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Updated: June 25, 2025
If the woman in the wagon was "scared to death" at the sight of the prairie, I surely had cause to be afraid; but I was not. I was uplifted. I felt the same sense of freedom, and the greatness of things, that came over me when I first found myself able to take in a real eyeful in driving my canal-boat through the Montezuma Marsh, or when I first saw big waters at Buffalo.
It was a change, and a great one, from the humble log-cabin in which our story opens; it was a change, too, from the backwoods boy, in his suit of homespun, to the statesman of noble and commanding figure, upon whom the eyes of the nation were turned. The boy who had guided the canal-boat was now at the helm of the national vessel, and there was no fear that he would run her aground.
Peter Cooper heard the wail of the Baltimoreans, and said, "I'll knock an engine together in six weeks that will pull carriages ten miles an hour and beat any canal-boat that ever collected barnacles." Peter Cooper went back from Baltimore to New York with a few misgivings as to whether he had not promised too much.
Basil had lately been reading aloud the delightful history of Rudder Grange, and the children, who had made their secret vows never to live in anything but an old canal-boat when they grew up, owned that there were fascinating possibilities in a worn-out railroad car.
One of the legends current about him was that he first appeared in New York as a "hand" on a canal-boat, that he got employment as a check-clerk on the dock, that he made the acquaintance of politicians in his ward, and went into politics far enough to get a city contract, which paid him very well and showed him how easily a resolute man could get money and use it in the city.
However, as I unflinchingly stood examination and cross-examination, and sojourned until next morning, his fears seemed to be entirely dispelled. Next day I took a long, last look at Niagara, and departed for Tonawanta. At Tonawanta I again took the canal-boat to Buffalo, a considerable town on the shores of lake Erie, and at the head of the canal navigation.
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 canal-boat drivers. The boys were at the mercy of their captains, and were often cheated out of their wages.
We've got the right of way here, because I live in that house with the green door." "Oh, you do," says he. "Well, baby dear, go in and tell yer wimmin folks ye've lost your cap"; and he chucked my cap right into the canal! Well, I couldn't get it, without falling in, and there was the canal-boat coming along ready to run over it.
The legislature of Virginia and the governor of the State departed hurriedly on a canal-boat in the direction of Lynchburg, while every possible carriage or vehicle was pressed into service by the inhabitants, all frantic to get away before their city was "desecrated" by the presence of the Yankees. By the time the military left, early on the morning of April 3, the town was on fire.
Hadn't she better put them on, auntie?" So the shawl screen was again put up, and the display of dress and petticoats disappeared from the sail of the Gentle Jane. "I feel more respectable," teased Archie, "now the weekly wash is taken in. Hated to be taken for a canal-boat." "No, we'd rather be taken for a tow," said Cricket, smartly, and Archie fell back, rigid with mock admiration.
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