Mitch Miller Part 11

"About an hour from here," says he.

"Where does it come from?"

"Peoria."

"Does it come through Havaner?"

"Why, of course it does; why?"

"Because," says I, "I thought I saw a friend of my pa's standin' on the back platform."

"Who?" says Willie.

"Well, you don't know him," says I. "He's a friend of my pa's."

Willie didn't say nothin'.

Then I says, "Didn't you see a couple of men standin' on the back platform?"

"No," says Willie. "I can't be watchin' things like that when I'm takin'

care of a switch and all that."

Mitch looked at me. We knew then it was all right. So I started in on the money.

"Look here, Willie, this here conductor hit us for two dollars, a dollar apiece for our fare to Havaner."

"No," says Willie.

"Honest, didn't he, Mitch?"

Mitch said, "Yep."

"Well, he must be foolin'," says Willie, "for the fare is only 60 cents from Atterberry, and you'd go half fare at 30 cents."

Mitch says, "I've heard about conductors knockin' down, and this looks like it to me. But what's two dollars? When we get to Havaner, Skeet's pa will give him that twice over, if he wants it. So let it go, Skeet.

If a conductor wants to be mean enough to cheat a couple of boys, and the railroad is mean enough to take the money, I say, let it go."

We hadn't gone more'n six miles anyway when the train stopped again.

Willie and the conductor went way up toward the engine, and we was stalled here for most an hour. It was a hot box or somethin'. And we got tired and we was as hungry as wolves, since we hadn't et anything since morning.

Pretty soon Willie came in and says, "She's whistlin' for Havaner." We curved around by a sand hill and drew up by the depot. The sun was just above the tree tops. It had taken us hours and hours to come from Atterberry, and Willie said it wasn't more'n forty miles. We hopped off and started away.

"Here," said the conductor. "Here's the receipt for your fare." He slipped the two dollars into my hand with a laugh, and we shook hands with Willie Wallace and started up town.

CHAPTER XVIII

It seemed sad to part with Willie Wallace at the depot, but things was changed. He wasn't rollickin' and free no more, but looked serious and busy. Havaner was a big town, so there was a lot of switchin' to do, and Willie just said, "Good luck, boys," and disappeared sommers between cars. Then we started up the street, goin' to the steamboat landin'.

It must have been more'n a mile; and the sun was goin' down now and we began to wonder about the night. By and by, after inquirin' several times, we found the street that went to the landin' and hurried down.

Well, here was a river! How could the Mississippi be much bigger? It was twict as big as the Sangamon, or bigger, and the big sycamore trees on the other side looked a mile away. And here was a bridge way up in the air crossin' the river for wagons and people, and furder down a railroad bridge, and you could look up or down the river for miles. Says I to Mitch, "How do you like this?" Says he, "Wal, sir, I just feel as if I could fly, I am that happy." There was lots of house boats on the sh.o.r.e, where fishermen lived; there was nets stretched out on the sand; and some wound up on reels, and there was just sloughs of row boats, and a good many people movin' around, and some dogs barkin', and the sun was just gettin' behind the woods on the other side of the river.

So then we began to ask when there was a steamboat to St. Louis. And a man said, "To-night. Hey, Bill," he called to another feller, "ain't the _City of Peoria_ goin' down to-night?" The feller called back "yes."

Mitch's eyes just glowed. He just stepped aside and I did and he said, "Now luck is with us." Then I said, "Let's ask somebody else about the boat, we might as well be sure." Just then a big boy came along, about eighteen, so we asked him. He was carryin' some fish and was in a hurry, and he said, "No boat for a week, kids," and went right on. That took the spirit out of us. So we went to a house-boat and asked a woman who was cookin' supper and she said she didn't know whether the St. Louis boat was a day late or not; that sometimes it was a day late, and if it was, it wouldn't be in till day after to-morrow. Just then her husband came up and heard us, and he said, "'Pears to me the boat went down last night. I can't ricollect. We don't pay much attention to the boats, havin' our own business to watch. But," says the man, "if you go up to the hotel, they have a time card up there; or I'll tell you, go over there to the landing, and look on the door of the office, and see if there ain't a time card tacked up." So we hurried over there, but some one had torn off the card, and the office was closed. Then we went up to the hotel.

We could see into the dinin' room and see the waitress girls carryin'

trays and the food smelt wonderful, but it was fifty cents to eat and we couldn't afford it. Anyway we came up to ask about the boat. There was a gray-haired little feller standin' behind the desk, and awful busy with people comin' and goin', and we stood there tryin' to get in a word; but just as one of us would say, "What time--" a man would step up and say: "I'm checkin' out," or "Let me have 201 again," or somethin' like that.

Finally n.o.body was there and Mitch got it out, "When does the steamboat go to St. Louis?"

The little feller didn't look at Mitch, he looked at me stiddy a long while. Then he looked at Mitch and back again at me. And he says: "Ain't you the son of States Attorney Kirby?" He got me so quick I couldn't say nothin', so I says, "Yes, sir." "Wal," says he, "I thought so. You look like him. And I believe you boys are runnin' away. I think I'll turn you over to the policeman."

So I stood there and said to myself, "It's ended--we're done." And I was so scared I couldn't move. And just then Mitch began to talk, and he says: "You can't, because we just talked to him ourselves, and asked him about the boat, and he's gone home to supper, and he knows us and knows where we're visitin' with my aunt here in Havaner. And if you don't want to tell us when the boat comes in so we can go down and look at her and really see a steamboat, all right."

Just then the bus backed up to the hotel and a lot of men got out with satchels and came hurryin' in and writin' their names in the book and gettin' rooms and things--and while the clerk was fl.u.s.tered with this business, we sneaked out.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Ain't You the Son of States Attorney Kirby?"]

So then we was pretty hungry and we went back to the river, I don't know just why. But we came to the fisherman's boat again, where the woman was cookin' supper, and said she, "Did you find out when the boat comes?"

And we said no, but we asked her if we could have some fried fish for a nickel and she says "yes," and asked us in, and so Mitch and me sat with the fambly and looked out of the little winder at the river and et all the cat fish we wanted, with corn bread and onions and things. There was a baby at the table and his nose kept runnin' and his ma just let it; and besides there was a little girl with hands as little as a bird's and black eyes and a pig tail, which made her hair as tight around her head as a drum; and besides them, two boys and a man who boarded there and the husband. And we could see the bed to one side and some cots. They all lived here together, right on the river, with the mosquitoes and the flies, which was awful. And at supper the man said: "Now ain't it funny that n.o.body can tell about the boat! She's comin' in to-night from St.

Louis and will land about 11, like she allus does. And she goes back to-morrow, or the next day, I forget which. Sometimes she changes her schedule and don't go back till Sat.u.r.day--and sometimes they get up an excursion here to go up to Copperas Creek, and then she don't go back until that's over. But when she gets in, just ask the captain, and he'll know for sure."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Looking Straight up into the Sky]

After supper, we walked out by the river. We waited till about eight o'clock and then took a swim, and I was beginnin' to think where we was goin' to sleep. But Mitch had decided that. There was a shed near the sh.o.r.e with the slant away from the river, and Mitch says, "That's the place. The water moccasins won't bother us there, and the mosquitoes won't, after a bit, and we can see down the river for miles, and see the _City of Peoria_ when she first turns the bend down there." So we got up on the shed and lay down lookin' straight up into the sky at the stars. It was a clear night and as quiet as a graveyard, only now and then we heard a voice, or a dog bark, or the dip of an oar in the river.

And Mitch lay with his hands under his head lookin' up at the stars and not sayin' anything. After a while he says: "Skeet, I told you there was somethin' on my mind, and there is. There's more than one thing on my mind, but I'm just wonderin' whether I'll tell you all of it or not."

"Why not?" says I.

"Because about one thing I don't know what I'm goin' to do myself, and if I talk about it, I'm likely to say I'll do this or that, and then if I don't you'll wonder; and I believe until I know just what I'm goin' to do, I'd better keep still. And as far as that goes, this goin' to see Tom Sawyer might have something to do with it. We might not come back--or get back in time for this thing that's in my mind. Although it don't take long to come back. And so, considerin' everything, I decided I'd take a chance, for we must see Tom Sawyer, Skeet; it must be and it has to be now. You see I'm a little mixed up after all; and ain't grown folks mixed up? I never see anybody more mixed about what to do than my pa sometimes. But I'll tell you this much, Skeet, we wouldn't be here to-night, and we wouldn't be on our way now to see Tom Sawyer if it warn't for one thing."

"What's that?" says I.

"Zueline," says Mitch. Then Mitch began to shake, and I knew he was cryin', and he took his hands from under his head and put them over his eyes, and everything was so still it scared me. Then Mitch quit shakin'

and took his hands off his eyes and looked straight up and was still for a long while. I couldn't guess what was the matter. Had Zueline died, maybe, or gone visitin', or quarreled with Mitch? So after a bit I says: "Well, Mitch, you know me--I'm true blue, and I'll stand by you, and if you want to tell me, just tell me, and I'll never peach as long as I live."

So Mitch says: "Well, Skeet, I have a different feelin' toward you from what I have towards Zueline. You see I don't want to protect you, or take care of you, and of course I'd fight for you, or help you any way I could. But it's different with Zueline--I'd die for her, and sometimes I want to, specially if she'd die at the same time, and our funerals could be together and we could be buried in the same grave. I have the same feelin' about her that I have when I look at them stars, I just get full in the throat, and don't know what I am or where I am, or what to do."

"Well," says I, "I know that, Mitch, leastways I suspicioned it--or somethin' like it, from the way you always treated Zueline, but tell me what in the world has happened."

"The worst has happened," says Mitch. "They've taken her away from me."

"How do you mean?" says I.

"Well," says Mitch, "the day before I came out to the farm to get you, Mrs. Ha.s.son came over to see ma. I was out in the yard gettin' some kindlin' for the wood box, and I saw Mrs. Ha.s.son coming. She never comes to see ma, and I wondered what it could be about. So I went up-stairs and looked down into the settin' room through the pipe-hole in the floor and heard everything they said. And this is about it.