Life on the Mississippi
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