A Jolly Fellowship

F >> Frank R. Stockton >> A Jolly Fellowship

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There used to be a wooden railroad here, and the cars were pulled by
mules. It was probably more fun to travel that way, but it took longer.
Now they have steel rails and everything that a regular grown-up
railroad has. We knew the engineer, for Mr. Cholott had introduced us to
him one day, on the club-house wharf. He was a first-rate fellow, and
let us ride on the engine. I didn't believe, at first, that Rectus would
do this; but there was only one passenger car, and after the Corny
family got into that, he didn't hesitate a minute about the engine.

We had a splendid ride. We went slashing along through the woods the
whole way, and as neither of us had ever ridden on an engine before, we
made the best of our time. We found out what every crank and handle was
for, and kept a sharp look-out ahead, through the little windows in the
cab. If we had caught an alligator on the cow-catcher, the thing would
have been complete. The engineer said there used to be alligators along
by the road, in the swampy places, but he guessed the engine had
frightened most of them away.

The trip didn't take forty minutes, so we had scarcely time to learn the
whole art of engine-driving, but we were very glad to have had the ride.

We found the steam-boat waiting for us at Tocoi, which is such a little
place that I don't believe either of us noticed it, as we hurried
aboard. The St. John's is a splendid river, as wide as a young lake; but
we did not have much time to see it, as it grew dark pretty soon, and
the supper-bell rang.

We reached Pilatka pretty early in the evening, and there we had to stay
all night. Mr. Chipperton told me, confidentially, that he thought this
whole arrangement was a scheme to make money out of travellers. The boat
we were in ought to have kept on and taken us up the Oclawaha; "but,"
said he, "I suppose that wouldn't suit the hotel-keepers. I expect they
divide the profits with the boats."

By good luck, I thought, the Corny family and ourselves went to
different hotels to spend the night. When I congratulated Rectus on this
fact, he only said:

"It don't matter for one night. We'll catch 'em all bad enough
to-morrow."

And he was right. When we went down to the wharf the next morning, to
find the Oclawaha boat, the first persons we saw were Mr. Chipperton,
with his wife and daughter. They were standing, gazing at the steam-boat
which was to take us on our trip.

"Isn't this a funny boat?" said Corny, as soon as she saw us. It _was_ a
very funny boat. It was not much longer than an ordinary tug, and quite
narrow, but was built up as high as a two-story house, and the wheel was
in the stern. Rectus compared her to a river wheelbarrow.

Soon after we were on board she started off, and then we had a good
chance to see the St. John's. We had been down to look at the river
before, for we got up very early and walked about the town. It is a
pretty sort of a new place, with wide streets and some handsome houses.
The people have orange-groves in their gardens, instead of
potato-patches, as we have up north. Before we started, we hired a
rifle. We had been told that there was plenty of game on the river, and
that most gentlemen who took the trip carried guns. Rectus wanted to get
two rifles, but I thought one was enough. We could take turns, and I
knew I'd feel safer if I had nothing to do but to keep my eye on Rectus
while he had the gun.

There were not many passengers on board, and, indeed, there was not room
for more than twenty-five or thirty. Most of them who could find places
sat out on a little upper deck, in front of the main cabin, which was in
the top story. Mrs. Chipperton, however, staid in the saloon, or
dining-room, and looked out of the windows. She was a quiet woman, and
had an air as if she had to act as shaft-horse for the team, and was
pretty well used to holding back. And I reckon she had a good deal of it
to do.

One party attracted our attention as soon as we went aboard. It was made
up of a lady and two gentlemen-hunters. The lady wasn't a hunter, but
she was dressed in a suitable costume to go about with fellows who had
on hunting-clothes. The men wore long yellow boots that came ever so far
up their legs, and they had on all the belts and hunting-fixings that
the law allows. The lady wore yellow gloves, to match the men's boots.
As we were going up the St. John's, the two men strode about, in an easy
kind of a way, as if they wanted us to understand that this sort of
thing was nothing to them. They were used to it, and could wear that
style of boots every day if they wanted to. Rectus called them "the
yellow-legged party," which wasn't a bad name.

After steaming about twenty-five miles up the St. John's River, we went
in close to the western shore, and then made a sharp turn into a narrow
opening between the tall trees, and sailed right into the forest.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE STEAM-BOAT IN THE FOREST.

We were in a narrow river, where the tall trees met overhead, while the
lower branches and the smaller trees brushed against the little boat as
it steamed along. This was the Oclawaha River, and Rectus and I thought
it was as good as fairy-land. We stood on the bow of the boat, which
wasn't two feet above the water, and took in everything there was to
see.

The river wound around in among the great trees, so that we seldom could
see more than a few hundred yards ahead, and every turn we made showed
us some new picture of green trees and hanging moss and glimpses into
the heart of the forest, while everything was reflected in the river,
which was as quiet as a looking-glass.

"Talk of theatres!" said Rectus.

"No, don't," said I.

At this moment we both gave a little jump, for a gun went off just
behind us. We turned around quickly, and saw that the tall yellow-legs
had just fired at a big bird. He didn't hit it.

"Hello!" said Rectus; "we'd better get our gun. The game is beginning to
show itself." And off he ran for the rifle.

I didn't know that Rectus had such a bloodthirsty style of mind; but
there were a good many things about him that I didn't know. When he came
back, he loaded the rifle, which was a little breech-loader, and began
eagerly looking about for game.

Corny had been on the upper deck; but in a minute or two she came
running out to us.

"Oh! do you know," she called out, "that there are alligators in this
river? Do you think they could crawl up into the boat? We go awfully
near shore sometimes. They sleep on shore. I do hope I'll see one soon."

"Well, keep a sharp look-out, and perhaps you may," said I.

She sat down on a box near the edge of the deck, and peered into the
water and along the shore as if she had been sent there to watch for
breakers ahead. Every now and then she screamed out:

"There's one! There! There! There!"

But it was generally a log, or a reflection, or something else that was
not an alligator.

Of course we were very near both shores at all times, for the river is
so narrow that a small boy could throw a ball over it; but occasionally
the deeper part of the channel flowed so near one shore that we ran
right up close to the trees, and the branches flapped up against the
people on the little forward deck, making the ladies, especially the
lady belonging to the yellow-legged party, crouch and scream as if some
wood-demon had stuck a hand into the boat and made a grab for their
bonnets.

This commotion every now and then, and the almost continual reports from
the guns on board, and Corny's screams when she thought she saw an
alligator, made the scene quite lively.

Rectus and I took a turn every half-hour at the rifle. It was really a
great deal more agreeable to look out at the beautiful pictures that
came up before us every few minutes; but, as we had the gun, we couldn't
help keeping up a watch for game, besides.

"There!" I whispered to Rectus; "see that big bird! On that limb! Take a
crack at him!"

It was a water-turkey, and he sat placidly on a limb close to the
water's edge, and about a boat's length ahead of us.

Rectus took a good aim. He slowly turned as the boat approached the
bird, keeping his aim upon him, and then he fired.

The water-turkey stuck out his long, snake-like neck, and said:

"Quee! Quee! Quee!"

And then he ran along the limb quite gayly.

"Bang! bang!" went the guns of the yellow-legs, and the turkey actually
stopped and looked back. Then he said:

"Quee! Quee!" again, and ran in among the thick leaves.

I believe I could have hit him with a stone.

"It don't seem to be any use," said Mr. Chipperton, who was standing
behind us, "to fire at the birds along this river. They know just what
to do. I'm almost sure I saw that bird wink. It wouldn't surprise me if
the fellows that own the rifles are in conspiracy with these birds. They
let out rifles that wont hit, and the birds know it, and sit there and
laugh at the passengers. Why, I tell you, sir, if the people who travel
up and down this river were all regular shooters, there wouldn't be a
bird left in six months."

At this moment Corny saw an alligator,--a real one. It was lying on a
log, near shore, and just ahead of the boat. She set up such a yell that
it made every one of us jump, and her mother came rushing out of the
saloon to see if she was dead. The alligator, who was a good-sized
fellow, was so scared that he just slid off his log without taking time
to get decently awake, and before any one but Rectus and myself had a
chance to see him. The ladies were very much annoyed at this, and urged
Corny to scream softly the next time she saw one. Alligators were pretty
scarce this trip, for some reason or other. For one thing, the weather
was not very warm, and they don't care to come out in the open air
unless they can give their cold bodies a good warming up.

Corny now went up on the upper deck, because she thought that she might
see alligators farther ahead if she got up higher. In five minutes, she
had her hat taken off by a branch of a tree, which swept upon her, as
she was leaning over the rail. She called to the pilot to stop the boat
and go back for her hat, but the captain, who was up in the pilot-house,
stuck out his head and said he reckoned she'd have to wait until they
came back. The hat would hang there for a day or two. Corny made no
answer to this, but disappeared into the saloon.

In a little while, she came out on the lower deck, wearing a seal-skin
hat. She brought a stool with her, and put it near the bow of the boat,
a little in front and on one side of the box on which Rectus and I were
sitting. Then she sat quietly down and gazed out ahead. The seal-skin
cap was rather too warm for the day, perhaps, but she looked very pretty
in it.

Directly she looked around at us.

"Where do you shoot alligators?" said she.

"Anywhere, where you may happen to see them," said I, laughing. "On the
land, in the water, or wherever they may be."

"I mean in what part of their bodies?" said she.

"Oh! in the eye," I answered.

"Either eye?" she asked.

"Yes; it don't matter which. But how are you going to hit them?"

"I've got a revolver," said she.

And she turned around, like the turret of an iron-clad, until the muzzle
of a big seven-shooter pointed right at us.

"My conscience!" I exclaimed; "where did you get that? Don't point it
this way!"

"Oh! it's father's. He let me have it. I am going to shoot the first
alligator I see. You needn't be afraid of my screaming this time," and
she revolved back to her former position.

"One good thing," said Rectus to me, in a low voice; "her pistol isn't
cocked."

I had noticed this, and I hoped also that it wasn't loaded.

"Which eye do you shut?" said Corny, turning suddenly upon us.

"Both!" said Rectus.

She did not answer, but looked at me, and I told her to shut her left
eye, but to be very particular not to turn around again without lowering
her pistol.

She resumed her former position, and we breathed a little easier,
although I thought that it might be well for us to go to some other part
of the boat until she had finished her sport.

I was about to suggest this to Rectus, when suddenly Corny sprang to her
feet, and began blazing away at something ahead. Bang! bang! bang! she
went, seven times.

"Why, she didn't stop once to cock it!" cried Rectus, and I was amazed
to see how she had fired so rapidly. But as soon as I had counted seven,
I stepped up to her and took her pistol. She explained to me how it
worked. It was one of those pistols in which the same pull of the
trigger jerks up the hammer and lets it down,--the most unsafe things
that any one can carry.

"Too bad!" she exclaimed. "I believe it was only a log! But wont you
please load it up again for me? Here are some cartridges."

"Corny," said I, "how would you like to have our rifle? It will be
better than a pistol for you."

She agreed, instantly, to this exchange, and I showed her how to hold
and manage the gun. I didn't think it was a very good thing for a girl
to have, but it was a great deal safer than the pistol for the people on
board. The latter I put in my pocket.

Corny made one shot, but did no execution. The other gunners on board
had been firing away, for some time, at two little birds that kept ahead
of us, skimming along over the water, just out of reach of the shot that
was sent scattering after them.

"I think it's a shame," said Corny, "to shoot such little birds as that.
They can't eat 'em."

"No," said I; "and they can't hit 'em, either, which is a great deal
better."

But very soon after this, the shorter yellow-legged man did hit a bird.
It was a water-turkey, that had been sitting on a tree, just as we
turned a corner. The big bird spread out its wings, made a doleful
flutter, and fell into the underbrush by the shore.

"Wont they stop to get him?" asked Corny, with her eyes open as wide as
they would go.

One of the hands was standing by, and he laughed.

"Stop the boat when a man shoots a bird? I reckon not. And there isn't
anybody that would go into all that underbrush and water only for a bird
like that, anyway."

"Well, I think it's murder!" cried Corny. "I thought they ate 'em. Here!
Take your gun. I'm much obliged; but I don't want to kill things just
to see them fall down and die."

I took the gun very willingly,--although I did not think that Corny
would injure any birds with it,--but I asked her what she thought about
alligators. She certainly had not supposed that they were killed for
food.

"Alligators are wild beasts," she said. "Give me my pistol. I am going
to take it back to father."

And away she went. Rectus and I did not keep up our rifle practice much
longer. We couldn't hit anything, and the thought that, if we should
wound or kill a bird, it would be of no earthly good to us or anybody
else, made us follow Corny's example, and we put away our gun. But the
other gunners did not stop. As long as daylight lasted a ceaseless
banging was kept up.

We were sitting on the forward deck, looking out at the beautiful scenes
through which we were passing, and occasionally turning back to see that
none of the gunners posted themselves where they might make our
positions uncomfortable, when Corny came back to us.

"Can either of you speak French?" she asked.

Rectus couldn't; but I told her that I understood the language tolerably
well, and asked her why she wished to know.

"It's just this," she said. "You see those two men with yellow boots,
and the lady with them? She's one of their wives."

"How many wives have they got?" interrupted Rectus, speaking to Corny
almost for the first time.

"I mean she is the wife of one of them, of course," she answered, a
little sharply; and then she turned herself somewhat more toward me.
"And the whole set try to make out they're French, for they talk it
nearly all the time. But they're not French, for I heard them talk a
good deal better English than they can talk French; and every time a
branch nearly hits her, that lady sings out in regular English. And,
besides, I know that their French isn't French French, because I can
understand a great deal of it, and if it was I couldn't do it. I can
talk French a good deal better than I can understand it, anyway. The
French people jumble everything up so that I can't make head or tail of
it. Father says he don't wonder they have had so many revolutions, when
they can't speak their own language more distinctly. He tried to learn
it, but didn't keep it up long, and so I took lessons. For, when we go
to France, one of us ought to know how to talk, or we shall be cheated
dreadfully. Well, you see, over on the little deck, up there, is that
gentleman with his wife and a young lady, and they're all travelling
together, and these make-believe French people have been jabbering about
them ever so long, thinking that nobody else on board understands
French. But I listened to them. I couldn't make out all they said, but I
could tell that they were saying all sorts of things about those other
people, and trying to settle which lady the gentleman was married to,
and they made a big mistake, too, for they said the small lady was the
one."

"How do you know they were wrong?" I said.

"Why, I went to the gentleman and asked him. I guess he ought to know.
And now, if you'll come up there, I'd just like to show those people
that they can't talk out loud about the other passengers and have nobody
know what they're saying."

"You want to go there and talk French, so as to show them that you
understand it?" said I.

"Yes," answered Corny, "that's just it."

"All right; come along," said I. "They may be glad to find out that you
know what they're talking about."

And so we all went to the upper deck, Rectus as willing as anybody to
see the fun.

Corny seated herself on a little stool near the yellow-legged party, the
men of which had put down their guns for a time. Rectus and I sat on the
forward railing, near her. Directly she cleared her throat, and then,
after looking about her on each side, said to me, in very distinct
tones:

"_Voy-ezz vows cett hommy ett ses ducks femmys seelah?_"[B]

I came near roaring out laughing, but I managed to keep my face
straight, and said: "_Oui._"

"Well, then,--I mean _Bean donk lah peetit femmy nest pah lah femmy due
hommy. Lah oter femmy este sah femmy._"[C]

[Illustration: "VOY-EZZ VOWS CETT HOMMY ETT SES DUCKS FEMMYS SEELAH?"]

At this, there was no holding in any longer. I burst out laughing, so
that I came near falling off the railing; Rectus laughed because I did;
the gentleman with the wife and the young lady laughed madly, and Mr.
Chipperton, who came out of the saloon on hearing the uproar, laughed
quite cheerfully, and asked what it was all about. But Corny didn't
laugh. She turned around short to see what effect her speech had had on
the yellow-legged party. It had a good deal of effect. They reddened
and looked at us. Then they drew their chairs closer together, and
turned their backs to us. What they thought, we never knew; but Corny
declared to me afterward that they talked no more French,--at least when
she was about.

The gentleman who had been the subject of Corny's French discourse
called her over to him, and the four had a gay talk together. I heard
Corny tell them that she never could pronounce French in the French way.
She pronounced it just as it was spelt, and her father said that ought
to be the rule with every language. She had never had a regular teacher;
but if people laughed so much at the way she talked, perhaps her father
ought to get her one.

I liked Corny better the more I knew of her. It was easy to see that she
had taught herself all that she knew. Her mother held her back a good
deal, no doubt; but her father seemed more like a boy-companion than
anything else, and if Corny hadn't been a very smart girl, she would
have been a pretty bad kind of a girl by this time. But she wasn't
anything of the sort, although she did do and say everything that came
into her head to say or do. Rectus did not agree with me about Corny. He
didn't like her.

When it grew dark, I thought we should stop somewhere for the night, for
it was hard enough for the boat to twist and squeeze herself along the
river in broad daylight. She bumped against big trees that stood on the
edge of the stream, and swashed through bushes that stuck out too far
from the banks; but she was built for bumping and scratching, and
didn't mind it. Sometimes she would turn around a corner and make a
short cut through a whole plantation of lily-pads and spatterdocks,--or
things like them,--and she would scrape over a sunken log as easily as a
wagon-wheel rolls over a stone. She drew only two feet of water, and was
flat-bottomed. When she made a very short turn, the men had to push her
stern around with poles. Indeed, there was a man with a pole at the bow
a good deal of the time, and sometimes he had more pushing off to do
than he could manage by himself.

When Mr. Chipperton saw what tight places we had to squeeze through, he
admitted that it was quite proper not to try to bring the big
steam-boats up here.

But the boat didn't stop. She kept right on. She had to go a hundred and
forty miles up that narrow river, and if she made the whole trip from
Pilatka and back in two days, she had no time to lose. So, when it was
dark, a big iron box was set up on top of the pilot-house, and a fire
was built in it of pine-knots and bits of fat pine. This blazed finely,
and lighted up the river and the trees on each side, and sometimes threw
out such a light that we could see quite a distance ahead. Everybody
came out to see the wonderful sight. It was more like fairy-land than
ever. When the fire died down a little, the distant scenery seemed to
fade away and become indistinct and shadowy, and the great trees stood
up like their own ghosts all around us; and then, when fresh knots were
thrown in, the fire would blaze up, and the whole scene would be
lighted up again, and every tree and bush, and almost every leaf, along
the water's edge would be tipped with light, while everything was
reflected in the smooth, glittering water.

Rectus and I could hardly go in to supper, and we got through the meal
in short order. We staid out on deck until after eleven o'clock, and
Corny staid with us a good part of the time. At last, her father came
down after her, for they were all going to bed.

"This is a grand sight," said Mr. Chipperton. "I never saw anything to
equal it in any transformation scene at a theatre. Some of our theatre
people ought to come down here and study it up, so as to get up
something of the kind for exhibition in the cities."

Just before we went into bed, our steam-whistle began to sound, and away
off in the depths of the forest we could hear every now and then another
whistle. The captain told us that there was a boat coming down the
river, and that she would soon pass us. The river did not look wide
enough for two boats; but when the other whistle sounded as if it were
quite near, we ran our boat close into shore among the spatterdocks, in
a little cove, and waited there, leaving the channel for the other boat.

Directly, it came around a curve just ahead of us, and truly it was a
splendid sight. The lower part of the boat was all lighted up, and the
fire was blazing away grandly in its iron box, high up in the air.

To see such a glowing, sparkling apparition as this come sailing out of
the depths of the dark forest, was grand! Rectus said he felt like
bursting into poetry; but he didn't. He wasn't much on rhymes. He had
opportunity enough, though, to get up a pretty good-sized poem, for we
were kept awake a long time after we went to bed by the boughs of the
trees on shore scratching and tapping against the outside of our
state-room.

When we went out on deck the next morning, the first person we saw was
Corny, holding on to the flag-staff at the bow and looking over the edge
of the deck into the water.

"What are you looking at?" said I, as we went up to her.

"See there!" she cried. "See that turtle! And those two fishes! Look!
look!"

We didn't need to be told twice to look. The water was just as clear as
crystal, and you could see the bottom everywhere, even in the deepest
places, with the great rocks covered with some glittering green
substance that looked like emerald slabs, and the fish and turtles
swimming about as if they thought there was no one looking at them.

I couldn't understand how the water had become so clear; but I was told
that we had left the river proper and were now in a stream that flowed
from Silver Spring, which was the end of our voyage into the cypress
woods. The water in the spring and in this stream was almost
transparent,--very different from the regular water of the river.

About ten o'clock, we reached Silver Spring, which is like a little
lake, with some houses on the bank. We made fast at a wharf, and, as we
were to stop here some hours, everybody got ready to go ashore.

Corny was the first one ready. Her mother thought she ought not to go,
but her father said there was no harm in it.

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