ON THE MTSSlSSTPtt.

CHAPTER XLIX.
EPISODES IN PILOT LIFE.
IN the course of the tug-boat gossip, it came out that out of every
five of my former friends who bad quitted the river, four had chosen
farming as an occupation. Of course this was not because they wei-e
peculiarly gifted, agriculturally, and thus more likely to succeed as
farmers than in other industries : the reason for their choice musfc
be traced to some other source. Doubtless they chose farming
because that life is private and secluded from irruptions of undesir-
able strangers—like the pilot-house hermitage. And doubtless they
also chose it because on a thousand nights of black storm and danger
they had noted the twinkling lights of solitary farm-houses, as the
"boat swung by, and pictured to themselves the serenity and security
and cosiness of such refuges at such times, and so had by-and-bye come
to dream of that retired and peaceful life as the one desirable thing
to long for, anticipate, earn, and at last enjoy.
But I did not learn that any of these pilot-farmers had astonished
anybody with their successes. Their farms do not support them:
they support their farms. The pilot-farmer disappears from the river
annually, about the breaking of spring, and is seen no more till next
frost. Then lie appears again, in damaged homespun, combs the hay-
seed out of his hair, and takes a pilot-house berth for the winter. la
this way he pays the debts which his fanning has achieved during
tihe agricultural season. So his river bondage is but h^lf broken j ha
is still the river's slave the hardest half of the year.
One of these men bought a farm, but did not retire to it. He
knew a trick worth two of that. He did not propose to paup^m
fcis farm by applying his personal ignorance to working it. No, m>