There was extra blowing and extra ringing, shouting, commanding, rushing up the gangway and rushing down the gangway.  The clerks, sitting behind tables on the first deck, were plied, in the twinkling of an eye, with estimates, receipts, charges, countercharges, claims, reclaims, demands, questions, accusations, threats, all at topmost voices.  None but steamboat clerks could have stood it.  And there were throngs composed of individuals every one of whom wanted to see the captain first and at once:  and those who could not get to him shouted over the heads of the others; and as usual he lost his temper and politeness, and began to do what he termed “hustle.”

“Captain!  Captain!” a voice called him to where a hand plucked his sleeve, and a letter was thrust toward him.  “The cross, and the name of the convent.”  He recognized the envelop of the mother superior.  He read the duplicate of the letter given by the sisters.  He looked at the woman—­the mother—­casually, then again and again.

The little convent girl saw him coming, leading some one toward her.  She rose.  The captain took her hand first, before the other greeting, “Good-by, my dear,” he said.  He tried to add something else, but seemed undetermined what.  “Be a good little girl—­” It was evidently all he could think of.  Nodding to the woman behind him, he turned on his heel, and left.

One of the deck-hands was sent to fetch her trunk.  He walked out behind them, through the cabin, and the crowd on deck, down the stairs, and out over the gangway.  The little convent girl and her mother went with hands tightly clasped.  She did not turn her eyes to the right or left, or once (what all passengers do) look backward at the boat which, however slowly, had carried her surely over dangers that she wot not of.  All looked at her as she passed.  All wanted to say good-by to the little convent girl, to see the mother who had been deprived of her so long.  Some expressed surprise in a whistle; some in other ways.  All exclaimed audibly, or to themselves, “Colored!”

It takes about a month to make the round trip from New Orleans to Cincinnati and back, counting five days’ stoppage in New Orleans.  It was a month to a day when the steamboat came puffing and blowing up to the wharf again, like a stout dowager after too long a walk; and the same scene of confusion was enacted, as it had been enacted twelve times a year, at almost the same wharf for twenty years; and the same calm, a death calmness by contrast, followed as usual the next morning.

The decks were quiet and clean; one cargo had just been delivered, part of another stood ready on the levee to be shipped.  The captain was there waiting for his business to begin, the clerk was in his office getting his books ready, the voice of the mate could be heard below, mustering the old crew out and a new crew in; for if steamboat crews have a single principle,—­and there are those who deny them any,—­it is never to ship twice in succession on the same boat.  It was too early yet for any but roustabouts, marketers, and church-goers; so early that even the river was still partly mist-covered; only in places could the swift, dark current be seen rolling swiftly along.