The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [23]
It was close to dusk, but I could see that my familiar Mississippi had changed considerably and now ran much faster and browner. Had I imagined some sort of turbulent rush, a wall of water pouring over our river as over a floor, I was mistaken. The river only widened into a broader sheet, rimmed by a low fringe of trees. Mr. Newton stared as if he had never seen such a thing, and finally said, "My dear, I’ve read many an account of these rivers, and I’ve talked to many men who’ve made this journey, but I confess I am unprepared for the somberness of it. I expected to feel gratified and enlarged by the knowledge of the distance these waters have come. I find it oppressive." The dull red glare off the flat expanse had the same effect on me, and I realized only with difficulty that the glare was just the reflection of the setting sun. It passed in moments, but then the darkness seemed to filter up from the water into the trees. The lights of our boat, including the better-to-be-forgotten lurid reflection of the firing of the boiler, lay dimly over the opaque water. We weren’t alone in being subdued by the sights. Only a couple of drunk men continued to laugh and shout. Finally, they flung their empty bottle in a wide arc over the railing and cursed the fact that they had drunk everything they had with them. Mr. Newton walked all of the ladies back to the door of the ladies’ cabin. It was disturbing to hear the two lonely voices of those men cursing and braying against the noise of the boat and the splash of the water.
Back in the ladies’ cabin, the lamps had been lit, and they cast a dim but pleasant glow over the papered wall and the few curtained cubicles that functioned as staterooms on this small packet. It was too dim for me to work, but the two sisters needed little light, as they didn’t watch their knitting anyway, only counted the stitches and turned their work. Mrs. Evelyn seemed subdued by the gloom. Her daughter leaned against her. Sometime later, we heard a great shouting, and the clamor of feet upon the deck told us that we had arrived in Saint Louis.
Miss Annabelle put her hand on my wrist as I moved to rise from my chair. She said, "If you’ll pardon me for making a personal observation, my dear, I must say that you seem a young woman of uncommon self-possession and fortitude. So many of these young wives we see, well..." Her voice faded as if ruefully. "The adventure is for the men, my dear; that’s the way of it here in the west."
I said that this was surely true. But I didn’t mean it.
CHAPTER 5
I Am Much Daunted by New Experiences
But, as society gradually shakes off the remnants of barbarism, and the intellectual and moral interests of man rise, in estimation, above the merely sensual, a truer estimate is formed of woman’s duties, and of the measure of intellect reguisite for the proper discharge of them. —p. 156
THE TUMULT OF THE LEVEE at Saint Louis burst upon my sight, unlike anything I had ever seen before. Our boat was undeniably moving toward the land, but the water was so dark and so crowded with other boats that it seemed to be magically pressing itself through a tangle of decks and railings and chimneys and freight. Above the waterline, all was alight with great lamps on poles and torches and fires, and there were as many people about as if it were broad day. We made our way through a thick field of boats, large and small, glorious and humble, empty and full, busy and quiet, among them the most famous Saint Louis—Pittsburgh packet, the Allegheny Queen, which just that summer had won a race from Cincinnati to New Orleans, jostling with the most famous Saint Louis-New