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“How much you weigh, Old Man Captain?”
“Ninety-cight pounds with the mud off my
boots.”
“The Gove'ment,” he says, “is a bit over
weight for you!” -
Then he laughed again, and while he was argu
iuwiththenluuwpzetmemothawe-w
out of a particular box put in a particular place,
the secretary whispers to me: *First time he's
ever laughed like he used to laugh since it hap-
M!n
-+ “I'd give a pretty,” says I, “if I could make him
laugh ali the time!”
“You can,” says the secretary. “You and
the houn’ pups and the pot liqueh.”
\ththcmckid:l-‘ellertmtouubcpupn
nwlxbedlhd;muphhhuxdgth&ukluhlm
lmlheirhuk(ut,lndthuuemedtopleue
him, too. Al except the nigger. He looked at
their muddy tracks on his clean white deck, but
he kept on shining the brass work.
The Big Rich Feller and me sat under the
awnin’s, “So you never surrendered, Old Man
Captain? Well, I ain't cither,” he says. “The
Gove'ment’s again me, t 00.”
“I take your business is making railroads?"
“Making railroads -that's it,” he says, “and
presidents.”
“If they're fighting you so powe'ful hard 1
reckon you done been one of them trusts I hear
“I reckon I am, Old Man Captain. But 1
love the river—ll played along it when I was a
little shaver, and once I saw a big gunboat flect
start up in the Ohio to come down here to lick
you Johnnies.”
“Well, yere I am —-ain’t licked yet!” 1 tels
him, and again he smiles. “And what's more
1 ain’t going to be!”
“OM Man, when you go back to your old
fusty traps and moss and dawgs in your okl
palm hut, what you going to live on?”
“I'd give a pretty to find it out,” | says.
“You ought to get a pension, you fought for
the South so hand *
“Reckon 1 would if the Yanks hadn't come
down and busted us up so cdean. There ain't
any Gove'ment left for an old swamper Johnunie
“Officially there ain't,” says the Big Rich
Feller, “but after all there is. Just for pension
ing ol swamper Johnnie Rebs like you that
have rheumatism in the only leg you got.”
“How's that,” I asked Bim. “I never boen
out of Barataria since ‘65, and | can't read the
papers, but | thought our boys was all cleanad
out?”
“Officially, yos -~ he says. “ But on the other
hand you're all that's best of the Confederacy,
seving that you never surrendered. I there's
anything left it's coming to you, and I'm going to
soe about it
“Thank-ce,” | tells him, “but | don't think
you'll find much ™
He looked “way off 1o the gray woods as if he
was considering. < Well, I'm golng hack Nowth,”
he says, “and I sec about 3. 1 want you 1o
eat better and not tic your foet up with obd rags
and bits of string. Al your ol sorry palm
shack and rusty mink teape. And your ol peg
beg. U you ain't surrendered, you're all that's
left of the Confederacy, and there ain't enough
of you 10 put a sizable fight up-—officially. ARI
you can doofficially -Ob Man Captain, is to
draw a pension and have more cawn bevad and
Bacon in your obd palm shack ™
Then they steamed off up the bia, the nigeer
working at his brass and the Big Kich Feller
waving his s gar from the awnin's. 1 never
could make bead or tail of that talk. | adked
Frank shout it, and the Cajun be dida't know
either. Along in May came the hesdrise and the
white water from the Hymwlia crevase, and the
rains fell for thirty days, and | was kept climbing
bigher and higher off my pdatform when the big
congo snakes came out of the swampe on the
flods. One time Frank Foret came paddling bis
plirogue up from the Grand Lake sto’,
“OM man.” be says, “read dat!”
1 sweur be had & better for me. First better |
ever had in forty yeurs and | coubdnt read the
frst word. | opened it and Frask be cusend,
first in Cajan and then in N Awlyne Fromeh, and
1 did all | could in Engleh before we condd sl
Mout. But it was from the Bithe seorctary. 11
skl Mr. Gitwon had done hunted ap what was
bt of the Sa'then Gove'ment. They was guing
1o gy me teebve dedlars & month and Me G
won adviced | put & plank B in my comp and
oot some sto’ shows wnd don't Bve s mach o
wash and land and pot Bgwh. Me sid the
Conve mert was dead sguin an obd Joboode Kot
Being om s’y 00l guot Buguch
That was the beginning Four times & yoor
for three years |ot them Retters | never condd
viake bewd or taill of bow the Big Rick Foller gt
Ut mmocney cut of (e G maent ot whie b any
ment #owas Sometiows the motey < ame ftoen
Cinclonati and Potshargh and then New Vorlk
ol then s place in Farge Sewms Bhe thas
S thews cmecial Cone et of oure i They was
the Vanke «till bopt it on the jump. Ounce there
American Sunday Monthly Magazine Section
was a long wait, and then the secretary said Mr.
Gibson had some trouble with the Gove'ment
and they clean forgot the pension.
But anyhow I moved out of the deep swamp
and built a board shack down by Frank’s place
where I could see the boats go down the bia. 1
* got bad sick that winter, but when spring came
I could crawl out on the platform and watch
down the bia. Somehow I just got wistful to see
that yaller gas boat come down from the river.
I couldn’t work much and that got on my mind.
But the Julia Gibson never came. Next spring
I was some weaker, and Frank said if it hadn't
been for the pension I'd sh’ died for medicine.
But I would loved to see that gas boat agin.
I'd even loved to see that nigger rubbing his brass
work, and scowling at the tracks my dawgs made
on his canvas. I'd give a pretty to see anything
that remind me of the Big Rich Feller. But |
reckon he was busy with all them railroads and
presidents. Then one time I went across to
Frank’s place and there was him and that other
Cajun who kept the post-office down the bia. Old
Fitzende had a newspaper and he was smiling.
“Dat Beeg Rich Feller,” he says just like a
Cajun. “Hee ees M'sieu Gibson? "
“Hee ces,” 1 tells him, for I never did take
much to that Cajun postmaster.
“Dey got heem, MPsicu Old Man Captain!”
“Got him?"”
“Fo' stealin’ some railroads ™
“Railroads? He don’t want to steal no rail
roads!” Isays. *He done got plenty of his own!™
Old Fitzende lifts his shoulders. “I been
readin’ dis mawnin’ a whole lot about dat Beeg
Rich Feller, in dat N'Awlyns paper. Heem and
dat Gove'ment up in Washington— by gar! dey
sho' indict him fo’ railroads! "
“You dirty old crab-eater!” 1 yells at him.
“Mr. Gibson, he wouldn't steal pobody’s rail
roads! ™
I was so clean afraid that I'd take off my g
leg and hit some of them with it that I done went
out to my pirogue and paddle across the bia. |
was sore all week over that, Next mail-boat came
in, | went over to Frank's place. Sho' enough
there was Fitzende reading some more papers.
“OM Man Captain, dat Beeg Rich Feller, he
make wan beeg fight! Al dem lawyers and courts
and politics ehen! Dat money dey spend —dat
Gove'ment it grab beem and say: *Why fo' all
dat money you spend fo’ dem juries? ™
“He don't buy no juries!”
“No? Dis N'Awlyns paper say so—%o many
beeg words dat | can’t make it all. | paw down
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to dat schoolmaster at La Cheniere and ask heem.
He say dat Gove'ment grab all dem trusts, and
bust up all dem Beeg Rich le"
1 went back to camp and t a heap. 1
knowed he didn’t touch nobody’s railroads, but
it sho’ was bad if the Gove'ment busted up the
Big Rich Feller. No more I see that Julia boat
come down the bia. And hear him laugh - his
great big barrel of a laugh!
Mebbe he couldn’t afford to keep the nigger
any more, and mebbe he'd had to sell his Julia
boat. I worried a heap all blackberry time about
the Gove'ment fighting the Big Rich Feller.
But my pension come right along from that
unofficial Confederate Gove'ment he done tell
me about. Lee'd surrendered, and Mosby sur
rendered, and Colonel Marmaduke of my old
bat'ry, he surrendered —but “Old Man Captain
he never surrendered, so if there's anything left
of the Su'then Confederate Gove'ment it’s sho’
#ot to recognize him— unofficially.” That's what
the skinny secretary wrote me his last letter.
But he didn't say a word about the Big Rich
Feller, 1 got to wondering all spring how they
come out—the Gove'ment and the Big Rich
Feller. :
One time Old Fitzende stop off at my shack
from Ettienne's shrimp lugger and grin up at me.
“Well, dey got him loose.”
“Never proved he took no railroads?
“Reckon so. Dis N'Awlyns paper say dey
got him loose, but sacré! —the money he cost!
Dat Beeg Rich Feiler had to get out of all dem
railroads. Eh, what you call heem, Old Man
Captain?”
“ Resign, I reckon.”
“Sho’s right. Must have busted up dat Beeg
Rich Feller!”
OM Fitzende go on up the bia, and 1 hobble
back to my old camp. 1 thought a heap that
night. One of my houn’ pups died of snake bite
and 1 let another go over 1o La Fourche woods
turtling with Frank's boy this summer. OM
Pont and I stuck it out alone, and wa'n't much
cawn cake and lard we neoded. Had all the
clothes 1 could wore in three years down in the
deep swamp. Didn't need no money particular.
Last three pensions from that unofficial Su'then
Gove'ment the little secretary had sent me, I'd
done hid up in my ol mad chimney. Ol Ponto
and me had quite a sight of money, and [ was
fecling better than | had in three years since the
pension come and | laid off cruising the deep
swamp. But | got 10 thinking: here mebbe this
scason there'd be some trapping back of the
forty-arpent line, and mebbe the crabs would
runabovetbecontnc'pdccwiththctndebuu,
and mebbe soon I'd feel chipper enough to strap
on my old peg leg again and tote a bait o' moss
out of the deep swamp. 1 wasn’t no hand any
how to sit around when I was able to kick.
So 1 took my old johnboat and paddled down
to Frank’s place. I explain to him what I
wanted, and we sat up half the night rastling with
that letter. He put in all the words he knowed,
and I put in all the words I knowed: and when
he got stuck I tried to spell his'n and he tried to
spell mine. I reckon it was a sorry little old
letter we wrote the secretary. But we done tell
himnmtdltlwpeadonmoncywhimlo
turn over to the Big Rich Feller, because the
Gove'ment busted him up so strong; and we
toldhimhoww&dl'ouldlovetonethcylllfl
gas boat come up the bia, for we didn't believe
nothin’ the N'Awlyns paper wrote about him now.
Next week I was back in the deep swamp
among the frawgs and the owls and the snakes
and the 'gators, mending my old crab line, and
scraping the rust off my old traps. It wa'n't so
casy somehow, for I'd got stiff from keeping out
dhsrdwmkthelhmyuulmthumfl«m
money from the unofficial Su'then Gove'ment.
Frank says to me: “Old Man Captain, you stay
hercamituulfln’orwdaymnew‘cm
out of the deep swamp, old and sore as you be.”
“Reckon I can pay my debts and send back
that money to help out the Big Rich Feller,”
I tells him.
“You reckon he didn't steal no railroads?
says the Cajun.
“Sho' as Almighty lives and rules!” says 1.
“Sacré! Whatall a-matter wif dat Gove'-
ment?"™
“I dunno,” 1 says. “But I'd give a pretty
to see his old yaller gas boat coming down the °
hia. If the Big Rich Feller gets in trouble up
there there's always a friend for him down here.”
I was kind of peaked and worried that season
When spring open up and the headrise flooded up
and the bia was all afloat with the lilies, 1 crawled
wld-ycupiuthrnmwknlald.lcwl
could smell the smell o' sweet land when the
Nowth wat' = pushed the salt tides down.
“ Reckon by March he mought come,” 1 says
“lUs just the time for the Big Rich Feller.”
But the only thing | we was Frank paddling
bis pirogue down the bis. He come along my
platform to make coffee and he says: “OM Man
Captain, done totin’ yo' mow?"
“OM Missisdp’ headrise done drowned out all
my o
“Runnin’ ary crablive fo' Ettienne’s trade
| ot 2™
| "Sweet water done drav all the crabs to the
t Goull.”
‘ “What yo'and yo' dawgs livin' on since you swnt
l 30" pension money hack 1o the Big Rich Feller>
“Greens and pot Bigueh, sometimes, —and
Q again pot Bgueh and greens
Frank held up a ketter. Yo done been a fool,
Ohd Man Captain’ ™
The ketter was from the litthe secretary. Took
some time before Frank and me could make
bead or tail of what he writ us about. But he
sabd the Big Rich Feller didn't need that penson
money. He thanked us for sending it, the secre
| Rary died, but be says the Big Rich Feller was the
man who wnt it in the firt place. He says be
was firee 1o say o now for the first time in all these
years bevanse now the Big Rich Feller was dead
lku)flhflrtummllmuflrudhmud
suits and the Gove 'ment after him, but what drove
|Wi ot after all and broke his heart was first his
wife and child getting killed with the sutomabsile
Never had none of his ol heart to fight after
that, and the Gove'ment just wore him down
Mhmwwfidmm. The Ntk
weretary wrote that the very bast week of his
e, when the court finally cheaned up his name,
e oot that Bitthe obd food letter we sent with the
pemsbon. Considerable tired and weak, the Big
Kok Feller was, bt be Laugh out once in bie obd
Vg way and be 10l the wcretary
“You write OM Man Captain down in Lol
any and tell bim | never stenl no railroads -a0
wr! Vou tell OM Man Captain that | sever
sstrevabered cithet -
YOUR CHOICE OF HARRISON
FISHER PICTURES
Fort the Senelit of ann o Wl de
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Mores 454
‘ PRINT DEPARTMENT
AMERICAN SUNDAY MONTHLY MAGAZING
I West Sk Street New York Cany