Bake Oven–so called, perhaps, because it does not powerfully
resemble anybody else’s bake oven; and the Devil’s Tea Table–
this latter a great smooth-surfaced mass of rock, with diminishing
wine-glass stem, perched some fifty or sixty feet above the river,
beside a beflowered and garlanded precipice, and sufficiently
like a tea-table to answer for anybody, Devil or Christian.
Away down the river we have the Devil’s Elbow and the Devil’s
Race-course, and lots of other property of his which I cannot now
call to mind.
The Town of Grand Tower was evidently a busier place than it
had been in old times, but it seemed to need some repairs
here and there, and a new coat of whitewash all over.
Still, it was pleasant to me to see the old coat once more.
‘Uncle’ Mumford, our second officer, said the place had been
suffering from high water, and consequently was not looking
its best now. But he said it was not strange that it didn’t
waste white-wash on itself, for more lime was made there,
and of a better quality, than anywhere in the West;
and added–‘On a dairy farm you never can get any milk
for your coffee, nor any sugar for it on a sugar plantation;
and it is against sense to go to a lime town to hunt for white-wash.’
In my own experience I knew the first two items to be true;
and also that people who sell candy don’t care for candy;
therefore there was plausibility in Uncle Mumford’s final observation
that ‘people who make lime run more to religion than whitewash.’
Uncle Mumford said, further, that Grand Tower was a great coaling
center and a prospering place.
Cape Girardeau is situated on a hillside, and makes a handsome appearance.
There is a great Jesuit school for boys at the foot of the town by the river.
Uncle Mumford said it had as high a reputation for thoroughness as any
similar institution in Missouri ‘ There was another college higher up on
an airy summit–a bright new edifice, picturesquely and peculiarly towered
and pinnacled–a sort of gigantic casters, with the cruets all complete.
Uncle Mumford said that Cape Girardeau was the Athens of Missouri,
and contained several colleges besides those already mentioned; and all of
them on a religious basis of one kind or another. He directed my attention
to what he called the ‘strong and pervasive religious look of the town,’
but I could not see that it looked more religious than the other hill
towns with the same slope and built of the same kind of bricks.
Partialities often make people see more than really exists.
Uncle Mumford has been thirty years a mate on the river.
He is a man of practical sense and a level head; has observed;
has had much experience of one sort and another; has opinions;
has, also, just a perceptible dash of poetry in his composition,
an easy gift of speech, a thick growl in his voice, and an oath
or two where he can get at them when the exigencies of his
office require a spiritual lift. He is a mate of the blessed
old-time kind; and goes gravely damning around, when there
is work to the fore, in a way to mellow the ex-steamboatman’s
heart with sweet soft longings for the vanished days that shall
come no more. ‘GIT up there you! Going to be all day?
Why d’n’t you SAY you was petrified in your hind legs,
before you shipped!’
He is a steady man with his crew; kind and just, but firm;
so they like him, and stay with him. He is still in the slouchy
garb of the old generation of mates; but next trip the Anchor
Line will have him in uniform–a natty blue naval uniform,
with brass buttons, along with all the officers of the line–
and then he will be a totally different style of scenery from what
he is now.
Uniforms on the Mississippi! It beats all the other changes
put together, for surprise. Still, there is another surprise–
that it was not made fifty years ago. It is so manifestly sensible,
that it might have been thought of earlier, one would suppose.