but what they would give us something in the shape of money. Gamblers generally gave us the most; sometimes a lot of them would get together in a room to play cards and send down to the bar after their drinks and may be send a ten or twenty dollar bill and tell the bell boy to keep the change. With this money we used to have some gay old times taking in the city after coming off guard.

The next fall, nearly one year after landing at the "Planters," I had a fight with one of the bell boys, Jimmie Byron. He called me a liar and I jumped aboard of him. When it was over with, the clerk, Mr. Cunningham, called me up to the counter and slapped me without saying a word.

I went right straight to my room, packed up my "gripsack" and went to the proprietor for a settlement.

He was surprised and wanted to know what in the world had gotten into me.

I told him the whole thing, just as it happened. He tried to get me to stay but I was still mad and wouldn't listen to him. I had made up my mind to buy a pistol, come back and get square with Mr. Cunningham for slapping me.

I left the house with eighteen dollars in my pocket; jumped aboard of a street car and rode down to the levee. I left my valise at a saloon and then started back to find a gun store. I finally found one and gave ten dollars for a fancy little ivory handled five-shooter.

I then started for the "Planters" still as mad as an old setting hen. I had not gone far when I came across a large crowd gathered around one of those knife rackets, where you pay a quarter for five rings and try to "ring" a knife.

I watched the thing awhile and finally invested a quarter. I got a little "Jim Crow" barlow the first throw. That made it interesting, so I bought another quarters worth, and another until five dollars was gone. This did not satisfy me, so I kept on until I didn't have a nickel left.

But wasn't I mad when I realized what I had done! I forgot all about my other troubles and felt like breaking my own head instead of Cunningham's.

I went to the levee and found out that the "Bart Able" would start for New Orleans in a few minutes, so I ran to get my satchel, not far off, determined on boarding the steamer and remaining there until kicked off. Anything to get nearer the land of my birth, I thought, even if I had to break the rules of a gentleman in doing so.

When the Purser came around collecting fares, I laid my case before him with tears in my eyes; I told him I was willing to work—and hard, too, to pay my fare. He finally, after studying awhile, said, "Well go ahead, I'll find something for you to do."

Everything went on lovely with me until one evening when we stopped at a landing to take on some freight, mostly grain. We pulled up by the side of an old disabled steamer which was being used for a wharf-boat and went to work loading. The job given to me was sewing sacks when ever one was found out of order.

There were two sets of men loading, one in the stern and the other in the bow, and I was supposed to do the sewing at both ends. When they came across a holey sack, if I happened to be at the other end they would holloa for me and I would go running through the narrow passage way, leading from one end to the other.

I was in the stern when the sound of my name came from the other end; I grabbed my ball of twine and struck out in a dog trot through the passage the sides of which were formed of grain piled to the ceiling. When about half way through I thought I heard my name called from the end I had just left; I stopped to listen and while waiting, being tired, I went to lean over against the wall of sacked grain, but instead of a wall there was an old vacated hatchway and over into that I went. There being no flooring in the boat, there was nothing but the naked timbers for my weary bones to alight upon.