Life on the Mississippi. Марк Твен

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СКАЧАТЬ the wheel, and my heart-beat fluttered up into the hundreds; for it seemed to me that we were about to scrape the side off 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 an’t good, I’m blest.’

      The ‘off-watch’ was just turning in, and I heard some brutal laughter from them, and such remarks as ‘Hello, watchman! an’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-by-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 work-like about this new phase of it.

      It was a rather 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 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 in 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.’

      I studied a while and decided that I couldn’t.

      ‘Look here! What do you start out from, above Twelve-Mile Point, to cross over?’

      ‘I – I – don’t know.’

      ‘You – you – don’t know?’ mimicking my drawling manner of speech. ‘What do you know?’

      ‘I – I – nothing, for certain.’

      ‘By the great Caesar’s ghost, I believe you! You’re the stupidest dunderhead I ever saw or ever heard of, so help me Moses! The idea of you being a pilot – you! Why, you don’t know enough to pilot a cow down a lane.’

      Oh, but his wrath was up! He was a nervous man, and he shuffled from one side of his wheel to the other as if the floor was hot. He would boil a while to himself, and then overflow and scald me again.

      ‘Look here! What do you suppose I told you the names of those points for?’

      I tremblingly considered a moment, and then the devil of temptation provoked me to say: —

      ‘Well – to – to – be entertaining, I thought.’

      This was a red rag to the bull. He raged and stormed so (he was crossing the river at the time) that I judge it made him blind, because he ran over СКАЧАТЬ