he perpetual odor of hot soap-
suds, soiled laundry, and the broader smell of steam and the boat's
machinery. The little place trembled night and day, for the steamer's
engines were just beneath them, and immediately behind them thundered
the great stern-wheel of the packet. A single square window in the end
of the chambermaid's cabin looked out on the wheel, but at all times,
except when the wind was blowing from just the right quarter, this
window was deluged with a veritable Niagara of water. The continual
shake of the cabin, the creak of the rudder-beam working to and fro, the
watery thunder of the wheel, and the solemn rumble of the engines made
conversation impossible until the travelers grew accustomed to the
noises. Still, Cissie found it pleasant. She liked to sit and look out
into the main saloon, with its interminable gilded scrolls extending
away up the long cabin, a suave perspective. She liked to watch the
white passengers dine--the white napery, the bouquets, the endless
tables all filled with diners; some swathed in napkins from chin to
waistband, others less completely protected. It gave Cissie a certain
tang of triumph to smile at the swathed ones and to think that she knew
better than that.

At night a negro string-band played for the white excursionists to
dance, and Cissie would sit, with glowing eyes, clenching Peter's hand,
every fiber of her asway to the music, and it seemed as if her heart
would go mad. All these inhibitions, all this spreading before her of
forbidden joys, did not daunt her delight. She reveled in them by
propinquity.

The chambermaid was a Mrs. Antolia Higgman, a strong, full-bodied
_cafe-au-lait_ negress. She was a very sensible woman, and during
her work on the boat she had picked up a Northern accent and a number of
little mannerisms from the Chicago and St. Louis excursionists, who made
ten-day round trips from Dubuque to Florence, Alabama, and return. When
Mrs. Higgman was not running errands for the women passengers, she was
working at her perpetual laundering.

At first Peter was a little uneasy as to how Mrs. Higgman would treat
Cissie, but she turned out a good-hearted woman, and did everything she
could to make the young wife comfortable. It soon became clear that Mrs.
Higgman knew the whole situation, for one day she said to Cissie in her
odd dialect, burred with Yankeeish "r's" and "ing's."

"These river-r towns, Mrs. Siner-r, are jest like one big village, wit