LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI, Part 5
BY MARK TWAIN
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXI. CHAPTER XXII. CHAPTER XXIII. CHAPTER XXIV. CHAPTER XXV. |
Chapter 21
A Section in My Biography
IN due course I got my license. I was a pilot now, fullfledged. I dropped into casual employments; no misfortunesresulting, intermittent work gave place to steady and protractedengagements. Time drifted smoothly and prosperously on, and Isupposed—and hoped—that I was going to follow the river therest of my days, and die at the wheel when my mission was ended.But by and by the war came, commerce was suspended, my occupationwas gone.
I had to seek another livelihood. So I became a silver minerin Nevada; next, a newspaper reporter; next, a gold miner, inCalifornia; next, a reporter in San Francisco; next, a specialcorrespondent in the Sandwich Islands; next, a rovingcorrespondent in Europe and the East; next, an instructionaltorch-bearer on the lecture platform; and, finally, I became ascribbler of books, and an immovable fixture among the otherrocks of New England.
In so few words have I disposed of the twenty-oneslow-drifting years that have come and gone since I last lookedfrom the windows of a pilot-house.
Let us resume, now.
Chapter 22
I Return to My Muttons
AFTE