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Whatever pity he might feel, he could not help but perceive that there was no use trying to help fools. It was just dusk when they ran into Mendova. The city lights sparkled as they turned in the eddy and ran up to the shanty-boat town. They dropped an anchor into the deep water and held the boat off the bank by the stern while they ran a line up to a six-inch willow to keep the bow to the bank.
Once they were swept far out upon the bosom of that madly agitated flood, and the chances of the gallant old shanty-boat remaining right-side-up would be very scanty. "We must fight against that with all our might!" yelled the other, as he pushed back to where the sweep was to be found. They set to work with every pound of force they could bring to the front.
"We're going to get it in the neck today, I reckon," remarked Thad; and if his words were lacking in elegance, they certainly conveyed a proper notion of what he meant to his comrade, for the air was biting, and the waves dashed up against the starboard side of the shanty-boat in a way that was suggestive of storm and little progress.
Such ideas are, however, quickly dispelled by a visit to a shanty-boat, and a glimpse of these people "at home." The great fleet of shanty-boats does not begin to reach New Orleans until the approach of spring.
Swiftly the tender of the shanty-boat came spinning through the water, until in a short time it bumped against the side. Thad waited only long enough to deposit his precious gun in the bottom, and then crawling over the side himself, he seized upon the paddle, and dipped deeply. No doubt he made the shore in much less time than it took Maurice; for there was need that he should.
Maurice he got a letter from his Uncle Ambrose, telling him to be in New Orleans in February, and he'd give him a berth on the big tramp steamer he's captain of. So Maurice and me we made up our minds to drift down South on our shanty-boat." "And on your way you determined to stop over and see me. How good of you, Thad Tucker. Oh, I am so glad to see you!
"In that other shanty-boat, that little boat," Slip exclaimed. "We'll all go!" When they entered the little boat, which sagged under their combined weights, Slip held the light so it would shine on the cot. "Sho!" Rasba exclaimed. "Hyar's my friend who got shot by a lady!" "Yes, suh, Parson!" Prebol grinned, feebly.
In the morning, when the parson awakened, his first thought was of his patient, and he started out to look after the man. He looked at the face of the sandbar reef against which the little red shanty-boat had been moored. The boat was gone!
It is not often a fellow can make a fine meal from a duck that two hours previous has been plunging through the atmosphere from the north with a speed of possibly eighty miles an hour; but all manner of things may come to pass to those who voyage down the mighty Mississippi on a shanty-boat.
Nelia remained there three days, for there was good company, and a two-day rain had set in between midnight and dawn on the following morning. There was no hurry, and she was going nowhere. She had the whole family over to supper the second night, and she ate two meals or so with them. The other shanty-boat, about a hundred yards down stream, was an old man's.
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