The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-08-27
CHAPTER VII.


shacklett was entertained chiefly by the /
elder sister Of the host, who seemed TO the /
young committee clerk TO be a jolly girl.
Tn so glad you came just now" she |
said. "for the first excursion is this even
ing. and I'm going to make you both go !
so can show you off TO the
other girls. It's just warm enough !
for comfort. and the incest people
will be there. DO you dance? That's
one thing about A boat excursion; if you
don't want to dance there's many other
things 20 do than there is at a party. If
you're sentimental there's the teteatete in
the moonlight; if you're jolly there's the
party in the pilot house; if you're quiet
you can get outside the cabin and smoke;
if you're"
What if you're only dun?" interrupted
shacklett.
Then Wen be two souls with but sin
gle thought. You'll 60 won't your
The excursion had started from Keokuk.
six miles above, and returned there at mid
night. after going TO the end Of the rain
bow and becoming lost in the mists Of No
where. The startling blasts of the whistle
had called the people of the smart set TO
spend an evening dancing, talking, losing
hours in reverie. discussing politics. litera-
orously making love in the dolce far niente
of a moonlight evening Mississippi
river steamboat The boat was not large
one. but her barge was large as herself,
and was her better half Joined so that the
two were one. The boat and barge were
dashed together side by side, with pas
sageway between, made by taking down
section Of gunwale from each at the same
point; and the barge was like the steam
boat, except that IL lacked the engines,
wheel and pilot house. Both were bril-
liantly lighted with electric globes, and
famous band of the National Guard was
playing forward OH the cabin deck as the
boat approached the Warsaw landing.
Those who embarked when the gangplank
was thrown out were chiefly young people,
Shacklett noticed. and that the costumes
of the girls a queer cross between
evening dress and picnic plainness. He
took comfort from the element of uncon-
ventfonality he found in the suggestion of
a picnic. especially after he was aboard
and found that the men nothing more
formal than the Prince Albert coat, and
that many of them were in business suits.
But there was an air Of real breeding about
the people that he liked, though hardly
knowing what it was. There were dignified
doctors, less dignified ministers, taciturn
business men and bright lawyers among
the elder men who sat around the rail of
the boat on the upper deck, taking to staid
matrons with a few silver lines in their
hair He looked up to the hurricane deck
of the barge to his left and little
groups and single pairs of young people
watching the long, bright streak of gold
crossing the water from the low-hanging
eyes off that strip of golden water. that
suggested TO him after a while a carpet
laid over the sidewalk when they were hav-
ing a party in heaven. He laughed to him
self at this conceit and kept on in the wake
OF Miss Mckee, who was guiding him to
the stairs leading TO the cabin deck. This
they found crowded with the band forward
and people along the rails, and went on up
TO the hurricane deck. All around the low
rail up there were couples separated from
one another by the few feet across which
the properly trained and weH-modulated
voice does not carry. however distinct II is
the ear but few inches away. The
pilot house rose from the middle Of the
deck in a way that reminded Shacklett Of
standing on the fiat roof of building with
big belfry rising still higher. In its lee
were more couples teteatete camp
chairs, and the pilot was entertaining COM
pany of his own. The pilot always has
company, for the rule forbidding passen-
gers entering the pilot house and talking
TO the car OF the boat was lost overheard
long ago. Every pilot worthy of his license
can take boat through tOrtuous chan
mel sixty feet wide and talk to a bevy of
pretty girls at the same time; and the more
a girl admires genuine manhood the more
is the last remnant remaining in an evolu-
tionary form of the best of the knights of
old In ten years more almost any pilot
on the river would have. exchanged places
with ShackIett. but he never got over the
idea which came later that he would rath-
er be a Mississippi river pilot than any
thing else.
He looked out at the river, for IL was
really his first view of the Mississippi at
practicable close range. Paintings,
sculptures, and landscape gardening never
appealed TO him, but he felt glow as he
realized that he was on the Mississippi
river, for it was TO him a practical thing
OF power yelled under a smooth surface,
and seeming almost dreamily dormant in
the moonlight which blended it's great
width into either shore. 1t was a peculiar
combination of power and beauty that he
could appreciate better, perhaps, than any
one else on the boat that night; and as
Miss Mckee called his attention TO the fact
that by looking up the river now he could
see lights in three States at once as they
LETT behind Warsaw and Alexandria below
Keokuk, her words seemed TO broaden his
mind as ne drank in the breadth and depth
OF It all.
Shacklett afterward glad that he
went. but when he first boarded the boat
he wished he knew more about what was
expected OF him. When Miss Mckee was
borne of 10 the barge for the first waltz
by a dental student home on vacation she
left him with an introduction TO a girl who
seemed 10 Shacklett TO be almost as much
out of her sphere as he was himself In the
moment OF Introduction Miss Mckee told
him that his new acquaintance did not
dance. and would be a delightful enter
tsiner who would not be looking wistfully
over TO the barge and the orchestra all the
time. and with this hint he began to try
TO discover what sort of a girl Miss Stod-
dard was.
L feel very much as I imagine a Wyo-
ming woman does when she takes a seat ON
a jury he said. FOR 1 never was on q