LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER V.

      Table of Contents

      Il veut faire secher de la neige au four et la vendre pour du sel blanc.

      When the Boreas backed away from the land to continue her voyage up the river, the Hawkinses were richer by twenty-four hours of experience in the contemplation of human suffering and in learning through honest hard work how to relieve it. And they were richer in another way also. In the early turmoil an hour after the explosion, a little black-eyed girl of five years, frightened and crying bitterly, was struggling through the throng in the Boreas’ saloon calling her mother and father, but no one answered. Something in the face of Mr. Hawkins attracted her and she came and looked up at him; was satisfied, and took refuge with him. He petted her, listened to her troubles, and said he would find her friends for her. Then he put her in a stateroom with his children and told them to be kind to her (the adults of his party were all busy with the wounded) and straightway began his search.

      It was fruitless. But all day he and his wife made inquiries, and hoped against hope. All that they could learn was that the child and her parents came on board at New Orleans, where they had just arrived in a vessel from Cuba; that they looked like people from the Atlantic States; that the family name was Van Brunt and the child’s name Laura. This was all. The parents had not been seen since the explosion. The child’s manners were those of a little lady, and her clothes were daintier and finer than any Mrs. Hawkins had ever seen before.

      As the hours dragged on the child lost heart, and cried so piteously for her mother that it seemed to the Hawkinses that the moanings and the wailings of the mutilated men and women in the saloon did not so strain at their heartstrings as the sufferings of this little desolate creature. They tried hard to comfort her; and in trying, learned to love her; they could not help it, seeing how she clung, to them and put her arms about their necks and found no solace but in their kind eyes and comforting words: There was a question in both their hearts — a question that rose up and asserted itself with more and more pertinacity as the hours wore on — but both hesitated to give it voice — both kept silence — and — waited. But a time came at last when the matter would bear delay no longer. The boat had landed, and the dead and the wounded were being conveyed to the shore. The tired child was asleep in the arms of Mrs. Hawkins. Mr. Hawkins came into their presence and stood without speaking. His eyes met his wife’s; then both looked at the child — and as they looked it stirred in its sleep and nestled closer; an expression of contentment and peace settled upon its face that touched the mother-heart; and when the eyes of husband and wife met again, the question was asked and answered.

      When the Boreas had journeyed some four hundred miles from the time the Hawkinses joined her, a long rank of steamboats was sighted, packed side by side at a wharf like sardines, in a box, and above and beyond them rose the domes and steeples and general architectural confusion of a city — a city with an imposing umbrella of black smoke spread over it. This was St. Louis. The children of the Hawkins family were playing about the hurricane deck, and the father and mother were sitting in the lee of the pilot house essaying to keep order and not greatly grieved that they were not succeeding.

      “They’re worth all the trouble they are, Nancy.”

      “Yes, and more, Si.”

      “I believe you! You wouldn’t sell one of them at a good round figure?”

      “Not for all the money in the bank, Si.”

      “My own sentiments every time. It is true we are not rich — but still you are not sorry — -you haven’t any misgivings about the additions?”

      “No. God will provide”

      “Amen. And so you wouldn’t even part with Clay? Or Laura!”

      “Not for anything in the world. I love them just the same as I love my own: They pet me and spoil me even more than the others do, I think. I reckon we’ll get along, Si.”

      “Oh yes, it will all come out right, old mother. I wouldn’t be afraid to adopt a thousand children if I wanted to, for there’s that Tennessee Land, you know — enough to make an army of them rich. A whole army, Nancy! You and I will never see the day, but these little chaps will. Indeed they will. One of these days it will be the rich Miss Emily Hawkins — and the wealthy Miss Laura Van Brunt Hawkins — and the Hon. George Washington Hawkins, millionaire — and Gov. Henry Clay Hawkins, millionaire! That is the way the world will word it! Don’t let’s ever fret about the children, Nancy — never in the world. They’re all right. Nancy, there’s oceans and oceans of money in that land — mark my words!”

      The children had stopped playing, for the moment, and drawn near to listen. Hawkins said:

      “Washington, my boy, what will you do when you get to be one of the richest men in the world?”

      “I don’t know, father. Sometimes I think I’ll have a balloon and go up in the air; and sometimes I think I’ll have ever so many books; and sometimes I think I’ll have ever so many weathercocks and water-wheels; or have a machine like that one you and Colonel Sellers bought; and sometimes I think I’ll have — well, somehow I don’t know — somehow I ain’t certain; maybe I’ll get a steamboat first.”

      “The same old chap! — always just a little bit divided about things. — And what will you do when you get to be one of the richest men in the world, Clay?”

      “I don’t know, sir. My mother — my other mother that’s gone away — she always told me to work along and not be much expecting to get rich, and then I wouldn’t be disappointed if I didn’t get rich. And so I reckon it’s better for me to wait till I get rich, and then by that time maybe I’ll know what I’ll want — but I don’t now, sir.”

      “Careful old head! — Governor Henry Clay Hawkins! — that’s what you’ll be, Clay, one of these days. Wise old head! weighty old head! Go on, now, and play — all of you. It’s a prime lot, Nancy; as the Obedstown folk say about their hogs.”

      A smaller steamboat received the Hawkinses and their fortunes, and bore them a hundred and thirty miles still higher up the Mississippi, and landed them at a little tumble-down village on the Missouri shore in the twilight of a mellow October day.

      The next morning they harnessed up their team and for two days they wended slowly into the interior through almost roadless and uninhabited forest solitudes. And when for the last time they pitched

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