Vandemark's Folly Part 5

which was claimed to be a medicine that was used in the old country somewhere by thieves who robbed the infected houses in safety, protected by this wonderful "vinegar"; and only told how it was made to save their lives when they were about to be hanged. A man offered me a bottle of this at Rochester, for five dollars, and finally came down to fifty cents. This made me think it was of no use, and I did not buy, though just before I had been wondering whether I had not better borrow the money of Captain Sproule; so I saved my money, which was getting to be a habit of mine.

California, the Rockies, the fur-trade, the Ohio Valley, the new cities up the Lakes and the new farms in the woods back of them, and some few tales of the prairies--all these voices of the West kept calling us more loudly and plainly every year, and every year I grew stronger and more confident of myself.

The third year I had made up my mind that I would get work on a pa.s.senger boat so as to be able to see and talk with more people who were going up and down the Lakes and the ca.n.a.l. I went from one to another as I met folks who were coming back from the West, and asked every one if he had known a man out west named John Rucker; but, though I found traces of two or three Ruckers in the course of the three years, it did not take long in each case to find out that it was not the man I hated so, and so much wanted to find. People used to point me out as the boy who was trying to find a man named Rucker; and two or three came to me and told me of men they had met who might be my man. I became known to many who traveled the ca.n.a.l as being engaged in some mysterious quest. I suppose I had an anxious and rather strange expression as I made my inquiries.

It took me two years to make up my mind to change to a pa.s.senger boat, so slow was I to alter my way of doing things. I have always been that way. My wife read _Knickerbocker's History of New York_ after the children were grown up and she had more time for reading, and always told the 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 pa.s.senger boat the next summer, and was told by him that he had sold his boat to a company, and was to be a pa.s.senger-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 Herma.n.u.s 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 ca.n.a.llers, 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 pa.s.senger 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 nine meals; and we often had a "sing" as we called it when in the evening the musical pa.s.sengers got together and tuned up. Many of them carried dulcimers, accordions, fiddles, flutes and various kinds of bra.s.s 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, ba.s.s 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 ca.n.a.l 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 pa.s.senger 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 cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s by themselves, and looked down from a far height on the working people, the farmers, and the ma.s.ses 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 pa.s.sengers, 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 pa.s.sengers 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 gla.s.s 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 bellering," said Bill. "I'm jest tryin' to think whuther he went on a boat east, or a railroad car, or a stage-coach, or went to a tavern. He went to a tavern, that's what he done. A drayman I know took his dunnage!"

"Come on," I cried, "and help me find the drayman!"

"I'll have to study on this," said Bill. "My mind hain't as active as usual. I need somethin' to brighten me up!"

"What do you need?" I inquired. "Can't you think where he stays?"

"A little rum," he answered, "is great for the memory. I b'lieve most any doctor'd advise a jorum of rum for a man in my fix, to restore the intellects."

I took him back into the grog-shop and bought him rum, taking a very little myself, with a great deal of blackstrap and water. Bill's symptoms were such as to drive me to despair. He sat looking at me like an old owl, and finally took my gla.s.s and sipped a little from it.

"Hain't you never goin' to grow up?" he asked; and poured out a big gla.s.s of the pure quill for me, and fiercely ordered me to drink it. By this time I was desperate; so I smashed his gla.s.s and mine; and taking him by the throat I shook him and told him that if he did not take me to the hump-backed man or to the drayman, and that right off, I'd shut off his wind for good. When he clinched with me I lifted him from the floor, turned him upside down, and lowered him head-first into an empty barrel.

By this time the saloon-keeper was on the spot making all sorts of threats about having us both arrested, and quite a crowd had gathered. I lifted Bill out of the barrel and seated him in a chair, and paid for the gla.s.ses; all the time watching Bill for fear he might renew the tussle, and take me in flank; but he sat as if dazed until I had quieted matters down, when he rose and addressed the crowd.

"My little son," said he, patting me on the shoulder. "Stoutest man of his inches in the world. We'll be round here's evenin'--give a show.

C'mon, Jake!"

"Wot I said about growin' up," said he, as we went along the street, "is all took back, Jake!"

We had not gone more than a quarter of a mile when we came to a place where there was a stand for express wagons and drays; and Bill picked out from the crowd, with a good deal of difficulty, I thought, a hard-looking citizen to whom he introduced me as the stoutest man on the Erie Ca.n.a.l. The drayman seemed to know me. He said he had seen me wrestle. When I asked him about the hunchback he said he knew right where he was; but there was no hurry, and tried to get up a wrestling match between me and a man twice my size who made a specialty of hauling salt, and bragged that he could take a barrel of it by the chimes, and lift it into his dray. I told him that I was in a great hurry and begged to be let off; but while I was talking they had made up a purse of twenty-one shillings to be wrestled for by us two. I finally persuaded the drayman to show me the hunchback's tavern, and promised to come back and wrestle after I had found him; to which the stake-holder agreed, but all the rest refused to consent, and the money was given back to the subscribers. The drayman, Bill and I went off together to find the tavern--which we finally did.

It was a better tavern than we were used to, and I was a little bashful when I inquired if a man with a black beard was stopping there, and was told that there were several.

"What's his name?" asked the clerk.

"'E's a hunchback," said Bill--I had been too diffident to describe him so.

"Mr. Wisner, of Southport, Wisconsin," said the clerk, "has a back that ain't quite like the common run of backs. Want to see him?"

He was in a nice room, with a fire burning and was writing at a desk which opened and shut, and was carried with him when he traveled. He wore a broadcloth, swallow-tailed coat, a collar that came out at the sides of his neck and stood high under his ears; and his neck was covered with a black satin stock. On the bed was a tall, black beaver, stove-pipe hat. There were a great many papers on the table and the bed, and the room looked as if it had been used by crowds of people--the floor was muddy about the fireplace, and there were tracks from the door to the cheap wooden chairs which seemed to have been brought in to accommodate more visitors than could sit on the horsehair chairs and sofa that appeared to belong in the room. Mr. Wisner looked at us sharply as we came in, and shook hands first with Bill and then with me.

"Glad to see you again," said he heartily. "Glad to see you again! I want to tell you some more about Wisconsin. I haven't told you the half of its advantages."

I saw that he thought we had been there before, and was about to correct his mistake, when Bill told him that that's what we had come for.

"What you said about Wisconsin," said Bill, winking at me, "has sort of got us all worked up."

"Is it a good country for a boy to locate in?" I asked.

"A paradise for a boy!" he said, in a kind of bubbly way. "And for a poor man, it's heaven! Plenty of work. Good wages. If you want a home, it's the only G.o.d's country. What kind of land have you been farming in the past?"

Bill said that he had spent his life plowing the seas, but that all the fault I had was being a landsman. I admitted that I had farmed some near Herkimer.

"And," sneered Mr. Wisner crushingly, "how long does it take a man to clear and grub out and subdue enough land in Herkimer County to make a living on? Ten years! Twenty years! Thirty years! Why, in Herkimer County a young man doesn't buy anything when he takes up land: he sells something! He sells himself to slavery for life to the stumps and sprouts and stones! But in Wisconsin you can locate on prairie land ready for the plow; or you can have timber land, or both kinds, or opening's that are not quite woods nor quite prairie--there's every kind of land there except poor land! It's a paradise, and land's cheap. I can sell you land right back of Southport, with fine market for whatever you raise, on terms that will pay themselves--pay themselves. Just go aboard the first boat, and I'll give you a letter to my partner in Southport--and your fortunes will be made in ten years!"

"The trouble is," said Bill, "that we'll be so d.a.m.ned lonesome out where we don't know any one. If we could locate along o' some of our ol'

mates, somebody like old John Tucker,--it would be a--a paradise, eh, Jake?"

"The freest-hearted people in the world," said Mr. Wisner. "They'll travel ten miles to take a spare-rib or a piece of fresh beef to a new neighbor. Invite the stranger in to stay all night as he drives along the road. You'll never miss your old friends; and probably you'll find old neighbors most anywhere. Why, this country has moved out to Wisconsin. It won't be long till you'll have to go there to find 'em--ha, ha, ha!"

"If we could find a man out there named Tucker--"

"An old--sort of--of relative of mine," I put in, seeing that Bill was spoiling it all, "John Rucker."

"I know him!" cried Wisner. "Kind of a tall man with a sandy beard? Good talker? Kind of plausible talker? Used to live down east of Syracuse?

Pretty well fixed? Went out west three years ago? Calls himself Doctor Rucker?"