Adventures of Mary Jane by Hope Jahren

Author:Hope Jahren [Jahren, Hope]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2024-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XVIII

—The Teller of Tall Tales—

Scrrraaaape-thump!

I lifted my head that next morning to the strange feeling of the Galenian not moving. Not rocking, not turning, not drifting—just plain not moving. I had slept so deep that I hadn’t heard the whistle blow! It took me a minute to blink my eyes open and realize we’d already put into St. Petersburg.

What a pretty little town, I thought to myself as I looked about. Next to the dock stood a little fountain, spitting water into the sky and catching it again for no reason. Next to it was a bandstand, where citizens could come to hear important people or politicians.

I stood up and brushed off my dress, then rolled up our bedding. Susan and Joanna were at the other end of the deck, fixing each other’s hair and laughing together, like sisters do. Mrs. Captain had just finished putting down the gangplank when she saw that I was up and doing.

“Mary Jane, can I ask you to go into town and take a basket from a Mr. Samuel Clemens? You can’t miss him. He’s got a mop of white hair and three bushy mustaches: one over his mouth and the other two above his eyes. An old friend of mine, he is, and a more generous soul there’s not to be found,” she explained, and I set off directly.

I didn’t have to go far off the dock before I found an extra-eyebrowed man holding the biggest darn basket I’d ever seen, with what was surely his wife standing beside him.

“Would you be Mr. Clemens?” I asked the man. “I’m Mary Jane.”

“Ahh…Private Chickie, reporting for duty?” he asked me, rather louder than what was necessary.

“Why, yes—I guess that’s me.”

“Your reputation precedes you, Corporal Chickie. I’ve heard great things of your glorious campaign advancing on Fort Edwards.”

“You have?”

“Oh, yes, from my brother-in-arms, Mrs. Captain, no less. We served together on the A.B. Chambers back in thirty-seven, up and down the Missouri River. We had complementary detail: I exploded the boiler every morning, and he—err, she—unexploded it every evening, and between us we kept it in prime condition.”

“And what was that boiler’s name?”

“I’m glad you asked, Sergeant Chickie! He was Andrew Jackson when he was blowing up, and John Quincy Adams when he was cooling down. Two-faced, like any good politician.”

He told a few more tall tales that he thought were mighty funny, and I laughed like you have to do with men of a certain age who like to talk.

“…those were the days! I’m telling you, Major Chickie, you should have been there…”

“Umm, is that basket for us, Mr. Clemens?” Truth be told, I wanted to get back to the boat before he promoted me to general in a ceremony of fresh stories.

He snapped to attention, and barked out, “Reinforcements for the warship Galenian!”

I took it and thanked him kindly, and he saluted in reply.

“Permission to speak freely before discharge?” he bellowed. “There’s another basket! One more! Admiral Olivia, present arms!—if you please.”

Mrs. Clemens gave me the second basket, even bigger than the first, and smelling of wonderful newly baked bread.

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