During The Brief Remainder Of The Trip, I Knew How An Emancipated Slave
Feels; For I Was An Emancipated Slave Myself.
While we lay at landings,
I listened to George Ealer's flute; or to his readings from his two
bibles,
That is to say, Goldsmith and Shakespeare; or I played chess
with him - and would have beaten him sometimes, only he always took back
his last move and ran the game out differently.
Chapter 20 A Catastrophe
WE lay three days in New Orleans, but the captain did not succeed in
finding another pilot; so he proposed that I should stand a daylight
watch, and leave the night watches to George Ealer. But I was afraid; I
had never stood a watch of any sort by myself, and I believed I should
be sure to get into trouble in the head of some chute, or ground the
boat in a near cut through some bar or other. Brown remained in his
place; but he would not travel with me. So the captain gave me an order
on the captain of the 'A. T. Lacey,' for a passage to St. Louis, and
said he would find a new pilot there and my steersman's berth could then
be resumed. The 'Lacey' was to leave a couple of days after the
'Pennsylvania.'
The night before the 'Pennsylvania' left, Henry and I sat chatting on a
freight pile on the levee till midnight. The subject of the chat,
mainly, was one which I think we had not exploited before - steamboat
disasters.
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