RIVER DAYS
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
83
