"We hadn't better get to go up town," Jet whimpered. "Hit don't sound right!"

They argued and debated, and finally went on their way, having promised Nelia that they would see and tell Terabon, on the quiet, that she had come into the slough, and that she wanted to see him.

She waited for some time, hoping that Terabon would come, but finally went to sleep. She was tired, and excitement had deserted her. She slept more soundly than in some time.

Once she partly awakened, and thought that some drift log had b.u.mped into her boat; then she felt a gentle undulation, as of the waves of a pa.s.sing steamer, but she was too sleepy to contemplate that phenomenon in a rather narrow water channel around a bend from the main current.

It was not till she had slept long and well that she began to dream vividly. She was impatient with dreams; they were always full of disappointment.

Daylight came, and sunshine penetrated the window under which she slept.

The bright rays fell upon her closed eyes and stung her cheeks. She awakened with difficulty, and looked around wonderingly. She saw the sunlight move along the wall and then drift back again. She felt the boat teetering and swaggering. She looked out of the window and saw a distant wood across the familiar, gla.s.sy yellow surface of the Mississippi. With a low whisper of dismay she started out to look around, and found that she was really adrift in mid-river.

On the opposite side of the boat she saw the blank side of a boat against her cabin window. As she stood there, she heard or felt a motion on the boat alongside. Someone stepped, or rather jumped heavily, onto the bow deck of her boat and flung the cabin door open.

She sprang to get her pistol, and stood ready, as the figure of a man stumbled drunkenly into her presence.

CHAPTER XXIX

Parson Elijah Rasba, the River Prophet, could not think what he would say to these river people who had determined to have a sermon for their Sabbath entertainment. Neither his Bible nor his hurried glances from book to book which Nelia Crele had given him brought any suggestion which seemed feasible. His father had always declared that a sermon, to be effective, "must have one bullet fired straight."

What bullet would reach the souls of these river people who sang ribald songs, danced to lively music, and lived clear of all laws except the one they called "The Law," a deadly, large-calibre revolver or automatic pistol?

"I 'low I just got to talk to them like folks," he decided at last, and with that comforting decision went to sleep.

The first thing, after dawn, when he looked out upon the river in all the glory of sunshine and soft atmosphere and young birds, he heard a hail:

"Eh, Prophet! What time yo' all goin' to hold the meeting?"

"Round 10 or 11 o'clock," he replied.

Rasba went to one of the boats for breakfast, and he was surprised when Mamie Caope asked him to invoke a blessing on their humble meal of hot-bread, sorghum, fried pork chops, oatmeal, fried spuds, percolator coffee, condensed cream, nine-inch perch caught that morning, and some odds and ends of what she called "leavings."

Then the women all went over on his big mission boat and cleaned things up, declaring that men folks didn't know how to keep their own faces clean, let alone houseboats. They scrubbed and mopped and re-arranged, and every time Rasba appeared they splashed so much that he was obliged to escape.

When at last he was allowed to return he found the boat all cleaned up like a honey-comb. He found that the gambling apparatus had been taken away, except the heavy c.r.a.p table, which was made over into a pulpit, and that chairs and benches had been arranged into seats for a congregation. A store-boat man climbed to the boat's roof at 10:30, with a Texas steer's horn nearly three feet long, and began to blow.

The blast reverberated across the river, and echoed back from the sh.o.r.e opposite; it rolled through the woods and along the sandbars; and the Prophet, listening, recalled the tales of trumpets which he had read in the Bible. At intervals of ten minutes old Jodun filled his great lungs, pursed his lips, and swelled his cheeks to wind his great horn, and the summons carried for miles. People appeared up the bank, swamp angels from the timber brakes who strolled over to see what the river people were up to, and skiffs sculled over to bring them to the river meeting.

The long bend opposite, and up and down stream, where no sign of life had been, suddenly disgorged skiffs and little motorboats of people whose floating homes were hidden in tiny bays, or covered by neutral colours against their backgrounds.

The women hid Rasba away, like a bridegroom, to wait the moment of his appearance, and when at last he was permitted to walk out into the pulpit he nearly broke down with emotion. There were more than a hundred men and women, with a few children, waiting eagerly for him. He was a good old fellow; he meant all right; he'd taken care of Jest Prebol, who had deserved to be shot; he was pretty ignorant of river ways, but he wanted to learn about them; he hadn't hurt their feelings, for he minded his own business, saying not a word about their good times, even if he wouldn't dance himself. They could do no better than let him know that they hadn't any hard feelings against him, even if he was a parson, for he didn't let on that they were sinners. Anyway, they wanted to hear him hit it up!

"I came down here to find a son whose mother was worrited about him,"

Rasba began at the beginning. "I 'lowed likely if I could find Jock it'd please his mammy, an' perhaps make her a little happier. And Jock 'lowed he'd better go back, and stand trial, even if it was a hanging matter.

"You see, I didn't expect you'd get to learn very much from me, and I haven't been disappointed. I'm the one that's learning, and when I think what you've done for me, and when I see what Old Mississip' does, friendlying for all of us, tripping us along----"

They understood. He looked at the boat, at them, and through the wide-open windows at the sun-rippled water.

"Now for religion. Seems like I'm impudent, telling you kindly souls about being good to one another, having no hard, mean feelings against anybody, and living like you ought to live. We're all sinners! Time and again hit's ag'in the grain to do what's right, and if we taste a taste of white liquor, or if hit's stained with burnt sugar to make hit red, why----"

"Sho!" someone grinned. "Parson Rasba knows!"

The preacher joined the laughter.

"Yas, suh!" he admitted, more gravely, "I know. I 'lowed, one time, that I'd git to know this yeah happiness that comes of liquor, an' I sh.o.r.e took one awful gulp. Three nights an' three days I neveh slept a wink, an' me settin' theh by the fireplace, waitin' to be lit up an'

jubulutin', but hit didn't come. I've be'n happier, jes' a-settin' an'

lookin' at that old riveh, hearin' the wild geese flocking by!

"That old riveh--Lawse! If the Mississippi brings you fish and game; if it gives you sheltered eddies to anchor in, and good banks or sandbars to tie against; if this great river out here does all that for you, what do you reckon the Father of that river, of all the world, of all the skies would do, He being so much friendlier and powerfuller?

"Hit's easy to forget the good that's done to you. Lots an' lots of times, I bet you've not even thought of the good you've had from the river, from the sunshine, from the winds, plenty to eat and warm of nights on your boats and in your cabins. It's easy to remember the little evil things, the punishments that are visited upon us for our sins or because we're ignorant and don't know; but reckon up the happiness you have, the times you are blessed with riches of comfort and pleasure, and you'll find yourself so much happier than you are sad that you'll know how well you are cared for.

"I cayn't preach no reg'lar sermon, with text-tes and singing and all that. Seems like I jes' want to talk along rambling like, and tell you how happy you are all, for I don't reckon you're much wickeder than you are friendly on the average. I keep a-hearing about murdering and stealing and whiskey boating and such things. They're signs of the world's sinfulness. We talk a heap about such things; they're real, of course, and we cayn't escape them. At the same time, look at me!

"I came down here, sorry with myse'f, and you make me glad, not asking if I'd done meanness or if I'd betrayed my friends. You 'lowed I was jes' a man, same's you. I couldn't tell you how to be good, because I wasn't no great shakes myse'f, and the worse I was the better you got.

Buck an' Jock gives me this boat for a mission boat; I'm ignorant, an' a woman gives me----"

He choked up. What the woman had given him was too immeasurable and too wonderful for mere words to express his grat.i.tude.

"I'm just one of those shoutin', ignorant mountain parsons. I could out-whoop most of them up yonder. But down yeah, Old Mississip' don't let a man shout out. When yo' play dance music, hit's softer and sweeter than some of those awful mountain hymns in which we condemn lost souls to the fire. Course, the wicked goes to h.e.l.l, but somehow I cayn't git up much enthusiasm about that down yeah. What makes my heart rejoice is that there's so much goodness around that I bet 'most anybody's got a right smart chanct to get shut of slippin' down the claybanks into h.e.l.l."

"Jest Prebol?" someone asked, seeing Prebol's face in the window of the little red shanty-boat moored close by, where he, too, could listen.

"Jest Prebol's been my guide down the riveh," the Prophet retorted. "I can say that I only wish I could be as good a pilot for poor souls and sinners toward heaven as Jest is a river pilot for a wandering old mountain parson on the Mississippi----"

"Hi-i-i!" a score of voices laughed, and someone shouted, "So row me down the Jordan!"

They all knew the old religious song which fitted so nicely into the conditions on the Mississippi. Somebody called to someone else, and the musicians in the congregation slipped away to return with their violins, banjos, accordions, guitars, and other familiar instruments.

Before the preacher knew it, he had more music in the church than he had ever heard in a church before--and they knew what to play and what to sing.

The sermon became a jubilee, and he would talk along awhile till something he said struck a tuneful suggestion, and the singing would begin again; and when at last he brought the service to an end, he was astonished to find that he had preached and they had sung for more than two hours.

Then there was scurrying about, and from all sides the calm airs of the sunny Sabbath were permeated with the odours of roasts and fried things, coffee and sauces. A score wanted Rasba to dine out, but Mrs. Caope claimed first and personal acquaintance, and her claim was acknowledged.

The people from far boats and tents returned to their own homes. Two or three boats of the fleet, in a hurry to make some place down stream, dropped out in mid-afternoon, and the little shanty-boat town was already breaking up, having lasted but a day, but one which would long be remembered and talked about. It was more interesting than murder, for murders were common, and the circ.u.mstances and place were so remarkable that even a burning steamboat would have had less attention and discussion.

The following morning Mrs. Caope offered Rasba $55 for his old poplar boat, and he accepted it gladly. She said she had a speculation in mind, and before nightfall she had sold it for $75 to two men who were going pearling up the St. Francis, and who thought that a boat a parson had tripped down in would bring them good luck.

The dancers of Sat.u.r.day night, the congregation of Sunday, on Monday afternoon were scattered. Mrs. Caope's and another boat dropped off the river to visit friends, and mid-afternoon found Parson Rasba and Prebol alone again, drawing down toward Mendova.

Prebol knew that town, and he told Rasba about it. He promised that they would see something of it, but they could not make it that evening, so they landed in Sandbar Reach for the night. Just after dawn, while the rising sun was flashing through the tree tops from east to west, a motorboat driving up stream hailed as it pa.s.sed.

"Ai-i-i, Prebol! Palura's killed up!"

Prebol shouted out for details, and the pa.s.ser-by, slowing down, gave a few more: