Connecticut western news., 1874-10-23
THE ROUSTABOUT MYSTERY.

THE ROUSTABOUT MYSTERY.
 " Lively, boys-lively. Trot along "Taint no time to try the turtle step. While you're creepin' along like an anglewotm funeral the Wabash is g fallin', an if we get stuck way up the river, so as to have to lay up all sum. mer an you have to hoof it to deep water, you can blame your own lazy legs for it." ,.-..
 The speaker was Capt. Sam Bates, ot the lively little packet Helen Douglas, and his hearers were the deck-hands or "roustabouts," who were engaged in the business of wooding up. To the bystanders the men appeared to move with alacrity, and the large pile of wood on the bank seemed to dissolve and melt away under the touch of their hard hands, but to the captain, anx- ious to get up the Wabash for 8 load of freight, and to get out again before the river, temporarily swelled by the "June freshet," could fall, the men seemed to be going to church, they walked so slowly. Besides, the captain had to say something no Western steamboat man in possession of all his senses would imagine that 6 steam boat could be wooded up unless some one stood at the rail and roared en- couragingly and cursorily throughout the whole operation.
 Again the captain raised his voice
 "Come, come, nobody expects you to go back in thecountry, and cut down trees and split 'em up before you pack wood aboard. By thunder wish I'd wooded down at Carrolton; there's big cemetery there, and might have hired few corpses just to show you fellows how to tote wood. Here, you slim cuss ashore there, you look as if you were half dead ; freeze in, now, and show these snails how to travel"
 The individual addressed was s1en- der, sallow young man, who stood bent half double, and with his hands in his pockets. When thecaptain spoke, how ever, the young man undoubled him. self, scrambled up the bank, seized several sticks of wood, and hurried aboard the boat so rapidly as to strike one man between the shoulders, and to knock another off the gang plank and into the water.
 Bully!" shouted the captain. "Now you're wakin' up just as your works done. Lively, now, loafers, or you'll be left ashore. Haul in! Put it to her, Ben. (This to the pilot ) Cast of There !"
 The headline was cast of just as the pilots bell rang; the escape-pipes groaned like demons in agony the wheels -astern-stirred up the mud, and the boat glided slowly from under the trees whose overhanging branches brushed her smoke-stacks, and away she went staggering and trembling up the Mississippi.
 The Captain turned from the rail and wiped the precipitation from 8 counte- nance like that of saint conscious of having done his duty to 8 perverge generation. Suddenly his eye fell upon the young man whose performances had given the roustabouts the " "waking up which had so delighted the Captain.
 "Hands not allowed on deck-trot," said the Captain, when the youth put forth his hands appealingly, and ex- claimed
 .'Cap'n let me go long ez hand, won't ye? I hain't had no work for I don't know how long-Tve been down with ager-an' I've got middlin' sized family to look after"
 "Well," said the Captain, looking significantly at the expanse of water between the boat and the shore, "I reckon I've got to, unless I drop you overheard, and ye wouldn't consider that kind. Go below and ask the mate to take your time."
 The new hand regained tho boiler deck, and reported to the mate. That functionary surveyed the youth critic ally, and hinted that the Captain was an eternally condemned idiot for em- ploying so eternally condemned rack of bones, and instructed him to go aft with the other roughs. The young mans reception by the roustabouts was net so cordial as he could have wished. The man he knocked off the plank up- braided him another man, who was dressing an ear wounded by stick of wood propelled by the green hand, gave vent to an uncomplimentary esti- mate of the said green hands pedigree and final destiny, while gentleman of unusual length, who was addressed as ForEey, looked responsibility on the slender youth as he bemoaned the loss of 8 hat-his only one, he said-which the strangers load had removed.
 "'Most carried my head with it, too, '' remarked MT. Forkey, in conclusion.
 "I'm awful sorry-I am," said the newcomer. "I didn't mean to do no harm, but I've he'd the fever n ager ever sence I kem to this kentry, an I ain't over'n above steddy on my legs. "
 "Whar dye come from ?" asked MT. Forkey, somewhat modified.
 "Vermont," replied the stranger.
 "What made ye leave thar?" de- manded he of the wounded ear. "The West wasn't built to be staggerin' ground for blunderin' shadders."
 1T had to leave, to make Twin fur the folks," said the youth.
 "Yer hain't married ?" intelrogated gentleman in red shirt.
 "No-I meant dads folks," replied the new hand.
 "Old man hung?" growled "the Parson," so called.
 "No," exclaimed the young man, straightening and flushing, "and ken lick any feller that sez word agin the old man. He was a shoemakin', when somebody passed around Q story that he stole so folks kinder stopped buy in' af him an' ho t00k ko drink Ono