Canal Town

by Samuel Hopkins Adams

  “My man has a sore finger,” suavely explained the second.

  “Lessee that thing. What’s into it?” growled Miley.

  Silverhorn tossed it over. The Tugg committee poked and prodded it, finally passing it to Deacon Bardo who judicially pronounced that, while he had seen nothing like it before, a combatant had the right to safeguard an injured member.

  “Better tie it on his nose,” sneered Tugg to Silverhorn. “Is he goin’ to fight or ain’t he? He don’t look like he wanted to.”

  Horace ignored the taunt, his ear attentively bent to his second who was now imparting his final admonition.

  “He’ll reach with his right. When you feel his fingers, let him have it. If he draws you in, butt him.”

  Horace nodded and stepped out. Tugg flailed his arms, let out a blood-curdling howl, and charged. Some object which he had not noticed interfered with his plunge, so that he stumbled and all but fell. The obstacle was the enemy’s foot, cleverly interposed as he swerved from the rush. Roaring again, the canaller repeated his advance, only to be evaded a second time. He stood, shaking his head like a furious bull.

  “Close in! Close in!” shouted Sandy, the horse coper. “Grip um.”

  The big man moved forward with deadly deliberation this time. Horace maneuvered along the foot of the slope until the morning sun was in the captain’s eyes. Was he going to be trapped? Captain Ennis and Old Bill shouted warnings. Tugg’s great right hand was opening and contracting. It darted forward. It clutched. Horace, set for it, put all that he had into his swing. The spectators heard a Pop! such as small boys achieve by inflating a bladderwort leaf to bursting.

  Captain Tugg, with a mildly disappointed expression, wavered to earth.

  It would have been within Horace’s privilege, under the rules, to kick his ribs in. He had other designs. Slowly the gladiator got to his feet, waggled his head to clear it, and lunged again at his opponent. Yells of derision sounded from his faction, as the smaller man warily retreated up the bank to the path.

  “Clinch um! Clinch urn!” howled Miley, dancing.

  The temporary daze had passed from Tugg’s brain. He pursued. His first experience had taught him nothing. That nervous right hand stretched forth once more, the apish fingers crisping. Horace withdrew, slowly, more slowly, hardly moving now in a sidling curve. The hand settled, gripped, half encircled the other’s neck. Tugg uttered a yelp of triumph, cut short by a second Pop! a shade solider than the first. This time the kindly earth was not there to receive the tottering warrior, for, as he gave back, his opponent’s head took him under the chin with all the spring of lithe knees in its drive, and a mighty splash marked the spot where three-and-a-half feet of Erie water closed over the distorted features.

  Erie mud is slithery-soft. The fallen man wavered to his feet, choking with fury and slime.

  “Stay there! Stay there!” howled his committee, perceiving the peril.

  If he heard them he paid no heed. Clawing his way forward, pawing the ooze of the incline like a dog on a treadmill, he lurched on, bent half double. As soon as he was within reach of the bank, he received a neat clip under the chin and collapsed backward. Bubbles rose. Uproar filled the air. Miley, Clark and Captain Gadley rushed to succor their man, but were met by the embodiment of authority in the redoubtable person of Deacon Bardo. If aid were given to either contestant, warned the arbiter, that man’s stake would be forfeited forthwith.

  “You goin’ to leave um drown?” shouted Miley.

  This was rhetoric, as the extreme depth was no more than four feet. The stakeholder drew out his watch. From the face of the troubled waters a convulsed and streaming visage emerged. It coughed, strangled, retched. Horace, with an intent expression, waited on the bank.

  “Keep away! Keep away!” Tugg’s committee unanimously yelled to their man.

  The canaller hawked water from his pipes, squeezed it from his eyes, dribbled it from his sinewy frame. Hoarsely he cursed, in language so choice that the toughest water rat within hearing marveled and admired. Now he backed toward the berm. In a foot depth he bent and groped. He straightened and let fly a great rock at Horace’s head, less than thirty feet away. It was the mistake of his career.

  Horace swerved lithely, but not enough for full avoidance. The missile struck him on the shoulder, fortunately the left one. It sent him rolling down the bank.

  As he stopped, he whipped off the glove. Near by was a pile of stones. His cool mind perceived the opportunity; the enemy had made the choice of weapons; it could not have been a better-selection for Horace. Climbing to his feet, he picked out two rounded rocks, one double the size of the other.

  Shouts and cheers apprised him that the foe was floundering back to terra firma. He set himself, the heavier missile in his right hand. He must take no chance of missing with the first shot. Certainly Tugg’s body was a fair enough target.

  The rock took the canaller full in the chest. It staggered him. His arms went down. Before he could raise them in protection, the cobble smashed into his face. His most formidable weapon of offense, the great horse-teeth, caved in in a welter of blood. He fell, groaning, pawing, twitching.

  The fight was over.

  – 14 –

  Horace’s return to the village was a triumphal progress. Shaking off his admirers, he sought out the Merry Fiddler. Tip Crego limped out on deck to meet him.

  “We heard about it,” he said joyously. “A canoe just came past. Where’s Captain Tugg?”

  “At the doctor’s. He wouldn’t let me patch him up. Make up your bundle.”

  “Can I quit?” cried Tip.

  “Here’s your indenture. We’re going home.”

  Tip’s joy over his release overbore the natural reticence of his Indian blood. He laughed, and would have danced but for the damaged knee. The doctor examined and rebandaged it as soon as they were aboard.

  “Now I can go to college,” the boy exulted. “I’ve kept up in my books.”

  Horace was glum. “I can’t help you, Tip. I can hardly make my living.”

  “I heard about that, sir,” said the boy.

  “Did you? How?”

  “I meet up with the gyppos sometimes. The gyppos know everything.”

  Horace suppressed the temptation to ask how much the gyppos knew about Wealthia Latham. A bugle-catch outside brought him to the path. Silverhorn beamed brightly upon him. Silverhorn was pleasurably drunk.

  “I’ve been standing drinks,” said he. “Topside, downside and alongside. If I was in Albany, I would be elected mayor of Albany. If I was in Utica, I would be elected mayor of Utica. I could also be mayor of Syracuse and maybe New York, if I wanted to take the pains. Name your potion.”

  Horace declined the drink. The jaunty sportsman removed his neckcloth, spread it carefully upon the ground, and proceeded to discharge his pockets into it. Gold, silver, copper, notes current, notes uncurrent, a watch, a compass, a jeweled brooch, a table knife, a gilt ring and a fistful of geegaws made up the sum of his takings.

  “One hundred twelve dollars and the extras,” he reckoned. “And the half of it is yours, young Æsculapius; the half of it is yours.”

  “Thanks, Silverhorn. But I can’t take your money.”

  “Now, by Noah’s navel, you can and shall! Didn’t you win it for me? Pop!” said Silverhorn delightedly. “Pop! And over he keeled. The big son-of-a-bitch! Made a fine hole in the water.” Scooping up a double handful of the specie, he extended it to his companion.

  In the interests of comity, Horace compromised by accepting the compass for himself and the brooch for Dinty. Silverhorn stowed the remainder in various pockets, and said, “I did you a turn today, didn’t I, Æsculapius?”

  “You did, surely. Without your advice I shouldn’t have known how to fight him.”

  “Now you can do me a turn.”

  “What is it?”

  “Be my post office.”

  Horace frowned. “That’s your price, is it?”

  “Ca
rry a letter. Just one little letter.”

  “What good will that do anyone, Silverhorn? Let the girl alone.”

  “What if she doesn’t want to be let alone?”

  “You’ve no right to assume it. I’ll do anything else for you, but I can’t carry messages in that quarter. For one matter, I’m not on terms with Miss Latham.”

  “Your wife is,” returned the other who seemed to be surprisingly well informed in the premises. “Will you do this much, then? Will you take a message from that quarter, if there is one for me? Leave it to the girl, herself. Does she know that I’m back on the Ditch? She’ll know anyhow, come spring, for the Jolly Roger will be on the Main Haul by then. My respects to your lady wife, and will she ask her friend whether she ever got my letter and is there an answer? Is that too much to ask?”

  “I’ll go that far,” agreed Horace reluctantly.

  Silverhorn seemed quite sober now. “You can reach me at the Lock Port Inn. Good-bye and fortune’s luck to you, Æsculapius. You’re a likely man of your hands.” He turned away, but came back at once, his face both morose and exultant. “Hell and all its fires won’t keep me from her,” he said deep in his throat. “You can freight that along to her or not as you choose, Æsculapius. It won’t matter. She knows it.”

  As the straight, slender back disappeared, Horace lost himself in surmise. What would Ramsey do if ever he learned that the girl had conceived a child by another man? Go murder-mad perhaps. One day he must know it. Everybody would know it. For Horace still cherished the ineradicable conviction that eventually that somber truth would out, though it might not be through any procurement of his.

  Three days of alternate sailing and towing, neither wounded occupant being fit for the oars, brought the batteau to home port. Dinty welcomed her old playmate joyously, exclaiming over his emaciated condition and insisting that he must stay with them until he was recovered. Quaila Crego’s claim, however, took precedence. The boy went back to Poverty’s Pinch. He made daily visits to his benefactor, bringing in, as before, roots, plants and berries for his medicaments. His account of the towpath battle turned Dinty breathless. By his worshipful saga, second-hand though it was, Horace was a superior composite of David, Ulysses, Richard Coeur de Lion and George Washington. She proudly wore Silverhorn’s brooch, as an incentive to acquaintances to ask her for the story, but in private admonished the hero that henceforth he was to eschew combat as, in the terms of her informal Latin, infra his professional dig.

  “No worry,” Tip told her. “There’s not a tough on the Ditch that would tackle him now. Not even Silverhorn, himself.”

  Dinty gathered her courage for another attack. “Doc, could you be mistaken about its being Kin?”

  “I’m so certain that I’m writing to Colonel Hayne.”

  “Kin’s father? Oh, Doc!”

  “Somebody has to help her if Genter Latham kicks her out when the truth is forced on him. The Haynes ought to do it.”

  “You mustn’t write them, darling,” she pleaded.

  “I must and shall.”

  “Haven’t his people had enough suffering? You don’t really know that it was Kin.”

  “It was somebody. Are you suggesting that Wealthia has been promiscuous?”

  “No,” returned Dinty indignantly.

  “Yet you won’t allow that it was Hayne.”

  “In my heart I’ve never believed it.”

  “Who’s your candidate?” he inquired sardonically, and answered himself. “Silverhorn Ramsey, I suppose. Well, my darling romanticist, you’re one hundred percentum wrong, and science proves it.”

  “Pooh for your science!” retorted Dinty.

  “Silverhorn couldn’t be the father of Wealthia’s child. He couldn’t be the father of anyone’s child.”

  “Why not?”

  “Professional secret.”

  “I know he had the bad disease, if that’s your professional secret. Witch Crego told me that long ago. But that wouldn’t prevent him making a baby.”

  “Wouldn’t it?” he retorted condescendingly. “Undoubtedly you keep abreast of the latest discoveries of Science, but a few things may have escaped you.”

  For the moment, however, she was more concerned with the Hayne family. After much and specious cajoling, she extracted a promise that he would hold the projected letter, at least until there was a change in the Latham status.

  At the first opportunity she set herself to prowl through the files of the professional journals which Horace read with such religious faith. A year-old volume of a defunct publication calling itself the Physician’s Eclectic turned up the information. Therein a prolix writer proved, to his own satisfaction, that men afflicted with venereal ailments were sterile for at least three years after the incidence of the disease, and bolstered his theory with impressively tabulated figures.

  Like so many physicians of that day (and not a few of the present) Horace Amlie believed in the immaculate conception of statistics. Dinty knew how trustingly his mind would accept those serried numerals. It did appear, she confessed to herself, as if the laborious compiler must know what he was doing. And yet …

  Silverhorn’s message was now in her keeping.

  “I can’t force you to deliver it if you don’t want to,” Horace informed her with an enigmatic glance and half-smile.

  “I’ll deliver it. Not for Captain Ramsey, but for Wealthia.”

  “Do as you please. I see nothing but trouble in it.”

  “Maybe she won’t think so.”

  “You’re still possessed of the idea that she is enamored of him?”

  Dinty’s lips formed the thin, red line of obstinacy.

  “How could she have been?” he argued. “If she were, would she have gotten herself into the mess with Kinsey Hayne?”

  “You’re a very wise and wonderful medico, Doc,” his wife observed, “but you don’t know quite everything about women.”

  Dinty found Wealthia in the garden and bluntly discharged her errand. The girl whitened.

  “I—I don’t want to see him.”

  “Shall I tell him that’s your last word?”

  “No, don’t.”

  “Did you get his other letters?”

  “Yes.”

  “He had no answer, he told Horace.”

  “I was frightened. I’m frightened now.”

  “That’s dumb. I never was afraid of any man in my life,” boasted Dinty, and qualified it. “We—ell, perhaps a little of Doc when he gets very mad with me. What will you do when Captain Ramsey comes back on this run?”

  “I’ll go away,” said her friend wildly. “I won’t stay here.”

  “Wealthy, you ought to get married. You’ve had heaps of chances.”

  “Oh, I have chances enough,” returned the girl dully.

  “Why don’t you, then?”

  “I’ll never marry.”

  “Because of Kinsey?” asked Dinty softly.

  Wealthia flinched. “Don’t! Talk about something else or go home. I hear Tip Crego is back.”

  They discussed the returned fugitive, and out of that conversation Dinty took back to her husband a surprising bit of news.

  “Doc, what do you think?”

  “I think you’ve probably been making a sentimental ninny of yourself.”

  “Wait till you hear. Wealthy wants to send Tip to Hamilton.”

  “Good Lord! What’s got into her?”

  “It seems to be a sort of thank-offering to Heaven, by what I can make out.”

  He pulled a sour face. “What has she got to be so thankful about? Attempted infanticide?”

  “Aren’t you cruel! She’ll pay all his fees. Does he still want to go?”

  “He’ll jump at the chance.”

  So it was arranged that Tip should share the physician’s voyages as assistant, receiving tuition as opportunity offered. Thus, under the lax requirements then prevailing, he would be qualified to enter in the winter term. It was a satisfactory arrangement all
around.

  With a capacity for piecing information together, the boy, while in town, picked up enough from old associates at the Pinch and from village gossip to gain a pretty good notion of his doctor’s dilemma. One day he came to Dinty.

  “Dinty, I’ve got something I want to ask the Doctor.”

  “What about?”

  “Wealthy.”

  “He won’t talk about her.”

  “Maybe he would to me.”

  “Not to anyone.”

  “There’s something I could tell him that might help him.”

  “Tell me.”

  Tip looked embarrassed. “It isn’t something a fellow would talk about to a lady.”

  “I’m not a lady. I’m Dinty. And I’m married. To a doctor. There isn’t much I don’t know. Don’t be dumb.”

  “Dinty, why did that Mr. Hayne kill himself?”

  “Why do you think? And how much do you know?”

  He hesitated long before replying. “I know that Wealthy was in trouble. I think the Doctor knew it, too, and told Mr. Latham and Mr. Latham wouldn’t believe it and that’s what caused all the row.”

  “How do you know Wealthy was in trouble?”

  “She went to Satch Fammie.”

  “I know that. I was with her.”

  “Not that time. This was later.”

  “Did Satch Fammie do something to her?”

  “She didn’t dare. She was too far gone.”

  “That must have been before Kinsey Hayne knew anything,” reflected Dinty, reckoning dates.

  “Mr. Hayne? How would he know?”

  “I know I can trust you, Tip. Doc believes that Kin Hayne got Wealthy that way and couldn’t face it. That’s why he killed himself.”

  “Mr. Hayne? He didn’t get her that way.”

  “Tip! Do you know what you’re talking about?”

  “Certes, I do.”

  “Who do you think it was?”

  “I don’t think. I know. Silverhorn Ramsey.”

  “And I know it couldn’t have been.”

  “Why couldn’t it? He took her to Satch Fammie himself and offered a lot of money. Would he do that unless he were the one?”