A Jolly Fellowship, Frank Richard Stockton [best way to read an ebook TXT] 📗

she would lose her reason if she did not do something.

Corny was now staying at Mr. Darrell's house. His wife, who was a tip-top lady, insisted that she should come there. When we went around to talk to Corny about making a search, she said that that was exactly what she wanted to do. If we would take her out to look for her father and mother, and we couldn't find[262] them after we had looked all we could, she would come back, and ask nothing more.

Then we determined to go. We hadn't thought of taking Corny along, but Mr. Darrell and the others thought it would be best; and Mrs. Darrell said her own colored woman, named Celia, should go with her, and take care of her. I could not do anything but agree to things, but Rectus telegraphed to his father, and got authority to hire a tug; and Mr. Parker attended to the business himself; and the tug was to be ready early the next morning. We thought this was a long time to wait. But it couldn't be helped.

I forgot to say that Rectus and I had telegraphed home to our parents as soon as we reached Savannah, and had answers back, which were very long ones for telegrams. We had also written home. But we did not say anything to Corny about all this. It would have broken her heart if she had thought about any one writing to his father and mother, and hearing from them.[263]

CHAPTER XXI. THE TRIP OF THE TUG.

The tug-boat was a little thing, and not very clean; but she was strong and sea-worthy, we were told, and therefore we were satisfied. There was a small deck aft, on which Corny and Rectus and I sat, with Celia, the colored woman; and there were some dingy little sleeping-places, which were given up for our benefit. The captain of the tug was a white man, but all the rest, engineer, fireman and hands—there were five or six in all—were negroes.

We steamed down the Savannah River in pretty good style, but I was glad when we got out of it, for I was tired of that river. Our plan was to go down the coast and try to find tidings of the boats. They might have reached land at points where the revenue cutters would never have heard from them. When we got out to sea, the water was quite smooth, although there was a swell that rolled us a great deal. The captain said that if it had been rough he would not have come out at all. This sounded rather badly for[264] us, because he might give up the search, if a little storm came on. And besides, if he was afraid of high waves in his tug, what chance could those boats have had?

Toward noon, we got into water that was quite smooth, and we could see land on the ocean side of us. I couldn't understand this, and went to ask the captain about it. He said it was all right, we were going to take the inside passage, which is formed by the islands that lie along nearly all the coast of Georgia. The strips of sea-water between these islands and the mainland make a smooth and convenient passage for the smaller vessels that sail or steam along this coast. Indeed, some quite good-sized steamers go this way, he said.

I objected, pretty strongly, to our taking this passage, because, I said, we could never hear anything of the boats while we were in here. But he was positive that if they had managed to land on the outside of any of these islands, we could hear of them better from the inside than from the ocean side. And besides, we could get along a great deal better inside. He seemed to think more of that than anything else.

We had a pretty dull time on that tug. There wasn't a great deal of talking, but there was lots of thinking, and not a very pleasant kind of thinking either. We stopped quite often and hailed small boats, and the captain talked to people whenever he had a chance, but he never heard anything about any boats having run ashore on any of the islands, or having come into the inside passage, between any of them.[265] We met a few sailing vessels, and toward the close of the afternoon we met a big steamer, something like northern river steamers. The captain said she ran between the St. John's River and Savannah, and always took the inside passage as far as she could. He said this as if it showed him to be in the right in taking the same passage, but I couldn't see that it proved anything. We were on a different business.

About nine o'clock we went to bed, the captain promising to call us if anything turned up. But I couldn't sleep well—my bunk was too close and hot, and so I pretty soon got up and went up to the pilot-house, where I found the captain. He and one of the hands were hard at work putting the boat around.

"Hello!" said he. "I thought you were sound asleep."

"Hello!" said I. "What are you turning round for?"

It was bright starlight, and I could see that we were making a complete circuit in the smooth water.

"Well," said he, "we're going back."

"Back!" I cried. "What's the meaning of that? We haven't made half a search. I don't believe we've gone a hundred miles. We want to search the whole coast, I tell you, to the lower end of Florida."

"You can't do it in this boat," he said; "she's too small."

"Why didn't you say so when we took her?"

"Well, there wasn't any other, in the first place, and besides, it wouldn't be no good to go no further. It's more 'n four days, now, since them boats set out.[266] There's no chance fur anybody on 'em to be livin'."

"That's not for you to decide," I said, and I was very angry. "We want to find our friends, dead or alive, or find some news of them, and we want to cruise until we know there's no further chance of doing so."

"Well," said he, ringing the bell to go ahead, sharp, "I'm not decidin' anything. I had my orders. I was to be gone twenty-four hours; an' it'll be more 'n that by the time I get back."

"Who gave you those orders?"

"Parker and Darrell," said he.

"Then this is all a swindle," I cried. "And we've been cheated into taking this trip for nothing at all!"

"No, it isn't a swindle," he answered, rather warmly. "They told me all about it. They knew, an' I knew, that it wasn't no use to go looking for two boats that had been lowered in a big storm four days ago, 'way down on the Florida coast. But they could see that this here girl would never give in till she'd had a chance of doin' what she thought she was called on to do, and so they agreed to give it to her. But they told me on no account to keep her out more 'n twenty-four hours. That would be long enough to satisfy her, and longer than that wouldn't be right. I tell you they know what they're about."

"Well, it wont be enough to satisfy her," I said, and then I went down to the little deck. I couldn't make the man turn back. I thought the tug had been[267] hired to go wherever we chose to take her, but I had been mistaken. I felt that we had been deceived; but there was no use in saying anything more on the subject until we reached the city.

I did not wake Rectus to tell him the news. It would not do any good, and I was afraid Corny might hear us. I wanted her to sleep as long as she could, and, indeed, I dreaded the moment when she should awake, and find that all had been given up.

We steamed along very fast now. There was no stopping anywhere. I sat on the deck and thought a little, and dozed a little; and by the time it was morning, I found we were in the Savannah River. I now hated this river worse than ever.

Everything was quiet on the water, and everything, except the engine, was just as quiet on the tug. Rectus and Corny and Celia were still asleep, and nobody else seemed stirring, though, of course, some of the men were at their posts. I don't think the captain wanted to be about when Corny came out on deck, and found that we had given up the search. I intended to be with her when she first learned this terrible fact, which I knew would put an end to all hope in her heart; but I was in no hurry for her to wake up. I very much hoped she would sleep until we reached the city, and then we could take her directly to her kind friends.

And she did sleep until we reached the city. It was about seven o'clock in the morning, I think, when we began to steam slowly by the wharves and piers. I now wished the city were twenty miles further on. I[268] knew that when we stopped I should have to wake up poor Corny.

The city looked doleful. Although it was not very early in the morning, there were very few people about. Some men could be seen on the decks of the vessels at the wharves, and a big steamer for one of the northern ports was getting up steam. I could not help thinking how happy the people must be who were going away in her. On one of the piers near where we were going to stop—we were coming in now—were a few darkey boys, sitting on a wharf-log, and dangling their bare feet over the water. I wondered how they dared laugh, and be so jolly. In a few minutes Corny must be wakened. On a post, near these boys, a lounger sat fishing with a long pole,—actually fishing away as if there were no sorrows and deaths, or shipwrecked or broken-hearted people in the world. I was particularly angry at this man—and I was so nervous that all sorts of things made me angry—because he was old enough to know better, and because he looked like such a fool. He had on green trousers, dirty canvas shoes and no stockings, a striped linen coat, and an old straw hat, which lopped down over his nose. One of the men called to him to catch the line which he was about to throw on the wharf, but he paid no attention, and a negro boy came and caught the line. The man actually had a bite, and couldn't take his eyes from the cork. I wished the line had hit him and knocked him off the post.

The tide was high, and the tug was not much below the wharf when we hauled up. Just as we touched[269] the pier, the man, who was a little astern of us, caught his fish. He jerked it up, and jumped off his post, and, as he looked up in delight at his little fish, which was swinging in the air, I saw he was Mr. Chipperton!

I made one dash for Corny's little cubby-hole. I banged at the door. I shouted:

"Corny! Here's your father!"

She was out in an instant. She had slept in her clothes. She had no bonnet on. She ran out on deck, and looked about, dazed. The sight of the wharves and the ships seemed to stun her.

"Where?" she cried.

I took her by the arm and pointed out her father, who still stood holding the fishing-pole in one hand, while endeavoring to clutch the swinging fish with the other.

The plank had just been thrown out from the little deck. Corny made one bound. I think she struck the plank in the middle, like an India-rubber ball, and then she was on the wharf; and before he could bring his eyes down to the earth, her arms were around her father's neck, and she was wildly kissing and hugging him.

Mr. Chipperton was considerably startled, but when he saw who it was who had him, he threw his arms around Corny, and hugged and kissed her as if he had gone mad.

Rectus was out by this time, and as he and I stood on the tug, we could not help laughing, although we were so happy that we could have cried. There stood that