, you rarely get any sympathy from those not affected like yourself; and when it is over, you are the first to laugh at it. And there is always likely to be something ludicrous about it—in the memory; but, durante bello, it is serious enough, in all conscience. Now the second voyage of our steamer Diamond was a remarkably calm one; and I, true to the instincts of your convalescent, whether of nausea or erotomania, ridiculed my previous troubles. But on the third voyage the lake was rougher than ever. I fought my weakness valiantly; yet it seemed a battle against all visible Nature—the water, the sky, and the crazy old steamboat, to say nothing of my own recalcitrant little body. I was forced to yield.

I had, however, been a sailor too long for any faint show of sympathy. The steward, too, was short of help; and there was no escape for me. I was accordingly called out to do duty at the dinner-table, where I staggered about under plates and platters to the terror of all immediate beholders. I had little or no control of my legs and hands; and my head, if I remember correctly now, was engaged in framing and passing silent resolutions of want of confidence in my stomach.

Having emptied a dish of stewed chicken into the lap of an uncomplaining lady-passenger, who was nearly as sick as I was, but who was ashamed to own it, I planted my back violently against the side of the cabin, in the inane endeavor to steady the rolling ship or my rolling head—I did not know or care exactly which. While thus employed, I heard the grating voice of the captain, who was, if possible, always as ill-natured as he looked.

“Here, boy!” he called.

I went to him, staggering and trembling, and apprehending all manner of vengeance.

“What are you staring at, you lubber? Why don’t you turn me a glass of water?”

From which comparatively amiable speech of my commander, I was left in doubt whether he was aware of my late exploit with the stewed chicken. I seized an unwieldy water-pitcher; and, just as I had it well elevated, the boat gave a perverse lunge, and I proceeded, dizzier than ever, to pour the entire contents of the jug into the captain’s ear, and down his neck. Everything for a yard or so around, excepting only his goblet, received some share of the water.

I did not tarry long to observe the rage of the captain; but what I did see, and more especially hear of it, was certainly as intense and loud and blasphemous as anything of the kind that has since come within the range of my perception. The pitcher broke on the floor where I dropped it; and I fled back to my berth, and covered up my head.

My commander did not pursue me; but about an hour afterward the steward came to me with a very long face, as I observed with the one eye which I uncovered long enough to ask him if the captain had seen me deposit the stewed chicken in the lap of that lady. No: I was told the captain had not heard of that, but was sufficiently wroth about the wetting he had received at my hands; and the steward ended by saying that I would have to go ashore at the next landing. He was very sorry, he assured me; but the captain was inexorable.

I hastened to inform my friend and protector that I would be glad to set my foot on any dry land whatsoever, and that I never wanted to go on a steamboat any more; for the vessel, now in the trough of the sea, was rolling and creaking more violently every minute, and my nausea had increased in proportion.

The next landing, the steward gave me to understand, was Conneaut, Ohio, which was his own home. He comforted me, furthermore, with the assurance that his wife would be down at the wharf to get the linen, which she washed for the steamer; and that she should take me home with her.

The pier of Conneaut, where we finally arrived, was now invested with absorbing interest to me. I wondered which of the tanned faces that looked up from the dock belonged to my future mistress; and I wondered, too, which of the weather-beaten fishermen’s huts along the shore—about the only habitations in sight—was to be my future home. I hoped it was the one with the little boats before it on the beach, and the long fish-nets spread out to dry; where the white gulls seemed to make their head-quarters, wheeling about the little roof, or sliding up against the sky, or swooping the surf, and skimming along the billows of the lake.

I was thus musing, in grateful convalescence, on the upper-deck, when the steward approached, and pointed me out to his wife. She was, as I remember her, a chubby, black-eyed little person, with a pleasant voice. At her woman’s question as to whether I had my things all packed and ready, I became embarrassed; but the steward helped me out by answering for me, “Yes, he has ’em on his back.”

The knowledge of my forlorn condition, and a sudden choking sensation in the throat, came upon the good little woman at one and the same time, as I was made aware by an attempt to speak, which she abandoned, substituting—very much to the lowering of my boyish pride—a fearless and vigorous hugging, together with a hearty, loud-sounding kiss, right before the passengers, the greasy pantryman, and others of the crew.

Then the steward’s wife, without another word, hurried me ashore into a one-horse wagon, with the soiled linen, and drove away up to the village, which was a mile or two from the lake.