The Last of the Flatboats

“What luck for the circuses!” exclaimed Will Moreraud.

“But the circuses do not furnish the chief market for peanuts,” said Irv, who was somewhat “up” on these things.

“Where are they consumed, then?” asked Will.

“Well, the greater part of them are used in the manufacture of ‘pure’ Italian or French olive oil – most of it ‘warranted sublime,’” said Irv.

“Are we a nation of swindlers, then?” asked Phil, whose courage was always offended by any suggestion of untruth or hypocrisy or dishonesty.

“I don’t know,” said Irv, “how to draw the line there. The men who make olive oil out of peanuts stoutly contend that their olive oil is really better, more wholesome, and more palatable than that made from olives.”

“Why don’t they call it peanut oil, then, and advertise it as better than olive oil, and take the consequences?” asked upright, downright, bravely honest Phil.

“Men in trade are not always so scrupulous about honesty and truthfulness as you are, Phil,” said Ed. “But sometimes – they excuse their falsehoods on the ground – ”

“There isn’t any excuse possible for not telling the truth,” said Phil. “Men who tell lies in their business are swindlers, and that’s the end of the matter. If they are making a better article than the imported one, they ought to say so, and people would find it out quickly enough. When they offer their goods as something quite different from what they really are, they are telling lies, I say, and I, for one, have no respect for a liar.”

“You are right, Phil, of course,” said Ed. “But there is a world of that sort of thing done. The potteries in New Jersey, I am told, mark their finer wares with European brands, and they contend that if they did not do it they could not sell their goods.”

“A more interesting illustration,” said the planter, “is found in the matter of cheeses. Cheese, as at first produced, is the same the world over. But cheese that is set to ‘ripen’ in the caves of Roquefort is one thing, cheese ripened at Camembert is another, and so on through the list. Now of late years it has been discovered that the differences between these several kinds of cheese are due solely to microbes. There is one sort of microbe at Roquefort, another at Brie, and so on. Now American cheesemakers found this out some years ago, and decided that they could make any sort of cheese they pleased in this country. So they took the several kinds of imported cheeses, selected the best samples of each, and set to work to cultivate their microbes. By introducing the microbes of Roquefort into their cheeses they made Roquefort cheeses of them. By inoculating them with the Brie microbe, or the Camembert microbe, or the Stilton or Gruyère microbe, they converted their simple American cheeses into all these choice varieties. And it is asserted by experts that these American imitations, or some of them at any rate, are actually superior to the imported cheeses, besides being much more uniform in quality.”

“That’s all right,” said Phil. “But why not tell the truth about it? Surely, if their cheeses are better than those made abroad, they can trust the good judges of cheese to find out the fact and declare it. And when that fact became known they could sell their cheese for a higher price than that of the imported article, on the simple ground of its superiority. How I do hate shams and frauds and lies – and especially liars!”

“What bothers me,” drawled Irv, “is that I’ve been eating microbes all my life without knowing it. I here and now register a solemn vow that I’ll never again eat a piece of cheese – unless I want to.”

“Oh, the microbes are all right,” said Ed, “provided they are of the right sort. There are some microbes that kill us, and others that we couldn’t live without. There are still others, like those in cheese, that do us neither good nor harm, except that they make our food more palatable. For that matter the yeast germ is a microbe, and it is that alone that makes our bread light. Surely we can’t quit eating light bread and take to heavy baked dough instead, because light bread is made light by the presence of some hundreds of millions of living germs in every loaf of it while it is in the dough state.”

“Coming back to the question of crops,” said the planter, “does it occur to you that there would be no possibility of prosperity in this country but for the absolute freedom of traffic between the states?”

“Would you kindly explain?” said Ed.

“Certainly. The farmers of New York and New Jersey used to grow all the wheat, and all the beef, mutton, and pork that were eaten in the great city, and they made a good living by doing it. But the time came when the western states could raise wheat and beef and all the rest of it much more cheaply than any eastern farmer could. This threatened to drive the New York and New Jersey farmers out of business, and naturally, if they could, they would have made their legislators pass laws to exclude this western wheat and meat from competition with their crops. This would have hurt the western farmer; for what would in that case have happened in New York would have happened in all the other eastern states. But it would have hurt the people of the great cities – and indeed all the people in the country still more. It would have made the city people’s food cost them two or three times as much as before. That would have compelled them to charge more for their manufactured products and for their work in carrying on the foreign commerce of the country. That would have crippled commerce, – which lives upon exceedingly small margins of profit, – and the prosperity of the country would have been ruined. It was to prevent that sort of thing that our national government was formed, with a constitution which forbade any state to interfere with commerce between the states.”

“What became of the New York farmer, then?” asked Irv.

“When he found that he couldn’t raise wheat, corn, etc., as cheaply as the western farmer could sell them in New York, he quit raising those things and produced things that paid him instead.”

“What sort of things?”

“Fruits, poultry, milk, butter, eggs, cheese, vegetables, buckwheat, honey, etc., and in producing these the New York farmer grew richer than ever. Since New York quit raising on any considerable scale the things that we commonly think of as farm products, that state has become the richest in the country in the value of its agricultural production, simply because the New York farmer raises only those things for which there is a market almost at his front gate.”

“That is very interesting,” said Will. “But how is it that the far West can furnish New York and Philadelphia and the rest of the eastern cities with bread and meat cheaper than the farmers near those cities can sell the same things?”

“The value of land,” said the planter, “has much to do with it. The value of a farmer’s land is his investment, and first of all, he must earn interest on that.”

“Pardon me,” said Ed, “but that, it seems to me, is a very small factor. The value of good farming lands in the East is not very different from that of similar lands in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and the other great farming states of the West.”

“What is the key to the mystery, then?” asked Irv.

“Transportation,” answered Ed. “The western farm lands, with an equal amount of labor, produce more wheat, corn, pork, and the like, than eastern lands do, and it costs next to nothing to carry their wheat, corn, pork, etc., to the East.”

“What does it cost?” asked Will.

“Well, I see that the rate is now less than three mills per ton per mile. At three mills per ton per mile, ten barrels, or a ton, of flour could be carried from Chicago to New York for three dollars, or thirty cents a barrel. Even at half a cent per ton per mile it would cost only fifty cents.”

“While the railroads are engaged in transporting that flour to the hungry New Yorkers at that exceedingly reasonable rate,” said Irv, slowly rising to his feet, “it is my duty to go below and convert a few insignificant pounds of the flour on board into a pan of biscuit, while you, Ed, fry some salt pork, the only meat we have left, and heat up a can or two of tomatoes.”

This ended the long chat, for besides the preparation of supper there was much else to do. There were the lights to be hung in their places, and more occupying still, there was the difficult task of tying up the boat for the night. For experience had taught Phil caution, and he had decided that until The Last of the Flatboats should again float upon the broad reaches of the Mississippi, she should be securely moored to two trees during the hours of darkness. With the Yazoo ten feet above its banks, it would have been very easy indeed for the flatboat to drift out of the river into the fields and woodlands. And Phil had had all the experience he wanted of such wanderings.

CHAPTER XXXI

AN OFFER OF HELP

On the day before they reached Vicksburg, the planter whose family had been rescued was able to have a long conversation with Phil. His first disposition had been to recognize Irv as the master spirit of the crew, because of his controlling activity in the matter of restoring the starved party to life and health, but he was quickly instructed otherwise by Irving himself.

He explained to Phil just who and what he was.

“I have lost a great deal, of course, by this overflow, but fortunately the bulk of my cotton crop was already shipped before the flood came, so that that is safe. Moreover, I am not altogether dependent upon my planting operations. In short, – you will understand that I say this by way of explanation and not otherwise, – I am a fairly well-to-do man, – I may even say a very well-to-do man, – independently of my planting operations.”

“I am glad to hear that,” said Phil, “because it has troubled me a good deal, especially as I have looked at Baby and the other children. I have wondered what was to become of them, and in what way we boys might best help you and them over the bridge.”

“I am glad you said that,” the planter responded. “That gives me the opportunity I am seeking. In the same spirit in which you have been thinking of helping me, I want you to let me help you and your comrades. I don’t know anything of the circumstances of the young men who compose this crew, yourself or the others; but I assume that if your circumstances were particularly comfortable, you would hardly be engaged in the not very profitable business of running a flatboat. At your ages, you would more probably be in school.”

“So we are,” said Phil; “we are none of us particularly well-to-do, but we are able to stay at home and go to school. This trip is a kind of a lark – or partly that and partly a thing done to restore my brother’s health; but we are obliged to make it pay its own way, anyhow, because we could not afford the trip otherwise. Of course, we are out of school for the time being, that is to say, for a few months, but we all expect to make that up. As to college, I don’t know. Probably not many of us will ever be able to afford that.”

“That, then, is exactly what I want to come to,” said the gentleman. “You are obviously boys of good parentage. I cannot offer to pay you for the great service you have done to me and mine – no, no; don’t interrupt me now; let me say this out. I should not think of insulting you in any such way as that; but why should you not let me contribute out of the abundance that I still possess to the expense of a college course for all five of you very bright young fellows? Believe me, nothing in the world could give me a greater gratification than to do this. You have rescued me and mine from a fate so terrible that I shudder to think of it even now. Let me in my turn help a little to advance your interests in life.”

Phil thought for a considerable time before he replied. Not that he had any notion of accepting the offer thus made, but that he did not want, in rejecting it, to hurt the feelings of a man so generous, and one who had made the offer with so much delicacy. At last the boy said: —

“Believe me, sir, I appreciate, and all my comrades will when I tell them of it, the good feeling and the generosity that have dictated your offer, but we could not on any account accept it. I am sure that in this I speak for all. I believe that any boy in this country who really wants an education can get it, if he chooses to work hard enough and live plainly enough. My brother has not been able to go to school much at any time in his life, because of his ill-health, and yet he is much the best educated one among us, and if he lives, he will be reckoned a well-educated man, even among men who are college graduates. As for the rest of us, we can get a college education, as I said, if we choose to work hard enough and live hard enough. If we don’t choose to do that, why, we must go without. But we thank you all the same, and I want you to know that we recognize the generosity of your offer, though we cannot accept it. Now, please don’t let’s talk of that any more, because it isn’t pleasant to refuse a request such as yours; for I take it from your manner and tone that you mean it as a request rather than as an offer of aid.”

With that, Phil walked away, and there was naturally no more to be said. But an hour later the gentleman, who was still feeble from his late exposure and suffering, asked Phil again to sit down by him. Then he said: —

“I am not going to reopen the question that we discussed a while ago, because I understand and honor your decision with regard to it. But there is another little service that I am in position to render you, and that I might render to anybody with whom I came into pleasant contact. My name counts for a good deal with my commission merchant in New Orleans; for how much it counts, it would not be quite modest for me to say; but, at any rate, I want to give you a letter to him, if you will allow me. When you get there, you will wish to sell your cargo, and of course you will be surrounded by buyers, but most of them will be disposed to take advantage of your youth and of your inexperience in the market. I cannot imagine how, in their hands, you can escape the loss of a considerable part of the value of what you have to sell. Now the commission merchant to whom I wish to give you a letter is a man of the very highest integrity, besides being my personal friend and my agent in business. I suggest that you place the whole matter of the sale of your boat and cargo in his hands, and I am confident that the difference in the results will be many hundreds of dollars in your favor. This is, as I said, a service that I might render even to a casual acquaintance. Surely, you will not deny me the privilege of rendering it to a group of young men who have done for me what you boys have.”

Phil rose and stood before him embarrassed.

“I suppose,” he said, “I ought to consult my comrades before accepting even this favor at your hands, but I shan’t do anything of the kind. I understand what you feel and what you mean, and if you won’t ask anything of your commission merchant except that he shall sell us out on his usual terms, I shall frankly be very much obliged to you for the letter you offer; for it has really been a source of a good deal of anxiety to me, this thing of how to sell out when we get there.”

It was so arranged; and as the gentleman and his family were to quit the boat at Vicksburg, the letter was written that day.

At Vicksburg the boys offered the hospitality of their boat to their guests until such time as proper clothing could be provided for them, their condition of destitution being one in which it was impossible for them to think of going ashore. This offer was frankly accepted, and as the boys were themselves in sad need of supplies, the delay of two or three days was not only of no consequence to them, but it introduced a new element of life on board The Last of the Flatboats. The lady sent into the town for dressmakers and seamstresses in such numbers as might enable her quickly to equip herself and the children for a reappearance among civilized human beings. The cabin became a workroom, and two sewing-machines were installed even upon the deck. It looked a little odd, but, as Irv Strong put it, “it’s only another incident in a voyage that began with Jim Hughes and promises to end we do not know with what. Anyhow, we’ve had good luck on the whole, and if we don’t come out ahead now, it’ll probably be our own fault.”

This was the feeling of all the boys. They had the open Mississippi before them for the brief remainder of their journey. The river was still enormously full, of course, but it was falling now, and below Vicksburg it had been kept well within the levees, so that there was no further probability of any cross-country excursions on the part of The Last of the Flatboats. They had nothing to do, apparently, but to cast the boat loose and let her float the rest of the way upon placid waters. But this again is getting ahead of my story. The boat is still tied to the bank at Vicksburg. Let us return to her.

CHAPTER XXXII

PUBLICITY

As soon as the first necessities of their business were provided for at Vicksburg, Phil wandered off in search of newspapers. He had become interested in many things through his newspaper reading in connection with Jim Hughes, and concerning many matters he was curious to know the outcome. So he sought not only for the latest newspapers, and not chiefly for them, but rather for back numbers covering the period during which The Last of the Flatboats had been wandering in the woods. He secured a lot of them, some of them from New York, some from Chicago, some from St. Louis, and some from other cities.

To his astonishment, when he opened the earliest of them, – those that had been published soon after the affair at Memphis, – he found them filled with portraits of himself and of his companions, with pictures of The Last of the Flatboats, and even with interviews, of which neither he nor Irv Strong, who was the other one chiefly quoted, had any recollection. Yet when they read the words quoted from their lips, they remembered that these things were substantially what they had said to innocent-looking persons not at all known to them as newspaper reporters, who had quite casually conversed with them at Memphis. Neither had either of them posed for a portrait, and yet here were pictures of them, ranging all the way from perfect likenesses to absolute caricatures, freely exploited.

Phil and Irv were so curious about this matter that they asked everybody who came on board for an explanation. Finally, one young man, who had come to them with an inquiry as to the price at which they would be willing to sell out the boat and cargo at Vicksburg instead of going on to New Orleans, smiled gently and said, in reply to Phil’s questions: —

“Well, perhaps you don’t always recognize a reporter when you see him. Sometimes he may come to you to talk about quite other things than those that he really wants you to tell him about. Sometimes your talk will prove to be exactly what he wants to interest his readers with, and as a reporter usually has a pretty accurate memory, he is able to reproduce all that you say so nearly as you said it, that you can’t yourself afterward discover any flaw in his report. Sometimes, too, the reporter happens to be an artist sent to get a picture of you. He may have a kodak concealed under his vest, but usually that does not work. It is clumsy, you know, and generally unsatisfactory. It is a good deal easier for a newspaper artist who knows his business to talk to you about turnips, or Grover Cleveland, or Christian Science, or the tariff, or any of those things that people always talk about, and while you think him interested in the expression of your views, make a sketch of you on his thumb nail or on his cuff, which he can reproduce at the office for purposes of print. By the way, have you talked with any reporters since you arrived at Vicksburg?”

“No,” answered Phil; “none of them have come aboard.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Well, yes; I haven’t seen a single man from the press.”

“Well, if any of the papers should happen to ‘get on’ to the fact that you are here, and print something about it, I will send you copies in the morning.”

The next morning the promised copies came. One of them contained not only a very excellent portrait of Phil and a group picture of the crew, but also an almost exact reproduction of the conversation given above.

A new light dawned upon Phil’s mind.

“After all, that fellow was a reporter and a very clever one. He didn’t want to buy the boat or its cargo or anything else. But I wonder if he was an artist also. If not, who made those pictures?”

“Well,” said Irv, “you remember there was a young woman who came on board about the same time that he did. She was very much interested in Baby, but I noticed that she went all over the boat, and when you and that young fellow were talking, she sat down on the anchor, there, and seemed to be writing a letter on a pad. Just then, as I remember, we fellows were gathered around the new lantern you had just bought and examining it – and, by the way, here’s the lantern in the group picture.”

All this was a revelation to Phil, and it interested him mightily. As for Irv Strong, he was so interested that he made up his mind to beard the lion in his den. He went to the office of one of the newspapers and asked to see its editor. But out of him he got no satisfaction whatever. The editor hadn’t the slightest idea where the interviews or the pictures had come from.

“All that,” he said, “is managed by our news department. I never know what they are going to do. I judge them only by results. But I do not mind saying to you that there would have been several peremptory discharges in this office if this paper had not had a good picture of The Last of the Flatboats, a portrait of your interesting young captain and other pictures of human interest tending to illustrate the arrival of this boat at our landing, although we rarely print pictures of any kind in our paper. This is an exceptional case. And I think that the chief of our news department would have had an uncomfortable quarter of an hour if he and his subordinates had failed to secure a talk with persons so interesting as those who captured Jim Hughes, as he is called, and secured the arrest of the others of that bank burglar’s gang, and afterward rescued one of the most distinguished citizens of Mississippi and his family from death by starvation. Really, you must excuse me from undertaking the task of telling you how our boys do these things. It is not my business to know, and I have a great many other things to do. It is their business to get the news. For that they are responsible, and to that end they have control of adequate means. Oh, by the way, that suggests to me a good editorial that ought to be written right now. Perhaps you will be interested to read it in to-morrow morning’s paper. I am just going to write it.”

As it was now midnight, Irv was bewildered. How in the world was he to read in the next morning’s paper an editorial that had, at this hour, just occurred to the man who was yet to write it? How was it to be written, set up in type, and printed before that early hour when the newspaper must be on sale?

The editor knew, if Irv did not. He knew that the hour of midnight sees the birth of many of the ablest and most influential newspaper utterances of our time. Irv’s curious questions had suggested to him a little essay upon the value of Publicity, and it was upon that theme that he wrote. He showed, with what Irv and Phil regarded as an extraordinary insight into things that they had supposed to be known only to themselves, how their very irregular reading of the newspapers, from time to time, as they received them, had first awakened their interest in a vague and general way in the bank burglary case; how, as their interest became intenser, and the descriptions of the fleeing criminal became more and more detailed, they had at last so far coupled one thing with another as to reach a correct conclusion at the critical moment. He showed how, but for this persistent and minute Publicity, they would never have dreamed of arresting the fugitive who was posing as their pilot – how, but for this, the criminals would probably never have been caught at all; how their escape would have operated as an encouragement to crime everywhere by relieving it of the fear of detection, – and much else to the like effect. It was a very interesting article, and it was one which set the boys thinking.