Vandemark's Folly Part 2

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The pa.s.sing of us by a packet brought me my first grief. She came up behind us with her horses at the full trot. Their boat was down the ca.n.a.l a hundred yards or so at the end of the tow-line; and just before the boat itself drew even with ours she was laid over by her steersman to the opposite side of the ditch, her horses were checked so as to let her line so slacken as to drop down under our boat, her horses were whipped up by a sneering boy on a tall bay steed, her team went outside ours on the tow-path, and the pa.s.sage was made. They made, as was always the case, a moving loop of their line, one end hauled by the packet, and the other by the team. I was keeping my eye skinned to see how the thing was done, when the tow-line of the packet came by, tripped me up and threw me into the ca.n.a.l, from which I was fished out by Bill as our boat came along. There was actual danger in this unless the steersman happened to be really steering, and laid the boat off so as to miss me.

Captain Sproule gazed at me in disgust. Ace laughed loudly away out ahead on the horse. Bill said that if it had been in the middle of the ocean I never would have been shamed by being hauled up on deck. He was sorry for my sake, as I never would live this thing down.

"Go change your clothes," said the captain, "and try not to be such a lummox next time."

I had no change of clothes, and therefore, I took the first opportunity to get out on the tow-path, wet as I was, and begin again to learn my first trade. It was a lively occupation. There were some four thousand boats on the Erie Ca.n.a.l at that time, or an average of ten boats to the mile. I suppose there were from six to eight thousand boys driving then on the "Grand Ca.n.a.l" alone, as it was called. More than half of these boys were orphans, and it was not a good place for any boy, no matter how many parents or guardians he might have. Five hundred or more convicts in the New York State Penitentiary were men who, as I learned from a missionary who came aboard to pray with us, sing hymns and exhort us to a better life, had been ca.n.a.l-boat drivers. The boys were at the mercy of their captains, and were often cheated out of their wages.

There were stories of young boys sick with cholera, when that disease was raging, or with other diseases, being thrown off the boats and allowed to live or die as luck might determine. There were hards.h.i.+p, danger and oppression in the driver's life; and every sort of vice was like an open book before him as soon as he came to understand it--which, at first, I did not. If my mother knew, as I suppose she did, what sort of occupation I had entered upon, I do not see how she could have been anything but miserable as she thought of me--though she realized keenly from what I had escaped.

Back on the tow-path, I was earning the contempt of Ace by dodging every issue, like a candidate for office. I learned quickly to snub the boat by means of a rope and the numerous snubbing-posts along the ca.n.a.l. This was necessary in stopping, in entering locks, and in rounding some curves; and my first glimmer of courage came from the fact that I seemed to know at once how this was to be done--the line to be pa.s.sed twice about the post, and so managed as to slip around it with a great deal of friction so as to bring her to.

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I was afraid of the other drivers, however, and I was afraid of Ace. He drove me like a Simon Legree. He ordered me to fight other drivers, and when I refused, he took the fights off my hands or avoided them as the case might require. He flicked at my bare feet with his whip. When we were delayed by taking on or discharging freight, he would try to corner me and throw me into the ca.n.a.l. He made me do all the work of taking care of our bunks, and cuffed my ears whenever he got a chance. He made me do his share as well as my own of the labor of cleaning the stables, and feeding and caring for the horses, sitting by and giving orders with a comical exaggeration of the manner of Captain Sproule. In short, he was hazing me unmercifully--as every one on the boat knew, though some of the things he did to me I do not think the captain would have permitted if he had known about them.

I was more miserable with the cruelty and tyranny of Ace than I had been at home; for this was a constant misery, night and day, and got worse every minute. He ruled even what I ate and drank. When I took anything at meal-times, I would first glance at him, and if he looked forbidding or shook his head, I did not eat the forbidden thing. I knew on that voyage from Syracuse to Buffalo exactly what servitude means. No slave was ever more systematically cruelized[1], no convict ever more brutishly abused--unless his oppressor may have been more ingenious than Ace. He took my coverlets at night. He starved me by making me afraid to eat. He worked, me as hard as the amount of labor permitted. He committed abominable crimes against my privacy and the delicacy of my feelings--and all the time I could not rebel. I could only think of running away from the boat, and was nearly at the point of doing so, when he crowded me too far one day, and pushed me to the point of one of those frenzied revolts for which the Dutch are famous.

[1] The author insists that "cruelized" is the exact word to express his meaning, and will consent to no change.--G.v.d.M.

A little girl peeking at me from an orchard beside the tow-path tossed me an apple--a nice, red juicy apple. I caught it, and put it in my pocket. That evening we tied up at a landing and were delayed for an hour or so taking on freight. I slipped into the stable to eat my apple, knowing that Ace would pound me if he learned that I had kept anything from him, whether he really wanted it or not. Suddenly I grew sick with terror, as I saw him coming in at the door. He saw what I was doing, and glared at me vengefully. He actually turned white with rage at this breach of his authority, and came at me with set teeth and doubled fists. "Give me that apple, d.a.m.n yeh!" he cried. "You sneakin' skunk, you, I'll larn ye to eat my apples!"

He s.n.a.t.c.hed at the apple, and was too successful; for before he reached it I opened my hand in obedience to his onslaught; and the apple rolled in the manure and litter of the stable, and was soiled and befouled.

"Throwin' my apple in the manure, will yeh!" he yelled. "I'll larn ye!

Pick that apple up!"

I reached for it with trembling hand, and held it out to him.

"It ain't fit for anything but the hogs!" he yelled. "Eat it, hog!"

I looked at the filthy thing, and raised my hand to my mouth; but before I touched it with my lips a great change came over me. I trembled still more, now; but it was not with fear. I suddenly felt that if I could kill Ace, I would be willing to die. I was willing to die trying to kill him. I could not get away from him because he was between me and the door, but now suddenly I did not want to get away. I wanted to get at him. I threw the apple down.

"Pick that apple up and eat it," he said in a low tone, looking me straight in the eye, "or I'll pound you till you can't walk."

"I won't," said I.

Ace rushed at me, and as he rushed, he struck me in the face. I went down, and he piled on me, hitting me as he could. I liked the feel of his blows; it was good to realize that they did not hurt me half so much as his abuse had done. I did not know how to fight, but I grappled with him fiercely. I reached for his hair, and he tried to bite my thumb, actually getting it in his mouth, but I jerked it aside and caught his cheek in my grip, my thumb inside the cheek-pouch, and my fingers outside. I felt a hot thrill of joy as my nails sank into his cheek inside and out, and he cringed. I held him at arm's length, helpless, and with his head drawn all askew; and still keeping my unfair hold, I rolled him over, and coming on top of him, thrust the other thumb in the other side of his mouth, frenziedly trying to rip his cheeks, and pounding his head on the deck. We rolled back into the corner, where he jerked my thumbs from his mouth, now bleeding at the corners, and desperately tried to roll me. My hand came into touch with a horseshoe on the stable floor, which I picked up, and filled with joy at the consciousness that I was stronger than he, I began beating him over the face and head with it, with no thought of anything but killing him. He turned over on his face and began trying to s.h.i.+eld his head with his arms, at which I tore like a crazy boy, beating at arms, head, hands and neck with the dull horseshoe, and screaming, "I'll kill you! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

In the meantime, it gradually dawned on Ace that he was licked, and he began yelling, "Enough! Enough!" which according to the rules of the game ent.i.tled him to be let alone; but I knew nothing about the rules of the game. I saw the blood spurting from one or two cuts in his scalp. I felt it warm and slimy on my hands, and I rained my blows on him, madly and blindly, but with cruel effect after all. I did not see the captain when he came in. I only felt his grip on my right arm, as he seized it and s.n.a.t.c.hed the horseshoe from me. I did not hear what he said, though I heard him saying something. When he caught both my hands, I threw myself down on the cowering Ace and tried to bite him. When he lifted me up I kicked the prostrate Ace in the face as a parting remembrance.

When he stood me up in the corner of the stable and asked me what in h.e.l.l I was doing, I broke away from him and threw myself on the staggering Ace with all the fury of a bulldog. And when Bill came and helped the captain hold me, I was crying like a baby, and deaf to all commands. I struggled to get at Ace until they took him away; and then I collapsed and had a miserable time of it while my anger was cooling.

"I thought Ace would crowd the mourners too hard," said the captain.

"Now, Jake," said he, "will you behave?"

There was no need to ask me. A baby could have held me then.

"Don't you know," said the captain, "that you ortn't to pound a feller with a horseshoe? Do you always act like this when you fight?"

"I never had a fight before," I sobbed.

"Well, you won't have another with Ace," said the captain. "You d.a.m.ned near killed him. And next time fight fair!"

That night I drove alone, which I had been doing now for some time, taking my regular trick; and when we tied up at some place west of Lockport, I went to my bunk expecting to find Ace ready to renew his tyrannies, and determined to resist to the death. He was lying in the lower bunk asleep, and his bandaged head looked rather pitiful. For all that my anger flamed up again as I looked at him. I shook him roughly by the shoulder. He awakened with a moan.

"Get out of that bunk!" I commanded.

"Let me alone," he whimpered, but he got out as I told him to do.

"Climb into that upper bunk," I said.

He looked at me a moment, and climbed up. I turned in, in the lower bunk, but I could not sleep. I was boss! It was Ace now who would be the underling. It was not a cold night; but pretty soon I thought of the quilts in the upper berth, and imitating Ace's cruelty, I called up to him fiercely, awakening him again. "Throw down that quilt," I said, "I want it."

"You let me alone," whimpered Ace, but the quilt was thrown down on the deck, where I let it lie. Ace lay there, breathing occasionally with a long quivering sigh--the most pitiful thing a child ever does--and we were both children, remember, put in a most unchildlike position. I dropped asleep, but soon awakened. It had grown cold, and I reached for the quilt; but something prompted me to reach up and see whether Ace was still there. He lay there asleep, and, as I could feel, cold. I picked up the quilt, threw it over him, tucked him in as my mother used to tuck me in,--thinking of her as I did it--and went back to my bunk. I was sorry I had cut Ace's head, and had already begun to forget how cruelly he had used me. I seemed to feel his blood on my hands, and got up and washed them. The thought of Ace's bandages, and the vision of wounds under them filled me with remorse--but I was boss! Finally I dropped asleep, and awoke to find that Ace had got up ahead of me. I was embarra.s.sed by my new authority; and sorry for what I had been obliged to do to get it; but I was a new boy from that day.

It never pays to be a slave. It never benefits a man or a people to submit to tyranny. A slave is a man forgotten of G.o.d. That fight against slavery was a beautiful, a joyful thing to me, with all its penalties of compa.s.sion and guilty feeling afterward. I think the best thing a man or boy can do is to find out how far and to whom he is a slave, and fight that servitude tooth and nail as I fought Ace. It would make this a different world.

CHAPTER III

I SEE THE WORLD, AND SUFFER A GREAT LOSS

The strange thing to me about my fight with Ace was that n.o.body thought of such a thing as punis.h.i.+ng me for it. I was free to fight or not as I pleased. I needed to be free more than anything else, and I wanted plenty of good food and fresh air. All these I got, for Captain Sproule, while stern and strict with us, enforced only those rules which were for the good of the boat, and these seemed like perfect liberty to me--after I whipped Ace. As for my old tyrant, he recovered his spirits very soon, and took the place of an underling quite contentedly. I suppose he had been used to it. I ruled in a manner much milder than his. I had never learned to swear--or to use harder words than gosh, and blast, and dang where the others swore the most fearful oaths as a matter of ordinary talk. I made a rule that Ace must quit swearing; and slapped him up to a peak a few times for not obeying--which was really a hard thing for him to do while driving; and when he was in a quarrel I always overlooked his cursing, because he could not fight successfully unless he had the right to work himself up into a pa.s.sion by calling names and swearing.

As for myself I walked and rode erect and felt my limbs as light as feathers, as compared with their leaden weight when I lived at Tempe and worked in the factory. Soon I took on my share of the fighting as a matter of course. I did it as a rule without anger and found that beyond a b.l.o.o.d.y nose or a scratched face, these fights did not amount to much.

I was small for my age, and like most runts I was stronger than I looked, and gave many a driver boy a bad surprise. I never was whipped, though I was pummeled severely at times. When the fight grew warm enough I began to see red, and to cry like a baby, boring in and clinching in a mad sort of way; and these young roughs knew that a boy who fought and cried at the same time had to be killed before he would say enough. So I never said enough; and in my second year I found I had quite a reputation as a fighter--but I never got any joy out of it.

If I could have forgotten my wish to see my mother it would have been in many ways a pleasant life to me. I was never tired of the new and strange things I saw--new regions, new countries. I was amazed at the Montezuma Marsh, with its queer trade of selling flags, for chair seats and the like--and I was almost eaten alive by the mosquitoes while pa.s.sing through it. Our boat floated along through the flags, the horses on a tow-path just wide enough to enable the teams to pa.s.s, with bog on one side and ca.n.a.l on the other, water birds whistling and calling, frogs croaking, and water-lilies dotting every open pool. My spirits soared as I pa.s.sed spots where the view was not shut off by the reeds, and I could look out over the great expanse of flags, just as my heart rose when I first looked upon the Iowa prairies. The Fairport level gave me another thrill--an embankment a hundred feet high with the ca.n.a.l on the top of it, a part of a seventeen-mile level, like a river on a hilltop.

We were a happy crew, here. Ace was quite recovered from our temporary difference of opinion--for I was treating him better than he expected.

He used to sing merrily a song which was a real ca.n.a.l-chantey, one of the several I heard, the words of which ran like this:

"Come, sailors, landsmen, one and all, And I'll sing you the dangers of the raging canawl; For I've been at the mercy of the winds and the waves, And I'm one of the merry fellows what expects a watery grave.

"We left Albiany about the break of day; As near as I can remember, 'twas the second day of May; We depended on our driver, though he was very small, Although we knew the dangers of the raging canawl."

The rest of it I forget; but I remember that after Bill had sung one of his chanties, like "Messmates hear a brother sailor sing the dangers of the seas," or, "We sailed from the Downs and fair Plymouth town,"

telling how

"To our surprise, The storms did arise, Attended by winds and loud thunder; Our mainmast being tall Overboard she did fall, And five of our best men fell under,"

Ace would pipe up about the dangers of the raging ca.n.a.l; and finally this encouraged Paddy to fill in with some song like this:

"In Dublin City, where I was born, On Stephen's Green, where I die forlorn; 'Twas there I learned the baking trade, And 'twas there they called me the Roving Blade."