Part 17 (1/2)
”Lugged it aboard ourselves? And all these people that we are going to be pa.s.sengers with for the next four or five days watching us while we did a roustabout's work? Not much. We've a quarter left.”
Charlie was silent. The great stern-wheel of the ”New Lucy” revolved with a das.h.i.+ng and a churning sound. The yellow banks of the Missouri sped by them. The sacred soil of Kansas slid past as in a swiftly moving panorama. One home was hourly growing nearer, while another was fading away there into the golden autumnal distance.
CHAPTER XIX.
DOWN THE BIG MUDDY.
It is more than six hundred miles from Leavenworth to St. Louis by the river. And as the river is crooked exceedingly, a steamboat travelling that route points her bow at every point of the compa.s.s, north, south, east, and west, before the voyage is finished. The boys were impatient to reach home, to be back in dear old Dixon, to see the mother and the fireside once more. But they knew that days must pa.s.s before they could reach St. Louis. The three lads settled themselves comfortably in the narrow limits of their little stateroom; for they found that their pa.s.sage included quarters really more luxurious than they had been accustomed to in their Kansas log-cabin.
”Not much army blanket and buffalo-robe about this,” whispered Oscar, pressing his toil-stained hand on the nice white spread of his berth.
”Say, wouldn't Younkins allow that this was rather comfortable-like, if he was to see it and compare it with his deerskin coverlet that he is so proud of?”
”Well, Younkins's deerskin coverlet is paid for, and this isn't,” said Charlie, grimly.
But the light-hearted younger boys borrowed no trouble on that score.
As Sandy said, laughingly, they were all fixed for the trip to St.
Louis, and what was the use of fretting about the pa.s.sage money until the time came to pay it?
When the lads, having exchanged their flannel s.h.i.+rts for white cotton ones, saved up for this occasion, came out from their room, they saw two long tables covered with snowy cloths set for the whole length of the big saloon. They had scanned the list of meal hours hanging in their stateroom, and were very well satisfied to find that there were three meals served each day. It was nearly time for the two o'clock dinner, and the colored servants were making ready the tables. The boat was crowded with pa.s.sengers, and it looked as if some of them would be obliged to wait for the ”second table.” On board of a steamboat, especially in those days of long voyages, the matter of getting early to the table and having a good seat was of great concern to the pa.s.sengers. Men stood around, lining the walls of the saloon and regarding with hungry expectation the movements of the waiters who were making ready the tables. When the chairs were placed, every man laid his hand on the top of the seat nearest him, prepared, as one of the boys privately expressed it, to ”make a grab.”
”Well, if we don't make a grab, too, we shall get left,” whispered Sandy, and the boys bashfully filed down the saloon and stood ready to take their seats when the gong should sound.
To eyes unused to the profuseness of living that then prevailed on the best cla.s.s of Western steamboats, the display on the dining-tables of the ”New Lucy” was very grand indeed. The waiters, all their movements regulated by something like military discipline, filed in and out bearing handsome dishes for the decoration of the board.
”Just look at those gorgeous flowers! Red, white, blue, purple, yellow! My! aren't they fine?” said Sandy, under his breath.
Oscar giggled. ”They are artificial, Sandy. How awfully green you are!”
Sandy stoutly maintained that they were real flowers. He could smell them. But when one of the waiters, having accidentally overturned one of the vases and knocked a flaming bouquet on the carpeted floor of the cabin, s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and dusted it with his big black hand, Sandy gave in, and murmured, ”Tis true; they're false.”
But the boys' eyes fairly stood out with wonder and admiration when a procession of colored men came out of the pantry, bearing a grand array of ornamental dishes. Pineapples, bananas, great baskets of fancy cakes, and other dainties attracted their wonder-stricken gaze.
But most of all, numerous pyramids of macaroons, two or three feet high, with silky veils of spun sugar falling down from summit to base, fascinated their attention. They had never seen the like at a public table; and the generous board of the ”New Lucy” fairly groaned with good things when the gong somewhat superfluously announced to the waiting throng that dinner was served.
”No plates, knives, or forks,” said Sandy, as, amid a great clatter and rush, everybody sat down to the table. Just then a long procession of colored waiters emerged from the pantry, the foremost man carrying a pile of plates, and after him came another with a basket of knives, after him another with a basket of forks, then another with spoons, and so on, each man carrying a supply of some one article for the table. With the same military precision that had marked all their movements, six black hands were stretched at the same instant over the shoulders of the sitting pa.s.sengers, and six articles were noiselessly dropped on the table; then, with a similar motion, the six black hands went back to their respective owners, as the procession moved along behind the guests, the white-sleeved arms and black hands waving in the air and keeping exact time as the procession moved around the table.
”Looks like a white-legged centipede,” muttered Sandy, under his breath. But more evolutions were coming. These preliminaries having been finished, the solemn procession went back to the kitchen regions, and presently came forth again, bearing a glittering array of s.h.i.+ning metal covered dishes. At the tap of the pompous head-waiter's bell, every man stood at ”present arms,” as Oscar said. Then, at another tap, each dish was projected over the white cloth to the spot for which it was designed, and held an inch or two above the table.
Another tap, and every dish dropped into its place with a sound as of one soft blow. The pompous head-waiter struck his bell again, and every dish-cover was touched by a black hand. One more jingle, and, with magical swiftness and deftness, each dish-cover was lifted, and a delightful perfume of savory viands gushed forth amidst the half-suppressed ”Ahs” of the a.s.sembled and hungry diners. Then the procession of dark-skinned waiters, bearing the dish-covers, filed back to the pantry, and the real business of the day began. This was the way that dinners were served on all the first-rate steamboats on Western rivers in those days.
To hungry, hearty boys, used of late to the rough fare of the frontier, and just from a hard trip in an ox-wagon, with very short rations indeed, this profusion of good things was a real delight.
Sandy's mouth watered, but he gently sighed to himself, ”'Most takes away my appet.i.te.” The polite, even servile, waiters pressed the lads with the best of everything on the generous board; and Sandy's cup of happiness was full when a jolly darky, his ebony face s.h.i.+ning with good-nature, brought him some frosted cake, charlotte russe, and spun sugar and macaroons from one of the shattered pyramids.
”D'ye s'pose they break those up every day?” whispered Sandy to the more dignified Charlie.
”Suttinly, suh,” replied the colored man, overhearing the question; ”suttinly, suh. Dis yere boat is de fastest and de finest on de Big Muddy, young gent; an' dere's nuttin' in dis yere worl' that the 'New Lucy' doan have on her table; an' doan yer fergit it, young mas'r,” he added, with respectful pride in his voice.
”My! what a tuck-out! I've ate and ate until I'm fairly fit to bust,”
said Sandy, as the three boys, their dinner over, sauntered out into the open air and beheld the banks of the river swiftly slipping by as they glided down the stream.
Just then, glancing around, his eye caught the amused smile of a tall and lovely lady who was standing near by, chatting with two or three rather superior-looking young people whom the lad had first noticed when the question of having the baggage brought on board at Leavenworth was under discussion. Sandy's brown cheek flushed; but the pretty lady, extending her hand, said: ”Pardon my smiling, my boy; but I have a dear lad at home in Baltimore who always says just that after his Christmas dinner, and sometimes on other occasions, perhaps; and his name is Sandy, too. I think I heard your brother call you Sandy?