children that she was positive their father must be descended from that ancient Dutchman[4] who took thirteen months to look the ground over before he began to put up that well-known church in Rotterdam of which he was the builder. After smoking over it to the tune of three hundred pounds of Virginia tobacco, after knocking his head--to jar his ideas loose, maybe--and breaking his pipe against every church in Holland and parts of France and Germany; after looking at the site of his church from every point of view--from land, from water, and from the air which he went up into by climbing other towers; this good old Dutch contractor and builder pulled off his coat and five pairs of breeches, and laid the corner-stone of the church. I think that this delay was a credit to him. Better be slow than sorry. The church was, according to my wife, a very good one; and if the man had jumped into the job on the first day of his contract it might have been a very bad one. So, when I used to take a good deal of time to turn myself before beginning any job, and my wife would say to one of the boys: "Just wait! He'll start to build that church after a while!" I always took it as a compliment. Finally I always did the thing, if after long study it seemed the right thing to do, or if some one else had not done it in the meantime; just as I finally told Captain Sproule that I expected to work on a passenger boat the next summer, and was told by him that he had sold his boat to a company, and was to be a passenger-boat captain himself the next summer; and would sign me on if I wanted to stay with him--which I did.
[4] Irving's impersonation of Homer must have nodded when he named this safe, sane and staunch worthy Hermanus Van Clattercop.--G.v.d.M.
3
I was getting pretty stocky now, and no longer feared anything I was likely to meet. I was well-known to the general run of canallers, and had very little fighting to do; once in a while a fellow would pick a fight with me because of some spite, frequently because I refused to drink with him, or because he was egged on to do it; and this year I was licked by three toughs in Batavia. They left me senseless because I would not say "enough." I was getting a good deal of reputation as a wrestler. I liked wrestling better than fighting; and though a smallish man always, like my fellow Iowan Farmer Burns, I have seldom found my master at this game. It is much more a matter of sleight than strength. A man must be cautious, wary, cool, his muscles always ready, as quick as a flash to meet any strain; but the main source of my success seemed to be my ability to use all the strength in every muscle of my body at any given instant, so as to overpower a much stronger opponent by pouring out on him so much power in a single burst of force that he was carried away and crushed. I have thrown over my head and to a distance of ten feet men seventy-five pounds heavier than I was. This is the only thing I ever did so well that I never met any one who could beat me.
I was of a fair complexion, with blue eyes, and my upper lip and chin were covered with a reddish fuzz over a very ruddy skin--a little like David's of old, I guess. On the passenger boats I met a great many people, and was joked a good deal about the girls, some of whom seemed to take quite a shine to me, just as they do to any fair-haired, reasonably clean-looking boy; especially if he has a little reputation; but though I sometimes found myself looking at one of them with considerable interest there was not enough time for as slow a boy as I to begin, let alone to finish any courting operations on even as long a voyage as that from Albany to Buffalo. I was really afraid of them all, and they seemed to know it, and made a good deal of fun of me.
We did not carry our horses on this boat; but stopped at relay stations for fresh teams, and after we had pulled out from one of these stations, we went flying along at from six to eight miles an hour, with a cook getting up fine meals; and we often had a "sing" as we called it when in the evening the musical passengers got together and tuned up. Many of them carried dulcimers, accordions, fiddles, flutes and various kinds of brass horns, and in those days a great many people could sing the good old hymns in the Carmina Sacra, and the glees and part-songs in the old Jubilee, with the soprano, tenor, bass and alto, and the high tenor and counter which made better music than any gathering of people are likely to make nowadays. All they needed was a leader with a tuning-fork, and off they would start, making the great canal a pretty musical place on fine summer evenings. We traveled night and day, and at night the boat, lighted up as well as we could do it then, with lanterns and lamps burning whale-oil, and with candles in the cabin, looked like a traveling banquet-hall or opera-house or tavern.
We were always crowded with immigrants when we went west; and on our eastern voyages even, our passenger traffic was mostly related to the West, its trade, and its people. Many of the men had been out west "hunting country," and sat on the decks or in the cabins until late at night, telling their fellow-travelers what they had found, exchanging news, and sometimes altering their plans to take advantage of what somebody else had found. Some had been looking for places where they could establish stores or set up in some other business. Some had gone to sell goods. Some were travelers for the purpose of preying on others. I saw a good deal of the world, that summer, some of which I understood, but not much. I understand it far better now as I look back upon it.
I noticed for the first time now that class of men with whom we became so well acquainted later, the land speculators. These, and the bankers, many of whom seemed to have a good deal of business in the West, formed a class by themselves, and looked down from a far height on the working people, the farmers, and the masses generally, who voyaged on the same boats with them. They talked of development, and the growth of the country, and the establishments of boats and the building of railways; while the rest of us thought about homes and places to make our livings. The young doctors and lawyers, and some old ones, too, who were going out to try life on the frontiers, occupied places in between these exalted folk and the rest of us. There were preachers among our passengers, but most of them were going west. On almost every voyage there would be a minister or missionary who would ask to have the privilege of holding prayer on the boat; and Captain Sproule always permitted it. The ministers, too, were among those who hunted up the singers in the crowds and organized the song services from the Carmina Sacra.
4
I was getting used to the life and liked it, and gradually I found my resolve to go west getting less and less strong; when late in the summer of 1854 something happened which restored it to me with tenfold strength. We had reached Buffalo, had discharged our passengers and cargo, and were about starting on our eastward voyage when I met Bill, the sailor, as he was coming out of a water-front saloon. I ran to him and called him by name; but at first he did not know me.
"This ain't little Jake, is it?" he said. "By mighty, I b'lieve it is! W'y, you little runt, how you've growed. Come in an' have a drink with your ol' friend Bill as nussed you when you was a baby!"
I asked to be excused; for I hadn't learned to drink more than a thin glass of rum and water, and that only when I got chilled. I turned the subject by asking him what he was doing; and at that he slapped his thigh and said he had great news for me.
"I've found that hump-backed bloke," he said. "He came down on the boat with us from Milwaukee. I knowed him as soon as I seen him, but I couldn't think all the v'yage what in time I wanted to find him fer. You jest put it in my mind!"
"Where is he?" I shouted. "You hain't lost him, have you?"
Bill stood for quite a while chewing tobacco, and scratching his head.
"Where is he?" I yelled.
"Belay
