f helpless agony as if
indeed the next step must have been wilfully removed, or was nowhere
to be found on the wide, wide earth.

It was a miracle that the pilot ever got her up into the pilot-house;
but pilots have a lonely time, and do not hesitate even at miracles
when there is a chance for company. He would place a box for her to
climb to the tall bench behind the wheel, and he would arrange the
cushions, and open a window here to let in air, and shut one there to
cut off a draft, as if there could be no tenderer consideration in
life for him than her comfort. And he would talk of the river to her,
explain the chart, pointing out eddies, whirlpools, shoals, depths,
new beds, old beds, cut-offs, caving banks, and making banks, as
exquisitely and respectfully as if she had been the River Commission.

It was his opinion that there was as great a river as the Mississippi
flowing directly under it--an underself of a river, as much a
counterpart of the other as the second story of a house is of the
first; in fact, he said they were navigating through the upper story.
Whirlpools were holes in the floor of the upper river, so to speak;
eddies were rifts and cracks. And deep under the earth, hurrying
toward the subterranean stream, were other streams, small and
great, but all deep, hurrying to and from that great mother-stream
underneath, just as the small and great overground streams hurry to
and from their mother Mississippi. It was almost more than the little
convent girl could take in: at least such was the expression of her
eyes; for they opened as all eyes have to open at pilot stories. And
he knew as much of astronomy as he did of hydrology, could call the
stars by name, and define the shapes of the constellations; and she,
who had studied astronomy at the convent, was charmed to find that
what she had learned was all true. It was in the pilot-house, one
night, that she forgot herself for the first time in her life, and
stayed up until after nine o'clock. Although she appeared almost
intoxicated at the wild pleasure, she was immediately overwhelmed
at the wickedness of it, and observed much more rigidity of conduct
thereafter. The engineer, the boiler-men, the firemen, the stokers,
they all knew when the little convent girl was up in the pilot-house:
the speaking-tube became so mild and gentle.

With all the delays of river and boat, however, there is an end to the
journey from Cincinnati to New Orleans. The latter