THE Carmi Chums was the name they went by all along the river. Most other roustabouts had each a name of his own; so had the Carmi Chums for that matter, but the men themselves were never mentioned individually—always collectively.
No steamboat captain who wanted only a single man ever attempted to hire half of the Carmi Chums at a time—as easy would it have been to have hired half of the Siamese Twins. No steamboat mate who knew them ever attempted to “tell off” the Chums into different watches, and any mate who, not knowing them, committed this blunder, and adhered to it after explanation was made, was sure to be two men short immediately after leaving the steamer’s next landing.
There seemed no possible way of separating them; they never fell out with each other in the natural course of events; they never fought when drunk, as other friendly roustabouts sometimes did, for the Carmi Chums never got drunk; there never sprang up any coolness between them because of love for the same lady, for they did not seem to care at all for female society, unless they happened to meet some old lady whom one might love as a mother rather than as a sweetheart.
Even professional busybodies, from whose presence roustabouts are no freer than Church-members, were unable to provoke the Carmi Chums even to suspicion, and those of them who attempted it too persistently were likely to have a difficulty with the slighter of the Chums.
This man, who was called Black, because of the color of his hair, was apparently forty years of age, and of very ordinary appearance, except when an occasional furtive, frightened look came into his face and attracted attention.
His companion, called Red, because his hair was of the hue of the carrots, and because it was occasionally necessary to distinguish him from his friend, seemed of about the same age and degree of ordinaries as Black, but was rather stouter, more cheery, and, to use the favorite roustabout simile, held his head closer to the current.
He seemed, when Black was absent-minded (as he generally was while off duty), to be the leading spirit of the couple, and to be tenderly alive to all of his partner’s needs; but observing roustabouts noticed that when freight was being moved, or wood taken on board, Black was always where he could keep an eye on his chum, and where he could demand instant reparation from any wretch who trod upon Red’s toes, or who, with a shoulder-load of wood, grazed Red’s head, or touched Red with a box or barrel.
Next to neighborly wonder as to the existence of the friendship between the Chums, roustabouts with whom the couple sailed concerned themselves most with the cause of the bond between them. Their searches after first causes were no more successful, however, than those of the naturalists who are endeavoring to ascertain who laid the cosmic egg.
They gave out that they came from Carmi, so, once or twice, when captains with whom the Chums were engaged determined to seek a cargo up the Wabash, upon which river Carmi was located, inquisitive roustabouts became light-hearted. But, alas, for the vanity of human hopes! when the boat reached Carmi the Chums could not be found, nor could any inhabitant of Carmi identify them by the descriptions which were given by inquiring friends.
At length they became known, in their collective capacity, as one of the institutions of the river. Captains knew them as well as they knew Natchez or Piankishaw Bend, and showed them to distinguished passengers as regularly as they showed General Zach. Taylor’s plantation, or the scene of the Grand Gulf “cave,” where a square mile of Louisiana dropped into the river one night. Captains rather cultivated them, in fact, although it was a difficult bit of business, for roustabouts who wouldn’t say “thank you” for a glass of French brandy, or a genuine, old-fashioned “plantation cigar,” seemed destitute of ordinary handles of which a steamboat captain could take hold.
Lady passengers took considerable notice of them, and were more successful than any one else at drawing them into conversation. The linguistic accomplishments of the Chums were not numerous, but it did one good to see Black lose his scared, furtive look when a lady addressed him, and to see the affectionate deference with which he appealed to Red, until that worthy was drawn into the conversation. When Black succeeded in this latter-named operation, he would, by insensible stages, draw himself away, and give himself up to enthusiastic admiration of his partner, or, apparently, of his conversational ability.
The Spring of 1869 found the Chums in the crew of the Bennett, “the peerless floating palace of the Mississippi,” as she was called by those newspapers whose reporters had the freedom of the Bennett’s bar; and the same season saw the Bennett staggering down the Mississippi with so heavy a load of sacked corn, that the gunwales amidships were fairly under water.
The river was very low, so the Bennett kept carefully in the channel; but the channel of the great muddy ditch which drains half the Union is as fickle as disappointed lovers declare women to be, and it has no more respect for great steamer-loads of corn than Goliath had for David.
A little Ohio river-boat, bound upward, had reported the sudden disappearance of a woodyard a little way above Milliken’s Bend, where the channel hugged the shore, and with the woodyard there had disappeared an enormous sycamore-tree, which had for years served as a tying-post for steamers.
As live sycamores are about as disinclined to float as bars of lead are, the captain and pilot of the Bennett were somewhat concerned—for the sake of the corn—to know the exact location of the tree.
Half a mile from the spot it became evident, even to the passengers clustered forward on the cabin-deck, that the sycamore had remained quite near to its old home, for a long, rough ripple was seen directly across the line of the channel.
Then arose the question as to how much water was on top of the tree, and whether any bar had had time to accumulate.
The steamer was stopped, the engines were reversed and worked by hand to keep the Bennett from drifting downstream, a boat was lowered and manned, the Chums forming part of her crew, and the second officer went down to take soundings; while the passengers, to whom even so small a cause for excitement was a godsend, crowded the rail and stared.
The boat shot rapidly down stream, headed for the shore-end of the ripple. She seemed almost into the boiling mud in front of her when the passengers on the steamer heard the mate in the boat shout: “Back all!”
The motion of the oars changed in an instant, but a little too late, for, a heavy root of the fallen giant, just covered by the water, caught the little craft, and caused it to careen so violently that one man was thrown into the water. As she righted, another man went in.
“Confound it!” growled the captain, who was leaning out of the pilot-house window. “I hope they can swim. Still, ’tain’t as bad as it would be if we had any more cargo to take aboard.”
“It’s the Chums,” remarked the pilot, who had brought a glass to bear upon the boat.
“Thunder!” exclaimed the captain, striking a bell. “Below there! Lower away another boat—lively!” Then, turning to the passengers, he exclaimed: “Nobody on the river’d forgive me if I lost the Chums. ’Twould be as bad as Barnum losing the giraffe.”
The occupants of the first boat were evidently of the captain’s own mind, for they were eagerly peering over her side, and into the water.
Suddenly the pilot dropped his glass, extemporized a trumpet with both hands, and shouted:
“Forrard—forrard! One of ’em’s up!” Then he put his mouth to the speaking-tube, and screamed to the engineer: “Let her drop down a little, Billy!”
The sounding party headed toward a black speck, apparently a hundred yards below them, and the great steamer slowly drifted downstream. The speck moved toward shore, and the boat, rapidly shortening distance, seemed to scrape the bank with her port oars.
“Safe enough now, I guess!” exclaimed Judge Turner, of one of the Southern Illinois circuits.
The Judge had been interrupted in telling a story when the accident occurred, and was in a hurry to resume.
“As I was saying,” said he, “he hardly looked like a professional horse-thief. He was little and quiet, and had always worked away steadily at his trade. I believed him when he said ’twas his first offense, and that he did it to raise money to bury his child; and I was going to give him an easy sentence, and ask the Governor to pardon him. The laws have to be executed, you know, but there’s no law against mercy being practiced afterward. Well, the sheriff was bringing him from jail to hear the verdict and the sentence, when the short man, with red hair, knocked the sheriff down, and off galloped that precious couple for the Wabash. I saw the entire——”
“The deuce!” interrupted the pilot, again dropping his glass.
The Judge glared angrily; the passengers saw, across the shortened distance, one of the Chums holding by a root to the bank, and trying to support the other, whose shirt hung in rags, and who seemed exhausted.
“Which one’s hurt?” asked the captain. “Give me the glass.”
But the pilot had left the house and taken the glass with him.
The Judge continued:
“I saw the whole transaction through the window. I was so close that I saw the sheriff’s assailant’s very eyes. I’d know that fellow’s face if I saw it in Africa.”
“Why, they’re both hurt!” exclaimed the captain. “They’ve thrown a coat over one, and they’re crowdin’ around the other. What the——They’re comin’ back without ’em—need whisky to bring ’em to, I suppose. Why didn’t I send whisky down by the other boat? There’s an awful amount of time being wasted here. What’s the matter, Mr. Bell?” shouted the captain, as the boat approached the steamer.
“Both dead!” replied the officer.
“Both? Now, ladies and gentlemen,” exclaimed the captain, turning toward the passengers, who were crowded forward just below him, “I want to know if that isn’t a streak of the meanest kind of luck? Both the Chums gone! Why, I won’t be able to hold up my head in New Orleans. How came it that just those two fellows were knocked out?”
“Red tumbled out, and Black jumped in after him,” replied the officer. “Red must have been caught in an eddy and tangled in the old tree’s roots—clothes torn almost off—head caved in. Black must have burst a blood-vessel—his face looked like a copper pan when he reached shore, and he just groaned and dropped.”
The captain was sorry, so sorry that he sent a waiter for brandy. But the captain was human—business was business—the rain was falling, and a big log was across the boat’s bow; so he shouted:
“Hurry up and bury ’em, then. You ought to have let the second boat’s crew gone on with that, and you have gone back to your soundings. They was the Chums, to be sure, but now they’re only dead roustabouts. Below there! Pass out a couple of shovels!”
“Perhaps some ladies would go down with the boat, captain—and a preacher, too, if there’s one aboard,” remarked the mate, with an earnest but very mysterious expression.
“Why, what in thunder does the fellow mean?” soliloquized the captain, audibly. “Women—and a preacher—for dead roustabouts? What do you mean, Mr. Bell?”
“Red’s a woman,” briefly responded the mate.
The passengers all started—the captain brought his hands together with a tremendous clap, and exclaimed:
“Murder will out! But who’d have thought I was to be the man to find out the secret of the Carmi Chums? Guess I’ll be the biggest man on the New Orleans levee, after all. Yes, certainly—of course some ladies’ll go—and a preacher, too, if there’s such a man aboard. Hold up, though—we’ll all go. Take your soundings, quick, and we’ll drop the steamer just below the point, and tie up. I wonder if there’s a preacher aboard?”
No one responded for the moment; then the Judge spoke.
“Before I went into the law I was the regularly settled pastor of a Presbyterian Church,” said he. “I’m decidedly rusty now, but a little time will enable me to prepare myself properly. Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen.”
The sounding-boat pulled away, and the Judge retired to his stateroom. The ladies, with very pale faces, gathered in a group and whispered earnestly with each other; then ensued visits to each other’s staterooms, and the final regathering of the ladies with two or three bundles. The soundings were taken, and, as the steamer dropped downstream, men were seen cutting a path down the rather steep clay bank. The captain put his hands to his mouth and shouted:
“Dig only one grave—make it wide enough for two.”
And all the passengers nodded assent and satisfaction.
Time had been short since the news reached the steamer, but the Bennett’s carpenter, who was himself a married man, had made a plain coffin by the time the boat tied up, and another by the time the grave was dug. The first one was put upon a long handbarrow, over which the captain had previously spread a tablecloth, and, followed by the ladies, was deposited by the side of the body of Red. Half an hour later, the men placed Black in the other coffin, removed both to the side of the grave, and signalled the boat.
“Now, ladies and gentlemen,” said the captain.
The Judge appeared with a very solemn face, his coat buttoned tight to his throat, and the party started. Colonel May, of Missouri, who read Voltaire and didn’t believe in anything, maliciously took the Judge’s arm, and remarked:
“You didn’t finish your story, Judge.”
The Judge frowned reprovingly.
“But, really,” persisted the colonel, “I don’t want curiosity to divert my mind from the solemn services about to take place. Do tell me if they ever caught the rascals.”
“They never did,” replied the Judge. “The sheriff hunted and advertised, but he could never hear a word of either of them. But I’d know either one of them at sight. Sh—h——here we are at the grave.”
The passengers, officers, and crew gathered about the grave. The Judge removed his hat, and, as the captain uncovered the faces of the dead, commenced:
“‘I am the resurrection and the life’—Why, there’s the horse-thief now, colonel! I beg your pardon, ladies and gentlemen. ‘He that believeth in——’”
Just then the Judge’s eye fell upon the dead woman’s face, and he screamed:
“And there’s the sheriff’s assailant!”