CHAPTER XXI WHAT NEXT?

Weary week after weary week passed for Skippy until the winter months had come and gone. March arrived, cold, blustery and disappointing, for he hadn’t yet been able to hold a job longer than it took his employers to find out just who their office boy was. And as gossip spreads quickly along the river front, the discouraged boy seldom drew more than a few days’ pay at a time.

He had learned upon being dismissed from his last job the reason why employers had no use for his services. He demanded to know.

“Is it ’cause my father’s in prison?” he asked wistfully. “’Cause if it is nobody is fair in the world. You’ve heard, I bet, that lots of innocent people are in jail so can’t you believe maybe my father could be one of them? And anyway, does that prove that I’m....”

The employer, thus confronted, protested.
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“No,” he said in that self-righteous tone that was beginning to wear on Skippy’s nerves, “we think that you, yourself, mean to be honest but we know that you can’t hold out long against such home conditions as the Basin offers. A wage such as a boy like you with your limited education can earn isn’t enough to provide you with all you want. And sooner or later, your association with a person like Big Joe Tully will have its effect on you.”

“My Pop was gonna send me to school so’s I could get educated,” Skippy protested, “but anyway I’m honest an’ I’m gonna stay honest, no matter what you think. Besides, Big Joe’s tried to live straight all this winter for my sake, but are you an’ everybody else I’ve tried to work for tryin’ to help him? No, nobody won’t even give him a job so he can stay straight. An’ now you won’t let me stay ’cause I live with him, because you’re afraid....”
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“My dear boy,” the employer interposed patronizingly, “can you blame us? Tully has served a jail sentence for robbing our warehouses. How can we be certain that he won’t do it again? Or that he won’t use your position of trust in our offices to learn more easily what goods we have in our warehouses that he can steal? What assurance can you give us that he don’t do that when he gets tired treading the straight and narrow path? None. Absolutely none! No, we warehouse owners have been too long aware that it is you thieving river people who are responsible for our tremendous losses every year. And so we maintain that, once a thief, always a thief!”

Skippy was wounded and bitter. His full, generous lips curled sardonically.

“Then it ain’t any use to try to make you understand,” he said bravely. “You warehouse people complain that we’re thieves an’ you make us thieves just like you’re tryin’ to make me one by keepin’ me outa jobs so’s I can’t make an honest livin’. An’ anyway, if the only way I could hold a job is to quit Big Joe then I won’t do it! I’d rather be a thief, yes I would! He saved my life and he’s helped my Pop ... oh, what’s the use!”

He slammed the door behind him and rushed home to find Big Joe with his faithful, smiling face. Plank after plank he hurried over, connecting the barges, and at last he crossed the deck of the Dinky O. Cross, waved a greeting to the smiling Mrs. Duffy and whistled for Mugs when he reached the plank of the Minnie M. Baxter.

“And have ye lost the job, kid?” Big Joe asked when he entered the shanty.
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“My last job, Big Joe,” the boy answered smiling ruefully. “You were right about ’em—there ain’t one that’ll gimme a chance. Even you who ain’t always been honest yourself did more than that! You let me try at least. They know more about you than I did—they know you served time.”

“Sure and that’s why they’re blackballin’ ye, is it? ’Cause ye’re stickin’ with me?” His bland face looked dark and ominous. Then as he glanced at the boy’s wistful countenance, his expression softened: “I’m tellin’ ye the truth, kid, whin I say that they railroaded me, so they did—I was startin’ in honest like you. Office boy. Thin one night the warehouse was robbed and next mornin’ they accused me o’ workin’ with the gang—tippin’ ’em off. ’Cause I’d been seen ’round with one o’ the guys what was caught. I got a year, I did, and didn’t have a chance. When I come out I was blackballed and Ol’ Flint took me under. Sufferin’ swordfish, sure and I’ve tried twice now to travel on the up and up. When I first got my barge and now. And ’tis no use, ’tis no use.”
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“Seems that way,” Skippy murmured, disconsolate. “Now I ain’t gonna try. I’m gonna live an’ eat like other fellers my age. I wanta go to the movies an’ take things up to Pop when I go to see him. Gee, already he’s startin’ to write to me that the food’s bad up at the big house. So I gotta help him have a little sumpin’ to smile at if he’s gonna be there the rest of his life! An’ I gotta have money to go to see him—I gotta see him! If they won’t lemme earn it honest—what else? Like the man said, I don’t know enough to work anywheres else.”

“And ye’ll be wantin’ to quit me, kid? Ye’ll be wantin’ to go away and start over where they don’t know ’bout river people and all?” Big Joe’s anxiety was pathetic.

“I’m afraid of places too far away from the river,” Skippy admitted. “I guess I got the river in me like Pop, huh? I ain’t got nerve enough to break away. Besides I sorta promised Pop I’d stay by the Minnie M. Baxter. S’pose just by a lucky break the governor pardons Pop some day, huh? He’s paid good money for this barge an’ it’s the only home he’s got. Besides, I don’t wanta quit you, Big Joe—I couldn’t!”

And Skippy’s decision stood until Brown’s Basin was no more....