Horace Bixby, answering a call for pilots from the Missouri River, consigned his pupil, as was customary, tonne of the pilots of the “John J. Roe,” a freight-boat, owned and conducted by some retired farmers, and in its hospitality reminding Sam of his Uncle John Quarles’s farm.  The “Roe” was a very deliberate boat.  It was said that she could beat an island to St. Louis, but never quite overtake the current going down-stream.  Sam loved the “Roe.”  She was not licensed to carry passengers, but she always had a family party of the owners’ relations aboard, and there was a big deck for dancing and a piano in the cabin.  The young pilot could play the chords, and sing, in his own fashion, about a grasshopper that; sat on a sweet-potato vine, and about—­

   An old, old horse whose name was Methusalem,
   Took him down and sold him in Jerusalem,
   A long time ago.

The “Roe” was a heavenly place, but Sam’s stay there did not last.  Bixby came down from the Missouri, and perhaps thought he was doing a fine thing for his pupil by transferring him to a pilot named Brown, then on a large passenger-steamer, the “Pennsylvania.”  The “Pennsylvania” was new and one of the finest boats on the river.  Sam Clemens, by this time, was accounted a good steersman, so it seemed fortunate and a good arrangement for all parties.

But Brown was a tyrant.  He was illiterate and coarse, and took a dislike to Sam from the start.  His first greeting was a question, harmless enough in form but offensive in manner.

“Are you Horace Bigsby’s cub?”—­Bixby being usually pronounced “Bigsby” in river parlance.

Sam answered politely enough that he was, and Brown proceeded to comment on the “style” of his clothes and other personal matters.

He had made an effort to please Brown, but it was no use.  Brown was never satisfied.  At a moment when Sam was steering, Brown, sitting on the bench, would shout:  “Here!  Where are you going now?  Pull her down!  Pull her down!  Do you hear me?  Blamed mud-cat!”

The young pilot soon learned to detest his chief, and presently was putting in a good deal of his time inventing punishments for him.

I could imagine myself killing Brown; there was no law against that, and that was the thing I always used to do the moment I was abed.  Instead of going over the river in my mind, as was my duty, I threw business aside for pleasure, and killed Brown.

He gave up trying to please Brown, and was even willing to stir him up upon occasion.  One day when the cub was at the wheel his chief noticed that the course seemed peculiar.

“Here!  Where you headin’ for now?” he yelled.  “What in the nation you steerin’ at, anyway?  Blamed numskull!”

“Why,” said Sam in his calm, slow way, “I didn’t see much else I could steer for, so I was heading for that white heifer on the bank.”

“Get away from that wheel!  And get outen this pilot-house!” yelled Brown.  “You ain’t fitten to become no pilot!” An order that Sam found welcome enough.  The other pilot, George Ealer, was a lovable soul who played the flute and chess during his off watch, and read aloud to Sam from “Goldsmith” and “Shakespeare.”  To be with George Ealer was to forget the persecutions of Brown.