The Prodigal Judge
CHAPTER XII
THE FAMILY ON THE RAFT
That would unquestionably have been the end of Bob Yancy when he was shot out
into the muddy waters of the Elk River, had not Mr. Richard Keppel Cavendish,
variously known as Long-Legged Dick, and Chills-and-Fever Cavendish, of Lincoln
County, in the state of Tennessee, some months previously and after
unprecedented mental effort on his part, decided that Lincoln County was no
place for him. When he had established this idea firmly in his own mind and in
the mind of Polly, his wife, he set about solving the problem of transportation.
Mr. Cavendish's paternal grandparent had drifted down the Holston and
Tennessee; and Mr. Cavendish's father, in his son's youth, had poled up the Elk.
Mr. Cavendish now determined to float down the Elk to its juncture with the
Tennessee, down the Tennessee to the Ohio, and if need be, down the Ohio to the
Mississippi, and keep drifting until he found some spot exactly suited to his
taste. Temperamentally, he was well adapted to drifting. No conception of
vicarious activity could have been more congenial.
With this end in view he had toiled through late winter and early spring,
building himself a raft on which to transport his few belongings and his
numerous family; there were six little Cavendishes, and they ranged in years
from four to eleven; there was in addition the baby, who was always enumerated
separately. This particular infant Mr. Cavendish said he wouldn't take a million
dollars for. He usually added feelingly that he wouldn't give a piece of chalk
for another one.
June found him aboard his raft with all his earthly possessions bestowed
about him, awaiting the rains and freshets that were to waft him effortless into
a newer country where he should have a white man's chance. At last the rains
came, and he cast off from the bank at that unsalubrious spot where his father
had elected to build his cabin on a strip of level bottom subject to periodic
inundation. Wishing fully to profit by the floods and reach the big water
without delay, Cavendish ran the raft twenty-four hours at a stretch, sleeping
by day while Polly managed the great sweep, only calling him when some dangerous
bit of the river was to be navigated. Thus it happened that as Murrell and
Slosson were dragging Yancy down the lane, Cavendish was just rounding a bend in
the Elk, a quarter of a mile distant. Leaning loosely against the long handle of
his sweep, he was watching the lane of bright water that ran between the black
shadows cast by the trees on either bank. He was in shirt and trousers, barefoot
and bareheaded, and his face, mild and contemplative, wore an expression of
dreamy contentment.
Suddenly its expression changed. He became alert and watchful. He had heard a
dull splash. Thinking that some tree had been swept into the flood, he sought to
pierce the darkness that lay along the shore. Five or six minutes passed as the
raft glided along without sound. He was about to relapse into his former
attitude of listless ease when he caught sight of some object in the eddy that
swept alongside. Mr. Cavendish promptly detached himself from the handle of the
sweep and ran to the edge of the raft.
"Good Lord—what's that!" he gasped, but he already knew it was a face, livid
and blood-streaked. Dropping on his knees he reached out a pair of long arms and
made a dexterous grab, and his fingers closed on the collar of Yancy's shirt.
"Neighbor, I certainly have got you!" said Cavendish, between his teeth. He drew
Yancy close alongside the raft, and, slipping a hand under each arm, pulled him
clear of the water. The swift current swept the raft on down the stream. It rode
fairly in the center of the lane of light, but no eye had observed its passing.
Mr. Cavendish stood erect and stared down at the blood-stained face, then he
dropped on his knees again and began a hurried examination of the still figure.
"There's a little life here—not much, but some—you was well worth fishing up!"
he said approvingly, after a brief interval. "Polly!" he called, raising his
voice.
This brought Mrs. Cavendish from one of the two cabins that occupied the
center of the raft. She was a young woman, still very comely, though of a
matronly plumpness. She was in her nightgown, and when she caught sight of Yancy
she uttered a shriek and fled back into the shanty.
"I declare, Dick, you might ha' told a body you wa'n't alone!" she said
reproachfully.
Her cry had aroused the other denizens of the raft. The tow heads of the six
little Cavendishes rose promptly from a long bolster in the smaller of the two
shanties, and as promptly six little Cavendishes, each draped in a single
non-committal garment, apparently cut by one pattern and not at all according to
the wearer's years or length of limb, tumbled forth from their shelter.
"Sho', Polly, he's senseless! But you dress and come here quick. Now, you
young folks, don't you tetch him!" for the six small Cavendishes, excited beyond
measure, were crowding and shoving for a nearer sight of Yancy. They began to
pelt their father with questions. Who was it? Sho', in the river? Sho', all cut
up like that—who'd cut him? Had he hurt himself? Was he throwed in? When did pop
fish him out? Was he dead? Why did he lay like that and not move or speak—sho'!
This and much more was flung at Mr. Cavendish all in one breath, and each eager
questioner seized him by the hand, the dangling sleeve of his shirt, or his
trousers—they clutched him from all sides. "I never seen such a family!" said
Mr. Cavendish helplessly. "Now, you-all shut up, or I 'low I'll lay into you!"
Mrs. Cavendish's appearance created a diversion in his favor. The six rushed
on her tumultously. They seized her hands or struggled for a fragment of her
skirt to hold while they poured out their tale. Pop had fished up a man—he'd
been throwed in the river! Pop didn't know if he was dead or not—he was all cut
and bloody.
"I declare, I've a mind to skin you if you don't keep still! Miss Constance,"
Polly addressed her eldest child, "I'm surprised at you! You might be a heathen
savage for all you got on your back—get into some duds this instant!" Cavendish
was on his knees again beside Yancy, and Polly, by a determined effort, rid
herself of the children. "Why, he's a grand-looking man, ain't he?" she cried.
"La, what a pity!"
"You can feel his heart beat, and he's bleeding some," said Cavendish.
"Let me see—just barely flutters, don't it? Henry, go mind the sweep and see
we don't get aground! Keppel, you start a fire and warm some water! Connie, you
tear up my other petticoat for bandages now, stir around, all of you!" And then
began a period of breathless activity. They first lifted Yancy into the circle
of illumination cast by the fire Keppel had started on the hearth of flat stones
before the shanties. Then, with Constance to hold a pan of warm water, Mrs.
Cavendish deftly bathed the gaping wound in Yancy's shoulder where Murrell had
driven his knife. This she bandaged with strips torn from her petticoat. Next
she began on the ragged cut left by Slosson's club.
"He's got a right to be dead!" said Cavendish.
"Get the shears, Dick—I must snip away some of his hair."
All this while the four half-naked youngest Cavendishes, very still now,
stood about the stone hearth in the chill dawn and watched their mother's
surgery with a breathless interest. Only the outcast Henry at the sweep ever and
anon lifted his voice between sobs of mingled rage and disappointment, and
demanded what was doing.
"Think he is going to die, Polly?" whispered Cavendish at length. Their
heads, hers very black and glossy, his very blond, were close together as they
bent above the injured man.
"I never say a body's going to die until he's dead," said Polly. "He's still
breathing, and a Christian has got to do what they can. Don't you think you
ought to tie up?"
"The freshet's leaving us. I'll run until we hit the big water down by
Pleasantville, and then tie up," said Cavendish.
"I reckon we'd better lift him on to one of the beds—get his wet clothes off
and wrap him up warm," said Polly.
"Oh, put him in our bed!" cried all the little Cavendishes.
And Yancy was borne into the smaller of the two shanties, where presently his
bandaged head rested on the long communal pillow. Then his wet clothes were hung
up to dry along with a portion of the family wash which fluttered on a rope
stretched between the two shanties.
The raft had all the appearance of a cabin dooryard. There was, in addition
to the two shelters of bark built over a light framework of poles, a pen which
housed a highly domestic family of pigs, while half a dozen chickens enjoyed a
restricted liberty. With Yancy disposed of, the regular family life was resumed.
It was sun-up now. The little Cavendishes, reluctant but overpersuaded, had
their faces washed alongside and were dressed by Connie, while Mrs. Cavendish
performed the same offices for the baby. Then there was breakfast, from which
Mr. Cavendish rose yawning to go to bed, where, before dropping off to sleep, he
played with the baby. This left Mrs. Cavendish in full command of her floating
dooryard. She smoked a reflective pipe, watching the river between puffs, and
occasionally lending a hand at the sweeps. Later the family wash engaged her. It
had neither beginning nor end, but serialized itself from day to day. Connie was
already proficient at the tubs. It was a knack she was in no danger of losing.
Keppel and Henry took turns at the sweeps, while the three smaller children
began to manifest a love for the water they had not seemed to possess earlier in
the day. They played along the edge of the raft, always in imminent danger of
falling in, always being called back, or seized, just in time to prevent a
catastrophe. This ceaseless activity on their part earned them much in the way
of cuffings, chastisements which Mrs. Cavendish administered with no great
spirit.
"Drat you, why don't you go look at the pore gentleman instead of posterin' a
body 'most to death!" she demanded at length, and they stole off on tiptoe to
stare at Yancy. Presently Richard ran to his mother's side.
"Come quick—he's mutterin' and mumblin' and moving his head!" he cried. It
was as the child said. Yancy had roused from his heavy stupor. Words almost
inaudible and quite inarticulate were issuing from his lips and there was a
restless movement of his head on the pillow.
"He 'pears powerful distressed about something," said Mrs. Cavendish. "I
reckon I'd better give him a little stimulant now."
While she was gone for the whisky, Connie, who had squatted down beside the
bed, touched Yancy's hand which lay open. Instantly his fingers closed about
hers and he was silent; the movement of his head ceased abruptly; but when she
sought to withdraw her hand he began to murmur again.
"I declare, what he wants is some one to sit beside him!" said Mrs.
Cavendish, who had returned with the whisky, a few drops of which she managed to
force between Yancy's lips. All the rest of that day some one of the children
sat beside the wounded man, who was quiet and satisfied just as long as there
was a small hand for him to hold.
"He must be a family man," observed Mr. Cavendish when Polly told him of
this. "We'll tie up at Pleasantville landing and learn who he is."
"He had ought to have a doctor to look at them cuts of his," said Mrs.
Cavendish.
It was late afternoon when the landing was reached. Half a score of men were
loafing about the woodyard on shore. Mr. Cavendish made fast to a blasted tree,
then he climbed the bank; the men regarding him incuriously as he approached.
"Howdy," said Cavendish genially.
"Howdy," they answered.
"Where might I find the nearest doctor?" inquired Cavendish.
"Within about six foot of you," said one of the group.
"Meaning yourself?"
"Meaning myself."
Briefly Cavendish told the story of Yancy's rescue.
"Now, Doc, I want you should cast an eye over the way we've dressed his cuts,
and I want the rest of you to come and take a look at him and tell who he is and
where he belongs," he said in conclusion.
"I'll know him if he belongs within forty miles of here in any direction,"
said the doctor. But he shook his head when his eye rested on Yancy. "Never saw
him," he said briefly.
"How about them bandages, Doc?" demanded Cavendish.
"Oh, I reckon they'll do," replied the doctor indifferently.
"Will he live?"
"I can't say. You'll know all about that inside the next forty-eight hours.
Better let the rest have a look."
"Just feel of them bandages—sho', I got money in my pants!" Mr. Cavendish was
rapidly losing his temper, yet he controlled himself until each man had taken a
look at Yancy; but always with the same result—a shake of the head. "I reckon I
can leave him here?" Cavendish asked, when the last man had looked and turned
away.
"Leave him here—why?" demanded the doctor slowly.
"Because I'm going on, that's why. I'm headed for downstream, and he ain't in
any sort of shape to say whether he wants to go or stop," explained Cavendish.
"You picked him up, didn't you?" asked one of the men.
"I certainly did," said Cavendish.
"Well, I reckon if you're so anxious for him to stay hereabout, you'd better
stop, yourself," said the owner of the woodyard. "There ain't a house within two
miles of here but mine, and he don't go there!"
"You're a healthy lot, you are!" said Cavendish. "I wonder your largeness of
heart ain't ruptured your wishbones long ago!" So saying, he retired to the
stern of his raft and leaned against the sweep-handle, apparently lost in
thought. His visitors climbed the bank and reestablished themselves on the
wood-ranks.
Presently Mr. Cavendish lifted his voice and addressed Polly and the six
little Cavendishes at the other end of the raft. He asserted that he was the
only well-born man within a radius of perhaps a hundred miles—he excepted no
one. He knew who his father and mother were, and they had been legally
married—he seemed to infer that this was not always the case. Mr. Cavendish
glanced toward the shore, then he lifted his voice again, giving it as his
opinion that he was the only Christian seen in those parts in the last fifty
years. He offered to fight any gentleman who felt disposed to challenge this
assertion. He sprang suddenly aloft, knocked his bare heels together and uttered
an ear-piercing whoop. He subsided and gazed off into the red eye of the sun
which was slipping back of the trees. Presently he spoke again. He offered to
lick any gentleman who felt aggrieved by his previous remarks, for fifty cents,
for a drink of whisky, for a chew of tobacco, for nothing—with one hand tied
behind him! He sprang aloft, cracked his heels together as before and crowed
insultingly; then he subsided into silence. An instant later he appeared stung
by the acutest pangs of remorse. In a cringing tone he begged Polly to forgive
him for bringing her to such a place. He bewailed that they had risked pollution
by allowing any inhabitant of that region to set foot on the raft—he feared for
the innocent minds of their children, and he implored her pardon. Perhaps it was
better that they should cast off at once—unless one of the gentlemen on shore
felt himself insulted, in which event he would remain to fight.
Then as he slowly worked the raft out toward the middle of the stream, he
repeated all his former remarks, punctuating them with frequent whoops. He
recapitulated the terms on which he could be induced to fight-fifty cents, a
drink of liquor, a chew of tobacco, nothing! His shouts became fainter and
fainter as the raft was swept down-stream, and finally died away in the
distance.