So definite was the impression of something abnormal about the stranger that she experienced a sentiment of relief when the swamper came in to his supper alone. “Jessy Jane,” he said, pausing in the doorway and jerking his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the subject of his discourse, “that man is as queer a fish as ever war cotched. Says he is waitin’ fur a boat an’ has hired my old dugout an’ is paddling out to that air steamboat whut’s aground on the sand-bar.”
She gazed dully at him, a big spoon in her hand with which she had been lifting a mass of cat-fish from a skillet on a red-hot monkey-stove. “Nuthin’ queer in that as I kin see,--Hesh up!” she broke off in jocose objurgation of the baby who was beaming upon the supper table from where he was tied in one of the bunks and who lifted his voice vociferously, apparently in pæans of praise of the great smoking cat-fish spread at length on a dish. “You ain’t goin’ ter have none,--fish-bone git cotched in yer gullet, an’ whar-r would Tadpole-Wheezie be then.” Resuming the conversation in her former serious tone, “What’s queer in waitin’ fur a boat? Plenty folks have waited fur boats, an’ cotch ’em an’ rid on ’em too.”
“But this feller is goin’ ter cotch a boat what can’t go nowhar. He is right now paddlin’ fur dear life out to the _Cher’kee Rose_, old stick-in-the-mud, out thar on the sand-bar.”
Josh Berridge flung himself down in a chair at the half prepared table, and awaited there in place the completion of the “dishing up” of supper.
She stood eyeing him doubtfully, the big spoon still in her hand. “I wonder all them passengers don’t come ashore, an’ track off through the woods, like he spoke of doin’ las’ night an’ flag the train.”
“Gosh, Jessy Jane,--it’s a durned sight too fur. Ten mile, at least, ez the crow flies, an’ thar ain’t no road nor nuthin’.”
He said no more for his mouth was full, and the attention of the woman was diverted by the entrance of her husband, with the declaration that he was as hungry as a bear. He was of a bulky presence, seeming to crowd the restricted little apartment, which was more like the cabin of a shanty-boat than a room in a stationary dwelling. It was of a hazy aspect, low-ceiled and soot-blackened, as shown by a lamp swinging from the central beam, smoking portentously from an untrimmed protrusion of charring wick. Two tiers of bunks were arranged nautically on either side, and the windows still above were small oblong apertures, suggestive of cabin lights or transoms; perhaps this had been their earlier use, for several articles about the place betokened an origin inapposite to the culture and condition of its occupants. A fine barometer in a shining mahogany case graced the wall near a door leading to an inner apartment. The handsome binocular glass lay on a shelf so rough that the undressed wood offered an opportunity for splinters to every unwary touch. Each of the pillow-cases bore a rude patch where the name of a steamboat had been cut out, and the dirty cloth on the table was of linen damask suited to the requirements of the somewhat exacting traveling public. Even the bowl into which the woman was heaping a greasy mass of potatoes and pork from the pot was of the decorated china affected by the packet usage, and a compote filled with doughy fat biscuits bore the title of a steamer that went to the bottom one windy night some years ago.