Up the River.
by Oliver Optic.
PREFACE.
UP THE RIVER is the sixth and last of "The Great Western Series." The events of the story occur on the coast of Florida, in the Gulf of Mexico, and on the Mississippi River. The volume and the series close with the return of the hero, by a route not often taken by tourists, to his home in Michigan. His voyaging on the ocean, the Great Lakes, and the Father of Waters, is finished for the present; but the writer believes that his princ.i.p.al character has grown wiser and better since he was first introduced to the reader. He has made mistakes of judgment, but whatever of example and inspiration he may impart to the reader will be that of a true and n.o.ble boy, with no vices to disfigure his character, and no low aims to lead him from "the straight and narrow path" of duty.
The author has a copy of his first book before him as he writes. On the t.i.tle-page is this line: "A Tale of the Mississippi and the South-West." The preface, dated 1852, contains this pa.s.sage: "In the summer of 1848, the author of the following tale was a pa.s.senger on board of a steamboat from New Orleans to Cincinnati. During the pa.s.sage--one of the most prolonged and uncomfortable in the annals of western river navigation--the plot of this story was arranged. Many of its incidents, and all of its descriptions of steamboat life will be recognized by the voyager on the Mississippi." Since that time the author has travelled on the upper waters of the great river.
His last book, by a coincidence at the present time, also relates to the Mississippi. Nearly a generation has pa.s.sed away between the first and the last; and the latter is the writer"s seventy-fifth book. The author has endeavored to make his works correct in facts and descriptions, as well as in moral tendency; and in the preparation of them he has travelled over fifty thousand miles by sea and land.
To his young friends,--some of the earlier of whom are now middle-aged men and women, with boys and girls of their own, reading the same books their fathers and mothers read a quarter of a century ago,--to his young friends the author again returns his sincere and hearty thanks for the favor they have bestowed upon his numerous volumes.
DORCHESTER, Ma.s.s., June 1, 1881.
CHAPTER I.
IN CAPTAIN BOOMSBY"S SALOON.
"I don"t think it"s quite the thing, Alick," said my cousin, Owen Garningham, as we were walking through Bay Street after our return to Jacksonville from the interior of Florida.
"What is not quite the thing, Owen?" I inquired, for he had given me no clue to what he was thinking about.
"After I chartered your steamer for a year to come here, and go up the Mississippi River--by the way, this river is called "The Father of Waters," isn"t it?" asked Owen, flying off from the subject in his mind, as he was in the habit of doing.
"Every schoolboy in this country learns that from his geography," I replied.
"Happily, I was never a schoolboy in this country, and I didn"t find it out from the geography. If the Mississippi is the Father of Waters, can you tell me who is the mother of them?"
"The Miss"ouri."
"O, ah! Don"t you feel faint, Captain Alick?" added Owen, stopping short on the sidewalk, and gazing into my face with a look of mock anxiety.
"Not at all; I think I could swallow a burly Briton or two, if the occasion required."
"Don"t do it! It would ruin your digestion. But it strikes me those two rivers are but one."
"I think so, too, and they ought to be. Father and mother--man and wife--ought to be one," I answered, as indifferently as I could. "But something was not quite the thing; and if there is anything in this country that is not quite the thing, I want to know what it is."
"When I chartered the Sylvania to come down here, and then go up the "Father of Waters," it isn"t quite the thing for your father to declare the whole thing off at this point of the cruise," replied Owen. "I was going to have a jolly good time going up the river."
"You may have it yet, for I have given you a cordial invitation to go "up the river" with me; and I mean every word I said about the matter,"
I added, in soothing tones.
"But your father says the charter arrangement is ended, and you may go where you like in your steamer."
"And I concluded at once to carry out all the arrangements for this trip, just as we made them at Detroit," I replied. "I have invited the Shepards and the Tiffanys to join us, and everything will go on just as it did before, except that you will not pay the bills."
"Which means that, if I join you at all, I shall not be myself,"
returned Owen, with a look of disgust. "In other words, I shall not be my own master, and I must go where my uncle and you may choose to take me."
"Not at all; we are going up the Mississippi simply because that is the route you selected, and because I desire to carry out your plan of travel to the letter," I replied, rather warmly. "I don"t think I could do anything more to meet your views than I have done."
"You are as n.o.ble, grand, magnanimous, as it is possible for any fellow to be, Alick; but that don"t make me any more willing to be under obligations to you every day of my life."
"You need feel under no obligations to me."
"Ah, but I do, you see; and I still think it was not just the thing to break away from the written agreement we made," continued Owen, unable to conceal his vexation.
"I think you ought not to say another word in that line of remark, Owen. A contract to do anything fraudulent is void from the beginning.
Do you remember for what purpose you chartered the Sylvania?"
"If you won"t say another word about it, Alick, I won"t!" exclaimed my cousin, extending his hand to me, which I immediately grasped.
"I won"t, unless you drive me to it," I replied. "I have not reminded you of what occurred while we were coming South, and I never will, for I think Carrington was the villain of the drama, and not you."
"You are right, Alick; and you are the best fellow that ever lived!"
protested Owen. "But I would like to pay my share of the expenses of the cruise from this day, as I have done before. I shall feel better about it if I do."
"I will speak to my father about that. I am sure I don"t object to your paying your share," I answered. "I am willing to carry out the agreement just as we made it; but my father takes a different view of the subject."
"I know he does, and I can"t blame him," replied Owen. "He means simply to say that his son shall be under no obligations to me, after what has happened."
"Let us say nothing more about this matter, Owen," I added; "it is not a pleasant topic to me, any more than it was to him."
"When do we sail, if I sail with you, Alick?" he asked.
"To-morrow morning; and we should be on board to-night, ready for an early start, for we have to conform to the tide on the bar at the mouth of the river. The Tiffanys will go with us, but the Shepards have not yet accepted the invitation I gave them."
"I am going to Colonel Shepard"s house now, and I will find out whether they are going or not," said Owen, as we came to a street leading to St. James"s Square, where Colonel Shepard"s house was located.
"And I will drop into Captain Boomsby"s saloon," I added.
"The beast Boomsby! Why do you go there, Alick?" demanded Owen, with a look of disgust and astonishment in his face.
"I lived with him for years, and I will just say good-by to him, for I may never see him again. I hope I never shall, at any rate. He has abused and wronged me, but I am willing to forgive him if he will only keep out of my way."
""Pon my word, I believe you would forgive a man if he blew your brains out, Alick?"
"If it were a matter of brains, I couldn"t do it; but if I had heart enough left, I would try to forgive him if he was sorry for what he had done."
"You forgave me, and it is easy enough for you to do the same with Beast Boomsby," added Owen, as he turned up the street to his destination.