Part 8

The aspect of affairs was getting serious. I took Narcissus in hand and subjected him to a thorough cross-examination. I told him that we wanted to pay for anything we used, and that he positively must not find any more young turkeys in wire fences. The telegraph wire incident was perplexing. He declared that this stuff had been abandoned, and was far from the railroad. The fact that the tools and wire were somewhat rusty seemed to lend some slight color of truth to his statement, but we finally understood each other as to the rule to be followed in the future.

A cash allowance was made for the fresh vegetables, eggs, fruit, and other supplies, which he was instructed to buy around in the back country and along the river. I hoped later to discover the owner of the ill-fated turkey.

The old shipmates worked industriously. They took the _Crawfish_ down the river to the village twice, and returned with cargos of second-hand lumber, with which they constructed a flatboat about ten feet long by six wide. Supports were put at the four corners, and railings nailed to the tops. They rigged a strong pole, the length of the platform, along which they attached four-foot wires eight inches apart. At the ends of these were the four-pronged clam-hooks. Lines ran from the ends of the pole to a centre rope, by means of which the device was attached to the flatboat and dragged in the river. When the hooks came in contact with the unsuspecting mollusks, lying open on the bottom, they were to close their shells on them tightly, and thus their fate would be sealed. When the pole was pulled out sideways, with the big rope, the bivalves would hang on its fringe of dangling wires, like grapes on pendant vines.

Our “cookie” was assiduous in his camp duties. He procured some flat stones, which he skilfully piled so as to confine his fire. Heavy stakes were driven into the ground, and another laid across, with its ends in the forked tops. The cross-piece supported the iron kettle, with which he performed mysterious feats of cookery. He improvised a broiler with some of the telegraph wire, and baked delicious bread and biscuits in a reflecting oven, made of a piece of old sheet-iron. He was very resourceful. From somewhere beyond the confines of the dark forest he obtained materials for menus that exceeded our fondest hopes.

He spent a great deal of time off by himself, and would often drop around where I happened to be sketching. We had many confidential talks. He confessed that drink was his besetting sin. He had generally been able to get good jobs, but invariably lost them when he drank. Some day he was “goin’ to sweah off fo’ good.” The poor fellow was floating wreckage on that poison stream of alcohol that our false conception of economics permits to exist. It was battering another derelict along the rocks that line its sinister shores.

He had attached himself to us like a stray dog. His moral sense had been blunted by his infirmity, but, under proper influences, his reclamation was possible. Narcissus was a strong argument in favor of compulsory prohibition, for he was beyond his own help.

The old shipmates agreed with me that he ought to be kept away from temptation as much as possible, “spesh’ly,” said Sipes, “as we ain’t got none too much in the jug. It ain’t fit fer nobody that’s under sixty-seven. Young fellers oughta let that stuff alone. They git filled up with it an’ it runs down in their legs an’ floats their feet off.”

Narcissus’s ancestry was mixed. He had some white blood, and one of his grandfathers was an Indian. Though the African characteristics predominated, there were traces of both the white man and the Indian in his face. It may have been a remnant of Indian instinct--a mysterious call of the blood--that lured him to the dune country, where the red men were once happy, when he got into trouble. Possibly it was the sixth sense of the Indian that led him up the river to the jug, on the night of our arrival, or, as Sipes remarked, “mebbe the perfumery got out through the cork an’ drifted over ’im w’en ’e was roostin’ on them rocks.”

He cooked some carp, which he had caught in the river, and was much disappointed when we found them unpalatable. The following evening he compounded a delicious sauce, with which he camouflaged the despised fish almost beyond recognition, but their identity was unmistakable. Sipes declared that “the dope on them carps is fine, but I don’t like wot it’s mixed with.” He ate the sauce and threw his piece of fish out among the trees. The next morning he saw a crow drop down and eat it.

“That ol’ bird’s been through enough to know better’n that,” he remarked.

The fish that came to us from the land of the Hun, and now infests our inland waters, has little to commend it. It is objectionable wherever it exists. It breeds immoderately, eats the spawn of respectable fish, and begrimes the pure waters with its hog-like rooting along the weedy bottoms. It is of inferior food value and pernicious. No means of exterminating these noxious aliens have been discovered. Like the Huns, they have all of the instincts of marauding swine, without their redeeming qualities.

“These heah cahp ah funny fish,” said Narcissus. “A gen’leman tol’ me a few yeahs ago of a cahp that was caught in the Mississippi rivah that was ve’y la’ge. They opened ’im an’ found a gold watch an’ chain that ’e’d swallowed, an’ the watch was tickin’ when they took it out, an’ theah was a cha’m on the chain, an’ inside the cha’m was a li’l pict’ah of a young lady. The young man that caught the cahp found that young lady an’ theah was a wedd’n. Of co’se Ah didn’t see the watch, er the young man, but that was the tale Ah hea’d. Theah’s been some awful wonde’ful things happened down on that Mississippi rivah.”

“Gosh! if them Dutch fish ’ave got timepieces in ’em, mebbe we better pursue ’em instid o’ clams,” remarked Sipes. “Them carps c’n live on land pretty near as well as they do in water. They’r’ like mudturkles. Bill an’ me seen a big one once’t, that was in a little puddle on some land that ’ad been flowed over. We thought prob’ly the water’d gone down an’ left ’im stranded. His back stuck out o’ the puddle an’ was all dry an’ caked with mud. Mebbe he’d been out devastat’n’ the country fer watches an’ jools, er sump’n, in the night, an’ ’ad jest stopped at that hole fer a little rest on ’is way back.”

We spent many interesting evenings around the old shipmates’ camp fire. Sipes and Saunders related marvellous tales of the sea. Narcissus told many ornate yarns that he had picked up during his checkered life, and sang negro revival songs and plantation melodies. The bleached skeleton of some animal in the woods had provided him with material for two pairs of “bones,” with which he was an adept. His mouth organ was a source of much entertainment. Sipes’s favorite was “Money Musk,” the merry jingle that came over the water when we entered the river, and he often asked Narcissus to “play that cash-money tune some more.”

When the clam-boat was completed, and fully rigged with its paraphernalia, it was pushed out into the slow current. It was controlled with the oars from the _Crawfish_. The pole, with its pendant wires, was dropped over the side, and actual operations began. A bench had been erected in the middle of the rude craft, before which Sipes stood, flourishing a stubby knife, ready to open the mollusks and remove their precious contents. He had a small red tin tobacco box, with a hinged cover, which he intended to fill with pearls the first day.

“Let’s pull ’er up now,” he suggested, after the flatboat had drifted about a hundred feet downstream. Saunders lifted in the tackle. Two victims dangled on the wires.

“Gosh, this is easy! Gimme them clams!” They were eagerly opened, but careful scrutiny revealed no pearls. “I guess them damn Dutch fish ’ave got ’em, like they did that watch Cookie told about. Heave ’er over an’ we’ll try ’er ag’in, Bill.”

The first day’s work was fruitless, as were many that followed. The clam-hooks frequently got snagged, and seemed to bring up everything but pearls. Once an angry snapping-turtle was thrown back. An enormous catfish, whose meditations on the bottom had been violently disturbed, was pulled to the surface, but escaped.

“Mebbe we’ll cetch a billy-goat if this keeps up,” remarked Sipes.

The old men toiled on with dogged persistence. One Sunday morning an aged bivalve was pulled up and a pearl, over three-eighths of an inch in diameter, fell out on the bench when Sipes’s knife struck the inside of the shell.

“Hoo-_ray_!!! Here she is!” he yelled.

“Be quiet, y’ol’ miser! Gimme that,” commanded Saunders.

He examined it closely and compared it with the one the wrecked pearl-buyer had given him.

“How much d’ye think that onion-skinner’d give us fer that?” asked Sipes, anxiously.

“It’s about three times as big, an’ it’s rounder. It oughta be wuth fifteen er twenty dollars,” replied Saunders, as he put it with the other specimen and rolled it up in the soiled paper.

“Here, Bill, you can’t do that! Gimme that jool. It’s gotta go in the box.” Saunders surrendered the pearl, and Sipes carefully put it where it belonged.

“We ain’t goin’ to fuss with no button companies, w’en we c’n find them things,” declared Sipes, as he kicked the pile of empty shells overboard. “That ain’t no money fer a jool like that. Wot are you talk’n’ about? You don’t know nothin’ ’bout pearls. I bet it’s wuth a thousand dollars right now, an’ mebbe it’ll be wuth two thousand if we git that feller to peel it. I bet all them jools has to be peeled.”

That part of the pearl-buyer’s talk with Saunders that related to the removal of the layers, and the comparison of a pearl’s structure with that of an onion, had strongly impressed Sipes, and he generally referred to him as “the onion-skinner.”

During the rest of the day he shook the box frequently to assure himself that the pearl was still there.

Various “slugs,” pearls of irregular shape and of little value, were found during the next week, and the increasing spoil was gloated over at night.

Narcissus was sometimes added to the working force on the flatboat, which was taken up stream as far as the depth permitted, for a fresh start.

“We’r’ goin’ to drag this ol’ river from stem to gudgeon,” declared Sipes. “W’en we git through the mushrats’ll have a tough time hustl’n’ fer food. We’ll git back in the marsh where the big clams stay in them open places ’mong the splatter-docks, where all them lily-flowers grow, an’ we’ll git some jools that it won’t do to drop on yer foot. I seen a clam in the marsh once’t that was over eight inches long, an’ I bet ’e was a hundred years old.”

One night Narcissus tied his little boat to a tree near the spring. He left some fresh vegetables in it, which he had procured up the river. In the morning it was discovered that the boat had been visited. The unknown caller had eaten most of the supplies. Fragments were scattered about, but no tracks were visible. A pile of green corn and some melons met the same fate a few nights afterward, and Sipes decided to ambush the visitor.

He lay on his stomach in the dark, with his gun beside him, and waited. About midnight he heard splashing in the shallow water along the bank, and, a moment later, the dim light revealed a spotted cow helping herself liberally to the contents of the boat. Evidently she had forded the river somewhere up stream, and had accidentally found a welcome base of supplies.

“Come ’ere, Spotty!” Sipes called softly, as he cautiously advanced. The friendly marauder did not seem at all alarmed, and submitted peacefully to the coil of anchor rope that was taken from the bottom of the boat and gently slipped over her horns. She was led out of the water and tied to a tree. Sipes procured a tin pail at the camp, and “Spotty” yielded of her abundance.

There was cream for our coffee the next day. Spotty was nowhere visible. The old man had conducted her into the woods and “anchored ’er,” with a stake and a long rope, in a hidden glade, where there was plenty of grass.

The following evening we were enjoying our pipes, while Narcissus was cleaning up after a delicious dinner. An old man with a heavy hickory cane hobbled into camp. His unkempt white beard nearly reached his waist. His shoulders were bent with age. He appeared to be over eighty.

“Hello, Ancient!” was Sipes’s cheery greeting, as the patriarch came up to the fire.

“Good evenin’!” responded the visitor. “How’s the clam fish’n’?”

“Jest so-so,” replied Saunders. “Have a seat.”

He gave the old man a box, with an improvised back, to sit on, and, after a few remarks about the weather, our caller explained that he had lost a cow, and wondered if we had seen anything of her.

“Wot kind of a look’n’ anamile was she?” inquired Sipes.

“Gray, with a lot o’ black spots on ’er. One horn bent out forrads, an’ the other was twisted back, an’ she had a short tail. She’s been roamin’ in the woods a good deal lately, an’ last night she didn’t come home. I thought I’d come down this way an’ see if I could locate ’er.”

“I seen a cow like that yisterd’y,” replied the culprit. “She was over on the other side o’ the river, an’ come down to drink. She prob’ly mosies ’round nights like that ’cause she’s restluss. Her tail’s bobbed an’ she can’t switch away the skeets. She’ll prob’ly show up all right.”

“Yes, I s’pose she will. Guess I won’t worry about ’er.” The visitor’s eyes wandered about the camp. I had noticed a small brown turkey feather on the ground, near where Sipes sat, but that wily strategist had deftly slipped it into his side pocket.

Evidently the industry on the river had been duly observed by the scattered dwellers in the back country, for our caller seemed to know all about us. He understood that I was “drawin’ scenes ’round ’ere.” Possibly some unknown observer had, at some time, come near enough to see what I was doing, and noislessly retreated.

Sipes went down to the cabin of the _Crawfish_, and returned with the jug. “Wouldn’t ye like to ’ave a little sump’n, after yer long walk?” he asked.

“B’lieve I would!”

“Say w’en,” said Sipes, as he tilted the jug over the cup.

“Jest a _lee_tle, not more’n a thimbleful!”

“Some thimbles is bigger’n others,” observed the old sailor, as he half filled the cup.

While protesting against the liberal offering, the old man disposed of the “little sump’n” with much relish.

Narcissus watched the proceedings from behind his kitchen bench with appealing eyes.

“How long you been liv’n’ ’round ’ere, Ancient?” asked Sipes.

“I come here in the fall o’ forty-eight. It was all open water whar that slough is then. It’s weeded up sence. We used to chase deer out all over the ice thar in the winter. They’d slip down an’ couldn’t git up, an’ we got slews of ’em that way. In the fall we’d find ’em on the beach ’long the big lake. We’d shoo ’em out in the water, an’ then stay ’long the shore an’ yell at ’em an’ keep ’em from comin’ in. They’d swim ’round fer a couple of hours, an’ they’d git so tired the waves ’ud wash ’em in, an’ we’d cetch ’em. We’d lay up enough meat to last all winter.

“We had to save amminition, fer we had to go twenty miles to the trading post fer wot we used. The Injuns was thicker’n hair on a dog ’round ’ere then. Many’s the time, in the summer, I’ve looked down the marsh an’ seen ’em set’n’ on the mushrat houses suckin’ wild duck eggs wot they’d found ’round in the slough.”

“I bet them was big pearls wot they was munchin’ on,” observed Sipes.

Not noticing the interruption the Ancient continued.

“They was so many wild ducks an’ geese ’round ’ere in the fall, that you didn’t ’ave to shoot ’em at all. You c’d go down on that sand-spit whar the river runs out o’ the marsh, jest ’fore daylight, w’en they was comin’ out, an’ knock ’em down with a stick. They’d fly so low, an’ they was so thick you couldn’t miss ’em, an’ you c’d git all you c’d carry.”

“Gosh! Let’s give ’im another drink!” whispered Sipes.

“Them days is all gone. Sometimes you see ducks hereabouts, but the sky’s never black with ’em like it used to be. Thar was millions o’ wild pigeons ’ere too. They’d set on the dead trees so thick that the branches busted off, an’ thar was eagles ’ere that used to fly off with the young pigs, an’ I’ve killed rattlesnakes over in the hills as thick as yer arm, an’ eight feet long, but they’ve been gone fer years.

“Thar was tall pine all through this country then, but it’s been cut out. Pretty near ev’ry mile ’long the big lake thar’s old piles stick’n’ up. Them was piers that the logs was hauled to with oxen an’ bob-sleds. The logs was loaded from the piers onto schooners that carried ’em off on the lake. I used to work at the loggin’ in the winter.

“Ev’ry now an’ then we’d git a b’ar, an’ we used to find lots o’ wild honey. The wolves used to chase us w’en they was in packs, but w’en one was alone ’e’d always run. Thar’s been some awful big fires through ’ere. Once it was all burnt over fer fifty miles.”

“That ol’ mossback knows a lot, don’t ’e?” whispered Sipes to me, as the narrator paused to light his pipe.

“Them pearls you fellers er fish’n’ fer reminds me of a story. Thar was a lot o’ Injuns lived ’ere at this end o’ the marsh long about sixty-three. Thar was an’ ol’ medicine-man that ’ad gathered about a peck o’ them things, big an’ little, an’ kep’ ’em in a skin bag. Thar was a bad Injun ’ere named Tom Skunk, an’ ’e stole ev’rything ’e c’d lay ’is hands on. He didn’t know the bag had much value, but ’e carried it off one day w’en the old man was gone. The Injuns got so mad ’bout all the meat an’ skins this feller kep’ takin’ that they fixed it up to drill ’im out o’ the country. They caught ’im an’ made ’im give the ol’ Injun back ’is bag. Then they told ’im to vamoose. He stuck ’round fer a few days, an’ one night ’e paddled down the river in ’is canoe. The ol’ Injun was pretty mad. He peeked out of ’is wigwam an’ seen ’im comin’. He got ’is ol’ smooth-bore rifle out an’ rammed a handful o’ them little pearls on top o’ the powder. [Groan from Sipes.] W’en Tom Skunk come by ’e let loose an’ filled ’im full of ’em. Tom got away somehow, an’ that was the last seen of ’im in these parts. We heard afterward that ’e went to a govament post, an’ the surgeon spent a week pick’n’ out the pearls an’ sold ’em fer a big price.

“We used to have snapp’n’ turtles in this river that was two feet across, an’ they’d come out in the night after the hens. We cut the head off o’ one once, an’ ’e lived a week after that. He had a date, seventeen hundred and sump’n, on ’is back. He was all caked up with moss an’ crusted shell, so we couldn’t quite make out the year. Somebody must ’a’ burnt it on with a hot iron.

“All the ol’ settlers in these parts are dead now, ’ceptin’ me, an’ I’m git’n’ pretty feeble, an’ don’t git ’round like I used to. I’m eighty-four an’, damn ’em, I’ve buried ’em all!”

He reached for his hickory cane and rose painfully.

“I guess I gotta be goin’ ’long now, fer it’s git’n’ late. If you see anything o’ my cow, I wish you’d let me know.”

We loaned him a lantern and bade him good-night, as he limped away through the woods.

After the departure of our entertaining visitor, we took Sipes to task about the cow. Under gentle pressure, he reluctantly agreed to release the animal, and left for the glade, where Spotty was secreted. I noticed that he took a pail with him.

Spotty visited the camp several times during the next week, and the menus were enriched with dishes that would have been otherwise impossible. I suggested that something ought to be done for the Ancient to even things up.

“All right,” said Sipes, “we’ll have Cookie take ’im up a big bunch o’ carps, so ’e c’n ’av’ some fish. Gosh! We gotta have milk.”

By the use of delicate diplomacy and confidential explanation, I amicably adjusted the milk difficulty with Spotty’s owner, and arranged that the faithful animal should furnish us with two quarts a day. The old settler was very tolerant and reasonable, and I had no trouble about the matter at all. He often came to see us, and brought welcome additions to our food supplies.

The golden fall days and the cool nights came. The pearl hunting and the genial gatherings at the camp fire continued. The destruction of the unios in the river went on with unabated zeal. Many hundreds of them were opened and thrown away. Man, the wisest, and yet the most ignorant of living creatures, lays waste the land of plenty that prodigal nature has spread before him.

The tin box was nearly full of specimens, varying in size, shape, and color. The attrition which Sipes caused by frequently shaking the box dulled the lustre on many of the pearls. Saunders discovered the damage, and afterwards they were properly protected. He suggested that we get a baby-rattle and a rubber teething ring for Sipes, so he would not “have to amoose ’imself shakin’ the shine offen them pearls.”

The dauntless toilers refused to be driven in by unfavorable weather. One morning dawned with a cold drizzly rain, but it was the day of days on the flatboat.

“Whoop! Whoop! Holy jumpin’ wild-cats!” shrieked Sipes, hysterically.

A resplendent oval form, as large as a filbert, iridescent with subtle light and flashing hues of rose and green, rolled out of a bivalve which he had partially opened. Its satiny sheen gleamed softly in the palm of the old man’s gnarled and dirty hand--a pearl that might glow on the bosom of a houri, or mingle in the splendor of a diadem.

“Avast there, you ol’ money-bags! You’ll founder the ship!” yelled Saunders, as they danced with delirious joy in each other’s arms.

Work was suspended for the day. The prize was proudly and tenderly carried to camp, with great rejoicing.

“Come ’ere, you Jack o’ Clubs, an’ see wot a million dollars looks like!” shouted Sipes to Narcissus, who was hurrying to meet them.

Saunders told me, when we met that night, that “Cookie’s eyes stuck out like grapes, an’ you c’d ’a’ brushed ’em off with a stick w’en ’e seen wot we had.”

Unfortunately the jug was much in evidence. Narcissus responded many times to Sipes’s insistent demands for “that cash-money tune.” The old shipmates danced in the flickering firelight. Vociferous songs awoke the echoes in the surrounding gloom of the damp forest. The big pearl was repeatedly examined, and much speculation was indulged in as to its value, which was considered almost fabulous. The hilarity extended far into the night, until the revellers fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. The jug was left on the grass, and Narcissus fondled it between drinks, while the magnates slumbered.

“It’s only the rich an’ fuzzy that enjoys this life,” observed Sipes with a prolonged yawn, when I came over and woke him in the morning. “Think o’ them val’able clams wot sleeps out there in the bottom o’ the river. The little runts can’t swim ’round, an’ they can’t chase food. They ’ave to take wot’s fed ’em by the current. They can’t smoke ’er talk, an’ they can’t ’ave nothin’ but water to drink. They jest lay there an’ make them little jools fer me an’ Bill. That big feller’d prob’ly been wait’n’ fer us all summer to come ’long an’ save ’im from them mushrats.”

The happy old sailor’s remarks suggested the thought that most of the great intellectual pearls in the world have come from the minds of those who have pondered long in silent and secluded places.

“Hi there, Bill, you ol’ lobster, wake up. I want some breakfast. Where’s that cusséd cookie?” he demanded.

We found poor Narcissus reclining against a tree--a pitiful picture. The jug sat near him. The cup, mouth organ, and his tattered cap were lying about on the grass. A primitive human animal had found satiety in what he craved.