ON THAT VOYAGE, MEETING HIM on several occasions, I told him, in some detail, more about my father’s business dealings — he seemed particularly interested by Mr. Stanley’s trade in Cuba, for it seemed to him another of those places where an adventurous and resourceful man could do well for himself. The name of that island sparkled in his mind with the allure of other distant places — from Brazil to China — places that he, with his unabated wanderlust, hoped to see one day for himself: “As much as I enjoy the kingly and unfettered position of riverboat pilot, and the good wages, I can’t imagine staying put in one place for long when there is so much of the world to be visited.” And he would ask me a great many questions about England — another place of legend in his mind — home to Shakespeare and Milton.
“With ink in my veins, it would be a surely fine proposition to write of such places, but I’ve got to get the Mississippi out of my system first — I suppose I will, sooner or later.”
In those days I came to respect and admire him, for he was a largely self-taught man — and far more intelligent than most one would ever hope to meet, his memory, like my own, “sharp as tacks,” as he would put it. Among the subjects we good-naturedly discussed on such evenings were the origins of chess, which was apparently an Arab innovation passed on to the Europeans during the Crusades. He thought it the best thing to have come out of those conflicts besides the introduction of the orange to the West. In his affable way, he told me that he had once been hit in the head by an orange that had fallen out of a tree—“To think that we have the Crusades to thank for that!” he said. Then, too, in the way that we spoke of many arcane things, he marveled at the invention of the compass and other such intricate objects, including clocks. He always carried a watch, which he kept in his vest pocket, and he loved to look at it. The tiny gears and latches and springs were of such fascination to him that he could not help but pry open the back of the metal shell to show me the mechanisms. He then held forth on the history of clocks, marveling at the leap from sundial to hourglass to water clock, which somehow led to the marvelous modern invention. Machinery in general fascinated him, and he wondered aloud whether such clocklike mechanisms could be applied to the process of printing. Before becoming a steamboat pilot, he had experienced firsthand the dreary careers of compositor and typesetter; altogether, it was as if he believed that many of mankind’s problems could be solved through mechanical techniques. I thought him clearly some kind of natural genius.
Such musings led, by and by — a phrase he often used — to further discussions of theology. It seemed to him that the whole of the heavens functioned under one “inventive” intelligence, in the way that the gears of clocks have their own unwavering patterns. The few times I tried to expound the religious point of view he would snort or snore, as the man had no patience for such ideas; though he allowed that the order of the universe could not be an accident or the result of arbitrary events—“What that amounts to, I cannot say.”
It happened that he had recently read portions of a book by someone named Darwin called The Origin of Species, which held that modern man was derived from the apes. Based on his experience with men — no better than apes — he had no trouble believing this. I often laughed as he held forth, turning every thought into a matter of humor, a skill that intrigued me. He seemed to find it impossible to take his own erudition seriously — I thought him far better cultured and knowledgeable than most men, save for Mr. Stanley, yet he seemed to have a disdain for pretension: “I am just a lucky fellow from Hannibal, Missouri, nurtured by the dreams that come with growing up on the banks of a great river, the Mississippi. If there’s a heaven, it’s behind us, in early youth… mine was a paradise, to be sure.”
On several occasions during the day, he would come looking for me in the general meeting rooms, where I often sat beside Mr. Stanley and some businessmen, drawing up invoices and making entries into our accounting ledger books as my father went about his commerce. Usually, if he saw that I was occupied, Clemens would simply tip his cap at me, but one afternoon, as I had wanted him to make the acquaintance of Mr. Stanley, I asked him to join us. My father was cordial enough, commending Mr. Clemens for his many skills and thanking him for having taken an interest in me.
“Well, sir,” Mr. Clemens said, “you have a fine boy on your hands.”
“And he has spoken highly of your befriending him.”
They shook hands, my father looming over Clemens, the pilot looking him over carefully and coming to some appraisal of mind.
“Well, good day,” Clemens said.
Afterward, gentlemanly as he had been with Mr. Clemens, my father looked at me askance, and he shook his head ever so slightly, as if to remind me of the discussions we had had in the cabin about the dangers of assuming friendships with strangers on riverboats.
“Just remember,” he told me. “Riverboats are places for commerce and fleeting relations; a hundred other men you will befriend before long, and few, if any, will care for you as I do.” It had not helped that I had let drop, in my description of his character, that Mr. Clemens was not one for religious thoughts: “Such men, fine as they may be in many other respects, are lacking in the fundamental virtues. To mingle with such folks can only have a detrimental effect on your own pious thoughts; to be in the company of doubters is to open the door to doubt itself,” he told me one night in our cabin.
“Your job,” he continued with bite in his voice, “is to care after the books and accounts and to make all the arrangements pertaining to what dealings I undertake: whereas mine is to create a congenial atmosphere for such things to happen.”
The very afternoon he met Clemens, my father and his business acquaintances had sat drinking steadily between the hours of noon and five o’clock, at which point I had to escort him from that public room to our cabin. It was a remarkable thing to see how such a profound change of personality could take place because of these liquors, for the very man who, at some riverside settlements, felt the need to gather a crowd around him and speak of the “Word,” and who had often mentioned how proud he felt that I was his son, told me that his business was his own and that it would be best for me to keep my objections over “some harmless social tippling” to myself. Mindful of my promise to his wife, as she lay like an angel on her deathbed, I told Mr. Stanley that, as he had saved me from some inglorious fate, I would save him from his own lapses, no matter his objections. For a moment, my words seemed to have a good effect upon him. He sat on his bed.
“Just allow me some peace… leave me alone in my mourning.” Then: “Go off and do as you please — and forget all this, for whatever I am now, I will be as sound and good as I have ever been tomorrow.”
IN A STATE OF PUZZLEMENT, and in a low spirit, I made my way out onto the boiler deck, my mind too troubled to attend to my usual studies: My hands were shaking. Wandering up to the wheelhouse, I found Clemens at his post, and while I felt too ashamed to mention the momentary disharmony in my life, he was in a lively mood.
“Come and join me, my friend,” he said. “And take the wheel, Henry: Hold it steady as we go.” Then, as we approached a broadening of the river, he said: “Tug the wheel slightly downward and to your left.” As I began to turn the wheel downward — its enormous weight and the force necessary to move it surprising me — the steamer, heading out over clear waters, glided west. I was not long there at that wheel, but my successful operation of the craft, momentary as it had been, proved salutary to my soul.