It was against the law, in such case
made and provided,
Of the United States, but by the good will of the
pilots
That we would some of us climb to the pilot-house
after our breakfast
For a morning smoke, and find ourselves seats on
the benching
Under the windows, or in the worn-smooth arm-chairs.
The pilot,
Which one it was did not matter, would tilt his
head round and say,
“All right!”
When he had seen who we were, and begin, or go on
as from stopping
In the midst of talk that was leading up to a story,
Just before we came in, and the story, begun or
beginning,
Always began or ended with some one, or something
or other,
Having to do with the river. If one left the
wheel to the other,
Going off watch, he would say to his partner standing
behind him
With his hands stretched out for the spokes that
were not given up yet,
“Captain, you can tell them the thing I was
going to tell them
Better than I could, I reckon,” and then the
other would answer,
“Well, I don’t know as I feel so sure
of that, captain,” and having
Recognized each other so by that courtesy title
of captain
Never officially failed of without offense among
pilots,
One would subside into Jim and into Jerry the other.
It was on these terms, at least, Captain
Dunn relieved Captain Davis
When we had settled ourselves one day
to listen in comfort,
After some psychological subtleties we
had indulged in at breakfast
Touching that weird experience every one
knows when the senses
Juggle the points of the compass out of
true orientation,
Changing the North to the South, and the
East to the West. “Why, Jerry,
what
was it
You was going to tell them?” “Oh,
never you mind what it was, Jim.
You tell them something else,”
and so Captain Davis submitted,
While Captain Dunn, with a laugh, got
away beyond reach of his protest.
Then Captain Davis, with fitting, deprecatory
preamble,
Launched himself on a story that promised
to be all a story
Could be expected to be, when one of those
women you know them
Who interrupt on any occasion or none,
interrupted,
Pointed her hand, and asked, “Oh,
what is that island there, captain?”
“That one, ma’am?” He
gave her the name, and then the woman persisted,
“Don’t say you know them all
by sight!” “Yes, by sight or by feeling.”
“What do you mean by feeling?”
“Why, just that by daylight we see them,
And in the dark it’s like as if
somehow we felt them, I reckon.
Every foot of the channel and change in
it, wash-out and cave-in,
Every bend and turn of it, every sand-bar
and landmark,
Every island, of course, we have got to
see them, or feel them.”
“But if you don’t?”
“But we’ve got to.” “But
aren’t you ever mistaken?”
“Never the second time.”
“Now, what do you mean, Captain Davis?
Never the second time.” “Well,
let me tell you a story.
It’s not the one I begun, but that
island you asked about yonder
Puts me in mind of it, happens to be the
place where it happened,
Three years ago. I suppose no man
ever knew the Ohio
Better than Captain Dunlevy, if any one
else knew it like him.
Man and boy he had been pretty much his
whole life on the river:
Cabin-boy first on a keelboat before the
day of the steamboats,
Back in the pioneer times; and watchman
then on a steamboat;
Then second mate, and then mate, and then pilot and captain and owner
But he was proudest, I reckon, of being
about the best pilot
On the Ohio. He knew it as well as
he knew his own Bible,
And I don’t hardly believe that
ever Captain Dunlevy
Let a single day go by without reading
a chapter.”
While the pilot went on with his talk,
and in regular, rhythmical motion
Swayed from one side to the other before
his wheel, and we listened,
Certain typical facts of the picturesque
life of the river
Won their way to our consciousness as
without help of our senses.
It was along about the beginning of March,
but already
In the sleepy sunshine the budding maples
and willows,
Where they waded out in the shallow wash
of the freshet,
Showed the dull red and the yellow green
of their blossoms and catkins,
And in their tops the foremost flocks
of blackbirds debated
As to which they should colonize first.
The indolent house-boats
Loafing along the shore, sent up in silvery
spirals
Out of their kitchen pipes the smoke of
their casual breakfasts.
Once a wide tow of coal-barges, loaded
clear down to the gunwales,
Gave us the slack of the current, with
proper formalities shouted
By the hoarse-throated stern-wheeler that
pushed the black barges
before
her,
And as she passed us poured a foamy cascade
from her paddles.
Then, as a raft of logs, which the spread
of the barges had hidden,
River-wide, weltered in sight, with a
sudden jump forward the pilot
Dropped his whole weight on the spokes
of the wheel just in time to
escape
it.
“Always give those fellows,”
he joked, “all the leeway they ask for;
Worst kind of thing on the river you want
your boat to run into.
Where had I got about Captain Dunlevy?
Oh yes, I remember.
Well, when the railroads began to run
away from the steamboats,
Taking the carrying trade in the very
edge of the water,
It was all up with the old flush times,
and Captain Dunlevy
Had to climb down with the rest of us
pilots till he was only
Captain the same as any and every pilot
is captain,
Glad enough, too, to be getting his hundred
and twenty-five dollars
Through the months of the spring and fall
while navigation was open.
Never lowered himself, though, a bit from
captain and owner,
Knew his rights and yours, and never would
thought of allowing
Any such thing as a liberty from
you or taking one with you.
I had been his cub, and all that I knew
of the river
Captain Dunlevy had learnt me; and if
you know what the feeling
Is of a cub for the pilot that learns
him the river, you’ll trust me
When I tell you I felt it the highest
kind of an honor
Having him for my partner; and when I
came up to relieve him,
One day, here at the wheel, and actu’lly
thought that I found him
Taking that island there on the left,
I thought I was crazy.
No, I couldn’t believe my senses,
and yet I couldn’t endure it.
Seeing him climb the spokes of the wheel
to warp the Kanawha,
With the biggest trip of passengers ever
she carried,
Round on the bar at the left that fairly
stuck out of the water.
Well, as I said, he learnt me all that
I knew of the river,
And was I to learn him now which
side to take of an island
When I knew he knew it like his right
hand from his left hand?
My, but I hated to speak! It certainly
seemed like my tongue clove,
Like the Bible says, to the roof of my
mouth! But I had to.
‘Captain,’ I says, and it
seemed like another person was talking,
‘Do you usu’lly take that
island there on the eastward?’
‘Yes,’ he says, and he laughed,
’and I thought I had learnt you to do it,
When you was going up.’ ‘But
not going down, did you, captain?’
‘Down?’ And he whirled at
me, and, without ever stopping his laughing,
Turned as white as a sheet, and his eyes
fairly bulged from their
sockets.
Then he whirled back again, and looked
up and down on the river,
Like he was hunting out the shape of the
shore and the landmarks.
Well, I suppose the thing has happened
to every one sometime,
When you find the points of the compass
have swapped with each other,
And at the instant you’re looking,
the North and the South have changed
places.
I knew what was in his mind as
well as Dunlevy himself did.
Neither one of us spoke a word for nearly
a minute.
Then in a kind of whisper he says, ‘Take
the wheel, Captain Davis!’
Let the spokes fly, and while I made a
jump forwards to catch them,
Staggered into that chair well,
the very one you are in, ma’am.
Set there breathing quick, and, when he
could speak, all he said was,
‘This is the end of it for me on
the river, Jim Davis,’
Reached up over his head for his coat
where it hung by that window,
Trembled onto his feet, and stopped in
the door there a second,
Stared in hard like as if for good-by
to the things he was used to,
Shut the door behind him, and never come
back again through it.”
While we were silent, not liking to prompt
the pilot with questions,
“Well,” he said, at last,
“it was no use to argue. We tried it,
In the half-hearted way that people do
that don’t mean it.
Every one was his friend here on the Kanawha,
and we knew
It was the first time he ever had lost
his bearings, but he knew,
In such a thing as that, that the first
and the last are the same time.
When we had got through trying our worst
to persuade him, he only
Shook his head and says, ‘I am done
for, boys, and you know it,’
Left the boat at Wheeling, and left his life on the river
Left his life on the earth, you may say,
for I don’t call it living,
Setting there homesick at home for the
wheel he can never go back to.
Reads the river-news regular; knows just
the stage of the water
Up and down the whole way from Cincinnati
to Pittsburg;
Follows every boat from the time she starts
out in the spring-time
Till she lays up in the summer, and then
again in the winter;
Wants to talk all about her and who is
her captain and pilot;
Then wants to slide away to that everlastingly
puzzling
Thing that happened to him that morning
on the Kanawha
When he lost his bearings and North and South had changed places
No, I don’t call that living, whatever
the rest of you call it.”
We were silent again till that woman spoke
up, “And what was it,
Captain, that kept him from going back
and being a pilot?”
“Well, ma’am,” after
a moment the pilot patiently answered,
“I don’t hardly believe
that I could explain it exactly.”