He Could Throw A Sort Of Splendor
Around A Bit Of Harum-Scarum, Devil-May-Care Piloting, That Made It
Almost Fascinating - But Not To Everybody.
He made a trip with good old
Captain Y - - once, and was 'relieved' from duty when the boat got to New
Orleans.
Somebody expressed surprise at the discharge. Captain Y - -
shuddered at the mere mention of Stephen. Then his poor, thin old voice
piped out something like this: -
'Why, bless me! I wouldn't have such a wild creature on my boat for the
world - not for the whole world! He swears, he sings, he whistles, he
yells - I never saw such an Injun to yell. All times of the night - it
never made any difference to him. He would just yell that way, not for
anything in particular, but merely on account of a kind of devilish
comfort he got out of it. I never could get into a sound sleep but he
would fetch me out of bed, all in a cold sweat, with one of those
dreadful war-whoops. A queer being - very queer being; no respect for
anything or anybody. Sometimes he called me "Johnny." And he kept a
fiddle, and a cat. He played execrably. This seemed to distress the
cat, and so the cat would howl. Nobody could sleep where that man - and
his family - was. And reckless. There never was anything like it. Now
you may believe it or not, but as sure as I am sitting here, he brought
my boat a-tilting down through those awful snags at Chicot under a
rattling head of steam, and the wind a-blowing like the very nation, at
that!
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