Emerging from my concealment, I timidly sought the lower deck and sat me down upon the edge of the boat, and singling out some spark as it rose from the chimney, strove childishly to draw some augury of my future fate from its long continuance or speedy extinction.
The city was fast fading in the distance. I watched its receding houses, for, while they lasted, I felt as if I was not altogether without a home. A turn of the river hid it from sight, and my tears fell fast, for I was also leaving the churchyard which held my mother, and I then had not grown old enough to read life's bitterest page, to separate dream from reality, and know we could meet no more on earth; for oftentimes in the quiet calm of sleep, in the lonely hours of night, I had seen her bending over my tear-wet pillow, and praying for me the same sweet prayer that she prayed for me when I was her sinless youngest born, and I thought in leaving her grave I should never see her more, for how, when she should rise again at night, would she be able to find me, rambler as I was?
With this huge sorrow to dampen my joy at acquiring my liberty, chilled with the night air I was sinking into sleep in my dangerous seat, when the cook of the boat discovered me, and shaking me by the arm until I awoke, took me into the caboose, and giving me my supper, asked me, “What I was doing there, where I would be certain to fall overboard if I went to sleep?” I made up a fictitious tale, and finishing my story, asked him if he could assist me in getting some work on the boat to pay my passage, hinting I was not without experience in his department, in washing dishes, cleaning knives, &c. This was just to his hand; promising me employment and protection, he gave me a place to sleep in, which, fatigued as I was, I did not suffer long to remain unoccupied.
The morrow beheld me regularly installed as third cook or scullion, at eight dollars a month. This, to be sure, was climbing the world's ladder to fame and fortune at a snail's pace; but I was not proud, and willing to bide my time in hope of the better day a-coming. My leisure hours, which were not few, were employed in studying my books, of which I had a good supply, bought with money loaned me by my kind friend the cook.
I improved rapidly in my profession, till one day my ambition was gratified by being allowed to make the corn bread for the first cabin table. This I executed in capital style, with the exception of forgetting in my elation to sift the meal, thereby kicking up considerable of a stir when it came to be eaten, and causing my receiving a hearty curse for my carelessness, and a threat of a rope's end, the exercise of which I crushed by seizing a butcher knife in very determined style, and the affair passed over.
I remained on board until I had ascended as high as second cook, when I got disgusted with the kitchen and aspired to the cabin. I had heard of many cabin-boys becoming captain of their own vessels, but never of one cook,—except Captain Cook, and he became one from name, not by nature or profession. There being no vacancy on board, I received my wages and hired at V———— as cabin boy on a small steamboat running as packet to a small town, situated on one of the tributaries of the Mississippi.
On my first trip up I recollected that I had a brother living in the identical town to which the steamer was destined, who had been in the south for several years, and, when I last heard from him, was doing well in the world's ways.
I thought that as I would be landing every few days at his town, it would be only right that I should call and see him.
He was merchandising on a large scale, I was informed by a gentleman on board, a planter in one of the middle counties of Mississippi, who, seeing me reading in the cabin after I had finished my labour of the day, opened a conversation with me, and, extracting my history by his mild persuasiveness, offered to take me home with him, and send me to school until my education for a profession was completed. But my independence spurned the idea of being indebted to such an extent to a stranger; perhaps I was too enamoured of my wild roving life. I refused his offer, thanking him gratefully for the kind interest he seemed to take in me. He made me promise, that if I changed my mind soon, I would write to him, and gave me his direction, which I soon lost, and his name has passed from my recollection.
On reaching M———, I strolled up in town and inquired the way of a negro to Mr. Tensas' store. He pointed it out to me, and I entered. On inquiry for him, I found he was over at his dwelling-house, which I sought. It was a very pretty residence, I thought, for a bachelor; the walks were nicely gravelled, and shrubbery appropriately decorated the grounds.
I knocked at the door boldly; after a short delay it was opened by quite a handsome young finely dressed lady. Thinking I was mistaken in the house, I inquired if my brother resided there? She replied, that he did and invited me to wait, as he would soon be home. Walking in, after a short interval my brother came. Not remarking me at first, he gave the young lady a hearty kiss, which she returned with interest. I concluded she must be his housekeeper. Perceiving me, he recognised me in a moment, and gave me an affectionate welcome, bidding me go and kiss my sister-in law, which, not waiting for me to do, she performed herself.
My brother was very much shocked when he heard of my menial occupation, and used such arguments and persuasives to induce me to forsake my boat-cabin for his house, that I at length yielded.
He intended sending me the next year to college, when the monetary crash came over the South, and the millionaire of to-day awoke the penniless bankrupt of the morrow. My brother strove manfully to resist the impending ruin, but fell like the rest, and I saw all my dreams of a collegiate education vanishing into thin smoke.
Why recount the scenes of the next five years? it is but the thrice-told tale, of a younger brother dependent upon an elder, himself dependent upon others for employment and a subsistence for his family; his circumstances would improve—I would be sent to school—fortune would again lower, and I, together with my sister-in-law, would perform the menial offices of the family.
My sixteenth birthday was passed in the cotton-field, at the tail of a plough, in the midst of my fellow-labourers, between whom and myself but slight difference existed. I was discontented and unhappy. Something within kept asking me, as it had for years, if it was to become a toiler in the cotton-fields of the South, the companion of negroes, that I had stolen from my boyhood's home? was this the consummation of all my golden dreams?
My prospects were gloomy enough to daunt a much older heart. Poverty shut out all hopes of a collegiate education and a profession. Reflection had disgusted me with a steamboat. I determined to learn a trade. My taste for reading naturally inclined me to one in which I could indulge it freely: it was a printer's.
Satisfactory arrangements were soon made with a neighbouring printer and editor of a country newspaper. The day was fixed when he would certainly expect me; if I did not come by that time he was to conclude that I had altered my determination, and he would be free to procure another apprentice.
A wedding was to come off in the family for which I worked, in a short time, and they persuaded me to delay my departure a week, and attend it. I remained, thinking my brother would inform the printer of the cause of my detention. The wedding passed off, and the next morning, bright and early, I bid adieu, without a pang of regret, to my late home, and started for my new master's, but who was destined never to become such; for on reaching the office I learnt that my brother had failed to inform him why I delayed, and he had procured another apprentice only the day before. So that wedding gave one subject less to the fraternity of typos, and made an indifferent swamp doctor of matter for a good printer.
I returned home on foot, wallet on my back, and resumed my cotton-picking, feeling but little disappointed. I had shaken hands too often with poverty's gifts to let this additional grip give me much uneasiness.
The season was nearly over, and the negroes were striving to get the cotton out by Christmas, when one night at the supper table—the only meal I partook of with the family—my brother inquired, “How would you like to become a doctor, Madison?”
I thought he was jesting, and answered merely with a laugh. Become a doctor, a professional man, when I was too poor to go to a common school, was it not ludicrous?
“I am in earnest. Suppose a chance offered for you to become a student of medicine, would you accept it?” he said.
It