Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States | Page 3

with one thrust, cut a deep gash in my neck. A terrible fight followed. I
remember being knocked over and my head stricking something. I
reached out my hand and discovered it was the ax. With this awful
weapon I struck my friend, my more than brother. The thud of the ax
brought me to my senses as our blood mingled. We were both almost
mortally wounded. The boss came in and tried to do something for our
relief but John said, 'Oh, George? what an awful thing we have done?
We have never said a cross word to each other and now, look at us
both.'"
"I watched poor John walk away, darkness was falling but early in the
morning my boss and I followed a trail of blood down by the side of
the tracks. From there he had turned into the woods. We could follow
him no further. We went to all the nearby towns and villages but we
found no person who had ever seen him. We supposed he had died in
the woods and watched for the buzzards, thinking thay would lead us to
his body but he was never seen again."
"For two years I never sat down to look inside a book nor to eat my
food that John Sims was not beside me. He haunted my pillow and
went beside me night and day. His blood was on my hands, his
presence haunted me beyond endurance. What could I do? How could I
escape this awful presence? An old friend told me to put water between
myself and the place where the awful scene occurred. So, I quit
working on the railroad and started working on the river. People
believed at that time that the ghost of a person you had wronged would
not cross water to haunt you."
Life on the river was diverting. Things were constantly happening and
George Arnold put aside some of his unhappiness by engaging in river
activities.
"My first job on the river was as a roust-about on the Bolliver H Cook a
stern wheel packet which carried freight and passengers from Nashville,
Tennessee to Evansville, Indiana. I worked a round trip on her and then
went from Nashville to Cairo, Illinois on the B.S. Rhea. I soon decided
to go to Cairo and take a place on the Eldarado, a St. Louis and
Cincinnati packet which crused from Cairo to Cincinnati. On that boat I
worked as a roust-about for nearly three years."

"What did the roust-about have to do?" asked a neighbor lad who had
come into the room. "The roust-about is no better than the mate that
rules him. If the mate is kindly disposed the roust-about has an easy
enough life. The negroes had only a few years of freedom and resented
cruelty. If the mate became too mean, a regular fight would follow and
perhaps several roust-abouts would be hurt before it was finished."
Uncle George said that food was always plentiful on the boats.
Passengers and freight were crowded together on the decks. At night
there would be singing and dancing and fiddle music. "We roust-abouts
would get together and shoot craps, dance or play cards until the call
came to shuffle freight, then we would all get busy and the mate's voice
giving orders could be heard for a long distance."
"In spite of these few pleasures, the life of a roust-about is the life of a
dog. I do not recall any unkindnesses of slavery days. I was too young
to realize what it was all about, but it could never have equalled the
cruelty shown the laborer on the river boats by cruel mates and
overseers."
Another superstition advanced itself in the story of a boat, told by
Uncle George Arnold. The story follows: "When I was a roust-about on
the Gold Dust we were sailing out from New Orleans and as soon as we
got well out on the broad stream the rats commenced jumping over
board. 'See these rats' said an old river man, 'This boat will never make
a return trip!'"
"At every port some of our crew left the boat but the mate and the
captain said they were all fools and begged us to stay. So a few of us
stayed to do the necessary work but the rats kept leaving as fast as they
could."
"When the boat was nearing Hickman, Kentucky, we smelled fire, and
by the time we were in the harbor passengers were being held to keep
them from jumping overboard. Then the Captain told us boys to jump
into the water and save ourselves. Two of us launched a bale of cotton
overboard and jumped onto it. As we paddled away we had to often go
under to