Down the River; Or, Buck Bradford and His Tyrants

"Here, Buck Bradford, black my boots, and be quick about it."

That was what Ham Fishley said to me.

"Black them yourself!"

That was what I said to Ham Fishley.

Neither of us was gentlemanly, nor even civil. I shall not apologize for myself, and certainly not for Ham, though he inherited his mean, tyrannical disposition from both his father and his mother. If he had civilly asked me to black his boots, I would have done it. If he had just told me that he was going to a party, that he was a little late, and asked me if I would assist him, I would have jumped over his head to oblige him, though he was three inches taller than I was. I am willing to go a step farther. If this had been the first, or even the twentieth, time that Ham had treated me in this shabby manner, I would have submitted. For three years he had been going on from bad to worse, till he seemed to regard me not only as a dog, but as the meanest sort of a dog, whom he could kick and cuff at pleasure.

I had stood this sort of thing till I could not stand it any longer. I had lain awake nights thinking of the treatment bestowed upon me by Captain Fishley and his wife, and especially by their son Ham; and I had come deliberately to the conclusion that something must be done. I was not a hired servant, in the ordinary sense of the term; but, whether I was or was not a servant, I was entitled to some consideration.

"What's that you say?" demanded Ham, leaping over the counter of the store.

I walked leisurely out of the shop, and directed my steps towards the barn; but I had not accomplished half the distance before my tyrant overtook me. Not being willing to take the fire in the rear, I halted, wheeled about, and drew up in order of battle. I had made up my mind to keep perfectly cool, whatever came; and when one makes up his mind to be cool, it is not half so hard to succeed as some people seem to think.

"I told you to black my boots," said Ham, angrily.

"I know you did."

"Well, Buck Bradford, you'll do it!"

"Well, Ham Fishley, I won't do it!"

"Won't you?"

"No!"

"Then I'll make you."

"Go on."

He stepped up to me; but I didn't budge an inch. I braced up every fibre of my frame in readiness for the shock of battle; but there was no shock of battle about it.

"I guess I'll let the old man settle this," said Ham, after a glance at me, which seemed very unsatisfactory.

"All right," I replied.

My tyrant turned on his heel, and hastened back to the store. Ham Fishley's father was "the old man," and I knew that it would not be for the want of any good will on his part, if the case was not settled by him. I had rebelled, and I must take my chances. I went to the barn, harnessed the black horse to the wagon, and hitched him at a post in the yard, in readiness to go down to Riverport for the mail, which I used to do every evening after supper.

Of course my thoughts were mainly fixed upon the settlement with the old man; and I expected every moment to see him rushing upon me, like an untamed tiger, to wreak his vengeance upon my head. I was rather surprised at his non-appearance, and rather disappointed, too; for I preferred to fight the battle at the barn, or in the yard, instead of in the house or the store. Though my thoughts were not on my work, I busied myself in sweeping out the horse's stall, and making his bed for the night.

"Buck! Buck! Buck!" called Mrs. Fishley, from the back door of the house.

She always called three times; for she was a little, snappy, snarling woman, who never spoke pleasantly to any one, except when she had company, or went to the sewing circle.

"Here, marm!" I replied.

"Come here; I want you!" she added, clear up in the highest tones of her voice, which sounded very much like the savage notes of an angry wasp.

It was some consolation to know, under the peculiar circumstances, that she wanted me, instead of "the old man," her lord and master, and that I was not called to the expected settlement, which, in spite of my fixed determination, I could not help dreading. Mrs. Fishley wanted me-not her husband. She was always wanting me; and somehow I never happened to be in the right place, or to do anything in the right way.

Mrs. Fishley believed she was one of the most amiable, self-denying, self-sacrificing, benevolent women in the world. Nobody else believed it. She had to endure more trials, bear more crosses, undergo more hardships, than any other housekeeper in town. She had to work harder, to think of more things, stagger under more burdens, than all her female neighbors put together. If she ever confessed that she was sometimes just a little cross, she wanted to know who could wonder at it, when she had so much to do, and so many things to think of. Job could be patient, for he had not her family to look after. The saints and martyrs could bow resignedly at the stake in the midst of the flaming fagots; but none of them had to keep house for a husband and three children, and two of them not her own.

To make a fair and just division of Mrs. Fishley's cares, one tenth of them were real, and nine tenths of them were imaginary; and the imaginary ones were more real to her than the actual ones. They soured her temper,-or, more properly, her temper soured them,-and she groaned, complained, snarled, snapped, and fretted, from very early on Sunday morning to very late on Saturday evening. Nothing ever went right with her; nothing ever suited her. If a thing was one way, that was the especial reason why it ought to have been some other way.

She always wanted her own way; and when she had it-which she generally did-it did not suit her any better. I am inclined to think that Captain Fishley himself, at some remote period, long before I was born, had been a more decent man than he was at the time of which I write. If he ever had been, his degeneracy was easily explained; for it would not have been possible for a human being, in daily contact with such a shrewish spitfire as his wife, to exist untainted in the poison which floated in the atmosphere around her.

This was the woman who inflicted herself upon the world, and upon me, though I was by no means the greatest sufferer. If the mischief had stopped here, I could have borne it, and the world could not have helped itself. To me there was something infinitely worse and more intolerable than my own trials-and they were the trials of my poor, dear, deformed, invalid sister. Tender, loving, and patient as she was under them, her sufferings made my blood boil with indignation. If Mrs. Fishley had treated Flora kindly, she would have been an angel in my sight, however much she snapped and snarled, and "drove me from pillar to post." The shrew did not treat her kindly, and as the poor child was almost always in the house, she was constantly exposed to the obliquities of her temper.

My mother, for several years before her death, had been of feeble constitution, and Flora had the "rickets" when she was a babe. She was now twelve years old, but the effects of the disease still lingered in her frame. Her limbs were weak, her breast-bone projected, and she was so drawn up that she looked like a "humpback." But what she lacked in body she more than made up in spirit, in the loveliness of an amiable disposition, in an unselfish devotion to others, in a loving heart, and a quick intelligence. She endured, without complaint, the ill nature of Mrs. Fishley, endeavoring, by every means in her power, to make herself useful in the house, and to lighten the load of cares which bore down so heavily upon her hostess.

Mrs. Fishley called me, and I hastened to attend upon her will and pleasure, in the back room. I knew very well that it would make no difference whether I hurried or not; I should "have to take it" the moment she saw me. If I was in the barn, I ought to have been in the shop; if in the shop, then I should have been in the barn-unless she had company; and then she was all sweetness, all gentleness; then she was all merciful and compassionate.

"What are you doing out there?" snarled she. "I've been out in the street and into the store after you, and you always are just where no one can find you when you are wanted."

I didn't say anything; it wasn't any use.

"Take that bucket of swill out, and give it to the pigs; and next time don't leave it till it is running over full," she continued, in the same amiable, sweet-tempered tones. "It's strange you can't do anything till you are told to do it. Don't you know that swill-pail wants emptying, without being told of it?"

"I always feed the pigs three times a day whether the pail wants emptying or not," I ventured to reply, in defence of the pigs rather than myself.

"There, carry it along, and don't spill it."

The pail was filled even with the brim, and it was simply impossible to avoid spilling it.

"What a careless fellow you are!" screamed she, her notes on the second added line above the treble staff. "You are spilling it all over the floor! I wish you could learn to do anything like folks!"

I wished I could too; but I did not venture to suggest that if she had not filled the pail so full, and even run it over herself before I touched it, I might have carried it "like folks." It was no use; she always got the better of me in an argument. I fed the pigs, as I always did, before I went after the mail, and carried the pail back to the shed. The door of the kitchen was open, and Mrs. Fishley was returning to her work as I entered.

"You careless child! What do you mean by letting those cakes burn?" I heard her cry to poor Flora, who was sitting in her arm-chair by the cooking-stove, whereon Mrs. Fishley was baking flapjacks for supper.

"I didn't know-"

"You didn't know, you careless hussy!" exclaimed Mrs. Fishley, seizing her by the arm, and lifting her roughly out of her chair.

"O, don't!" groaned poor Flora.

I could not stand that. I rushed into the kitchen, seized poor Flora's tyrant by the shoulders, and hurled her half way across the room. My blood was up to the boiling point.