Show Boat

by Edna Ferber

  There was no Mississippi in Kim. Kim was like the Illinois River of Magnolia’s childhood days. Kim’s life flowed tranquilly between gentle green-clad shores, orderly, well regulated, dependable.

  “For the land’s sakes, Magnolia Hawks, you sitting out there yet! Here it’s after three and nearly dinner time!” Elly Chipley at the screen door. “And in the blazing sun, too. You need somebody to look after you worse than your ma did.”

  Elly was justified, for Magnolia had a headache that night.

  Kim and Ken arrived unexpectedly together on June second, clattering up to the boat landing in a scarecrow Ford driven by a stout Negro in khaki pants, puttees, and an army shirt.

  Kim was breathless, but exhilarated. “He says he drove in France in ’17, and I believe it. Good God! Every bolt, screw, bar, nut, curtain, and door in the thing rattled and flapped and opened and fell in and fell out. I’ve been working like a Swiss bell-ringer trying to keep things together there in the back seat. Nola darling, what do you mean by staying down in this miserable hole all these weeks! Ken, dear, take another aspirin and a pinch of bicarb and lie down a minute.… Ken’s got a headache from the heat and the awful trip.… We’re going back to-night, and we sail on the tenth, and, Nola darling, for heaven’s sake …”

  They had a talk. The customary four o’clock dinner was delayed until nearly five because of it. They sat in Magnolia’s green-shaded bedroom with its frilled white bedspread and dimity curtains—rather, Kim and Magnolia sat and Ken sprawled his lean length on the bed, looking a little yellow and haggard, what with the heat and the headache. And in the cook’s galley, and on the stage, and in the little dressing rooms that looked out on the river, and on deck, and in the box office, the company and crew of the Cotton Blossom Floating Palace Theatre lounged and waited, played pinochle and waited, sewed and napped and read and wondered and waited.

  “You can’t mean it, Nola darling. Flopping up and down these muddy wretched rivers in this heat! You could be out at the Bay with Andy. Or in London with Ken and me—Ken, dear, isn’t it any better?—or even in New York, in the lovely airy apartment, it’s cooler than——”

  Magnolia sat forward.

  “Listen, Kim. I love it. The rivers. And the people. And the show boat. And the life. I don’t know why. It’s bred in me, I suppose. Yes, I do know why. Your grandpa died when you were too little to remember him, really. Or you’d know why. Now, if you two are set on going back on the night train, you’ll have to listen to me for a minute. I went over things with the lawyer and the banker in Thebes when we took Mama back there. Your grandmother left a fortune. I don’t mean a few thousand dollars. She left half a million, made out of this boat in the last twenty-five years. I’m giving it to you, Kim, and Ken.”

  Refusal, of course. Protest. Consideration. Acquiescence. Agreement. Acceptance. Ken was sitting up now, pallidly. Kim was lyric. “Half a million! Mother! Ken! It means the plays I want, and Ken to produce them. It means that I can establish a real American theatre in New York. I can do the plays I’ve been longing to do—Ibsen and Hauptmann, and Werfel, and Schnitzler, and Molnar, and Chekhov, and Shakespeare even. Ken! We’ll call it the American Theatre!”

  “The American Theatre,” Magnolia repeated after her, thoughtfully. And smiled then. “The American Theatre.” She looked a trifle uncomfortable, as one who has heard a good joke, and has no one with whom to share it.

  A loud-tongued bell clanged and reverberated through the show boat’s length. Dinner.

  Kim and Ken pretended not to notice the heat and flies and the molten state of the butter. They met everyone from the captain to the cook; from the ingénue lead to the drum.

  “Well, Miss Ravenal, this is an—or Mrs. Cameron, I suppose I should say—an honour. We know all about you, even if you don’t know about us.” Not one of them had ever seen her.

  A little tour of the show boat after dinner. Ken, still pale, but refreshed by tea, was moved to exclamations of admiration. Look at that, Kim! Ingenious. Oh, say, we must stay over and see a performance. I’d no idea! And these combination dressing rooms and bedrooms, eh? Well, I’ll be damned!

  Elly Chipley was making up in her special dressing room, infinitesimal in size, just off the stage. Her part for to-night was that of a grande dame in black silk and lace cap and fichu. The play was The Planter’s Daughter. She had been rather sniffy in her attitude toward the distinguished visitors. They couldn’t patronize her. She applied the rouge to her withered cheeks in little pettish dabs, and leaned critically forward to scrutinize her old mask of a face. What did she see there? Kim wondered, watching her, fascinated.

  “Mother tells me you played Juliet, years ago. How marvellous!”

  Elly Chipley tossed her head skittishly. “Yes, indeed! Played Juliet, and was known as the Western Favourite. I wasn’t always on a show boat, I promise you.”

  “What a thrill—to play Juliet when you were so young! Usually we have to wait until we’re fifty. Tell me, dear Miss La Verne”—elaborately polite, and determined to mollify this old harridan—“tell me, who was your Romeo?”

  And then Life laughed at Elly Chipley (Lenore La Verne on the bills) and at Kim Ravenal, and the institution known as the Stage. For Elly Chipley tapped her cheek thoughtfully with her powder puff, and blinked her old eyes, and screwed up her tremulous old mouth, and pondered, and finally shook her head. “My Romeo? Let me see. Let—me—see. Who was my Romeo?”

  They must go now. Oh, Nola darling, half a million! It’s too fantastic. Mother, I can’t bear to leave you down in this God-forsaken hole. Flies and Negroes and mud and all this yellow terrible river that you love more than me. Stand up there—high up—where we can see you as long as possible.

  The usual crowd was drifting down to the landing as the show-boat lights began to glow. Twilight was coming on. On the landing, up the river bank, sauntering down the road, came the Negroes, and the hangers-on, the farm-hands, the river folk, the curious, the idle, the amusement-hungry. Snatches of song. Feet shuffling upon the wharf boards. A banjo twanging.

  They were being taken back to the nearest railroad connection, but not in the Ford that had brought them. They sat luxuriously in the car that had been Parthy’s and that was Magnolia’s now.

  “Mother, dearest, you’ll be back in New York in October or November at the latest, won’t you? Promise me. When the boat closes? You will!”

  Kim was weeping. The car started smoothly. She turned for a last glimpse through her tears. “Oh, Ken, do you think I ought to leave her like this?”

  “She’ll be all right, dear. Look at her! Jove!”

  There stood Magnolia Ravenal on the upper deck of the Cotton Blossom Floating Palace Theatre, silhouetted against sunset sky and water—tall, erect, indomitable. Her mouth was smiling but her great eyes were wide and sombre. They gazed, unwinking, across the sunlit waters. One arm was raised in a gesture of farewell.

  “Isn’t she splendid, Ken!” cried Kim, through her tears. “There’s something about her that’s eternal and unconquerable—like the River.”

  A bend in the upper road. A clump of sycamores. The river, the show boat, the straight silent figure were lost to view.

  THE END