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There were then no organizations giving performances of such order as are now given by several colored companies; that was because no manager could imagine that audiences would pay to see Negro performers in any other role than that of Mississippi River roustabouts; but there was lots of talent and ambition.
Later, a packet swooped down with smothered roar, and threw its electric search-light on the city wharf, revealing a crowd of negroes gathered there, like moths in the radiance of a candle; there were gay shouts, and a mad scampering we could see it all, as plainly as if in ordinary light it had been but a third of the distance; and then the roustabouts struck up a weird song as they ran out the gang-plank, and, laden with boxes and bales, began swarming ashore, like a procession of black ants carrying pupa cases.
Gabe swallowed the abuse with a patient smile, but the two roustabouts muttered to themselves and eyed their employer with malevolence. They had also been missing pay days. One evening Pitkin stuck his head out of the door of the tackle-room and called for his trainer. "Gabe! Oh, Gabe! Now where is that good-for-nothing old nigger?"
Next to neighborly wonder as to the existence of the friendship between the Chums, roustabouts with whom the couple sailed concerned themselves most with the cause of the bond between them. Their searches after first causes were no more successful, however, than those of the naturalists who are endeavoring to ascertain who laid the cosmic egg.
Peter had known this odor in the press-room of Tennessee cotton-gins, over a river packet's boilers, where he and other roustabouts were bedded, in bunk-houses in the woods. It also recalled a certain octoroon girl named Ida May, and an intimacy with her which it still moved and saddened Peter to think of.
Most other roustabouts had each a name of his own; so had the Carmi Chums for that matter, but the men themselves were never mentioned individually always collectively. No steamboat captain who wanted only a single man ever attempted to hire half of the Carmi Chums at a time as easy would it have been to have hired half of the Siamese Twins.
Peter and Cissie were not allowed to walk up the main stairway into the passengers' cabin, but were required to pick their way along the boiler-deck, through the stench of freight, lumber, live stock and sleeping roustabouts.
'Do you mean the Roman army? those six sandaled roustabouts in nightshirts, with tin shields and helmets, that marched around treading on each other's heels, in charge of a spider-legged consumptive dressed like themselves? 'That's it! that's it! I was one of them Roman soldiers. I was the next to the last one. A half a year ago I used to always be the last one; but I've been promoted.
It won't be necessary for you to mingle with pickpockets and roustabouts and common ring performers. There will be a select little coterie. I fancy you can guess who will comprise our little circle our set, as you might call it. There are better times ahead for you, Jenison. Your days of riding in a tableau wagon are over.
The roustabouts were just about to make the boat fast, when a party of armed horsemen dashed out of the woods and galloped toward the landing. The captain thought the boat was to be attacked, and hastily gave orders to back out, calling the crew on board at the same time. These orders the negroes lost no time in obeying, as they often suffered severely at the hands of these reckless marauders.
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