LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI, Part 3.
BY MARK TWAIN
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII. CHAPTER XIII. CHAPTER XIV. CHAPTER XV. |
Chapter 11
The River Rises
DURING this big rise these small-fry craft were an intolerablenuisance. We were running chute after chute,—a new world tome,—and if there was a particularly cramped place in a chute, wewould be pretty sure to meet a broad-horn there; and if he failedto be there, we would find him in a still worse locality, namely,the head of the chute, on the shoal water. And then there wouldbe no end of profane cordialities exchanged.
Sometimes, in the big river, when we would be feeling our waycautiously along through a fog, the deep hush would suddenly bebroken by yells and a clamor of tin pans, and all in instant alog raft would appear vaguely through the webby veil, close uponus; and then we did not wait to swap knives, but snatched ourengine bells out by the roots and piled on all the steam we had,to scramble out of the way! One doesn't hit a rock or a solid logcraft with a steamboat when he can get excused.
You will hardly believe it, but many steamboat clerks alwayscarried a large assortment of religious tracts with them in thoseold departed steamboating days. Indeed they did. Twenty times aday we would be cramping up around a bar, while a string of thesesmall-fry rascals were drifting down into the head of the