by Twain, Mark
“You’ve said the truth, Sarah. She has saved him before, and she will do it again. Keep up your heart, it will all come right.”
By this time the couple had crossed the river road and were starting down the ice-paved slope of the bank. Ahead, on the level white plain, the black horse was speeding past detachment after detachment of plodding citizens; and all along the route hats and handkerchiefs went up in welcome as the young girl swept by, and burst after burst of cheers rose and floated back, fainter and fainter, as the distance grew.
Far out toward the middle of the river the early arrivals were massed together on the border of a wide rift of indeterminable length. They could get no further. In front of them was the water; beyond it, clear to the Illinois shore, a moaning and grinding drift and turmoil of monster ice-cakes, which wandered apart at times, by compulsion of the swirling currents, then crashed thunderously together again, piling one upon another and rising for a moment into rugged hillocks, then falling to ruin and sagging apart once more. It was an impressive spectacle, and the people were awed by the sight and by the brooding spirit of danger and death that was in the air, and they spoke but little, and then in low voices. Most of them said nothing at all, but gazed fixedly out over the drifting plain, searching it for the missing boy. Now and then, through the vague steam that rose from the thawing ice they caught sight of a black speck away out among the recurrent up-bursting hillocks under the lowering sky, and then there would be a stir among the crowd, and eager questions of “Where? which is it? where do you see it?” and answers of “There—more to the right—still more—look where I am pointing—further out—away out—just a black speck—don’t you see it now?” But the speck would turn out to be a log or some such thing, and the crowd would fall silent again.
By and by distant cheering was heard, and all turned to listen. The sound grew and grew, approached nearer and nearer, the black horse was sighted, the people fell apart, and down the lane the young girl came flying, with her welcome roaring about her. Evidently she was a favorite. All along, from the beginning of her flight, as soon as she was recognised the cry went up—
“It’s Hellfire Hotchkiss—stand back and give her the road!” and then the cheers broke out.
She reined up, now, and spoke—
“Where is he?”
“Nobody knows. Him and the other boys were skating, along about yonder, somewheres, and they heard a rip, and the first they knew their side of the river begun to break up. They made a rush, and got through all right; but he was behind, and by the time he got here the split was too wide for him—for him, you understand—so they flew home to tell, and get help, and he broke for up the river to hunt a better place, and—”
The girl did not wait for the rest, but rode off up stream, peering across the chasm as she went, the people following her with their eyes, and commenting.
“She’s the only person that had enough presence of mind to come fixed to do something in case there was a chance. She’s got a life-preserver along.” It was Miss Hepworth, the milliner, that said that. Peter Jones, the blacksmith, said—
“It ought to do some good, seeing she took the trouble and had the thoughtfulness to fetch it, but there’s never any telling which way Thug Carpenter is going to act. Take him as a rule, he is afraid of his shadow; and then again, after a mighty long spell, he’ll up and do a thing which is brave enough for most anybody to be proud of. If he is just his ordinary natural self to-day, the life-preserver ain’t going to be any good; he won’t dare use it when Hellfire throws it to him.”
“That’s about the size of it,” said Jake Thompson, the baker. “There’s considerable difference betwixt them two—Thug and her. Pudd’nhead Wilson says Hellfire Hotchkiss is the only genuwyne male man in this town and Thug Carpenter’s the only genuwyne female girl, if you leave out sex and just consider the business facts; and says her pap used to—hey, she’s stopped.”
“So she has. Maybe she’s found him.”
“No, only thought she had. She’s moving on, again. Pudd’nhead Wilson says Thug’s got the rightest heart and the best disposition of any person in this town, and pretty near the quickest brains, too, but is a most noble derned fool just the same. And he says Hellfire’s a long sight the prettiest human creature that ever lived, and the trimmest built, too, and as graceful as a fish; and says he’d druther see her eyes snap when she’s mad, or water up when she’s touched than—’y George, she’s stopped again. Say—she’s faced around; she’s coming this way.”
“It’s so. Stopped again. She’s found him, sure. Seems to be talking across the rift—don’t you see? Got her hand up to her mouth for a trumpet. Ain’t it so?”
“Oh, yes, there ain’t any doubt. She’s got off of her horse. Hi!—come along, everybody. Hellfire’s found him!”
The crowd set out at a pace which soon brought them to the girl; then they faced about and walked along with her. Oscar was abreast, prisoner on a detached and independent great square of ice, with a couple of hundred yards of water and scattered ice-cakes between him and the people. His case had a bad look. Oscar’s parents arrived, now, and when his mother realized the situation she put out her hands toward him and began to wail and sob, and call him by endearing names, and implore him not to leave her, not to take away the light of her life and make it desolate; and then she looked beseechingly into the faces about her, and said, “Oh, will nobody save him? he is all the world to me; oh, I cannot give him up.” She caught sight of the young girl, now, and ran to her and said, “Oh, Rachel, dear, dear Rachel, you saved him before, you’ll not let him die now, will you?”
“No.”
“Oh, you precious child! if ever—”
“ ’Sh! What is he saying? Listen.”
Oscar was shouting something, but the words could not be made out with certainty.
“Wasn’t it something about snags?” asked the girl. “Are there snags down yonder?”
“Snags? Yes,” said the baker, “there’s a whole rack-heap of them. That is what he’s talking about, sure. He knows they are there, and he knows they’ll wreck him.”
“Then it won’t do to wait any longer for the rift to get narrower,” said Rachel. “He must be helped now or it will be too late.”
She threw off her winter wrap, and began to take off her shoes.
“What are you going to do?” said old Uncle Benny Stimson, Indian doctor and tavern keeper.
“Take him the preserver. He isn’t much of a swimmer, and couldn’t ever make the trip without it.”
“You little fool, you’ll freeze to death.”
“Freeze to death—the idea!”
“Well, you will. You let some of these young fellows do it.”
“When I want anybody’s help, I’ll ask for it, Uncle Benny. I am one of the young fellows myself, I’ll let you know.”
“Right you are. The pig-headedest little devil, for a parson’s daughter, I ever saw. But a brick just the same; I’ll say that for you, H. H.,—every time.”
“Thank you, dear. Please lead my horse and carry my things, and go along down yonder and stand by. Thug is pretty well chilled by this time; somebody please lend me a whisky-flask.”
Thirty-five were offered. She took one, and put it in her bosom. Uncle Benny said—
“No use in that, he’s teetotal—he won’t touch it, girly.”
“That was last week. He has reformed by this time.”
She plunged in and struck out. Somebody said “Let us pray,” but no one heard; all were absorbed in watching. The girl made good progress both ways—forward, by her own strength, and downstream by the force of the current. She made her goal, and got a cheer when she climbed out of the water. Oscar had been in a state of exhausting fright for an hour and more, and he said he was weak and chilled and helpless and unmanned, and would rather die where he was than chance the desperate swim—he knew he couldn’t make it.
“Yes you can. I’ll help you, Thug, and the preserver will keep
you up. Here, take some of this—it will hearten you.”
“What is it?”
“Milk.”
He took a drain.
“Good milk, too,” he said. “It is so comforting, and I was so cold. I will take some more. How thoughtful it was of you to bring the flask; but you always think of everything.”
“Hurry. Get off your overcoat, Thug.”
But he glanced at the water and the wide distance, and said, “Oh, I don’t dare to venture it. I never could make it.”
“Yes you can. Trust to me. I’ll help you with the coat. There, it’s off. Now the boots. Sit down—I’ll help. Now the preserver; hold still, I’ll strap it around you. We are ready, now. Come—you are not afraid to trust to me, Thug?”
“I am going to do it, if I die—but I wouldn’t risk it with any other person. You’ll go through safe, I know that; and you’ll fetch me through if anybody can.” He added, tearfully, “But it may be that I’ll never get across; I don’t feel that I shall. And if these are my last words, I want to say this. If I go down, you must tell my mother that I loved her and thought of her to the last; and I want you to remember always that I was grateful to you. I think you are the best, best girl that ever lived; and if I pass from this troubled life this day, I shall enter heaven with a prayer on my lips for you, Hellfire. I am ready.”
“You are a dear good boy, Thug, but it is not wise to be thinking about death at such a time as this. Come along, and don’t be afraid; your mother is yonder, and you will be with her in a very little while. Quick, here are the snags.”
They were away in time; in a few moments more their late refuge went to wreck and ruin with a crash.
“Rest your right hand on my shoulder, Thug, and keep the same stroke with me. And no matter what happens, don’t get rattled. Slack up a little—we mustn’t hurry.” After a little she said, “We are half way, now—are you getting tired?”
“Yes, and oh, so cold! I can’t hold out, Rachel.”
“Yes you can. You must. We are doing well; we are going to make it. Turn on your back and float a little—two minutes. There, that will do; you mustn’t get cramps.”
“Rachel, they are cheering us. How that warms a person up! If they’ll keep that up, I believe I can make it.”
“They’ll do it—hear that!”
“Rachel—”
“What?”
“I’m afraid there’s a cramp coming.”
“Hush—put it out of your mind!”
“I can’t, Rachel—it’s coming.”
“Thug, you must put it out of your mind. Brace up—we are almost there. It is no distance at all, now. Two minutes more. Brace up. Don’t give in—I know we are safe.”
Both were well spent when they were hauled out on the ice, and also fairly well frozen; but a warm welcome and good whisky refreshed them and made them comfortable; and the attentions and congratulations and interest and sympathy and admiration lavished upon them deeply gratified Oscar’s love of distinction and made him glad the catastrophe had happened to him.
Chapter 3
VESUVIUS, isolated, conspicuous, graceful of contour, is lovely when it is at peace, with the sunshine pouring upon its rich vineyards and its embowered homes and hamlets drowsing in the drift of the cloud-shadows; but it is subject to irruptions. Rachel was a Vesuvius, seen through the butt-end of the telescope. She was largely made up of feeling. She had a tropically warm heart, a right spirit and a good disposition; but under resentment her weather could change with remarkable promptness, and break into tempests of a surprising sort. Still, while the bulk of her was heart and impulse, the rest of her was mental, and good in quality. She had a business head, and practical sense, and it had been believed from the first, by Judge Carpenter and other thoughtful people, that she would be a valuable person when she got tame.
Part of what she was was born to her, the rest was due to environment and to her up-bringing. She had had neither brothers nor sisters; there was no young society for her in the house. Her mother was an invalid and kept her room the most of the time. She could not endure noise, nor tempers, nor restless activities; and from the cradle her child was a master hand in these matters. So, in her first years she was deprived of the society of her mother. The young slave woman, Martha, was superstitious about her, thinking at first that she was possessed of a devil, and later that he had found the accommodations to his mind and had brought his family. She petted and spoiled the child, partly out of her race’s natural fondness for children of any sort or kind, and partly to placate and pacify the devils; but she had a world of work to do and could give but little time to play, so the child would soon find the kitchen a dull place and seek elsewhere for amusement.
The father was sweetness and amiability itself, and greatly loved the child, but he was no company for the volatile creature, nor she for him. He was always musing, dreaming, absorbing himself in his books, or grinding out sermons, and while the child was present these industries suffered considerable interruption. There was conversation—abundance of it—but it was of a wearing and nerve-racking kind.
“Can I have this, fa’r?” (father.)
“No, dear, that is not for lit—”
“Could I have that?”
“No, dear, please don’t handle it. It is very frail and you might—”
“What is this for, fa’r? Can Wildcat have it?” This was Martha’s love-name for Rachel.
“Oh, dear no! My child, you must not put your hands on things without asking beforehand whether you may or—”
“Ain’t there anything for me to play with?—and it’s so lonesome; and there isn’t any place to go.”
“Ah, poor child, I wish—there! Oh, I knew you would; the whole inkstand emptied onto your nice clean clothes. Run along, dear, and tell Martha to attend to you—quick, before you smear it over everything.”
There was no one to govern Rachel, no one to train her, so she drifted along without these aids; and such rearing as she got was her own handiwork and was not according to any familiar pattern. She was never still when awake, she was stored to the eyelids with energies and enthusiasms, her mind, her hands, her feet, her body, were in a state of constant and tireless activity, and her weather was about equally divided between brilliant and happy sunshine and devastating tempests of wrath. Martha said she was a “sudden” child—the suddenest she had ever seen; that when anything went wrong with her there was no time to provide against consequences: she had smashed every breakable thing she could get her hands on before a body could say a word; and then as suddenly her fury was over and she was gathering up the wreckage and mourning over it remorsefully.
By the law of her nature she had to have society; and as she could not get it in the house she forsook that desert early and found it outside. And so while she was as yet a toddling little thing it became a peaceful house—a home of deep and slumberous tranquillity, and for a good while perhaps forgot that it had ever been harassed and harried and terrorised by her family of uneasy devils.
She was a stranger outside, but that was nothing; she soon had a reputation there. She laid its foundations in her first week at Miss Roper’s school, when she was six years old and a little past. At first she took up with the little girls, but they were a disappointment; she found their society a weariness. They played with dolls; she found that dull. They cried for a pin-scratch: she did not like that. When they quarreled, they took it out in calling each other names; according to her ideas, this was inadequate. They would not jump from high places; they would not climb high trees; they were afraid of the thunder; and of the water; and of cows; and would take no perilous risks; and had no love of danger for its own sake. She tried to reform them, but it failed. So she went over to the boys.
They would have none of her, and told her so. They said they were not going to play with girls—they despised them. Shad Stover threatened her with a stout hickory, and told her to move along or she would catch it. She perceived, now, that she could be h
appy, here, and was sorry she had wasted so much time with the little girls. She did not say anything to the boy, but snatched his switch away and wore it out on him. She made him beg. He was nearly twice her own age and size, and as he was the bully of the small-fry side of the school, she had established her ability to whip the whole of his following by whipping him—and if she had been a boy this would have been conceded and she would have succeeded to the bully’s captainship without further balloting; but she was a girl, and boys have no manly sense of fairness and justice where girls are concerned; so she had to whip two or three of the others before opposition was quenched and her wish to play with the gang granted. Shad Stover withdrew and took a minor place in a group of somewhat larger boys.
Thenceforth Rachel trained with the boys altogether, and found in their rough play and tough combats and dangerous enterprises the contentment and joy for which she long had hungered. She took her full share in all their sports, and was a happy child. All through the summer she was encountering perils, but she had luck, and disappointed all the prophets. They all said she would get herself killed, but in no instance did her damages reach quite to that, though several times there were good hopes. She was a hardy and determined fighter, and attacked anything that came along, if it offended. By and by when the cool October came and the news went about that the circus was coming, on its way to the South, she was on hand outside the village, with many others, at sunrise, to get a look at the elephant free of charge. With a cake in her hand for the animal, she sat with the crowd on the grass by the country road. When the elephant was passing by, he scooped up a snoutful of dust and flung it over his back, then scooped up another and discharged it into the faces of the audience. They were astonished and frightened, and all except Rachel flitted promptly over the rail fence with a rush, gasping and coughing; but the child was not moved to run away. The little creature was in a towering rage; for she had come to offer hospitality, and this was the thanks she got. She sprang into the road with the first stick that came handy and began to fiercely bang and hammer the elephant’s hind legs and scream at him all the injurious epithets she could think of. But the elephant swayed along, and was not aware of what was happening. This offensive indifference set fire to all the child’s reserves of temper, and she ran forward to see if she could get any attention at that end. She gave the trunk a cordial bang, saying, “Now let that learn you!” and raised her stick for another stroke; but before she could deliver it the elephant, without changing his gait, gathered her gently up and tossed her over the fence among the crowd. She was beside herself at this new affront, and was for clearing out after him again; and struggled to get free, but the people held her. They reasoned with her, and said it was no use to fight the elephant, for he didn’t mind a stick. “I know it,” she said, “but I’ve got a pin, now, and if I can get to him I will stick it in him.”