. . .
Night--didn't run either 77 or 76 towheads--8-ft. bank on main shore
Ozark chute.
To the reader to-day it means little enough, but one may imagine,
perhaps, a mile-wide sweep of boiling water, full of drift, shifting
currents with newly forming bars, and a lone figure in the dark
pilot-house, peering into the night for blind and disappearing landmarks.
But such nights were not all there was of piloting. There were glorious
nights when the stars were blazing out, and the moon was on the water,
and the young pilot could follow a clear channel and dream long dreams.
He was very serious at such times--he reviewed the world's history he had
read, he speculated on the future, he considered philosophies, he lost
himself in a study of the stars. Mark Twain's love of astronomy, which
never waned until his last day, began with those lonely river watches.
Once a great comet blazed in the sky, a "wonderful sheaf of light," and
glorified his long hours at the wheel.
Samuel Clemens was now twenty-five, full of health and strong in his
courage. In the old notebook there remains a well-worn clipping, the
words of some unknown writer, which he may have kept as a sort of creed:
HOW TO TAKE LIFE.
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