Life on the Mississippi | Page 9

bow your
neck and spread, for the pet child of calamity's a-coming! '
Then the other one went to swelling around and blowing again--the
first one--the one they called Bob; next, the Child of Calamity chipped
in again, bigger than ever; then they both got at it at the same time,
swelling round and round each other and punching their fists most into
each other's faces, and whooping and jawing like Injuns; then Bob
called the Child names, and the Child called him names back again:
next, Bob called him a heap rougher names and the Child come back at
him with the very worst kind of language; next, Bob knocked the
Child's hat off, and the Child picked it up and kicked Bob's ribbony hat
about six foot; Bob went and got it and said never mind, this warn't
going to be the last of this thing, because he was a man that never
forgot and never forgive, and so the Child better look out, for there was
a time a-coming, just as sure as he was a living man, that he would
have to answer to him with the best blood in his body. The Child said
no man was willinger than he was for that time to come, and he would
give Bob fair warning, now, never to cross his path again, for he could
never rest till he had waded in his blood, for such was his nature,
though he was sparing him now on account of his family, if he had one.
Both of them was edging away in different directions, growling and
shaking their heads and going on about what they was going to do; but
a little black-whiskered chap skipped up and says--
'Come back here, you couple of chicken-livered cowards, and I'll thrash
the two of ye!'
And he done it, too. He snatched them, he jerked them this way and
that, he booted them around, he knocked them sprawling faster than

they could get up. Why, it warn't two minutes till they begged like
dogs-- and how the other lot did yell and laugh and clap their hands all
the way through, and shout 'Sail in, Corpse-Maker!' 'Hi! at him again,
Child of Calamity!' 'Bully for you, little Davy!' Well, it was a perfect
pow- wow for a while. Bob and the Child had red noses and black eyes
when they got through. Little Davy made them own up that they were
sneaks and cowards and not fit to eat with a dog or drink with a nigger;
then Bob and the Child shook hands with each other, very solemn, and
said they had always respected each other and was willing to let
bygones be bygones. So then they washed their faces in the river; and
just then there was a loud order to stand by for a crossing, and some of
them went forward to man the sweeps there, and the rest went aft to
handle the after-sweeps.
I laid still and waited for fifteen minutes, and had a smoke out of a pipe
that one of them left in reach; then the crossing was finished, and they
stumped back and had a drink around and went to talking and singing
again. Next they got out an old fiddle, and one played and another
patted juba, and the rest turned themselves loose on a regular old-
fashioned keel-boat break-down. They couldn't keep that up very long
without getting winded, so by and by they settled around the jug again.
They sung 'jolly, jolly raftman's the life for me,' with a musing chorus,
and then they got to talking about differences betwixt hogs, and their
different kind of habits; and next about women and their different ways:
and next about the best ways to put out houses that was afire; and next
about what ought to be done with the Injuns; and next about what a
king had to do, and how much he got; and next about how to make cats
fight; and next about what to do when a man has fits; and next about
differences betwixt clear-water rivers and muddy-water ones. The man
they called Ed said the muddy Mississippi water was wholesomer to
drink than the clear water of the Ohio; he said if you let a pint of this
yaller Mississippi water settle, you would have about a half to
three-quarters of an inch of mud in the bottom, according to the stage
of the river, and then it warn't no better than Ohio water--what you
wanted to do was to keep it stirred up--and when the river was low,
keep mud on hand to put in and thicken the water up the way it ought to
be.
The Child of Calamity said that was so; he