With A Will, Men!' The Cub
Enjoys Sounding For The Further Reason That The Eyes Of The Passengers
Are
Watching all the yawl's movements with absorbing interest if the
time be daylight; and if it be night he knows
That those same wondering
eyes are fastened upon the yawl's lantern as it glides out into the
gloom and dims away in the remote distance.
One trip a pretty girl of sixteen spent her time in our pilot-house with
her uncle and aunt, every day and all day long. I fell in love with
her. So did Mr. Thornburg's cub, Tom G - - . Tom and I had been bosom
friends until this time; but now a coolness began to arise. I told the
girl a good many of my river adventures, and made myself out a good deal
of a hero; Tom tried to make himself appear to be a hero, too, and
succeeded to some extent, but then he always had a way of embroidering.
However, virtue is its own reward, so I was a barely perceptible trifle
ahead in the contest. About this time something happened which promised
handsomely for me: the pilots decided to sound the crossing at the head
of 21. This would occur about nine or ten o'clock at night, when the
passengers would be still up; it would be Mr. Thornburg's watch,
therefore my chief would have to do the sounding. We had a perfect love
of a sounding-boat - long, trim, graceful, and as fleet as a greyhound;
her thwarts were cushioned; she carried twelve oarsmen; one of the mates
was always sent in her to transmit orders to her crew, for ours was a
steamer where no end of 'style' was put on.
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