American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1875-03-13
VOL. XIV.

all to destruction than put himself unde
obligations to me, because l am not We
one of the salt of the earth and priv
lodged TO snub captains and lord it owe
everything, dead or alive, in a steamboat
l presently climbed up on the bench:
did not think 1t was safe to go to sleeI
| while this lunatic was on watch
However, l must have gone to sleep il
the course of time, because the mex
| thing was aware of was the fact tina
Mr.. W was gone and Mr.. B. a
the wheel again. So it was four O'Clock
and all well-but me; felt like skin
fulNOf dry bones and all of them trying
to ache at once.
Mr.. B. asked me what had stayed
up there for. l confessed that it was t.
| do MIR. W benevOlence; tell hin
where we were. 1t TOOK five minutes fol
the entire prepOsterousness of the thin 9
| to filter into Mr.. BIS system, anC
then judged it filled him nearly up to
the chin, because he paid me a compli
| ment-and not much of a one, either
He said:
| Well, taking you by-and-large, you
do seem to be more different kinds of an
ass than any creature l ever saw before
What did you suppose he wanted to
know for?"
1 said l thought it might be a conven.
| fence to him.
| Convenience! Dash! Didn't tell
you that "A mans got to know the river in
the night the same as he'd know his own
| front halll"
| "Well, 1 can follow the front hall in
the dark if l know it is the front hall
but suppose you set me down in the mid
die of it in the dark and not tell NE
which hall it is, how am to know"
| well, you've got 10 on the river!"
| "All right. Then I'm glad l never
said anything to Mr.. W.
81 should say so. Why, he'd have
| slammed you through the window and
| utterly ruined a hundred dollars worth
| of windowsash and stuff"
l was glad this damage had been saved,
| for it would have made me unpopular
with the owners. They always hated
| anybody who had the name of being care
less and injuring things.
| l went to work, now, to learn the shape
of the river; and of all the eluding and
| ungraspable objects that ever l tried to
! get mind or hands on that was the chief.
would fasten my eyes upon sharp
wooden point that projected far into the
river some miles ahead of me and go to
| laboriously pEotOgraphing its shape upon
my brain; and just as l was beginning
/ to succeed to my satisfaction we would
draw up toward it and the exasperating
| thing would begin to melt away and fold
| back into the bank! If there had been
| conspicuous dead tree standing upon
the very point of the cape l would find
| that tree incOnspicuOusly merged into
| the general forest and occupying the
| middle of straight shore when l got
abreast of it! No prominent hill would
stick to its shape long enough for me to
make up my mind what its form really
was, but 1t was as dissolving and change
full as if it had been /. mountain of but
ter in the hottest corner of the tropics.
Nothing ever had the same shape when
| was coming down stream that it had
borne when l went up. / mentioned
these little difficulties to Mr.. b. He
said:
That's the very main virtue of the
thing. If the shapes didn't change every
three seconds they wouldn't be of any
use. Take this place where we are now,
for instance As long as that hill over
yonder is only one hill / can boom right
along the way Pm going; but the moment
1t splits at the top and form V l know
I've got to scratch to starbOard in a hur-
ry or I'll bang this boats brains out
against a rock; and then the moment one
OF the prOngs of the V swings behind the
other I've got to waltz to larboard again
or I'll have a misunderstanding with a
snag that would snatch the keelsOn out of
silver in your hand. If that hill didn't
change its shape on bad nights there would
he an awful steamboat graveyard around
here inside of year."
1t was plain that bad got to learn the
shape of the river in all the different
ways that could be thought of-upside
down, wrong end first, inside out, fore
and-aft and thOrtships"-and then
know what to do on gray nights when it
hadn't any shape at all. So l set about
it. In the course Of time / began to get
the best of this knotty lesson, and my
self-complacency moved to the front
once more. Mr.. B. was all fixed and
ready to start it to the rear again. He
opened on me after this fashion:
"How much water did we have in the
middle crossing at Hole-in- the Wall u1p
before last?"
/ considered this an outrage. l said:
EVERY trip, down and up, the leads
men are singing through that tangled
place for three-quarters of an hour on a
stretch. How do you reckon l can re-
member such a mess as that?"
My boy, you've got to remember it,
You've got TO remember the exact spot
and the exact marks the boat
lay in when we had the shoaI
est water, in every one of the two thou
sand shOal places between st. Louis and
New Orleans: and you mustn't get the
shoal soundings and marks of one trip
mixed up with the shoal soundings and
marks of another, either, for they're not
often twice alike. You must keep the N
separate"
When l came to myself again / said:
When get so that l can do that Fll
be able to raise the dead, and then /
won't have to pilot steamboat in order
to get a living. ! want to retire from
this business. j want a slush bucket and
a brush; I'm only fit for roustabout. |
haven't got brains enough to be "A pilot
and il had ! wouldn't have strength
enough to carry them around unless l
went on crutches."
Now drop that, When l say I'll
learn man the river ! mean it. Ana
you can depend on it I'll learn him or
kill him"
There was no use in arguing with a
person like this. promptly put such "A
STRAIN on my memory that by and by
even the shoal water and the countless
crossing marks began to stay with me
But the result was just the same |
could never more than get one knotty
thing learned before another presented
itself. Now | had often seen pilots gaz-
ing at the water and pretending to read
1t as II 1T were book; but it was IA book
that told me nothing A time came at
last, however, when Mr. b seemed
to think me far enough advanced to
bear lesson on waterreading So he
began;
do you see that long, slanting line
on the face of the water? Now that's n
reef Moreover it's a bluff reef. There
is a solid sand-bar under it that is nearly
as straight up and down as the side of "A
house. There is plenty of water close