After some further talk,it became evident that each of us,down in his heart,felt some misgivings over this settlement of the matter.It was manifest that we all felt that we ought to send the poor shoemaker SOMETHING.
There was long and thoughtful discussion of this point;and we finally decided to send him a chromo.
Well,now that everything seemed to be arranged satisfactorily to everybody concerned,a new trouble broke out:it transpired that these two men were expecting to share equally in the money with me.
That was not my idea.I said that if they got half of it between them they might consider themselves lucky.Rogers said--'Who would have had ANY if it hadn't been for me?I flung out the first hint--but for that it would all have gone to the shoemaker.'
Thompson said that he was thinking of the thing himself at the very moment that Rogers had originally spoken.
I retorted that the idea would have occurred to me plenty soon enough,and without anybody's help.I was slow about thinking,maybe,but I was sure.
This matter warmed up into a quarrel;then into a fight;and each man got pretty badly battered.As soon as I had got myself mended up after a fashion,I ascended to the hurricane deck in a pretty sour humor.
I found Captain McCord there,and said,as pleasantly as my humor would permit--'I have come to say good-bye,captain.I wish to go ashore at Napoleon.'
'Go ashore where?'
'Napoleon.'
The captain laughed;but seeing that I was not in a jovial mood,stopped that and said--'But are you serious?'
'Serious?I certainly am.'
The captain glanced up at the pilot-house and said--'He wants to get off at Napoleon!'
'Napoleon ?'
'That's what he says.'
'Great Caesar's ghost!'
Uncle Mumford approached along the deck.The captain said--'Uncle,here's a friend of yours wants to get off at Napoleon!'
'Well,by ----?'
I said--
'Come,what is all this about?Can't a man go ashore at Napoleon if he wants to?'
'Why,hang it,don't you know?There ISN'T any Napoleon any more.
Hasn't been for years and years.The Arkansas River burst through it,tore it all to rags,and emptied it into the Mississippi!'
'Carried the WHOLE town away?-banks,churches,jails,newspaper-offices,court-house,theater,fire department,livery stable EVERYTHING ?'
'Everything.just a fifteen-minute job.'or such a matter.
Didn't leave hide nor hair,shred nor shingle of it,except the fag-end of a shanty and one brick chimney.This boat is paddling along right now,where the dead-center of that town used to be;yonder is the brick chimney-all that's left of Napoleon.
These dense woods on the right used to be a mile back of the town.
Take a look behind you--up-stream--now you begin to recognize this country,don't you?'
'Yes,I do recognize it now.It is the most wonderful thing I ever heard of;by a long shot the most wonderful--and unexpected.'
Mr.Thompson and Mr.Rogers had arrived,meantime,with satchels and umbrellas,and had silently listened to the captain's news.
Thompson put a half-dollar in my hand and said softly--'For my share of the chromo.'
Rogers followed suit.
Yes,it was an astonishing thing to see the Mississippi rolling between unpeopled shores and straight over the spot where Iused to see a good big self-complacent town twenty years ago.
Town that was county-seat of a great and important county;town with a big United States marine hospital;town of innumerable fights--an inquest every day;town where I had used to know the prettiest girl,and the most accomplished in the whole Mississippi Valley;town where we were handed the first printed news of the 'Pennsylvania's' mournful disaster a quarter of a century ago;a town no more--swallowed up,vanished,gone to feed the fishes;nothing left but a fragment of a shanty and a crumbling brick chimney!