By long habit, pilots came to put all their wishes in the form of commands.  It ‘gravels’ me, to this day, to put my will in the weak shape of a request, instead of launching it in the crisp language of an order.  In those old days, to load a steamboat at St. Louis, take her to New Orleans and back, and discharge cargo, consumed about twenty-five days, on an average.  Seven or eight of these days the boat spent at the wharves of St. Louis and New Orleans, and every soul on board was hard at work, except the two pilots; they did nothing but play gentleman up town, and receive the same wages for it as if they had been on duty.  The moment the boat touched the wharf at either city, they were ashore; and they were not likely to be seen again till the last bell was ringing and everything in readiness for another voyage.

When a captain got hold of a pilot of particularly high reputation, he took pains to keep him.  When wages were four hundred dollars a month on the Upper Mississippi, I have known a captain to keep such a pilot in idleness, under full pay, three months at a time, while the river was frozen up.  And one must remember that in those cheap times four hundred dollars was a salary of almost inconceivable splendor.  Few men on shore got such pay as that, and when they did they were mightily looked up to.  When pilots from either end of the river wandered into our small Missouri village, they were sought by the best and the fairest, and treated with exalted respect.  Lying in port under wages was a thing which many pilots greatly enjoyed and appreciated; especially if they belonged in the Missouri River in the heyday of that trade (Kansas times), and got nine hundred dollars a trip, which was equivalent to about eighteen hundred dollars a month.  Here is a conversation of that day.  A chap out of the Illinois River, with a little stern-wheel tub, accosts a couple of ornate and gilded Missouri River pilots—­

’Gentlemen, I’ve got a pretty good trip for the upcountry, and shall want you about a month.  How much will it be?’

‘Eighteen hundred dollars apiece.’

’Heavens and earth!  You take my boat, let me have your wages, and I’ll divide!’

I will remark, in passing, that Mississippi steamboatmen were important in landsmen’s eyes (and in their own, too, in a degree) according to the dignity of the boat they were on.  For instance, it was a proud thing to be of the crew of such stately craft as the ‘Aleck Scott’ or the ’Grand Turk.’  Negro firemen, deck hands, and barbers belonging to those boats were distinguished personages in their grade of life, and they were well aware of that fact too.  A stalwart darkey once gave offense at a negro ball in New Orleans by putting on a good many airs.  Finally one of the managers bustled up to him and said—­

‘Who is you, any way?  Who is you? dat’s what I wants to know!’

The offender was not disconcerted in the least, but swelled himself up and threw that into his voice which showed that he knew he was not putting on all those airs on a stinted capital.