Read the passage.
excerpt from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain
Published in 1883, the first half of Mark Twain’s memoir documents his days as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River.
She is long and sharp and trim and pretty; she has two tall, fancy-topped chimneys, with a gilded device of some kind swung between them; a fanciful pilot-house, all glass and “gingerbread,” perched on top of the “texas” deck behind them; the paddle-boxes are gorgeous with a picture or with gilded rays above the boat’s name; the boiler-deck, the hurricane-deck, and the texas deck are fenced and ornamented with clean white railings; there is a flag gallantly flying from the jack-staff; the furnace doors are open and the fires glaring bravely; the upper decks are black with passengers; the captain stands by the big bell, calm, imposing, the envy of all; great volumes of the blackest smoke are rolling and tumbling out of the chimneys a husbanded grandeur created with a bit of pitch-pine just before arriving at a town; the crew are grouped on the forecastle; the broad stage is run far out over the port bow, and an envied deck-hand stands picturesquely on the end of it with a coil of rope in his hand; the pent steam is screaming through the gauge-cocks; the captain lifts his hand, a bell rings, the wheels stop; then they turn back, churning the water to foam, and the steamer is at rest.
gingerbread: wood cut to form a fancy scrolled pattern
boiler-deck: the ship’s boiler, which creates the steam, is located on this deck
jack-staff: pole for a ship’s flag
husbanded: economical; frugal
grandeur: impressiveness
pitch-pine: a short leaved pine tree
gauge-cocks: valves that determined the water level, ensuring a boat does not travel into water that is too shallow
How do phrases such as “port bow” and “gauge-cocks” affect the passage?
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