as sam crayme strode toward the body of the town, his business instincts took strong hold of his sentiments, in the manner natural alike to saints and sinners, and he laid a plan of operations against whiskey which was characterized by the apparent recklessness but actual prudence which makes for glory in steamboat captains, as it does in army commanders. as was his custom in business, he first drove at full speed upon the greatest obstacles; so it came to pass that he burst into his own house, threw his arm around his wife with more than ordinary tenderness, and then looking into her eyes with the daring born of utter desperation, said,
“emily, i came back to sign the strongest temperance pledge that you can possibly draw up; fred macdonald wanted to write out one, but i told him that nobody but you should do it; you’ve earned the right to, poor girl.” no such duty and surprise having ever before come hand in hand to[147] mrs. crayme, she acted as every true woman will imagine that she herself would have done under similar circumstances, and this action made it not so easy as it might otherwise have been to see just where the pen and ink were, or to prevent the precious document, when completed, from being disfigured by peculiar blots which were neither finger-marks nor ink-spots, yet which in shape and size suggested both of these indications of unneatness. mrs. crayme was not an adept at literary composition, and, being conscious of her own deficiencies, she begged that a verbal pledge might be substituted; but her husband was firm.
“a contract don’t steer worth a cent unless it’s in writing, emily,” said he, looking over his wife’s shoulder as she wrote. “gracious, girl, you’re making it too thin; any greenhorn could sail right through that and all around it. here, let me have it.” and crayme wrote, dictating aloud to himself as he did so, “and the—party—of the first part—hereby agrees to—do everything—else that the—spirit of this—agreement—seems to the party—of the second—part to—indicate or—imply.” this he read over to his wife, saying,
“that’s the way we fix contracts that aren’t ship-shape,[148] emily; a steamboat couldn’t be run in any other way.” then crayme wrote at the foot of the paper, “sam. crayme, capt. str. excellence,” surveyed the document with evident pride, and handed it to his wife, saying,
“now, you see, you’ve got me so i can’t ever get out of it by trying to make out that ’twas some other sam crayme that you reformed.”
“o husband!” said mrs. crayme, throwing her arms about the captain’s neck, “don’t talk in that dreadful business way! i’m too happy to bear it. i want to go with you on this trip.”
the captain shrank away from his wife’s arms, and a cold perspiration started all over him as he exclaimed,
“oh, don’t, little girl! wait till next trip. there’s an unpleasant set of passengers aboard; the barometer points to rainy weather, so you’d have to stay in the cabin all the time; our cook is sick, and his cubs serve up the most infernal messes; we’re light of freight, and have got to stop at every warehouse on the river, and the old boat’ll be either shrieking, or bumping, or blowing off steam the whole continual time.”
mrs. crayme’s happiness had been frightening[149] some of her years away, and her smile carried sam himself back to his pre-marital period as she said,
“never mind the rest; i see you don’t want me to go,” and then she became mrs. crayme again as she said, pressing her face closely to her husband’s breast, “but i hope you won’t get any freight, anywhere, so you can get home all the sooner.”
then the captain called on dr. white, and announced such a collection of symptoms that the doctor grew alarmed, insisted on absolute quiet, conveyed crayme in his own carriage to the boat, saw him into his berth, and gave to fred macdonald a multitude of directions and cautions, the sober recording of which upon paper was of great service in saving fred from suffering over the quixotic aspect which the whole project had begun, in his mind, to take on. he felt ashamed even to look squarely into crayme’s eye, and his mind was greatly relieved when the captain turned his face to the wall and exclaimed,
“fred, for goodness’ sake get out of here; i feel enough like a baby now, without having a nurse alongside. i’ll do well enough for a few hours; just look in once in a while.”
during the first day of the trip, crayme made no[150] trouble for himself or fred: under the friendly shelter of night, the two men had a two-hour chat which was alternately humorous, business-like, and retrospective, and then crayme fell asleep. the next day was reasonably pleasant out of doors, so the captain wrapped himself in a blanket and sat in an extension-chair on the guards, where with solemn face he received some condolences which went far to keep him in good humor after the sympathizers had departed. on the second night the captain was restless, and the two men played cards. on the third day the captain’s physique reached the bottom of its stock of patience, and protested indignantly at the withdrawal of its customary stimulus; and it acted with more consistency, though no less ugliness, than the human mind does when under excitement and destitute of control. the captain grew terribly despondent, and fred found ample use for all the good stories he knew. some of these amused the captain greatly, but after one of them he sighed,
“poor old billy hockess told me that the only time i ever heard it before, and didn’t we have a glorious time that night! he’d just put all his money into the yenesei—that blew up and took him[151] with it only a year afterward—and he gave us a new kind of punch he’d got the hang of when he went east for the boat’s carpets. ’twas made of two bottles of brandy, one whiskey, two rum, one gin, two sherry, and four claret, with guava jelly, and lemon peel that had been soaking in curaçoa and honey for a month. it looks kind of weak when you think about it, but there were only six of us in the party, and it went to the spot by the time we got through. golly, but didn’t we make rome howl that night!”
fred shuddered, and experimented upon his friend with song; he was rewarded by hearing the captain hum an occasional accompaniment; but, as fred got fairly into a merry irish song about one terry o’rann, and uttered the lines in which the poet states that the hero
“—took whiskey punch
ivery night for his lunch,”
the captain put such a world of expression into a long-drawn sigh that fred began to feel depressed himself; besides, songs were not numerous in fred’s repertoire, and those in which there was no allusion to drinking could be counted on half his fingers. then he borrowed the barkeeper’s violin, and[152] played, one after another, the airs which had been his favorites in the days of his courtship, until crayme exclaimed,
“say, fred, we’re not playing church; give us something that don’t bring all of a fellow’s dead friends along with it.”
fred reddened, swung his bow viciously, and dashed into “natchez under the hill,” an old air which would have delighted offenbach, but which will never appear in a collection of classical music.
“ah! that’s something like music,” exclaimed captain crayme, as fred paused suddenly to repair a broken string. “i never hear that but i think of wesley treepoke, that used to run the quitman; went afterward to the rising planet, when the quitman’s owners put her on a new line as an opposition boat. wess and i used to work things so as to make louisville at the same time—he going up, i going down, and then turn about—and we always had a glorious night of it, with one or two other lively boys that we’d pick up. and wess had a fireman that could fiddle off old ‘natchez’ in a way that would just make a corpse dance till its teeth rattled, and that fireman would always be called in just as we’d got to the place where you[153] can’t tell what sort of whiskey ’tis you’re drinking, and i tell you, ’twas so heavenly that a fellow could forgive the last boat that beat him on the river, or stole a landing from him. and such whiskey as wess kept! used to go cruising around the back country, sampling little lots run out of private stills. he’d always find nectar, you’d better believe. poor old boy! the tremens took him off at last. he hove his pilot overboard just before he died, and put a bullet into pete langston, his second clerk—they were both trying to hold him, you see—but they never laid it up against him. i wish i knew what became of the whiskey he had on hand when he walked off—no, i don’t, either; what am i thinking about? but i do, though—hanged if i don’t!”
fred grew pale: he had heard of drunkards growing delirious upon ceasing to drink; he had heard of men who, in periods of aberration, were impelled by the motive of the last act or recollection which strongly impressed them; what if the captain should suddenly become delirious, and try to throw him overboard or shoot him? fred determined to get the captain at once upon the guards—no, into the cabin, where there would be no sight of water[154] to suggest anything dreadful—and search his room for pistols. but the captain objected to being moved into the cabin.
“the boys,” said the captain, alluding to the gamblers, “are mighty sharp in the eye, and like as not they’d see through my little game, and then where’d my reputation be? speaking of the boys reminds me of harry genang, that cleaned out that rich kentucky planter at bluff one night, and then swore off gambling for life and gave a good-by supper aboard the boat. ’twas just at the time when prince imperial champagne came out, and the whole supper was made of that splendid stuff. i guess i must have put away four bottles, and if i’d known how much he’d ordered, i could have carried away a couple more. i’ve always been sorry i didn’t.”
fred wondered if there was any subject of conversation which would not suggest liquor to the captain; he even brought himself to ask if crayme had seen the new methodist church at barton since it had been finished.
“oh, yes,” said the captain; “i started to walk moshier home one night, after we’d punished a couple of bottles of old crow whiskey at our house,[155] and he caved in all of a sudden, and i laid him out on the steps of that very church till i could get a carriage. those were my last two bottles of crow, too; it’s too bad the way the good things of this life paddle off.”
the captain raised himself in his berth, sat on the edge thereof, stood up, stared out the window, and began to pace his room with his head down and his hands behind his back. little by little he raised his head, dropped his hands, flung himself into a chair, beat the devil’s tattoo on the table, sprang up excitedly, and exclaimed,
“i’m going back on all the good times i ever had.”
“you’re only getting ready to try a new kind, sam,” said fred.
“well, i’m going back on my friends.”
“not on all of them; the dead ones would pat you on the back, if they got a chance.”
“a world without whiskey looks infernally dismal to a fellow that isn’t half done living.”
“it looks first-rate to a fellow that hasn’t got any back-down in him.”
“curse you! i wish i’d made you back down when you first talked temperance to me.”
[156]
“go ahead! then curse your wife—don’t be afraid; you’ve been doing it ever since you married her.”
crayme flew at macdonald’s throat; the younger man grappled the captain and threw him into his bunk. the captain struggled and glared like a tiger; fred gasped, between the special efforts dictated by self-preservation,
“sam, i—promised to—to see you—through—and i’m—going to—do it, if—if i have to—break your neck.”
the captain made one tremendous effort; fred braced one foot against the table, put a knee on the captain’s breast, held both the captain’s wrists tightly, looked full into the captain’s eyes, and breathed a small prayer—for his own safety. for a moment or two, perhaps longer, the captain strained violently, and then relaxed all effort and cried,
“fred, you’ve whipped me!”
“nonsense! whip yourself,” exclaimed fred, “if you’re going to stop drinking.”
the captain turned his face to the wall and said nothing; but he seemed to be so persistently swallowing something that fred suspected a secreted[157] bottle, and moved an investigation so suddenly that the captain had not time in which to wipe his eyes.
“hang it, fred,” said he, rather brokenly; “how can what’s babyish in men whip a full-grown steamboat captain?”
“the same way that it whipped a full-grown woolen-mill manager once, i suppose, old boy,” said macdonald.
“is that so?” exclaimed the captain, astonishment getting so sudden an advantage over shame that he turned over and looked his companion in the face. “why—how are you, fred? i feel as if i was just being introduced. didn’t anybody else help?”
“yes,” said fred, “a woman; but—you’ve got a wife, too.”
crayme fell back on his pillow and sighed. “if i could only think about her, fred! but i can’t; whiskey’s the only thing that comes into my mind.”
“can’t think about her!” exclaimed fred; “why, are you acquainted with her yet, i wonder? i’ll never forget the evening you were married.”
“that was jolly, wasn’t it?” said crayme. “i’ll[158] bet such sherry was never opened west of the alleghanies, before or——”
“hang your sherry!” roared fred; “it’s your wife that i remember. you couldn’t see her, of course, for you were standing alongside of her; but the rest of us—well, i wished myself in your place, that’s all.”
“did you, though?” said crayme, with a smile which seemed rather proud; “well, i guess old major pike did too, for he drank to her about twenty times that evening. let’s see; she wore a white moire antique, i think they called it, and it cost twenty-one dollars a dozen, and there was at least one broken bottle in every——”
“and i made up my mind she was throwing herself away, in marrying a fellow that would be sure to care more for whiskey than he did for her,” interrupted fred.
“ease off, fred, ease off now; there wasn’t any whiskey there; i tried to get some of the old twin tulip brand for punch, but——”
“but the devil happened to be asleep, and you got a chance to behave yourself,” said fred.
crayme looked appealingly. “fred,” said he, “tell me about her yourself; i’ll take it as a favor.”
[159]
“why, she looked like a lot of lilies and roses,” said fred, “except that you couldn’t tell where one left off and the other began. as she came into the room i felt like getting down on my knees. old bayle was telling me a vile story just then, but the minute she came in he stopped as if he was shot.”
“he wouldn’t drink a drop that evening,” said crayme, “and i’ve puzzled my wits over that for five years——”
“she looked so proud of you,” interrupted fred with some impatience.
“did she?” asked crayme. “well, i guess i was a good-looking fellow in those days: i know pike came up to me once, with a glass in his hand, and said that he ought to drink to me, for i was the finest-looking groom he’d ever seen. he was so tight, though, that he couldn’t hold his glass steady; and though you know i never had a drop of stingy blood in me, it did go to my heart to see him spill that gorgeous sherry.”
“she looked very proud of you,” fred repeated; “but i can’t see why, for i’ve never seen her do it since.”
“you will, though, hang you!” exclaimed the[160] captain. “get out of here! i can think about her now, and i don’t want anybody else around. no rudeness meant, you know, fred.”
fred macdonald retired quietly, taking with him the keys of both doors, and feeling more exhausted than he had been on any saturday night since the building of the mill.
