Life on the Mississippi
captain glanced aloft at me and said, with a sham uneasiness in his
voice--
'Where is Mr. Bixby?'
'Gone below, sir.'
But that did the business for me. My imagination began to construct
dangers out of nothing, and they multiplied faster than I could keep the
run of them. All at once I imagined I saw shoal water ahead! The wave
of coward agony that surged through me then came near dislocating every
joint in me. All my confidence in that crossing vanished. I seized the
bell-rope; dropped it, ashamed; seized it again; dropped it once more;
clutched it tremblingly one again, and pulled it so feebly that I could
hardly hear the stroke myself. Captain and mate sang out instantly, and
both together--
'Starboard lead there! and quick about it!'
This was another shock. I began to climb the wheel like a squirrel;
but I would hardly get the boat started to port before I would see new
dangers on that side, and away I would spin to the other; only to find
perils accumulating to starboard, and be crazy to get to port again.
Then came the leadsman's sepulchral cry--
'D-e-e-p four!'
Deep four in a bottomless crossing! The terror of it took my breath
away.
'M-a-r-k three!... M-a-r-k three... Quarter less three!... Half twain!'
This was frightful! I seized the bell-ropes and stopped the engines.
'Quarter twain! Quarter twain! _Mark _twain!'
I was helpless. I did not know what in the world to do. I was quaking
from head to foot, and I could have hung my hat on my eyes, they stuck
out so far.
'Quarter _less _twain! Nine and a _half_!'
We were _drawing _nine! My hands were in a nerveless flutter. I could
not ring a bell intelligibly with them. I flew to the speaking-tube and
shouted to the engineer--
'Oh, Ben, if you love me, _back _her! Quick, Ben! Oh, back the immortal
_soul_ out of her!'
I heard the door close gently. I looked around, and there stood Mr.
Bixby, smiling a bland, sweet smile. Then the audience on the hurricane
deck sent up a thundergust of humiliating laughter. I saw it all, now,
and I felt meaner than the meanest man in human history. I laid in the
lead, set the boat in her marks, came ahead on the engines, and said--
'It was a fine trick to play on an orphan, _wasn't_ it? I suppose I'll
never hear the last of how I was ass enough to heave the lead at the
head of 66.'
'Well, no, you won't, maybe. In fact I hope you won't; for I want you
to learn something by that experience. Didn't you _know _there was no
bottom in that crossing?'
'Yes, sir, I did.'
'Very well, then. You shouldn't have allowed me or anybody else to shake
your confidence in that knowledge. Try to remember that. And another
thing: when you get into a dangerous place, don't turn coward. That
isn't going to help matters any.'
It was a good enough lesson, but pretty hardly learned. Yet about the
hardest part of it was that for months I so often had to hear a phrase
which I had conceived a particular distaste for. It was, 'Oh, Ben, if
you love me, back her!'
CHAPTER 14
Rank and Dignity of Piloting
IN my preceding chapters I have tried, by going into the minutiae of the
science of piloting, to carry the reader step by step to a comprehension
of what the science consists of; and at the same time I have tried to
show him that it is a very curious and wonderful science, too, and very
worthy of his attention. If I have seemed to love my subject, it is no
surprising thing, for I loved the profession far better than any I have
followed since, and I took a measureless pride in it. The reason is
plain: a pilot, in those days, was the only unfettered and entirely
independent human being that lived in the earth. Kings are but the
hampered servants of parliament and people; parliaments sit in chains
forged by their constituency; the editor of a newspaper cannot be
independent, but must work with one hand tied behind him by party and
patrons, and be content to utter only half or two-thirds of his mind; no
clergyman is a free man and may speak the whole truth, regardless of
his parish's opinions; writers of all kinds are manacled servants of the
public. We write frankly and fearlessly, but then we 'modify' before we
print. In truth, every man and woman and child has a master, and worries
and frets in servitude; but in the day I write of, the Mississippi pilot
had none. The captain could stand upon the hurricane deck, in the pomp
of a very brief authority, and give him five or six orders while the
vessel backed into the stream, and then that skipper's reign was over.
The moment that the boat was under way in the river, she was under the
sole and unquestioned control of the pilot. He could do with her exactly
as he pleased, run her when and whither he chose, and tie her up to the
bank whenever his judgment said that that course was best. His movements
were entirely free; he consulted no one, he received commands from
nobody, he promptly resented even the merest suggestions. Indeed,
the law of the United States forbade him to listen to commands or
suggestions, rightly considering that the pilot necessarily knew better
how to handle the boat than anybody could tell him. So here was the
novelty of a king without a keeper, an absolute monarch who was absolute
in sober truth and not by a fiction of words. I have seen a boy of
eighteen taking a great steamer serenely into what seemed almost certain
destruction, and the aged captain standing mutely by, filled with
apprehension but powerless to interfere. His interference, in that
particular instance, might have been an excellent thing, but to permit
it would have been to establish a most pernicious precedent. It will
easily be guessed, considering the pilot's boundless authority, that he
was a great personage in the old steamboating days. He was treated with
marked courtesy by the captain and with marked deference by all
the officers and servants; and this deferential spirit was quickly
communicated to the passengers, too. I think pilots were about the only
people I ever knew who failed to show, in some degree, embarrassment in
the presence of traveling foreign princes. But then, people in one's own
grade of life are not usually embarrassing objects.
By long habit, pilots came to put all their wishes in the form of
commands. It 'gravels' me, to this day, to put my will in the weak shape
of a request, instead of launching it in the crisp language of an order.
In those old days, to load a steamboat at St. Louis, take her to New
Orleans and back, and discharge cargo, consumed about twenty-five
days, on an average. Seven or eight of these days the boat spent at the
wharves of St. Louis and New Orleans, and every soul on board was hard
at work, except the two pilots; they did nothing but play gentleman up
town, and receive the same wages for it as if they had been on duty. The
moment the boat touched the wharf at either city, they were ashore; and
they were not likely to be seen again till the last bell was ringing and
everything in readiness for another voyage.
When a captain got hold of a pilot of particularly high reputation, he
took pains to keep him. When wages were four hundred dollars a month on
the Upper Mississippi, I have known a captain to keep such a pilot in
idleness, under full pay, three months at a time, while the river was
frozen up. And one must remember that in those cheap times four hundred
dollars was a salary of almost inconceivable splendor. Few men on shore
got such pay as that, and when they did they were mightily looked up
to. When pilots from either end of the river wandered into our small
Missouri village, they were sought by the best and the fairest, and
treated with exalted respect. Lying in port under wages was a thing
which many pilots greatly enjoyed and appreciated; especially if they
belonged in the Missouri River in the heyday of that trade (Kansas
times), and got nine hundred dollars a trip, which was equivalent to
about eighteen hundred dollars a month. Here is a conversation of that
day. A chap out of the Illinois River, with a little stern-wheel tub,
accosts a couple of ornate and gilded Missouri River pilots--
'Gentlemen, I've got a pretty good trip for the upcountry, and shall
want you about a month. How much will it be?'
'Eighteen hundred dollars apiece.'
'Heavens and earth! You take my boat, let me have your wages, and I'll
divide!'
I will remark, in passing, that Mississippi steamboatmen were important
in landsmen's eyes (and in their own, too, in a degree) according to the
dignity of the boat they were on. For instance, it was a proud thing to
be of the crew of such stately craft as the 'Aleck Scott' or the 'Grand
Turk.' Negro firemen, deck hands, and barbers belonging to those boats
were distinguished personages in their grade of life, and they were well
aware of that fact too. A stalwart darkey once gave offense at a negro
ball in New Orleans by putting on a good many airs. Finally one of the
managers bustled up to him and said--
'Who _is_ you, any way? Who is you? dat's what I wants to know!'
The offender was not disconcerted in the least, but swelled himself
up and threw that into his voice which showed that he knew he was not
putting on all those airs on a stinted capital.
'Who _is_ I? Who _is _I? I let you know mighty quick who I is! I want
you niggers to understan' dat I fires de middle do'{footnote [Door]} on
de “Aleck Scott!”'
That was sufficient.
The barber of the 'Grand Turk' was a spruce young negro, who aired his
importance with balmy complacency, and was greatly courted by the circle
in which he moved. The young colored population of New Orleans were much
given to flirting, at twilight, on the banquettes of the back streets.
Somebody saw and heard something like the following, one evening, in
one of those localities. A middle-aged negro woman projected her head
through a broken pane and shouted (very willing that the neighbors
should hear and envy), 'You Mary Ann, come in de house dis minute!
Stannin' out dah foolin' 'long wid dat low trash, an' heah's de barber
offn de “Gran' Turk” wants to conwerse wid you!'
My reference, a moment ago, to the fact that a pilot's peculiar official
position placed him out of the reach of criticism or command, brings
Stephen W---- naturally to my mind. He was a gifted pilot, a good
fellow, a tireless talker, and had both wit and humor in him. He had a
most irreverent independence, too, and was deliciously easy-going and
comfortable in the presence of age, official dignity, and even the most
august wealth. He always had work, he never saved a penny, he was a most
persuasive borrower, he was in debt to every pilot on the river, and to
the majority of the captains. He could throw a sort of splendor around
a bit of harum-scarum, devil-may-care piloting, that made it almost
fascinating--but not to everybody. He made a trip with good old Captain
Y----once, and was 'relieved' from duty when the boat got to New
Orleans. Somebody expressed surprise at the discharge. Captain Y----
shuddered at the mere mention of Stephen. Then his poor, thin old voice
piped out something like this:--
'Why, bless me! I wouldn't have such a wild creature on my boat for the
world--not for the whole world! He swears, he sings, he whistles, he
yells--I never saw such an Injun to yell. All times of the night--it
never made any difference to him. He would just yell that way, not for
anything in particular, but merely on account of a kind of devilish
comfort he got out of it. I never could get into a sound sleep but
he would fetch me out of bed, all in a cold sweat, with one of those
dreadful war-whoops. A queer being--very queer being; no respect for
anything or anybody. Sometimes he called me “Johnny.” And he kept a