That little boat was noisy and it was slow so this wasn’t a luxury ride by any stretch of the imagination. Brin spent the first couple of hours whining about the noise until he finally settled down and slept on the cargo house roof between us.
Captain Svenson manned the steering rudder and three men were up on the bow playing spotter and using the push poles to avoid snags. Missing a log or snag and breaking the paddle wheel on a hidden obstacle would turn us back into a pole boat again and we all wanted to avoid that. It was pretty intense work and they shifted off frequently. We stayed out of the current but were able to maintain decent speed, maybe as much as eight mph. We did have a decent cargo in the hold and Svenson held forth that our speed was somewhat hampered because of that.
As we chugged upriver I privately wondered whether our engineers could make improvements on the speed and reliability of the machine. I was fairly sure they would do so, engineers can’t help tinkering and they had plenty of data on hand. My main intention with this boat was high speed transport on the river, or what passed for high speed anyway. So mainly Mail and Passengers except in emergency since the propulsion system was simply too fragile and the cargo space was limited.
These were the thoughts that occupied my mind as we slowly trundled up river; it wasn’t a flight of fancy or anything but it was still a good mental exercise. We got to know the crew fairly well on the trip and it did turn out that two of them were married. I took a full evening around the fire to explain to them how Rulo worked and its basic rules, all of which seemed to go over well with most of them. I wondered how many would stay. The truth is we only really needed the captain, the engineer and the mechanic because we had enough boatsmen to do those jobs.
We pulled into St. Louis just before dinner time on the fifth day. The pole boat was at least a week behind us. If we could get the manufacture of steam engines down, we’d need to build some tug boats to help tow these pole boats upriver. It would be a grand challenge yet one that would serve us well in the long term. I just hoped I had that research data in our library. I had spent an evening browsing those after seeing a few of those on the river when we visited Memphis to pick up Lunch. I’m a research nut, so sue me.
We drew a few of the curious when we docked and started to off-load. Amos agreed to show the crew around and take them to the barracks once all was secure. Reloading of fuel and maintenance still had to be performed as well as posting guard duty shifts. Svenson and I weren’t really needed so we proceeded up to Main Street and I introduced him to Byrne’s. The Captain very much appreciated Byrne’s.
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Amos showed up about forty-five minutes later and announced that all was well down at the barracks and the cook had even tapped a small barrel of beer for them and fed them dinner. We took our dinner with John Byrne while Amos ate out back, Brin was his constant companion. After he finished eating, which with Amos was almost never, he went over to the livery and collected some mounts for us to use later that day. He then sat down to eat some more with Rachel clucking over him and scolding me for starving the boy. That set Amos to grinning so I sent him off to let the Dr. Henthorn know that we were in town and needed to load or store their belongings tomorrow morning.
I hung out with John and Sven most of the afternoon. Amos and Brin went out to the Marine House to let them know we needed supper for two and two bedrooms for the night. Sven turned out to be quite funny and he kept both John and me chuckling while we nursed our beers at the bar; all we needed was a TV with a sports game on to complete the effect of one of my favorite pubs.
Five o'clock rolled around and it was getting towards supper so Sven and I headed over to the Marine House with me supplying a running background the entire way. I even ended up having to display my meager auctioneering talent as we rode along, causing him to laugh so hard he eventually got the hiccups.
Grace was waiting for us in the study when we came in. After proper introductions and small talk she invited Sven to take a tour of the facilities. Obviously the tour included a running dialog from the Widow Grace Langdon regarding the overall program, the construction of a new wing and the history of the house. I used the time available to glance over the books and enjoy a hot cup of coffee while I waited for supper to be called.
Grace was one of those ladies who enjoyed the fine dining experience, I’ve always found it a little bit stuffy and mind numbing. Sven kept the mind numbing part at bay and the food had improved to a level that truly made the meal a pleasure. I complimented her on the food and discovered that one of Mrs. Byrne’s cooks was working here while her own cook got trained up at the restaurant.
Food enjoyed, after-dinner drinks consumed and a long day behind us, I started to drift a little. It quickly became time for sleep so I politely took my leave and went outside to enjoy the evening while I smoked the day’s last cigarette. My thoughts were drifting home to the beautiful woman who awaited me there so I cleaned up and took myself off to bed.