Uncle Mumford said it had as high a reputation for
thoroughness as any similar institution in Missouri! There was another
college higher up on an airy summit - a bright new edifice, picturesquely
and peculiarly towered and pinnacled - a sort of gigantic casters, with
the cruets all complete. Uncle Mumford said that Cape Girardeau was the
Athens of Missouri, and contained several colleges besides those already
mentioned; and all of them on a religious basis of one kind or another.
He directed my attention to what he called the 'strong and pervasive
religious look of the town,' but I could not see that it looked more
religious than the other hill towns with the same slope and built of the
same kind of bricks. Partialities often make people see more than really
exists.
Uncle Mumford has been thirty years a mate on the river. He is a man of
practical sense and a level head; has observed; has had much experience
of one sort and another; has opinions; has, also, just a perceptible
dash of poetry in his composition, an easy gift of speech, a thick growl
in his voice, and an oath or two where he can get at them when the
exigencies of his office require a spiritual lift. He is a mate of the
blessed old-time kind; and goes gravely damning around, when there is
work to the fore, in a way to mellow the ex-steamboatman's heart with
sweet soft longings for the vanished days that shall come no more. 'GIT
up there you! Going to be all day? Why d'n't you SAY you was petrified
in your hind legs, before you shipped!'
He is a steady man with his crew; kind and just, but firm; so they like
him, and stay with him. He is still in the slouchy garb of the old
generation of mates; but next trip the Anchor Line will have him in
uniform - a natty blue naval uniform, with brass buttons, along with all
the officers of the line - and then he will be a totally different style
of scenery from what he is now.
Uniforms on the Mississippi! It beats all the other changes put
together, for surprise. Still, there is another surprise - that it was
not made fifty years ago. It is so manifestly sensible, that it might
have been thought of earlier, one would suppose. During fifty years, out
there, the innocent passenger in need of help and information, has been
mistaking the mate for the cook, and the captain for the barber - and
being roughly entertained for it, too. But his troubles are ended now.
And the greatly improved aspect of the boat's staff is another advantage
achieved by the dress-reform period.
Steered down the bend below Cape Girardeau. They used to call it
'Steersman's Bend;' plain sailing and plenty of water in it, always;
about the only place in the Upper River that a new cub was allowed to
take a boat through, in low water.
Thebes, at the head of the Grand Chain, and Commerce at the foot of it,
were towns easily rememberable, as they had not undergone conspicuous
alteration. Nor the Chain, either - in the nature of things; for it is a
chain of sunken rocks admirably arranged to capture and kill steamboats
on bad nights. A good many steamboat corpses lie buried there, out of
sight; among the rest my first friend the 'Paul Jones;' she knocked her
bottom out, and went down like a pot, so the historian told me - Uncle
Mumford. He said she had a gray mare aboard, and a preacher. To me,
this sufficiently accounted for the disaster; as it did, of course, to
Mumford, who added -
'But there are many ignorant people who would scoff at such a matter,
and call it superstition. But you will always notice that they are
people who have never traveled with a gray mare and a preacher. I went
down the river once in such company. We grounded at Bloody Island; we
grounded at Hanging Dog; we grounded just below this same Commerce; we
jolted Beaver Dam Rock; we hit one of the worst breaks in the
'Graveyard' behind Goose Island; we had a roustabout killed in a fight;
we burnt a boiler; broke a shaft; collapsed a flue; and went into Cairo
with nine feet of water in the hold - may have been more, may have been
less. I remember it as if it were yesterday. The men lost their heads
with terror. They painted the mare blue, in sight of town, and threw
the preacher overboard, or we should not have arrived at all. The
preacher was fished out and saved. He acknowledged, himself, that he had
been to blame. I remember it all, as if it were yesterday.'
That this combination - of preacher and gray mare - should breed calamity,
seems strange, and at first glance unbelievable; but the fact is
fortified by so much unassailable proof that to doubt is to dishonor
reason. I myself remember a case where a captain was warned by numerous
friends against taking a gray mare and a preacher with him, but
persisted in his purpose in spite of all that could be said; and the
same day - it may have been the next, and some say it was, though I think
it was the same day - he got drunk and fell down the hatchway, and was
borne to his home a corpse. This is literally true.
No vestige of Hat Island is left now; every shred of it is washed away.
I do not even remember what part of the river it used to be in, except
that it was between St. Louis and Cairo somewhere. It was a bad region -
all around and about Hat Island, in early days.
