Life on the Mississippi - Mark Twain [84]
“That boat was the Cyclone—last trip she ever made—she sunk, that very trip—captain was Tom Ballou, the most immortal liar that ever I struck. He couldn’t ever seem to tell the truth, in any kind of weather. Why, he would make you fairly shudder. He was the most scandalous liar! I left him, finally; I couldn’t stand it. The proverb says, ‘Like master, like man’; and if you stay with that kind of a man, you’ll come under suspicion by and by, just as sure as you live. He paid first-class wages; but said I, What’s wages when your reputation’s in danger? So I let the wages go, and froze to my reputation. And I’ve never regretted it. Reputation’s worth everything, ain’t it? That’s the way I look at it. He had more selfish organs than any seven men in the world—all packed in the stern-sheets of his skull, of course, where they belonged. They weighed down the back of his head so that it made his nose tilt up in the air. People thought it was vanity, but it wasn’t, it was malice. If you only saw his foot, you’d take him to be nineteen feet high, but he wasn’t; it was because his foot was out of drawing. He was intended to be nineteen feet high, no doubt, if his foot was made first, but he didn’t get there, he was only five feet ten. That’s what he was, and that’s what he is. You take the lies out of him, and he’ll shrink to the size of your hat; you take the malice out of him, and he’ll disappear. That Cyclone was a rattler to go, and the sweetest thing to steer that ever walked the waters. Set her amidships, in a big river, and just let her go; it was all you had to do. She would hold herself on a star all night, if you let her alone. You couldn’t ever feel her rudder. It wasn’t any more labor to steer her than it is to count the Republican vote in a South Carolina election. One morning, just at daybreak, the last trip she ever made, they took her rudder aboard to mend it; I didn’t know anything about it; I backed her out from the woodyard and went a-weaving down the river all serene. When I had gone about twenty-three miles, and made four horribly crooked crossings—”
“Without any rudder?”
“Yes—old Capt. Tom appeared on the roof and began to find fault with me for running such a dark night—”
“Such a dark night?—Why, you said—”
“Never mind what I said—’twas as dark as Egypt now, though pretty soon the moon began to rise, and—”
“You mean the sun—because you started out just at break of—look here! Was this before you quitted the captain on account of his lying, or—”
“It was before—oh, a long time before. And as I was saying, he—”
“But was this the trip she sunk, or was—”
“Oh, no! Months afterward. And so the old man, he—”
“Then she made two last trips, because you said—”
He stepped back from the wheel, swabbing away his perspiration, and said—
“Here!” (calling me by name), “you take her and lie a while—you’re handier at it than I am. Trying to play yourself for a stranger and an innocent! Why, I knew you before you had spoken seven words; and I made up my mind to find out what was your little game. It was to draw me out. Well, I let you, didn’t I? Now take the wheel and finish the watch; and next time play fair, and you won’t have to work for passage.”
Thus ended the fictitious-name business. And not six hours out from St. Louis! But I had gained a privilege, anyway, for I had been itching to get my hands on the wheel, from the beginning. I seemed to have forgotten the river, but I hadn’t forgotten how to steer a steamboat, nor how to enjoy it, either.
CHAPTER XXV
From Cairo to Hickman
The scenery, from St. Louis to Cairo—two hundred miles—is varied and beautiful. The hills were clothed in the fresh foliage of spring now, and were a gracious and worthy setting for the broad river flowing between. Our trip began auspiciously, with a perfect day, as to breeze and sunshine, and our boat threw the miles out behind her with satisfactory dispatch.