And although a good deal wasted outside, as usual Log-in-the-Creek became sick and then asleep after seven or eight horns, and Ikkemotubbe returned to Herman Basket’s gallery, where for a day or two at least he didn’t have to not listen to the harmonica.
Finally Owl-at-Night made a suggestion. “Send Herman Basket’s aunt a gift.” But the only thing Ikkemotubbe owned which Herman Basket’s aunt didn’t, was the new racing pony. So after a while Ikkemotubbe said, “So it seems I want this girl even worse than I believed,” and sent Owl-at-Night to tie the racing pony’s hackamore to Herman Basket’s kitchen door handle.
Then he thought how Herman Basket’s aunt could not even always make Herman Basket’s sister just get up and go to the spring for water. Besides, she was the second cousin by marriage to the grand-niece of the wife of old David Colbert, the chief Man of all the Chickasaws in our section, and she looked upon Issetibbeha’s whole family and line as mushrooms.
“But Herman Basket has been known to make her get up and go to the spring,” my father said. “And I never heard him claim that old Dave Colbert’s wife or his wife’s niece or anybody else’s wife or niece or aunt was any better than anybody else. Give Herman the horse.”
“I can beat that,” Ikkemotubbe said. Because there was no horse in the Plantation or America either between Natchez and Nashville whose tail Ikkemotubbe’s new pony ever looked at. “I will run Herman a horse-race for his influence,” he said. “Run,” he told my father. “Catch Owl-at-Night before he reaches the house.” So my father brought the pony back in time.
But just in case Herman Basket’s aunt had been watching from the kitchen window or something, Ikkemotubbe sent Owl-at-Night and Sylvester’s John home for his crate of gamecocks, though he expected little from this since Herman Basket’s aunt already owned the best cocks in the Plantation and won all the money every Sunday morning anyway.
And then Herman Basket declined to commit himself, so a horse-race would have been merely for pleasure and money. And Ikkemotubbe said how money could not help him, and with that damned girl on his mind day and night his tongue had forgotten the savor of pleasure. But the whisky-trader always came, and so for a day or two at least he wouldn’t have to not listen to the harmonica.
Then David Hogganbeck also looked at Herman Basket’s sister, whom he too had been seeing once each year since the steamboat first walked to the Plantation. After a while even winter would be over and we would begin to watch the mark which David Hogganbeck had put on the landing to show us when the water would be tall enough for the steamboat to walk in. Then the river would reach the mark, and sure enough within two suns the steamboat would cry in the Plantation.
Then all the People — men and women and children and dogs, even Herman Basket’s sister because Ikkemotubbe would fetch a horse for her to ride and so only Log-in-the-Creek would remain, not inside the house even though it was still cold, because Herman Basket’s aunt wouldn’t let him stay inside the house where she would have to step over him each time she passed, but squatting in his blanket on the gallery with an old cooking-pot of fire inside the blanket with him — would stand on the landing, to watch the upstairs and the smokestack moving among the trees and hear the puffing of the smokestack and its feet walking fast in the water too when it was not crying.
Then we would begin to hear David Hogganbeck’s fiddle, and then the steamboat would come walking up the last of the river like a race-horse, with the smoke rolling black and its feet flinging the water aside as a running horse flings dirt, and Captain Studenmare who owned the steamboat chewing tobacco in one window and David Hogganbeck playing his fiddle in the other, and between them the head of the boy slave who turned the wheel, who was not much more than half as big as Captain Studenmare and not even a third as big as David Hogganbeck. And all day long the trading would continue, though David Hogganbeck took little part in this.
And all night long the dancing would continue, and David Hogganbeck took the biggest part in this. Because he was bigger than any two of the young men put together almost, and although you would not have called him a man built for dancing or running either, it was as if that very double size which could hold twice as much whisky as any other, could also dance twice as long, until one by one the young men fell away and only he was left.
And there was horse-racing and eating, and although David Hogganbeck had no horses and did not ride one since no horse could have carried him and run fast too, he would eat a match each year for money against any two of the young men whom the People picked, and David Hogganbeck always won. Then the water would return toward the mark he had made on the landing, and it would be time for the steamboat to leave while there was still enough water in the river for it to walk in.
And then it did not go away. The river began to grow little, yet still David Hogganbeck played his fiddle on Herman Basket’s gallery while Herman Basket’s sister stirred something for cooking into the silver wine pitcher and Ikkemotubbe sat against a post in his fine clothes and his beaver hat and Log-in-the-Creek lay on his back on the floor with the harmonica cupped in both hands to his mouth, though you couldn’t hear now whether he was blowing into it or not.
Then you could see the mark which David Hogganbeck had marked on the landing while he still played his fiddle on Herman Basket’s gallery where Ikkemotubbe had brought a rocking chair from his house to sit in until David Hogganbeck would have to leave in order to show the steamboat the way back to Natchez.
And all that afternoon the People stood along the landing and watched the steamboat’s slaves hurling wood into its stomach for steam to make it walk; and during most of that night, while David Hogganbeck drank twice as much and danced twice as long as even David Hogganbeck, so that he drank four times as much and danced four times as long as even Ikkemotubbe, even an Ikkemotubbe who at last had looked at Herman Basket’s sister or at least had looked at someone else looking at her, the older ones among the People stood along the landing and watched the slaves hurling wood into the steamboat’s stomach, not to make it walk but to make its voice cry while Captain Studenmare leaned out of the upstairs with the end of the crying-rope tied to the door-handle. And the next day Captain Studenmare himself came onto the gallery and grasped the end of David Hogganbeck’s fiddle.
“You’re fired,” he said.
“All right,” David Hogganbeck said. Then Captain Studenmare grasped the end of David Hogganbeck’s fiddle.
“We will have to go back to Natchez where I can get money to pay you off,” he said.
“Leave the money at the saloon,” David Hogganbeck said. “I’ll bring the boat back out next spring.”
Then it was night. Then Herman Basket’s aunt came out and said that if they were going to stay there all night, at least David Hogganbeck would have to stop playing his fiddle so other people could sleep. Then she came out and said for Herman Basket’s sister to come in and go to bed. Then Herman Basket came out and said, “Come on now, fellows. Be reasonable.”
Then Herman Basket’s aunt came out and said that the next time she was going to bring Herman Basket’s dead uncle’s shotgun. So Ikkemotubbe and David Hogganbeck left Log-in-the-Creek lying on the floor and stepped down from the gallery. “Goodnight,” David Hogganbeck said.
“I’ll walk home with you,” Ikkemotubbe said. So they walked across the Plantation to the steamboat. It was dark and there was no fire in its stomach now because Captain Studenmare was still asleep under Issetibbeha’s back porch. Then Ikkemotubbe said, “Goodnight.”
“I’ll walk home with you,” David Hogganbeck said. So they walked back across the Plantation to Ikkemotubbe’s house. But David Hogganbeck did not have time to say goodnight now because Ikkemotubbe turned as soon as they reached his house and started back toward the steamboat. Then he began to run, because David Hogganbeck still did not look like a man who could run fast.
But he had not looked like a man who could dance a long time either, so when Ikkemotubbe reached the steamboat and turned and ran again, he was only a little ahead of David Hogganbeck. And when they reached Ikkemotubbe’s house he was still only a little ahead of David Hogganbeck when he stopped, breathing fast but only a little fast, and held the door open for David Hogganbeck to enter.
“My house is not very much house,” he said. “But it is yours.” So they both slept in Ikkemotubbe’s bed in his house that night. And the next afternoon, although Herman Basket would still do no more than wish him success, Ikkemotubbe sent my father and Sylvester’s John with his saddle mare
