Jack could not but feel the keen novelty of it all. The sky was warm and clear. The bright surface of the water, driven by the breeze, danced and sparkled in the drifting sunlight. It was impossible that he should not feel a thrill of interest that was like delight in the newness of everything.
About noon the overseer brought out a hamper-like basket, which he opened, and from which he took a plentiful supply of food. A couple of cold roast potatoes, a great lump of Indian-corn bread, and a thick slice of ham were passed forward to Jack. It seemed to him that he had never tasted anything so good.
After he had finished his meal he felt very sleepy. He curled himself down upon the bags in the sunlight, and presently dozed off.
The afternoon sun was slanting when he was aroused by a thumping and bumping and a stir on board. He opened his eyes, and sat up to see that the boat had again stopped at a landing-place. It was a straggling, uneven wharf, at the end of which, upon the shore, was an open shed. Thence a rough and rugged road ran up the steep bluff bank, and then turned away into the woody wilderness beyond. A wagon with a nondescript team of oxen and mules, and half a dozen men, black and white, were waiting beside the shed at the end of the wharf for the coming of the flat-boat.
Mr. Parker had gone ashore, and Jack could see him and the overseer talking together and inspecting a small boat that lay pulled up from the water upon a little strip of sandy beach. Jack himself climbed out from the boat upon the wharf, where he walked up and down, stretching himself and watching those at work. Presently he heard some one calling, “Where’s that young fellow? Hi, you, come here!”
Then Jack saw that they had made ready the smaller boat at which they had been looking, and had got the sail hoisted upon it; it flapped and beat in the wind. A little group stood about it, and Jack saw that they were waiting for him. He ran along the wharf, and jumped down from it to the little strip of sandy beach. They were in the act of pushing off the boat when he climbed aboard. As it slid off into the water Mr. Parker stepped into it. Two men ran splashing through the water and pushed it off, and as it reached the deeper water, one of them jumped in over the stern with a dripping splash of his bare feet, catching the tiller and trimming the sail as he did so, and bringing the bow of the boat around before the wind. Then there was a gurgling ripple of water under the bows as the wind filled the sail more strongly, and presently the wharf and the flat-boat dropped rapidly astern, and once more Jack was sailing down the river, while wooded shores and high bluff banks, alternating one another, drifted by, and were dropped away behind.