The Water Cure - (2)

"Chess?" says I. "And you count all the people that gets on?"
    "That's me," he says.
    "How many's on now?" I ast him.
    "Eight hundred-odd," he says.
    "I ast you for the number, not the description," I says. "How many's the limit?" I ast him.
    "Thirteen hundred," he says.
    "And would the boat sink if they was more'n that?" says I.
    "I don't know if it would or wouldn't," he says, "but that's all the law allows."
    For a minute I felt like offerin' him a lump sum to let seven or eight hundred more on the boat and be sure that she went down; meantime I'd be over gettin' a drink. But then I happened to think that the Missus would be among those lost; and though a man might do a whole lot better the second time, the chances was that he'd do a whole lot worse. So I passed up the idear and stayed aboard, prayin' for the time when we'd be three miles out on Lake Michigan.
    It was the shortest three miles you ever seen. We hadn't got out past the Municipal Pier when I seen a steady influx goin' past the engine-room and into the great beyond. I followed 'em and got what I was after. Then I went up on deck, lookin' for my guests.
    I found 'em standin' in front o' one o' the lifeboats.
    "Why don't you get comfortable?" I says to Bishop. "Why don't you get chairs and enjoy the breeze?"
    "That's what I been tellin' 'em," says the Missus; "but Mr. Bishop acts like he was married to this spot."
    "I'm only thinkin' of your wife and Bessie," says Bishop. "If anything happened, I'd want 'em to be near a lifeboat."
    "Nothin's goin' to happen," I says. "They hasn't been a wreck on this lake for over a month. And this here boat, the City o' Benton Harbor, ain't never sank in her life."
    "No," says Bishop; "and the Chicora and Eastland never sank till they sunk."
    "The boats that sinks," I says, "is the boats that's overloaded. I was talkin' to the government checker-player down-stairs and he tells me that you put thirteen hundred on this boat and she's perfectly safe; and they's only eight hundred aboard now."
    "Then why do they have the lifeboats?" ast Bishop.
    "So's you can go back if you get tired o' the trip," I says.
    "I ought to be back now," says Bishop, "where the firm can reach me."
    "We ain't more'n two miles out," I says. "If your firm's any good they'll drag the bottom farther out than this. Besides," I says, "if trouble comes the lifeboats would handle us."
    "Yes," says Bishop; "but it's women and children first."
    "Sure!" I says. "That's the proper order for drownin'. The world couldn't struggle along without us ten-thousand-dollar scenario writers."
    "They couldn't be no trouble on such a lovely day as this," says Bess.
    "That's where you make a big mistake," I says. "That shows you don't know nothin' about the history o' Lake Michigan."
    "What do you mean?" ast Bishop.
    "All the wrecks that's took place on this lake," I says, "has happened in calm weather like to-day. It's just three years ago this July," I says, "when the City of Ypsilanti left Grand Haven with about as many passengers as we got to-day. The lake was just like a billiard table and no thought o' danger. Well, it seems like they's a submerged water oak about three miles from shore that you're supposed to steer round it. But this pilot hadn't never made the trip before, and, besides that, he'd been drinkin' pretty heavy; so what does he do but run right plump into the tree, and the boat turned a turtle and all the passengers was lost except a tailor named Swanson."
    "But that was just an unreliable officer," says Bessie. "He must of been crazy."
    "Crazy!" says I. "They wouldn't nobody work on these boats unless they was crazy. It's bound to get 'em."
    "I hope we got a reliable pilot to-day," says Bishop.
    "He's only just a kid," I says; "and I noticed him staggerin' when he come aboard. But, anyway, you couldn't ask for a better bottom than they is right along in here; nice clean sand and hardly any weeds."
    "What time do we get to St. Joe?" ast Bishop.
    "About seven if we don't run into a squall," I says.
    Then I and the Wife left 'em and went round to another part o' the deck and run into squalls of all nationalities. Their mothers had made a big mistake in bringin' 'em, because you could tell from their faces and hands that they didn't have no use for water.
    "They all look just alike," says the Missus. "I don't see how the different mothers can tell which is their baby."
    "It's fifty-fifty," I says. "The babies don't look no more alike than the mothers. The mothers is all named Jennie, and all perfect cubes and fond of apples, and ought to go to a dentist. Besides," I says, "suppose they did get mixed up and swap kids, none o' the parties concerned would have reasons to gloat. And the babies certainly couldn't look no more miserable under different auspices than they do now."
    We walked all round the deck, threadin' our way among the banana peelin's, and lookin' our shipmates over.
    "Pick out somebody you think you'd like to meet," I told the Wife, "and I'll see if I can arrange it."
    "Thanks," she says; "but I'll try and not get lonesome, with my husband and my sister and my sister's beau along."
    "It's nice for you to say it," says I; "but you want to remember that we're leavin' Bess and Bishop to themself, and that leaves you and I to ourself, and they ain't no two people in the world that can spend two days alone together without gettin' bored stiff. Besides, you don't want to never overlook a chance to meet high-class people."
    "When I get desperately anxious to meet high-class people," she says, "I'll be sure and pick out the Saturday afternoon boat from Chicago to St. Joe."
    "You can't judge people by their looks," says I. "You haven't heard 'em talk."
    "No; and couldn't understand 'em if I did," she says.
    "I'll bet some o' them's just as bright as we are," I says.
    "I'm not lookin' for bright companionship," she says. "I want a change."
    "That's just like I told you," says I. "You're bound to get tired o' one person, no matter how much they sparkle, if you live with 'em long enough."
    We left the deck and went down-stairs. They was two or three people peerin' in the engine-room and the Missus made me stop there a minute.
    "What for?" I ast her.
    "I want to see how it works," she says.
    "Well," says I, when we'd started on again, "I can drop my insurance now."
    "Why?" says the Missus.
    "I don't never need to worry about you starvin'," I says. "With the knowledge you just picked up there, I bet you could easy land a job as engineer on one o' these boats."
    "I'd do about as good as you would at it," she says.
    "Sure; because I didn't study it," I says. "What makes the boat run?" I ast her.
    "Why, the wheel," she says.
    "And who runs the wheel?" I ast her.
    "The pilot," says she.
    "And what does the engineer do?" I says.
    "Why, I suppose he keeps the fire burnin'," she says.
    "But in weather like this what do they want of a fire?"
    "I suppose it gets colder out in the middle o' the lake," she says.
    "No," says I; "but on Saturdays they got to keep a fire goin' to heat the babies' bottles."
    We went in the room next to the bar. A boy set at the piano playin' Sweet Cider Time in Moonshine Valley and some Hawaiian native melodies composed by a Hungarian waiter that was too proud to fight. Three or four couple was dancin', but none o' them was wry-necked enough to get the proper pose. The girls looked pretty good and was probably members o' the Four Hundred employed in the Fair. The boys would of been handsomer if the laundry hadn't failed to bring back their other shirt in time.
    A big guy in a uniform come by and went into the next room. "Is that the captain?" ast the Wife.
    "No," I says, "that's the steward."
    "And what does he do?" she ast me.
    "He hangs round the bar," I says, "and looks after the stews."
    "Have they really got a bar?" she says.
    "I'll find out for sure if you'll wait here a minute," says I, and led her to a chair where she could watch 'em wrestle.
    In the other room I stood next to a Greek that charged ten cents on Sundays and holidays. He was all lit up like the Municipal Pier.
    "Enjoyin' the trip?" I ast him.
    "Too rough; too rough!" he says, only I don't do the dialect very good.
    "I bet you never got that shine at your own stand," says I.
    "Too hot to work!" says he. "I don't have to work. I got the mon'."
    "Yes," I says; "and the bun."
    A little way off from us was four other political enemies o' J. Frank Hanly, tellin' my Greek friend in tonsorial tones that if he didn't like his Uncle Sammy he knowed what he could do.
    "Don't you like your Uncle Sammy?" I ast him.
    "I don't have to work," he says. "I got the mon'."
    "Then why don't you take them boys' advice," I says, "and go back to your home o'er the sea?"
    "Too rough; too rough!" he says; and in the twenty minutes I stood there with him, findin' out whether they was really a bar, he didn't say nothin' except that he had the mon', and he didn't have to work, and somethin' was too rough.
    I and the Missus went back up on deck. I steered for the end o' the boat that was farthest from where we'd left Bess and Bishop, but they'd began to get restless, and we run into them takin' a walk.
    "Where you been?" ast Bessie.
    "Down watchin' 'em dance," says the Missus.
    "Is they a place to dance aboard?" ast Bishop.
    But I didn't want 'em to dance, because that'd be an excuse not to say nothin' to each other for a w'ile. So I says:
    "They's a place, all right; but five or six couple's already on the floor, and when you get more'n that trottin' round at once it's li'ble to rock the boat and be disastrous."
    I took the Wife's arm and started to move on.
    "Where you goin'?" says Bishop.
    "Just for a stroll round the decks," says I.
    "We'll go along," he says.
    I seen the treatment was beginnin' to work. "Nothin' doin'!" I says. "This is one of our semi-annual honeymoons and we can't use no outside help."
    A few minutes before we hit St. Joe we seen 'em again, settin' down below, afraid to dance and entirely out o' conversation. They was havin' just as good a time as Jennie's babies.
    "We're pretty near in," I says, "and 'twas one o' the smoothest crossin's I ever made."
    "They couldn't nobody get sick in weather like this," says Bess.
    "No," I says, "but you take a smooth Saturday afternoon and it generally always means a rough Sunday night."
    "Ain't they no railroad between here and Chi?" ast Bishop.
    "Not direct," I says. "You have to go to Lansing and then cut across to Fort Wayne. If you make good connections you can do it in a day and two nights, but most o' the way is through the copper ranges and the trains keeps gettin' later and later, and when they try to make up time they generally always slip offen the track and spill their contents."
    "If it looks like a storm to-morrow night," says Bess, "we might wait over and go home Monday."
    That idear scared Bishop more'n the thought of a wreck.
    "Oh, no!" he says. "I got to be back on the job Monday mornin'."
    "If it's as rough as I think it's goin' to be," says I, "you won't feel like rippin' off no scenarios Monday."
    We landed and walked up the highest hill in Michigan to the hotel. I noticed that Miss Bessie carried her own suit-case.
    "Well," I says, "I suppose you two kids would rather eat your supper by yourself, and I and the Missus will set at another table."
    "No, no!" says Bess. "It'll be pleasanter to all eat together."
    So for about half an hour we had 'em with us; and they'd of stuck the rest o' the evenin' if I'd gave 'em a chance.
    "What about a little game o' cards?" says Bishop, when we was through eatin'.
    "It's mighty nice o' you to suggest it," I says; "but I know you're only doin' it for my sake and the Wife's. We'll find some way to amuse ourself, and you and Bess can take a stroll down on the beach."
    "The wind made me sleepy," says Bishop. "I believe I'll go up to my room and turn in."
    "The rooms is not ready," I says. "The clerk'll let us know as soon as we can have 'em."
    But he didn't take my word; and when he'd talked to the clerk himself, and found out that he could have his room right away, they wasn't no arguin' with him. Off he went to bed at eight P. M., leavin' the Missus and I to entertain the Belle o' Wabash.
    Sunday mornin' I added to my investment by hirin' a flivver to take us out to the Edgewater Club.
    "Now," I says, "we'll rent some bathin' suits and cool off."
    "I don't dast go in," says Bishop. "I'd take more cold. I'll watch the rest o' you."
    Well, I didn't care whether he went in or not, the water bein' too shallow along there to drownd him; but I did want him to watch the rest of us--one in particular.
    The suit they gave her was an Annette. I wouldn't make no attempt to describe what she looked like in it, unless it'd be a capital Y that had got turned upside down. She didn't have no displacement and she could of stayed in all day without the lake ever findin' out she was there.
    But I cut the film short so's I could get 'em back to the hotel and leave the pair together again.
    "You're goin' to have all the rest o' the day to yourself," I told 'em. "We won't eat dinner with you. I and the Missus will just disappear and meet you here in the hotel at seven o'clock to-night."
    "Where are you goin'?" ast Bishop.
    "Never you mind," I says.
    "Maybe we'd like to go along with you," he says.
    "Yes, you would!" says I. "Remember, boy, I was in love once myself, and I know I didn't want no third parties hangin' round."
    "But what can we do all day in this burg?" he says.
    "They's plenty to do," I says. "You can go over there and set on them benches and watch the interurbans come in from South Bend and Niles, or you can hire a boat and go out for a sail, or you can fish for tarpons; or you can take a trolley over to Benton Harbor; or you can set on the beach and spoon. Nobody minds here--only be sure you don't set in somebody's lunch basket, because they say a garlic stain's almost impossible to get out. And they's another thing you might do," I says: "this town's one o' these here Gretna Greens. You can get a marriage license in any delicatessen and the street-car conductors is authorized to perform the ceremony."
    They didn't blush when I pulled that; they turned pale, both o' them, and I seen that I was goin' to win, sure.
    "Come on!" I says to the Missus. "We must be on our way."
    We left 'em before they could stop us and walked acrost the street and along through the park.
    "Where are we headed?" ast the Wife.
    "I don't know," I says; "but I don't want to spoil their good time."
    "I don't believe they're havin' a good time," she says.
    "How could they help it?" says I. "When two true lovers is left alone together, what more could they ast for?"
    "They's somethin' wrong with 'em," says the Missus. "They act like they was mad at each other. And Bess told me when we was out to the Edgewater Club that she wished we was home."
    "That's a fine way for her to talk," I says, "when I'm tryin' to show her a good time!"
    "And I overheard Elmer," says the Missus, "askin' one o' the bell boys where he could get somethin' to drink; and the bell boy ast him what kind of a drink, and he says, whisky or poison--it didn't make no difference."
    "If I was sure he'd take the poison I'd try to get it for him," I says.
    On the grass and the benches in the park we seen some o' the gang that'd came over on the boat with us. They looked like they'd laid there all night and the kids was cryin' louder'n ever. Besides them we seen dozens o' young couples that was still on speakin' terms, because they'd only been together an hour or two. The girls was wearin' nice, clean, white dresses and white shoes, and was all prettied up. They seemed to be havin' the time o' their life. And by four o'clock in the afternoon their fingers would be stuck together with crackerjack and their dresses decorated with chocolate sirup, and their escorts talkin' to 'em like a section boss to a gang o' hunkies.
    We wandered round till dinner-time, and then dropped into a little restaurant where they give you a whole meal for thirty-five cents and make a profit of thirty-five cents. When we'd staggered out under the weight o' this repast, a street-car was standin' there that said it would take us to the House o' David.
    "Come on!" I says, and led the Missus aboard.
    "Where to?" she ast me.
    "I don't know," I says; "but it sounds like a road house."
    It was even better'n that. You couldn't get nothin' to drink, but they was plenty to see and hear--band concerts, male and female; movin' pitchers; a zoo; a bowlin' alley; and more funny-lookin' people than I ever seen in an amusement park before.
    It ain't a regular amusement park, but fifty-fifty between that and a kind of religious sex that calls themself the Holy Roller Skaters or somethin'. All the men that was old enough to keep a beard had one; and for a minute I thought we'd bumped into the summer home o' the people that took part in Ada.
    They wouldn't nobody of ever mistook the women for Follies chorus girls. They looked like they was havin' a prize contest to see which could dress the homeliest; and if I'd been one o' the judges I'd of split the first prize as many ways as they was women.
    "I'm goin' to talk to some o' these people," I told the Wife.
    "What for?" she says.
    "Well, for one thing," I says, "I been talkin' to one person so long I'm tired of it; and, for another thing, I want to find out what the idear o' the whole concern is."
    So we walked up to one o' the most flourishin' beards and I braced him.
    "Who owns this joint?" I says.
    "All who have the faith," he says.
    "What do they charge a man to join?" I ast him.
    "Many's called and few chosen," he says.
    "How long have you been here?" I ast him.
    "Prove all things and hold fast to what's good," he says. "Why don't you get some of our books and study 'em?"
    He led us over to where they had the books and I looked at some o' them. One was the Flyin' Roll, and another was the Livin' Roll o' Life, and another was the Rollin' Ball o' Fire.
    "If you had some books about coffee you could make a breakfast on 'em," I says.
    Well, we stuck round there till pretty near six o'clock and talked to a lot o' different ones and ast 'em all kinds o' questions; and they answered 'em all with verses from Scripture that had nothin' to do with what we'd ast.
    "We got a lot of information," says the Wife on the way back to St. Joe. "We don't know no more about 'em now than before we come."
    "We know their politics," I says.
    "How?" she ast me.
    "From the looks of 'em," I says. "They're unanimous for Hughes."
    We found Bess all alone, settin' in the lobby o' the hotel.
    "Where's your honey man?" I ast her.
    She turned up her nose.
    "Don't call him my honey man or my anything else," she says.
    "Why, what's the matter?" ast the Missus.
    "Nothin' at all's the matter," she says.
    "Maybe just a lovers' quarrel," says I.
    "No, and no lovers' quarrel, neither," says Bess. "They couldn't be no lovers' quarrel, because they ain't no lovers."
    "You had me fooled, then," I says. "I'd of swore that you and Bishop was just like that."
    "You made a big mistake," says Bessie. "I never cared nothin' for him and he never cared nothin' for me, because he's incapable o' carin' for anything--only himself."
    "Why, Bess," says the Missus, "you told me just yesterday mornin' that you was practically engaged!"
    "I don't care what I told you," she says; "but I'm tellin' you somethin' now: I don't never want to hear of him or see him again. And you'll do me a favor if you'll drop the subject."
    "But where is he?" I ast her.
    "I don't know and I don't care!" she says.
    "But I got to find him," I says. "He's my guest."
    "You can have him," she says.
    I found him up in his room. The bell boy had got him somethin', and it wasn't poison, neither. At least I haven't never died of it.
    "Well, Bishop," I says, "finish it up and come down-stairs. Bess and the Wife'll want some supper."
    "You'll have to excuse me," he says. "I don't feel like eatin' a thing."
    "But you can come down and set with us," I says. "Bess will be sore if you don't."
    "Listen here!" he says. "You've took too much for granted. They's nothin' between your sister-in-law and I. If you've set your heart on us bein' somethin' more'n friends, I'm sorry. But they's not a chance."
    "Bishop," I says, "this is a blow to me. It comes like a shock."
    And to keep myself from faintin' I took the bottle from his dresser and completed its ruin.
    "You won't even come down and set with us?" I says.
    "No," says Bishop. "And, if you don't mind, you can give me my ticket back home and I'll stroll down to the dock and meet you on the boat."
    "Here's your ticket," says I.
    "And where am I goin' to sleep?" he says.
    "Well," I says, "I'll get you a stateroom if you really want it; but it's goin' to be a bad night, and if you was in one o' them berths, and somethin' happened, you wouldn't have a chance in the world!"
    "You ain't goin' to have no berth, yourself?" he ast me.
    "I should say not!" I says. "I'm goin' to get me a chair and sleep in the water-tight compartments."
    Boys, my prophecy come true. They was more roll on old Lake Michigan that night than in all them books up to the Holy Roller Skaters' park. And if the boat was filled to capacity just thirteen hundred of us was fatally ill.
    I don't think it was the rollin' that got me. It was one glimpse of all the Jennies and their offsprings, and the wealthy Greek shoe shiners, and the millionaire truck drivers, and the heiresses from the Lace Department--layin' hither and thither in the cabins and on the decks, breathin' their last. And how they must of felt to think that all their outlay for crackerjack and apples was a total loss!
    But Bishop wasn't sick. I searched the boat from the back to the stern and he wasn't aboard. I guess probably he found out some way that they was such an institution as the Pere Marquette, which gets into Chicago without touchin' them perilous copper ranges. But whether he arrived safe or not I don't know, because I've never saw him from that day to this, and I've lived happy ever afterward.
    And my investment, amountin' all told to just about what he owes me, turned out even better than I'd hoped for. Bess went back to Wabash that Monday afternoon.
    At supper Monday night, which was the first meal the Missus could face, she says:
    "I haven't got it figured out yet. Bess swears they didn't have no quarrel; but I'll take an oath they was in love with each other. What could of happened?"
    "I know what happened," I says. "They got acquainted!"