3stalwarts (171 page)

Hunter and Jerry nodded to their acquaintances as they made their way across to a corner table; but they found it occupied. The engineer, Nathan Roberts, was alone.

“Good evening, Hunter. Evening, Jerry. I took your pet table, didn’t I?” He smiled at them. “I hoped you might be coming down tonight.”

Hunter sat down and stretched his legs out under the table.

“I didn’t plan on it myself. But Jerry’s in need of beer. Ma Frey won’t serve intoxicating drinks to her boarders— only brandy.”

One of the Crabble girls came up to them with a bright smile.

“Evening, Mr. Fowler,” she said. “The regular?”

Hunter grinned at her.

“Yes, darling.”

“Oh, Mr. Hunter!”

She flounced her skirts out as she turned.

Hunter said, “There they are always eyeing him and he doesn’t care a dang. What good it was for me to be a teamster I don’t see.”

“You don’t want to try anything on the Crabble girls. They’re pure ornamental,” Roberts said.

“Like the waxworks in the museum. I wonder who they model those waxwork ladies after. The Albany Belle I’ve heard was taken from Juliana Yates in Pompey. But she’s nowhere near Ophelia being stabbed by the darkey.” He sighed comically. “Well, I’m a respectable citizen now, and these things don’t interest me any more.”

Roberts smiled.

“I’m glad you two turned up. It’s my last evening in Rochester.”

Jerry looked up.

“Where are you going now?”

“They’ve picked me out to build the double flight at Lockport and superintend the stonework in the deep cut. The work’s moving too slowly. The first line is only half dug and they can’t handle the rocks.”

“We’re going to miss you beering here,” said Hunter.

Roberts grinned boyishly.

Jerry said, “I didn’t know you were so near done.”

“We set the guard rail this afternoon. It’s ready for travel now, and I’ve given orders. They’ll let the water through next week.” He looked up quickly. “It’s funny that I’ve moved away from every job I’ve finished be-fore the water came through. I’ve seen it afterwards of course, but I’ve never seen the water rising in the canal.”

“You’re going to be resident engineer in Lockport?”

“Yes. It’s a promotion. I get full salary now. Fifteen hundred. And I’m glad to be away from this aqueduct. There wasn’t anything to interest me here once we got the piers down solid. At Lockport it’s going to be different. Rock to blast and lift. The walls will be thirty feet, and the deepest cut is over a mile long. The locks are a double flight five high— the only double flight there is on the whole line. Jerry, I wanted to see you tonight to ask if you’d come out and build my timberwork.”

Jerry looked up from his hands. Old Crabble was lighting the candles in his lanterns and colored spots of light began to bloom like strange big flowers in the trees. The girl slid up with their bowls of steaming samp, sweetened by syrup.

Roberts went on, “You and I started the first lock. In 1817-six years ago. It occurred to me it would be fun to build the last on the line.”

Jerry looked across at Hunter. The teamster was looking back at him. The keen eyes in the hard brown face belied the sarcastic grin.

“Why not?” said Roberts. “You could get away a year. Your company’s doing well.”

“That’s it,” Jerry said. “I’ve got to be on hand now. We’re getting outside orders for boats.”

Hunter broke in.

“Jerry, you might as well get out. Self can handle the other boats. You ought to have a change, and do some actual work for once. He’s getting soft, Roberts. And he thinks the Six-Day couldn’t get along without him.” He swung round facing the engineer. “He goes round looking gloomier than Self without his toothache. I’m sick of him; and I wish you’d drag him off.”

“Who’s offering the contract?” demanded Jerry.

“State job.”

“The regular thing?”

“I don’t know the allowance. But with the water into Brockport, hauling timber won’t cost much. Honestly, I wish you’d come, Jerry.”

Jerry looked over at Hunter.

“There’s no earthly reason for staying here,” Hunter said seriously. “The company will give you leave of absence. You deserve a rest.”

Jerry saw that these two had cooked this up between them.

“When do you start?”

Roberts said, “Tomorrow morning.”

“When do you want me?”

“In a day or two. The pits are dug in solid stone. Timberwork’s going to be simple.”

For a moment Jerry hesitated. But Hunter said, “Look here, Jerry. I know what’s on your mind. If anything turns up I promise you you’ll get it within a day.”

“I’ll go, then.”

Jerry was walking by himself. The town was fast asleep, no lights in the streets, only the moon breasting a wrack of cloud. The roar of the falls came upstream in a muffled drone.

As he passed the museum, Mr. Bishop let himself out.

“Evening, Fowler,” said the old man.

“Evening,” Jerry said.

“I hear you’re leaving out of here tomorrow?”

“Yes, going out to Lockport.”

The old man rubbed his hands.

“The last barrier.” He talked in a literary way. Since he had become pro-prietor of the waxworks he had adopted a literary style.

“How’s business?”

“Fine.” His rubbing hands whispered in the darkness. Then he said soberly, “Do you know where I could get a hand for model?”

“I’d let you have mine if I wasn’t leaving. What do you want it for?”

“To turn Lord Nelson into Tell.”

“You could get one in any canal house for a drink.”

“That’s an idea. Good night.”

“Good night.”

The mill walls shook to the thunder of the river. Jerry leaned on the towpath guard rail of the aqueduct. He could see the moon in the water sliding under him. The new stone gleamed. The water in the trunk held another moon, placid and round.

“Evening, mister.”

A man leaned on the rail beside him. He wore a plain grey worsted shirt and worsted pants.

“Evening.”

They leaned silently together. After a moment the man asked:—

“You got any ideas for a speech, mister?”

“Speech?”

“Maybe you ain’t seen the paper?”

“Not yet.”

“Tomorrow they’re going to open up the akeduck. Speechifying and a packet. Into the paper it says one of the workers is going to make a speech. I’m it.”

“Oh? How’d you get leave to come out?”

“I’m paroled for tonight. I told the warden, I’ve got to get idees to speech about. Maybe I could get it on the akeduck.’ ‘All right, Storey,’ he says. And here I be. But I ain’t had no idee. I’ve never broke parole, but maybe I will. When they ditched me for popping out that nigger’s gizzard I wasn’t half so turbulated.”

“How’d they pick on you?”

“We had an election. I was boss convict. I was a mason in my better days, you see, mister. So they elected me. Just like president. The bastards always hated me because I made them work.”

“I’m no man to think of speeches.”

“That’s it. All I can think of is going back to jail. ‘Hell,’ I says to the warden, T won’t speech worth a dang!’ ‘Where’s your patriotism?’ he says. Me, I’m not patriotic. ‘What’ll they do if I don’t?’ I asks him. ‘Put you in the mill,’ he says. Ain’t it hell?”

Jerry leaned on his wrists. In the river the moon stretched, leaped an eddy, spun, and came to rights again.

“Why don’t you tell them how hard you worked? How you were glad to do it? Because you got a patriotic feeling, even as a jailbird. Say how the noble feeling of building something solid is a great inducement to the man that sees the errors of his ways. Lay it on like mortar.”

“A serious kind of joke, you mean?”

“Yes, a joke for you and your gang, but serious to them townsfolks.”

“Mister, there’s an idee! I’ll just up and moan how noble it all is. How we’ve enjoyed sweating in the river and grouting stone. I’ll tell about how we thought of our little chillern doing it, hoping some day their daddies would be remembranced by their work. God, I wonder where my chillern are this minute. Trooping around after that fiddler Madge was fancy for, I guess.”

He went away, turning heavy phrases on his tongue.

“Say,” called Jerry. “Would you sell me your paper?”

The convict came back.

“Mister, to you it’s a gift.”

“Good night.”

“Good night.”

He put the paper in his pocket and wandered round to his house. Its walls shone faintly in the moon. He identified the rooms by the shuttered windows. He swallowed hard. He started walking again.

This time tomorrow he’d be up at Lockport. He was catching a boat that would slide through the sleeping town while nobody saw or heard. And tomorrow they would hold their celebration for the first boat over the aqueduct. Storey would make his speech. He would like to hear that speech, but he was glad to miss the rest.

He wandered on down Exchange Street and out on the bridge.

Rochester was a wild town, nowadays. The Telegraph, a week ago, had claimed that there was more riffraff to the honest man than in any other American city. Talk was up of organizing vigilantes. The town watch wasn’t capable of handling the canallers.

Down the boardwalk of South St. Paul Street he heard them coming. The lanterns gleamed against their legs. They spied him on the bridge and hailed him.

“Hey, you!”

“Evening.”

“What you doing?”

“Killing time waiting for a boat.”

“Oh, it’s Mr. Fowler. Evening, Mr. Fowler. We didn’t make you out so clear. Nice night, ain’t it?”

The three rather apprehensive pairs of eyes relaxed. Edwin Avery put back his horse pistol. William Wilbur cut a chew. Newton Rose frankly wiped his forehead.

“Any places open?” Jerry asked.

“Billy Lusk’s, I guess. We ordered him to shut up shop. We had an argument. But he agreed to do it in half an hour. There was a passel of ca-nawllers in there. Me, I personally preferred this city afore they opened up the ditch.”

“I think I’ll drop down there.”

“If it ain’t dark, Mr. Fowler, will you tell him that if it ain’t dark when you get there I intend to summons him?”

“Surely.”

“Good night.”

“Good night all.”

Billy Lusk’s showed lights. It stood on the northern bottle neck of Hill’s Basin. Jerry walked in.

A few boaters still hung out in the tap, seedy with sleep. It was an orderly place tonight.

“Evening, Mr. Fowler.”

“Evening, Billy. Bring me a strap and a candle. I’ve got to kill time. Oh, Newton Rose said he’d summons you if I found you lighted.”

Billy Lusk grinned toothlessly. A boater guffawed.

“Jem Pine,” he said, “was ordered out by them watches. They said, ‘If you don’t get out we’ll throw you out.’ ‘All right,’ says Jem, ‘I’m going.’ But he threw them out ahead of him.”

Jerry opened his paper and sipped the sweet, thick drink.

“Jamaica, and good Boston ‘lasses,” Lusk said proudly, swobbing aimlessly with a rag. “I ought to know. I was a steward for a Shippen boat out of Boston oncet.”

Jerry’s eyes ran down the paper. News of the city. Canal data. An edito-rial in favor of Mr. Adams— Thurlow Weed was an Adams man. “Swims naked in the Potomac, I’ve heard,” said Lusk. An article on the aqueduct —the greatest single work on the canal. It should be named for Clinton. Here were the advertisements. Parson Brent’s cow strayed or stolen. Two boys run away. A shilling for their return. Anna Knapp keeps plain bonnets for Friends. Books at Pecks, History of Greece, St. Ronan’s Well. North Road Stages Leave Auburn at 5 a.m., Arr. Rochester at 6 p.m. The Six-Day line for swift and economical forwarding. “The Sternatory Fashionable,” Havana snuff for Doctors, Lawyers, Divines, and ladies. Charles Lalliet opens a school for dancing. Married: Jonathan Jacket, son of Red Jacket, to Yee-ha-wee at Buffalo Reservation. Burrel Reed, Tonsor and Friseur, will seize occasion by the forelock and attend both sexes in their homes. Silver’s Pulmonic Syrup. Inventory of the Bonaparts. Bingham, the Tailor, for the military and also civilians. West’s Potash Kettles warranted to en-dure. Buy Halleck maple sugar, made the Vermont way… .

Jerry looked up from his paper.

Halleck. He remembered the fat woman and her family. After he had come to Rochester he had met George Halleck one day in the street. They were doing well. He hadn’t had much to say, and Jerry had not felt like talking.

His hand dropped the paper. He saw again a maple grove, and Mary’s figure stealing into it. He was not supposed to have seen her then; he had not let on to the boys. But that scene kept rising up before him— as if even then, before their wedding, she had tried to flee. The bar stank suddenly in his nostrils. He did not say good night; but he went out. Walking again. Walking.

He found himself in the boat yard and walked round the new boat. The moon silvered the grey sides. It traced the broad white name clearly for him to read. Western Lion.

Eastward beyond the basin a boat horn droned.

He stood still in the shadow of his boat. The light was born beyond the elm woods. It came stealing towards him. Suddenly he looked at his watch. They’d be coming into town in fifteen minutes. And he had to jump the boat— there were no orders for them to pick up. They were bringing the bog-trotters to cut out the rock in Lockport. They had licked the Montezuma marshes into shape and hired themselves for Lockport. There were no workers like them. It would be like old times to hear them shouting. And Roberts thought that working against the black boys they’d make time, for there was a feud between the gangs.

He walked swiftly back to the aqueduct, up the Exchange Street Basin to Mrs. Frey’s. His bag and tool chest lay inside the door. When he came back again to the canal the boat was sliding over the aqueduct.

He hailed it.

“Hey?”

The horses toiled by him. The boat came up with a slight rippling against the piles.

The driver said, “What do you want?”

“I’m riding with you into Brockport. Commission orders. My name’s Fowler.”

“Fowler?” cried the steersman.

“Yes.”

“Hop on.”

The boat slid deftly up to the wharf, barely touching its side. Jerry sprang on. The steersman leaned against the rudder stick to turn them out again. “Go slow, Chris,” he called to the driver. “This is new channel and I’ve got to see.”