Afloat on the Ohio Part 8

Two miles beyond, is the Indiana town of Lawrenceburg, with the unkempt aspect so common to the small river places; and two miles still farther, on a Kentucky bottom, Petersburg, whose chiefest building, as viewed from the stream, is a huge distillery. On a high sandy terrace, a mile or so below, we pitch our nightly camp. All about are willows, rustling musically in the evening breeze, and, soaring far aloft, the now familiar sycamores. Nearly opposite, in Indiana, the little city of Aurora is sparkling with points of light, strains of dance music reach us over the way, and occasional shouts and gay laughter; while now and then, in the thickening dusk of the long day, we hear skiffs go chucking by from Petersburg way, and the gleeful voices of men and women doubtless being ferried to the ball.

Near Warsaw, Ky., Sat.u.r.day, May 26th.--Our first mosquito appeared last night, but he was easily slaughtered. It has been a comfort to be free, thus far, from these pests of camp life. We had prepared for them by laying in a bolt of black tarlatan at Wheeling,--greatly superior this, to ordinary white mosquito bar,--but thus far it has remained in the shopman's wrapper.

The fog this morning was of the heaviest. At 4 o'clock we were awakened by the sharp clanging of a pilot's signal bell, and there, poking her nose in among our willows, a dozen feet from the tent, was the "Big Sandy," one of the St. Louis & Cincinnati packet line.

She had evidently lost her bearings in the mist; but with a deal of ringing, and a noisy churning of the water by the reversed paddle-wheel, pulled out and disappeared into the gloom.

The river, still rising, is sweeping down an ever-increasing body of rubbish. Islands and beaches, away back to the Alleghanies on the main stream, and on thousands of miles of affluents, are yielding up those vast rafts of drift-wood and fallen timber, which have continually impressed us on our way with a sense of the enormous wastage everywhere in progress--necessary, of course, in view of the prohibitive cost of transportation. Nevertheless, one thinks pitifully of the tens of thousands who, in congested districts, each winter suffer unto death for want of fuel; and here is this wealth of forest debris, the useless plaything of the river. But not only wreckage of this character is borne upon the flood. The thievish river has picked up valuable saw-logs that have run astray, lumber of many sorts, boxes, barrels--and now and then the body of a cow or horse that has tumbled to its death from some treacherous clay-cliff or rocky terrace. The beaches have been swept clean by the rushing flood, of whatever lay upon them, be it good or bad, for the great scavenger exercises no discretion.

The bulk of the matter now follows the current in an almost solid raft, as it caroms from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e. Having swift water everywhere at this stage, for the most part we avoid entangling Pilgrim in the procession, but row upon the outskirts, interested in the curious medley, and observant of the many birds which perch upon the branches of the floating trees and sing blithely on their way. The current bears hard upon the Aurora beach, and townsfolk by scores are out in skiffs or are standing by the water's edge, engaged with boat-hooks in spearing choice morsels from the debris rushing by their door--heaping it upon the sh.o.r.e to dry, or gathering it in little rafts which they moor to the bank. It is a busy scene; the wreckers, men, women, and children alike, are so engaged in their grab-bag game that they have no eyes for us; un.o.bserved, we watch them at close range, and speculate upon their respective chances.

Rabbit Hash, Ky. (502 miles), is a crude hamlet of a hundred souls, lying nestled in a green amphitheater. A horse-power ferry runs over to the larger village of Rising Sun, its Indiana neighbor. There is a small general store in Rabbit Hash, with postoffice and paint-shop attachment, and near by a tobacco warehouse and a blacksmith shop, with a few cottages scattered at intervals over the bottom. The postmaster, who is also the storekeeper and painter, greeted me with joy, as I deposited with him mail-matter bearing eighteen cents' worth of stamps; for his is one of those offices where the salary is the value of the stamps cancelled. It is not every day that so liberal a patron comes along.

"Jemimi! Bill! but guv'm'nt business 's look'n' up--there'll be some o' th' rest o' us a-want'n this yere off'c', a ter nex' 'lection, I reck'n'."

It was the blacksmith, who is also the ferryman, who thus bantered the delighted postmaster,--a broad-faced, big-chested, brown-armed man, with his neck-muscles standing out like cords, and his mild blue eyes dancing with fun, this rustic disciple of Tubal Cain. He sat just without the door, leather ap.r.o.n on, and his red shirt-sleeves rolled up, playing checkers on an upturned soap-box, with a jolly fat farmer from the hill-country, whose broad straw hat was c.o.c.ked on the back of his bald head. The merry laughter of the two was infectious. The half-dozen spectators, small farmers whose teams and saddle-horses were hitched to the postoffice railing, were themselves hilarious over the game; and a saffron-skinned, hollow-cheeked woman in a blue sunbonnet, and with a market-basket over her arm, stopped for a moment at the threshold to look on, and then pa.s.sed within the store, her eyes having caught the merriment, although her facial muscles had apparently lost their power of smiling.

Joining the little company, I found that the farmer was a blundering player, but made up in fun what he lacked in science. I tried to ascertain the origin of the name Rabbit Hash, as applied to the hamlet. Every one had a different opinion, evidently invented on the spur of the moment, but all "'lowed" that none but the tobacco agent could tell, and he was off in the country for the day; as for themselves, they had, they confessed, never thought of it before. It always had been Rabbit Hash, and like enough would be to the end of time.

We are on the lookout for Big Bone Creek, wishing to make a side trip to the famous Big Bone Lick, but among the many openings through the willows of the Kentucky sh.o.r.e we may well miss it, hence make constant inquiry as we proceed. There was a houseboat in the mouth of one goodly affluent. As we hove in sight, a fat woman, whose gunny-sack ap.r.o.n was her chief attire, hurried up the gang-plank and disappeared within.

"h.e.l.lo, the boat!" one of us hailed.

The woman's fuzzy head appeared at the window.

"What creek is this?"

"Gunpowder, I reck'n!"--in a deep, man-like voice.

"How far below is Big Bone?"

"Jist a piece!"

"How many miles?"

"Two, I reck'n."

Big Bone Creek (512 miles), some fifty or sixty feet wide at the mouth, opens through a willow patch, between pretty, sloping hills. A houseboat lay just within--a favorite situation for them, these creek mouths, for here they are undisturbed by steamer wakes, and the fishing is usually good. The proprietor, a rather distinguished-looking mulatto, despite his old clothes and plantation straw-hat, was sitting in a chair at his cabin door, angling; his white wife was leaning over him lovingly, as we shot into the scene, but at once withdrew inside. This man, with his side-whiskers and fine air, may have been a head-waiter or a dance-fiddler in better days; but his soft, plaintive voice, and hacking cough, bespoke the invalid.

He told us what he knew about the creek, which was little enough, as he had but recently come to these parts.

At an ordinary stage in the Ohio, the Big Bone cannot be ascended in a skiff for more than half a mile; now, upon the backset, we are able to proceed for two miles, leaving but another two miles of walking to the Lick itself. The creek curves gracefully around the bases of the sugar-loaf hills of the interior. Under the swaying arch of willows, and of ragged, sprawling sycamores, their bark all patched with green and gray and buff and white, we have charming vistas--the quiet water, thick grown with aquatic plants; the winding banks, bearing green-dragons and many another flower loving damp shade; the frequent rocky palisades, oozing with springs; and great blue herons, stretching their long necks in wonder, and then setting off with a stately flight which reminds one of the cranes on j.a.panese ware.

Through the dense fringe of vegetation, we have occasional glimpses of the hillside farms--their sloping fields sprinkled with stones, their often barren pastures, numerous abandoned tracts overgrown with weeds, and blue-gra.s.s lush in the meadows. Along the edges of the Creek, and in little pocket bottoms, the varied vegetation has a sub-tropical luxuriance, and in this now close, warm air, there is a rank smell suggestive of malaria.

These bottoms are annually overflowed, so that the crude little farmsteads are on the rising ground--whitewashed cabins, many of them of logs, serve as houses; for stock, there are the veriest shanties, affording practically no shelter; best of all, the rude tobacco-drying sheds, in many of which some of last year's crop can still be seen, hanging on the strips. We are out of the world, here; and barefooted men and boys, who with listless air are fishing from the banks, gaze at us in dull wonder as we thread our tortuous way.

Finally, we learned that we could with profit go no higher. Before us were two miles of what was described as the roughest sort of hill road, and the afternoon sun was powerful; so W---- accepted the invitation of a rustic fisherman to rest with his "women folks" in a little cabin up the hill a bit. Seeing her safely housed with the good-natured "cracker" farm-wife, the Doctor, the Boy, and I trudged off toward Big Bone Lick. The waxy clay of the roadbed had recently been wetted by a shower; the walking, consequently, was none of the best. But we were repaid with charming views of hill and vale, a softly-rolling scene dotted with little gray and brown fields, clumps of woodland, rail-fenced pastures, and cabins of the crudest sort--for in the autumn-tide, the curse of malaria haunts the basin of the Big Bone, and none but he of fortune spurned would care here in this beauty-spot to plant his vine and fig-tree. Now and then our path leads us across the winding creek, which in these upper reaches tumbles noisily over ledges of jagged rock, above which luxuriant sycamores, and elms, and maples arch gracefully. At each picturesque fording-place, with its inevitable watering-pool, are stepping-stones for foot pilgrims; often a flock of geese are sailing in the pool, with craned necks and flapping wings hissing defiance to disturbers of their sylvan peace.

The travelers we meet are on horseback--most of them the yellow-skinned, hollow-cheeked folk, with lack-l.u.s.ter eyes, whom we note in the cabin doors, or dawdling about their daily routine.

On nearing the Lick, two young horsewomen, out of the common, look interestedly at us, and I stop to inquire the way, although the village spire is peering above the tree-tops yonder. Pretty, buxom, sweet-faced la.s.sies, these, with soft, pleasant voices, each with her market-basket over her arm, going homeward from shopping. It would be interesting to know their story--what it is that brings these daughters of a brighter world here into this valley of the living death.

Two hundred yards farther, where the road forks, and the one at the right hand ascends to the small hamlet of Big Bone Lick, there is an interesting picture beneath the way-post: a girl in a blue calico gown, her face deep hidden in her red sunbonnet, sits upon a chestnut mount, with a laden market-basket before her; while by her side, astride a coal-black pony, which fretfully paws to be on his way, is a roughly dressed youth, his face shaded by a broad slouched hat of the cowboy order. They have evidently met there by appointment, and are so earnestly conversing--she with her hand resting lovingly, perhaps deprecatingly, upon his bridle-arm, and his free hand nervously stroking her horse's mane, while his eyes are far afield--that they do not observe us as we pa.s.s; and we are free to weave from the incident any sort of cracker romance which fancy may dictate.

The source of Big Bone Creek is a marshy basin some fifty acres in extent, rimmed with gently-sloping hills, and freely pitted with copious springs of a water strongly sulphurous in taste, with a suggestion of salt. The odor is so powerful as to be all-pervading, a quarter of a mile away, and to be readily detected at twice that distance. This collection of springs const.i.tutes Big Bone Lick, probably the most famous of the many similar licks in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois.

The salt licks of the Ohio basin were from the earliest times resorted to in great numbers by wild beasts, and were favorite camping-grounds for Indians, and for white hunters and explorers. This one was first visited by the French as early as 1729, and became famous because of the great quant.i.ties of remains of animals which lay all over the marsh, particularly noticeable being the gigantic bones of the extinct mammoth--hence the name adopted by the earliest American hunters, "Big Bone." These monsters had evidently been mired in the swamp, while seeking to lick the salty mud, and died in their tracks. Pioneer chronicles abound in references to the Lick, and we read frequently of hunting-parties using the ribs of the mammoth for tent poles, and sections of the vertebrae as camp stools and tables. But in our own day, there are no surface evidences of this once rich treasure of giant fossils; although occasionally a "find" is made by enterprising excavators,--several bones having thus been unearthed only a week ago.

They are now on exhibition in the neighboring village, preparatory to being shipped to an Eastern museum.

As we hurried back over the rolling highway, thunder-clouds grandly rose out of the west, and great drops of rain gave us moist warning of the coming storm. W---- was watching us from the cabin door, as we made the last turning in the road, and, accompanied by the farm-wife and her two daughters, came tripping down to the landing. She had been entertained in the one down-stairs room, as royally as these honest cracker women-folk knew how; seated in the family rocking-chair, she had heard in those two hours the social gossip of a wide neighborhood; learned, too, that the cold, wet weather of the last fortnight had killed turkey-chicks and goslings by the score; heard of the damage being done to corn and tobacco, by the prevalent high water; was told how Bess and Brindle fared, off in the rocky pasture which yields little else than mulleins; and how far back Towser had to go, to claim relationship to a collie. "And weren't we really show-people, going down the river this way, in a skiff? or, if we weren't show-people, had we an agency for something? or, were we only in trade?" It seems a difficult task to make these people on the bottoms believe that we are skiffing it for pleasure--it is a sort of pleasure so far removed from their notions of the fitness of things; and so at last we have given up trying, and let them think of our pilgrimage what they will.

The entire family now a.s.sembled on the muddy bank, and bade us a really affectionate farewell, as if we had been, in this isolated corner of the world, most welcome guests who were going all too soon.

In a few strokes of the oars we were rounding the bend; and waving our hands at the little knot of watchers, went forth from their lives, doubtless forever.

The storm soon burst upon us in full fury. Clad in rubber, we rested under giant trees, or beneath projecting rock ledges, taking advantage of occasional lulls to push on for a few rods to some new shelter. The numerous little hillside runs which, in our journey up, were but dry gullies choked with leaves and boulders, were now br.i.m.m.i.n.g with muddy torrents, rushing all foam-flecked and with deafening roar into the central stream. At last the cloud curtain rolled away, the sun gushed out with fiery rays, the arch of foliage sparkled with splendor--in meadow and on hillside, the face of Nature was cleanly beautiful.

At the creek mouth, the distinguished mulatto still was fishing from his chair, and standing by his side was his wife throwing a spoon.

They nodded to us pleasantly, as old friends returned. Gliding by their boat, Pilgrim was soon once more in the full current of the swift-flowing Ohio.

We are high up to-night, on a little gra.s.s terrace in Kentucky, two miles above Warsaw. The usual country road lies back of us, a rod or two, and then a slender field surmounted by a woodland hill. Fortune favors us, almost nightly, with beautiful abiding-places. In no place could we sleep more comfortably than in our cotton home.

[Footnote A: So called from the Big Buffalo Lick, upon its banks.]

CHAPTER XVI.

New Switzerland--An old-time river pilot--Houseboat life, on the lower reaches--A philosopher in rags--Wooded solitudes--Arrival at Louisville.

Near Madison, Ind., Sunday, May 27th.--At supper last night, a houseboat fisherman, going by in his skiff, parted the willows fringing our beach, and offered to sell us some of his wares. We bought from him a two-pound catfish, which he tethered to a bush overhanging the water, until we were ready to dress it; giving us warning, that meanwhile it would be best to have an eye on our purchase, or the turtles would devour it. Hungry thieves, these turtles, the fisherman said; you could leave nothing edible in water or on land, unprotected, without constant fear of the reptiles--which reminds me that yesterday the Doctor and the Boy found on the beach a beautiful box tortoise.

Our fish was swimming around finely, at the end of his cord, when the executioner arrived, and when finally hung up in a tree was safe from the marauders. This morning the fisherman was around again, hoping to obtain another dime from the commissariat; but though we had breakfasted creditably from the little "cat," we had no thought of stocking our larder with his kind. So the grizzly man of nets took a fresh chew of tobacco, and sat a while in his boat, "pa.s.s'n' th' time o' day" with us, punctuating his remarks with frequent expectorations.

The new Kentucky houseboat law taxes each craft of this sort seven-and-a-half dollars, he said: five dollars going to the State, and the remainder to the collector. There was to be a patrol boat, "to see that th' fellers done step to th' cap'n's office an' settle."

But the houseboaters were going to combine and fight the law on const.i.tutional grounds, for they had been told that it was clearly an interference with commerce on a national highway. As for the houseboaters voting--well, some of them did, but the most of them didn't. The Indiana registry law requires a six months' residence, and in Kentucky it is a full year, so that a houseboat man who moves about any, "jes' isn't in it, sir, thet's all." However, our visitor was not much disturbed over the practical disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of his cla.s.s--it seemed, rather, to amuse him; he was much more concerned in the new tax, which he thought an outrageous imposition. In bidding us a cheery good-bye, he noticed my kodak. "Yees be one o' them photygraph parties, hey?" and laughed knowingly, as though he had caught me in a familiar trick. No child of nature so simple, in these days, as not to recognize a kodak.

Warsaw, Ky. (524 miles), just below, has some bankside evidences of manufacturing, but on the whole is rather down at the heel. A contrast this, to Vevay (533 miles), on the Indiana sh.o.r.e, which, though a small town on a low-lying bottom, is neat and apparently prosperous.

Vevay was settled in 1803, by John James Dufour and several a.s.sociates, from the District of Vevay, in Switzerland, who purchased from Congress four square miles hereabout, and, christening it New Switzerland, sought to establish extensive vineyards in the heart of this middle West. The Swiss prospered. The colony has had sufficient vitality to preserve many of its original characteristics unto the present day. Much of the land in the neighborhood is still owned by the descendants of Dufour and his fellows, but the vineyards are not much in evidence. In fact, the grape-growing industry on the banks of the Ohio, although commenced at different points with great promise, by French, Swiss, Germans, and Americans alike, has not realized their expectations. The Ohio has proved to be unlike the Rhine in this respect. In the long run, the vine in America appears to fare better in a more northern lat.i.tude.

Three miles above Vevay, near Plum Creek, I was interested in the Indiana farm upon which Heathcoat Picket settled in 1795--some say in 1790. In his day, Picket was a notable flatboat pilot. He was credited with having conducted more craft down the river to New Orleans, than any other man of his time--going down on the boat, and returning on foot. It is said that he made over twenty trips of this character, which is certainly a marvelous record at a time when there were only Indian trails through the more than a thousand miles of dense forest between Vevay and New Orleans, and when a savage enemy might be expected to lurk behind any tree, ready to slay the rash pale-face.

Picket's must have been a life of continuous adventure, as thrilling as the career of Daniel Boone himself; yet he is now known to but a local antiquarian or two, and one stumbles across him only in foot-notes. The border annals of the West abound with incidents as romantic as any which have been applauded by men. Daniel Boone is not the only hero of the frontier; he is not even the chief hero,--he is but a type, whom an accident of literature has made conspicuous.

The Kentucky River (541 miles) enters at Carrollton, Ky.,--a well-to-do town, with busy-looking wharves upon both streams,--through a wide and rather uninteresting bottom. But, over beyond this, one sees that it has come down through a deep-cut valley, rimmed with dark, rolling hills, which speak eloquently of a diversified landscape along its banks. The Indian Kentucky, a small stream but half-a-dozen rods wide, enters from the north, five miles below--"Injun Kaintuck,"

it was called by a jovial junk-boat man stationed at the mouth of the tributary. There are, on the Ohio, several examples of this peculiar nomenclature: a river enters from the south, and another affluent coming in from the north, nearly opposite, will have the same name with the prefix "Indian." The reason is obvious; the land north of the Ohio remained Indian territory many years after Kentucky and Virginia were recognized as white man's country, hence the convenient distinction--the river coming in from the north, near the Kentucky, for instance, became "Indian Kentucky," and so on through the list.

Houseboats are less frequent, in these reaches of the river. The towns are fewer and smaller than above; consequently there is less demand for fish, or for desultory labor. Yet we seldom pa.s.s a day, in the most rustic sections, without seeing from half-a-dozen to a dozen of these craft. Sometimes they are a few rods up the mouths of tributaries, half hidden by willows and overhanging sycamores; or, in picturesque little openings of the willow fringe along the main sh.o.r.e; or, boldly planted at the base of some rocky ledge. At the towns, they are variously situated: in the water, up the beach a way, or high upon the bottom, whither some great flood has carried them in years gone by. Occasionally, when high and dry upon the land, they have a bit of vegetable garden about them, rented for a time from the farmer; but, even with the floaters, chickens are commonly kept, generally in a coop on the roof, connected with the sh.o.r.e by a special gang-plank for the fowls; and the other day, we saw a thrifty houseboater who had several colonies of bees.

There was a rise of only two feet, last night; evidently the flood is nearly at its greatest. We are now twenty feet above the level of ten days ago, and are frequently swirling along over what were then sharp, stony slopes, and brushing the topmost boughs of the lower lines of willows and scrub sycamores. Thus we have a better view of the country; and, approaching closely to the banks, can from our seats at any time pluck blue lupine by the armful. It thrives mightily on these gravelled sh.o.r.es, and so do the bignonia vine, the poison ivy, and the Virginia creeper. The hills are steeper, now, especially in Indiana; many of them, although stony, worked-out, and almost worthless, are still, in patches, cultivated to the very top; but for the most part they are clothed in restful green. Overhead, in the summer haze, turkey-buzzards wheel gracefully, occasionally chased by audacious hawks; and in the woods, we hear the warble of song-birds. Shadowy, idle scenes, these rustic reaches of the lower Ohio, through which man may dream in Nature's lap, all regardless of the workaday world.