3stalwarts (132 page)

“Clean hoofs,” said Jones. “Did ye ever smell a real sound hoof?”

Jerry nodded.

“There’s no smell like it,” said the smith, and he dropped the last hoof, stroking the inside of the hind leg, apparently oblivious of the horse’s turned head and watchful eye. He went over to the forge and thrust in the iron.

“Hye, Rip! That’s the boy.”

The little dog slapped a yap out over his flying tongue and ran with his eyes on the smith’s hand. After a moment the smith raised it, and Rip sat down. The whirr of the fan died away. The tongs grasped the iron and in a moment the sparks were fountained by the hammer’s nose and the anvil roused its voice and the cooling smell of moulding iron filled the smithy.

Jerry began to listen to the voices of the other three through the rhythmic din.

“What did you see in Albany, Caleb?”

“I went to Troy first,” said the fat man, leaning back to ease his stomach. His hat was on one knee and his red face was drying off. “I put an order into the nail factory with Hanley. They’ve got in two new stampers and a new roller.”

“Is that right?” said Ed. “It must be quite a factory. I mind ten years ago when they was starting out.”

“Yes, it’s considerable of a business. They can shape up a thousand tons of iron now to a season.”

Francis wheezed, “Seems hard on Devlin.”

Hammil laughed easily.

“I talked it over with Devlin. His store couldn’t rightfully expect to handle an order that big.”

“Big?” said Ed curiously.

“Sure. Three tons of fours.” Hammil stretched his stubby legs. “There’s no harm saying now. I got the contract on the middle section locks, the timberwork.”

Ed opened his mouth.

“I’ve heard telling the bill’s through.”

Caleb nodded importantly.

“I got the contract. Timber foundations for locks and aqueducts, a seventeen-thousand-dollar contract. I seen the Commissioners in Albany. Thought I’d be right on the spot; and put it up to Myron Holley. I had letters off Kip, Walker, and Stocking from the bank.”

His jovial eye rolled round the room. Jerry was looking at him with a close attention. It made the contractor proud to see admiration in the young man’s face. But the smith was shaping the shoe, working with never an eye for the hoof, but with a sure touch in his hand that told even Hammil that the shoe would fit when he had it done.

Ed leaned back and lifted a knee to clasp it. He spat at a knothole.

“There’s a lot of worry in a contract like that. You’ll have a lot of traveling. Where do these-here locks come?”

“They begin at Cossett’s swamp and run out to Montezuma. That’s what I need a good horse for. My wife wouldn’t rest if I didn’t get home once in a week. She’s tender-bred that way,” Hammil said proudly.

“What does a lock look like?” demanded Francis.

“Well, I’m a contractor and no mechanic. I’ve never seen one. But they’ve got them down in Massachusetts, so I guess we can build them. Anyway, I’ve got a book about it. And hell, what’s engineers for anyway?”

He lifted his hat to slap it back on his knee. The smith, bending over a fore hoof, raised angry eyes.

“Keep that hat quiet,” he said passionately. “I’m shoeing a green horse.

You, Fowler, just stand by his head and gentle him when I lay this iron on. You’ve got hands.”

Jerry stepped over to the horse’s head and laid his hand under the throat against the off cheek. The horse tilted his head against the hand. The iron hissed on the hoof, and a pungent scent came out with the steam. The smith studied the mark while his off hand swung the shoe. He lifted the hoof a mite for Jerry to see, but he made no comment. None was needed.

Then he slapped the horse gently.

“That’s a knowing brute, if he don’t talk Gaelic. It’s a pity a fat fool like Caleb is to have his handling.”

Hammil grinned amiably.

“So long as he don’t kill me, he can do as he pleases,” he said.

“That’s the trouble,” said the smith, going back to the fire and calling up the dog. “I could shoe him backwards and you’d never notice so long as it didn’t make the horse go backwards too.”

“I never put much stock in this canal,” said Ed.

“What’s locks for? What have they got to do with a canal?” demanded Francis.

“Well,” said Hammil, grinning aside in Jerry’s direction. “There’s locks in a bank, ain’t there, Francis?”

Francis thought it over before he committed himself to a nod and “I guess that’s right.”

“Well,” said Hammil, “ain’t there banks to a canal?”

Ed, who had nodded, but wisely said nothing, whooped at Francis, and the wheezing man looked down huffily at the toe of his boot. The smith said, “Quit that squeaking or I’ll fix you two bezabors with a hot shoe in your pants.” But he was grinning through his black beard.

“What I don’t see,” said Ed, after a while, “is where they’re going to put the blasted thing.”

“Right through the upper end of Utica,” said Hammil.

“No! What do they run it that far up for? ‘Pears like water would run better alongside the river— or into it, maybe.”

Caleb said, “They’ve got to keep it level.”

“I don’t understand it, I guess,” said Francis, making an effort.

The smith went about the shoeing and the horse was quiet under Jerry’s hands. Hammil kept eyeing him from time to time. When, at noon, the horse was shod completely and the little dog lay panting on the treadmill and the smith had pocketed his money and now looked openly with a just pride at his work, the fat man suggested to Jerry, “Walk along with me a ways. I’d like to proposition you.”

“You lead the brute,” said Hammil, handing Jerry the rope. “He makes me feel chancy when he gets to looking over traffic.”

Jerry took a short hold and walked along with the cob’s head over his shoulder. He had always admired horses.

As they turned into Genesee Street, an acquaintance hailed Hammil from the seat of a passing rig.

“Hey, Caleb! Glad to see you. That’s a likely horse. Yours?”

Caleb raised a fat hand and chortled.

“Yeanh. Fifty dollars.”

He was at ease again.

“Look here,” Hammil said, “I want to talk to you. But we can’t talk in the road. We’ll put the horse up in my barn. And you stay to dinner. Mrs. Hammil’s out.”

“Surely,” said Jerry.

They turned left off Genesee Street into Bleecker and passed down between two rows of comfortable houses; but a little way along, the right-hand row gave way to pasture land. The roadway, here, was merely dirt, but it was well ridged in the middle and already dried after the night’s rain. Trees stretched their limbs across the house roofs, and on a corner grew a towering hemlock, perhaps four feet through the butt. It was like a monument to the woods, standing alone at a corner in a rail fence. Jerry looked up against its glistening mass of needles. It was so old and high that the winds had stripped the dead twigs from its branches, and he could see the top stirring to the wind which in the street he could not feel.

“Here we are,” said Hammil.

A little two-story house, painted a bright blue with a white trim, was set back in a garden.

In the rear, beyond the kitchen yard, with its well house, was a little barn, also painted blue; and the inside, when Hammil swung back the door, was the neatest Jerry had ever seen. There were not even cobwebs on the sealed walls. In the middle of the floor stood a light dearborn. Hammil said with an air of pride, “I got it into Albany a year ago. You’ll notice the springs,” and, without waiting for comment, went on to the stable door.

Jerry found two stalls, one used, in which he tied the cob.

“Water?” asked Hammil. “That bucket’s got some. I drawed it fresh just afore I took the horse downtown.”

The horse dipped his nose and dribbled water. He kept lifting his hoofs and setting them down restlessly. Seeing Hammil eyeing the new shoes, Jerry said, “He’s just not used to them. They’re well hung. He won’t go lame.”

Hammil nodded.

“I guess John knows his trade. What had I ought to feed him? I kicked out Stanley— he worked here— this morning. The Missus couldn’t stand his chewing. You don’t chew?”

“No.”

“Well, she don’t mind smoking in the office. But outside of there tobacco’s barred. Seems all right to me, too. A woman has to live in a house all the while.”

“Yes, it does,” Jerry said politely.

Hammil seemed relieved.

“There’s oats in here.”

Jerry took up a measure and judged a meal. He grained the horse while Hammil wrestled down a fork of hay.

“Now,” said the fat man, “let’s go eat.”

He led Jerry to the back door, where on a shelf a basin and pitcher and a bar of white soap stood ready for washing. They took turns.

Inside the kitchen, which to Jerry’s eyes was as neatly fixed as a parlor, Hammil said to the middle-aged, homely hired girl, “Mr. Fowler’s having dinner with me.”

“It’s been ready ten minutes,” said the girl shortly.

Hammil preceded Jerry to a small dining room and showed him a place at a dark, polished table.

“It’s a nice little house, if I do say it,” he said, watching Jerry’s admiring gaze. “My wife had a little money of her own. She comes of good family. Her name was Kip afore she married me. But I’ve paid for all this.” He looked round contentedly and tucked a napkin into his shirt collar. “Sometimes I think she distastes my business, but she can’t deny it brings in money. I’ve built half the buildings in this city, church and Academy and houses; and I’ve laid the streets. Utica’s a rising town, Jerry. Now, with this canal contract, I aim to be a rich man.”

The hired girl served them with a steak of fresh pork, kidney beans, and bacon, brandy, bread, butter, cheese, and apple pie. When she had laid the things, she brought her own plate and sat down at the bottom of the table. She had nothing to say, but ate noisily.

After dinner, when Hammil had led the way to his office,— a small room in a wing, with an iron cash chest on the floor, a copper spittoon, two comfortable rocking-chairs, and a broad plain desk,— the fat man stretched himself comfortably. He put his feet on the desk and offered Jerry a cigar, and when Jerry declined lit himself one and for a few moments contented himself with breathing out long streams of smoke.

“Truth is,” he said, “I’d like that house a damned sight better if Mabel didn’t hang onto that old girl. She worked for her when we got married, and it might have been included in our contract for all the chance I’ve got of getting rid of her. All the while she’s got her eye upon a person; and when she’s not eyeing, she’s scenting with that limber nose of hern.”

He sighed and examined the ash of the stogy. Then he screwed it into his round mouth and hooked his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat.

“Let’s talk business.”

Jerry nodded.

“Do you want work?”

“Yes.”

“Where do you come from?”

“Uniontown.”

“Married or single?”

“Married.”

“Wife here?”

“Yes.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Well,” said Hammil, relaxing behind a long puff of rank smoke. “The fact is, I like your looks. I’m going to make you a proposition. But first I’d like to know what you’re doing here in Utica.”

Jerry hesitated. The fat man had surprised him with his rapid-fire questions. He felt a new respect for Hammil under the jovial, easy-going exterior. He did not think of his admonition to Mary until he had finished his story. But the fat man seemed to understand.

“All right, boy. You needn’t worry. I won’t tell anybody. It doesn’t make you sound like a man for business, but then I haven’t seen the girl. Have you got your recommend with you?”

Jerry brought a piece of heavy folded white paper from his coat pocket. Prying his cigar to the far corner of his mouth, Hammil took the paper and opened it. His fat face was expressionless, his chin lost in flesh.

“It’s a good recommend as far as it goes. But it don’t say anything about mechanics. You understand mill work, though. Can you read? Yes. Well, none of us know anything about locks, I guess, and you can learn. Can you follow a plan?”

“I never tried.”

Hammil nodded.

“Don’t say you can do a thing if you ain’t done it afore. But don’t say you can’t do a thing— that’s worse.”

He handed over the recommend and then leaned back again in his chair.

“Jerry, here’s what I was going to offer you. Drive me and mind my horse when I’m traveling for timber. Three dollars a week and your keep, when we’re traveling. But, now, if you get the hang of buying and show you can spot timber, I may send you out alone; and give you five dollars. If you make a hand at building when we get to the active work, I’ll put you up to seven dollars.”

He looked across the desk shrewdly.

“That’s my proposition.”

“I’ll take it.”

“Good. I’m glad.” He held out his hand, and for the second time that day Jerry shook it.

For a moment Hammil grinned at him. Then he popped the cigar back in his mouth and leaned over the desk.

“Look here,” he said, “I’ll show you a plan drawed of a lock.”

He opened a drawer in the desk and took out a roll of stiff grey paper.

“Hitch around next to me,” he said, unrolling it.

The sheet was headed at the top with fancy printing in a scroll.

GenJ. Plan for locks

For No. 1

on the Erie Canal

(3 miles east of Cossett’s in Onondaga Co.)

And underneath the draftsman had made a picture of the completed lock with a boat entering the lower gate. Across the centre of the sheet were the ground plans of the timbering, with sections cut away. Hammil pointed these out with the wet end of the stogy.

“This is our job, the foundation work and gates. Considerable of it will have to be piled. This plan calls for four-foot piling. But Holley claims the locks are all located in clean gravel and mud to made a solid bottom. They’re all sunk two feet under water-bottom to allow coverage for the cills.”

Jerry nodded. That was easy to follow. Double cribs upon the piling and a foundation of twelve-inch hewn beams set solid.

“Is that bottom layer of plank to be matched?” he asked.