But the result was just the same. I never could more than getone knotty thing learned before another presented itself.
Now I had often seen pilots gazing at the water and pretending to readit as if it were a book; but it was a book that told me nothing.
A time came at last, however, when Mr. Bixby seemed to think me farenough advanced to bear a lesson on water-reading. So he began--'Do you see that long slanting line on the face of the water Now,that's a reef. Moreover, it's a bluff reef. There is a solid sand-barunder it that is nearly as straight up and down as the side of a house.
There is plenty of water close up to it, but mighty little on top of it.
If you were to hit it you would knock the boat's brains out.
Do you see where the line fringes out at the upper end and begins tofade away '
'Yes, sir.'
'Well, that is a low place; that is the head of the reef.
You can climb over there, and not hurt anything. Cross over,now, and follow along close under the reef--easy water there--not much current.'
I followed the reef along till I approached the fringed end.
Then Mr. Bixby said--'Now get ready. Wait till I give the word. She won't want to mount the reef;a boat hates shoal water. Stand by--wait--WAIT--keep her well in hand.
NOW cramp her down! Snatch her! snatch her!'
He seized the other side of the wheel and helped to spinit around until it was hard down, and then we held it so.
The boat resisted, and refused to answer for a while, and next shecame surging to starboard, mounted the reef, and sent a long,angry ridge of water foaming away from her bows.
'Now watch her; watch her like a cat, or she'll get away from you.
When she fights strong and the tiller slips a little,in a jerky, greasy sort of way, let up on her a trifle;it is the way she tells you at night that the water is too shoal;but keep edging her up, little by little, toward the point.
You are well up on the bar, now; there is a bar under every point,because the water that comes down around it forms an eddyand allows the sediment to sink. Do you see those fine lineson the face of the water that branch out like the ribs of a fan.
Well, those are little reefs; you want to just miss the endsof them, but run them pretty close. Now look out--look out!
Don't you crowd that slick, greasy-looking place; there ain'tnine feet there; she won't stand it. She begins to smell it;look sharp, I tell you! Oh blazes, there you go!
Stop the starboard wheel! Quick! Ship up to back!
Set her back!
The engine bells jingled and the engines answered promptly,shooting white columns of steam far aloft out of the 'scape pipes,but it was too late. The boat had 'smelt' the bar in good earnest;the foamy ridges that radiated from her bows suddenly disappeared,a great dead swell came rolling forward and swept ahead of her,she careened far over to larboard, and went tearing awaytoward the other shore as if she were about scared to death.
We were a good mile from where we ought to have been, when wefinally got the upper hand of her again.
During the afternoon watch the next day, Mr. Bixby asked me if Iknew how to run the next few miles. I said--'Go inside the first snag above the point, outside the next one,start out from the lower end of Higgins's wood-yard, makea square crossing and----'
'That's all right. I'll be back before you close up on the next point.'
But he wasn't. He was still below when I rounded it and entered upona piece of river which I had some misgivings about. I did not knowthat he was hiding behind a chimney to see how I would perform.
I went gaily along, getting prouder and prouder, for he had neverleft the boat in my sole charge such a length of time before.
I even got to 'setting' her and letting the wheel go, entirely, while Ivaingloriously turned my back and inspected the stem marks and hummed a tune,a sort of easy indifference which I had prodigiously admired in Bixbyand other great pilots. Once I inspected rather long, and when I facedto the front again my heart flew into my mouth so suddenly that if I hadn'tclapped my teeth together I should have lost it. One of those frightfulbluff reefs was stretching its deadly length right across our bows!
My head was gone in a moment; I did not know which end I stood on;I gasped and could not get my breath; I spun the wheel down with suchrapidity that it wove itself together like a spider's web; the boatanswered and turned square away from the reef, but the reef followed her!
I fled, and still it followed, still it kept--right across my bows!
I never looked to see where I was going, I only fled.
The awful crash was imminent--why didn't that villain come!
If I committed the crime of ringing a bell, I might get thrown overboard.
But better that than kill the boat. So in blind desperation I startedsuch a rattling 'shivaree' down below as never had astounded an engineerin this world before, I fancy. Amidst the frenzy of the bells the enginesbegan to back and fill in a furious way, and my reason forsook its throne--we were about to crash into the woods on the other side of the river.
Just then Mr. Bixby stepped calmly into view on the hurricane deck.
My soul went out to him in gratitude. My distress vanished; I would havefelt safe on the brink of Niagara, with Mr. Bixby on the hurricane deck.
He blandly and sweetly took his tooth-pick out of his mouth betweenhis fingers, as if it were a cigar--we were just in the act of climbingan overhanging big tree, and the passengers were scudding astern like rats--and lifted up these commands to me ever so gently--'Stop the starboard. Stop the larboard. Set her back on both.'
The boat hesitated, halted, pressed her nose among the boughsa critical instant, then reluctantly began to back away.
'Stop the larboard. Come ahead on it. Stop the starboard.
Come ahead on it. Point her for the bar.'
I sailed away as serenely as a summer's morning Mr. Bixby came in and said,with mock simplicity--'When you have a hail, my boy, you ought to tap the big bell three timesbefore you land, so that the engineers can get ready.'
I blushed under the sarcasm, and said I hadn't had any hail.
'Ah! Then it was for wood, I suppose. The officer of the watchwill tell you when he wants to wood up.'
I went on consuming and said I wasn't after wood.
'Indeed? Why, what could you want over here in the bend, then?
Did you ever know of a boat following a bend up-stream at thisstage of the river?'
'No sir,--and I wasn't trying to follow it. I was getting awayfrom a bluff reef.'
'No, it wasn't a bluff reef; there isn't one within three milesof where you were.'
'But I saw it. It was as bluff as that one yonder.'
'Just about. Run over it!'
'Do you give it as an order?'
'Yes. Run over it.'
'If I don't, I wish I may die.'
'All right; I am taking the responsibility.' I was just asanxious to kill the boat, now, as I had been to save her before.
I impressed my orders upon my memory, to be used at the inquest,and made a straight break for the reef. As it disappeared underour bows I held my breath; but we slid over it like oil.
'Now don't you see the difference? It wasn't anything but a WIND reef.
The wind does that.'
'So I see. But it is exactly like a bluff reef.
How am I ever going to tell them apart?'
'I can't tell you. It is an instinct. By and by you will just naturallyKNOW one from the other, but you never will be able to explain why or how youknow them apart'
It turned out to be true. The face of the water, in time,became a wonderful book--a book that was a dead language to theuneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve,delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it utteredthem with a voice. And it was not a book to be read onceand thrown aside, for it had a new story to tell every day.
Throughout the long twelve hundred miles there was never a pagethat was void of interest, never one that you could leaveunread without loss, never one that you would want to skip,thinking you could find higher enjoyment in some other thing.
There never was so wonderful a book written by man; never onewhose interest was so absorbing, so unflagging, so sparkinglyrenewed with every re-perusal. The passenger who could not read itwas charmed with a peculiar sort of faint dimple on its surface(on the rare occasions when he did not overlook it altogether);but to the pilot that was an ITALICIZED passage; indeed, it wasmore than that, it was a legend of the largest capitals,with a string of shouting exclamation points at the end of it;for it meant that a wreck or a rock was buried there that couldtear the life out of the strongest vessel that ever floated.
It is the faintest and simplest expression the water ever makes,and the most hideous to a pilot's eye. In truth, the passengerwho could not read this book saw nothing but all manner of prettypictures in it painted by the sun and shaded by the clouds,whereas to the trained eye these were not pictures at all,but the grimmest and most dead-earnest of reading-matter.
Now when I had mastered the language of this water and had come to knowevery trifling feature that bordered the great river as familiarly as Iknew the letters of the alphabet, I had made a valuable acquisition.
But I had lost something, too. I had lost something which could neverbe restored to me while I lived. All the grace, the beauty, the poetryhad gone out of the majestic river! I still keep in mind a certainwonderful sunset which I witnessed when steamboating was new to me.
A broad expanse of the river was turned to blood; in the middle distancethe red hue brightened into gold, through which a solitary log came floating,black and conspicuous; in one place a long, slanting mark lay sparkling uponthe water; in another the surface was broken by boiling, tumbling rings,that were as many-tinted as an opal; where the ruddy flush was faintest,was a smooth spot that was covered with graceful circles and radiating lines,ever so delicately traced; the shore on our left was densely wooded,and the somber shadow that fell from this forest was broken in one placeby a long, ruffled trail that shone like silver; and high above the forestwall a clean-stemmed dead tree waved a single leafy bough that glowedlike a flame in the unobstructed splendor that was flowing from the sun.
There were graceful curves, reflected images, woody heights, soft distances;and over the whole scene, far and near, the dissolving lights driftedsteadily, enriching it, every passing moment, with new marvels of coloring.
I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture.
The world was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this at home.
But as I have said, a day came when I began to cease from noting the gloriesand the charms which the moon and the sun and the twilight wrought uponthe river's face; another day came when I ceased altogether to note them.
Then, if that sunset scene had been repeated, I should have looked uponit without rapture, and should have commented upon it, inwardly, afterthis fashion: This sun means that we are going to have wind to-morrow;that floating log means that the river is rising, small thanks to it;that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is goingto kill somebody's steamboat one of these nights, if it keeps on stretchingout like that; those tumbling 'boils' show a dissolving bar and a changingchannel there; the lines and circles in the slick water over yonderare a warning that that troublesome place is shoaling up dangerously;that silver streak in the shadow of the forest is the 'break' from a new snag,and he has located himself in the very best place he could have foundto fish for steamboats; that tall dead tree, with a single living branch,is not going to last long, and then how is a body ever going to get throughthis blind place at night without the friendly old landmark.
No, the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river.
All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amountof usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe pilotingof a steamboat. Since those days, I have pitied doctors from my heart.
What does the lovely flush in a beauty's cheek mean to a doctorbut a 'break' that ripples above some deadly disease.
Are not all her visible charms sown thick with what are to himthe signs and symbols of hidden decay? Does he ever see herbeauty at all, or doesn't he simply view her professionally,and comment upon her unwholesome condition all to himself?
And doesn't he sometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lostmost by learning his trade?
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