the way you do.” I said, “It’s my nature; how can I change it?”
She says, “Well, do go to bed and get some rest.” I said,
“Not till that poor, noble young man has got his money.”
So I set up all night, and this morning out I shot, and the first
man I struck told me you had shipped on the “Grand Turk”
and gone to New Orleans. Well, sir, I had to lean up against
a building and cry. So help me goodness, I couldn’t help it.
The man that owned the place come out cleaning up with a rag,
and said he didn’t like to have people cry against his building,
and then it seemed to me that the whole world had turned
against me, and it wasn’t any use to live any more; and coming
along an hour ago, suffering no man knows what agony, I met Jim
Wilson and paid him the two hundred and fifty dollars on account;
and to think that here you are, now, and I haven’t got a cent!
But as sure as I am standing here on this ground on this
particular brick,–there, I’ve scratched a mark on the brick
to remember it by,–I’ll borrow that money and pay it over
to you at twelve o’clock sharp, tomorrow! Now, stand so;
let me look at you just once more.’
And so on. Yates’s life became a burden to him. He could not escape his
debtor and his debtor’s awful sufferings on account of not being able to pay.
He dreaded to show himself in the street, lest he should find Stephen lying
in wait for him at the comer.
Bogart’s billiard saloon was a great resort for pilots in those days.
They met there about as much to exchange river news as to play.
One morning Yates was there; Stephen was there, too, but kept out
of sight. But by and by, when about all the pilots had arrived
who were in town, Stephen suddenly appeared in the midst, and rushed
for Yates as for a long-lost brother.
‘OH, I am so glad to see you! Oh my soul, the sight of you is
such a comfort to my eyes! Gentlemen, I owe all of you money;
among you I owe probably forty thousand dollars. I want to pay it;
I intend to pay it every last cent of it. You all know,
without my telling you, what sorrow it has cost me to remain so long
under such deep obligations to such patient and generous friends;
but the sharpest pang I suffer–by far the sharpest–is from
the debt I owe to this noble young man here; and I have come to this
place this morning especially to make the announcement that I
have at last found a method whereby I can pay off all my debts!
And most especially I wanted HIM to be here when I announced it.
Yes, my faithful friend,–my benefactor, I’ve found the method!
I’ve found the method to pay off all my debts, and you’ll get your money!’
Hope dawned in Yates’s eye; then Stephen, beaming benignantly,
and placing his hand upon Yates’s head, added, ‘I am going to pay them
off in alphabetical order!’
Then he turned and disappeared. The full significance of Stephen’s ‘method’
did not dawn upon the perplexed and musing crowd for some two minutes;
and then Yates murmured with a sigh–
‘Well, the Y’s stand a gaudy chance. He won’t get any further than the C’s
in THIS world, and I reckon that after a good deal of eternity has wasted
away in the next one, I’ll still be referred to up there as “that poor,
ragged pilot that came here from St. Louis in the early days!”
Chapter 18
I Take a Few Extra Lessons
DURING the two or two and a half years of my apprenticeship,
I served under many pilots, and had experience of many
kinds of steamboatmen and many varieties of steamboats;
for it was not always convenient for Mr. Bixby to have me
with him, and in such cases he sent me with somebody else.
I am to this day profiting somewhat by that experience;