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About The Hesperian / (Lincoln, Neb.) 1885-1899 | View Entire Issue (April 27, 1896)
THE HESPERIAN Dixie; or A Sailor's Story- It was a still summer night. Lake Erie was unusually calm: yet struggling billows rolled here and there. The Northern Light, enroute from Chicago to Buffalo, with a large cargo of grain aud machinery and with three hundred passengers on board, was sailing gracefully on her course. The clear sky was one big unrolled galaxy of stars: the large full moon hung directly overhead and its rejection lit up the dark blue waters. That peculiar beauty of the lake in the moon light lias often served as the poet's theme. My shipmate and I were sitting enjoying a tranquil smoke on the after-quarter deck. Everything was quiet below; the music and dancing in the cabin had ceased. The mid night watch had changed and gone down. Hie dull heavy thumping noise of the big engine bellow, beating constantly the time, the occasional cllank of the rudder chains at the stern, and the smothered roar of ruhin" waiters at the prow, were the only noises to disturb the perfect silence, While thus sit ting in the cool lake breeze and gentlv rocked by the motion of the ship, my mind wandered to long loved places, to the home of my childhood, to sonse old play ground, U wrae mound marking the resting place of a dear friend. The ffiie in mv jiiwe had mn omit. My shipnaate was apparently looking ait his feet, his pipe in his itnomtb upside down, no fine in it. Owir reverie wa suddenly broken by a UoiDd blow of the big whittle. The whole ship trembled. We were; answered by the passing ft&ai; the answer aoMnded CMuBy Bike a echo. My, shipmate, seeing tflbe ashea oust of may pipe, a5d, I wa Swat thinking how to-day 1 might have owned a ship Bike flhu" 1 knew from iite igmwi that a Bong itfxy was wjw going to be iniwraveled. "Ye,, I might have been wortHii a in web a this wholle ship and the cargo thrown jm, he eontiniBed. "Every ttme I think aboait It I kick maiyaelf for being TOh a J fool. Here I am mt a aallor before the jraast and have to woirk two and three. Jay and night at a clip very often, as we did last trip into Chicago, and 1 expect we will have to do it when we get into Buffalo. I might just as well have been wearing my broadcloth." He had now gotten his pipe refilled and lighted, after taking a few puffs he contin ued "I was born and raised in Tennessee on old Judge Trotter's plantation. Old Trotter had about three hundred slaves; he was very good to etn; they done about as they pleased, and he never 'lowed a one of them to be whipped if he knew it. They saucied everything about the place "cept him and ole missus. 5Iy mother was one of the house women, so I was raised about the house. When 1 got big enough some of ihe boys learned me to drive, and before long I was driving the carriage all aroucd. At first I thought it fun but after awile I got tired of it and then they made me tlo it. That was about all the work I ever done, was driving that carriage, and it was going nearly all the time. Old Trotter's only child, Georgia, was just one year younger than me, and as I said I was raided about the big house, so we were brought np together, my mother nursed us both. It was alright when we was little, but when we got bigger Georgia's mother tried to keep us apart a little more. Bat it was no we. Georgia was one of thtfe spoiled young one, hard-headed, and bound to have her own way. She would fight her mother and fat he or anybodv when she wa only twelve year old, and when she got one of her high ways she wa boss of the place. After while, whew Georgia was about seven teen, the of J folk sent her away to aebool, !5o-ton S believe it wa. Before be left sbe btd me good-bye when tm one saw as. Tbew she was only a frolicking girl but three year afterward when she came hack, what a change ! She was young mhm and tended to all her father business. She wa mart; be had studied Vittbmetic and Greek and grammar and all tbi kind a thing. She took her ride in the carriage nearly every morning. I wa the only coach man
