Gideon's Band: A Tale of the MississippiCable, George Washington
General
Gideon's Band: A Tale of the Mississippi
Cable, George Washington
Mississippi River -- Fiction
For to Ramsey, in this first bereavement of her life, sleep was as
abhorrent as if her brother's burial were already at hand. Grief was
good, for grief was love. Sleep was heartlessness. Moreover, in sleep,
only in sleep, there was no growth. Of course, that was not true; only
yesterday and the day before she had grown consciously between evening
and morning, grown wonderfully. But she had forgotten that and in every
fibre of her being felt a frenzy for growth, for getting on, like the
frenzy of a bird left behind by the flock. All the boat's human life,
all its majestic going--led on by the stars--and especially all those by
whose command or guidance it went, made for growth. So, too, did this
dear Mrs. So-and-so, who could so kindly understand how one in deep
sorrow may go on seeing the drollery of things. Grief, love, solace,
growth, she was all of them in one. If she, Ramsey, might neither nurse
the sick with her mother nor watch with Mrs. Gilmore and "Harriet," here
was this dear, fair lady with the tenderest, most enlightening words of
faith and comfort that ever had fallen on her ears; words never too
eager or too many, but always just in time and volume to satisfy grief's
fitful questionings.
For refuge they had tried every quarter of these upper decks; now paced
them, now stood, now sat, and had found each best in its turn; but such
open-air seclusion itself drew notice, made notice more felt, and so the
dusk of the pilot-house had soon been found best of all. It remained so
now--while the great chimneys out forward breathed soothingly, and a
mile astern glimmered the _Westwood_, and a mile ahead glimmered the
_Antelope_, and here among the few occupants of the visitors' bench
there drifted a soft, alluring gossip about each newly turned bend of
the most marvellous of rivers. To nestle back in its larboard corner
while now some one came up and in and now some one slipped down and out,
and while ever the pilot's head and shoulders and the upper spokes of
his vigilant wheel stood outlined against the twinkling sky and rippling
air, was like resting one's head on the _Votaress's_ bosom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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