CHAPTER 18

I Take a Few Extra Lessons

DURING the two or two and a half years of my apprenticeship, I served

under many pilots, and had experience of many kinds of steamboatmen and

many varieties of steamboats; for it was not always convenient for Mr.

Bixby to have me with him, and in such cases he sent me with somebody

else. I am to this day profiting somewhat by that experience; for in

that brief, sharp schooling, I got personally and familiarly acquainted

with about all the different types of human nature that are to be found

in fiction, biography, or history. The fact is daily borne in upon me,

that the average shore-employment requires as much as forty years

to equip a man with this sort of an education. When I say I am still

profiting by this thing, I do not mean that it has constituted me a

judge of men--no, it has not done that; for judges of men are born, not

made. My profit is various in kind and degree; but the feature of it

which I value most is the zest which that early experience has given

to my later reading. When I find a well-drawn character in fiction or

biography, I generally take a warm personal interest in him, for the

reason that I have known him before--met him on the river.

The figure that comes before me oftenest, out of the shadows of that

vanished time, is that of Brown, of the steamer 'Pennsylvania'--the man

referred to in a former chapter, whose memory was so good and tiresome.

He was a middle-aged, long, slim, bony, smooth-shaven, horse-faced,

ignorant, stingy, malicious, snarling, fault hunting, mote-magnifying

tyrant. I early got the habit of coming on watch with dread at my heart.

No matter how good a time I might have been having with the off-watch

below, and no matter how high my spirits might be when I started aloft,

my soul became lead in my body the moment I approached the pilot-house.

I still remember the first time I ever entered the presence of that man.

The boat had backed out from St. Louis and was 'straightening down;'

I ascended to the pilot-house in high feather, and very proud to be

semi-officially a member of the executive family of so fast and famous

a boat. Brown was at the wheel. I paused in the middle of the room, all

fixed to make my bow, but Brown did not look around. I thought he took a

furtive glance at me out of the corner of his eye, but as not even this

notice was repeated, I judged I had been mistaken. By this time he was

picking his way among some dangerous 'breaks' abreast the woodyards;

therefore it would not be proper to interrupt him; so I stepped softly

to the high bench and took a seat.

There was silence for ten minutes; then my new boss turned and inspected

me deliberately and painstakingly from head to heel for about--as

it seemed to me--a quarter of an hour. After which he removed his

countenance and I saw it no more for some seconds; then it came around

once more, and this question greeted me--

'Are you Horace Bigsby's cub?'

'Yes, sir.'

After this there was a pause and another inspection. Then--

'What's your name?'

I told him. He repeated it after me. It was probably the only thing he

ever forgot; for although I was with him many months he never addressed

himself to me in any other way than 'Here!' and then his command

followed.

'Where was you born?'

'In Florida, Missouri.'

A pause. Then--

'Dern sight better staid there!'

By means of a dozen or so of pretty direct questions, he pumped my

family history out of me.

The leads were going now, in the first crossing. This interrupted the

inquest. When the leads had been laid in, he resumed--

'How long you been on the river?'

I told him. After a pause--

'Where'd you get them shoes?'

I gave him the information.

'Hold up your foot!'

I did so. He stepped back, examined the shoe minutely and

contemptuously, scratching his head thoughtfully, tilting his

high sugar-loaf hat well forward to facilitate the operation, then

ejaculated, 'Well, I'll be dod derned!' and returned to his wheel.

What occasion there was to be dod derned about it is a thing which is

still as much of a mystery to me now as it was then. It must have

been all of fifteen minutes--fifteen minutes of dull, homesick

silence--before that long horse-face swung round upon me again--and

then, what a change! It was as red as fire, and every muscle in it was

working. Now came this shriek--

'Here!--You going to set there all day?'

I lit in the middle of the floor, shot there by the electric

suddenness of the surprise. As soon as I could get my voice I said,

apologetically:--'I have had no orders, sir.'

'You've had no _orders_! My, what a fine bird we are! We must have

_orders_! Our father was a _gentleman_--owned slaves--and we've been

to _school_. Yes, _we _are a gentleman, _too_, and got to have _orders!

orders_, is it? _Orders _is what you want! Dod dern my skin, _i'll_

learn you to swell yourself up and blow around here about your

dod-derned _orders_! G'way from the wheel!' (I had approached it without

knowing it.)

I moved back a step or two, and stood as in a dream, all my senses

stupefied by this frantic assault.

'What you standing there for? Take that ice-pitcher down to the

texas-tender-come, move along, and don't you be all day about it!'

The moment I got back to the pilot-house, Brown said--

'Here! What was you doing down there all this time?'

'I couldn't find the texas-tender; I had to go all the way to the

pantry.'

'Derned likely story! Fill up the stove.'

I proceeded to do so. He watched me like a cat. Presently he shouted--

'Put down that shovel! Deadest numskull I ever saw--ain't even got sense

enough to load up a stove.'

All through the watch this sort of thing went on. Yes, and the

subsequent watches were much like it, during a stretch of months. As I

have said, I soon got the habit of coming on duty with dread. The moment

I was in the presence, even in the darkest night, I could feel those

yellow eyes upon me, and knew their owner was watching for a pretext to

spit out some venom on me. Preliminarily he would say--

'Here! Take the wheel.'

Two minutes later--

'_Where _in the nation you going to? Pull her down! pull her down!'

After another moment--

'Say! You going to hold her all day? Let her go--meet her! meet her!'

Then he would jump from the bench, snatch the wheel from me, and meet

her himself, pouring out wrath upon me all the time.

George Ritchie was the other pilot's cub. He was having good times now;

for his boss, George Ealer, was as kindhearted as Brown wasn't. Ritchie

had steeled for Brown the season before; consequently he knew exactly

how to entertain himself and plague me, all by the one operation.

Whenever I took the wheel for a moment on Ealer's watch, Ritchie would

sit back on the bench and play Brown, with continual ejaculations of

'Snatch her! snatch her! Derndest mud-cat I ever saw!' 'Here! Where you

going _now_? Going to run over that snag?' 'Pull her _down_! Don't you

hear me? Pull her _down!_' 'There she goes! _Just _as I expected! I

_told_ you not to cramp that reef. G'way from the wheel!'

So I always had a rough time of it, no matter whose watch it was; and

sometimes it seemed to me that Ritchie's good-natured badgering was

pretty nearly as aggravating as Brown's dead-earnest nagging.

I often wanted to kill Brown, but this would not answer. A cub had

to take everything his boss gave, in the way of vigorous comment and

criticism; and we all believed that there was a United States law making

it a penitentiary offense to strike or threaten a pilot who was on

duty. However, I could _imagine _myself killing Brown; there was no law

against that; and that was the thing I used always to do the moment I

was abed. Instead of going over my river in my mind as was my duty,

I threw business aside for pleasure, and killed Brown. I killed Brown

every night for months; not in old, stale, commonplace ways, but in new

and picturesque ones;--ways that were sometimes surprising for freshness

of design and ghastliness of situation and environment.

Brown was _always _watching for a pretext to find fault; and if he could

find no plausible pretext, he would invent one. He would scold you for

shaving a shore, and for not shaving it; for hugging a bar, and for not

hugging it; for 'pulling down' when not invited, and for not pulling

down when not invited; for firing up without orders, and for waiting

_for_ orders. In a word, it was his invariable rule to find fault with

_everything _you did; and another invariable rule of his was to throw

all his remarks (to you) into the form of an insult.

One day we were approaching New Madrid, bound down and heavily laden.

Brown was at one side of the wheel, steering; I was at the other,

standing by to 'pull down' or 'shove up.' He cast a furtive glance at me

every now and then. I had long ago learned what that meant; viz., he was

trying to invent a trap for me. I wondered what shape it was going to

take. By and by he stepped back from the wheel and said in his usual

snarly way--

'Here!--See if you've got gumption enough to round her to.'

This was simply _bound _to be a success; nothing could prevent it; for

he had never allowed me to round the boat to before; consequently, no

matter how I might do the thing, he could find free fault with it. He

stood back there with his greedy eye on me, and the result was what

might have been foreseen: I lost my head in a quarter of a minute, and

didn't know what I was about; I started too early to bring the boat

around, but detected a green gleam of joy in Brown's eye, and corrected

my mistake; I started around once more while too high up, but corrected

myself again in time; I made other false moves, and still managed to

save myself; but at last I grew so confused and anxious that I tumbled

into the very worst blunder of all--I got too far down before beginning

to fetch the boat around. Brown's chance was come.

His face turned red with passion; he made one bound, hurled me across

the house with a sweep of his arm, spun the wheel down, and began to

pour out a stream of vituperation upon me which lasted till he was out

of breath. In the course of this speech he called me all the different

kinds of hard names he could think of, and once or twice I thought he

was even going to swear--but he didn't this time. 'Dod dern' was the

nearest he ventured to the luxury of swearing, for he had been brought

up with a wholesome respect for future fire and brimstone.

That was an uncomfortable hour; for there was a big audience on the

hurricane deck. When I went to bed that night, I killed Brown in

seventeen different ways--all of them new.