BENNIE BEN CREE
Being the Story of his Adventure to Southward in the Year '62
By Arthur Colton
Doubleday & McClure Co. New York
1900
IN MEMORIAM
Dedicated
TO MY MOTHER
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.—BENSON AND CREE—THE COMMODORE INN, FORE AND AFT; AND A POINT STATED BY MY UNCLE BENSON.
CHAPTER II.—LACRIMÆ RERUM—THE THREE MEN IN THE PUBLIC.
CHAPTER III.—DOWN THE COAST—CAVARLY'S PLAN.
CHAPTER IV.—I TALK WITH CALHOUN AND THE “OCTARARA” GOES EAST AND WEST.
CHAPTER VII.—WE COME TO A RIVER CALLED ELIZABETH, AND TO ANOTHER CALLED JAMES—CONCLUSION.
BENNIE BEN CREE
CHAPTER I.—BENSON AND CREE—THE COMMODORE INN, FORE AND AFT; AND A POINT STATED BY MY UNCLE BENSON.
If anyone would understand how Ben Cree comes to be what he is for better or worse, he should know first the Commodore Inn and what it meant in those days to have the great wharves for a playground. And I cannot conceive to this day how one can amuse oneself, or be satisfied with any neat door-yard or inland village street, unless one is born a girl with a starched pinafore, which I should think would be a pity.
First, then, you should picture the Commodore Inn; its red bricks streaked with the rain and the beat of damp winds; its high veranda, with the paint coming off the white pillars, and the worn stone steps leading underneath. In front is the brick sidewalk, the cobbled street, the bit of open space with Harrier's junk-shop on the right corner; and then the warehouses on either side, all leading down to the slip, Doty's Slip, which is flanked