Life On The Mississippi, Complete

M >> Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) >> Life On The Mississippi, Complete


'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 at the
head of 66.'

'Well, no, you won't, maybe. In fact I hope you won't; for 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, then. You shouldn't have allowed 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. That
isn't going to help matters any.'

It was a good enough lesson, but 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!'




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 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 frets in servitude; but in the day I write of, the Mississippi pilot
had none. The captain could stand upon the hurricane deck, in the pomp
of a very brief authority, and give him five or six orders while the
vessel backed into the stream, and then that skipper's reign was over.
The moment that the boat was under way 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 whither 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 merest 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 pilot's 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 New
Orleans 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 gentleman up
town, 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 a 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 full pay, 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 (Kansas
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,
accosts 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 apiece.'

'Heavens and earth! You take my boat, let me have your wages, and I'll
divide!'

I will remark, in passing, that Mississippi steamboatmen were important
in landsmen's eyes (and in their own, too, 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 'Aleck Scott' or the 'Grand
Turk.' Negro firemen, deck hands, and barbers belonging to those boats
were distinguished personages in their grade of life, and they were well
aware of that fact too. A stalwart darkey once gave offense at a negro
ball in New Orleans by putting on a good many airs. Finally one of the
managers bustled up to him and said--

'Who IS you, any way? Who is you? dat's what I wants 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 airs on a stinted capital.

'Who IS I? Who IS I? I let you know mighty quick who I is! I want you
niggers to understan' dat I fires de middle do'{footnote [Door]} on de
"Aleck 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 banquettes 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 pane and shouted (very willing that the neighbors
should hear and envy), 'You Mary Ann, come in de house dis minute!
Stannin' out dah foolin' 'long wid dat low trash, an' heah's de barber
offn de "Gran' Turk" wants to conwerse wid you!'

My reference, a moment ago, to the fact that a pilot's peculiar official
position placed him out of the reach of criticism or command, brings
Stephen 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, too, and was deliciously easy-going 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 a 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 harum-scarum, devil-may-care piloting, that made it almost
fascinating--but not to everybody. He made a trip with good old Captain
Y----once, and was 'relieved' from duty when the boat got to New
Orleans. Somebody expressed surprise at the discharge. Captain
Y----shuddered at the mere mention of Stephen. 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 an Injun to yell. All times of 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-whoops. A queer being--very queer being; no respect for
anything or anybody. Sometimes he called me "Johnny." And he kept a
fiddle, and 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 those awful snags at Chicot under a rattling
head of steam, and the wind a-blowing like the very nation, at that! My
officers will tell you so. They saw it. And, sir, while he was a-tearing
right down through those snags, and I a-shaking in my shoes and praying,
I wish I may never speak again if he didn't pucker up his mouth and
go to WHISTLING! Yes, sir; whistling "Buffalo gals, can't you come out
tonight, can't you come out to-night, can't you come out to-night;" and
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, 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
a very 'close place,' and finally persuaded him to hire with him at one
hundred and twenty-five dollars per month, just half wages, the captain
agreeing not to divulge the secret and so bring down the contempt of all
the guild upon the poor fellow. But the boat was not more than a day out
of New Orleans before Stephen discovered that the captain was boasting
of his exploit, and that all the officers had 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 aloft at Stephen, but Stephen was
whistling placidly, and attending to business. The captain stood around
a while in evident discomfort, and once or twice seemed about to make a
suggestion; but the etiquette of the river taught him to avoid that sort
of rashness, and so he managed to hold his peace. He chafed 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 toward shore than it is out here in the middle?'

'Yes, I reckon it is; but a body can't be too careful with a steamboat.
It's pretty safe out here; can't strike any bottom here, you can depend
on that.'

The captain departed, looking rueful enough. At this rate, he would
probably die of old age before his boat got to St. Louis. Next day he
appeared on deck and again found Stephen 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; Stephen stuck
to the middle of the river. Speech was WRUNG from the captain. He said--

'Mr. W----, don't that chute cut off a good deal of distance?'

'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 try it. 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 Stephen was bowling through the chute and showing the
rival boat a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar pair of heels.




Chapter 15 The Pilots' Monopoly

ONE day, on board the 'Aleck 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 past and the leads laid in, he burst instantly into a
consuming fury, and gave the captain the most admirable cursing 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 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 steamboatmen, 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 berths. 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 by-laws 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; the 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,--any way, so they got there. They paid in their
twelve dollars, and straightway 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 by-law requiring members to pay ten per cent.
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 chaffing 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 trebled, and an avalanche of Missouri, Illinois and
Upper Mississippi River boats 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 bitterer pill to be swallowed: they must
be sought out and asked for their services. Captain ---- 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 twelve o'clock.'

'I don't know about that. Who is your other pilot?'

'I've got I. S----. Why?'

'I can't go with him. He don't belong to the association.'

'What!'

'It's so.'

'Do you mean to tell me that you won't turn a wheel with 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 supposed 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 twelve 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, thenceforward, 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 berth. 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 altogether,
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 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 New Orleans 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's secretary each
member received a package of more or less gorgeous blanks, printed like
a billhead, on handsome paper, properly ruled in columns; a bill-head
worded something like this--

STEAMER GREAT REPUBLIC.

JOHN SMITH 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--