From the Letters of Major Stephen Brice
XIV. The Same, Continued
XV. The Man of Sorrows
XVI. 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