where any of the men was, they split up and sidled away.
They wouldn’t man the sweeps with him. The captain had all
the skiffs hauled up on the raft, alongside of his wigwam,
and wouldn’t let the dead men be took ashore to be planted;
he didn’t believe a man that got ashore would come back;
and he was right.
‘After night come, you could see pretty plain that there was going to be
trouble if that bar’l come again; there was such a muttering going on.
A good many wanted to kill Dick Allbright, because he’d seen the bar’l
on other trips, and that had an ugly look. Some wanted to put him ashore.
Some said, let’s all go ashore in a pile, if the bar’l comes again.
‘This kind of whispers was still going on, the men being bunched
together forrard watching for the bar’l, when, lo and behold you,
here she comes again. Down she comes, slow and steady,
and settles into her old tracks. You could a heard a pin drop.
Then up comes the captain, and says:–
‘ “Boys, don’t be a pack of children and fools; I don’t
want this bar’l to be dogging us all the way to Orleans,
and YOU don’t; well, then, how’s the best way to stop it?
Burn it up,–that’s the way. I’m going to fetch it aboard,” he says.
And before anybody could say a word, in he went.
‘He swum to it, and as he come pushing it to the raft, the men spread
to one side. But the old man got it aboard and busted in the head,
and there was a baby in it! Yes, sir, a stark naked baby.
It was Dick Allbright’s baby; he owned up and said so.
‘ “Yes,” he says, a-leaning over it, “yes, it is my own
lamented darling, my poor lost Charles William Allbright deceased,”
says he,–for he could curl his tongue around the bulliest
words in the language when he was a mind to, and lay them
before you without a jint started, anywheres. Yes, he said
he used to live up at the head of this bend, and one night
he choked his child, which was crying, not intending to
kill it,–which was prob’ly a lie,–and then he was scared,
and buried it in a bar’l, before his wife got home, and off
he went, and struck the northern trail and went to rafting;
and this was the third year that the bar’l had chased him.
He said the bad luck always begun light, and lasted till four men
was killed, and then the bar’l didn’t come any more after that.
He said if the men would stand it one more night,–
and was a-going on like that,–but the men had got enough.
They started to get out a boat to take him ashore and lynch him,
but he grabbed the little child all of a sudden and jumped
overboard with it hugged up to his breast and shedding tears,
and we never see him again in this life, poor old suffering soul,
nor Charles William neither.’
‘WHO was shedding tears?’ says Bob; ‘was it Allbright or the baby?’
‘Why, Allbright, of course; didn’t I tell you the baby was dead.
Been dead three years–how could it cry?’
‘Well, never mind how it could cry–how could it KEEP all that time?’
says Davy. ‘You answer me that.’
‘I don’t know how it done it,’ says Ed. ‘It done it though–
that’s all I know about it.’
‘Say–what did they do with the bar’l?’ says the Child of Calamity.
‘Why, they hove it overboard, and it sunk like a chunk of lead.’
‘Edward, did the child look like it was choked?’ says one.
‘Did it have its hair parted?’ says another.
‘What was the brand on that bar’l, Eddy?’ says a fellow they called Bill.
‘Have you got the papers for them statistics, Edmund?’ says Jimmy.
‘Say, Edwin, was you one of the men that was killed by the lightning.’
says Davy.
‘Him? O, no, he was both of ’em,’ says Bob. Then they all haw-hawed.
‘Say, Edward, don’t you reckon you’d better take a pill?
You look bad–don’t you feel pale?’ says the Child of Calamity.