the reader who has served that trade will know the writer HASN’T.
Ealer would not be convinced; he said a man could learn how to
correctly handle the subtleties and mysteries and free-masonries of
any trade by careful reading and studying. But when I got him to
read again the passage from Shakespeare with the interlardings, he
perceived, himself, that books couldn’t teach a student a
bewildering multitude of pilot-phrases so thoroughly and perfectly
that he could talk them off in book and play or conversation and
make no mistake that a pilot would not immediately discover. It
was a triumph for me. He was silent awhile, and I knew what was
happening: he was losing his temper. And I knew he would
presently close the session with the same old argument that was
always his stay and his support in time of need; the same old
argument, the one I couldn’t answer–because I dasn’t: the
argument that I was an ass, and better shut up. He delivered it,
and I obeyed.
Oh, dear, how long ago it was–how pathetically long ago! And here
am I, old, forsaken, forlorn and alone, arranging to get that
argument out of somebody again.
When a man has a passion for Shakespeare, it goes without saying
that he keeps company with other standard authors. Ealer always
had several high-class books in the pilot-house, and he read the
same ones over and over again, and did not care to change to newer
and fresher ones. He played well on the flute, and greatly enjoyed
hearing himself play. So did I. He had a notion that a flute
would keep its health better if you took it apart when it was not
standing a watch; and so, when it was not on duty it took its rest,
disjointed, on the compass-shelf under the breast-board. When the
Pennsylvania blew up and became a drifting rack-heap freighted with
wounded and dying poor souls (my young brother Henry among them),
pilot Brown had the watch below, and was probably asleep and never
knew what killed him; but Ealer escaped unhurt. He and his pilot-
house were shot up into the air; then they fell, and Ealer sank
through the ragged cavern where the hurricane deck and the boiler
deck had been, and landed in a nest of ruins on the main deck, on
top of one of the unexploded boilers, where he lay prone in a fog
of scalding and deadly steam. But not for long. He did not lose
his head: long familiarity with danger had taught him to keep it,
in any and all emergencies. He held his coat-lappels to his nose
with one hand, to keep out the steam, and scrabbled around with the
other till he found the joints of his flute, then he is took
measures to save himself alive, and was successful. I was not on
board. I had been put ashore in New Orleans by Captain
Klinefelter. The reason–however, I have told all about it in the
book called Old Times on the Mississippi, and it isn’t important
anyway, it is so long ago.
CHAPTER II
When I was a Sunday-school scholar something more than sixty years
ago, I became interested in Satan, and wanted to find out all I
could about him. I began to ask questions, but my class-teacher,
Mr. Barclay the stone-mason, was reluctant about answering them, it
seemed to me. I was anxious to be praised for turning my thoughts
to serious subjects when there wasn’t another boy in the village
who could be hired to do such a thing. I was greatly interested in
the incident of Eve and the serpent, and thought Eve’s calmness was
perfectly noble. I asked Mr. Barclay if he had ever heard of
another woman who, being approached by a serpent, would not excuse
herself and break for the nearest timber. He did not answer my
question, but rebuked me for inquiring into matters above my age
and comprehension. I will say for Mr. Barclay that he was willing
to tell me the facts of Satan’s history, but he stopped there: he
wouldn’t allow any discussion of them.
In the course of time we exhausted the facts. There were only five