. Annapolis

THE CRISIS

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

WHICH DEALS WITH ORIGINS

Faithfully to relate how Eliphalet Hopper came try St. Louis is to betray
no secret. Mr. Hopper is wont to tell the story now, when his
daughter-in-law is not by; and sometimes he tells it in her presence, for
he is a shameless and determined old party who denies the divine right of
Boston, and has taken again to chewing tobacco.

When Eliphalet came to town, his son's wife, Mrs: Samuel D. (or S. Dwyer
as she is beginning to call herself), was not born. Gentlemen of Cavalier
and Puritan descent had not yet begun to arrive at the Planters' House,
to buy hunting shirts and broad rims, belts and bowies, and depart
quietly for Kansas, there to indulge in that; most pleasurable of
Anglo-Saxon pastimes, a free fight. Mr. Douglas had not thrown his bone
of Local Sovereignty to the sleeping dogs of war.

To return to Eliphalet's arrival,--a picture which has much that is
interesting in it. Behold the friendless boy he stands in the prow of the
great steamboat 'Louisiana' of a scorching summer morning, and looks with
something of a nameless disquiet on the chocolate waters of the
Mississippi. There have been other sights, since passing Louisville,
which might have disgusted a Massachusetts lad more. A certain deck on
the 'Paducah', which took him as far as Cairo, was devoted to cattle
--black cattle. Eliphalet possessed a fortunate temperament. The deck was
dark, and the smell of the wretches confined there was worse than it
should have been. And the incessant weeping of some of the women was
annoying, inasmuch as it drowned many of the profane communications of
the overseer who was showing Eliphalet the sights. Then a fine-linened
planter from down river had come in during the conversation, and paying
no attention to the overseer's salute cursed them all into silence, and
left.

Eliphalet had ambition, which is not a wholly undesirable quality. He
began to wonder how it would feel to own a few of these valuable
fellow-creatures. He reached out and touched lightly a young mulatto
woman who sat beside him with an infant in her arms. The peculiar dumb
expression on her face was lost on Eliphalet. The overseer had laughed
coarsely.

"What, skeered on 'em?" said he. And seizing the girl by the cheek, gave
it a cruel twinge that brought a cry out of her.

Eliphalet had reflected upon this incident after he had bid the overseer
good-by a