THE STRAINING OF ANOTHER FRIENDSHIP

Captain Lige asked but two questions: where was the Colonel, and was it
true that Clarence had refused to be paroled? Though not possessing
over-fine susceptibilities, the Captain knew a mud-drum from a lady's
watch, as he himself said. In his solicitude for Virginia, he saw that
she was in no state of mind to talk of the occurrences of the last few
days. So he helped her to climb the little stair that winds to the top of
the texas,--that sanctified roof where the pilot-house squats. The girl
clung to her bonnet Will you like her any the less when you know that it
was a shovel bonnet, with long red ribbons that tied under her chin? It
became her wonderfully. "Captain Lige," she said, almost tearfully, as
she took his arm, "how I thank heaven that you came up the river this
afternoon!"

"Jinny," said the Captain, "did you ever know why cabins are called
staterooms?"

"Why, no," answered she, puzzled.

"There was an old fellow named Shreve who ran steamboats before Jackson
fought the redcoats at New Orleans. In Shreve's time the cabins were
curtained off, just like these new-fangled sleeping-car berths. The old
man built wooden rooms, and he named them after the different states,
Kentuck, and Illinois, and Pennsylvania. So that when a fellow came
aboard he'd say: 'What state am I in, Cap?' And from this river has the
name spread all over the world--stateroom. That's mighty interesting,"
said Captain Lige.

"Yea," said Virginia; "why didn't you tell me long ago."