Kitabı oku: «What Happened at Quasi: The Story of a Carolina Cruise», sayfa 7
“I saw no way out except to keep out of reach of that warrant till my father’s return, and the only secure way of doing that, I thought, was to run away and live down here in the woods. So after lying awake all night I got up at daybreak, got one of the servants to give me breakfast and put up a luncheon for me. Then I took a little, flat-bottomed skiff that I owned and made my way down here. I had some money with me, but I did not dare go to any town, or village, or country store, to buy anything lest the man with the warrant should find out where I was. I learned where all the little negro settlements were, however, and there I bought sweet potatoes and the like as I needed them. I had my shotgun and fish lines with me, of course, and so I had no difficulty in feeding myself. For amusement I wandered about in every direction by land and water, and in that way greatly improved my education in coast country geography.
“After a while I found myself running short of ammunition, and I didn’t know how to procure a fresh supply. I was afraid to go to Beaufort, or up to Grahamville, or Coosawhatchie, or anywhere else where there were stores, and besides that I was in no fit condition to go anywhere. I had forgotten to bring any clothes with me and what I had on were worn literally to rags.
“Fortunately I had got acquainted with a negro boy who often brought me vegetables and fruit and sold them to me for low prices. I suppose now that he stole them, although that didn’t occur to me then.
“One day I hit upon the plan of sending him to Beaufort for ammunition. He expressed doubt that anybody there would sell it to him, and I shared the doubt. But it was my only chance, so I gave him some money and sent him. He was gone for two days, during which I fired my last cartridge at a deer and missed him. I had begun to think the negro boy had simply pocketed the money and disappeared, never to return again, but I consoled myself with the thought that there were plenty of fish and oysters to be had, and that I could buy sweet potatoes and vegetables.
“That night the negro boy returned, bringing me rather more ammunition than I had sent for, and when I questioned him about the matter his reply was that that was what the storekeeper had given him for the money. Later, however, he confessed to me that finding nobody willing to sell cartridges to him, he had simply stolen them and, being prepared to bring me the goods I had sent for, he thought the money he had saved in that way justly belonged to him. He had squandered it for candy and in satisfaction of such other desires as possessed him. Of course I paid the merchant afterwards, and equally of course it was impossible to collect the amount from the boy.
“All that is an episode. One day by some chance I encountered Sam in my wanderings, and he told me people were looking for me – that my father had heard of my disappearance and had hurried back to Charleston.
“I went to Beaufort, bought some sort of clothes, and like the other prodigal son, returned to my father. But he utterly failed to play his part according to the story. Instead of falling on my neck, he laughed at the clothes I wore. Instead of killing the fatted calf, he told me to take a bath and put on something fit to wear. All that evening I heard him chuckling under his breath as I related my experiences in answer to his questions. Finally he said to me:
“‘You’ll do, Cal. I’ll never feel uneasy about you again. You know how to take care of yourself.’
“There, Dick, you’ve heard the whole story, both of my righteousness and of my wickedness.”
“And a mighty interesting story it has been to me,” Dick replied. “Thank you for telling it.”
XIV
CAL RELATES A FABLE
The Hunkydory was completely loaded when Cal and Dick returned, and there was nothing further to do except cook the fish and game, so that there might be no need to stop anywhere to get dinner.
There was a fairly stiff breeze blowing when the anchors were weighed, but sailing was impracticable until the boat should be well out of the narrow creek, so all hands went to the oars.
When the land was cleared, Larry ordered that the oars be stowed in their fastenings and the sails raised. Without discussion or arrangement of any kind, Cal went to the helm. It seemed the proper thing to do in view of his superior knowledge of the surroundings, but Cal was not thinking of that. He had a plan and purpose of his own to carry out, though he said nothing about the matter.
There was quite an hour of sailing necessary before the course could be laid in the direction of the waterway that led toward Beaufort, and when the time came for heading in that direction, Cal laid quite a different course, heading for a shore that lay several miles away.
Larry was dozing in the forepeak and did not at first observe on what course his brother was sailing. When at last he did notice it, he assumed that something in the direction of the wind made Cal’s course desirable, but after a glance at the sails he changed his mind.
“Why are you heading in that direction, Cal?” he asked, looking about him. “Your course will take us several miles out of our way. Head her toward the point of land over there where the palmettos are.”
Cal made no change and he waited a full minute before he answered. When he did so it was in his most languid drawl.
“Larry,” he said, quite as if he had not heard a word that his brother had uttered, “there was a schooner sailing down the Hudson River one day. The captain of that craft was a Dutchman of phlegmatic temperament and extreme obstinacy. The mate was a Yankee, noted for his alert readiness of resource. The schooner was loaded with brick. The captain was loaded with beer. The mate wasn’t loaded at all. It was the captain’s business to steer and manage things in the after half of the ship. It was the function of the mate to manage things forward. But when the mate saw that the schooner’s course was carrying her straight upon the rocks, he went aft and remonstrated with the captain. For reply the captain said:
“‘Mate, you go forward and run your end of the schooner and leave me to run my end.’
“The mate went forward and ordered the anchor heaved overboard. Then going aft again, he said:
“‘Captain, I have anchored my end of the schooner; you can do what you please with your end.’”
Cal ceased, as if he had finished speaking. The others laughed at the story, and Larry said:
“What’s the moral of that yarn, Cal?”
“Haec fabula docet,” replied Cal, “that I’m sailing the Hunkydory just now; that I know where we are going and why.”
“Would you mind telling us, then?” demanded Larry.
“Not in the least. We are heading for the shore, on our lee; as for why, there are several reasons: One is that the tide will turn pretty soon, and when it does it will run out of the creek you want me to enter as fast as it does out of the Bay of Fundy. Another is, that the wind is falling and we shall have to take to the oars presently. Another is, that I am persuaded it will be easier rowing across the small current out here than against a tide that rushes out of the creek like a mill tail. There are other and controlling reasons, but I have already given you as many as your intellectual digestion can assimilate. The rest will keep till we’re comfortably ashore. There, that’s the last puff of the wind.”
With that he hauled the boom inboard, let go the halyards and left the rudder-bar.
“It is now after three o’clock,” he said, while the others were unstepping the mast, “and the distance is about three miles or a trifle less. Rowing easily we shall have time after we get there to settle ourselves comfortably before nightfall.”
“I suppose you’re right, of course,” Larry answered, “but it means several more meals on meat and fish alone.”
“Better not cross that bridge till you come to it, Larry. You see we might find manna over there, or some bread-fruit trees newly imported from Tahiti – who knows?”
The others shared Larry’s regret as to the food prospect, but they all recognized Cal’s superior knowledge of conditions as a controlling consideration; so all rowed on in silence.
When at last they reached the neighborhood of the shore, Cal began scrutinizing it closely as if searching for the landing place he had selected in his mind. He was in fact looking for the very narrow and cane-hidden entrance to a land-locked bay that he remembered very well. Presently he turned into it and shot the boat through a channel that one might have passed a dozen times without seeing it. It wound about among the dense growths for a little way and then opened out into a considerable little bay.
Here Cal directed the landing, but instead of arranging to anchor the boat a little way from shore he put on all speed with the oars and ran her hard and fast upon a gently sloping beach.
“What’s that for, Cal?” asked Dick, whose nautical instincts were offended by the manœuvre.
“To save trouble,” Cal answered. “You see this is a considerable little bay, and the entrance to it is so very narrow that before much of a flood tide can run into the broad basin the time comes for it to turn and run out again, so there is never a rise and fall of more than six or eight inches in here. The boat will lie comfortably where she is so long as we choose to stay here. We can reach her without much if any wading, and we can shove her off into deep water whenever we like.”
“Is there a spring about here?” asked Tom, whose concern about water supply had become specially active.
“No, but we can make one in fifteen minutes.”
Then selecting a sort of depression in the sandy beach about sixty yards from the water’s edge, Cal said:
“We have only to scoop out a basin in the sand here – about three feet deep as I reckon it, and we’ll have all the water we want.”
“But will it be good water?”
“Perfectly good. You see, Tom, this beach is composed of clean white sand. The water in the bay sipes through it at a uniform level, and we’ve only to dig down to that level in order to get at it.”
“But won’t it be salt water?”
“Slightly brackish, perhaps, or possibly not at all so. You see before reaching this point it is filtered through sixty or seventy yards of closely packed sand, which takes up all the salt and would take up all other impurities if there were any, as there are not. Suppose you dig for the water, Tom, while the other fellows make camp and pick up wood. It’s very easy digging and it won’t take long. I’m going off a little way to see what there is to see – and to look for the manna I spoke of a while ago.”
So saying, Cal took up his gun and set out inland. It was more than an hour before he returned and the dusk was falling. But to the astonishment of the others a string of young negroes followed close upon his heels, all carrying burdens of some sort, mostly poised upon their heads.
XV
CAL GATHERS THE MANNA
When Cal appeared at the head of his dusky little caravan the others advanced to meet him and bombard him with a rapid fire of questions as to where he had been, and what the negro boys were carrying, and where he had discovered the source of supply, and whatever else their curiosity suggested.
Instead of replying at once he asked.
“Did you find the water, Tom?”
“Yes, easily, and it isn’t brackish at all.”
“That’s excellent, and now let us eat, drink and be merry. I couldn’t give you that injunction till I learned that we had the water for the drinking part.”
Without waiting for him to finish his sentence the others busied themselves in examining what the negroes had brought. As they did so, Cal catalogued the supplies orally with comments:
“That bag contains a half bushel of rice – enough to serve us as a breadstuff for a long time to come, as we require only three teacupfuls – measured by guess – for a meal; the bag by the side of it is badly out at elbows and knees, but it holds a fine supply of new sweet potatoes which will help the endurance of the rice. What’s that? Oh, that’s a little okra, and the red-turbaned old darky woman who sold it to me carefully explained how to cook the mucilaginous vegetable. As she delivered her instructions in the language of the Upper Congo, I cannot say that my conception of the way in which okra should be prepared for the table is especially clear, but we’ll find some way out of that difficulty. Yes, the big bag on the right contains a few dozen ears of green corn, and the one next to it is full of well-ripened tomatoes, smooth of surface, shapely of contour and tempting to the appetite. Finally, we have here half a dozen cantaloupes, or ‘mush millions,’ as the colored youth who supplied them called his merchandise. Now scamper, you little vagabonds. I’ve paid you once for toting the things and it is a matter of principle with me never to pay twice for a single service.”
“Where on earth, Cal, did you find all these things?” asked Larry, the others looking the same question out of their eyes as it were.
“I found them in the garden patches where they were grown,” he replied. “That’s what I went out to do. They are the ‘manna,’ the finding of which somewhere in this neighborhood I foreshadowed in answer to your querulous predictions of an exclusively meat diet for some days to come.”
As he spoke, Cal was throwing sweet potatoes into the fire and covering them with red-hot ashes with glowing coals on top.
“You’re a most unsatisfactory fellow, Cal,” said Dick. “Why don’t you tell us where you got the provender and how you happened to find so rich a source of supply. Anybody else would be eager to talk about such an exploit.”
“I’ll tell you,” Cal answered, “as soon as I get the potato roast properly going. I’m hungry. Suppose you cut some cantaloupes for us to eat while the potatoes are cooking.”
Not until he had half a melon in hand did Cal begin.
“There’s one of the finest rice plantations on all this coast about a mile above here. Or rather, the plantation house is there. As for the plantation itself, we’re sitting on it now. It belongs to Colonel Huguenin, and of course the house is closed in summer.”
“Why?” interrupted Dick, whose thirst for information concerning southern customs was insatiable.
“Do you really want me to interrupt my story of ‘How Cal Went Foraging’ in order to answer your interjected inquiry? If I must talk it’s all one to me what I talk about. So make your choice.”
“Go on and tell us of the foraging. The other thing can wait.”
“Well, then; I happened to know of this plantation. I’ve bivouacked on the shores of this bay before, and when I turned the Hunkydory’s nose in this direction I was impelled by an intelligent purpose. I had alluring visions of the things I could buy from the negroes up there at the quarters.”
“Why didn’t you tell us then instead of getting off all that rigmarole about rowing against the tide and the rest of it?” asked Larry, not with irritation, but with a laugh, for the cantaloupe he was eating and the smell of the sweet potatoes roasting in the ashes had put him and the others into an entirely peaceful and contented frame of mind.
“I never like to raise hopes,” answered Cal, “that I cannot certainly fulfill. Performance is better than promises – as much better as the supper we are about to eat is better than a printed bill of fare. Wonder how the potatoes are coming on?”
With that he dug one of the yams out of the ashes, examined it, and put it back, saying:
“Five or six minutes more will do the business. I picked out the smallest ones on purpose to hurry supper. Let’s set the table. Tom, if your kettle of water is boiling, suppose you shuck some corn and plunge it in it. It must boil from five to six minutes – just long enough to get it thoroughly hot through. If it boils longer the sweetness all goes out of it. Dick, won’t you wash some of the tomatoes while Larry and I arrange the dishes?”
Arranging the dishes consisted in cutting a number of broad palmete leaves, some to hold the supplies of food and others to serve as plates.
“I’m sorry I cannot offer you young gentlemen some fresh butter for your corn and potatoes,” said Cal, as they sat down to supper, “but to be perfectly candid with you, our cows seem to have deserted us and we haven’t churned for several days past. After all, the corn and potatoes will be very palatable with a little salt sprinkled upon them, and we have plenty of salt. Don’t hesitate to help yourselves freely to it.”
“To my mind,” said Dick, “this is as good a supper as I ever ate.”
“That’s because of our sharp appetites,” answered Larry. “We’re hungry enough to relish anything.”
“Appetite helps, of course,” said Dick, thoughtfully; “but so does contrast. An hour ago we had all made up our minds to content ourselves for many meals to come with the exclusive diet of fish and game, which has been our lot for many meals past. To find ourselves eating a supper like this instead is like waking from a bad dream and finding it only a nightmare.”
“It would be better still not to have the nightmare,” answered Cal, speaking more seriously than he usually did. “When you have a nightmare it is usually your own fault, and pessimism is always so. You fellows were pessimistic over the prospect of a supper you could not enjoy. As you have a supper that you can enjoy, the suffering you inflicted upon yourselves was wholly needless.”
“Yes, I know,” interposed Tom; “but we couldn’t know that you were going to get all these good things for us.”
“No, of course not. But if you hadn’t allowed your pessimistic forebodings to make you unhappy, you needn’t have been unhappy at all. If things had turned out as you expected you’d have been unhappy twice – once in lamenting your lot and once in suffering it. As it is, you’ve been needlessly unhappy once and unexpectedly happy once, instead of being happy all the while. I tell you optimism is the only true philosophy.”
“I suppose it is,” Dick admitted, “but it leads to disappointment very often.”
“Of course. But in that case you suffer the ill, whatever it is, only once; while the pessimist suffers it both before it befalls and when it comes. That involves a sheer waste of the power of endurance.”
Larry had forgotten to eat while his brother delivered this little discourse, for he had never heard Cal talk in so serious a fashion. Indeed, he had come to think of his brother as a trifler who could never be persuaded to seriousness.
“Where on earth did you get that thought, Cal?” he asked, when Cal ceased to speak.
“It is perfectly sound, isn’t it?” was the boy’s reply.
“I think it is. But where did you get it?”
“If it is sound, it doesn’t matter where I got it, or how. But to satisfy your curiosity, I’ll tell you that I thought it out down here in the woods when I was a runaway. I was so often in trouble as to what was going to happen, and it so often happened that it didn’t happen after all, that I got to wondering one day what was the use of worrying about things that might never happen. I was alone in the woods, you know, and I had plenty of time to think. So little by little I thought out the optimistic philosophy and adopted it as the rule of my life. Of course I could not formulate it then as I do now. I didn’t know what the words ‘optimism’ and ‘pessimism’ meant, but my mind got a good grasp upon the ideas underlying them. There! My sermon is done. I have only to announce that there will be no more preaching at this camp-meeting. I’m going to take a look at your well, Tom, and if the water is as good as you say, I’m going to empty the rain water out of the kegs and refill them. Rain water, you know, goes bad a good deal sooner than other water – especially sand-filtered water.”
“I reckon Cal is right, Dick,” said Tom, when their companion was out of earshot.
“Yes, of course he is, but did you ever stub your toe? It’s a little bit hard to be optimistic on occasions like that.”
“I reckon that’s hardly what Cal meant – ”
“Of course it isn’t. I was jesting.”
XVI
FOG BOUND
The boys were not tired that evening, and after their abundant supper they sat late talking and telling stories and “just being happy,” Dick said. The day had been a torrid one, but in the evening there was a chill in the air which made a crackling camp-fire welcome. When at last they grew sleepy they simply rolled themselves in their blankets and lay down upon the sand and under the stars. They had built no shelter, as it was not their purpose to remain where they were except for a single night.
It was not long after daylight when Tom, shivering, sprang up, saying:
“I’m cold – hello! What’s this? Fog?”
“Yes,” said Larry, “a visitor from the gulf stream. And it is almost thick enough to cut, too. What shall we do?”
“Do? Why, make the best of it and be happy, of course,” answered Cal, piling wood upon the embers to set the camp-fire going again. “The first step in that direction is to get your blood circulating. Stir around. Bring a bucket of water and set the kettle to boil – that is to say, if you can open a trail through this fog and find the water hole without falling into it. Whew! but this is a marrow-searching atmosphere.”
The fog was indeed so dense that nothing could be seen at more than twenty paces away, while the damp, penetrating chill set all teeth chattering and kept them at it until rapid exercise set pulses going again. Then came breakfast to “confirm the cure,” Dick suggested, and the little company was comfortable again. That is to say, all of them but Larry. He was obviously uneasy in his mind, so much so that he had little relish for his breakfast.
“What’s the matter, Larry,” asked Tom, presently; “aren’t you warm yet?”
“Oh, yes, I’m warm enough, but there isn’t a breath of air stirring, and this fog may last all day. What do you think, Cal?”
“I think that very likely. I’ve seen fogs like this that lasted two or three days.”
“How on earth are we to get to Beaufort while it lasts?”
The question revealed the nature of Larry’s trouble.
“Why, of course we can’t do anything of the kind,” Cal answered. “We should get lost in the fog and go butting into mud banks and unexpected shoals. No. Till this fog clears away we can’t think of leaving the altogether agreeable shore upon which a kindly fate has cast us. But we can be happy while we stay, unless we make ourselves unhappy by worrying. I know what is troubling you, Larry, and it’s nonsense to worry about it. I often think I wouldn’t carry your conscience about with me for thirty cents a month.”
“But, Cal, you see it is our duty to notify the revenue officers of our discovery before those smugglers get away.”
“It may relieve your mind,” Cal answered in his usual roundabout fashion, “to reflect that they can’t get away. If they were still there when this fog came in from the sea, they will stay there till it clears away again. So we are really losing no time. In addition to that consolation, you should take comfort to yourself in the thought that even if the revenue officers were in possession of the information we have, they could do nothing till the fog lifts. So far as I know, at least, they can see no farther through fog than other people can, and shoals and mud banks are unlikely to respect their authority by keeping out of the way of such craft as they may navigate.”
Suddenly Cal put aside his playful manner of speech, and became thoroughly earnest.
“Think a minute, Larry. We have absolutely no official duty to do in this matter. We are doing our best as good citizens to notify the authorities. At present we can’t do it. There’s an end of that. We have a pleasant bivouac here, with plenty of food and more where it came from. Why shouldn’t we make the best of things and be happy? Why should you go brooding around, making the rest of us miserable? I tell you it’s nonsense. Cheer up, and give the rest of us a chance to enjoy ourselves.”
“You are right, Cal,” Larry answered; “and I won’t spoil sport. I didn’t mean to, and my worrying was foolish. By the way, what shall we do to pass the time to-day?”
“Well, for one thing, we ought to put up a shelter. A fog like this is very apt to end in soaking rain, and if it does that to-night, we’ll sleep more comfortably under a roof of palmete leaves than out in the open. However, there’s no hurry about that, and you can let Dick wallop you at chess for an hour or so while Tom and I go foraging. You see I’ve thought of a good many things that I ought to have bought last night, but didn’t. Do you want to go along, Tom?”
Tom did, and as they started away, Cal called back:
“I say, Larry, suppose you put on a kettle of rice to boil for dinner when the time comes. I think I’ll bring back something to eat with it.”
Then walking on with Tom by his side, he fell into his customary drawling, half-frivolous mode of speech. Tom had expressed his pleasure in the prospect of rice for dinner – rice cooked in the Carolina way, a dish he had never tasted before his present visit began.
“Yes,” answered Cal, “I was tenderly and affectionately thinking of you when I suggested the dish. And I had it in mind to make the occasion memorable in another way. I remember very vividly how greatly – I will not say greedily – you enjoyed the combination of rice and broiled spring chicken while we were in Charleston. I remember that at first you seemed disposed to scorn the rice under the mistaken impression that rice must always be the pasty, mush-like mess that they made of it at school. I remember how when I insisted upon filling your plate with it you contemplated it with surprise, and, contemplating, tasted the dainty result of proper cooking. After that all was plain sailing. I had only to place half a broiled chicken upon the rice foundation in your plate – half a chicken at a time I mean – and observe the gustatory delight with which you devoted yourself to our favorite Carolina dish.”
“Oh, well, your Carolina way of cooking it makes rice good even when you have no chicken to go with it. If the fog would thin itself down a bit – ”
“Which it won’t do in time for you to kill the squirrels you were thinking of as a possible substitute for chicken. Perish the thought. It is utterly unworthy. You and I are out after spring chickens, Tom.”
“Good! Do you think we can find any?”
“With the aid of the currency of our country as an excitant of the negro imagination, we can.”
“You saw chickens at the negro quarters last night, then?”
“No, I did not. But I observed a large pan on a shelf in front of one of the cabins, and with more curiosity than politeness I stood up on my tiptoes and looked into it. Tom, that pan was more than half full of chicken feed, and it was fresh at that. Knowing the habits of persons of the colored persuasion, I am entirely certain that no one of them would have taken the trouble to prepare that chicken feed unless he was the happy possessor of chickens. I’m going to call upon the dusky proprietor of that pan this morning.”
“That’s another case of noticing, Cal, and another proof of its value. We are likely to have broiled spring chickens for dinner to-day just because you observed that pan of chicken feed. What else did you notice up there? I ask solely out of curiosity.”
“There wasn’t much else to observe. I saw some fig bushes but they’ve been stripped. Otherwise we should have had some figs for breakfast this morning. Just now I observe that the fog is manifesting a decided tendency to resolve itself into rain, and if it does, that we must satisfy Larry’s conscience by getting away from our present camp this afternoon – or as soon as the fog is sufficiently cleared away. So you and I must hurry on if we’re to have those broiled chickens.”
As results proved, Cal was mistaken in his reckoning of the time necessary to dissipate the fog. It was merely taking the form of what is known as a “Scotch mist,” which does not form itself into rain drops and fall, but collects in drops upon whatever it touches, saturating clothing even more speedily than actual rain does and making all but the sunniest dispositions uncomfortable.
But even a Scotch mist condition served to thin the fog a little, though by no means enough to make navigation possible. Larry watched conditions anxiously, as Cal expected him to do, and his first question when Cal and Tom returned with their chickens revealed his state of mind.
“What do you think of it, Cal?” he asked.
“Of what? If you refer to the moon, I am satisfied in my own mind – ”
“Pshaw! You know what I mean. Do be serious for once and tell me what you think of the prospect?”
“Conscience bothering you again?”
“Yes. We must get away from here to-day if possible – and as soon as possible.”
“Can’t you give us time to have dinner and cook some extra food for consumption when we get hopelessly lost out there in the fog banks that are still rolling in from the sea?”
“Oh, of course we can’t leave here till the fog clears away. But do you think it ever will clear away?”
“It always has,” answered Cal, determined to laugh his brother out of his brooding if he could not reason him out of it. “In such experience as I have had with fogs I never yet encountered one that didn’t ultimately disappear, did you?”
“But what do you think of the prospect?” persisted Larry.
“I can see so little of it through the fog,” Cal provokingly replied, “that I am really unable to form an intelligent opinion of it. What I do see is that you haven’t begun to make our shelter yet. In my opinion it would be well to do so, if only to keep the chess board dry while a game is in progress. Moreover, I have an interesting book or two wrapped up in my oilskins, and if we are doomed to remain here over night – ”
“You don’t think then that – ”
“Frankly, Larry, I don’t know anything about it. Neither do you, and neither does anybody else. We’re in a very wet fog bank. We’ve got to stay where we are till the weather changes. Don’t you think our wisest course is to make ourselves as comfortable and keep ourselves as cheerful as we can while it lasts.”
“Yes, of course, but it’s pretty hard you know to – ”
