hus aggrandized was hoop-poles and pumpkins. Pilots bore a mortal hatred to these craft, and it was returned with usury. The law required all such helpless traders to keep a light burning, but it was a law that was often broken.   Then for an instant as we whistled by the red glare from our furnaces would reveal the scow in the form of the gesticulating orator as if under a lightning flash, and in that instant our firemen and deckhands would send and receive a tempest of missiles and profanity. One of our wheels would walk off with a crashing fragment for the steering oar, and down the dead blackness would shut again, and that flat boatman would be sure to go into New Orleans and sue our boat, swearing stoutly that he had a light burning all the time, when in truth his gang had the lantern down below to sing and lie and drink and gamble by, and no watch on deck. Once at night, in one of those forest-bordered crevices behind an island, which steam boatmen intensely described with a phrase, as dark as the inside of a cowl, we should have eaten up the Posey County family, fruit, furniture, and all, but that they happened to be fiddling down below and we just caught the sound of the music in time to shear off doing no serious damage, unfortunately, but coming so near it that we had good hopes for a moment. These people brought up their lantern then, of course, and as we backed and filled to get away the precious family stood in the light of it, both sexes and various ages, and cursed us till everything turned blue. Once a coal boatman sent a bullet through our pilot house when we borrowed a steering oar of him in a very narrow place. End of Chapter 10 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain. Chapter 11 The River Rises During this big rise, these small fry-craft were an intolerable nuisance. We were running shoot after shoot, a new world to me, and if there was a particularly cramped place in a shoot, we would be pretty sure to meet a broad horn there, and if he failed to be there, we would find him in a still worse locality, namely the head of the shoot, on the shore water. And then there was to be no end of profane cordialities exchanged. Sometimes in the big river, when we would be feeling our way cautiously along through a fog, the deep hush would suddenly be broken by yells and a clamor of tin pans, and all in an instant a log raft would appear vaguely through the webby veil close upon us. And then we did not wait to swap knives, but snatched our engine bells out by the roots, and piled on all the steam we had to scramble out of the way. One doesn't hit a rock or a solid log craft with a steamboat when he can get excused. You will hardly believe it, but many steamboat clerks always carried a large assortment of religious tracts with them in those old departed steamboating days. Indeed, they did. Twenty times a day we would be cramping up around a bar, while a string of these small fried rascals were drifting down into the head of the bend, away above and beyond us a couple of miles. Now a skiff would dart away from one of them and come fighting its laborious way across the desert of water. It would ease all in the shadow of our folksal, and the panting oarsmen would shout, Give me a paper! as the skiff drifted swiftly astern. The clerk would throw over a file of Norland's journals. If these were picked up without comment, you might notice that now a dozen other skiffs had been drifting down upon us without saying anything. You understand, they had been waiting to see how number one was going to fail. Number one, making no comment, all the rest would bend to their oars and come on now. And as fast as they came the clerk would heave over neat bundles of religious tracts tied to shingles. The amount of hard swearing which twelve packages of religious literature will command when impartially divided up among twelve raftsmen's crews, who have pulled a heavy skiff two miles on a hot day to get them, is simply incredible. As I have said, the big rise brought a new world under my vision. By the time the river was over its banks we had forsaken our old paths and were hourly climbing over bars that had stood ten feet out of the water before. We were shaving stumpy shores, like that at the foot of Madrid Bend, which I had always seen avoided before. We were clattering through shoots like that of 82, where the opening at the foot was an unbroken wall of timber, till our nose was almost at the very spot. Some of these shoots were utter solitudes. The dense untouched forest overhung both banks of the crooked little crack, and one could believe that human creatures had never intruded there before. The swinging grapevines, the grassy nooks and vistas glimpsed as we swept by, the flowering creepers waving their red blossoms from the tops of dead trunks, and all the spend-thrift richness of the forest foliage were wasted and thrown away there. The shoots were lovely places to steer in. They were deep, except at the head. The current was gentle. Under the points the water was absolutely dead, and the invisible banks so bluffed that where the tender will of thickets projected you could bury your boat's broadside in them as you tore along, and then you seemed fairly to fly.  There were crazy rail fences sticking a foot or two above the water, with one or two jeans clad chills racked, yellow-faced male miserables roosting on the top rail, elbows on knees, jaws in hands, grinding tobacco and discharging the results at floating chips through crevices left by lost teeth, while the rest of the family and the few farm animals were huddled together in an empty wood flat riding at her moorings close at hand. In this flat boat the family would have to cook and eat and sleep for a lesser or greater number of days or possibly weeks, until the river should fall two or three feet and let them get back to their log cabin and their chills again, chills being a merciful provision of an all-wise providence to enable them to take exercise without exertion. And this sort of watery camping out was a thing which these people were rather liable to be treated to a couple of times a year, by the December rise out of the Ohio and the June rise out of the Mississippi. And yet these were kindly dispensations, for they at least enabled the poor things to rise from the dead now and then and look upon life when a steamboat went by. They appreciated the blessing, too, for they spread their mouths and eyes wide open and made the most of these occasions. Now what could these banished creatures find to do to keep from dying of the blues during the low-water season? Once in one of these lovely island chutes we found our course completely bridged by a great fallen tree. This will serve to show how narrow some of the chutes were. The passengers had an hour's recreation in a virgin wilderness, while the boat hands chopped the bridge away, for there was no such thing as turning back, you comprehend. From Cairo to Baton Rouge, when the river is over its banks, you have no particular trouble in the night, for the thousand-mile wall of dense forest that guards the two banks all the way is only gapped with a farm or woodyard opening at intervals, and so you can't get out of the river much easier than you could get out of a fenced lane. But from Baton Rouge to New Orleans is a different matter. The river is more than a mile wide and very deep, as much as two hundred feet in places. Most banks, for a good deal over a hundred miles, are shorn of their timber and bordered by continuous sugar plantations, with only here and there a scattering sapling or row of ornamental china trees. The timber is shorn off clear to the rear of the plantations, from two to four miles. When the first frost threatens to come, the planters snatch off their crops in a hurry. When they have finished grinding the cane they form the refuse of the stalks, which they call bagasse, integrate piles and set fire to them, though in other sugar countries the bagasse is used for fuel in the furnaces of the sugar mills.  An embarkment ten or fifteen feet high guards boats banks of the Mississippi all the way down that lower end of the river, and this embankment is set back from the edge of the shore from ten to perhaps a hundred feet according to circumstances, say thirty or forty feet as a general thing. Fill that whole region with an impenetrable gloom of smoke from a hundred miles of burning bagasse piles when the river is over the banks and turn a steamboat loose along there at midnight and see how she will feel, and see how you will feel too. You find yourself a way out in the midst of a vague dim sea that is shoreless, that fades out and loses itself in the murky distances. For you cannot discern the thin rib of embankment, and you are always imagining you see a straggling tree when you don't. The plantations themselves are transformed by the smoke and look like a part of the sea. All through your watch you are tortured with the exquisite misery of uncertainty. You hope you are keeping in the river, but you do not know. All that you are sure about is that you are likely to be within six feet of the bank and destruction when you think you are a good half-mile from shore. And you are sure also that if you chance suddenly to fetch up against the embankment and topple your chimney's overboard, you will have the small comfort of knowing that it is about what you were expecting to do. One of the great Vicksburg packets darted out into a sugar plantation one night, at such a time, and had to stay there a week, but there was no novelty about it. It had often been done before. I thought I had finished this chapter, but I wish to add a curious thing while it is on my mind. It is only relevant in that it is connected with piloting. There used to be an excellent pilot on the river, a Mr. X, who was a Sonambulist. It was said that if his mind was troubled about a bad piece of river, he was pretty sure to get up and walk in his sleep and do strange things. He was often fellow pilot for a trip or two with George Ealer on a great New Orleans passenger packet. During a considerable part of the first trip, George was uneasy, but got over it by and by, as X seemed content to stay in his bed when asleep. Late one night the boat was approaching Helena Arkansas. The water was low and the crossing above the town in a very blind and tangled condition. X had seen the crossing since Ealer had and as the night was particularly drizzly, sullen and dark, Ealer was considering whether he had not better have X called to assist in running the place when the door opened and X walked in. Now on very dark nights light is a deadly enemy to piloting. You are aware that if you stand in a lighted room on such a night you cannot see things in the street to any purpose. But if you put out the lights and stand in the gloom you can make out objects in the street pretty well. So on very dark nights pilots do not smoke. They allow no fire in the pilot house stove if there is a crack which can allow the least ray to escape. They order the furnaces to be curtailed with huge tarpulins and the skylights to be closely blinded. Then no light whatever issues from the boat. The undefinable shape that now entered the pilot house had Mr. X's voice. This said, Let me take her George. I've seen this place since you have and it is so crooked that I reckon I can run it myself easier than I can tell you how to do it. It is kind of you and I swear I am willing. I haven't got another drop of perspiration left in me. I have been spinning round and round the wheel like a squirrel. It is so dark I can't tell which way she is swinging till she is coming around like a whirligig. So Ealer took a seat on the bench panting and breathless. The black phantom assumed the wheel without saying anything. Steady the waltzing steamer with a turn or two and then stood ease coaxing her a little to this side and then to that as gently and as sweetly as if the time had been noonday. When Ealer observed this marvel of steering he wished he had not confessed. He spared and wondered and finally said Well, I thought I knew how to steer a steamboat but that was another mistake of mine. X said nothing but went serenely on with his work. He rang for the leds. He rang to slow down the steam. He worked the boat carefully and neatly into invisible marks then stood at the center of the wheel and peered blandly out into the blackness fore and aft to verify his position as the leds shoaled more and more he stopped the engines entirely and the dead silence and suspense of drifting followed when the shoalest water was struck. He cracked on the steam carried her handsomely over and then began to work her warily into the next system of shoal marks. The same patient heedful use of leds and engines followed. The boat slipped through without touching bottom and entered upon the third and last intricacy of the crossing. Imperceptibly she moved through the gloom crept by inches into her marks drifted tediously till the shoalest water was cried and then under a tremendous head of steam went swinging over the reef and away into deep water and safety. Ealer let his long pent breath pour out in a great relieving sigh and said that's the sweetest piece of piloting that was ever done on the Mississippi River. I wouldn't believe it could be done if I hadn't seen it. There was no reply and he added just hold her five minutes longer partner and let me run down and get a cup coffee. A minute later Ealer was biting into a pie down in the Texas and comforting himself with coffee just then the night watchman happened in and was about to happen out again when he noticed Ealer and exclaimed who is that the wheel sir? X. Darned for the pilot house quicker than lightning. The next moment both men were flying up the pilot house companionway three steps at a jump nobody there. The great steamer was whistling down the middle of the river at her own sweet will. The watchman shot out of the place again. Ealer seized the wheel set an engine back with power and held his breath while the boat reluctantly swung away from a tow head which she was about to knock into the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. By and by the watchman came back and said did not Luna to tell you he was asleep when he first came up here? No. Well he was. I found him walking along on top of the railings just as unconcerned as another man would walk a pavement and I put him to bed. Now just this minute there he was again a way astern going through that sort of tight rope deviltry the same as before. Well I think I'll stay by next time he has one of those fits but I hope he'll have them often. You just ought to have seen him take this boat through Helen acrossing I never saw anything so gaudy before and if he can do such gold leaf kid-glove diamond breast-pin piloting when he is sound asleep what couldn't he do if he was dead? End of Chapter 11 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain Chapter 12 Sounding When the river is very low and one steamboat is drawing all the water there is in the channel or a few inches more as was often the case in the old times one must be painfully circumspect in his piloting we used to have to sound a number of particularly bad places almost every trip when the river was at a very low stage Sounding is done in this way the boat ties up at the shore just above the shoal crossing the pilot not on watch takes his cub or steersman and a picked crew of men sometimes an officer also and goes out in the yaw provided the boat has not that rare and sumptuous luxury a regularly devised sounding boat and proceeds to hunt for the best water the pilot on duty watches his movements through a spyglass meantime and in some instances assisting by signals of the boat's whistle signifying try higher up or try lower down for the surface of the water like an oil painting is more expressive and intelligible when inspected from a little distance than very close at hand the whistle signals are seldom necessary however never perhaps except when the wind confuses the significant ripples upon the water's surface when the yaw has reached the shoal place the speed is slackened the pilot begins to sound the depth with a pole 10 or 12 feet long and the steersman at the tiller obeys the order to hold her up to starboard or let her fall off the larbert footnote the term larbert is never used at sea now to signify the left hand but was always used on the river in my time or steady steady as it go when the measurements indicate that the yaw is approaching the shoalest part of the reef the command is given to ease all then the men stop rowing and the yaw drifts with the current the next order is stand by with a buoy the moment the shallowest point is reached the pilot delivers the order let go of the buoy and over she goes if the pilot is not satisfied he sounds the place again if he finds better water higher up or lower down he removes the buoy to that place being finally satisfied he gives the order and all the men stand their oars straight up in the air in line a blast from the boat's whistle indicates that the signal has been sent then the men give way on their oars and lay the yaw alongside the buoy the steamer comes creeping carefully down is pointed straight at the buoy husbands her power for the coming struggle and presently at the critical moment turns on all her steam and goes grinding and wallowing over the buoy and the sand and gains the deep water beyond or maybe she doesn't maybe she strikes and swings then she has to while away several hours or days sparring herself off sometimes a buoy is not late at all but the yaw goes ahead hunting the best water and the steamer follows along in its wake often there is a deal of fun and excitement about sounding especially if it is a glorious summer day or a bustering night but in winter the cold and the peril take most of the fun out of it a buoy is nothing but a board four or five feet long with one end turned up it is a reversed schoolhouse bench with one of the supports left and the other removed it is anchored on the shoaless part of the reef by a rope with a heavy stone made fast to the end of it but for the resistance of the turned up end of the reversed bench the current would pull the buoy under water at night a paper lantern with a candle in it is fastened on the top of the buoy and this can be seen a mile or more a little glimmering spark in the waste of blackness nothing delights a cub so much as an opportunity to go out sounding there is such an air of adventure about it often there is danger it is so gaudy and man of war like to sit up in the stern sheets and steer a swift yaw there is something fine about the exultant spring of the boat when an experienced old sailor crew throw their souls into the oars it is lovely to see the white foam stream away from the boughs there is music in the rush of the water it is deliciously exhilarating in summer to go speeding over the breezy expanses of the river when the world of wavelets is dancing in the sun it is such grandeur too to the cub to get a chance to give an order for often the pilot will simply say let her go about and leave the rest to the cub who instantly cries in his sternest tone of command he starboard strong on the law bird starboard give way will it will man the cub enjoys sounding for the further reason that the eyes of the passengers are watching all the yaw's movements with absorbing interest if the time be daylight and if it be night he knows that those same wondering eyes are fastened upon the yaw's lantern as it glides out into the gloom and dims away in the remote distance one trip a pretty girl of 16 spent her time in our pilot house with her ankle and ant every day and all day long I fell in love with her so did Mr. Thornburg's cub Tom G Tom and I had been bosom friends until this time but now a coolness began to arise I told the girl a good many of my river adventures and made myself out a good deal of a hero Tom tried to make himself appear to be a hero too and succeeded to some extent but then he always had a way of embroidering however virtue is its own reward so I was a barely perceptible trifle ahead in the contest about this time something happened which promised handsomely for me the pilots decided to sound the crossing at the head of 21 this would occur about nine or 10 o'clock at night when the passengers would still be up it would be Mr. Thornburg's watch therefore my chief would have to do the sounding we had a perfect love of a sounding boat long trim graceful and as fleet as a greyhound her thwarps were cushioned she carried 12 oarsmen one of the mates was always sent in her to transmit orders to her crew for ours was a steamer where no end of style was put on we tied up at the shore above 21 and got ready it was a foul night and the river was so wide there that a landsman's uneducated eyes could discern no opposite shore through such a gloom the passengers were alert and interested everything was satisfactory as I hurried through the engine room picturesquely got nothing storm-togry I met Tom and could not prepare delivering myself of a mean speech ain't you glad you don't have to go out sounding Tom was passing on but he quickly turned and said now just for that you can go and get the sounding pole yourself I was going after it but I'd see you in Halifax now before I do it who wants you to get it I don't it's in the sounding boat the eight hour it's been new painted and it's been up on the ladies cabin guards two days drying I flew back and shortly arrived among the crowd of watching and wondering ladies just in time to hear the command give way man I looked over and there was a gallant sounding boat booming away the unprincipled Tom presiding at the tiller and my chief sitting by him with a sounding pole which I had been sent on a fool's errand to fetch then that young girl said to me oh how awful to have to go out in that little boat on such a night do you think there is any danger I would rather have been stabbed I went off full of venom to help in the pilot house by and by the boat's lantern disappeared and after an interval a wee spark glimmered upon the face of the water a mile away Mr. Thornburg blew the whistle in acknowledgement back the steamer out and made for it we flew along for a while then slackened steam and went cautiously gliding toward the spark presently Mr. Thornburg exclaimed oh the buoys lanterns out he stopped the engines a moment or two later he said why there it is again so he came ahead on the engines once more and rang for the leads gradually the water showed up and then began to deepen again Mr. Thornburg muttered well I don't understand this I believe that buoy has drifted off the reef seems to be a little too far to the left no matter it is safest to run over it anyhow so in that solid world of darkness we went creeping down on the light just as our bows were in the act of plowing over it Mr. Thornburg seized the bell ropes rang a startling peel and exclaimed my soul it's the sounding boat a sudden chorus of wild alarms burst out far below a pause and then the sound of grinding and crashing followed Mr. Thornburg exclaimed there the paddle wheel has ground the sounding boat to Lucifer matches run see who is killed I was on the main deck in the twinkling of an eye my chief and the third mate and nearly all the men were safe they had discovered their danger when it was too late to pull out of the way then when the great guards overshadowed them a moment later they were prepared and knew what to do at my chief's order they sprang at the right instant seized the guard and were hauled aboard the next moment the sounding y'all swept after the wheel and was struck and splintered to atoms two of the men and the cub Tom were missing a fact which spread like wildfire over the boat the passengers came flocking to the forward gangway ladies and all anxious eyed white faith and talked in odd voices of the dreadful thing and often again I heard them say poor fellows poor boy poor boy by this time the boat's y'all was manned in a way to search for the missing now a faint call was heard off to the left the y'all had disappeared in the other direction half the people rushed to one side to encourage the swimmer with their shouts the other half rushed the other way to shriek to the y'all to turn about by the callings the swimmer was approaching but some said the sound showed failing strength the crowd massed themselves against the boiler deck railings leaning over and staring into the gloom and every faint and fainter cry rung from them such words as ah ha poor fellow poor fellow is there no way to save him but still the cries held out and drew nearer and presently the voice said pluckily I can make it stand by with a rope what a rousing cheer they gave him the chief mate took his hand in the glare of a torch basket a coil of rope in his hand and his men grouped about him the next moment the swimmer's face appeared in the circle of light and in another one the owner of it was hauled aboard limp and drenched while cheer on cheer went up it was that devil Tom the y'all crew searched everywhere but found no sign of the two men they probably failed to catch the guard tumbled back and were struck by the wheel and killed Tom had never jumped for the guard at all but had plunged headfirst into the river and dived under the wheel it was nothing I could have done it easy enough and I said so but everybody went on just the same making a wonderful to-do over that ass as if he had done something great that girl couldn't seem to have enough with that pitiful hero the rest of the trip but little I cared I loathed her anyway the way we came to mistake the sounding boat's lantern for the buoy's light was this my chief said that after laying the buoy he fell away and watched it till it seemed to be secure then he took up a position a hundred yards below it and a little to one side of the steamer's course headed the sounding boat upstream and waited having to wait sometime he and the officer got to talking he looked up when he judged that the steamer was about on the reef saw that the buoy was gone and supposed that the steamer had already run over it he went on with his talk he noticed that the steamer was getting very close on him but that was the correct thing it was her business to shave him closely for convenience and taking him aboard he was expecting her to shear off until the last moment then it flashed upon him that she was trying to run him down mistaking his lantern for the buoy light so he sang out stand by to spring for the guard men on the next instant the jump was made End of Chapter 12 This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain Chapter 13 A Pilot's Needs But I am wondering from what I was intending to do that his make planer than perhaps appears in the previous chapters some of the peculiar requirements of the science of piloting first of all there is one faculty which a pilot must incessantly cultivate until he has brought it to absolute perfection nothing short of perfection will do that faculty is memory he cannot stop with merely thinking a thing is so and so he must know it for this is eminently one of the exact sciences with what scorn a pilot was looked upon in the old times if he ever ventured to deal in that feeble phrase I think instead of the vigorous one I know one cannot easily realize what a tremendous thing it is to know every trivial detail of 1200 miles of river and know it with absolute exactness if you will take the longest street in New York and travel up and down it conning its features patiently until you know every house and window and door and lamp post and big and little sign by heart and know them so accurately that you can instantly name the one you are abreast of when you are set down at random in that street in the middle of an inky black night you will then have a tolerable notion of the amount and the exactness of a pilot's knowledge who carries the Mississippi River in his head and then if you will go on until you know every street crossing the character size and position of the crossing stones and the varying depth of mud in each of those numberless places you will have some idea of what the pilot must know in order to keep a Mississippi steamer out of trouble next if you will take half of the signs in that long street and change their places once a month and still manage to know their new positions accurately on dark nights and keep up with these repeated changes without making any mistakes you will understand what is required of a pilot's peerless memory of the fickle Mississippi I think a pilot's memory is about the most wonderful thing in the world to know the old and new testaments by heart and be able to recite them glibly forward or backward or begin at random anywhere in the book and recite both ways and never trip or make a mistake is no extravagant mass of knowledge and no marvelous facility compared to a pilot's massed knowledge of the Mississippi and his marvelous facility in the handling of it I make this comparison deliberately and believe I am not expanding the truth when I do it many will think my figure too strong but pilots will not and how easily and comfortably the pilot's memory does its work how placidly effortless is its way how unconsciously it lays up its vast stores hour by hour day by day and never loses or mislays single valuable package of them all take an instance let a lexman cry half twain half twain half twain half twain half twain until it become as monotonous as the ticking of a clock let conversation be going on all the time and the pilot be doing his share of the talking and no longer consciously listening to the lexman and in the midst of this endless string of half twains let a single quarter twain be interjected without emphasis and then the half twain cry go on again just as before two or three weeks later that pilot can describe with precision the boats position in the river when that quarter twain was uttered and give you such a lot of headmarks stern marks and side marks to guide you that you want to be able to take the boat there and put her in that same spot again yourself the cry of quarter twain did not really take his mind from his talk but his trained faculties instantly photograph the bearings noted the change of depth and laid up the important details for future reference without requiring any assistance from him in the matter if you were walking and talking with a friend and another friend at your side kept up a monotonous repetition of the vowel sound A for a couple of blocks and then in the midst interjected an R thus a a a a a a R a a a etc and gave the R no emphasis you would not be able to state two or three weeks afterward that the R had been put in nor be able to tell what objects you were passing at the moment it was done but you could if your memory had been patiently and laboriously trained to do that sort of thing mechanically give a man a tolerably fair memory to start with and piloting will develop it into a very colossus of capability but only in the matters it is daily drilled in a time would come when the man's faculties could not help noticing landmarks and soundings and his memory could not help holding onto them with a grip of advice but if you ask that same man at noon what he had had for breakfast it would be 10 chances to one that he could not tell you astonishing things can be done with a human memory if you will devote it faithfully to one particular line of business at the time that wages soared so high on the Missouri river my chief Mr. Bixby went up there and learned more than a thousand miles of that stream with an ease and rapidity that were astonishing when he had seen each division once in the daytime and once at night his education was so nearly complete that he took out a daylight license a few trips later he took out a full license and went to piloting day and night and he ranked A1 too Mr. Bixby placed me as a steersman for a while under a pilot whose feats of memory were a constant marvel to me however his memory was born in him I think not built for instance somebody would mention a name instantly Mr. Brown would break in oh I knew him Salo Faced red-headed fellow with a little scar on the side of his throat like a splinter under the flesh he was only in the southern trade six months that was 13 years ago I made a trip with him there was five feet in the upper river then the Henry Blake grounded at the foot of Tower Island drawing four and a half the George Elliot unshipped her rudder on the wreck of the sunflower why the sunflower didn't sink till I know when she sunk it was three years before that on the 2nd of December Asa Hardy was captain of her and his brother John was first clerk and it was his first trip in her too Tom Jones told me these things a week after in New Orleans he was first made of the sunflower Captain Hardy stuck a nail in his foot the 6th of July the next year and died of a lockjaw on the 15th his brother died two years after 3rd of March Erythipolis I never saw either of the Hardys they were Allegheny River men but people who knew them told me all these things and they said Captain Hardy wore urine socks winter and summer just the same and his first wife's name was Jane Shook she was from New England and his second one died in a lunatic asylum it was in the blood she was from Lexington, Kentucky name was Horton before she was married and so on by the hour the man's tongue would go he could not forget anything it was simply impossible the most trivial details remained as distinct and luminous in his head after they had lain there for years as the most memorable events his was not simply a pilot's memory his grasp was universal if he were talking about a trifling letter he had received seven years before he was pretty sure to deliver you the entire screed from memory and then without observing that he was departing from the true line of his talk he was more than likely to hurl in a long-drawn parenthetical biography of the writer of that letter and you were lucky indeed if you did not take up that writer's relatives one by one and give you their biographies too such a memory as that is a great misfortune to it all occurrences are of the same size its possessor cannot distinguish an interesting circumstance from an uninteresting one as a talker he is bound to clog his narrative with tiresome details and make himself an insufferable bore or over he cannot stick to his subject he picks up every little grain of memory he discerns in his way and so is led aside Mr. Brown would start out with the honest intention of telling you a vastly funny anecdote about a dog he would be so full of laugh that he could hardly begin then his memory would start with the dog's breed and personal appearance drift into the history of his owner of his owner's family with descriptions of weddings and burials that had occurred in it together with recitals of congratulatory verses and obituary poetry provoked by the same then this memory would recollect that one of these events occurred during the celebrated hard winter of such and such a year and a minute description of that winter would follow along with the names of people who were frozen to death and statistics showing the high figures which pork and hay went up to pork and hay would suggest corn and fodder corn and fodder would suggest cows and horses cows and horses would suggest the circus and certain celebrated bareback riders the transition from the circus to the menagerie was easy and natural from the elephant to equatorial Africa was better step then of course the heathen savages would suggest religion and at the end of three or four hours tedious jaw the watch would change and brown would go out of the pilot house buttering extracts from sermons he had heard years before about the efficacy of prayer as a means of grace and the original first mention would be all you had learned about that dog after all this waiting and hungering a pilot must have a memory but there are two higher qualities which he must also have he must have good and quick judgment and decision and a cool calm courage that no peril can shake give a man the merest trifle of pluck to start with and by the time he has become a pilot he cannot be unmanned by any dangerous steamboat can get into but one cannot quite say the same for judgment judgment is a matter of brains and a man must start with a good stock of that article or he will never succeed as a pilot the growth of courage in the pilot house is steady all the time but it does not reach a high and satisfactory condition until sometime after the young pilot has been standing his own watch alone and under the staggering weight of all the responsibilities connected with the position when an apprentice has become pretty thoroughly acquainted with the river he goes clattering along so fearlessly with his steamboat night or day that he presently begins to imagine that it is his courage that animates him but the first time the pilot steps out and leaves him to his own devices he finds out it was the other man's he discovers that the article has been left out of his own cargo all together the whole river is bristling with exigencies in a moment he is not prepared for them he does not know how to meet them all his knowledge forsakes him and within 15 minutes he is as white as a sheet and scared almost to death therefore pilots wisely train these cubs by various strategic tricks to look danger in the face a little more calmly a favorite way of theirs is to play a friendly swindle upon the candidate Mr. Bixby served me in this fashion once and for years afterward I used to blush even in my sleep when I thought of it I had become a good steersman so good indeed that I had all the work to do on our watch night and day Mr. Bixby seldom made a suggestion to me all he ever did was to take the wheel on particularly bad nights or in particularly bad crossings land the boat when the she needed to be landed play gentlemen of leisure nine tenths of the watch and collect the wages the lower river was about bank full and if anybody had questioned my ability to run any crossing between Cairo and New Orleans without help or instruction I should have felt irreparably hurt the idea of being afraid of any crossing in the lot in the daytime was a thing too preposterous for contemplation well one matchless summer day I was bowling down the bend above Island 66 brimful of self-conceit and carrying my nose as high as a giraffe's Mr. Bixby said I'm going below a while I suppose you know the next crossing this was almost an affront it was about the plainest and simplest crossing in the whole river one couldn't come to any harm whether he ran it right or not and as for depth there never had been any bottom there I knew all this perfectly well know how to run it why I can run it with my eyes shut how much water is there in it well that is an odd question I couldn't get bottomed there with a church steeple you think so do you the very tone of the question shook my confidence that was what Mr. Bixby was expecting he laughed without saying anything more I began to imagine all sorts of things Mr. Bixby unknown to me of course sent somebody down to the folksal with some mysterious instructions to the ledgemen another messenger was sent to whisper among the officers and then Mr. Bixby went into hiding behind a smokestack where he could observe results presently the captain stepped out on the hurricane deck next the chief mate appeared then a clerk every moment or two a straggler was added to my audience and before I got to the head of the island I had 15 or 20 people assembled down there under my nose and again to wonder what the trouble was as I started across the 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 powered 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 once again and pulled it so feebly that I could hardly hear the stroke myself captain and mate sang out instantly and both together starboard led there I'm 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 in a way I would spin to the other only to find perils accumulating to starboard and be crazy to get the port again then came the ladsman sepulcher cry deep four deep four in a bottomless crossing the terror of it took my breath away mark three mark three quarter less three half twain this was painful I used 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 nervous 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 there stood mr. Bixby smiling a bland sweet smile then the audience on the hurricane deck sent up a thunder gust 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 the head of 66 well no you won't maybe in fact I hope you won't before 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 and you shouldn't have followed 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 it isn't going to help matters it was a good enough lesson that 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 end of chapter 13 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain 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 have 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 threats in servitude but in the day I write of the Mississippi pilot had none the captain could stand upon the hurricane deck in the pump of a very brief authority and give him five or six orders while the vessel backed into the stream and then that skipper's rain was over the moment that the boat was underway 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 with her 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 nearest 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 pilots 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 norlands 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 gentlemen uptown 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 the 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 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 fans' 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 across 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 a piece heavens and earth you take my boat let me have your wages and I'll divide I will remark in passing that Mississippi steamboat men were important in landsmen's eyes and in their own two 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 Alec Scott or the Grand Turk Negro firemen deckhands and barbers belonging to those boats were distinguished personages in their grade of life and they were well aware of that fact the stalwart darky once gave offense at a Negro ball in New Orleans by putting on a good many heirs finally one of the managers bustled up to him and said who is you anyway who is you that's what I want 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 heirs on a stinted capital who is I who is I I let you know might quick who I is I want you niggas to understand I fires to middle dough footnote door on Alex 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 banquets 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 pain and shouted very willing that the neighbors should hear an envy you man come in the house this minute standing out there fooling along with that low trash and here's the barber off and the Grand Turk wants to converse with you my reference a moment ago to the fact that a pilot's peculiar official position placed him out of reach of criticism or command brings Steven 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 to and was deliciously easygoing 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 the 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 haram skirm devil may care piloting that made it almost fascinating but not to everybody he made a trip with good old captain why once and was relieved from duty when the boat got in warlands somebody expressed surprise at the discharge captain why shuttered at the mere mention of Steven 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 ninja to yell all time for 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 wolves a queer being very queer being no respect for anything or anybody sometimes he called me Johnny and he kept a fiddle in a cat he played execrably this seemed to distress the cat and so the cat would howl nobody could sleep where that man and his family was and reckless there never was anything like it now you may believe it or not but as sure as I am sitting here he brought my boat a tilting down through with those awful snags that she caught under a rattling's head of steam and the wind blowing like the very nation at that my officers will tell you so they saw it and sir while he was a terror and wiped down through those snags and then I was shaking in my shoes and praying I wish I may never speak again if he didn't pluck her up his mouth and go look to whistling you'll say whistling buffalo gals can't you come out tonight can't you come out tonight can't you come out tonight I'm doing it as calmly as if we were attending a funeral and weren't related to the corpse and when I remonstrated with him about it while he smiled down on me as if I was his child and told me to run in the house and try to be good and not be meddling with my superiors once a pretty mean captain caught Stephen in New Orleans out of work and as usual out of money he laid steady siege to Stephen who was in the very close place and finally persuaded him to hire with him at one hundred and twenty-five dollars a month just half wages the captain agreeing not to divulge the secret and so bring down the contempt of all the guilt upon the poor fellow but the boat was not more than a day out in New Orleans before Stephen discovered that the captain was boasting of his exploit and that all the officers have been told Stephen winced but said nothing about the middle of the afternoon the captain stepped out on the hurricane deck cast his eye around and looked a good deal surprised he glanced inquiringly lost at Stephen but Stephen was whistling placidly and attending to business the captain stood around a while and evident discomfort and once or twice seemed about to make a suggestion but the advocate of the river taught him to avoid that sort of rashness and so he managed to hold his peace he chased and puzzled a few minutes longer then retired to his apartments but soon he was out again and apparently more perplexed than ever presently he ventured to remark with deference pretty good stage of the river now ain't it sir well I should say so bank full is a pretty liberal stage seems to be a good deal of current here good deal don't describe it it's worse than a mill race isn't it easier in towards shore than it is out here in the middle yes I reckon it is but the body can't be too careful with a steamboat it's pretty safe out here that strike any bottom here you can depend on that the captain departed looking ruthless enough at this rate he would probably die of old age before his boat got to faint louis next day he appeared on deck and again found steven faithfully standing up the middle of the river fighting the whole vast force of the Mississippi and whistling the same placid tune this thing was becoming serious in by the shore was a slower boat clipping along in the easy water and gaining steadily she began to make for an island chute steven stuck to the middle of the river speech was rung from the captain he said mr. w don't that chute cut off a good deal at distance well I think it does but I don't know don't know well isn't there water enough in it now to go through I expect there is but I am not certain upon my word this is odd why those pilots on that boat yonder are going to drive do you mean to say that you don't know as much as they do they why they are two hundred and fifty dollar pilots but don't you be uneasy I know as much as any man can afford to know for a hundred and twenty five the captain surrendered five minutes later steven was bowling through the chute and selling the rival bought a two hundred and fifty dollar pair of heels end of chapter fourteen this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit libra vox dot org life on the mississippi by mark twain chapter fifteen the pilots monopoly one day on board the alex scott my chief mr. bixby was crawling carefully through a close place at cat island both leads going and everybody holding his breath the captain a nervous apprehensive man kept still as long as he could but finally broke down and shouted from the hurricane deck for gracious sake give her steam mr. bixby give her steam she'll never raise the reef on this headway for all the effect that was produced upon mr. bixby one would have supposed that no remark had been made but five minutes later when the danger was passed and the leads laid in he burst instantly into a consuming fury and gave the captain the most admirable person i ever listened to no bloodshed ensued but that was because the captain's cause was weak for ordinarily he was not a man to take correction quietly having it now set forth in detail the nature of the science of piloting and likewise described the rank which the pilot held among the fraternity of steamboat men this seems a fitting place to say a few words about an organization which the pilots once formed for the protection of their guild it was curious and noteworthy in this that it was perhaps the compactest the completest and the strongest commercial organization ever formed among men for a long time wages had been two hundred and fifty dollars a month but curiously enough as steamboats multiplied and business increased the wages began to fall little by little it was easy to discover the reason of this too many pilots were being made it was nice to have a cub a steersman to do all the hard work for a couple of years gratis while his master sat on a high bench and smoked all pilots and captains had sons or nephews who wanted to be pilots by and by it came to pass that nearly every pilot on the river had a steersman when a steersman had made an amount of progress that was satisfactory to any two pilots in the trade they could get a pilot's license for him by signing an application directed to the United States inspector nothing further was needed usually no questions were asked no proofs of capacity required very well this growing swarm of new pilots presently began to undermine the wages in order to get births too late apparently the knights of the tiller perceived their mistake plainly something had to be done and quickly but what was to be the needful thing a close organization nothing else would answer to compass this seemed an impossibility so it was talked and talked and then dropped it was too likely to ruin whoever ventured to move in the matter but at last about a dozen of the boldest and some of them the best pilots on the river launched themselves into the enterprise and took all the chances they got a special charter from the legislature with large powers under the name of the pilots benevolent association elected their officers completed their organization contributed capital put association wages up to two hundred and fifty dollars at once and then retired to their homes for they were promptly discharged from employment but there were two or three unnoticed trifles in their bylaws which had the seeds of propagation in them for instance all idle members of the association in good standing were entitled to a pension of twenty five dollars per month this began to bring in one straggler after another from the ranks of the new fledged pilots in the dull summer season better have twenty five dollars than starve initiation fee was only twelve dollars and no dues required from the unemployed also the widows of deceased members in good standing could draw twenty five dollars per month and a certain sum for each of their children also the said deceased would be buried at the association's expense these things resurrected all the superannuated and forgotten pilots in the mississippi valley they came from farms they came from interior villages they came from everywhere they came on crutches on drays in ambulances anyway so they got there they paid in their twelve dollars and straight away began to draw out twenty five dollars a month and calculate their burial bills by and by all the useless helpless pilots and a dozen first class ones were in the association and nine tenths of the best pilots out of it and laughing at it it was the laughing stock of the whole river everybody joked about the bylaw requiring members to pay ten percent of their wages every month into the treasury for the support of the association whereas all the members were outcast and tabooed and no one would employ them everybody was derisively grateful to the association for taking all the worthless pilots out of the way and leaving the whole field to the excellent and the deserving and everybody was not only jocularly grateful for that but for a result which naturally followed namely the gradual advance of wages as the busy season approached wages had gone up from the low figure of one hundred dollars a month to one hundred and twenty five and in some cases to one hundred and fifty and it was great fun to enlarge upon the fact that this charming thing had been accomplished by a body of men not one of whom received a particle of benefit from it some of the jokers used to call at the association rooms and have a good time chafing the members and offering them the charity of taking them as steersmen for a trip so that they could see what the forgotten river looked like however the association was content or at least it gave no sign to the contrary now and then it captured a pilot who was out of luck and added him to its list and these later additions were very valuable for they were good pilots the incompetent ones had all been absorbed before as business freshened wages climbed gradually up to two hundred and fifty dollars the association figure and became firmly fixed there and still without benefiting a member of that body for no member was hired the hilarity at the association's expense burst all bounds now there was no end to the fun which that poor martyr had to put up with however it is a long lane that has no turning winter approached business doubled and troubled and an avalanche of Missouri Illinois and upper Mississippi riverboats came pouring down to take a chance in the New Orleans trade all of a sudden pilots were in great demand and were correspondingly scarce the time for revenge was come it was a bitter pill to have to accept association pilots at last yet captains and owners agreed that there was no other way but none of these outcasts offered so there was a still bitter pill to be swallowed they must be sought out and asked for their services captain blank was the first man who found it necessary to take the dose and he had been the loudest derider of the organization he hunted up one of the best of the association pilots and said well you boys have rather got the best of us for a little while so I'll give in with as good a grace as I can I've come to hire you get your trunk aboard right away I want to leave at 12 o'clock I don't know about that now who is your other pilot I've got is why I can't go with him he don't belong to the association what it's so you mean to tell me that you won't turn a wheel was one of the very best and oldest pilots on the river because he don't belong to your association yes I do well if this isn't putting on airs I suppose I was doing you a benevolence but I begin to think that I am the party that wants a favor done are you acting under a law of the concern yes show it to me so they stepped into the association rooms and the secretary soon satisfied the captain who said well what am I to do I have hired Mr. S for the entire season I will provide for you said the secretary I will detail a pilot to go with you and he shall be on board at 12 o'clock but if I discharge S he will come on me for the whole season's wages of course that is a matter between you and Mr. S captain we cannot meddle in your private affairs the captain stormed but to no purpose in the end he had to discharge S pay him about a thousand dollars and take an association pilot in his place the laugh was beginning to turn the other way now every day thanks forward a new victim fell every day some outraged captain discharged a non-association pet with tears and profanity and installed a hated association man in his birth in a very little while idle non-associationists began to be pretty plenty brisk as business was and much as their services were desired the laugh was shifting to the other side of their mouths most palpably these victims together with the captains and owners presently ceased to laugh all together and began to rage about the revenge they would take when the passing business spurt was over soon all the laughers that were left were the owners and the crews of boats that had two non-association pilots but their triumph was not very long lived for this reason it was a rigid rule of the association that its members should never under any circumstances whatever give information about the channel to any outsider by this time about half the boats had none but association pilots and the other half had none but outsiders at the first glance one would suppose that when it came to forbidding information about the river these two parties could play equally at that game but this was not so at every good-sized town from one end of the river to the other there was a wharf boat to land at instead of a wharf or a pier freight was stored in it for transportation waiting passengers slept in its cabins upon each of these wharf boats the association's officers placed a strong box fastened with a peculiar lock which was used in no other service but one the United States mail service it was the letter bag lock a sacred governmental thing by dint of much beseeching the government had been persuaded to allow the association to use this lock every association man carried a key which would open these boxes that key or rather a peculiar way of holding it in the hand when its owner was asked for river information by a stranger for the success of the St. Louis and Norland's association had now bred tolerably thriving branches in a dozen neighboring steamboat trades was the association man's sign and diploma of membership and if the stranger did not respond by producing a similar key and holding it in a certain manner duly prescribed his question was politely ignored from the association secretary each member received a package of more or less gorgeous blanks printed like a billhead on handsome paper properly ruled in columns a billhead worded something like this steamer great republic john smith's master pilots john jones and thomas brown crossings soundings marks remarks these blanks were filled up day by day as the voyage progressed and deposited in the several wharf boat boxes for instance as soon as the first crossing out from st louis was completed the items would be entered upon the blank under the appropriate headings thus st louis nine and a half feet stern on courthouse head on dead cottonwood above woodyard until you raise the first reef then pull up square then under head of remarks go just outside the wrecks this is important new snag just where you straighten down go above it the pilot who deposited that blank in the caro box after adding to it the details of every crossing all the way down from st louis took out and read half a dozen fresh reports from upward bound steamers concerning the river between caro and mevis posted himself thoroughly returned them to the box and went back aboard his boat again so armed against accident that he could not possibly get his boat into trouble without bringing the most ingenious carelessness to his aid imagine the benefits of so admirable a system in a piece of river twelve or thirteen hundred miles long whose channel was shifting every day the pilot who had formerly been obliged to put up with seeing a show place once or possibly twice a month had a hundred sharp eyes to watch it for him now and bushels of intelligent brains to tell him how to run it his information about it was seldom twenty four hours old if the reports in the last box chance to leave any misgivings on his mind concerning a treacherous crossing he had his remedy he blew his steam whistle in a peculiar way as soon as he saw a boat approaching the signal was answered in a peculiar way if that boat's pilots were association men and then the two steamers ranged alongside and all uncertainties were swept away by fresh information furnished to the inquirer by word of mouth and in minute detail the first thing a pilot did when he reached New Orleans or st louis was to take his final and elaborate report to the association parlors and hang it up there after which he was free to visit his family in these parlors a crowd was always gathered together discussing changes in the channel and the moment there was a fresh arrival everybody stopped talking till this witness had told the newest news and settled the latest uncertainty other craftsmen can sink the shop sometimes and interest themselves in other matters not so with a pilot he must devote himself wholly to his profession and talk of nothing else for it would be small game to be perfect one day and imperfect the next he has no time or words to waste if he would keep posted but the outsiders had a hard time of it no particular place to meet and exchange information no wharf boat reports none but chance and unsatisfactory ways of getting news the consequence was that a man sometimes had to run 500 miles of river on information that was a week or 10 days old at a fair stage of the river that might have answered but when the dead low water came it was destructive now came another perfectly logical result the outsiders began to ground steamboats sink them and get into all sorts of trouble whereas accidents seem to keep entirely away from the association men where for even the owners and captains of boats furnished exclusively with outsiders and previously considered to be wholly independent of the association and free to comfort themselves with brag and laughter began to feel pretty uncomfortable still they made a show of keeping up the brag until one black day when every captain of the lot was formally ordered to immediately discharge his outsiders and take association pilots in their stead and who was it that had the dashing presumption to do that alas it came from a power behind the throne that was greater than the throne itself it was the underwriters it was no time to swap knives every outsider had to take his trunk ashore at once of course it was supposed that there was collusion between the association and the underwriters but this was not so the latter had come to comprehend the excellence of the report system of the association and the safety it secured and so they had made their decision among themselves and upon plain business principles there was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth in the camp of the outsiders now but no matter there was just but one course for them to pursue and they perfuded they came forward in couples and groups and proffered their twelve dollars and asked for membership they were surprised to learn that several new bylaws had been long ago added for instance the initiation fee had been raised to fifty dollars that some must be tendered and also ten percent of the wages which the applicant had received each and every month since the founding of the association in many cases this amounted to three or four hundred dollars still the association would not entertain the application until the money was present even then a single adverse vote killed the application every member had to vote yes or no in person and before witnesses so it took weeks to decide a candidacy because many pilots were so long absent on voyages however the repentant sinners scraped their savings together and one by one by our tedious voting process they were added to the fold a time came at last when only about ten remained outside they said they would starve before they would apply they remained idle a long time because of course nobody could venture to employ them buying by the association published the fact that upon a certain date the wages would be raised to five hundred dollars per month all the branch associations had grown strong now and the red river one had advanced wages to seven hundred dollars a month reluctantly the ten outsiders yielded in view of these things and made application there was another new bylaw by this time which required them to pay dues not only on all the wages they had received since the association was born but also on what they would have received if they had continued at work up to the time of their application instead of going off to pouting idleness turned out to be a difficult matter to elect them but it was accomplished at last the most virulent sinner of this batch had stayed out and allowed these to accumulate against him so long that he had to send in six hundred and twenty five dollars with his application the association had a good bank account now and was very strong there was no longer an outsider a bylaw was added forbidding the reception of any more cubs or apprentices for five years after which time a limited number would be taken not by individuals but by the association upon these terms the applicant must not be less than eighteen years old and a respectable family and good character he must pass an examination as to education pay a thousand dollars in advance for the privilege of becoming an apprentice and must remain under the commands of the association until a great part of the membership more than half I think should be willing to sign his application for a pilot's license all previously article apprentices were now taken away from their masters and adapted by the association the president and secretary detailed them for service on one boat or another as they chose and changed them from boat to boat according to certain rules if a pilot could show that he was in infirm health and needed assistance one of the cubs would be ordered to go with him the widow and orphan list grew but so did the association's financial resources the association attended its own funerals in state and paid for them when occasion demanded it sent members down the river upon searches for the bodies of brethren lost by steamboat accidents a search of this kind sometimes cost a thousand dollars the association procured a charter and went into the insurance business also it not only insured the lives of its members but took risks on steamboats the organization seemed indestructible it was the tightest monopoly in the world by the united states law no man could become a pilot unless two duly licensed pilots find his application and now there was nobody outside of the association competent to sign consequently the making of pilots was at an end every year some would die and others would become incapacitated by age and infirmity there would be no new ones to take their places in time the association could put wages up to any figure it shows and as long as it should be wise enough not to carry the thing too far and provoke the national government into amending the licensing system steamboat owners would have to submit since there would be no help for it the owners and captains were the only obstruction that lay between the association and absolute power and at last this one was removed incredible as it may seem the owners and captains deliberately did it themselves when the pilots association announced months beforehand that on the first day of september 1861 wages would be advanced to five hundred dollars per month the owners and captains instantly put freight's up a few cents and explained to the farmers along the river the necessity of it by calling their attention to the burdensome rate of wages about to be established it was a rather slender argument but the farmers did not seem to detect it it looked reasonable to them that to add five cents freight on a bushel of corn was justifiable under the circumstances overlooking the fact that this advance on a cargo of forty thousand sacks was a good deal more than necessary to cover the new wages so straight away the captains and owners got up an association of their own and proposed to put captains wages up to five hundred dollars too and move for another advance in freight's it was a novel idea but of course an effect which had been produced once could be produced again the new association decreed for this was before all the outsiders had been taken into the pilots association that if any captain employed a non association pilot he should be forced to discharge him and also pay a fine of five hundred dollars several of these heavy fines were paid before the captain's organization grew strong enough to exercise full authority over its membership but that all ceased presently the captains tried to get the pilots to decree that no member of their corporation should serve under a non association captain but this proposition was declined the pilots saw that they would be backed up by the captains and the underwriters anyhow and so they wisely refrained from entering into entangling alliances as i have remarked the pilots association was now the compactest monopoly in the world perhaps and seemed simply indestructible and yet the days of its glory were numbered first the new railroad stretching up through mississippi tennessee and kentucky to northern railway centers began to divert the passenger travel from the steamers next the war came and almost entirely annihilated the steamboating industry during several years leaving most of the pilots idle and the cost of living advancing all the time then the treasurer of the saint louis association put his hand into the till and walked off with every dollar of the ample fund and finally the railroads intruding everywhere there was little for steamers to do when the war was over but carry freights so straightway some genius from the atlantic coast introduced the plan of towing a dozen steamer cargoes down to norlands at the tail of a vulgar little tugboat and behold in the twinkling of an eye as it were the association and the noble science of piloting were things of the dead and pathetic past end of chapter 15 this is a labor vox recording all labor vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit labor vox dot org life on the mississippi by mark twain chapter 16 racing days it was always the custom for the boats to leave norlands between four and five o'clock in the afternoon from three o'clock onward they would be burning rosin and pitch pine the sign of preparation and so one had the picturesque spectacle of a rank some two or three miles long of tall ascending columns of coal black smoke a colonnade which supported a sable roof of the same smoke blended together and spreading abroad over the city every outboard bound boat had its flag flying at the jack staff and sometimes a duplicate on the verge staff astern two or three miles of mates were commanding and swearing with more than usual emphasis countless processions of freight barrels and boxes were spinning a swap the levy and flying aboard the stage planks elated passengers were dodging and skipping among these frantic things hoping to reach the folksal companion way alive but having their doubts about it women with reticules and band boxes were trying to keep up with husbands freighted with carpet sacks and crying babies and making a failure of it by losing their heads in the whirl and roar and general distraction draves and baggage vans were clattering hither and thither in a wild hurry every now and then getting blocked and jammed together and then during ten seconds one could not see them for the profanity except vaguely and dimly every windlass connected with every four hatch from one end of that long array of steamboats to the other was keeping up a deafening whiz and were lowering freight into the hold and the half naked crews of perspiring negroes that worked them were roaring such songs as the last sack the last inspired to unimaginable exaltation by the chaos of turmoil and racket that was driving everybody else mad by this time the hurricane and boiler decks of the steamers would be packed and black with passengers the last bells would begin to clang all down the line and then the pow wow seemed to double in a moment or two the final warning came a simultaneous din of chinese gongs with a cry all it ain't going please to get sure and behold the pow wow quadrupled people came swarming ashore overturning excited stragglers that were trying to swarm aboard one more moment later a long array of stage planks was being hauled in each with its customary latest passenger clinging to the end of it with teeth nails and everything else and the customary latest procrastinator making a wild spring shoreward over his head now a number of the boats slide backward into the stream leaving wide gaps in the serried rank of steamers citizens crowd the decks of boats that are not to go in order to see the site steamer after steamer straightens herself up gathers all her strength and presently comes swinging by under a tremendous head of steam with flag flying black smoke rolling and her entire crew of firemen and deckhands usually swarthing negroes massed together on the folksal the best voice in the lot towering from the myths being mounted on the capstan waving his hat or a flag and all roaring a mighty chorus while the parting cannons boom and the multitude and spectator swing their hats and his ah steamer after steamer falls into line and the stately procession goes winging its flight up the river in the old times whenever too fast boats started out on a race with a big crowd of people looking on it was inspiring to hear the crews sing especially if the time were nightfall and the folks will lit up with the red glare of the torch baskets racing was royal fun the public always had an idea that racing was dangerous whereas the opposite was the case that is after the laws were passed which restricted each boat to just so many pounds of steam to the square inch no engineer was ever sleepy or careless when his heart was in a race he was constantly on the alert trying gauge cocks and watching things the dangerous place was on slow plotting boats where the engineers drowsed around and allowed chips to get into the doctor and shut off the water supply from the boilers in the flush times of steamboating a race between two notoriously fleet steamers was an event of vast importance the date was set for it several weeks in advance and from that time forward the whole mississippi valley was in a state of consuming excitement politics and the weather were dropped and people talked only of the coming race as the time approached the two steamers stripped and got ready every encumbrance that added weight or exposed a resisting surface to wind or water was removed if the boat could possibly do without it the spars and sometimes even their supporting derricks were sent ashore and no means left to set the boat afloat in case she got aground when the eclipse and the a l shot well ran their great race many years ago it was said that pains were taken to scrape the gilding off the fanciful device which hung between the eclipses chimneys and that for that one trip the captain left off his kid gloves and had his head shaved but i always doubted these things if the boat was known to make her best speed when drawing five and a half feet forward and five feet aft she was carefully loaded to that exact figure she wouldn't enter a dose of homeopathic pills on her manifest after that hardly any passengers were taken because they not only add weight but they never will boat they always run to the side when there is anything to see whereas a conscientious and experienced steam boatman would stick to the center of the boat and part his hair in the middle with a spirit level no way freight and no way passengers were allowed for the racers would stop only at the largest towns and then it would be only touch and go coal flats and wood flats were contracted full beforehand and these were kept ready to hit on to the flying steamers at a moment's warning double crews were carried so that all work could be quickly done the chosen date being come and all things in readiness the two great steamers back into the stream they're jockeying a moment and apparently watching each other's slightest movement like sentient creatures flags drooping the pent steam shrieking through safety valves the black smoke rolling and tumbling from the chimneys and darkening all the air people people everywhere the shores the housetops the steam boats the ships are packed with them and you know that the borders of the broad Mississippi are going to be fringed with humanity then northward 1200 miles to welcome these racers presently tall columns of steam burst forth from the skatepipes of both steamers two guns boom a goodbye two red shirted heroes mounted on capstones wave their small flags above the masked crews on the foxels two plaintive solos linger on the air a few waiting seconds two mighty poruses burst forth and here they come brass bands bray hail Columbia Huzzah after Huzzah thunders from the shores and the stately creatures go whistling by like the wind those boats will never halt a moment between New Orleans and St. Louis except for a second or two at large towns or to hitch 30 cord wood boats alongside you should be on board when they take a couple of those wood boats in tow and turn a swarm of men into each by the time you have wiped your glasses and put them on you will be wondering what has become of that wood two nicely matched seamers will stay in sight of each other day after day they might even stay side by side but for the fact that pilots are not all alike and the smartest pilots will win the race if one of the boats has a lightning pilot whose partner is a trifle his inferior you can tell which one is on watch by noting whether that boat has gained ground or lost some during each four hour stretch the shrewdest pilot can delay a boat if he is not a fine genius for steering steering is a very high art one must not keep a rudder dragging across a boat stern if he wants to get up the river fast there is a great difference in boats of course for a long time I was on a boat that was so slow we used to forget what year it was we left port in but of course this was at rare intervals ferry boats used to lose valuable trips because their passengers grew old and died waiting for us to get by this was at still rarer intervals I had the documents for these occurrences but through carelessness they have been mislaid this boat the John Jay Row was so slow that when she finally sunk in Madrid Bend it was five years before the owners heard of it that was always a confusing fact to me but it is according to the record anyway she was dismally slow still we often had pretty exciting times racing with islands and rafts and such things one trip however we did rather well we went to st. Louis in 16 days but even at this rattling gate I think we changed watches three times in Fort Adams reach which is five miles long a reach is a piece of straight river and of course the current drives through such a place in a pretty lively way that trip we went to Grand Gulf from New Orleans in four days of three hundred and forty miles the eclipse and Shotwell did it in one we were nine days out in the shoot of sixty three seven hundred miles the eclipse and Shotwell went there in two days something over a generation ago a boat called the J. M. White went from New Orleans to Cairo in three days six hours and forty four minutes in 1853 the eclipse made the same trip in three days three hours and twenty minutes footnote time disputed some authorities add one hour and sixteen minutes to this in 1870 the R. E. Lee did it in three days and one hour this last is called the fastest trip on record I will try to show that it was not for this reason the distance between New Orleans and Cairo when the J. M. White ran it was about eleven hundred and six miles consequently her average speed was a trifle over fourteen miles per hour in the Eclipse's day the distance between the two ports had become reduced to one thousand and eighty miles consequently her average speed was a shade under fourteen and three eighths miles per hour in the R. E. Lee's time the distance had diminished to about one thousand and thirty miles consequently her average was about fourteen and one eighth mile per hour therefore the Eclipse's was conspicuously the fastest time that has ever been made end of chapter sixteen this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain chapter seventeen Cut-Offs and Steven these dry details are of importance in one particular they give me an opportunity of introducing one of the Mississippi's oddest peculiarities that of shortening its length from time to time if you will throw along pliant apple pairing over your shoulder it will pretty fairly shape itself into an average section of the Mississippi that is the nine or ten hundred miles stretching from Cairo Illinois southward to New Orleans the same being wonderfully crooked with a brief straight bit here and there at wide intervals the two hundred miles stretch from Cairo northward to St. Louis is by no means so crooked that being a rocky country which the river cannot cut much the water cuts the alluvial banks of the lower river into deep horseshoe curves so deep indeed that in some places if you were to get ashore at one extremity of the horseshoe and walk across the neck half or three quarters of a mile you could sit down and rest a couple of hours while your steamer was coming round the long elbow at a speed of ten miles an hour to take you aboard again when the river is rising fast some scoundrel whose plantation is back in the country and therefore of inferior value has only to watch his chance cut a little gutter across the narrow neck of land some dark night and turn the water into it and in a wonderfully short time a miracle has happened to it the whole Mississippi has taken possession of that little ditch and placed the country man's plantation on its bank quadrupling its value and that other party's formerly valuable plantation finds itself away out yonder on a big island and the old water course around it will soon show up boats cannot approach within ten miles of it and down goes its value to a fourth of its former worth watches are kept on those narrow necks at needful times and if a man happens to be caught cutting a ditch across them the chances are all against his ever having another opportunity to cut a ditch pray observe some of the effects of this ditching business once there was a neck opposite Port Hudson Louisiana which was only half a mile across in its narrowest place you could walk across there in 15 minutes but if you made the journey around the Cape on a raft you traveled 35 miles to accomplish the same thing in 1722 the river darted through that neck deserted its old bed and thus shortened itself 35 miles in the same way it shortened itself 25 miles at Black Hawk Point in 1699 below Red River Landing the course he cut off was made 40 or 50 years ago I think this shortened the river 28 miles in our day if you travel by river from the southern most of these three cut offs to the northern most you go about 70 miles to do the same thing 176 years ago one had to go 158 miles shortening of 88 miles in that trifling distance at some forgotten time in the past cut offs were made above Vidalia Louisiana at Island 92 at Island 84 and at Hale's point these shortened the river in the aggregate 77 miles since my own day on the Mississippi cut offs have been made at Hurricane Island at Island 100 at Napoleon Arkansas at Walnut Bend and at Council Bend these shortened the river in the aggregate 67 miles in my own time a cut off was made at American Bend which shortened the river 10 miles or more therefore the Mississippi between Cairo and New Orleans was 1215 miles long 176 years ago it was 1180 after the cut off of 1722 it was 1040 after the American Bend cut off it has lost 67 miles since consequently its length is only 973 miles at present now if I wanted to be one of those ponderous scientific people and let on to prove what had occurred in the remote past by what had occurred in a given time in the recent past or what will occur in the far future by what has occurred in late years what an opportunity is here geology never had such a chance nor such exact data to argue from nor development of species either glacial epics are great things but they are vague vague please observe in the space of 176 years the lower Mississippi has shortened itself 242 miles that is an average of a trifle over one mile and a third per year therefore any calm person who is not blind or idiotic can see that in the old Olytic Celerian period just a million years ago next November the lower Mississippi River was upwards of 1,300,000 miles long and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing rod and by the same token any person could see that 742 years from now the lower Mississippi will only be a mile and three quarters long and Cairo and New Orleans will have joined their streets together and be plotting comfortably along under a single mayor and a mutual board of alderman there is something fascinating about science one gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact when the water begins to flow through one of those ditches I have been speaking of it is time for the people thereabouts to move the water cleaves the banks away like a knife by the time the ditch has become 12 or 15 feet wide the calamity is as good as accomplished for no power on earth can stop it now when the width has reached 100 yards the banks begin to peel off and slices half an acre wide the current flowing around the bend traveled formally only five miles an hour now it is tremendously increased by the shortening of the distance I was on board the first boat that tried to go through the cutoff at American Bend but we did not get through it was toward midnight and a wild night it was thunder lightning and torrents of rain it was estimated that the current in the cutoff was making about 15 or 20 miles an hour 12 or 13 was the best our boat could do even in tolerably slack water therefore perhaps we were foolish to try the cutoff however Mr. Brown was ambitious and he kept on trying the eddy running up the bank under the point was about as swift as the current out in the middle so we would go flying up the shore like a lightning express train get on a big head of steam and stand by for a surge when we struck the current that was whirling by the point but all our preparations were useless the instant the current hit us it spun us around like a top the water deliards the foxtel and the boat careen so far over that one could hardly keep his feet the next instant we were away down the river clawing with might and main to keep out of the woods we tried the experiment four times I stood on the foxtel companion way to see it was astonishing to observe how suddenly the boat would spin around and turn tail the moment she emerged from the eddy and the current struck her nose the sounding concussion and the quivering would have been about the same if she had come full steam against a sand bank under the lightning flashes one could see the plantation cabins and the goodly acres tumble into the river and the crash they made was not a bad effort at thunder once when we spun around we only missed a house about 20 feet that had a light burning in the window and in the same instant that house went overboard nobody could stay on our foxtel the water swept across it in a torrent every time we plunged to thwart the current at the end of our fourth effort we brought up in the woods two miles below the cutoff all the country there was overflowed of course a day or two later the cutoff was three quarters of a mile wide and boats passed up through it without much difficulty and so saved 10 miles the older coursey cutoff reduced the river's length 28 miles there used to be a tradition connected with it it was said that a boat came along there in the night and went around the enormous elbow the usual way the pilots not knowing that the cutoff had been made it was a grisly hideous night and all shapes were vague and distorted the old bend had already begun to fill up and the boat got to running away from mysterious reefs and occasionally hitting one the perplexed pilots fell to swearing and finally uttered the entirely unnecessary wish that they might never get out of that place as always happens in such cases that particular prayer was answered and the others neglected so to this day that phantom steamer is still butting around in that deserted river trying to find her way out more than one grave watchman has sworn to me that on drizzly dismal nights he has glanced fearfully down that forgotten river as he passed the head of the island and seen the faint glow of the spectre steamer's lights drifting through the distant gloom and heard the muffled cough of her scape pipes and the plaintive cry of her ledsmen in the absence of further statistics i beg to close this chapter with one more reminiscence of steven most of the captains and pilots held steven's note for borrowed sums ranging from two hundred and fifty dollars upward steven never paid one of these notes but he was very prompt and very zealous about renewing them every twelve months of course there came a time at last when steven could no longer borrow of his ancient creditors so he was obliged to lie and 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 why young yates graduated as a pilot got a birth 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 steven was there his silvery tongue began to wag and in a very little while yates two hundred and fifty dollars had changed hands the fact was soon known at pilots headquarters and the amusement and satisfaction of the old creditors were large and generous but innocent yates never suspected that steven's promise to pay promptly at the end of the week was a worthless one yates called for his money at the stipulated time steven sweetened him up and put him off a week he called then according to agreement and came away sugarcoated again but suffering under another postponement so the thing went on yates haunted steven week after week to no purpose and at last gave it up and then straight away steven began to haunt yates wherever yates appeared there was the inevitable steven 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 steven would come without stretched hands and eager eyes invade the conversation shake both of yates arms loosen their sockets and begin i what a race i've had i saw you didn't see me and so i clapped on all steven 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 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 24 hours i've been saving up that 250 for you been looking for you everywhere i waited at the planters 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 death 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 the 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 anymore and kind of an hour ago suffering no man knows what agony i met jim wilson and paid him the 250 on account and i 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 12 o'clock sharp tomorrow now stand so let me look at you just once more and so on yates 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 steven line and wait for him at the corner begaard'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 steven was there too but kept out of sight but by and by when about all the pilots had arrived who were in town steven 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 comfort to my eyes gentlemen i owe all of you money among you i owe probably 40 000 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 found the method i found the method to pay off all my debts and you'll get your money hope dawned in yates eye then steven beaming demignantly and placing his hand upon yates head added i am going to pay them off in alphabetical order then he turned and disappeared the full significance of steven's method did not dawn upon the perplexed and musing crowd for some two minutes then the eights murmured with a sigh well the wise stand a gaudy chance he won't get any further than the seas 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 end of chapter 17 this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit libravox.org life on the mississippi by mark twain 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 steamboat men 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 born in upon me that the average shore employment requires as much as 40 years to equip demand 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 vanish 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 moat 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 led 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 lewis 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 of woodyards therefore it would not be proper to interrupt him so i stepped softly to the high bench and took a seat there was a silence for 10 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 Bixby'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 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 their insight better stayed there by means of a dozen or so of pretty direct questions he pumped my family history out of me the lads were going now in the first crossing this interrupted the inquest when the lads had been laid in he resumed how long have you been on the river i told him after a pause where did you get them shows 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 filtering his high sugarloaf hat well forward to facilitate the operation then ejaculated well i'll be god turned and returned to his wheel what occasion there was to be done learned about it is the thing which is still as much of a mystery to me now as it was then it must have been all a 15 minutes 15 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're going to sit 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 gentlemen too and and got to have orders orders is it orders is what you want i turned my skin i'll learn you to swell yourself up and blow around here about your that turned orders away from the wheel i had approached it without knowing it i moved back a step or two and stood us in the dream all my senses stupefied by this frantic assault what are you standing there for take that ice picture down to the texas tender come move along and and don't you be all day about it the moment i got back to the pilot house brown said here what were you doing down there all this time i couldn't find the texas tender i had to go all the way to the pantry turned like a story fill up the stove i proceeded to do so he watched me like a cat presently he shouted put down that shovel get us numbskull 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 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 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're going to pull it down pour down after another moment say you're gonna hold her all day let her go meter meter then he would jump from the bench snatch the wheel from me and meter himself pouring out wrath upon me all the time george richie was the other pilot's cub he was having good times now for his boss george either was as kind-hearted as brown wasn't richie had steeled for brown the season before consequently he knew exactly how to entertain himself and played me all by the one operation whenever i took the wheel for a moment on either's watch richie would sit back on the bench and play brown with continual execulations of snatcher snatcher heard this butt cat i ever saw here where are you going now going to run over that snag pull her down don't you let me pull her down there she goes just as i expected i told you not to cramp that reef going 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 richie's good natured badgering was pretty nearly as aggravating as brown's deaderness nagging i often wanted to kill brown but this would not answer a cub had to take everything his boss gave in a way of vigorous comment and criticism and we all believe that there was a united states law making it a penitentiary offense to strike or threaten the 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 a bed 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 ways 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 ashore or 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 round 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 have long ago learned what that meant these 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 too this was simply bound to be a success nothing could prevent it for he had never allowed me to round the boat too 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 round 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 the tuporation 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 that burned was the nearest he ventured to the luxury of swearing or 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 a bound in 17 different ways all of them knew end of chapter 18 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit LibriVox.org life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain 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 information that he had heard anything but that was his way he never condescended to take notice of an underclerk 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 climb felter appeared on the deck and said let her come around sir let her come round 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 had done but that burned 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 straight way 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 at me i will tend 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 boys 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 10 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 sure 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 the steamboat tearing down the river at the rate of 15 miles an hour and nobody at the home however eagle bend was two miles wide at this bank full stage and correspondingly long and deep 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 spyglass 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 and 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 pennsylvania collieries once he was extracted he could have done his part to admiration in a crossfire of mere retribution 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 or 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 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 he 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 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 just glad of it harkey never mentioned 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 expense 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 well i stood 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 orleans and added i'll never turn a wheel on this boat again while that club stays captain said but he needn't go round when you were 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 i listened to george ealer's flute or to his readings from his two bibles that is to say goldsmith and shakespeare or i played chess with him and would have beaten him sometimes only he always took back his last move and ran the game out differently end of chapter 19 this is a libravox recording all libravox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer visit libravox.org life on the mississippi by mark twain chapter 20 a catastrophe we lay three days in new allens but the captain did not succeed in finding another pilot so he proposed that i should stand a daylight watch and leave the night watches to george but i was afraid i had never stood a watch of any sort by myself and i believed i should be sure to get into trouble in the head of some chute or ground the boat in a near cut through some bar or other brown remained in his place but he would not travel with me so the captain gave me an order on the captain of the at lacy for a passage to st louis and said he would find a new pilot there and my steersman's birth could then be resumed the lacy was to leave a couple of days after the pennsylvania the night before the pennsylvania left henry and i sat chatting on a freight pile on the levee till midnight the subject of the chat mainly was one which i think we had not exploited before steamboat disasters one was then on its way to us little as we suspected it the water which was to make the steam which should cause it was washing past some point 1500 miles up the river while we talked but it would arrive at the right time and the right place we doubted if persons not closed with authority were of much use in cases of disaster and attendant panic still they might be of some use so we decided that if a disaster ever fell within our experience we would at least stick to the boat and give such minor service as chance might throw in the way henry remembered this afterward when the disaster came and acted accordingly the lacy started up the river two days behind the pennsylvania we touched at greenville mississippi a couple of days out and somebody shouted the pennsylvania is blown up at ship island and 150 lives lost at napoleon arkansas the same evening we got an extra issued by a memphis paper which gave some particulars it mentioned my brother and said he was not hurt further up the river we got a later extra my brother was again mentioned but this time as being hurt beyond help we did not get full details of the catastrophe until we reached memphis this is the sorrowful story it was six o'clock on a hot summer morning the pennsylvania was creeping along north of ship island about 60 miles below memphis on a half head of steam towing a wood flat which was fast being emptied george ealer was in the pilot house alone i think the second engineer and a striker had the watch in the engine room the second mate had the watch on deck george black mr wood and my brother clerks were asleep as were also brown and the head engineer the carpenter the chief mate and one striker captain kleinfelter was in the barber's chair and the barber was preparing to shave him there were a good many cabin passengers aboard and three or four hundred deck passengers so it was said at the time and not very many of them were a stir the wood being nearly all out of the flat now either rang to come ahead full steam and the next moment four of the eight boilers exploded with a thunderous crash and a whole forward third of the boat was hoisted toward the sky the main part of the mass with the chimneys dropped upon the boat again a mountain of riddled and chaotic rubbish and then after a while a fire broke out many people were flown to considerable distances and fell in the river among these were mr wood and my brother and the carpenter the carpenter was still stretched upon his mattress when he struck the water seventy five feet from the boat brown the pilot and George black chief clerk were never seen or heard of after the explosion the barber's chair with captain kleinfelter in it and unhurt was left with its back overhanging vacancy everything forward of it floor and all had disappeared and the stupefied barber who was also unhurt stood with one toe projecting over space still stirring his lather unconsciously and saying not a word when George Ealer saw the chimneys plunging aloft in front of him he knew what the matter was so he muffled his face in the lapels of his coat and pressed both hands there tightly to keep this protection in its place so that no steam could get to his nose or mouth he had ample time to attend to these details while he was going up and returning he presently landed on top of the unexploded boilers forty feet below the former pilot house accompanied by his wheel and a rain of other stuff and enveloped in a cloud of scalding steam all of the many who breathed that steam died none escaped but either breathed none of it he made his way to the free air as quickly as he could and when the steam cleared away he returned and climbed up on the boilers again and patiently hunted out each and every one of his chestmen and the several joints of his flute by this time the fire was beginning to threaten shrieks and groans filled the air a great many persons had been scalded a great many crippled the explosion had driven an iron crowbar through one man's body I think they said he was a priest he did not die at once and his sufferings were very dreadful a young french naval cadet of fifteen son of a french admiral was fearfully scalded but bore his tortures manfully both mates were badly scalded but they stood to their posts nevertheless they drew the woodboat aft and they and the captain fought back the frantic herd of frightened immigrants till the wounded could be brought there and placed in safety first when mr. wood and henry fell in the water they struck out for sure which was only a few hundred yards away but henry presently said he believed he was not hurt what an unaccountable error and therefore would swim back to the boat and help save the wounded so they parted and henry returned by this time the fire was making fierce headway and several persons who were imprisoned under the ruins were begging piteously for help all efforts to conquer the fire proved fruitless so the buckets were presently thrown aside and the officers fell to with axes and tried to cut the prisoners out a striker was one of the captives he said he was not injured but could not free himself and when he saw that the fire was likely to drive away the workers he begged that someone would shoot him and thus save him from the more dreadful death the fire did drive the axe men away and they had to listen helpless to this poor fellow's supplications to the flames ended his miseries the fire drove all into the wood flat that could be accommodated there it was cut adrift then and it and the burning steamer floated down the river towards ship island they moored the flat at the head of the island and there unsheltered from the blazing sun the half-naked occupants had to remain without food or stimulants or help for their hurts during the rest of the day a steamer came along finally and carried the unfortunate to Memphis and there the most lavish assistance was at once forthcoming by this time Henry was insensible the physicians examined his injuries and saw that they were fatal and naturally turned their main attention to patients who could be saved 40 of the wounded were placed upon pallets on the floor of a great public hall and among these was Henry there the ladies of Memphis came every day with flow