cause he was brim full, and here were subjects who would The voice of the invisible watchman called up from the hur-talk back. He threw open a window, thrust his head out, and ricane deck—
such an irruption followed as I never had heard before. The
“What’s this, sir?”
fainter and farther away the scowmen’s curses drifted, the
“Jones’s plantation.”
higher Mr. Bixby lifted his voice and the weightier his ad-I said to myself, I wish I might venture to offer a small bet jectives grew. When he closed the window he was empty.
that it isn’t. But I did not chirp. I only waited to see. Mr.
You could have drawn a seine through his system and not Bixby handled the engine bells, and in due time the boat’s caught curses enough to disturb your mother with. Pres-nose came to the land, a torch glowed from the forecastle, a ently he said to me in the gentlest way—
man skipped ashore, a darky’s voice on the bank said, “Gimme
“My boy, you must get a little memorandum book, and de k’yarpet-bag, Mars’ Jones,” and the next moment we were every time I tell you a thing, put it down right away. There’s standing up the river again, all serene. I reflected deeply only one way to be a pilot, and that is to get this entire river awhile, and then said—but not aloud— “Well, the finding by heart. You have to know it just like A B C.” of that plantation was the luckiest accident that ever hap-That was a dismal revelation to me; for my memory was pened; but it couldn’t happen again in a hundred years.” never loaded with anything but blank cartridges. However, And I fully believed it was an accident, too.
I did not feel discouraged long. I judged that it was best to By the time we had gone seven or eight hundred miles up make some allowances, for doubtless Mr. Bixby was ‘stretch-the river, I had learned to be a tolerably plucky up-stream ing.’ Presently he pulled a rope and struck a few strokes on steersman, in daylight, and before we reached St. Louis I the big bell. The stars were all gone now, and the night was had made a trifle of progress in night-work, but only a trifle.
40
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain I had a note-book that fairly bristled with the names of towns, instead of a broad wooden box filled with sawdust; nice new
“points,” bars, islands, bends, reaches, etc.; but the informa-oil-cloth on the floor; a hospitable big stove for winter; a tion was to be found only in the notebook—none of it was wheel as high as my head, costly with inlaid work; a wire in my head. It made my heart ache to think I had only got tiller-rope; bright brass knobs for the bells; and a tidy, white-half of the river set down; for as our watch was four hours aproned, black “texas-tender,” to bring up tarts and ices and off and four hours on, day and night, there was a long four-coffee during mid-watch, day and night. Now this was “some-hour gap in my book for every time I had slept since the thing like,” and so I began to take heart once more to believe voyage began.
that piloting was a romantic sort of occupation after all. The My chief was presently hired to go on a big New Orleans moment we were under way I began to prowl about the boat, and I packed my satchel and went with him. She was a great steamer and fill myself with joy. She was as clean and as grand affair. When I stood in her pilot-house I was so far dainty as a drawing-room; when I looked down her long, above the water that I seemed perched on a mountain; and gilded saloon, it was like gazing through a splendid tunnel; her decks stretched so far away, fore and aft, below me, that she had an oil-picture, by some gifted sign-painter, on every I wondered how I could ever have considered the little ‘Paul stateroom door; she glittered with no end of prism-fringed Jones’ a large craft. There were other differences, too. The chandeliers; the clerk’s office was elegant, the bar was mar-
‘Paul Jones’s’ pilot-house was a cheap, dingy, battered rattle-velous, and the bar-keeper had been barbered and uphol-trap, cramped for room: but here was a sumptuous glass stered at incredible cost. The boiler deck (i.e. the second temple; room enough to have a dance in; showy red and story of the boat, so to speak) was as spacious as a church, it gold window-curtains; an imposing sofa; leather cushions seemed to me; so with the forecastle; and there was no piti-and a back to the high bench where visiting pilots sit, to spin ful handful of deckhands, firemen, and roustabouts down yarns and “look at the river”; bright, fanciful “cuspadores” there, but a whole battalion of men. The fires were fiercely 41
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain glaring from a long row of furnaces, and over them were in) was low; and the Mississippi changes its channel so con-eight huge boilers! This was unutterable pomp. The mighty stantly that the pilots used to always find it necessary to run engines—but enough of this. I had never felt so fine before.
down to Cairo to take a fresh look, when their boats were to And when I found that the regiment of natty servants relie in port a week; that is, when the water was at a low stage.
spectfully “sir’d” me, my satisfaction was complete.
A deal of this “looking at the river” was done by poor fellows who seldom had a berth, and whose only hope of getting Chapter 7
one lay in their being always freshly posted and therefore ready to drop into the shoes of some reputable pilot, for a A Daring Deed
single trip, on account of such pilot’s sudden illness, or some other necessity. And a good many of them constantly ran up WHEN I RETURNED TO THE PILOT-HOUSE St. Louis was gone and down inspecting the river, not because they ever really and I was lost. Here was a piece of river which was all down hoped to get a berth, but because (they being guests of the in my book, but I could make neither head nor tail of it: you boat) it was cheaper to “look at the river” than stay ashore understand, it was turned around. I had seen it when com-and pay board. In time these fellows grew dainty in their ing up-stream, but I had never faced about to see how it tastes, and only infested boats that had an established repu-looked when it was behind me. My heart broke again, for it tation for setting good tables. All visiting pilots were useful, was plain that I had got to learn this troublesome river both for they were always ready and willing, winter or summer, ways.
night or day, to go out in the yawl and help buoy the chan-The pilot-house was full of pilots, going down to “look at nel or assist the boat’s pilots in any way they could. They the river.” What is called the “upper river” (the two hundred were likewise welcome because all pilots are tireless talkers, miles between St. Louis and Cairo, where the Ohio comes when gathered together, and as they talk only about the river 42
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain they are always understood and are always interesting. Your hope all out of me. One visitor said to another—
true pilot cares nothing about anything on earth but the
“Jim, how did you run Plum Point, coming up?” river, and his pride in his occupation surpasses the pride of
“It was in the night, there, and I ran it the way one of the kings.
boys on the ‘Diana’ told me; started out about fifty yards We had a fine company of these river-inspectors along, above the wood pile on the false point, and held on the cabin this trip. There were eight or ten; and there was abundance under Plum Point till I raised the reef—quarter less twain—
of room for them in our great pilot-house. Two or three of then straightened up for the middle bar till I got well abreast them wore polished silk hats, elaborate shirt-fronts, diamond the old one-limbed cotton-wood in the bend, then got my breast-pins, kid gloves, and patent-leather boots. They were stern on the cotton-wood and head on the low place above choice in their English, and bore themselves with a dignity the point, and came through a-booming—nine and a half.” proper to men of solid means and prodigious reputation as
“Pretty square crossing, an’t it.?”
pilots. The others were more or less loosely clad, and wore
“Yes, but the upper bar ‘s working down fast.” upon their heads tall felt cones that were suggestive of the Another pilot spoke up and said—
days of the Commonwealth.
“I had better water than that, and ran it lower down; started I was a cipher in this august company, and felt subdued, out from the false point—mark twain—raised the second not to say torpid. I was not even of sufficient consequence reef abreast the big snag in the bend, and had quarter less to assist at the wheel when it was necessary to put the tiller twain.”
hard down in a hurry; the guest that stood nearest did that One of the gorgeous ones remarked—
when occasion required—and this was pretty much all the
“I don’t want to find fault with your leadsmen, but that’s a time, because of the crookedness of the channel and the scant good deal of water for Plum Point, it seems to me.” water. I stood in a corner; and the talk I listened to took the There was an approving nod all around as this quiet snub 43
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain dropped on the boaster and “settled” him. And so they went sion. I took my supper and went immediately to bed, dis-on talk-talk talking. Meantime, the thing that was running couraged by my day’s observations and experiences. My late in my mind was, “Now if my ears hear aright, I have not voyage’s note-booking was but a confusion of meaningless only to get the names of all the towns and islands and bends, names. It had tangled me all up in a knot every time I had and so on, by heart, but I must even get up a warm personal looked at it in the daytime. I now hoped for respite in sleep; acquaintanceship with every old snag and one-limbed cot-but no, it reveled all through my head till sunrise again, a ton-wood and obscure wood pile that ornaments the banks frantic and tireless nightmare.
of this river for twelve hundred miles; and more than that, I Next morning I felt pretty rusty and low-spirited. We went must actually know where these things are in the dark, un-booming along, taking a good many chances, for we were less these guests are gifted with eyes that can pierce through anxious to “get out of the river” (as getting out to Cairo was two miles of solid blackness; I wish the piloting business was called) before night should overtake us. But Mr. Bixby’s partin Jericho and I had never thought of it.” ner, the other pilot, presently grounded the boat, and we At dusk Mr. Bixby tapped the big bell three times (the lost so much time in getting her off that it was plain that signal to land), and the captain emerged from his drawing-darkness would overtake us a good long way above the mouth.
room in the forward end of the texas, and looked up inquir-This was a great misfortune, especially to certain of our vis-ingly. Mr. Bixby said—
iting pilots, whose boats would have to wait for their return,
“We will lay up here all night, captain.” no matter how long that might be. It sobered the pilot-house
“Very well, sir.”
talk a good deal. Coming up-stream, pilots did not mind That was all. The boat came to shore and was tied up for low water or any kind of darkness; nothing stopped them the night. It seemed to me a fine thing that the pilot could but fog. But down-stream work was different; a boat was too do as he pleased, without asking so grand a captain’s permis-nearly helpless, with a stiff current pushing behind her; so it 44
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain was not customary to run down-stream at night in low wa-W——stepped aside. For the next thirty minutes every man ter.
held his watch in his hand and was restless, silent, and un-There seemed to be one small hope, however: if we could easy. At last somebody said, with a doomful sigh—
get through the intricate and dangerous Hat Island crossing
“Well, yonder’s Hat Island—and we can’t make it.” All the before night, we could venture the rest, for we would have watches closed with a snap, everybody sighed and muttered plainer sailing and better water. But it would be insanity to something about its being ‘too bad, too bad—ah, if we could attempt Hat Island at night. So there was a deal of looking at only have got here half an hour sooner!’ and the place was watches all the rest of the day, and a constant ciphering upon thick with the atmosphere of disappointment. Some started the speed we were making; Hat Island was the eternal sub-to go out, but loitered, hearing no bell-tap to land. The sun ject; sometimes hope was high and sometimes we were de-dipped behind the horizon, the boat went on. Inquiring looks layed in a bad crossing, and down it went again. For hours passed from one guest to another; and one who had his hand all hands lay under the burden of this suppressed excite-on the door-knob and had turned it, waited, then presently ment; it was even communicated to me, and I got to feeling took away his hand and let the knob turn back again. We so solicitous about Hat Island, and under such an awful pres-bore steadily down the bend. More looks were exchanged, sure of responsibility, that I wished I might have five min-and nods of surprised admiration—but no words. Insensi-utes on shore to draw a good, full, relieving breath, and start bly the men drew together behind Mr. Bixby, as the sky over again. We were standing no regular watches. Each of darkened and one or two dim stars came out. The dead si-our pilots ran such portions of the river as he had run when lence and sense of waiting became oppressive. Mr. Bixby coming up-stream, because of his greater familiarity with it; pulled the cord, and two deep, mellow notes from the big but both remained in the pilot house constantly.
bell floated off on the night. Then a pause, and one more An hour before sunset, Mr. Bixby took the wheel and Mr.
note was struck. The watchman’s voice followed, from the 45
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain hurricane deck—
After a pause, another subdued voice—
“Labboard lead, there! Stabboard lead!”
“Her stern’s coming down just exactly right, by George!” The cries of the leadsmen began to rise out of the dis-
“Now she’s in the marks; over she goes!” tance, and were gruffly repeated by the word-passers on the Somebody else muttered—
hurricane deck.
“Oh, it was done beautiful—BEAUTIFUL!”
“M-a-r-k three!.... M-a-r-k three!.... Quarter-less three! ....
Now the engines were stopped altogether, and we drifted Half twain! .... Quarter twain! .... M-a-r-k twain! .... Quar-with the current. Not that I could see the boat drift, for I ter-less—”
could not, the stars being all gone by this time. This drifting Mr. Bixby pulled two bell-ropes, and was answered by faint was the dismalest work; it held one’s heart still. Presently I jinglings far below in the engine room, and our speed slack-discovered a blacker gloom than that which surrounded us.
ened. The steam began to whistle through the gauge-cocks.
It was the head of the island. We were closing right down The cries of the leadsmen went on—and it is a weird sound, upon it. We entered its deeper shadow, and so imminent always, in the night. Every pilot in the lot was watching seemed the peril that I was likely to suffocate; and I had the now, with fixed eyes, and talking under his breath. Nobody strongest impulse to do SOMETHING, anything, to save was calm and easy but Mr. Bixby. He would put his wheel the vessel. But still Mr. Bixby stood by his wheel, silent, down and stand on a spoke, and as the steamer swung into intent as a cat, and all the pilots stood shoulder to shoulder her (to me) utterly invisible marks—for we seemed to be in at his back.
the midst of a wide and gloomy sea—he would meet and
“She’ll not make it!” somebody whispered.
fasten her there. Out of the murmur of half-audible talk, The water grew shoaler and shoaler, by the leadsman’s cries, one caught a coherent sentence now and then—such as—
till it was down to—
“There; she’s over the first reef all right!”
“Eight-and-a-half!.... E-i-g-h-t feet!.... E-i-g-h-t feet!....
46
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain Seven-and—”
of the island so closely as to brush the overhanging foliage Mr. Bixby said warningly through his speaking tube to with her stern, but at one place she must pass almost within the engineer—
arm’s reach of a sunken and invisible wreck that would snatch
“Stand by, now!”
the hull timbers from under her if she should strike it, and
“Aye-aye, sir!”
destroy a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of steam-boat
“Seven-and-a-half! Seven feet! Six-and—” and cargo in five minutes, and maybe a hundred and fifty We touched bottom! Instantly Mr. Bixby set a lot of bells human lives into the bargain.
ringing, shouted through the tube, “NOW, let her have it—
The last remark I heard that night was a compliment to every ounce you’ve got!” then to his partner, “Put her hard Mr. Bixby, uttered in soliloquy and with unction by one of down! snatch her! snatch her!” The boat rasped and ground our guests. He said—
her way through the sand, hung upon the apex of disaster a
“By the Shadow of Death, but he’s a lightning pilot!” single tremendous instant, and then over she went! And such a shout as went up at Mr. Bixby’s back never loosened the Chapter 8
roof of a pilot-house before!
There was no more trouble after that. Mr. Bixby was a Perplexing Lessons
hero that night; and it was some little time, too, before his exploit ceased to be talked about by river men.
AT THE END OF WHAT SEEMED A TEDIOUS WHILE, I had manFully to realize the marvelous precision required in laying aged to pack my head full of islands, towns, bars, “points,” the great steamer in her marks in that murky waste of water, and bends; and a curiously inanimate mass of lumber it was, one should know that not only must she pick her intricate too. However, inasmuch as I could shut my eyes and reel off way through snags and blind reefs, and then shave the head a good long string of these names without leaving out more 47
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain than ten miles of river in every fifty, I began to feel that I hasn’t the same shape in the night that it has in the day-could take a boat down to New Orleans if I could make her time.”
skip those little gaps. But of course my complacency could
“How on earth am I ever going to learn it, then?” hardly get start enough to lift my nose a trifle into the air,
“How do you follow a hall at home in the dark. Because before Mr. Bixby would think of something to fetch it down you know the shape of it. You can’t see it.” again. One day he turned on me suddenly with this set-
“Do you mean to say that I’ve got to know all the million tler—
trifling variations of shape in the banks of this interminable
“What is the shape of Walnut Bend?”
river as well as I know the shape of the front hall at home?” He might as well have asked me my grandmother’s opin-
“On my honor, you’ve got to know them better than any ion of protoplasm. I reflected respectfully, and then said I man ever did know the shapes of the halls in his own house.” didn’t know it had any particular shape. My gunpowdery
“I wish I was dead!”
chief went off with a bang, of course, and then went on
“Now I don’t want to discourage you, but——” loading and firing until he was out of adjectives.
“Well, pile it on me; I might as well have it now as another I had learned long ago that he only carried just so many time.”
rounds of ammunition, and was sure to subside into a very
“You see, this has got to be learned; there isn’t any getting placable and even remorseful old smooth-bore as soon as around it. A clear starlight night throws such heavy shadows they were all gone. That word ‘old’ is merely affectionate; he that if you didn’t know the shape of a shore perfectly you was not more than thirty-four. I waited. By and by he said—
would claw away from every bunch of timber, because you
“My boy, you’ve got to know the shape of the river per-would take the black shadow of it for a solid cape; and you fectly. It is all there is left to steer by on a very dark night.
see you would be getting scared to death every fifteen min-Everything else is blotted out and gone. But mind you, it utes by the watch. You would be fifty yards from shore all 48
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain the time when you ought to be within fifty feet of it. You
“NO! you only learn the shape of the river, and you learn can’t see a snag in one of those shadows, but you know ex-it with such absolute certainty that you can always steer by actly where it is, and the shape of the river tells you when the shape that’s in your head, and never mind the one that’s you are coming to it. Then there’s your pitch-dark night; the before your eyes.”
river is a very different shape on a pitch-dark night from
“Very well, I’ll try it; but after I have learned it can I de-what it is on a starlight night. All shores seem to be straight pend on it. Will it keep the same form and not go fooling lines, then, and mighty dim ones, too; and you’d run them around?”
for straight lines only you know better. You boldly drive your Before Mr. Bixby could answer, Mr. W—— came in to boat right into what seems to be a solid, straight wall (you take the watch, and he said—
knowing very well that in reality there is a curve there), and
“Bixby, you’ll have to look out for President’s Island and that wall falls back and makes way for you. Then there’s all that country clear away up above he Old Hen and Chick-your gray mist. You take a night when there’s one of these ens. The banks are caving and the shape of the shores chang-grisly, drizzly, gray mists, and then there isn’t any particular ing like everything. Why, you wouldn’t know the point above shape to a shore. A gray mist would tangle the head of the 40. You can go up inside the old sycamore-snag, now.”*
oldest man that ever lived. Well, then, different kinds of So that question was answered. Here were leagues of shore moonlight change the shape of the river in different ways.
changing shape. My spirits were down in the mud again.
You see——”
Two things seemed pretty apparent to me. One was, that in
“Oh, don’t say any more, please! Have I got to learn the order to be a pilot a man had got to learn more than any one shape of the river according to all these five hundred thou-man ought to be allowed to know; and the other was, that sand different ways? If I tried to carry all that cargo in my head it would make me stoop-shouldered.”
*It may not be necessary, but still it can do no harm to explain that “inside” means between the snag and the shore.—M.T.
49
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain he must learn it all over again in a different way every twenty-bend, and say we were abreast of such-and-such a man’s wood-four hours.
yard or plantation. This was courtesy; I supposed it was ne-That night we had the watch until twelve. Now it was an cessity. But Mr. W—— came on watch full twelve minutes ancient river custom for the two pilots to chat a bit when the late on this particular night,—a tremendous breach of eti-watch changed. While the relieving pilot put on his gloves quette; in fact, it is the unpardonable sin among pilots. So and lit his cigar, his partner, the retiring pilot, would say Mr. Bixby gave him no greeting whatever, but simply sur-something like this—
rendered the wheel and marched out of the pilot-house with-
“I judge the upper bar is making down a little at Hale’s out a word. I was appalled; it was a villainous night for black-Point; had quarter twain with the lower lead and mark twain*
ness, we were in a particularly wide and blind part of the with the other.”
river, where there was no shape or substance to anything,
“Yes, I thought it was making down a little, last trip. Meet and it seemed incredible that Mr. Bixby should have left any boats?”
that poor fellow to kill the boat trying to find out where he
“Met one abreast the head of 21, but she was away over was. But I resolved that I would stand by him any way. He hugging the bar, and I couldn’t make her out entirely. I took should find that he was not wholly friendless. So I stood her for the ‘Sunny South’—hadn’t any skylights forward of around, and waited to be asked where we were. But Mr.
the chimneys.”
W—— plunged on serenely through the solid firmament of And so on. And as the relieving pilot took the wheel his black cats that stood for an atmosphere, and never opened partner* would mention that we were in such-and-such a his mouth. Here is a proud devil, thought I; here is a limb of Satan that would rather send us all to destruction than put himself under obligations to me, because I am not yet one of
*Two fathoms. “Quarter twain” is two-and-a-quarter fathoms, thirteen-and-a-half feet. ‘Mark three’ is three fathoms.
*”Partner” is a technical term for “the other pilot.” 50
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain the salt of the earth and privileged to snub captains and lord to know the river in the night the same as he’d know his own it over everything dead and alive in a steamboat. I presently front hall?”
climbed up on the bench; I did not think it was safe to go to
“Well, I can follow the front hall in the dark if I know it is sleep while this lunatic was on watch.
the front hall; but suppose you set me down in the middle of However, I must have gone to sleep in the course of time, it in the dark and not tell me which hall it is; how am I to because the next thing I was aware of was the fact that day know?”
was breaking, Mr. W—— gone, and Mr. Bixby at the wheel
“Well you’ve got to, on the river!” again. So it was four o’clock and all well—but me; I felt like
“All right. Then I’m glad I never said anything to Mr. W—” a skinful of dry bones and all of them trying to ache at once.
“I should say so. Why, he’d have slammed you through Mr. Bixby asked me what I had stayed up there for. I con-the window and utterly ruined a hundred dollars’ worth of fessed that it was to do Mr. W—— a benevolence,—tell window-sash and stuff.”
him where he was. It took five minutes for the entire pre-I was glad this damage had been saved, for it would have posterousness of the thing to filter into Mr. Bixby’s system, made me unpopular with the owners. They always hated and then I judge it filled him nearly up to the chin; because anybody who had the name of being careless, and injuring he paid me a compliment—and not much of a one either.
things.
He said,
I went to work now to learn the shape of the river; and of
“Well, taking you by-and-large, you do seem to be more all the eluding and ungraspable objects that ever I tried to different kinds of an ass than any creature I ever saw before.
get mind or hands on, that was the chief. I would fasten my What did you suppose he wanted to know for?” eyes upon a sharp, wooded point that projected far into the I said I thought it might be a convenience to him.
river some miles ahead of me, and go to laboriously photo-
“Convenience D-nation! Didn’t I tell you that a man’s got graphing its shape upon my brain; and just as I was begin-51
Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain ning to succeed to my satisfaction, we would draw up to-the other, I’ve got to waltz to larboard again, or I’ll have a ward it and the exasperating thing would begin to melt away misunderstanding with a snag that would snatch the keelson and fold back into the bank! If there had been a conspicuous out of this steamboat as neatly as if it were a sliver in your dead tree standing upon the very point of the cape, I would hand. If that hill didn’t change its shape on bad nights there find that tree inconspicuously merged into the general for-would be an awful steamboat grave-yard around here inside e