e?
what an awful thing we have done? We have never said a cross word to
each other and now, look at us both.'"

"I watched poor John walk away, darkness was falling but early in the
morning my boss and I followed a trail of blood down by the side of the
tracks. From there he had turned into the woods. We could follow him no
further. We went to all the nearby towns and villages but we found no
person who had ever seen him. We supposed he had died in the woods and
watched for the buzzards, thinking thay would lead us to his body but he
was never seen again."

"For two years I never sat down to look inside a book nor to eat my food
that John Sims was not beside me. He haunted my pillow and went beside
me night and day. His blood was on my hands, his presence haunted me
beyond endurance. What could I do? How could I escape this awful
presence? An old friend told me to put water between myself and the
place where the awful scene occurred. So, I quit working on the railroad
and started working on the river. People believed at that time that the
ghost of a person you had wronged would not cross water to haunt you."

Life on the river was diverting. Things were constantly happening and
George Arnold put aside some of his unhappiness by engaging in river
activities.

"My first job on the river was as a roust-about on the Bolliver H Cook a
stern wheel packet which carried freight and passengers from Nashville,
Tennessee to Evansville, Indiana. I worked a round trip on her and then
went from Nashville to Cairo, Illinois on the B.S. Rhea. I soon decided
to go to Cairo and take a place on the Eldarado, a St. Louis and
Cincinnati packet which crused from Cairo to Cincinnati. On that boat I
worked as a roust-about for nearly three years."

"What did the roust-about have to do?" asked a neighbor lad who had come
into the room. "The roust-about is no better than the mate that rules
him. If the mate is kindly disposed the roust-about has an easy enough
life. The negroes had only a few years of freedom and resented cruelty.
If the mate became too mean, a regular fight would follow and perhaps
several roust-abouts would be hurt before it was finished."

Uncle George said that food was always plentiful on the boats.
Passengers and freight were crowded together on the decks. At night
there would be singing and dancing and fiddle music. "We roust-abouts
would get together and shoot craps, dance or play cards until the call
came to shuf