Life on the Mississippi

‘“I don’t know.” Says I —

‘“You tell me, Dick Allbright.” He says —

‘“Well, I knowed it was a bar’l; I’ve seen it before; lots has seen it; they says it’s a haunted bar’l.”

‘I called the rest of the watch, and they come and stood there, and I told them what Dick said. It floated right along abreast, now, and didn’t gain any more. It was about twenty foot off. Some was for having it aboard, but the rest didn’t want to. Dick Allbright said rafts that had fooled with it had got bad luck by it. The captain of the watch said he didn’t believe in it. He said he reckoned the bar’l gained on us because it was in a little better current than what we was. He said it would leave by and by.

‘So then we went to talking about other things, and we had a song, and then a breakdown; and after that the captain of the watch called for another song; but it was clouding up, now, and the bar’l stuck right thar in the same place, and the song didn’t seem to have much warm-up to it, somehow, and so they didn’t finish it, and there warn’t any cheers, but it sort of dropped flat, and nobody said anything for a minute. Then everybody tried to talk at once, and one chap got off a joke, but it warn’t no use, they didn’t laugh, and even the chap that made the joke didn’t laugh at it, which ain’t usual. We all just settled down glum, and watched the bar’l, and was oneasy and oncomfortable. Well, sir, it shut down black and still, and then the wind begin to moan around, and next the lightning begin to play and the thunder to grumble. And pretty soon there was a regular storm, and in the middle of it a man that was running aft stumbled and fell and sprained his ankle so that he had to lay up. This made the boys shake their heads. And every time the lightning come, there was that bar’l with the blue lights winking around it. We was always on the look-out for it. But by and by, towards dawn, she was gone. When the day come we couldn’t see her anywhere, and we warn’t sorry, neither.

‘But next night about half-past nine, when there was songs and high jinks going on, here she comes again, and took her old roost on the stabboard side. There warn’t no more high jinks. Everybody got solemn; nobody talked; you couldn’t get anybody to do anything but set around moody and look at the bar’l. It begun to cloud up again. When the watch changed, the off watch stayed up, ‘stead of turning in. The storm ripped and roared around all night, and in the middle of it another man tripped and sprained his ankle, and had to knock off. The bar’l left towards day, and nobody see it go.

‘Everybody was sober and down in the mouth all day. I don’t mean the kind of sober that comes of leaving liquor alone – not that. They was quiet, but they all drunk more than usual – not together – but each man sidled off and took it private, by himself.

‘After dark the off watch didn’t turn in; nobody sung, nobody talked; the boys didn’t scatter around, neither; they sort of huddled together, forrard; and for two hours they set there, perfectly still, looking steady in the one direction, and heaving a sigh once in a while. And then, here comes the bar’l again. She took up her old place. She staid there all night; nobody turned in. The storm come on again, after midnight. It got awful dark; the rain poured down; hail, too; the thunder boomed and roared and bellowed; the wind blowed a hurricane; and the lightning spread over everything in big sheets of glare, and showed the whole raft as plain as day; and the river lashed up white as milk as far as you could see for miles, and there was that bar’l jiggering along, same as ever. The captain ordered the watch to man the after sweeps for a crossing, and nobody would go – no more sprained ankles for them, they said. They wouldn’t even walk aft. Well then, just then the sky split wide open, with a crash, and the lightning killed two men of the after watch, and crippled two more. Crippled them how, says you? Why, sprained their ankles!

‘The bar’l left in the dark betwixt lightnings, towards dawn. Well, not a body eat a bite at breakfast that morning. After that the men loafed around, in twos and threes, and talked low together. But none of them herded with Dick Allbright. They all give him the cold shake. If he come around where any of the men was, they split up and sidled away. They wouldn’t man the sweeps with him. The captain had all the skiffs hauled up on the raft, alongside of his wigwam, and wouldn’t let the dead men be took ashore to be planted; he didn’t believe a man that got ashore would come back; and he was right.

‘After night come, you could see pretty plain that there was going to be trouble if that bar’l come again; there was such a muttering going on. A good many wanted to kill Dick Allbright, because he’d seen the bar’l on other trips, and that had an ugly look. Some wanted to put him ashore. Some said, let’s all go ashore in a pile, if the bar’l comes again.

‘This kind of whispers was still going on, the men being bunched together forrard watching for the bar’l, when, lo and behold you, here she comes again. Down she comes, slow and steady, and settles into her old tracks. You could a heard a pin drop. Then up comes the captain, and says: —

‘“Boys, don’t be a pack of children and fools; I don’t want this bar’l to be dogging us all the way to Orleans, and you don’t; well, then, how’s the best way to stop it? Burn it up, – that’s the way. I’m going to fetch it aboard,” he says. And before anybody could say a word, in he went.

‘He swum to it, and as he come pushing it to the raft, the men spread to one side. But the old man got it aboard and busted in the head, and there was a baby in it! Yes, sir, a stark naked baby. It was Dick Allbright’s baby; he owned up and said so.

‘“Yes,” he says, a-leaning over it, “yes, it is my own lamented darling, my poor lost Charles William Allbright deceased,” says he, – for he could curl his tongue around the bulliest words in the language when he was a mind to, and lay them before you without a jint started, anywheres. Yes, he said he used to live up at the head of this bend, and one night he choked his child, which was crying, not intending to kill it, – which was prob’ly a lie, – and then he was scared, and buried it in a bar’l, before his wife got home, and off he went, and struck the northern trail and went to rafting; and this was the third year that the bar’l had chased him. He said the bad luck always begun light, and lasted till four men was killed, and then the bar’l didn’t come any more after that. He said if the men would stand it one more night, – and was a-going on like that, – but the men had got enough. They started to get out a boat to take him ashore and lynch him, but he grabbed the little child all of a sudden and jumped overboard with it hugged up to his breast and shedding tears, and we never see him again in this life, poor old suffering soul, nor Charles William neither.’

‘Who was shedding tears?’ says Bob; ‘was it Allbright or the baby?’

‘Why, Allbright, of course; didn’t I tell you the baby was dead. Been dead three years – how could it cry?’

‘Well, never mind how it could cry – how could it keep all that time?’ says Davy. ‘You answer me that.’

‘I don’t know how it done it,’ says Ed. ‘It done it though – that’s all I know about it.’

‘Say – what did they do with the bar’l?’ says the Child of Calamity.

‘Why, they hove it overboard, and it sunk like a chunk of lead.’

‘Edward, did the child look like it was choked?’ says one.

‘Did it have its hair parted?’ says another.

‘What was the brand on that bar’l, Eddy?’ says a fellow they called Bill.

‘Have you got the papers for them statistics, Edmund?’ says Jimmy.

‘Say, Edwin, was you one of the men that was killed by the lightning.’ says Davy.

‘Him? O, no, he was both of ‘em,’ says Bob. Then they all haw-hawed.

‘Say, Edward, don’t you reckon you’d better take a pill? You look bad – don’t you feel pale?’ says the Child of Calamity.

‘O, come, now, Eddy,’ says Jimmy, ‘show up; you must a kept part of that bar’l to prove the thing by. Show us the bunghole – do – and we’ll all believe you.’

‘Say, boys,’ says Bill, ‘less divide it up. Thar’s thirteen of us. I can swaller a thirteenth of the yarn, if you can worry down the rest.’

Ed got up mad and said they could all go to some place which he ripped out pretty savage, and then walked off aft cussing to himself, and they yelling and jeering at him, and roaring and laughing so you could hear them a mile.

‘Boys, we’ll split a watermelon on that,’ says the Child of Calamity; and he come rummaging around in the dark amongst the shingle bundles where I was, and put his hand on me. I was warm and soft and naked; so he says ‘Ouch!’ and jumped back.

‘Fetch a lantern or a chunk of fire here, boys – there’s a snake here as big as a cow!’

So they run there with a lantern and crowded up and looked in on me.

‘Come out of that, you beggar!’ says one.

‘Who are you?’ says another.

‘What are you after here? Speak up prompt, or overboard you go.

‘Snake him out, boys. Snatch him out by the heels.’

I began to beg, and crept out amongst them trembling. They looked me over, wondering, and the Child of Calamity says —

‘A cussed thief! Lend a hand and less heave him overboard!’

‘No,’ says Big Bob, ‘less get out the paint-pot and paint him a sky blue all over from head to heel, and then heave him over!’

‘Good, that ‘s it. Go for the paint, Jimmy.’

When the paint come, and Bob took the brush and was just going to begin, the others laughing and rubbing their hands, I begun to cry, and that sort of worked on Davy, and he says —

‘’Vast there! He ‘s nothing but a cub. ‘I’ll paint the man that tetches him!’

So I looked around on them, and some of them grumbled and growled, and Bob put down the paint, and the others didn’t take it up.

‘Come here to the fire, and less see what you’re up to here,’ says Davy. ‘Now set down there and give an account of yourself. How long have you been aboard here?’

‘Not over a quarter of a minute, sir,’ says I.

‘How did you get dry so quick?’

‘I don’t know, sir. I’m always that way, mostly.’

‘Oh, you are, are you. What’s your name?’

I warn’t going to tell my name. I didn’t know what to say, so I just says —