CHAPTER XLVIII

OLD RIVER DAYS

Among the honored citizens of Vicksburg, at the time of our visit, were a number of old steamboat men who knew the river in its golden days; among them, Captain "Mose" Smith, Captain Tom Young, Captain W.S. ("Billy") Jones, and Captain S.H. Parisot--the latter probably the oldest surviving Mississippi River captain.

We were sent to see Captain Parisot at his house, where he received us kindly, entertained us for an hour or more with reminiscences, and showed us a most interesting collection of souvenirs of the river, including photographs of famous boats, famous deck loads of cotton, and famous characters: among the latter the celebrated rivals, Captain John W. Cannon of the _Robert E. Lee_ and Captain Thomas P. Leathers of the _Natchez_. Captain Parisot knew both these men well, and was himself aboard the _Lee_ at the time of her famous race with the _Natchez_ from New Orleans to St. Louis.

"We left New Orleans 3½ minutes ahead of the _Natchez_," said Captain Parisot, "made the run to Vicksburg in 24 hours and 28 minutes, beat her to Cairo by 1 hour and 12 minutes, and to St. Louis by more than 3 hours."

Captain Parisot's father was a soldier under Napoleon I, and moved to Warren County, Mississippi, after having been wounded at Moscow. He built, at the foot of Main Street, Vicksburg, the first brick house that city had.

"There was a law in France," said the captain, "that any citizen absent from the country for thirty-five years lost all claim to property. My father's people were pretty well off, so in '42 he started back, but he was taken ill and died in New Orleans."

Captain Parisot was born in 1828, and in 1847 began "learning the river." In 1854 he became part owner of a boat, and three years later purchased one of his own.

"I bought her in Cincinnati," he said. Then, reflectively, he added: "There was a good deal of drinking in those days. When I brought her down on her first trip I had 183 tons of freight, and 500 barrels of whisky, from Cincinnati, for one little country store--Barksdale & McFarland's, at Yazoo City."

"There was a good deal of gambling, too, wasn't there?" one of us suggested.

"There was indeed," smiled the old captain. "Every steamboat was a gambling house, and there used to be big games before the war."

"How big?"

"Well," he returned, "as Captain Leathers once put it, it used to be 'nigger ante and plantation limit.' And that's no joke about playing for niggers either. Those old planters would play for anything. I've known people to get on a boat at Yazoo City to come to Vicksburg, and get in a game, and never get off at Vicksburg at all--just go back to Yazoo; yes, and come down again, to keep the game going.

"There was a saloon called the Exchange near our house in Yazoo, and I remember once my father got into a game, there, with a gambler named Spence Thrift. That was before the war. Thrift was a terrible stiff bluffer. When he got ready to clean up, he'd shove up his whole pile. Well, he did that to my father. Thrift's pile was twenty-two hundred dollars, and all my father had in front of him was eight hundred. But he owned a young negro named Calvin, so he called Calvin, and told him: 'Here, boy! Jump up on the table.' That equalled the gambler's pile; and it finished him--he threw down his hand, beaten.

"Business in those times was done largely on friendship. It used to be said that I 'owned' the Yazoo River when I was running my line. I knew everybody up there. They were my friends, and they gave me their business for that reason, and also because I brought the cotton down here to Vicksburg, and reshipped it from here on, down the river. It was considered an advantage to reship cotton because moving it from one boat to another knocked the mud off the bales.

"There used to be some enormous cargoes of cotton carried. The largest boat on the river was the _Henry Frank_, owned by Frank Hicks of Memphis. She ran between Memphis and New Orleans, and on one trip carried 9226 bales. Those were the old-style bales, of course. They weighed 425 to 450 pounds each, as against 550 to 600 pounds, which is the weight of a bale to-day, now that powerful machinery is used to make them. The heavy bale came into use partly to beat transportation charges, as rates were not made by weight, but at so much per bale.

"The land up the Yazoo belonged to the State, and the State sold it for $1.25 per acre. The fellows that got up there first weren't any too anxious to see new folks coming in and entering land. Used to try all kinds of schemes to get them out.

"There were two brothers up there named Parker. One of them was a surveyor--we called him 'Baldy'--and the other was lumbering, getting timber out of the cypress breaks and rafting it down. Almost all the timber used from Vicksburg to New Orleans came out of there.

"One time a man came up the Yazoo to take up land and went to stop with Baldy Parker. When they sat down to dinner Baldy took some flour and sprinkled it all over his meat.

"'What's that?' asked the stranger.

"'Quinine,' says Baldy. 'Haven't you got any?'

"'No,' says the fellow; 'what would I want it for?'

"'You'll find out if you go out there in the swamps,' Baldy tells him. 'It's full of malaria. We eat quinine on everything.'

"The fellow was quiet through the rest of the meal.

"Pretty soon they got up to go out, and Baldy took up a pair of stovepipes.

"'What do you do with them pipes?' asks the stranger.

"'Wear 'em, of course,' says Baldy. 'Haven't you got any?'

"'No,' says the fellow. 'What for?'

"'Why,' says Baldy, 'the rattlesnakes out there will bite the legs right off of you.'

"With that the fellow had enough. He didn't go any farther, but turned around and took the boat down the river."

In all his years as captain and line owner on the river, Captain Parisot never lost a vessel. "I never insured against sinking," he told us. "Just against fire. But I got the best pilots I could hire. In all I built twenty-seven steamboats. I had $150,000 worth of boats when I sold my line in 1880. After I sold they did lose some boats."

Later we saw Captain "Billy" Jones, a much younger man than Captain Parisot, yet old enough to have known the river in its prime. Captain Jones deserted the river years ago, and is now a golfer with a prosperous banking business on the side.

"Captain Parisot was right when he said business on the river was done largely on friendship," said Captain Jones. "Also business used to be turned down for the opposite reason. There was a historic case of that in this town.

"Captain Tom Leathers was in the habit of refusing to take freight on the _Natchez_ if he didn't like the shipper or the consignee. For some reason or other he had it in for the firm of Lamkin & Eggleston, wholesale grocers here in Vicksburg, and declined their freight. They sued him in the Circuit Court and got judgment. Leathers carried the case to the Supreme Court, but the verdict was sustained and he had to pay $2500 damages. He was furious.

"'What's the use,' he said, 'of being a steamboat captain if you can't tell people to go to hell?'"

It is the lamentable fact, and I must face it, and so must you if you intend to read on, that the language of the river was rough. At least ninety-nine out of every hundred river stories are, therefore, not printable in full. Either they must be vitiated by deletions, or interpreted at certain points by blanks and "blanketys." As for me, I prefer the blankety-blanks and I consider that this method of avoiding the complete truth relieves me of all responsibility. And of course, if that is so, it absolves, at the same time, good Captain "Billy" Jones, or any one else who may have happened to tell me the stories.

Both Leathers and Cannon were large, powerful men, and they always hated each other. Leathers was never popular, for he was very arrogant, but he had a great reputation for pushing the _Natchez_ through on time. Also, such friends as he did have always stuck by him.

Something of the feeling between the two old river characters is revealed in the following story related by Captain Jones:

"Ed Snodgrass, who lived in St. Joseph, La., was a friend of both Cannon and Leathers. When the _Natchez_ would arrive at St. Joseph, he would go and give Leathers news about Cannon, and when the _Lee_ came in he would see Cannon and tell him about Leathers.

"Well, one time Leathers was laid up with a carbuncle on his back, and brought a doctor up on the boat with him. So, of course, Ed Snodgrass told Cannon about it when he came along.

"'A carbuncle, eh?' said Cannon.

"'Yes,' said Ed.

"'Well,' said Cannon, 'you tell the old blankety-blank-blank that I had a brother--a bigger, stronger man than I am--and he had one o' them things and died in two weeks.'

"Soon after that Cannon made a misstep when backing the _Natchez_ out, at Natchez, and fell, breaking his collar bone. Of course Ed Snodgrass gave the news to Leathers when he came along.

"'Huh!' said Leathers. 'His collar bone, eh? You tell the old blankety-blank-blank that I wish it had been his blankety-blank neck!'"

I asked Captain Jones for stories about gambling.

"After the war," he said, "there weren't the big poker games there used to be. Mostly we had sucker games then. There was a gambler named George Duval who wrote a book--or, rather, he had somebody write it for him, for he was a very ignorant fellow, and began his life calking the seams of boats in a shipyard. He had a partner who was known as 'Jew Mose,' who used to dress like a rich planter. He wore a broad-brimmed hat and a very elegant tail coat, and was a big, handsome man.

"After the boat left New Orleans, this 'Jew Mose' would disguise himself with whiskers and goggles, go to the barber shop and lay out his game. George Duval and a fellow called 'Canada Bill' were the cappers. They would bring in suckers, get their money, and generally get off the boat about Baton Rouge.

"Once when I was a clerk on the _Robert E. Lee_, Duval got a young fellow in tow, and the young fellow wanted to bet on the game, but he had a friend with him, and his friend kept pulling him away.

"Later, when Duval had given up the idea of getting this young fellow's money, and closed up his game, he appeared in the social hall of the boat with a small bag held up to his face.

"Somebody asked him what was in the bag.

"'It's hot salt,' he said. 'I've got a toothache, and a bag of hot salt is the best thing in the world for toothache.'

"Presently, when he went to his stateroom to get something, he left the bag of salt on the stove to heat it up. While he was gone somebody suggested, as a joke, that they dump out the salt and fill the bag with ashes, instead. So they did it. And when Duval came back he held it up to his face again, and seemed perfectly satisfied.

"'How does it feel now?' one of the fellows asked.

"'Fine,' said Duval. 'Hot salt is the best thing going.'

"At that, the man who had prevented the young fellow from betting, down in the barber shop, earlier in the day, offered to bet Duval a hundred dollars that the bag didn't contain salt.

"Duval took the bet and raised him back another hundred. But the man had only fifty dollars left. However, another fellow, standing in the crowd, put in the extra fifty to make two hundred dollars a side.

"Then Duval opened the bag, and it _was_ salt. He had changed the bags, and the fellows who worked up the trick were his cappers."

One of the old-time river gamblers was an individual, blind in one eye, known as "One-eyed Murphy." Murphy was an extremely artful manipulator of cards, and made a business of cheating. One day, shortly after the _Natchez_ had backed out from New Orleans and got under way, Marion Knowles, a picturesque gentleman of the period, and one who had the reputation of being polite even in the most trying circumstances, and no matter how well he had dined, came in and stood for a time as a spectator beside a table at which Murphy was playing poker with some guileless planters. Mr. Knowles was not himself guileless, and very shortly he perceived that the one-eyed gambler was dealing himself cards from the bottom of the pack. Thereupon he drew his revolver from his pocket and rapping with it on the table addressed the assembly:

"Gentlemen," he said, speaking in courtly fashion, "I regret to say that there is something wrong here. I will not call any names, neither will I make any personal allusions. _But if it doesn't stop, damn me if I don't shoot his other eye out!_"

I cannot drop the river, and stories of river gambling, without referring to one more tale which is a classic. It is a long story about a big poker game, and to tell it properly one must know the exact words. I do not know them, and therefore shall not attempt to tell the whole story, but shall give you only the beginning.

It is supposed to be told by a Virginian.

"There was me," he says, "and another very distinguished gentleman from Virginia and a gentleman from Kentucky, and a man from Ohio, and a fellow from New York, and a blankety-blank from Boston--"

That is all I know of the story, but I can guess who got the money in that game.

Can't you?

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