Read Online The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton by Jane Smiley - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jane Smiley
Tags: Fiction
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Sometime later, we heard a great shouting, and the clamor of feet upon the deck told us that we had arrived in Saint Louis.
Miss Annabelle put her hand on my wrist as I moved to rise from my chair. She said, "If you’ll pardon me for making a personal observation, my dear, I must say that you seem a young woman of uncommon self-possession and fortitude. So many of these young wives we see, well..." Her voice faded as if ruefully. "The adventure is for the men, my dear; that’s the way of it here in the west."
I said that this was surely true. But I didn’t mean it.
CHAPTER 5
I Am Much Daunted by New Experiences
But, as society gradually shakes off the remnants of barbarism, and the intellectual and moral interests of man rise, in estimation, above the merely sensual, a truer estimate is formed of woman’s duties, and of the measure of intellect reguisite for the proper discharge of them. —p. 156
THE TUMULT OF THE LEVEE at Saint Louis burst upon my sight, unlike anything I had ever seen before. Our boat was undeniably moving toward the land, but the water was so dark and so crowded with other boats that it seemed to be magically pressing itself through a tangle of decks and railings and chimneys and freight. Above the waterline, all was alight with great lamps on poles and torches and fires, and there were as many people about as if it were broad day. We made our way through a thick field of boats, large and small, glorious and humble, empty and full, busy and quiet, among them the most famous Saint Louis—Pittsburgh packet, the Allegheny Queen, which just that summer had won a race from Cincinnati to New Orleans, jostling with the most famous Saint Louis-New Orleans packet, the Paul Revere, whose railings on the passenger deck gleamed with gold in the flickering light. Their names were clearly painted in ornate script on the wheel housings, and I told Mr. Newton what I had heard of each one in Horace Silk’s store, where talk of the best steamboats and their pilots and captains and owners came second only to talk of Kansas. We passed two steam-wreck salvage boats that lay side by side among the others, giant flat platforms on two hulls with a great complex framework like a metal forest that rose into the dark night. Mr. Newton stared at them in perplexity. I said, "That’s what they use to raise exploded hulks from the bottom. Otherwise, the river would fill up end to end and bank to bank with wrecks." One of these, or a vessel just like it, had raised a wreck upstream from Quincy earlier in the summer. My cousin Frank had been the first boy at the scene, pushing himself forward to see, he said, what crinolines and combs and corpses he might be able to catch a glimpse of.
Where the river ended and the land began, the boats gave way to horses and drays and piles of freight, but there was as little room amongst all of these as there was between the boats. Everywhere, every human, animal, and machine was making as much noise as possible—the blowing of horns and ringing of bells and belching of steam formed the background to the shouts of the mates and the draymen to stand aside, or hand it over, or move it this way, or coming through, or watch the lines, or careful of the horses! The horses stamped and jingled their harness and whinnied and snorted; their carts and wagons and carriages and drays creaked under the thumps of the boxes and bales and people loaded onto them. Always there was shouting. Boys younger than Frank, black and white, looked as full of business as the white-haired men: "Planter’s House! Baggage wagon here!" (The Misses Tonkin solicited the attention of that well-dressed porter, and he recognized them with a happy smile.) "The George M. Hardy! Leaving at first light for the Falls of Saint Anthony! One of the foremost sights of the known world! Embark tonight for a convenience!" "New Orleans in five short days! The Arkansas Hopeful is the fastest boat in the west! Sixteen dollars!"
Miss Annabelle put her hand on my wrist as I moved to rise from my chair. She said, "If you’ll pardon me for making a personal observation, my dear, I must say that you seem a young woman of uncommon self-possession and fortitude. So many of these young wives we see, well..." Her voice faded as if ruefully. "The adventure is for the men, my dear; that’s the way of it here in the west."
I said that this was surely true. But I didn’t mean it.
CHAPTER 5
I Am Much Daunted by New Experiences
But, as society gradually shakes off the remnants of barbarism, and the intellectual and moral interests of man rise, in estimation, above the merely sensual, a truer estimate is formed of woman’s duties, and of the measure of intellect reguisite for the proper discharge of them. —p. 156
THE TUMULT OF THE LEVEE at Saint Louis burst upon my sight, unlike anything I had ever seen before. Our boat was undeniably moving toward the land, but the water was so dark and so crowded with other boats that it seemed to be magically pressing itself through a tangle of decks and railings and chimneys and freight. Above the waterline, all was alight with great lamps on poles and torches and fires, and there were as many people about as if it were broad day. We made our way through a thick field of boats, large and small, glorious and humble, empty and full, busy and quiet, among them the most famous Saint Louis—Pittsburgh packet, the Allegheny Queen, which just that summer had won a race from Cincinnati to New Orleans, jostling with the most famous Saint Louis-New Orleans packet, the Paul Revere, whose railings on the passenger deck gleamed with gold in the flickering light. Their names were clearly painted in ornate script on the wheel housings, and I told Mr. Newton what I had heard of each one in Horace Silk’s store, where talk of the best steamboats and their pilots and captains and owners came second only to talk of Kansas. We passed two steam-wreck salvage boats that lay side by side among the others, giant flat platforms on two hulls with a great complex framework like a metal forest that rose into the dark night. Mr. Newton stared at them in perplexity. I said, "That’s what they use to raise exploded hulks from the bottom. Otherwise, the river would fill up end to end and bank to bank with wrecks." One of these, or a vessel just like it, had raised a wreck upstream from Quincy earlier in the summer. My cousin Frank had been the first boy at the scene, pushing himself forward to see, he said, what crinolines and combs and corpses he might be able to catch a glimpse of.
Where the river ended and the land began, the boats gave way to horses and drays and piles of freight, but there was as little room amongst all of these as there was between the boats. Everywhere, every human, animal, and machine was making as much noise as possible—the blowing of horns and ringing of bells and belching of steam formed the background to the shouts of the mates and the draymen to stand aside, or hand it over, or move it this way, or coming through, or watch the lines, or careful of the horses! The horses stamped and jingled their harness and whinnied and snorted; their carts and wagons and carriages and drays creaked under the thumps of the boxes and bales and people loaded onto them. Always there was shouting. Boys younger than Frank, black and white, looked as full of business as the white-haired men: "Planter’s House! Baggage wagon here!" (The Misses Tonkin solicited the attention of that well-dressed porter, and he recognized them with a happy smile.) "The George M. Hardy! Leaving at first light for the Falls of Saint Anthony! One of the foremost sights of the known world! Embark tonight for a convenience!" "New Orleans in five short days! The Arkansas Hopeful is the fastest boat in the west! Sixteen dollars!"
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