Life on the Mississippi
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,