WHEN I was a boy, there
was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village {footnote [1.
Hannibal, Missouri]} on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was, to be
a steamboatman. We had transient ambitions of other sorts, but they were only
transient.
When a circus came and
went, it left us all burning to become clowns; the first negro minstrel show
that came to our section left us all suffering to try that kind of life; now
and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to
be pirates. These ambitions faded out, each in its turn; but the ambition to be
a steamboatman always remained.
Once a day a cheap,
gaudy packet arrived upward from St. Louis, and another downward from Keokuk.
Before these events, the day was glorious with expectancy; after them, the day
was a dead and empty thing. Not only the boys, but the whole village, felt
this. After all these years I can picture that old time to myself now, just as
it was then: the white town drowsing in the sunshine of a summer's morning; the
streets empty, or pretty nearly so; one or two clerks sitting in front of the
Water Street stores, with their splint-bottomed chairs tilted back against the
wall, chins on breasts, hats slouched over their faces, asleep-- with
shingle-shavings enough around to show what broke them down; a sow and a litter
of pigs loafing along the sidewalk, doing a good business in watermelon rinds
and seeds; two or three lonely little freight piles scattered about the
'levee;' a pile of 'skids' on the slope of the stone-paved wharf, and the
fragrant town drunkard asleep in the shadow of them; two or three wood flats at
the head of the wharf, but nobody to listen to the peaceful lapping of the
wavelets against them; the great Mississippi, the majestic, the magnificent
Mississippi, rolling its mile-wide tide along, shining in the sun; the dense forest
away on the other side; the 'point' above the town, and the 'point' below,
bounding the river-glimpse and turning it into a sort of sea, and withal a very
still and brilliant and lonely one. Presently a film of dark smoke appears
above one of those remote 'points;' instantly a negro drayman, famous for his quick
eye and prodigious voice, lifts up the cry, 'S-t-e-a-m-boat a-comin'!' and the
scene changes! The town drunkard stirs,
the clerks wake up, a furious clatter of drays follows, every house and store
pours out a human contribution, and all in a twinkling the dead town is alive
and moving.
Drays, carts, men,
boys, all go hurrying from many quarters to a common center, the wharf. Assembled there, the people fasten their eyes
upon the coming boat as upon a wonder they are seeing for the first time. And
the boat IS rather a handsome sight, too. She is long and sharp and trim and
pretty; she has two tall, fancy-topped chimneys, with a gilded device of some
kind swung between them; a fanciful pilot-house, a glass and 'gingerbread',
perched on top of the 'texas' deck behind them; the paddle-boxes are gorgeous with
a picture or with gilded rays above the boat's name; the boiler deck, the hurricane
deck, and the texas deck are fenced and ornamented with clean white railings; there
is a flag gallantly flying from the jack-staff; the furnace doors are open and
the fires glaring bravely; the upper decks are black with passengers; the
captain stands by the big bell, calm, imposing, the envy of all; great volumes of
the blackest smoke are rolling and tumbling out of the chimneys--a husbanded
grandeur created with a bit of pitch pine just before arriving at a town; the
crew are grouped on the forecastle; the broad stage is run far out over the
port bow, and an envied deckhand stands picturesquely on the end of it with a coil
of rope in his hand; the pent steam is screaming through the gauge-cocks, the
captain lifts his hand, a bell rings, the wheels stop; then they turn back,
churning the water to foam, and the steamer is at rest. Then such a scramble as
there is to get aboard, and to get ashore, and to take in freight and to discharge
freight, all at one and the same time; and such a yelling and cursing as the
mates facilitate it all with! Ten
minutes later the steamer is under way again, with no flag on the jack-staff and
no black smoke issuing from the chimneys.
After ten more minutes the town is dead again, and the town drunkard
asleep by the skids once more.
Excerpted cited from Literature Network.
Isn’t that a lovely passage, full of imagery and pantomime?
I like the pictures you posted too. Are they from the book? Thank you Manny.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
Yes. Though I found them on Google Images, I believe the original source was from an early edition of Twain's book. Thanks for coming by Victor M.
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