Life On The Mississippi, Part 4. - Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)
The old Raccourci cut-off reduced the river's length twenty-eight miles.
There used to be a tradition connected with it. It was said that a boat
came along there in the night and went around the enormous elbow the
usual way, the pilots not knowing that the cut-off had been made. It was
a grisly, hideous night, and all shapes were vague and distorted. The
old bend had already begun to fill up, and the boat got to running away
from mysterious reefs, and occasionally hitting one. The perplexed
pilots fell to swearing, and finally uttered the entirely unnecessary
wish that they might never get out of that place. As always happens in
such cases, that particular prayer was answered, and the others
neglected. So to this day that phantom steamer is still butting around
in that deserted river, trying to find her way out. More than one grave
watchman has sworn to me that on drizzly, dismal nights, he has glanced
fearfully down that forgotten river as he passed the head of the island,
and seen the faint glow of the specter steamer's lights drifting through
the distant gloom, and heard the muffled cough of her 'scape-pipes and
the plaintive cry of her leadsmen.
In the absence of further statistics, I beg to close this chapter with
one more reminiscence of 'Stephen.'
Most of the captains and pilots held Stephen's note for borrowed sums,
ranging from two hundred and fifty dollars upward. Stephen never paid
one of these notes, but he was very prompt and very zealous about
renewing them every twelve months.
Of course there came a time, at last, when Stephen could no longer
borrow of his ancient creditors; so he was obliged to lie in wait for
new men who did not know him. Such a victim was good-hearted, simple
natured young Yates (I use a fictitious name, but the real name began,
as this one does, with a Y). Young Yates graduated as a pilot, got a
berth, and when the month was ended and he stepped up to the clerk's
office and received his two hundred and fifty dollars in crisp new
bills, Stephen was there! His silvery tongue began to wag, and in a very
little while Yates's two hundred and fifty dollars had changed hands.
The fact was soon known at pilot headquarters, and the amusement and
satisfaction of the old creditors were large and generous. But innocent
Yates never suspected that Stephen's promise to pay promptly at the end
of the week was a worthless one. Yates called for his money at the
stipulated time; Stephen sweetened him up and put him off a week. He
called then, according to agreement, and came away sugar-coated again,
but suffering under another postponement. So the thing went on. Yates
haunted Stephen week after week, to no purpose, and at last gave it up.
And then straightway Stephen began to haunt Yates! Wherever Yates
appeared, there was the inevitable Stephen. And not only there, but
beaming with affection and gushing with apologies for not being able to
pay. By and by, whenever poor Yates saw him coming, he would turn and
fly, and drag his company with him, if he had company; but it was of no
use; his debtor would run him down and corner him. Panting and red-
faced, Stephen would come, with outstretched hands and eager eyes,
invade the conversation, shake both of Yates's arms loose in their
sockets, and begin--
'My, what a race I've had! I saw you didn't see me, and so I clapped on
all steam for fear I'd miss you entirely. And here you are! there, just
stand so, and let me look at you! just the same old noble countenance.'
[To Yates's friend:] 'Just look at him! LOOK at him! Ain't it just GOOD
to look at him! AIN'T it now? Ain't he just a picture! SOME call him
a picture; I call him a panorama! That's what he is--an entire panorama.
And now I'm reminded! How I do wish I could have seen you an hour
earlier! For twenty-four hours I've been saving up that two hundred and
fifty dollars for you; been looking for you everywhere. I waited at the
Planter's from six yesterday evening till two o'clock this morning,
without rest or food; my wife says, "Where have you been all night?" I
said, "This debt lies heavy on my mind." She says, "In all my days I
never saw a man take a debt to heart the way you do." I said, "It's my
nature; how can I change it?" She says, "Well, do go to bed and get some
rest." I said, "Not till that poor, noble young man has got his money."
So I set up all night, and this morning out I shot, and the first man I
struck told me you had shipped on the "Grand Turk" and gone to New
Orleans. Well, sir, I had to lean up against a building and cry. So
help me goodness, I couldn't help it. The man that owned the place come
out cleaning up with a rag, and said he didn't like to have people cry
against his building, and then it seemed to me that the whole world had
turned against me, and it wasn't any use to live any more; and coming
along an hour ago, suffering no man knows what agony, I met Jim Wilson
and paid him the two hundred and fifty dollars on account; and to think
that here you are, now, and I haven't got a cent! But as sure as I am
standing here on this ground on this particular brick,--there, I've
scratched a mark on the brick to remember it by,--I'll borrow that money
and pay it over to you at twelve o'clock sharp, tomorrow! Now, stand
so; let me look at you just once more.'
And so on. Yates's life became a burden to him. He could not escape
his debtor and his debtor's awful sufferings on account of not being
able to pay. He dreaded to show himself in the street, lest he should
find Stephen lying in wait for him at the corner.
Bogart's billiard saloon was a great resort for pilots in those days.
They met there about as much to exchange river news as to play. One
morning Yates was there; Stephen was there, too, but kept out of sight.
But by and by, when about all the pilots had arrived who were in town,
Stephen suddenly appeared in the midst, and rushed for Yates as for a
long-lost brother.
'OH, I am so glad to see you! Oh my soul, the sight of you is such a
comfort to my eyes! Gentlemen, I owe all of you money; among you I owe
probably forty thousand dollars. I want to pay it; I intend to pay it
every last cent of it. You all know, without my telling you, what
sorrow it has cost me to remain so long under such deep obligations to
such patient and generous friends; but the sharpest pang I suffer--by
far the sharpest--is from the debt I owe to this noble young man here;
and I have come to this place this morning especially to make the
announcement that I have at last found a method whereby I can pay off
all my debts! And most especially I wanted HIM to be here when I
announced it. Yes, my faithful friend,--my benefactor, I've found the
method! I've found the method to pay off all my debts, and you'll get
your money!' Hope dawned in Yates's eye; then Stephen, beaming
benignantly, and placing his hand upon Yates's head, added, 'I am going
to pay them off in alphabetical order!'
Then he turned and disappeared. The full significance of Stephen's
'method' did not dawn upon the perplexed and musing crowd for some two
minutes; and then Yates murmured with a sigh--
'Well, the Y's stand a gaudy chance. He won't get any further than the
C's in THIS world, and I reckon that after a good deal of eternity has
wasted away in the next one, I'll still be referred to up there as "that
poor, ragged pilot that came here from St. Louis in the early days!"
Chapter 18 I Take a Few Extra Lessons
DURING the two or two and a half years of my apprenticeship, I served
under many pilots, and had experience of many kinds of steamboatmen and
many varieties of steamboats; for it was not always convenient for Mr.
Bixby to have me with him, and in such cases he sent me with somebody
else. I am to this day profiting somewhat by that experience; for in
that brief, sharp schooling, I got personally and familiarly acquainted
with about all the different types of human nature that are to be found
in fiction, biography, or history. The fact is daily borne in upon me,
that the average shore-employment requires as much as forty years to
equip a man with this sort of an education. When I say I am still
profiting by this thing, I do not mean that it has constituted me a
judge of men--no, it has not done that; for judges of men are born, not
made. My profit is various in kind and degree; but the feature of it
which I value most is the zest which that early experience has given to
my later reading. When I find a well-drawn character in fiction or
biography, I generally take a warm personal interest in him, for the
reason that I have known him before--met him on the river.
The figure that comes before me oftenest, out of the shadows of that
vanished time, is that of Brown, of the steamer 'Pennsylvania'--the man
referred to in a former chapter, whose memory was so good and tiresome.
He was a middle-aged, long, slim, bony, smooth-shaven, horse-faced,
ignorant, stingy, malicious, snarling, fault hunting, mote-magnifying
tyrant. I early got the habit of coming on watch with dread at my heart.
No matter how good a time I might have been having with the off-watch
below, and no matter how high my spirits might be when I started aloft,
my soul became lead in my body the moment I approached the pilot-house.
I still remember the first time I ever entered the presence of that man.
The boat had backed out from St. Louis and was 'straightening down;' I
ascended to the pilot-house in high feather, and very proud to be semi-
officially a member of the executive family of so fast and famous a
boat. Brown was at the wheel. I paused in the middle of the room, all
fixed to make my bow, but Brown did not look around. I thought he took a
furtive glance at me out of the corner of his eye, but as not even this
notice was repeated, I judged I had been mistaken. By this time he was
picking his way among some dangerous 'breaks' abreast the woodyards;
therefore it would not be proper to interrupt him; so I stepped softly
to the high bench and took a seat.
There was silence for ten minutes; then my new boss turned and inspected
me deliberately and painstakingly from head to heel for about--as it
seemed to me--a quarter of an hour. After which he removed his
countenance and I saw it no more for some seconds; then it came around
once more, and this question greeted me--
'Are you Horace Bigsby's cub?'
'Yes, sir.'
After this there was a pause and another inspection. Then--
'What's your name?'
I told him. He repeated it after me. It was probably the only thing he
ever forgot; for although I was with him many months he never addressed
himself to me in any other way than 'Here!' and then his command
followed.
'Where was you born?'
'In Florida, Missouri.'
A pause. Then--
'Dern sight better staid there!'
By means of a dozen or so of pretty direct questions, he pumped my
family history out of me.
The leads were going now, in the first crossing. This interrupted the
inquest. When the leads had been laid in, he resumed--
'How long you been on the river?'
I told him. After a pause--
'Where'd you get them shoes?'
I gave him the information.
'Hold up your foot!'
I did so. He stepped back, examined the shoe minutely and
contemptuously, scratching his head thoughtfully, tilting his high
sugar-loaf hat well forward to facilitate the operation, then
ejaculated, 'Well, I'll be dod derned!' and returned to his wheel.
What occasion there was to be dod derned about it is a thing which is
still as much of a mystery to me now as it was then. It must have been
all of fifteen minutes--fifteen minutes of dull, homesick silence--
before that long horse-face swung round upon me again--and then, what a
change! It was as red as fire, and every muscle in it was working. Now
came this shriek--
'Here!--You going to set there all day?'
I lit in the middle of the floor, shot there by the electric suddenness
of the surprise. As soon as I could get my voice I said,
apologetically:--'I have had no orders, sir.'
'You've had no ORDERS! My, what a fine bird we are! We must have
ORDERS! Our father was a GENTLEMAN--owned slaves--and we've been to
SCHOOL. Yes, WE are a gentleman, TOO, and got to have ORDERS! ORDERS,
is it? ORDERS is what you want! Dod dern my skin, I'LL learn you to
swell yourself up and blow around here about your dod-derned ORDERS!
G'way from the wheel!' (I had approached it without knowing it.)
I moved back a step or two, and stood as in a dream, all my senses
stupefied by this frantic assault.
'What you standing there for? Take that ice-pitcher down to the texas-
tender-come, move along, and don't you be all day about it!'
The moment I got back to the pilot-house, Brown said--
'Here! What was you doing down there all this time?'
'I couldn't find the texas-tender; I had to go all the way to the
pantry.'
'Derned likely story! Fill up the stove.'
I proceeded to do so. He watched me like a cat. Presently he shouted--
'Put down that shovel! Deadest numskull I ever saw--ain't even got
sense enough to load up a stove.'
All through the watch this sort of thing went on. Yes, and the
subsequent watches were much like it, during a stretch of months. As I
have said, I soon got the habit of coming on duty with dread. The moment
I was in the presence, even in the darkest night, I could feel those
yellow eyes upon me, and knew their owner was watching for a pretext to
spit out some venom on me. Preliminarily he would say--
'Here! Take the wheel.'
Two minutes later--
'WHERE in the nation you going to? Pull her down! pull her down!'
After another moment--
'Say! You going to hold her all day? Let her go--meet her! meet her!'
Then he would jump from the bench, snatch the wheel from me, and meet
her himself, pouring out wrath upon me all the time.
George Ritchie was the other pilot's cub. He was having good times now;
for his boss, George Ealer, was as kindhearted as Brown wasn't. Ritchie
had steeled for Brown the season before; consequently he knew exactly
how to entertain himself and plague me, all by the one operation.
Whenever I took the wheel for a moment on Ealer's watch, Ritchie would
sit back on the bench and play Brown, with continual ejaculations of
'Snatch her! snatch her! Derndest mud-cat I ever saw!' 'Here! Where
you going NOW? Going to run over that snag?' 'Pull her DOWN! Don't you
hear me? Pull her DOWN!' 'There she goes! JUST as I expected! I TOLD
you not to cramp that reef. G'way from the wheel!'
So I always had a rough time of it, no matter whose watch it was; and
sometimes it seemed to me that Ritchie's good-natured badgering was
pretty nearly as aggravating as Brown's dead-earnest nagging.
I often wanted to kill Brown, but this would not answer. A cub had to
take everything his boss gave, in the way of vigorous comment and
criticism; and we all believed that there was a United States law making
it a penitentiary offense to strike or threaten a pilot who was on duty.
However, I could IMAGINE myself killing Brown; there was no law against
that; and that was the thing I used always to do the moment I was abed.
Instead of going over my river in my mind as was my duty, I threw
business aside for pleasure, and killed Brown. I killed Brown every
night for months; not in old, stale, commonplace ways, but in new and
picturesque ones;--ways that were sometimes surprising for freshness of
design and ghastliness of situation and environment.
Brown was ALWAYS watching for a pretext to find fault; and if he could
find no plausible pretext, he would invent one. He would scold you for
shaving a shore, and for not shaving it; for hugging a bar, and for not
hugging it; for 'pulling down' when not invited, and for not pulling
down when not invited; for firing up without orders, and for waiting FOR
orders. In a word, it was his invariable rule to find fault with
EVERYTHING you did; and another invariable rule of his was to throw all
his remarks (to you) into the form of an insult.
One day we were approaching New Madrid, bound down and heavily laden.
Brown was at one side of the wheel, steering; I was at the other,
standing by to 'pull down' or 'shove up.' He cast a furtive glance at
me every now and then. I had long ago learned what that meant; viz., he
was trying to invent a trap for me. I wondered what shape it was going
to take. By and by he stepped back from the wheel and said in his usual
snarly way--
'Here!--See if you've got gumption enough to round her to.'
This was simply BOUND to be a success; nothing could prevent it; for he
had never allowed me to round the boat to before; consequently, no
matter how I might do the thing, he could find free fault with it. He
stood back there with his greedy eye on me, and the result was what
might have been foreseen: I lost my head in a quarter of a minute, and
didn't know what I was about; I started too early to bring the boat
around, but detected a green gleam of joy in Brown's eye, and corrected
my mistake; I started around once more while too high up, but corrected
myself again in time; I made other false moves, and still managed to
save myself; but at last I grew so confused and anxious that I tumbled
into the very worst blunder of all--I got too far down before beginning
to fetch the boat around. Brown's chance was come.
His face turned red with passion; he made one bound, hurled me across
the house with a sweep of his arm, spun the wheel down, and began to
pour out a stream of vituperation upon me which lasted till he was out
of breath. In the course of this speech he called me all the different
kinds of hard names he could think of, and once or twice I thought he
was even going to swear--but he didn't this time. 'Dod dern' was the
nearest he ventured to the luxury of swearing, for he had been brought
up with a wholesome respect for future fire and brimstone.
That was an uncomfortable hour; for there was a big audience on the
hurricane deck. When I went to bed that night, I killed Brown in
seventeen different ways--all of them new.
Chapter 19 Brown and I Exchange Compliments
Two trips later, I got into serious trouble. Brown was steering; I was
'pulling down.' My younger brother appeared on the hurricane deck, and
shouted to Brown to stop at some landing or other a mile or so below.
Brown gave no intimation that he had heard anything. But that was his
way: he never condescended to take notice of an under clerk. The wind
was blowing; Brown was deaf (although he always pretended he wasn't),
and I very much doubted if he had heard the order. If I had two heads, I
would have spoken; but as I had only one, it seemed judicious to take
care of it; so I kept still.
Presently, sure enough, we went sailing by that plantation. Captain
Klinefelter appeared on the deck, and said--
'Let her come around, sir, let her come around. Didn't Henry tell you to
land here?'
'NO, sir!'
'I sent him up to do, it.'
'He did come up; and that's all the good it done, the dod-derned fool.
He never said anything.'
'Didn't YOU hear him?' asked the captain of me.
Of course I didn't want to be mixed up in this business, but there was
no way to avoid it; so I said--
'Yes, sir.'
I knew what Brown's next remark would be, before he uttered it; it was--
'Shut your mouth! you never heard anything of the kind.'
I closed my mouth according to instructions. An hour later, Henry
entered the pilot-house, unaware of what had been going on. He was a
thoroughly inoffensive boy, and I was sorry to see him come, for I knew
Brown would have no pity on him. Brown began, straightway--
'Here! why didn't you tell me we'd got to land at that plantation?'
'I did tell you, Mr. Brown.'
'It's a lie!'
I said--
'You lie, yourself. He did tell you.'
Brown glared at me in unaffected surprise; and for as much as a moment
he was entirely speechless; then he shouted to me--
'I'll attend to your case in half a minute!' then to Henry, 'And you
leave the pilot-house; out with you!'
It was pilot law, and must be obeyed. The boy started out, and even had
his foot on the upper step outside the door, when Brown, with a sudden
access of fury, picked up a ten-pound lump of coal and sprang after him;
but I was between, with a heavy stool, and I hit Brown a good honest
blow which stretched-him out.
I had committed the crime of crimes--I had lifted my hand against a
pilot on duty! I supposed I was booked for the penitentiary sure, and
couldn't be booked any surer if I went on and squared my long account
with this person while I had the chance; consequently I stuck to him and
pounded him with my fists a considerable time--I do not know how long,
the pleasure of it probably made it seem longer than it really was;--but
in the end he struggled free and jumped up and sprang to the wheel: a
very natural solicitude, for, all this time, here was this steamboat
tearing down the river at the rate of fifteen miles an hour and nobody
at the helm! However, Eagle Bend was two miles wide at this bank-full
stage, and correspondingly long and deep; and the boat was steering
herself straight down the middle and taking no chances. Still, that was
only luck--a body MIGHT have found her charging into the woods.
Perceiving, at a glance, that the 'Pennsylvania' was in no danger, Brown
gathered up the big spy-glass, war-club fashion, and ordered me out of
the pilot-house with more than Comanche bluster. But I was not afraid of
him now; so, instead of going, I tarried, and criticized his grammar; I
reformed his ferocious speeches for him, and put them into good English,
calling his attention to the advantage of pure English over the bastard
dialect of the Pennsylvanian collieries whence he was extracted. He
could have done his part to admiration in a cross-fire of mere
vituperation, of course; but he was not equipped for this species of
controversy; so he presently laid aside his glass and took the wheel,
muttering and shaking his head; and I retired to the bench. The racket
had brought everybody to the hurricane deck, and I trembled when I saw
the old captain looking up from the midst of the crowd. I said to
myself, 'Now I AM done for!'--For although, as a rule, he was so
fatherly and indulgent toward the boat's family, and so patient of minor
shortcomings, he could be stern enough when the fault was worth it.
I tried to imagine what he WOULD do to a cub pilot who had been guilty
of such a crime as mine, committed on a boat guard-deep with costly
freight and alive with passengers. Our watch was nearly ended. I
thought I would go and hide somewhere till I got a chance to slide
ashore. So I slipped out of the pilot-house, and down the steps, and
around to the texas door--and was in the act of gliding within, when the
captain confronted me! I dropped my head, and he stood over me in
silence a moment or two, then said impressively--
'Follow me.'
I dropped into his wake; he led the way to his parlor in the forward end
of the texas. We were alone, now. He closed the after door; then moved
slowly to the forward one and closed that. He sat down; I stood before
him. He looked at me some little time, then said--
'So you have been fighting Mr. Brown?'
I answered meekly--
'Yes, sir.'
'Do you know that that is a very serious matter?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Are you aware that this boat was plowing down the river fully five
minutes with no one at the wheel?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Did you strike him first?'
'Yes, sir.'
'What with?'
'A stool, sir.'
'Hard?'
'Middling, sir.'
'Did it knock him down?'
'He--he fell, sir.'
'Did you follow it up? Did you do anything further?'
'Yes, sir.'
'What did you do?'
'Pounded him, sir.'
'Pounded him?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Did you pound him much?--that is, severely?'
'One might call it that, sir, maybe.'
'I'm deuced glad of it! Hark ye, never mention that I said that. You
have been guilty of a great crime; and don't you ever be guilty of it
again, on this boat. BUT--lay for him ashore! Give him a good sound
thrashing, do you hear? I'll pay the expenses. Now go--and mind you,
not a word of this to anybody. Clear out with you!--you've been guilty
of a great crime, you whelp!'
I slid out, happy with the sense of a close shave and a mighty
deliverance; and I heard him laughing to himself and slapping his fat
thighs after I had closed his door.
When Brown came off watch he went straight to the captain, who was
talking with some passengers on the boiler deck, and demanded that I be
put ashore in New Orleans--and added--
'I'll never turn a wheel on this boat again while that cub stays.'
The captain said--
'But he needn't come round when you are on watch, Mr. Brown.
'I won't even stay on the same boat with him. One of us has got to go
ashore.'
'Very well,' said the captain, 'let it be yourself;' and resumed his
talk with the passengers.
During the brief remainder of the trip, I knew how an emancipated slave
feels; for I was an emancipated slave myself. While we lay at landings,
I listened to George Ealer's flute; or to his readings from his two
bibles, that is to say, Goldsmith and Shakespeare; or I played chess
with him--and would have beaten him sometimes, only he always took back
his last move and ran the game out differently.