Abe and the wild river

Fourteen-year-old Abe was anxious for adventure and a wider world beyond St. Louis. In 1811, working on a keelboat going down the Mississippi seemed the way to do it. He could read and write and do mathematics, and his common sense and good humor more than made up for what he might still lack in height and strength. Captain Byrne saw that in him when he hired Abe as cabin boy onboard the Rosalie. In addition to a cargo of furs and shot, the keelboat carried French passengers, Antoinette and her father. Soon Abe was not only keeping the books for the captain and learning to read the surface of the river for sand bars sawyers and planters, he was also instructing the lovely Toni in English. And he was secretly curious about the mystery of a young lady's picture in the captain's cabin. As the keelboat moved down the Mississippi, toward New Orleans, Abe learned to be a deck hand and to use the cordelle, for moving the boat against the tide. His impression about Indians was broadened as the captain met with the Choctaws to trade shot and gunpowder for food. A run-in with river pirates brought out Abe's cleverness and heroism under pressure. But his ultimate test of courage came when the New Madrid Earthquake struck and its aftershocks rained terror on all men and beasts. Abe pitched in to help wherever he was needed, unmindful of the danger, and without complaint, as the wild and terrible circumstances dictated. He was under self-control even when the raging Mississippi River ran backward! In a Postlude containing a long letter from Abe, finally in New Orleans, to his parents, the author gives the reader additional details about the earthquake and its destruction from Abe's point of view.Abe is now safe, and reporting the news to them. The letter is a dazzling finish to the adventure.