You take a night when there's one
of these grisly, drizzly, gray mists, and then there isn't any
particular shape to a shore. A gray mist would tangle the head of the
oldest man that ever lived. Well, then, different kinds of MOONLIGHT
change the shape of the river in different ways. You see - '
'Oh, don't say any more, please! Have I got to learn the shape of the
river according to all these five hundred thousand different ways? If I
tried to carry all that cargo in my head it would make me stoop-
shouldered.'
'NO! you only learn THE shape of the river, and you learn it with such
absolute certainty that you can always steer by the shape that's IN YOUR
HEAD, and never mind the one that's before your eyes.'
'Very well, I'll try it; but after I have learned it can I depend on it.
Will it keep the same form and not go fooling around?'
Before Mr. Bixby could answer, Mr. W - - came in to take the watch, and
he said -
'Bixby, you'll have to look out for President's Island and all that
country clear away up above the Old Hen and Chickens. The banks are
caving and the shape of the shores changing like everything. Why, you
wouldn't know the point above 40. You can go up inside the old sycamore-
snag, now.{footnote [1. It may not be necessary, but still it can do no
harm to explain that 'inside' means between the snag and the shore. -
M.T.]}
So that question was answered. Here were leagues of shore changing
shape. My spirits were down in the mud again. Two things seemed pretty
apparent to me. One was, that in order to be a pilot a man had got to
learn more than any one man ought to be allowed to know; and the other
was, that he must learn it all over again in a different way every
twenty-four hours.
That night we had the watch until twelve. Now it was an ancient river
custom for the two pilots to chat a bit when the watch changed. While
the relieving pilot put on his gloves and lit his cigar, his partner,
the retiring pilot, would say something like this -
'I judge the upper bar is making down a little at Hale's Point; had
quarter twain with the lower lead and mark twain {footnote [Two fathoms.
'Quarter twain' is two-and-a-quarter fathoms, thirteen-and-a-half feet.
'Mark three' is three fathoms.]} with the other.'
'Yes, I thought it was making down a little, last trip. Meet any boats?'
'Met one abreast the head of 21, but she was away over hugging the bar,
and I couldn't make her out entirely. I took her for the "Sunny South"-
-hadn't any skylights forward of the chimneys.'
And so on. And as the relieving pilot took the wheel his
partner{footnote ['Partner' is a technical term for 'the other pilot'.]}
would mention that we were in such-and-such a bend, and say we were
abreast of such-and-such a man's wood-yard or plantation. This was
courtesy; I supposed it was necessity. But Mr. W - - came on watch full
twelve minutes late on this particular night, - a tremendous breach of
etiquette; in fact, it is the unpardonable sin among pilots. So Mr.
Bixby gave him no greeting whatever, but simply surrendered the wheel
and marched out of the pilot-house without a word. I was appalled; it
was a villainous night for blackness, we were in a particularly wide and
blind part of the river, where there was no shape or substance to
anything, and it seemed incredible that Mr. Bixby should have left that
poor fellow to kill the boat trying to find out where he was. But I
resolved that I would stand by him any way. He should find that he was
not wholly friendless. So I stood around, and waited to be asked where
we were. But Mr. W - - plunged on serenely through the solid firmament
of black cats that stood for an atmosphere, and never opened his mouth.
Here is a proud devil, thought I; here is a limb of Satan that would
rather send us all to destruction than put himself under obligations to
me, because I am not yet one of the salt of the earth and privileged to
snub captains and lord it over everything dead and alive in a steamboat.
I presently climbed up on the bench; I did not think it was safe to go
to sleep while this lunatic was on watch.
However, I must have gone to sleep in the course of time, because the
next thing I was aware of was the fact that day was breaking, Mr. W - -
gone, and Mr. Bixby at the wheel again. So it was four o'clock and all
well - but me; I felt like a skinful of dry bones and all of them trying
to ache at once.
Mr. Bixby asked me what I had stayed up there for. I confessed that it
was to do Mr. W - - a benevolence, - tell him where he was. It took five
minutes for the entire preposterousness of the thing to filter into Mr.
Bixby's system, and then I judge it filled him nearly up to the chin;
because he paid me a compliment - and not much of a one either. He said,
'Well, taking you by-and-large, you do seem to be more different kinds
of an ass than any creature I ever saw before. What did you suppose he
wanted to know for?'
I said I thought it might be a convenience to him.
