CHAPTER VIII.

TAKEN PRISONER.

Arising refreshed, I sallied forth early on the wharf to amuse myself. In the course of an hour it occurred to me suddenly--out of no more previous thought or care about the matter than I had had the night before on the subject of a lodging--that I had had no breakfast, and could not say exactly where I was going to get any.

The good-natured face of my late bedfellow again suggested itself to my mind, and I returned to the sand-scow. There he was in the little coop of a cabin, just partaking of his morning meal, which consisted of a small baker’s loaf and a teacup of molasses. Still humoring my scruples as to direct begging, I gave him to understand, affirmatively, that I did not know where to get my breakfast.

Without uttering a word, the good fellow broke his loaf in two and gave me half. In fact, I cannot recollect that he ever asked me any questions; if he did, they were of such a kindly nature as not in any way to suggest the ignominious close of my free career by capture, and that is why, I suppose, I have forgotten them. We dipped our bread by turns into the teacup of molasses very amicably, and took alternate draughts of the pure river water from the same tin dipper.

Even now as I write I can see again the strange light in his honest eyes, just behind the surprise with which they regarded me, when, our simple meal over, I drew slowly from my pocket my five copper cents, and placed them in his hand. Of course, he would not take them. It was, no doubt, because they were my entire wealth that I straightway received the impression that he thought them too much for his somewhat meagre hotel accommodations, and so I recalled to his memory that he had also loaned me his small boat the afternoon before.

“Never mind, never mind,” he said; “put your money away. You can take the small boat again if you want to.”

These were his exact words; and there was more true feeling in the way he said them than would go to make up many a longer speech I have since heard, in the pathos of melodrama, where the hero has magnanimously refused vast estates and lacs of rupees. (If the reader will excuse the parenthesis, I should like to be allowed to say, right here, God bless that young fellow--or middle-aged fellow now--wherever he is!)

Whether a sudden apprehension of future and direr exigencies, or a gleam of my usual delight in small boats, or both together, flashed across my mind at that moment, I am not now prepared to state; but I remember I did put my money away, and, climbing down again into the little yawl, amused myself by imperilling my life once more in the swift current. This time, however, I ventured merely on short coasting voyages around the docks. At least, I had not yet come to a decision about the feasibility of taking in something foreign in my way, being in the very act of casting a pair of longing eyes at the Canadian shore, when I was hailed by my friend of the sand-scow, and requested to bring the boat to land.

A favorable breeze had sprung up, and the scow, now discharged of her sand, took her departure for a new load. I stood on the wharf and waved her adieu; and that was the last I ever saw of her, or of the noble fellow who united in his own person her captain, mates, and crew.

* * * * *

I may have felt a little more alone in the world now, for I remember I did not go back to my jolly play-fellows, the white-fish barrels, but boarded divers steamboats instead, in quest of work. I received the same prompt answer from all. They did not want me. As will be supposed, my one suit of clothes was by this time beginning to show marks of the service it had done among the greasy platters of pantries and cabins. This fact, probably, was the greatest barrier to my success, and the cause, too, of most of the rough language I received in answer to my applications.

Toward night I became desperately hungry, for, it will be remembered, my last warm meal was the dinner of the day before eaten upon the little steamer Arrow, on the way from Toledo. Weary with repeated refusals from steward after steward, I went boldly at last on board of the steamer Pacific and inquired for the captain.

It was straightway demanded of me what such a beggar as I wanted of the captain. I resented the term “beggar” immediately: I purposed to work for what I got; I had money, if it came to that, in proof of which I jingled defiantly the five pennies in my pocket. No; I was no beggar, but I must see the captain.

Carrying my point, finally, I was led to the room of the commander, whom I found to be a short, red-faced man with a voice like a nor’wester. He was leaning back on a camp-chair, with his feet in a berth, and smoking his after-supper cigar. To his gruff “What do you want with _me_?” I replied meekly that I desired to wash dishes or do anything for something to eat, that I had had nothing but a few crackers and some bread and molasses in thirty-six hours, that I had applied to his steward that afternoon and had been refused, and that I was forced finally to come to him hungry and wanting work.

“What’s your name?” demanded the captain; “and who are you, and where do you come from?”

I answered the first part of his question, but he noticed I hesitated after that. He gave me laconically to understand that I must tell him who I was, or starve for all of him. I was forced to comply; that is, saying nothing about Buffalo, I mentioned my uncle, the ship-owner in Toledo.

This was a fatal mistake, as I learned very soon to my sorrow. The captain’s eye became suddenly and maliciously bright, and his face redder than ever. For as many as ten awful seconds he mangled his cigar fiercely and silently between his teeth. Then there proceeded from his mouth, in addition to the smoke he had swallowed in his wrath, a terrible volley of oaths and curses, of which my uncle’s heart and eyes were the objects.

This captain, as came to my knowledge afterward, had been discharged from the employ of my uncle for some shortcoming or other; and he now proposed, it seems, to take his revenge. He sent hastily for one of the cabin-waiters, and ordered him, in my hearing, to take me to a state-room, give me a light supper, and then lock me in.

“I’m goin’,” said the captain,--and how well I remember his words,--“I’m goin’ to take him to the House of Vagrancy in the mornin’; and then write to that old villain, his uncle, to come and take him out.” The captain furthermore told the waiter to “bear a hand” and keep me safe, till he should call for me the next morning. He always thought, and now he was sure, he would get even with that uncle of mine, whose pride he was going to take down; and I was borne away through another deluge of the captain’s oaths.

* * * * *

Of course the thought was very wrong, comprehending as it did many innocent and well-meaning people, but it seemed to me then, in that brief moment of despair, that all my troubles sprang from the fact that I was so unfortunate as to have wealthy relatives. They were the first and last cause of all my grief. The earth, I felt sure, was not broad enough to escape them in. Among the peach and plum trees of Conneaut, or in the jungle of the crowded shipping at Detroit, the far-reaching fate was upon me. Though my small body was disguised in rags, still my own hunger wrought and spoke in the interests of those from whom it appeared hopeless to flee. And, more on their account than mine, I was now on my way to that place of unknown terror, the House of Vagrancy.

* * * * *

The captain’s room was on the main deck, and the state-room to which I was to be conducted was on the deck above. I was so terrified, or so small, that my jailer, the waiter, thought it safe, as well as more convenient, to release his hold of my collar, and allow me to precede him up the stairs.

Now there was another companion-way on the opposite side of the steamer, corresponding to that up which we were to go; and as soon as we had attained the middle of the upper cabin I sprang out of the reach of my conductor and down the opposite stairs at about three jumps. I fled to the shore and up the docks with all the speed that my deathly terror lent me.

I could hear my pursuer after me, but it was already dark, and I could hardly have seen him if I had dared to look around. I succeeded in reaching one of the vast piles of coal which the good people of Detroit will remember as standing formerly on the wharf of the Michigan Central steamers. Here I concealed myself.

It was probably a half-hour before my jailer gave up the search, but it seemed four hours at least to me then. Twice he passed very near my hiding-place, and, I recollect, I was afraid lest he should hear the noise of my heart-beats; they sounded so terribly loud in my frightened ears. I heard him, at last, returning to the steamer, as I had reason to think, for lights and people to aid him.

Then I stole away noiselessly up toward the town, keeping a large coal-pile studiously between me and the place where my pursuer had disappeared; until, turning a corner I took a side-street which led me, as I supposed, into the heart of the city. What, therefore, was my horror when, after walking for about ten minutes, in this and other crooked thoroughfares, I again found myself suddenly on the lower end of the wharf where lay the steamer Pacific and her dreadful captain!

Once more I took to my heels, and this time succeeded in finding a street which led me, without further mishap, into one of the Avenues.