Mississippi Jack: Being an Account of the Further Waterborne Adventures of Jacky Faber, Midshipman, Fine Lady, and Lily of the West (32 page)

Jim and Clementine run off, hand in hand, laughing, to taste the charms of the town, and, I am sure, the charms of each other.
Oh, well
...

That night, the
Belle
is left in the capable guard of Crow Jane, the Preacher, Katy, and Daniel, who was allowed enough time to go buy himself a folding knife, of which he is most proud.

Higgins and Lady Gay and I go in search of a tavern, where music might be wanted and where the company should prove kind.

On the day before our departure, the Hawkes boys return. We have not seen hide nor hair of them since they went hooting off with some jingle in their pockets, and I despaired of their return, thinking them surely in jail, or drunk in some ditch—but no, here they are, and instead of looking sodden, seedy, and dirty, they are quite spruced up. They had plainly found a barber, for they are freshly shaven and their hair is neatly cut. They each have a new jacket and hat, and I would be amazed at this change in their appearance had not the reasons for it been simpering by their sides: There stand two girls, dressed identically in frilly pink dresses with matching pink hats. Hats, that is, not the usual bonnets of the frontier, and the girls are, in fact, twins. They look as out of place on this rough dock as the girls of the Lawson Peabody looked two months ago when confined in the belly of that vile slaver
Bloodhound.

Nathaniel Hawkes takes his girl by the hand and leads her up the gangway, to face me where I stand on the deck of the
Belle.
Yancy Cantrell stands by my side, as we have been discussing the final outfitting of the bar.

"Pardon, Boss," says 'Thaniel, taking off his new hat, "but this here's Tupelo Honey. Tupelo, honey, this here is the skipper of the
Belle of the Golden West.
"

The girl dips down in something like a curtsy. "Charmed," I say, not meaning it much.

"And this here's Honeysuckle Rose," says Matthew, proudly handing his girl up from the dock. "We'd be much obliged if you'd allow these girls to ride down to New Orleans with us, yes, we would."

I cross my arms on my chest. "Now, Matty, you know we decided not to take on any more passengers, lads, so I'm afraid we—"

Honeysuckle decides it's time to speak up. "Oh, Miss, please hear us out! We're stranded here, my poor sister and me, and we just want to get back home to dear ol' New Orleans."

Both the girls have blond hair that they perhaps were not born with, that hair having something of a brassy sheen. They are quite ample of chest and tail, with nipped-in waists, which I suspect are kept so by strong whalebone corsets. Their dresses end at mid calf, and frilly white pantaloons show below. They each hold a pink parasol.

"And just how did you ladies come to be stranded here?" I ask.

"Why, Miss, cruel, cruel fate had dealt us a very bad hand. A gentleman down in New Orleans said he had work for us upriver, at St. Louis—we are artistic dancers, you know—and so we agreed to go with him. But when we got up there, he turned out to be not a gentleman at all, no." She pulls a handkerchief out of her sleeve and dabs at her eyes, in which I can't really make out any tears. "He wanted me and my poor innocent sister to do awful things with men. Oh! I can't bear to think of it! I can't!" More dabs at eyes. Tupelo, taking the cue from her sister, whips out a hanky of her own and picks up the story, her sister being overcome with emotion.

"So Honeysuckle and me, we cut and run and made it down to Cairo, where we fell ever so gratefully under the kind and lovin' protection of these fine gentlemen." She bats her eyes up at Nathaniel.

I take this all in with more than one grain of salt. "I have friends in New Orleans. Have you ladies ever heard of a Mrs. Bodeen?" I ask.

They exchange a quick look.

Aha.

"Why, no, ah don't believe we are acquainted with that person, no," says Honeysuckle.

Uh-huh.

"And you know, Miss," chimes in Tupelo, hastily, "we'll work to pay our way."

Right, and I can imagine exactly what sort of work you have in mind.

"
Hmmm,
" says Yancy, looking the amply endowed sisters up and down. "They could tend the bar, while you and Clementine and Chloe provide the entertainment. We do have the cabin room."

"What is your last name, girls?"

"Why, it's Sweet, Miss..."

Of course.

"We are the Sweet sisters. Or were." Tupelo giggles, looking up at Nathaniel. "Now our last name is Hawkes."

What?

I cut my eyes over to the Brothers Hawkes. Nathaniel blushes mightily, the red of his cheeks matching those of his brother's. "We all got married up yesterday."

Oh, lads, what have you gone and done?

I heave a large sigh. "Well, I guess that settles it, then. You will have to work to pay your way, but I think you will find me fair. You will tend bar, wait on tables, wash glasses and dishes, help with the laundry—and ladies"—here I pause and give each of them a serious, level look—"above all, you will behave yourselves. Is that clear? Good. Welcome aboard my ship. You may call me Miss Faber."

"Oh, bless your little ol' heart, Miss Faber!" gushes Honeysuckle. "Thank you so very,
very
much!" She rushes forward to envelop me in a big ol' hug. I endure it stiffly, enveloped as well in a cloud of rose-scented perfume. "And ain't you got just the cutest little ol' accent, you!"

Lord.

So, changes are made in the living quarters. Higgins will get a cabin of his own, as will Yancy Cantrell, and so, too, the Reverend. Jim and Daniel share a cabin that has upper and lower berths. Matthew and Nathaniel each have a cabin and a Honey. All pronounce themselves well satisfied.

The former officers' quarters now become a girls' dormitory. We take down the canvas curtain that divided the male space from the female. Clementine, Katy, and I retain our old beds, and Chloe takes Jim's former bunk.
A much better arrangement,
I'm thinking. This will make bathing and other personal matters much easier. Plus, I'm glad to get Jim out of the same room with Clementine. I knew that some night soon I would wake to find Clementine not in my bed, but in Jim's, and this ship don't need any more marriages, no it don't.

Everybody's back. We push off in the morning on the biggest river of them all.

We are some days out of Cairo and things are going very well. Now we have Tennessee to our east and Missouri to our west. We have made stops at Dorena and Tiptonville and Point Pleasant and Caruthersville and other places whose names I forget almost as soon as we leave them, but we do leave them happier than they were before our arrival.

When we approach a likely town and the weather is fair, we put Chloe's instrument up on the cabin top, and with her pounding away on the harpsichord and me sawing on the fiddle for all I'm worth, well, they gotta know something special's coming. And something special it is, with the
Belle of the Golden West
all bright in her new paint, and all of us girls up on deck dressed in our best, waving and singing. Kids, told of our coming by Jim Tanner, watch out for us, and when we come around the bend and into their town, they scamper off to spread the word.
The showboat's here!

In some of the places, we've been able to put on all three of our shows. We arrive, set up the performance boards and curtain frame on whatever dock the town has to offer, and send Jim and Daniel around to announce the times of the show. We run the Sanctified Show, the Very Reverend Jeremiah Clawson, Harvard Divinity Class of '82, presiding, with the Calico Angels (singers Clementine and me, and Chloe at the harpsichord) at noon or thereabouts. Then we do the Medicine Show at three in the afternoon, and the Tavern Show at night, inside the
Belle.
We charge no admission; we merely pass the collection plate after the church service, sell bottles of Captain Jack's Elixir in the afternoon, and sell drinks and food at night. So far, we prosper.

The Captain Jack's Tonic Hour of High Hilarity, our medicine show, not only has the sales pitch with Reverend Clawson holding up a bottle and pointing to the label while reciting the list of complaints and ailments the elixir would cure, the bottles for sale lined up on a table before him, but the show is also filled with comical songs and skits. In one of them, I play a bit of a tune on the fiddle, and every now and then I stop and Matty and Nathaniel, acting out the parts of a farmer and a lost traveler, have a little exchange of words. It goes like this:

MATTHEW:
Say, Farmer, does this road go to Sharpsville?

NATHANIEL:
Wal, Stranger, I've lived here all my life and it ain't gone nowhere yet. It just sorta lies there.

Then I come back with the tune again, and then in a bit, I stop.

MATTHEW:
Say, Farmer, you ain't very smart, are ye?

NATHANIEL:
Mebbe not, Stranger, but I ain't lost, neither.

Once more I play the tune, then again pause.

MATTHEW:
Say, Farmer, just how do I get to Sharpsville, then?

NATHANIEL:
Sorry, Stranger, you jest cain't get there from here.

Back again with the fiddle, the Hawkes boys join in with their jaw harps and some fancy clogging, and we finish it off with a flourish. Corny, yes, but it works. We get laughs every time.

Then there's the testimonial. While the Reverend's making another pitch, I nip into the cabin, put on a white apron and a child's bonnet, and pop back to give a testimonial: "Oh, good people, onc't I was a very bad little girl—wouldn't mind my elders, took fits, sayin' swears, but ever since my mama started givin' me a teaspoonful a day of Captain Jack's All Season Tonic and Elixir, why, I've been good as any angel!" Here I rub my belly and put on my idiot's grin and say, "And it tastes good, too!
Mmm, mmm!
"

Sales of the tonic are brisk.

We end the Medicine Show with a playlet I have written, called
The Villain Pursues Constant Maiden, or Fair Virtue in Peril.

The Cast of Players

Miss Jacky Faber as Miss Prudence Goodlove, maiden
Master Daniel Prescott as Timothy, her sickly little brother
Rev. Jeremiah Clawson as her father, Col. Goodlove,
away at war

Mr. James Tanner as her betrothed, Captain Noble
Strongheart, away at war
Mr. Yancy Cantrell as the evil Banker Morgan
The Scene: Inside the Goodlove home on Babbling
Brook Farm

We open with Chloe playing some happy, down-home music, and when she lets it trail off, Higgins steps up and intones in his best British accent, "The Scene is in the parlor of the Goodlove home. Miss Prudence Goodlove has just received some disturbing news," and then he steps off. The Hawkes boys open the curtains, revealing Daniel and me. I am dressed in my special white dress, one that I purchased in Cairo and had altered to suit this play. Daniel is neatly dressed, his hair combed and parted down the middle.

TIMOTHY:
Sister, Sister, whatever is the matter? What distresses you so?
(Daniel rips out a few convincing coughs.)

PRUDENCE:
Oh, Brother Timothy! The worst of news! The foreman has just informed me that the locusts have come and eaten our crop!
(I put the back of my hand to my forehead to show great distress.)
We shall have to mortgage the farm. Oh, that dear Papa were here. Oh, that the cruel war were over!

TIMOTHY:
Surely, Sister—
(cough! cough!)
—surely there is another way!

PRUDENCE:
No, dear Brother, there is not. We must pay the help. We must have money for food.

We must do it. (
I wipe away tears
.) I will send the foreman for Banker Morgan right now.

CURTAIN

The curtain closes as Chloe plays a very sad and mournful adagio and then Higgins again steps forward to gravely announce, "The very next day." Behind him, the curtain opens.

TIMOTHY
(cupping ear):
Hark! I hear hoofbeats outside. It must be Banker Morgan! Oh, Sister, I hope you do not rue this day! I do not like Banker Morgan!

PRUDENCE:
Now, Timothy, we must have hope. There is still time to get in another crop before the fall. We must have faith and trust in God.

(There is the sound of knocking.)

PRUDENCE:
Come in.
(Yancy Cantrell enters wearing a black hat and cloak, looking evil, shifty-eyed, and sinister. Chloe does a two-handed, anxious-sounding tremolo.)
Mr. Morgan, how good of you to come so quickly to our aid. Thank you so much.

MORGAN:
You are welcome, my dear.
(He pulls a sheaf of papers from his cloak.)
I have the papers right here. If you will just sign them, your troubles will be over. Heh, heh.

I lean over the table we have set up, take up a pen, and sign the notes. Yancy, behind my back, runs his eyes up and down my form, leers whilst twirling his mustache, and winks broadly at the audience, which is beginning to work up a few hisses for the villain.

PRUDENCE:
There. It is done.

MORGAN:
Not quite, my dear. You must first give me the deed to your farm to hold until the note is paid in full.

PRUDENCE
(opening a drawer in the table and pulling out a paper):
Here. (
I hand the paper to Yancy, but instead of taking it, he grabs me by the wrist and pulls me to him, encircling my waist with his arm.)

MORGAN:
Come with me, my honey, my sweet, and you'll never worry about money again, I promise you.
(He rains kisses on my face and neck.)

PRUDENCE:
Please, Sir! Let me go! (
I struggle in his grasp.)

MORGAN:
Unhand her, you cad!
(Daniel rushes at Yancy, his puny fists flailing at the man. Yancy kicks him away. The boy falls to the floor, coughing. The crowd's hissing redoubles.)

MORGAN:
Out of the way, brat! This is man's business!

PRUDENCE:
I shall never go with you and lead a shameful life! Let me go! (
I struggle out of his grasp.
) I am promised to Captain Noble Strongheart. Oh, would that he were here now, he would give you such a thrashing! Give me my money and leave my house, Sir! (
I point offstage, my face full of righteous indignation.
)

MORGAN:
Very well, my reluctant beauty.
(He scoops up the fallen deed and flings a bag of coins at my feet.)
Just remember, my winsome lass, that the note is due on the first of October. The payment must be in full, or you shall be put out of this place! We shall see what happens then, and in what form payment will be made!
(Banker Morgan pulls his cloak over his face so that only his evil eyes show. He exits to loud hisses and boos.)

PRUDENCE:
Oh, poor, poor brave Brother! (
I kneel down next to the fallen Timothy and lift his head. The audience gasps to see a thin trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. I turn my tearful face to the audience.)
Oh, was pure Virtue and Brotherly Valor ever,
ever,
more sorely tried!