The boat backed out from New Orleans at four in the afternoon, and it
was “our watch” until eight. Mr. Bixby, my chief, “straightened her up,”
ploughed her along past the sterns of the other boats that lay at the
Levee, and then said, “Here, take her; shave those steamships as close
as you’d peel an apple.” I took the wheel, and my heart-beat fluttered
up into the hundreds; for it seemed to me that we were about to scrape
the side of every ship in the line, we were so close. I held my breath
and began to claw the boat away from the danger; and I had my own
opinion of the pilot who had known no better than to get us into such
peril, but I was too wise to express it. In half a minute I had a wide
margin of safety intervening between the _Paul Jones_ and the ships; and
within ten seconds more I was set aside in disgrace, and Mr. Bixby was
going into danger again and flaying me alive with abuse of my cowardice.
I was stung, but I was obliged to admire the easy confidence with which
my chief loafed from side to side of his wheel, and trimmed the ships so
closely that disaster seemed ceaselessly imminent. When he had cooled a
little he told me that the easy water was close ashore and the current
outside, and therefore we must hug the bank, up-stream, to get the
benefit of the former, and stay well out, down-stream, to take advantage
of the latter. In my own mind I resolved to be a down-stream pilot and
leave the up-streaming to people dead to prudence.
Now and then Mr. Bixby called my attention to certain things. Said he,
“This is Six-Mile Point.” I assented. It was pleasant enough
information, but I could not see the bearing of it. I was not conscious
that it was a matter of any interest to me. Another time he said, “This
is Nine-Mile Point.” Later he said, “This is Twelve-Mile Point.” They
were all about level with the water’s edge; they all looked about alike
to me; they were monotonously unpicturesque. I hoped Mr. Bixby would
change the subject. But no; he would crowd up around a point, hugging
the shore with affection, and then say: “The slack water ends here,
abreast this bunch of China-trees; now we cross over.” So he crossed
over. He gave me the wheel once or twice, but I had no luck. I either
came near chipping off the edge of a sugar plantation, or I yawed too
far from shore, and so dropped back into disgrace again and got abused.
The watch was ended at last, and we took supper and went to bed. At
midnight the glare of a lantern shone in my eyes, and the night watchman
said:
“Come, turn out!”
And then he left. I could not understand this extraordinary procedure;
so I presently gave up trying to, and dozed off to sleep. Pretty soon
the watchman was back again, and this time he was gruff. I was annoyed.
I said:
“What do you want to come bothering around here in the middle of the
night for? Now, as like as not, I’ll not get to sleep again to-night.”
The watchman said:
“Well, if this ain’t good, I’m blessed.”
The “off-watch” was just turning in, and I heard some brutal laughter
from them, and such remarks as, “Hello, watchman! ain’t the new cub
turned out yet? He’s delicate likely. Give him some sugar in a rag, and
send for the chambermaid to sing ‘Rock-a-bye Baby,’ to him.”
About this time Mr. Bixby appeared on the scene. Something like a minute
later I was climbing the pilot-house steps with some of my clothes on
and the rest in my arms. Mr. Bixby was close behind, commenting. Here
was something fresh—this thing of getting up in the middle of the night
to go to work. It was a detail in piloting that had never occurred to me
at all. I knew that boats ran all night, but somehow I had never
happened to reflect that somebody had to get up out of a warm bed to run
them. I began to fear that piloting was not quite so romantic as I had
imagined it was; there was something very real and worklike about this
new phase of it.
It was rather a dingy night, although a fair number of stars were out.
The big mate was at the wheel, and he had the old tub pointed at a star
and was holding her straight up the middle of the river. The shores on
either hand were not much more than half a mile apart, but they seemed
wonderfully far away and ever so vague and indistinct. The mate said:
“We’ve got to land at Jones’s plantation, sir.”
The vengeful spirit in me exulted. I said to myself, “I wish you joy of
your job, Mr. Bixby; you’ll have a good time finding Mr. Jones’s
plantation such a night as this; and I hope you never _will_ find it as
long as you live.”
Mr. Bixby said to the mate:
“Upper end of the plantation, or the lower?”
“Upper.”
“I can’t do it. The stumps there are out of the water at this stage.
It’s no great distance to the lower, and you’ll have to get along with
that.”
“All right, sir. If Jones don’t like it, he’ll have to lump it, I
reckon.”
And then the mate left. My exultation began to cool and my wonder to
come up. Here was a man who not only proposed to find this plantation on
such a night, but to find either end of it you preferred. I dreadfully
wanted to ask a question, but I was carrying about as many short answers
as my cargo-room would admit of, so I held my peace. All I desired to
ask Mr. Bixby was the simple question whether he was ass enough to
really imagine he was going to find that plantation on a night when all
plantations were exactly alike, and all the same color. But I held in. I
used to have fine inspirations of prudence in those days.
Mr. Bixby made for the shore and soon was scraping it, just the same as
if it had been daylight. And not only that but singing:
“Father in heaven, the day is declining,” etc.
It seemed to me that I had put my life into the keeping of a peculiarly
reckless outcast. Presently he turned on me and said:
“What’s the name of the first point above New Orleans?”
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I
didn’t know.
“Don’t _know_?”
This manner jolted me. I was down at the foot again, in a moment. But I
had to say just what I had said before.
“Well, you’re a smart one!” said Mr. Bixby. “What’s the name of the
_next_ point?”
Once more I didn’t know.
“Well, this beats anything. Tell me the name of any point or place I
told you.”