Two or three of the boys had long been persons of consideration among
us because they had been to St. Louis once and had a vague general
knowledge of its wonders, but the day of their glory was over now.
They lapsed into a humble silence, and learned to disappear when the ruthless
‘cub’-engineer approached. This fellow had money, too, and hair oil.
Also an ignorant silver watch and a showy brass watch chain.
He wore a leather belt and used no suspenders. If ever a youth
was cordially admired and hated by his comrades, this one was.
No girl could withstand his charms. He ‘cut out’ every boy in the village.
When his boat blew up at last, it diffused a tranquil contentment
among us such as we had not known for months. But when he came
home the next week, alive, renowned, and appeared in church all
battered up and bandaged, a shining hero, stared at and wondered
over by everybody, it seemed to us that the partiality of Providence
for an undeserving reptile had reached a point where it was open to
criticism.
This creature’s career could produce but one result, and it
speedily followed. Boy after boy managed to get on the river.
The minister’s son became an engineer. The doctor’s and the
post-master’s sons became ‘mud clerks;’ the wholesale liquor
dealer’s son became a barkeeper on a boat; four sons of the
chief merchant, and two sons of the county judge, became pilots.
Pilot was the grandest position of all. The pilot, even in those days
of trivial wages, had a princely salary–from a hundred and fifty
to two hundred and fifty dollars a month, and no board to pay.
Two months of his wages would pay a preacher’s salary for a year.
Now some of us were left disconsolate. We could not get on the river–
at least our parents would not let us.
So by and by I ran away. I said I never would come home again till I
was a pilot and could come in glory. But somehow I could not manage it.
I went meekly aboard a few of the boats that lay packed together like sardines
at the long St. Louis wharf, and very humbly inquired for the pilots,
but got only a cold shoulder and short words from mates and clerks.
I had to make the best of this sort of treatment for the time being,
but I had comforting daydreams of a future when I should be a great and
honored pilot, with plenty of money, and could kill some of these mates
and clerks and pay for them.
Chapter 5
I Want to be a Cub-pilot
MONTHS afterward the hope within me struggled to a reluctant death,
and I found myself without an ambition. But I was ashamed to go home.
I was in Cincinnati, and I set to work to map out a new career.
I had been reading about the recent exploration of the river Amazon
by an expedition sent out by our government. It was said that
the expedition, owing to difficulties, had not thoroughly explored a part
of the country lying about the head-waters, some four thousand miles
from the mouth of the river. It was only about fifteen hundred miles
from Cincinnati to New Orleans, where I could doubtless get a ship.
I had thirty dollars left; I would go and complete the exploration
of the Amazon. This was all the thought I gave to the subject.
I never was great in matters of detail. I packed my valise, and took
passage on an ancient tub called the ‘Paul Jones,’ for New Orleans.
For the sum of sixteen dollars I had the scarred and tarnished splendors
of ‘her’ main saloon principally to myself, for she was not a creature to
attract the eye of wiser travelers.
When we presently got under way and went poking down the broad Ohio,
I became a new being, and the subject of my own admiration.
I was a traveler! A word never had tasted so good in my mouth before.
I had an exultant sense of being bound for mysterious lands and distant
climes which I never have felt in so uplifting a degree since.