Old Times on the Mississippi (2023)

The first installment in a seven-part series about the author’s youthful training as a riverboat pilot

By Mark Twain
Old Times on the Mississippi (1)
(Video) Old Times on the Mississippi. By Mark Twain. Full Audiobook.

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(Video) Old Times on the Mississippi by Mark TWAIN read by John Greenman | Full Audio Book

This is part one of a seven-part series.
Read part two here, part three here, part four here,
part five here, part six here, and part seven here.

I.

When I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was, to be a steamboatman. We had transient ambitions of other sorts, but they were only transient. When a circus came and went, it left us all burning to become clowns; the first negro minstrel show that came to our section left us all suffering to try that kind of life; now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates. These ambitions faded out, each in its turn; but the ambition to be a steamboatman always remained.

Once a day a cheap, gaudy packet arrived upward from St. Louis, and another downward from Keokuk. Before these events had transpired, the day was glorious with expectancy; after they had transpired, the day was a dead and empty thing. Not only the boys, but the whole village, felt this. After all these years I can picture that old time to myself now, just as it was then: the white town drowsing in the sunshine of a summer’s morning; the streets empty, or pretty nearly so; one or two clerks sitting in front of the Water Street stores, with their splint-bottomed chairs tilted back against the wall, chins on breasts, hats slouched over their faces, asleep—with shingle-shavings enough around to show what broke them down; a sow and a litter of pigs loafing along the sidewalk, doing a good business in water-melon rinds and seeds; two or three lonely little freight piles scattered about the “levee;” a pile of “skids” on the slope of the stone-paved wharf, and the fragrant town drunkard asleep in the shadow of them; two or three wood fiats at the head of the wharf, but nobody to listen to the peaceful lapping of the wavelets against them; the great Mississippi, the majestic, the magnificent Mississippi, rolling its mile-wide tide along, shining in the sun; the dense forest away on the other side; the “point” above the town, and the “point” below, bounding the river-glimpse and turning it into a sort of sea, and withal a very still and brilliant and lonely one. Presently a film of dark smoke appears above one of those remote “points;” instantly a negro drayman, famous for his quick eye and prodigious voice, lifts up the cry, “S-t-e-a-m-boat a-comin’!” and the scene changes! The town drunkard stirs, the clerks wake up, a furious clatter of drays follows, every house and store pours out a human contribution, and all in a twinkling the dead town is alive and moving. Drays, carts, men, boys, all go hurrying from many quarters to a common centre, the wharf. Assembled there, the people fasten their eyes upon the coming boat as upon a wonder they are seeing for the first time. And the boat is rather a handsome sight, too. She is long and sharp and trim and pretty; she has two tall, fancy-topped chimneys, with a gilded device of some kind swung between them; a fanciful pilot-house, all glass and “gingerbread” perched on top of the “texas” deck behind them; the paddle-boxes are gorgeous with a picture or with gilded rays above the boat’s name; the boiler deck, the hurricane deck, and the texas deck are fenced and ornamented with clean white railings; there is a flag gallantly flying from the jack-staff; the furnace doors are open and the fires glaring bravely; the upper decks are black with passengers; the captain stands by the big bell, calm, imposing, the envy of all; great volumes of the blackest smoke are rolling and tumbling out of the chimneys—a husbanded grandeur created with a bit of pitch pine just before arriving at a town; the crew are grouped on the forecastle; the broad stage is run far out over the port bow, and an envied deck-hand stands picturesquely on the end of it with a coil of rope in his hand; the pent steam is screaming through the gauge-cocks; the captain lifts his band, a bell rings, the wheels stop; then they turn back, churning the water to foam, and the steamer is at rest. Then such a scramble as there is to get aboard, and to get ashore, and to take in freight and to discharge freight, all at one and the same time; and such a yelling and cursing as the mates facilitate it all with! Ten minutes later the steamer is under way again, with no flag on the jack-staff and no black smoke issuing from the chimneys. After ten more minutes the town is dead again, and the town drunkard asleep by the skids once more.

(Video) The Mississippi Mass Choir - Old Time Church

My father was a justice of the peace, and I supposed he possessed the power of life and death over all men and could hang anybody that offended him. This was distinction enough for me as a general thing; but the desire to be a steamboatman kept intruding, nevertheless. I first wanted to be a cabin-boy, so that I could come out with a white apron on and shake a table-cloth over the side, where all my old comrades could see me; later I thought I would rather be the deck-hand who stood on the end of the stage-plank with the coil of rope in his hand, because he was particularly conspicuous. But these were only daydreams—they were too heavenly to be contemplated as real possibilities. By and by one of our boys went away. He was not heard of for a long time. At last he turned up as apprentice engineer or “striker” on a steamboat. This thing shook the bottom out of all my Sunday-school teachings. That boy had been notoriously worldly, and I just the reverse; yet he was exalted to this eminence, and I left in obscurity and misery. There was nothing generous about this fellow in his greatness. He would always manage to have a rusty bolt to scrub while his boat tarried at our town, and he would sit on the inside guard and scrub it, where we could all see him and envy him and loathe him. And whenever his boat was laid up he would come home and swell around the town in his blackest and greasiest clothes, so that nobody could help remembering that he was a steamboatman; and he used all sorts of steamboat technicalities in his talk, as if he were so used to them that he forgot common people could not understand them. He would speak of the “lab-board” side of a horse in an easy, natural way that would make one wish he was dead. And he was always talking about “St. Looy” like an old citizen; he would refer casually to occasions when he “was coming down Fourth Street,” or when he was passing by the Planter’s House, or when there was a fire and he took a turn on the brakes of “the old Big Missouri;” and then he would go on and lie about how many towns the size of ours were burned down there that day. Two or three of the boys had long been persons of consideration among us because they had been to St. Louis once and had a vague general knowledge of its wonders, but the day of their glory was over now. They lapsed into a humble silence, and learned to disappear when the ruthless “cub”-engineer approached. This fellow had money, too, and hair oil. Also an ignorant silver watch and a showy brass watch chain. He wore a leather belt and used no suspenders. If ever a youth was cordially admired and hated by his comrades, this one was. No girl could withstand his charms. He “cut out” every boy in the village. When his boat blew up at last, it diffused a tranquil contentment among us such as we had not known for months. But when he came home the next week, alive, renowned, and appeared in church all battered up and bandaged, a shining hero, stared at and wondered over by everybody, it seemed to us that the partiality of Providence for an undeserving reptile had reached a point where it was open to criticism.

This creature’s career could produce but one result, and it speedily followed. Boy after boy managed to get on the river. The minister’s son became an engineer. The doctor’s and the post-master’s sons became “mud clerks”; the wholesale liquor dealer’s son became a bar-keeper on a boat; four sons of the chief merchant, and two sons of the county judge, became pilots. Pilot was the grandest position of all. The pilot, even in those days of trivial wages, had a princely salary—from a hundred and fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars a month, and no board to pay. Two months of his wages would pay a preacher’s salary for a year. Now some of us were left disconsolate. We could not get on the river—at least our parents would not let us.

So by and by I ran, away. I said I never would come home again till I was a pilot and could come in glory. But somehow I could not manage it. I went meekly aboard a few of the boats that lay packed together like sardines at the long St. Louis wharf, and very humbly inquired for the pilots, but got only a cold shoulder and short words from mates and clerks. I had to make the best of this sort of treatment for the time being, but I had comforting day-dreams of a future when I should be a great and honored pilot, with plenty of money, and could kill some of these mates and clerks and pay for them.

Months afterward the hope within me struggled to a reluctant death, and I found myself without an ambition. But I was ashamed to go home. I was in Cincinnati, and I set to work to map out a new career. I had been reading about the recent exploration of the river Amazon by an expedition sent out by our government. It was said that the expedition, owing to difficulties, had not thoroughly explored a part of the country lying about the head-waters, some four thousand miles from the mouth of the river. It was only about fifteen hundred miles from Cincinnati to New Orleans, where I could doubtless get a ship. I had thirty dollars left; I would go and complete the exploration of the Amazon. This was all the thought I gave to the subject. I never was great in matters of detail. I packed my valise, and took passage on an ancient tub called the Paul Jones, for New Orleans. For the sum of sixteen dollars I had the scarred and tarnished splendors of “her” main saloon principally to myself, for she was not a creature to attract the eye of wiser travelers.

When we presently got under way and went poking down the broad Ohio, I became a new being, and the subject of my own admiration I was a traveler! A word never had tasted so good in my mouth before. I had an exultant sense of being bound for mysterious lands and distant climes which I never have felt in so uplifting a degree since. I was in such a glorified condition that all ignoble feelings departed out of me, and I was able to look down and pity the untraveled with a compassion that had hardly a trace of contempt in it. Still, when we stopped at villages and wood-yards, I could not help lolling carelessly upon the railings of the boiler deck to enjoy the envy of the country boys on the bank. If they did not seem to discover me, I presently sneezed to attract their attention, or moved to a position where they could not help seeing me. And as soon as I knew they saw me I gaped and stretched, and gave other signs of being mightily bored with traveling.

(Video) OLD TIMES ON THE MISSISSIPPI: Mark Twain - FULL AudioBook

I kept my hat off all the time, and stayed where the wind and the sun could strike me, because I wanted to get the bronzed and weather-beaten look of an old traveler. Before the second day was half gone, I experienced a joy which filled me with the purest gratitude; for I saw that the skin had begun to blister and peel off my face and neck. I wished that the boys and girls at home could see me now.

We reached Louisville in time—at least the neighborhood of it. We stuck hard and fast on the rocks in the middle of the river and lay there four days. I was now beginning to feel a strong sense of being a part of the boat’s family, a sort of infant son to the captain and younger brother to the officers. There is no estimating the pride I took in this grandeur, or the affection that began to swell and grow in me for those people. I could not know how the lordly steamboatman scorns that sort of presumption in a mere landsman. I particularly longed to acquire the least trifle of notice from the big stormy mate, and I was on the alert for an opportunity to do him a service to that end. It came at last. The riotous powwow of setting a spar was going on down on the forecastle, and I went down there and stood around in the way—or mostly skipping out of it—till the mate suddenly roared a general order for somebody to bring him a capstan bar. I sprang to his side and said: “Tell me where it is—I’ll fetch it!”

If a rag-picker had offered to do a diplomatic service for the Emperor of Russia, the monarch could not have been more astounded than the mate was. He even stopped swearing. He stood and stared down at me. it took him ten seconds to scrape his disjointed remains together again. Then he said impressively: “Well, if this don’t beat hell!” and turned to his work with the air of a man who had been confronted with a problem too abstruse for solution.

I crept away, and courted solitude for the rest of the day. I did not go to dinner; I stayed away from supper until everybody else had finished. I did not feel so much like a member of the boat’s family now as before. However, my spirits returned, in installments, as we pursued our way down the river. I was sorry I hated the mate so, because it was not in (young) human nature not to admire him. He was huge and muscular, his face was bearded and whiskered all over; he had a red woman and a blue woman tattooed on his right arm, one on each side of a blue anchor with a red rope to it; and in the matter of profanity he was perfect. When he was getting out cargo at a landing, I was always where I could see and hear. He felt all the sublimity of his great position, and made the world feel it, too. When he gave even the simplest order, he discharged it like a blast of lightning, and sent a long, reverberating peal of profanity thundering after it. I could not help contrasting the way in which the average landsman would give an order, with the mate’s way of doing it. If the landsman should wish the gang-plank moved a foot farther forward, he would probably say: “James, or William, one of you push that plank forward, please;” but put the mate in his place, and he would roar out: “Here, now, start that gang-plank for’ard! Lively, now! What’re you about! Snatch it! snatch it! There! there! Aft again! aft again! Don’t you hear me? Dash it to dash! are you going to sleep over it! ’Vast heaving. ’Vast heaving, I tell you! Going to heave it clear astern? WHERE’re you going with that barrel! for’ard with it ’fore I make you swallow it, you dash-dash-dash-dashed split between a tired mud-turtle and a crippled hearse-horse!”

I wished I could talk like that.

(Video) Mark Twain Old Times on the Mississippi - FULL AudioBook

When the soreness of my adventure with the mate had somewhat worn off, I began timidly to make up to the humblest official connected with the boat—the night watchman. He snubbed my advances at first, but I presently ventured to offer him a new chalk pipe, and that softened him. So he allowed me to sit with him by the big bell on the hurricane deck, and in time he melted into conversation. He could not well have helped it, I hung with such homage on his words and so plainly showed that I felt honored by his notice. He told me the names of dim capes and shadowy islands as we glided by them in the solemnity of the night, under the winking stars, and by and by got to talking about himself. He seemed over-sentimental for a man whose salary was six dollars a week—or rather he might have seemed so to an older person than I. But I drank in his words hungrily, and with a faith that might have moved mountains if it had been applied judiciously. What was it to me that he was soiled arid seedy and fragrant with gin? What was it to me that his grammar was bad, his construction worse, and his profanity so void of art that it was an element of weakness rather than strength in his conversation? He was a wronged man, a man who had seen trouble, and that was enough for me. As he mellowed into his plaintive history his tears dripped upon the lantern in his lap, and I cried, too, from sympathy. He said he was the son of an English nobleman—either an earl or an alderman, he could not remember which, but believed he was both; his father, the nobleman, loved him, but his mother hated him from the cradle; and so while he was still a little boy he was sent to “one of them old, ancient colleges”—he couldn’t remember which; and by and by his father died and his mother seized the property and “shook” him, as he phrased it. After his mother shook him, members of the nobility with whom he was acquainted used their influence to get him the position of “lob-lolly-boy in a ship;” and from that point my watchman threw off all trammels of date and locality and branched out into a narrative that bristled all along with incredible adventures; a narrative that was so reeking with bloodshed and so crammed with hair-breadth escapes and the most engaging and unconscious personal villainies, that I sat speechless, enjoying, shuddering, wondering, worshiping.

It was a sore blight to find out afterwards that he was a low, vulgar, ignorant, sentimental, half-witted humbug, an untraveled native of the wilds of Illinois, who had absorbed wildcat literature and appropriated its marvels, until in time he had woven odds and ends of the mess into this yarn, and then gone on telling it to fledgelings like me, until he had come to believe it himself.

This is part one of a seven-part series.
Read part two here, part three here, part four here,
part five here, part six here, and part seven here.

FAQs

What is the message of life on the Mississippi? ›

Part memoir and part fiction, Life on the Mississippi reflects themes of change and progress, both culturally and technologically. Two other strong themes are the power of observation and the value of travel as a learning experience.

What does Jim's strong dialect suggest about him? ›

What does Jim's strong dialect suggest about him? He likely has not had a formal education. What is the effect of Jim's dialogue in the story? It presents Jim's language as he really speaks.

What did Mark Twain say about the Mississippi? ›

"One who knows the Mississippi will promptly aver, not aloud but to himself, that ten thousand River Commissions, with all the mines of the world at their back, cannot tame that lawless stream, cannot curb it or confine it, cannot say to it, Go here, or Go there, and make it obey; cannot save a shore that it has ...

What job did all of the boys want in life on the Mississippi? ›

In the chapter The Boys' Ambition, he writes about how every boy's continuing ambition was to be a steamboatman. They liked the adventure of the position. A steamboatman was worldly, he knew all about places that normal people could only dream about.

What does the steamboat symbolize in Life on the Mississippi? ›

Graceful and majestic, steamboat dominates Mississippi imagery and representation as both a promise of the river's power and future and a nostalgic memory of its lost past.

What is the most important thing in Mississippi? ›

What Is Mississippi Known For. Mississippi is known for being the birthplace of American blues music and home to many talented musicians. It is also famous for its fertile soil, which makes it an agricultural powerhouse, as well as for its catfish farming industry.

What lesson does Jim teach Huck? ›

Jim teaches him how to be a hero." In discussing the climax of the book, you may want to explore the idea that the climax comes when Huck apologizes to Jim.

What does Jim symbolize in Huck Finn? ›

In Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Jim is a slave who shows compassion for Huck and creates a moral dilemma for him. He is also Twain's symbol for the anti-slavery message.

What is Jim's motto and what does it mean? ›

motto, Maggiore fretta, minore atto. Got it out of a book — means the more haste the less speed. An illustration of Jim's Coat of Arms from Las Aventuras De Huckleberry Finn.

What is an important quote from Life on the Mississippi? ›

Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates. There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

What is Mark Twain most famous quote? ›

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.

What were the last words of Great Men Twain? ›

Then recognising that he was not equal to carrying on a conversation he wrote with a pencil, "Give me my glasses." These were his last words.

What is a steamboat pilot? ›

Steamboat Pilot was a weekly newspaper established in Steamboat Springs, Colorado and first printed on July 31, 1885, by James Hoyle. It merged with The Routt County Sentinel in 1927, and later with The Oak-Creek Times-Leader in 1944.

Why Life on the Mississippi is a memoir? ›

Book details

Life on the Mississippi (1883) is a memoir by Mark Twain of his days as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War, and also a travel book, recounting his trip along the Mississippi River from St. Louis to New Orleans many years after the War.

What is the boys ambition life on the Mississippi about? ›

Mark Twain's short story “The Boys' Ambition” depicts the arrival of a riverboat ina lonely Mississippi river town from the perspective of a young boy for whom the event could not be more thrilling and wondrous.

What does two fathoms deep mean? ›

It meant the water was two fathoms (12 feet) deep. A fathom was a unit of measure- ment the length of a man's outstretched arms (approximately 6 feet). Twain is an archaic term for the number two, so Mark Twain means “mark two.”

What does the river symbolize in Life on the Mississippi? ›

The Mississippi River is symbolic of growth, as well as decline. It marks Twain's growth from a child wanting to pilot a steamboat to a man who learns firsthand how to do so.

What is the most important thing the Mississippi River symbolizes? ›

For Huck and Jim, the Mississippi River is the ultimate symbol of freedom. Alone on their raft, they do not have to answer to anyone. The river carries them toward freedom: for Jim, toward the free states; for Huck, away from his abusive father and the restrictive “sivilizing” of St. Petersburg.

What are 3 things Mississippi is famous for? ›

Mississippi is known for:
  • Catfish.
  • Cotton.
  • Abundance of wildlife, including turkey, deer, and alligators.
  • Bluegrass music.
  • Southern Charm.
Jan 30, 2023

What is the motto of Mississippi? ›

Mississippi's Coat-of-Arms was adopted in 1894. Inscribed on the scroll is the state motto - Virtute et Armis - “By Valor and Arms.”

What does Huck apologize to Jim for? ›

And Huck could only think about making a fool out of Jim with a lie and shaming him. When he hears all this, Huck is himself ashamed. At last, after working himself up to humble himself to a black person, Huck apologizes to Jim, and feels no regret.

Why did Jim run away? ›

Jim had run away because he had overheard Miss Watson considering selling him to a plantation in the South, which would force him to be separated from his family. Thus, the pair continue down the Mississippi river, avoiding other people because a reward has been offered for Jim's capture.

Why does Huck not turn Jim in? ›

However, Jim's comment that Huck is the only white man ever to keep his word to him shows that Huck has been treating Jim not as a slave but as a man. This newfound knowledge, along with Huck's guilt, keep Huck from turning Jim in.

What is the irony in Huckleberry Finn? ›

Miss Watson claims to live her life well so she can go to heaven. The irony is that, despite her claims of goodness, she owns slaves. She even plans to sell Jim down the river, away from his family, though she has always promised him she never would. Her reasoning is simply that the money is too good to pass up.

What two names does Jim call Huck? ›

The old man then reveals his true identity as the dauphin, the long lost son of King Louis XVI of France. Huck and Jim then wait on the men and call them “Duke” and “Your Majesty,” respectively.

What was Huck's promise to Jim? ›

Huck's guilt swirls around him until he promises himself that as soon as they see the first light on shore, he will paddle in and tell. Even though Jim will go back to slavery, Huck feels this is the right thing to do.

What happened to Jim at the end of Huckleberry Finn? ›

Jim gives up his freedom to help nurse Tom back to health, and is taken back to the plantation in chains. Upon waking up, Tom admits that he knew Jim was free the whole time, and Jim is released.

What are Jim's superstitions in Huck Finn? ›

The novel contains many superstitions, including Huck's belief that spiders portend bad luck, Jim's belief that bees must be told before sunrise if their beekeeper has died, and Jim's belief that touching a snake will bring him bad luck because he is bitten by a rattlesnake after touching a snakeskin.

Is Jim's daughter deaf? ›

Jim is torn apart when he hears a thud in the distance that reminds him of the time he beat his daughter Lizabeth for not doing what he told her to do. When he was beating her, Jim didn't realize that Lizabeth couldn't hear his instructions because a bout with scarlet fever had left her deaf.

What is the main message of Mississippi Solo? ›

The story Mississippi Solo is about the author, Eddy Harris, and his experience on the river. He needed to take a break from his everyday life and his idea of a break is spending time in nature.

What was the goal of the Mississippi campaign? ›

Mississippi Valley Campaign, the campaigns and battles of the American Civil War that were fought for control of the Mississippi River. Western waterways were major arteries of communication and commerce for the South, as well as a vital link to the Confederate states of Louisiana and Texas.

What is the main idea of Mississippi Solo? ›

Mississippi Solo tells the story of one man's voyage by canoe down the Mississippi River from its source in Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico – a longtime dream, and a journey of over 2,000 miles through the heart of America.

What is the main idea of Cub pilot on the Mississippi? ›

The central idea of this short story is that you have to fight what you want in life. The main character fights Brown because what he is doing is wrong. In return Brown gets kicked off. Since he stood up for what he thinks is right, he becomes a pilot on the steamboat.

Videos

1. Old Times on the Mississippi by Mark Twain ~ Full Audiobook
(Classic Audiobook Collection)
2. Old Times on the Mississippi Full Audiobook by Mark TWAIN by Non-fiction, Travel & Geography
(Full Audiobooks)
3. Mark Twain Old Times on the Mississippi
(Herbert Hackleman)
4. Old Times on the Mississippi by Mark Twain #audiobook
(Audiobook)
5. Experiencing Racism in Segregated Mississippi in the 1960s | Iowans Return to Freedom Summer
(Iowa PBS)
6. This Mississippi Racist Hated Black Music & Said So
(David Hoffman)
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