The Last of the Flatboats

by George Cary Eggleston

  CHAPTER XI

  THE WONDERFUL RIVER

  As the "Knobs"--which is the name given to the high hills back of NewAlbany--receded, the day was still young. It was also overcast and cool.So Ed, who was always studying something, brought his big map up on deckand, spreading it out, lay down on his stomach to study it. He workedover it till dinner time, and in the afternoon he spread it out again.

  The boys having gathered around him, he said:--

  "I say, fellows, we are making a journey that we ought to remember aslong as we live. We are going over a small but important part of thegreatest river system in the world."

  "'Small but important part,'" said Will, quoting. "Well, I like that."

  "What's your objection," said Ed Lowry, for the moment borrowing IrvStrong's playful method,--"what's your objection to my carefully chosendescriptive adjectives?"

  "Well, we're going over pretty nearly the whole of it, aren't we?"

  "Not by any manner of means," responded Ed. "We aren't going over morethan a small fraction of it."

  "Why, the Ohio River alone is thirteen hundred miles long," said Will;"I remember that much of my geography; and most of the Mississippi liesbelow the mouth of the Ohio, doesn't it?"

  "It's lucky you've passed your geography examinations in the highschool, Will," said Ed. "Now come here, all you fellows, and take alook. This map shows the entire system of rivers of which theMississippi is the mother. It is the greatest river system in the world.There is nothing, in fact, to compare it with but the Amazon and itstributaries, and they have never done anything for mankind, because theylie almost wholly in an unsettled and uncivilized tropical region thathas no commerce and no need of any, while the Mississippi and itstributaries have built up an empire. They have in effect _created_ thebetter part of this vast country of ours that is feeding the worldand--"

  "Oh, come now," said Irv Strong. "You aren't writing a composition or aneditorial for the Vevay _Reveille_." This was in allusion to the factthat Ed sometimes published "pieces" in the local newspaper.

  "Well, no," said Ed, laughing at his own enthusiasm. "Besides, I'll cometo all that some other time perhaps. At present I want to give Will somenew ideas about the bigness of our river system. True, the Ohio istwelve or thirteen hundred miles long, but about half of it lies aboveVevay, so we're covering only six or seven hundred miles of it. FromCairo to New Orleans--the part of the Mississippi we shall traverse--isabout one thousand and fifty miles long. So we're only going to travelover sixteen or seventeen hundred miles of river. Now there are aboutfifteen or sixteen thousand miles of this river system that steamboatscan, and actually do, navigate, and nobody has ever really reckoned thelength of the rest--the parts not navigable. We're going over only aboutone-tenth of the navigable part--one twenty-fifth part perhaps of thewhole."

  By this time the boys were all lying prone around the big map, theirfeet radiating in every direction from it, like light-rays from a star.

  "See here," said Ed; "here's the Tennessee River. It's a mere tributaryof the Ohio, yet it is about two-thirds as long as the main river. Itshead waters are in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Itstarts out through Tennessee and tries, in a stupid sort of fashion, tofind its way to the Gulf of Mexico through Alabama. But it getsdiscouraged by the mountains down there, turns back, throws a dash ofwater into the face of the state of Mississippi, returns to Tennesseeand travels north clear across that state and Kentucky, and finally indespair gives up its effort to find the sea and turns the job over tothe Ohio. Look at it on the map!"

  "And as if it thought the Tennessee had more than it could do to drainso great a region," said Phil, studying the map, "the Cumberland alsowent into the business and after pretty nearly paralleling its sisterriver for a great many hundreds of miles, fell into the Ohio only a fewmiles above the mouth of the Tennessee. The two together are longer thanthe Ohio itself."

  "Very decidedly," said Ed. "And then there are all the othertributaries of the Ohio,--look at them on the map. Together they againexceed its total length."

  The boys looked at the map and saw that it was so. Then Ed resumed:--

  "But, after all, the Ohio and all its tributaries combined amount to avery small part of the great system. The lower Mississippi itself fromCairo to the mouth is almost exactly as long as the Ohio. Then thereare the upper Mississippi,--stretching clear up into Minnesota,--theIllinois, the Wisconsin, etc., the Missouri and its vast tributariesflowing from the Rocky Mountains, the Arkansas, the Red River, theOuachita, the White, the St. Francis, the Yazoo, the Tallahatchie, theSunflower, the Yalobusha--and a score of others, to say nothing of thevast bayous that connect with the wonderful river down South. Here theyall are on the map. Look!"

  The next fifteen minutes were given up to a study of the map, interestedfingers tracing out the rivers, and a continual chatter contributing,after the manner of boys' talk, to the general stock of information.Presently Irv Strong spoke. He had never before in his life been silentso long.

  "I remember, at this stage of the proceedings, the wise remark of ourhonored teacher, Mrs. Dupont, that 'eyes are excellent to see with, butone interpretative brain means more than many additional pairs ofeyes.'"

  "What's all that got to do with it?" asked Constant. "She was talkingabout Darwin and Spencer when she said that. What's either of them gotto do with this river?"

  "Ah, Constant!" said Irv, in mock melancholy. "You grieve me to theheart. You never will see the inward and spiritual meaning of my outwardand visible quotations. I mean that Ed Lowry has studied out this wholething and knows 'steen times more about it and what it means than weblockheads would find out by studying the map for a dog's age. I venturethat assertion boldly, without having the remotest notion of whatconstitutes a dog's age. My idea is that we fellows ought to shut up,though I'm personally not fond of doing that, and let Ed gently distilinto our minds his information about all these things. Let's have thebenefit of the 'interpretative brain'!"

  "Let's take a header first," cried Phil, shedding his clothes again."I'll beat the best of you in a swim around the boat, or if I lose, I'llwash the dishes for a whole day."

  And with that he went head foremost overboard, Will and Irv followinghim.

  When they reappeared on deck, blowing like porpoises and glowing likeboiled lobsters, Ed said:--

  "You fellows are regular water-rats; Phil is, anyhow. He's in this waterhalf a dozen times a day, no matter how cold the wind is."

  "That's just it," said Phil. "The water isn't anything like so cold asthis October air." Then, with mock seriousness: "Believe me, my dearlybeloved brother, it is to escape the frigidity of the atmosphere, or, asit were, to warm myself, that I jump into the river. You were reading apoem the other day in which the stricken-spirited scribe said:--

  'For my part I wish to enjoy what I can-- A sunset, if only a sunset be near, A moon such as this if the weather be clear,'

  and much else to the like effect. As you read the glittering, goldenwords, I said in my soul: 'Bully for you, oh poet! I'm your man forthose sentiments every time.' And just now the poet and I agree thatnothing in this world would minister so much to our immediate enjoymentas to jump off the boat again on the larboard side, dive clear under herand come up on the starboard. Here goes! Who's the poet to follow me?"And overboard the boy went, feet first this time, for after striking thewater and sinking to a safe depth, he must turn himself about and swimunder water for fifty or sixty feet before daring to come to the surfaceagain.

  Nobody tried to perform the feat in emulation of the reckless fellow. Itinvolved a great many dangers and a still greater many of disagreeablepossibilities such as broken heads, skinned backs, and abraded shins. Ofthat I can give my readers full assurance because I've done the thingmyself many times, and bear some scars as witnesses of its risks.

  But it was Phil's rule of life never to let anybody "do anything in theswimming way" that he couldn't do equally well. He had once seensomebody dive under a steamboa
t and come up safely on the other side.So he straightway dived under the same steamboat and came up safely onthe other side. After that, diving under a flatboat was a mere trifle tohim.

  MAP OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.

  Prepared expressly for this work under the personal direction ofLieut.-Col. Alexander McKenzie, Corps of Engineers, U. S. Army.

  _Note.--Navigable part of the river in red._]