3stalwarts (169 page)

Jerry nodded.

“There’ll be ten to twenty most any time to see here. Utica’s well disposed for traffic. Every month it seems to me I see a new boat. That John Van Ness Yates is a Little Falls boat, came on last month. She’s hauling water lime for the lower aqueducts. And the Western Trader’s also new. She’s one of the first built, but a farmer made her out of green pine timbers and he didn’t get a hundred yards before she sank. They couldn’t keep her caulked. So they took her out and let her weather and she’s just lately back. I class her new for that.”

Jerry nodded.

“I guess I’ll go inside.”

“I hope you like us,” said the steersman, affably.

The men’s cabin extended two thirds of the boat’s length. The walls were painted yellow; and there were two long tables side by side. Along the walls the berths were folded up. They consisted of iron frames on hinges with a yard of canvas stretched across them. Jerry identified his berth by his bag.

He sat down opposite it and stared round. There were some fourteen men and three women. The women were sitting in a little library under the steersman’s deck. The rest of the travelers were already splitting into little groups. Some elected cards. A couple of farmers talked of crops. Three merchants bewailed Albany prices. Their voices blended into a drone, like the drone of flies against the windows, hushed but ceaseless. It was so quiet in the cabin that if Jerry had not looked through the windows he would never have known that they were moving. And he marveled at the casualness of the passengers, who seemed to take it all for granted.

A talkative man in a grey hat, whom everybody else edged off from, caught sight of him. Jerry rose hastily. He didn’t want to talk, or listen to talk. He went on deck again.

There it was peaceful and still. The sun fell straight down, putting light on the blue line of the canal. The steersman nodded.

“It’s nice up here. Why don’t you go to the front deck? Most likely you won’t be bothered there.”

Jerry went forward, past the kitchen window, which exuded a scent of carrots and fall cabbage and beef, and the windows of the ladies’ cabin. The deck offered a ten-foot space. And till dinner time he was alone watching the play of the towrope against its cleat, eyeing the new banks, already healed with grass, and hearing the ripple of water washing past the bow.

They passed through Whitesboro at a trot, changed horses short of Rome, drew into Rome at two. He could see the Arsenal’s straight cream walls, and the town beyond it on his right. A passenger got on at the dock; and two others disembarked— a man and his wife, evidently, for there was a carriage waiting for them.

And just beyond the dock Jerry thought he could identify the place where Governor Clinton had pricked the sod at dawn of July fourth. It seemed a long time ago. Time enough for all this ditch to be dug, to fill with water, and for grass to seed itself and grow. Time enough for him to build seven locks, to lay a culvert bottom. Time enough to have a baby, to be a fool, to lose his wife. He tried not to think of Mary; but even here, in placid travel, while two strong horses pulled him in a tandem hitch, he seemed to see her driving on some road, with his daughter on her lap, behind a white-blind horse. “Not mad nor nothing.”

The dinner bugle tootled and he went below.

The Talkative Man

But in the afternoon the talkative man found Jerry out. He was a little man, with grey hair nearly white, a sharp face, and rather close-set, patriotic eyes.

“Hello there, my boy,” he said. “I wondered what had become of you all day. Mind if I sit down?”

Moving over, Jerry made room for him, in the spot of shade. The gentleman sat down, easing his fashionably tight trousers, and parting the skirts of his coat. He pulled a cigar from a morocco case, and said, “My name’s Vanderbilt Blue.” He put his hand out and eyed Jerry knowingly. “People call me a naturalist, or an explorer, or even a savant— titles I don’t deserve. Citizen of Utica is more my style. Where do you come from, my boy?”

“Nowhere in particular,” said Jerry.

“Come, come,” Mr. Blue essayed a smile, “you must have been born, you know.”

“I’ve heard so.”

“Well, your name, then?”

“Fowler. I was born in Uniontown,” Jerry relented; then saw too late his error. A gleam rose up in Mr. Blue’s eyes.

“I’ve been through there— a pretty village. …” But he managed to imply that Utica was something more than that. “A very pretty little village. Is this your first voyage on our Grand Canal?”

“Yes,” said Jerry.

Mr. Blue put his cigar between his lips and rubbed his hands. He had the kind of thin mouth that shapes itself all over a cigar.

“Doesn’t it give you a thrill, my boy? Not very? Well, it ought to. If you were as curious as me, you’d get more interest out of life. I’m always asking questions. I want to know. I look for data. I was, to take an instance, along with Alexander Wilson when he routed the theory that the swallow dives under the river in the fall and winters in the mud. We turned a creek aside and shoveled up the muck together. There wasn’t a sign of a swallow. Yes, I waded in like any Johnny. I tell you that,”— he gestured modestly,— “just to show the way my mind goes after things. But next to learning,”— and his eyes swung round,— “I like to impart knowledge. I regard it as a duty. Now, as long as we’re on this canal, and it’s your first trip, maybe I’d best begin on that.”

He spat overside, folded hands on his knees, and looked ahead. His chest swelled. He spoke.

“Now, riding along in all the comfort of an elegant hotel, with all the peacefulness of a well-ordered home, you’d never guess the trouble that went into the creation of this for you— for me— for all the world. I suppose you know it’s going to be the longest canal in all the world?”

“I’ve heard it mentioned,” Jerry said.

“It’s an interesting fact that most of the men concerned with this great work have come from Utica. Or environs. Isaac Briggs, for instance. Canvass White, who went to England and discovered in New Hartford waterproof lime. It isn’t so much to say that without lime this work would be impossible. I can claim Geddes as a sort of neighbor. Wright. My boy, it makes me proud. Caleb Hammil set up all the locks. And these men —do you realize it?— had nothing but their wits to work with. No books, no experience. By gad, it’s wonderful.”

“Ain’t it?”

“When I think of the way they traveled through here in the wilderness, in rain and snow, and you and me now riding in a palace on the distillation, as it were, of all those honest brains, I can’t but feel an urge to seize even a humble spade.”

“I should think the diggers had the hardest job.”

“Diggers! My boy, they hadn’t anything to do but dig!”

“That’s it, it seems to me.”

“My boy, think of the vision. The responsibility!”

“Yes,” said Jerry humbly.

“The young don’t stop to consider those things,” Mr. Blue said kindly. “I think of Elkanah Watson planning this all out on his first journey, even to some of the locks. You ought to hear him speak. He’s a friend of mine.

We’ve much in common. Washington, too, immortal George. He had an idea of it. Geddes! It’s the greatest thing in the world.”

Jerry looked out beyond the horses. They were traveling the curves of the swamp section west of Rome. He saw a workman’s shanty half grown over by the woods. He thought of Self Rogers groaning over his toothache.

But Mr. Blue was following his gaze. .

“Isn’t it amazing? There’s that work barrack set up by a carpenter, and half destroyed by woods. But here’s this mighty work right by it, clear and strong, untouched.”

He rambled on. He showed Jerry sights he ought to notice.

“We’re coming into Limestone Creek. Let’s get up on top deck and view the aqueduct. It’s small, but well constructed. My boy, you ought to show more interest. Some day you’ll tell your child, ‘I was an early traveler on the Grand Canal.’ “

He urged Jerry up.

“You don’t want to look at that farm, nice as it is. That’s not the wonder. The wonder is the canal that made this farm to prosper— Look.” His voice burbled louder than the creek. But Jerry saw the barn. A sidehill barn, it had been moved. A store stood on the towpath and a woman off a boat was buying eggs. He saw her through the door. He heard a strong, clear voice asking happy questions.

Dencey Burns. It seemed a miracle to him that a thrush in the balsams should begin to sing so early in the afternoon… .

“Wait till we get to Syracuse,” continued Blue. “Then you’re going to see a lock. That’s the most wonderful thing, in my estimation, in the whole tremendous structure. Harnessing the power of water to lift a whole great boat upward or to set it downward, gently as a boy might float a leaf.”

But Jerry was not listening. His eyes were on a sight by the bank. The horses were coming into Oneida Creek, and as the boat slid up to the easy curve, he saw a red-faced man with a bald and sweaty head who stood on the deck of the half-painted, brand-new boat. The boat was up on land, showing its belly clear, and the man, who had finished his painting for the day, was striding back and forth across the steersman’s deck.

Mr. Blue observed the sight with a little laugh.

“A quaint old fellow. The whole idea’s very quaint, isn’t it?”

“What idea?”

“Why, he was a salt-water sailor who got impressed in 1812. He wouldn’t work for a British boat, so they stuck him into Dartmoor Prison. That’s the story I’ve heard of him. His name, by the way, is Hank McNab.” Mr. Blue rolled his cigar between his lips. “An ignorant man, he wouldn’t go to sea any more after he was released in fourteen. But he came up here— why, I can’t imagine— and built himself that house in what was wilderness then. He married a half-breed Indian woman. He didn’t farm. They say he used to just sit in the door all day long, smoking, looking at nothing —a perfect picture of the sotted peasant. He wouldn’t speak to a living soul. He never even noticed the surveyors. The diggers meant nothing to him. All day long he used to sit there like a sot. Even when the water was let through I’ve heard he would not go down to the bank. He never budged until one day a neighbor, going by, heard him yelling for his spy-glass. He had an old brass one. His wife brought it and he fixed it on the eastern view. He’d seen a boat. The neighbor waited to see what he would do. He got up and walked down to the canal and watched the boat pass —the longest walk he’d had in seven years. He said ‘Good evening’ to his neighbor— the first word he’d ever addressed to him. Next day the neighbor saw him in the mill selecting seasoned timber. Since then he’s been building the boat. They say it’s all fitted out with fine wood, and really very well made. I’d like to see inside it, though. It must be comical.”

Jerry did not join his laughter.

But when the sailor waved his arm and shouted, “Ahoy, Montezuma!” he joined the steersman’s answer with a wave.

“A loutish face, isn’t it?” said Mr. Blue.

“Yes, very.”

The self-styled savant turned at the tone of Jerry’s voice. His eyebrows were scornfully arched.

“Fowler, I believe you’ve scarcely listened to my conversation.”

“You’re right about that, anyway, Mr. Blue.”

“What do you mean? ‘About that, anyway’?”

“I worked on this line of the canal,” said Jerry. “As a matter of fact, I was the man who built the locks.”

Mr. Blue drew a deep breath. His cheeks slowly crimsoned. His eyes grew blank as tapioca. Then he rallied.

“By George,” he said, “I’ve always wanted to know the man that built those locks!”

But Jerry had turned his back; and by the tiller the steersman choked a good guffaw.

Night Travel

They ate supper as they traveled, and after supper Jerry went on deck again. He wanted to see his locks in action. At dusk the captain hung a lantern in the bow. And along the line of the canal now and then they saw other lights gliding like unwinking fireflies. At the change stables, the hostlers had the new team ready so that the boat never lost its way. A new driver came with each team.

The land spread out again in farms, but the houses showed as lighted windows. The barns were shapes in blackness. Unseen cowbells sounded in the back pastures. A dog barked at the passing lantern. The crickets shrilled in the woods, the bullfrogs roared their autumn choruses. The sounds mingled in a great wave, before them and behind, but the boat it-self seemed to be traveling in a well of silence.

They came to Number One at last, and Jerry saw the level ready for them, and the tender in his nightshirt; and the captain’s bugle call hung behind them in the darkness. Jerry felt still and cold as the upper gates closed and the water gushed in the sluices and the sound of the tumble bay ceased. He saw the lock walls rise past them, he saw bats crossing the lanterns, he saw the lower gates open and the sheen of the canal mirror-like ahead. The team drew out.

“Pretty neat, ain’t it?” asked the steersman. “Reckon it looks different from the way you knowed it.”

Jerry just nodded. He was thinking of the timbers out of sight under the water, of Hayward Lewis dubious over mortar, of Nathan Roberts on his pony, and of Mary coming up in time to see Hammil and Cosmo work the empty gates. He heard her say again, “I’m not crying now.”

Behind them the water crept round the tumble bay again; but the sound gradually faded. A hundred feet ahead,, the horses made scarcely any sound. A muskrat slithered in the mud; the dry marsh grass rattled its blades, though there was no wind; and the moon was small. He watched the banks slide into the light and pass. He heard the sleeping passengers stir on their hard beds. A boat came by, its team drawn over to one side and its towrope rasping along the packet’s bottom. A child in the cabin cried, a thin wailing among the night sounds. A woman moved in the cabin and a light went on. As they slid forward Jerry heard her voice singing low:—

“The trees they are tall and the leaves they are green, And many a time my true love I’ve seen. Oh, many an hour I’ve passed all alone— My bonnie lad’s a long time a-growing.”

“That the Montezuma?”

“Yeanh. Night shift now. How’s the boy, Jake?”