Show Boat (7 page)

“Well, I should say as much!” Parthy retorted, ambiguously. “What kind of language can a body expect, you hanging around show-boat riff-raff.”

Magnolia would not be cheated of her dénouement. “But did he? Did he shoot it off, or did he fix it, or what? What did he do?”

“He set it, all right. They gave him his twenty-five and told him to get the h——to get out of there, and he got. But they had to get the boat out—the towboat they’d saved—and no pilot but Hard Harry. So next day they put him on the hurricane deck, under a tarpaulin because the rain was pouring the way it does down there worse than any place in the world, just about. And with two men steering, he brings the boat to Baton Rouge seventy-five miles through bayou and Mississippi. Yessir.”

Magnolia breathed again.

“And who’s this,” demanded Mrs. Hawks, “was telling you all this fol-de-rol, did you say?”

“Swager himself. Harry. Hard Harry Swager, they call him.” (You could see the ten-foot pole leap of itself into Mrs. Hawks’ hand as her fingers drummed the tablecloth.) “I was talking to him to-day. Here of late he’s been with the
New Sensation
. He piloted the
Cotton Blossom
for years till Pegram decided to quit. Well, sir! He says five hundred people a night on the
show boat was nothing, and eight hundred on Saturday nights in towns with a good back-country. Let me tell you right here and now that runs into money. Say a quarter of ’em’s fifty centers, a half thirty-five, and the rest twenty-five. The niggers all twenty-five up in the gallery, course. Naught … five times five’s … five and carry the two … five times two’s ten carry the one … five …”

Parthy was no fool. She sensed that here threatened a situation demanding measures even more than ordinarily firm.

“I may not know much”—another form of locution often favoured by her. The tone in which it was spoken utterly belied the words; the tone told you that not only did she know much, but all. “I may not know much, but this I do know. You’ve got something better to do with your time than loafing down at the landing like a river rat with that scamp Swager. Hard Harry! He comes honestly enough by that name, I’ll be bound, if he never came honestly by anything else in his life. And before the child, too. Show boats! And language!”

“What’s wrong with show boats?”

“Everything, and more, too. A lot of loose-living worthless scallywags, men
and
women. Scum, that’s what. Trollops!” Parthy could use a good old Anglo-Saxon word herself, on occasion.

Captain Andy made frantic foray among the whiskers. He clawed like a furious little monkey—always the sign of mental disturbance in him. “No more scum than your own husband, Mrs. Hawks, ma’am. I used to be with a show-boat troupe myself.”

“Pilot, yes.”

“Pilot be damned.” He was up now and capering like a Quilp. “Actor, Mrs. Hawks, and pretty good I was, too, time I was seventeen or eighteen. You ought to’ve seen me in the after-piece. Red Hot Coffee it was called. I played the nigger. Doubled in brass, too. I pounded the bass drum in the band, and it was bigger than me.”

Magnolia was enchanted. She sprang up, flew round to him. “Were you really? An actor? You never told me. Mama, did you know? Did you know Papa was an actor on a show boat?”

Parthy Ann rose in her wrath. Always taller than her husband, she seemed now to tower above him. He defied her, a terrier facing a mastiff.

“What kind of talk is this, Andy Hawks! If you’re making up tales to tease me before the child I’m surprised at you, that thought nothing you could do would ever surprise me again.”

“It’s the truth. The
Sunny South
, she was called. Captain Jake Bofinger, owner. Married ten times, old Jake was. A pretty rough lot we were in those days, let me tell you. I remember time we——”

“Not another word, Captain Hawks. And let me tell you it’s a good thing for you that you kept it from me all these years. I’d never have married you if I’d known. A show-boat actor!”

“Oh, yes, you would, Parthy. And glad of the chance.”

Words. Bickering. Recriminations. Finally, “I’ll thank you not to mention show boats again in front of
the child. You with your La Vernes and your Hard Harrys and your concerts and broken legs and fires and ten wives and language and what not! I don’t want to be dirtied by it, nor the child.… Run out and play, Magnolia.… And let this be the last of show-boat talk in this house.”

Andy breathed deep, clung with both hands to his whiskers, and took the plunge. “It’s far from being the last of it, Parthy. I’ve bought the
Cotton Blossom
from Pegram.”

M
ANY quarrels had marked their married life, but this one assumed serious proportions. It was a truly sinister note in the pageant of mismating that passed constantly before Magnolia’s uncomprehending eyes in childhood. Parthenia had opposed him often, and certainly always when a new venture or plan held something of the element of unconventionally. But now the Puritan in her ran rampant. He would disgrace her before the community. He was ruining the life of his child. She would return to her native New England. He would not see Magnolia again. He had explained to her—rather, it had come out piecemeal—that his new project would necessitate his absence from home for months at a time. He would be away, surely, from April until November. If Parthy and the child would live with him on the show boat part of that time—summers—easy life—lots to see—learn the country——

The storm broke, raged, beat about his head, battered his diminutive frame. He clutched his whiskers and hung on for dear life. In the end he won.

All that Parthy ever had in her life of colour, of romance, of change, he brought her. But for him she would still be ploughing through the drifts or mud of the New England road on her way to and from the
frigid little schoolhouse. But for him she would still be living her barren spinster life with her salty old father in the grim coast town whence she had come. She was to trail through the vine-hung bayous of Louisiana; float down the generous rivers of the Carolinas, of Tennessee, of Mississippi, with the silver-green weeping willows misting the water’s edge. She was to hear the mellow plaintive voices of Negroes singing on the levees and in cabin doorways as the boat swept by. She would taste exotic fruits; see stirring sights; meet the fantastic figures that passed up and down the rivers like shadows drifting in and out of a weird dream. Yet always she was to resent loveliness; fight the influence of each new experience; combat the lure of each new face. Tight-lipped, belligerent, she met beauty and adventure and defied them to work a change in her.

For three days, theft, following Andy’s stupendous announcement, Parthenia threatened to leave him, though certainly, in an age that looked upon the marriage tie as well-nigh indissoluble by any agent other than death, she could not have meant it, straight-laced as she was. For another three days she refused to speak to him, conveying her communications to him through a third person who was, perforce, Magnolia. “Tell your father thus-and-so.” This in his very presence. “Ask your father this-and-that.”

Experience had taught Magnolia not to be bewildered by these tactics; she was even amused, as at a game. But finally the game wearied her; or perhaps, child though she was, an instinctive sympathy between her and her father made her aware of the pain twisting the
face of the man. Suddenly she stamped her foot, issued her edict. “I won’t tell him another single word for you. It’s silly. I thought it was kind of fun, but it isn’t. It’s silly for a great big grown-up person like you that’s a million years old.”

Andy was absent from home all day long, and often late into the night. The
Cotton Blossom
was being overhauled from keel to pilot house. She was lying just below the landing; painters and carpenters were making her ship-shape. Andy trotted up and down the town and the river bank, talking, gesticulating, capering excitedly. There were numberless supplies to be ordered; a troupe to be assembled. He was never with out a slip of paper on which he figured constantly. His pockets and the lining of his cap bristled with these paper scraps.

One week following their quarrel Parthy Ann began to evidence interest in these negotiations. She demanded details. How much had he paid for that old mass of kindling wood? (meaning, of course, the
Cotton Blossom)
. How many would its theatre seat? What did the troupe number? What was their route? How many deck-hands? One cook or two? Interspersed with these questions were grumblings and dire predictions anent money thrown away; poverty in old age; the advisability of a keeper being appointed for people whose minds had palpably given way. Still, her curiosity was obviously intense.

“Tell you what,” suggested Andy with what he fancied to be infinite craft. “Get your hat on come on down and take a look at her.”

“Never,” said Parthenia; and untied her kitchen apron.

“Well, then, let Magnolia go down and see her. She likes boats, don’t you, Nola? Same’s her pa.”

“H’m! Likely I’d let her go,” sniffed Parthy.

Andy tried another tack. “Don’t you want to come and see where your papa’s going to live all the months and months he’ll be away from you and ma?”

At which Magnolia, with splendid dramatic sense, began to cry wildly and inconsolably. Parthy remained grim. Yet she must have been immediately disturbed, for Magnolia wept so seldom as to be considered a queer child on this count, among many others.

“Hush your noise,” commanded Parthy.

Great sobs racked Magnolia. Andy crudely followed up his advantage. “I guess you’ll forget how your papa looks time he gets back.”

Magnolia, perfectly aware of the implausibility of any such prediction, now hurled herself at her father, wrapped her arms about him, and howled, jerking back her head, beating a tattoo with her heels, interspersing the howls with piteous supplications not to be left behind. She wanted to see the show boat; and, with the delightful memory of the
Creole Belle
trip fresh in her mind, she wanted to travel on the
Cotton Blossom
as she had never wanted anything in her life. Her eyes were staring and distended; her fingers clutched; her body writhed; her moans were heart-breaking. She gave a magnificent performance.

Andy tried to comfort her. The howls increased. Parthy tried stern measures. Hysteria. The two
united then, and alarm brought pleadings, and pleadings promises, and finally the three sat intertwined, Andy’s arm about Magnolia and Parthenia; Parthenia’s arm embracing Andy and Magnolia; Magnolia clinging to both.

“Come get your hair combed. Mama’ll change your dress. Now stop that crying.” Magnolia had been shaken by a final series of racking sobs, real enough now that the mechanics had been started. Her lower lip quivered at intervals as the wet comb chased the strands of straight black hair around Mrs. Hawks’ expert forefinger. When finally she appeared in starched muslin petticoats and second-best plaid serge, there followed behind her Parthy Ann herself bonneted and cloaked for the street. The thing was done. The wife of a showman. The Puritan in her shivered, but her curiosity was triumphant even over this. They marched down Oak Street to the river landing, the child skipping and capering in her excitement. There was, too, something of elation in Andy’s walk. If it had not been for the grim figure at his side and the restraining hand on his arm, it is not unlikely that the two—father and child—would have skipped and capered together down to the water’s edge. Mrs. Hawks’ tread and mien were those of a matronly Christian martyr on her way to the lions. As they went the parents talked of unimportant things to which Magnolia properly paid no heed, having had her way.… Gone most of the time.… It wouldn’t hurt her any, I tell you.… Learn more in a week than she would in a year out of books.… But they
ain’t
, I tell you. Decent folks as you’d ever
want to see. Married couples, most of ’em.… What do you think I’m running? A bawdy-boat?… Oh, language be damned!… Now, Parthy, you’ve got this far, don’t start all over again.… There she is! Ain’t she pretty! Look, Magnolia! That’s where you’re going to live.… Oh, all right, all right! I was just talking …

The
Cotton Blossom
lay moored to great stobs. Long, and wide and plump and comfortable she looked, like a rambling house that had taken perversely to the nautical life and now lay at ease on the river’s broad breast. She had had two coats of white paint with green trimmings; and not the least of these green trimmings comprised letters, a foot high, that smote Parthy’s anguished eye, causing her to groan, and Magnolia’s delighted gaze, causing her to squeal. There it was in all the finality of painter’s print:

Parthy gathered her dolman more tightly about her, as though smitten by a chill. The clay banks of the levee were strewn with cinders and ashes for a foothold. The steep sides of a river bank down which they would scramble and up which they would clamber were to be the home path for these three in the years to come.

An awninged upper deck, like a cosy veranda, gave the great flat boat a curiously homelike look. On the main deck, too, the gangplank ended in a forward deck which was like a comfortable front porch. Pillars, adorned with scroll-work, supported this. And there, its mouth open in a half-oval of welcome, was the ticket window
through which could be seen the little box office with its desk and chair and its wall rack for tickets. There actually were tickets stuck in this, purple and red and blue. Parthy shut her eyes as at a leprous sight. A wide doorway led into the entrance hall. There again double doors opened to reveal a stairway.

“Balcony stairs,” Andy explained, “and upper boxes. Seat hundred and fifty to two hundred, easy. Niggers mostly, upstairs, of course.” Parthy shuddered. An aisle to the right, an aisle to the left of this stairway, and there was the auditorium of the theatre itself, with its rows of seats and its orchestra pit; its stage, its boxes, its painted curtain raised part way so that you saw only the lower half of the Venetian water scene it depicted; the legs of gondoliers in wooden attitudes; faded blue lagoon; palace steps. Magnolia knew a pang of disappointment. True, the boxes bore shiny brass railings and boasted red plush upholstered seats.