Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells

by William Dean Howells

  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 whi
te 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.”

  THE RETURN TO FAVOR

  He never, by any chance, quite kept his word, though there was a moment in every case when he seemed to imagine doing what he said, and he took with mute patience the rakings which the ladies gave him when he disappointed them.

  Disappointed is not just the word, for the ladies did not really expect him to do what he said. They pretended to believe him when he promised, but at the bottom of their hearts they never did or could. He was gentle-mannered and soft-spoken, and when he set his head on one side, and said that a coat would be ready on Wednesday, or a dress on Saturday, and repeated his promise upon the same lady’s expressed doubt, she would catch her breath and say that now she absolutely must have it on the day named, for otherwise she would not have a thing to put on. Then he would become very grave, and his soft tenor would deepen to a bass of unimpeachable veracity, and he would say, “Sure, lady, you have it.”

  The lady would depart still doubting and slightly sighing, and he would turn to the customer who was waiting to have a button sewed on, or something like that, and ask him softly what it was he could do for him. If the customer offered him his appreciation of the case in hand, he would let his head droop lower, and in a yet deeper bass deplore the doubt of the ladies as an idiosyncrasy of their sex. He would make the customer feel that he was a favorite customer whose rights to a perfect fidelity of word and deed must by no means be tampered with, and he would have the button sewed on or the rip sewed up at once, and refuse to charge anything, while the customer waited in his shirt-sleeves in the small, stuffy shop opening directly from the street. When he tolerantly discussed the peculiarities of ladies as a sex, he would endure to be laughed at, “for sufferance was the badge of all his tribe,” and possibly he rather liked it.

  The favorite customer enjoyed being there when some lady came back on the appointed Wednesday or Saturday, and the tailor came soothingly forward and showed her into the curtained alcove where she was to try on the garments, and then called into the inner shop for them. The shirt-sleeved journeyman, with his unbuttoned waistcoat-front all pins and threaded needles, would appear in his slippers with the things barely basted together, and the tailor would take them, with an airy courage, as if they were perfectly finished, and go in behind the curtain where the lady was waiting in a dishabille which the favorite customer, out of reverence for the sex, forbore to picture to himself. Then sounds of volcanic fury would issue from the alcove. “Now, Mr. Morrison, you have lied to me again, deliberately lied. Didn’t I tell you I must have the things perfectly ready to-day? You see yourself that it will be another week before I can have my things.”

  “A week? Oh, madam! But I assure you—”

  “Don’t talk to me any more! It’s the last time I shall ever come to you, but I suppose I can’t take the work away from you as it is. When shall I have it?”

  “To-morrow. Yes, to-morrow noon. Sure!”

  “Now you know you are always out at noon. I should think you would be ashamed.”

  “If it hadn’t been for sickness in the family I would have finished your dress with my own hands. Sure I would. If you come here to-morrow noon you find your dress all ready for you.”

  “I know I won’t, but I will come, and you’d better have it ready.”

  “Oh, sure.”

  The lady then added some generalities of opprobrium with some particular criticisms of the garments. Her voice sank into dispassionate murmurs in these, but it rose again in her renewed sense of the wrong done her, and when she came from the alcove she went out of the street door purple. She reopened it to say, “Now, remember!” before she definitely disappeared.

  “Rather a stormy session, Mr. Morrison,” the customer said.

  “Something fierce,” Mr. Morrison sighed. But he did not seem much troubled, and he had one way with all his victims, no matter what mood they came or went in.

  One day the customer was by when a kind creature timidly upbraided him. “This is the third time you’ve disappointed me, Mr. Morrison. I really wish you wouldn’t promise me unless you mean to do it. I don’t think it’s right for you.”

  “Oh, but sure, madam! The things will be done, sure. We had a strike on us.”

  “Well, I will trust you once more,” the kind creature said.

  “You can depend on me, madam, sure.”

  When she was gone the customer said: “I wonder you do that sort of thing, Mr. Morrison. You can’t be surprised at their behaving rustily with you if you never keep your word.”

  “Why, I assure you there are times when I don’t know where to look, the way they go on. It is something awful. You ought to hear them once. And now they want the wote.” He rearranged some pieces of tumbled goods at the table where the customer sat, and put together the disheveled leaves of the fashion-papers which looked as if the ladies had scattered them in their rage.

  One day the customer heard two ladies waiting for their disappointme
nts in the outer room while the tailor in the alcove was trying to persuade a third lady that positively her things would be sent home the next day before dark. The customer had now formed the habit of having his own clothes made by the tailor, and his system in avoiding disappointment was very simple. In the early fall he ordered a spring suit, and in the late spring it was ready. He never had any difficulty, but he was curious to learn how the ladies managed, and he listened with all his might while these two talked.

  “I always wonder we keep coming,” one of them said.

  “I’ll tell you why,” the other said. “Because he’s cheap, and we get things from a fourth to a third less than we can get them anywhere else. The quality is first rate, and he’s absolutely honest. And, besides, he’s a genius. The wretch has touch. The things have a style, a look, a hang! Really it’s something wonderful. Sure it iss,” she ended in the tailor’s accent, and then they both laughed and joined in a common sigh.

  “Well, I don’t believe he means to deceive any one.”

  “Oh, neither do I. I believe he expects to do everything he says. And one can’t help liking him even when he doesn’t.”

  “He’s a good while getting through with her,” the first lady said, meaning the unseen lady in the alcove.

  “She’ll be a good while longer getting through with him, if he hasn’t them ready the next time,” the second lady said.

  But the lady in the alcove issued from it with an impredicable smile, and the tailor came up to the others, and deferred to their wishes with a sort of voiceless respect.

  He gave the customer a glance of good-fellowship, and said to him, radiantly: “Your things all ready for you, this morning. As soon as I—”

  “Oh, no hurry,” the customer responded.

  “I won’t be a minute,” the tailor said, pulling the curtain of the alcove aside, and then there began those sounds of objurgation and expostulation, although the ladies had seemed so amiable before.

  The customer wondered if they did not all enjoy it; the ladies in their patience under long trial, and the tailor in the pleasure of practising upon it. But perhaps he did believe in the things he promised. He might be so much a genius as to have no grasp of facts; he might have thought that he could actually do what he said.

  The customer’s question on these points found answer when one day the tailor remarked, as it were out of a clear sky, that he had sold his business; sold it to the slippered journeyman who used to come in his shirt-sleeves, with his vest-front full of pins and needles, bringing the basted garments to be tried on the ladies who had been promised them perfectly finished.