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Updated: May 19, 2025
When one answered that the Mississippi was 670 miles, and another said it was a "month's floating," their replies were equally without meaning to his mind. Rasba could not understand them when they talked of reaches, crossings, wing dams, government works, and chutes and islands, but he would not offend any of them by showing that he did not in the least understand what they were talking about.
He was in the fervour of his most recent discovery when Rasba went out on the bow deck and looked into the night. He called Terabon a minute later, and the two looked at a phenomenon. The west was aglow, like a sunset, but with flarings and flashings instead of slowly changing lights and hues.
As he wrote, Parson Rasba, in the intervals of navigating the big mission boat, would stand by gazing at the furious energy of his companion. Rasba had seized upon a few great facts of life, and dwelt in silent contemplation of them, until a young woman with a library disturbed the echoing halls of his mind, and brought into them the bric-
The river carried him right into the same glare, and for a few minutes he looked up at the arcs, and shaded his eyes to get some view of the town whose sounds consisted of the mournful howling of a dog. Rasba looked back at the town, and felt the awe which a sleeping village inspires in the thoughts of a passer-by. He thought perhaps he would never again see that town.
He was conscious of a certain rigidity of action, a certain precision of motion, ascribing them to the stern determination which he had that when he should at last discover the whiskey-happiness in his soul, he would let go with a whoop. "Some hit makes happy, and some hit makes fightin' mad!" Rasba suddenly thought, with much concern, "S'posen hit'd make me fightin' mad?"
"Hi-i-i! Yo' all found the man yo' come a-lookin' fo'. Ho law!" "Hit's the Riveh Prophet," someone replied to a hail from within, the dance ending. A crowd came tumbling out onto the deck of the big boat of the dance hall, everyone talking, laughing, catching their breaths. "Hi-i! Likely he'll preach to-morrow," a woman cried. "To-morrow's Sunday." "Sunday?" Rasba gasped.
"And women, sometimes, don't do men any good," Rasba mused, aloud, "I've wondered right smart about hit. You see, a parson circuit rides around, an' he sees a sight more'n he tells. Lawse, he shore do!" The two women glared at him, but he was studying his huge hands, first the backs and then the calloused palms. He was really wondering, so the two women glanced at each other, laughing.
When at last Rasba looked up Nelia was gone. The books were on the table and he found another stack heaped up on the deck of the mission boat. But the woman was gone, and when he looked down the river he saw something flicker and vanish in the distance. He stared, hurt; he choked, for a minute, in protest, then carried that immeasurable treasure into his cabin.
Down here all the little threads of its being had united in a full tide of life still subject to the influences of its normal course, but wearing and tearing along beyond any power to stop till its appointed course was run. Insensibly Parson Rasba felt the resources of his own mind flocking to help him. Just being there beside that mighty torrent helped him to get a perspective on things.
Under his seeming indifference Buck was near the breaking point; Jock, victim of a thousand worries, was bent under his burdens. Grell, having fought the all-night fight for a human life, was still weak with weariness from the effort. Rasba, a newcomer, brought welcome reserves of endurance, assistance, and confidence.
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