I am to this day profiting somewhat by that experience;for in that brief, sharp schooling, I got personally and familiarlyacquainted with about all the different types of human naturethat are to be found in fiction, biography, or history.
The fact is daily borne in upon me, that the average shore-employmentrequires as much as forty years to equip a man with this sortof an education. When I say I am still profiting by this thing,I do not mean that it has constituted me a judge of men--no, it has not done that; for judges of men are born, not made.
My profit is various in kind and degree; but the feature of itwhich I value most is the zest which that early experience hasgiven to my later reading. When I find a well-drawn characterin fiction or biography, I generally take a warm personalinterest in him, for the reason that I have known him before--met him on the river.
The figure that comes before me oftenest, out of the shadows of thatvanished time, is that of Brown, of the steamer 'Pennsylvania'--the manreferred to in a former chapter, whose memory was so good and tiresome.
He was a middle-aged, long, slim, bony, smooth-shaven, horse-faced, ignorant,stingy, malicious, snarling, fault hunting, mote-magnifying tyrant.
I early got the habit of coming on watch with dread at my heart.
No matter how good a time I might have been having with the off-watch below,and no matter how high my spirits might be when I started aloft, my soulbecame lead in my body the moment I approached the pilot-house.
I still remember the first time I ever entered the presence of that man.
The boat had backed out from St. Louis and was 'straightening down;'
I ascended to the pilot-house in high feather, and very proudto be semi-officially a member of the executive family of so fastand famous a boat. Brown was at the wheel. I paused in the middleof the room, all fixed to make my bow, but Brown did not look around.
I thought he took a furtive glance at me out of the corner of his eye,but as not even this notice was repeated, I judged I had been mistaken.
By this time he was picking his way among some dangerous 'breaks' abreastthe woodyards; therefore it would not be proper to interrupt him; so Istepped softly to the high bench and took a seat.
There was silence for ten minutes; then my new boss turnedand inspected me deliberately and painstakingly from headto heel for about--as it seemed to me--a quarter of an hour.
After which he removed his countenance and I saw it no morefor some seconds; then it came around once more, and thisquestion greeted me--'Are you Horace Bigsby's cub?'
'Yes, sir.'
After this there was a pause and another inspection. Then--'What's your name?'
I told him. He repeated it after me. It was probably the onlything he ever forgot; for although I was with him many monthshe never addressed himself to me in any other way than 'Here!'
and then his command followed.
'Where was you born?'
'In Florida, Missouri.'
A pause. Then--'Dern sight better staid there!'
By means of a dozen or so of pretty direct questions, he pumpedmy family history out of me.
The leads were going now, in the first crossing. This interruptedthe inquest. When the leads had been laid in, he resumed--'How long you been on the river?'
I told him. After a pause--'Where'd you get them shoes?'
I gave him the information.
'Hold up your foot!'
I did so. He stepped back, examined the shoe minutely and contemptuously,scratching his head thoughtfully, tilting his high sugar-loaf hat well forwardto facilitate the operation, then ejaculated, 'Well, I'll be dod derned!'
and returned to his wheel.
What occasion there was to be dod derned about it is a thingwhich is still as much of a mystery to me now as it was then.
It must have been all of fifteen minutes--fifteen minutesof dull, homesick silence--before that long horse-faceswung round upon me again--and then, what a change!
It was as red as fire, and every muscle in it was working.
Now came this shriek--'Here!--You going to set there all day?'
I lit in the middle of the floor, shot there by the electricsuddenness of the surprise. As soon as I could get my voice I said,apologetically:--'I have had no orders, sir.'
'You've had no ORDERS! My, what a fine bird we are! We must have ORDERS!
Our father was a GENTLEMAN--owned slaves--and we've been to SCHOOL.
Yes, WE are a gentleman, TOO, and got to have ORDERS! ORDERS, is it?
ORDERS is what you want! Dod dern my skin, I'LL learn you to swell yourselfup and blow around here about your dod-derned ORDERS! G'way from the wheel!
(I had approached it without knowing it.)I moved back a step or two, and stood as in a dream, all my sensesstupefied by this frantic assault.
'What you standing there for? Take that ice-pitcher down tothe texas-tender-come, move along, and don't you be all day about it!'
The moment I got back to the pilot-house, Brown said--'Here! What was you doing down there all this time?'
'I couldn't find the texas-tender; I had to go all the way to the pantry.'
'Derned likely story! Fill up the stove.'
I proceeded to do so. He watched me like a cat.
Presently he shouted--'Put down that shovel? Deadest numskull I ever saw--ain't even got sense enough to load up a stove.
All through the watch this sort of thing went on. Yes, and thesubsequent watches were much like it, during a stretch of months.
As I have said, I soon got the habit of coming on duty with dread.
The moment I was in the presence, even in the darkest night,I could feel those yellow eyes upon me, and knew their ownerwas watching for a pretext to spit out some venom on me.
Preliminarily he would say-'Here! Take the wheel.'
Two minutes later--'WHERE in the nation you going to? Pull her down! pull her down!'
After another moment--'Say! You going to hold her all day? Let her go--meet her! meet her!'
Then he would jump from the bench, snatch the wheel from me,and meet her himself, pouring out wrath upon me all the time.
George Ritchie was the other pilot's cub. He was havinggood times now; for his boss, George Ealer, was as kindheartedas Brown wasn't. Ritchie had steeled for Brown the season before;consequently he knew exactly how to entertain himself and plague me,all by the one operation. Whenever I took the wheel for a momenton Ealer's watch, Ritchie would sit back on the bench and play Brown,with continual ejaculations of 'Snatch her! snatch her!
Derndest mud-cat I ever saw!' 'Here! Where you going NOW?
Going to run over that snag?' 'Pull her DOWN ! Don't you hear me?
Pull her DOWN!' 'There she goes! JUST as I expected!
I TOLD you not to cramp that reef G'way from the wheel!'
So I always had a rough time of it, no matter whose watch it was;and sometimes it seemed to me that Ritchie's good-natured badgeringwas pretty nearly as aggravating as Brown's dead-earnest nagging.
I often wanted to kill Brown, but this would not answer.
A cub had to take everything his boss gave, in the way ofvigorous comment and criticism; and we all believed that therewas a United States law making it a penitentiary offense tostrike or threaten a pilot who was on duty. However, I couldIMAGINE myself killing Brown; there was no law against that;and that was the thing I used always to do the moment I was abed.
Instead of going over my river in my mind as was my duty,I threw business aside for pleasure, and killed Brown.
I killed Brown every night for months; not in old, stale,commonplace ways, but in new and picturesque ones;--ways that weresometimes surprising for freshness of design and ghastliness ofsituation and environment.
Brown was ALWAYS watching for a pretext to find fault;and if he could find no plausible pretext, he would invent one.
He would scold you for shaving a shore, and for not shaving it;for hugging a bar, and for not hugging it; for 'pulling down'
when not invited, and for not pulling down when not invited;for firing up without orders, and for waiting FOR orders. In a word,it was his invariable rule to find fault with EVERYTHING you did;and another invariable rule of his was to throw all his remarks(to you) into the form of an insult.
One day we were approaching New Madrid, bound down and heavily laden.
Brown was at one side of the wheel, steering; I was at the other,standing by to 'pull down' or 'shove up.' He cast a furtive glance at meevery now and then. I had long ago learned what that meant; viz., he wastrying to invent a trap for me. I wondered what shape it was going to take.
By and by he stepped back from the wheel and said in his usual snarly way--'Here!--See if you've got gumption enough to round her to.'
This was simply BOUND to be a success; nothing could prevent it;for he had never allowed me to round the boat to before;consequently, no matter how I might do the thing, he couldfind free fault with it. He stood back there with his greedyeye on me, and the result was what might have been foreseen:
I lost my head in a quarter of a minute, and didn't know what Iwas about; I started too early to bring the boat around,but detected a green gleam of joy in Brown's eye, and correctedmy mistake; I started around once more while too high up,but corrected myself again in time; I made other false moves,and still managed to save myself; but at last I grew so confusedand anxious that I tumbled into the very worst blunder of all--I got too far down before beginning to fetch the boat around.
Brown's chance was come.
His face turned red with passion; he made one bound,hurled me across the house with a sweep of his arm,spun the wheel down, and began to pour out a stream ofvituperation upon me which lasted till he was out of breath.
In the course of this speech he called me all the differentkinds of hard names he could think of, and once or twice Ithought he was even going to swear--but he didn't this time.
'Dod dern' was the nearest he ventured to the luxury of swearing,for he had been brought up with a wholesome respect for futurefire and brimstone.
That was an uncomfortable hour; for there was a big audienceon the hurricane deck. When I went to bed that night,I killed Brown in seventeen different ways-all of them new.
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |