im, and never come back again through it."
While we were silent, not liking to prompt the pilot with questions,
"Well," he said, at last, "it was no use to argue. We tried it,
In the half-hearted way that people do that don't mean it.
Every one was his friend here on the _Kanawha_, and _we_ knew
It was the first time he ever had lost his bearings, but _he_ knew,
In such a thing as that, that the first and the last are the same time.
When we had got through trying our worst to persuade him, he only
Shook his head and says, 'I am done for, boys, and you know it,'
Left the boat at Wheeling, and left his life on the river--
Left his life on the earth, you may say, for I don't call it living,
Setting there homesick at home for the wheel he can never go back to.
Reads the river-news regular; knows just the stage of the water
Up and down the whole way from Cincinnati to Pittsburg;
Follows every boat from the time she starts out in the spring-time
Till she lays up in the summer, and then again in the winter;
Wants to talk all about her and who is her captain and pilot;
Then wants to slide away to that everlastingly puzzling
Thing that happened to him that morning on the _Kanawha_
When he lost his bearings and North and South had changed places--
No, I don't call that living, whatever the rest of you call it."
We were silent again till that woman spoke up, "And what was it,
Captain, that kept him from going back and being a pilot?"
"Well, ma'am," after a moment the pilot patiently answered,
"_I_ don't hardly believe that I could explain it exactly."

IV

THE RETURN TO FAVOR

He never, by any chance, quite kept his word, though there was a
moment in every case when he seemed to imagine doing what he said, and
he took with mute patience the rakings which the ladies gave him when
he disappointed them.

Disappointed is not just the word, for the ladies did not really
expect him to do what he said. They pretended to believe him when he
promised, but at the bottom of their hearts they never did or could.
He was gentle-mannered and soft-spoken, and when he set his head on
one side, and said that a coat would be ready on Wednesday, or a dress
on Saturday, and repeated his promise upon the same lady's expressed
doubt, she would catch her breath and say that now she absolutely must
have it on the day named, for otherwis