Old Times on the Upper Mississippi
but whom he promptly recalled when given a clue. And then, it being
train time, we all walked across to the station and Burns invited me
to take a trip with him, next time, down to St. Louis and back, and
work my way at the wheel.
I knew that I had not yet been weaned from the spokes, and doubted
if I ever should be. I said that I would try, and I did. I filed an
application for the first leave of absence I had ever asked for from
the railroad company, and it was granted. I found a man to assist
the "devil" in getting out my paper, he doing the editing for pure
love of editing, if not from love of the editor. We set our house in
order, packed our trunk and grips, and when the specified fortnight
was ended, we (my wife, my daughter, and myself) were comfortably
bestowed in adjoining staterooms in the ladies' cabin of the "Mary
Morton", and I was fidgeting about the boat, watching men "do things"
as I had been taught, or had seen others do, twenty years ago or more.
The big Irish mate bullied his crew of forty "niggers", driving them
with familiar oaths, to redoubled efforts in getting in the "last"
packages of freight, which never reached the last. Among the rest,
in that half hour, I saw barrels of mess pork--a whole car load
of it, which the "nigger" engine was striking down into the hold.
Shades of Abraham! pork _out_ of St. Paul! Twenty years before, I
had checked out a whole barge load (three hundred barrels) through
from Cincinnati, by way of Cairo. Cincinnati was the great porkopolis
of the world, while Chicago was yet keeping its pigs in each back
yard, and every freeholder "made" his own winter's supply of pork
for himself. The steward in charge of the baggage was always in the
way with a big trunk on the gangway, just as of old. The engineers
were trying their steam, and slowly turning the wheel over, with the
waste cocks open, to clear the cylinders of water. The firemen were
coaxing the beds of coal into fiercer heats. The chief clerk compared
the tickets which were presented by hurrying passengers, with the
reservation sheet, and assigned rooms, all "the best", to others who
had no reservations. The "mud" clerk checked his barrels and boxes,
and scribbled his name fiercely and with many flourishes to last
receipts. The pilot on watch, Mr. Burns, sat on the window ledge in
the pilot house, and waited. The captain stood by the big bell, and
listened for the "All ready, Sir!" of the mate. As the words were
spoken, the great bell boomed out one stroke, the lines slacked away
and were thrown off the snubbing posts. A wave of the captain's
hand, a pull at one of the knobs on the wheel-frame, the jingle of a
bell far below, the shiver of the boat as the great wheel began its
work, and the bow of the "Mary Morton" swung to the south; a couple
of pulls at the bell-ropes, and the wheel was revolving ahead; in a
minute more the escape pipes told us that she was "hooked up", and
with full steam ahead we were on our way to St. Louis. And I was
again in the pilot house with my old chief, who bade me "show us what
sort of an education you had when a youngster".
Despite my forty years I was a boy again, and Tom Burns was the
critical chief, sitting back on the bench with his pipe alight, a
comical smile oozing out of the corners of mouth and eyes, for all
the world like the teacher of old.
The very first minute I met the swing of the gang-plank derrick
(there is no jack staff on the modern steamboat, more's the pity),
with two or three spokes when one would have been a plenty, yawing
the boat round "like a toad in a hailstorm", as I was advised. I
could feel the hot blood rushing to my cheeks, just as it did twenty
years before under similar provocation, when the eye of the master
was upon me. I turned around and found that Mr. Burns had taken it
in, and we both laughed like boys--as I fancy both of us were for the
time.
But I got used to it very soon, getting the "feel of it", and as the
"Mary Morton" steered like a daisy I lined out a very respectable
wake; although Tom tried to puzzle me a good deal with questions as
to the landmarks, most of which I had forgotten save in a general way.
When eight bells struck, Mr. Link, Mr. Burns's partner, came into
the pilot house; that let me out, and after an introduction by Mr.
Burns, Mr. Link took the wheel. He was a young man, of perhaps thirty
years of age. We lingered a few minutes to watch him skilfully run
Pig's Eye, and then went down to dinner, and had introductions all
around--to Captain Boland, Mr. Mathers, Mr. McDonald, and other
officers.
I took the wheel again, later in the afternoon. It was easy steering,
and there was no way of getting out of the channel, for a time; and
later I found that some things were taking on a familiar look--that
I had not forgotten all of the river, and things were shaping
themselves, as each new point or bend was reached, so that very
little prompting was necessary.
I had the wheel from Pine Bend to Hastings, where I was given
permission to step on the end of a board lever fixed in the floor of
the pilot house, on one side of the wheel, and give the signal of the
Diamond Jo Line for the landing--two long blasts, followed by three
short ones. Here was another innovation. In old times you had to
hold your wheel with one hand while you pulled a rope to blow for a
landing, which was sometimes a little awkward. This was a very little
thing, but it went with the landing-stage derrick, the electric
search-light, and a score of other improvements that had come aboard
since I walked ashore two decades before.
A mile or two below Hastings I saw the "break" on the surface of the
water which marked the resting-place of the "Fanny Harris", on which
I had spent so many months of hard work, but which, looked back upon
through the haze of twenty years, now seemed to have been nothing but
holiday excursions.
At Prescott I looked on the familiar water front, and into the attic
windows where with my brother I had so often in the night watches
studied the characteristics of boats landing at the levee. Going
ashore I met many old-time friends, among whom was Charles Barnes,
agent of the Diamond Jo Line, who had occupied the same office on the
levee since 1858, and had met every steamboat touching the landing
during all those years. He was the Nestor of the profession, and was
one of the very few agents still doing business on the water front
who had begun such work prior to 1860. Since then, within a few years
past, he also has gone, and that by an accident, while still in the
performance of duties connected with the steamboat business.
Dropping rapidly down the river, we passed Diamond Bluff without
stopping, but rounded to at Red Wing for passengers and freight, and
afterward headed into a big sea on Lake Pepin, kicked up by the high
south wind that was still blowing. We landed under the lee of the
sand-spit at Lake City, and after getting away spent the better part
of an hour in picking up a barge load of wheat, that was anchored out
in the lake.
By a wise provision of the rules for the government of pilots,
adopted since I left the river, no one is permitted in the pilot
house except the pilot on watch, or his partner, after the sidelights
have been put up. For this reason I could not occupy my chosen
place at the wheel after sunset; but I found enough to occupy my
time down below in the engine-room, watching the great pitman walk
out and in, to and from the crank-shaft, listening to the rush of
the water alongside as it broke into a great wave on either side,
and to the churning of the wheel, and all the while discussing old
times with George McDonald. As the wind was still high and the water
rough, I had an opportunity to see Mr. McDonald answer bells, which
came thick and furious for a good while before we were well fast to
the levee at Reed's Landing. There was no excitement, however, and
no rushing from side to side as in the old days, to "ship up". He
stood amidship, his hand on the reversing bar, just as a locomotive
engineer sits with his hand on the bar of his engine. When the bell
rang to set her back, he pulled his lever full back, and then opened
his throttle without moving a step. After getting started, and under
full way, he simply "hooked her back" three or four notches, and the
old-time "short link" operation had been performed without taking a
step. A great advance in twenty years! But why wasn't it thought of
fifty years ago? I don't know. The same principle had been in use
on locomotives from the start. It is simple enough now, on steamboat
engines. Perhaps none of the old-timers thought of it.
I turned in at an early hour, and lay in the upper berth, listening
to the cinders skating over the roof a couple of feet above my face,
and translating the familiar sounds that reached me from engine-room
and roof--the call for the draw at the railroad bridge, below the
landing; the signal for landing at Wabasha; the slow bell, the
stopping-bell, the backing-bell, and a dozen or twenty unclassified
bells, before the landing was fully accomplished; the engineer trying
the water in the boilers; the rattle of the slice-bars on the sides
of the furnace doors as the firemen trimmed their fires; and one new
and unfamiliar sound from the engine-room--the rapid exhaust of the
little engine driving the electric generator, the only intruder among
the otherwise familiar noises, all of which came to my sleepy senses
as a lullaby.
I listened for anything which might indicate the passage of the once
dreaded Beef Slough bar, but beyond the labored breathing of the
engines, that at times indicated shoaling water, there was nothing by
which to identify our old-time enemy. So listening, I fell asleep.
"Breakfast is ready, sah", was the pleasant proclamation following a
gentle rapping on the stateroom door. Very refreshing, this, compared
with the sharp manifesto of the olden-days watchman: "Twelve o'clock;
turn out"!
The "Morton" was ploughing along between Victory and De Soto. By the
time justice had been done to the well-cooked and well-served meal,
the boat had touched at the latter port and taken on a few sacks of
barley (potential Budweiser), consigned to one of the big St. Louis
breweries. Mr. Link was at the wheel, and as a good understanding
had been reached the day before, there was no question as to who was
going to do the steering. Mr. Link took the bench and talked river as
only a lover could talk, while I picked out the course by the aid of
diamond boards and ancient landmarks, without asking many questions.
A suggestion now and then: "Let her come in a little closer". "Now
you may cross over". "Look out for the snag in the next bend", and
like cautions were all that was necessary.
And the pleasure of it! The beautiful morning in June, the woods
alive with songbirds; the bluffs and islands a perfect green; the
river dimpling under the caresses of a gentle breeze, and blushing
rosy under the ardent gaze of the morning sun--a picture of
loveliness not to be outdone anywhere in the wide world. And then
the sense of power that comes to one who has learned to handle a
steamboat with a touch of the wheel, in taking a long bend, a mile
or more in length, without moving the wheel an inch, the rudders so
slightly angled as to guide the boat along the arc of a circle which
would be ten miles in diameter, could it be extended to completion,
and leaving a wake as true as if drawn by a pair of dividers!
We did not go into Prairie du Chien, but with the glasses the old
French town could be discerned across the island and the slough;
it claims to be two hundred years old, and it looked its age. Time
was when Prairie du Chien, the terminus of the railroad nearest to