3stalwarts

by Unknown

  Her eyes snapped.

  “I quit him dead in Utica last night”

  “It ain’t right,” he repeated harshly.

  She glanced at him. He certainly looked big and strong, and he’d knocked Klore dizzy, but she remembered his expression when Klore came in on him.

  “Well,” she said dryly, “what’re you going to do about it, then?”

  He stared down uncomfortably at his fists.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well,” she said. “I wouldn’t try to do anything.”

  He was nothing but a country lump anyway; he didn’t know a hotel from a hall. She had seen that in Hennessy’s, and had stood up for him.

  “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I can look out for myself. A girl gets the habit living on the Erie.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “I don’t know. He generally winds up his likker in Bentley’s.”

  They fell silent. Out beyond the trees they heard the brisk trotting of a pair of horses, and a carriage drew up in front of a house. A gentleman and two ladies got out and went up to the front door. Molly drew in her breath ecstatically and pointed out particular things about the women’s clothes.

  Dan hardly noticed. To him she seemed as pretty in her plain red dress. It brought out the flush in her smooth cheeks and matched her bright mouth. Her position, leaning back on the bench, moulded her figure under her clothes; and sitting there in the quiet shade with her, with fine houses and strange people about them, gave him a sense of intimacy. His inarticulate anger against Klore was swallowed by a growing excitement.

  “What’re you going to do next?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Get another job, maybe. I got some money saved; maybe I won’t do anything for a little while.”

  She regarded him with a sidewise glance. He was staring at the toes of his dusty cowhide boots; and his attitude brought out the muscles in his neck, the swell of his shoulders. His hands were heavily boned; she knew he was strong; and his thin face seen in profile with the curved nose and high cheek bones, and the short straight hair on the back of his neck, was attractive.

  “I’ll wait a couple of weeks,” she said, almost as if it were a promise. “I’ll see what turns up.”

  He stared out across the square, above the roofs of the houses. Sparrows were circling there in flocks, all jerking as one in their flight, all atwitter. Her eyes softened.

  “What’re you planning to do, Mr. Harrow?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’d scarcely thought. I guess I’ll go on down with Julius W. as far’s Albany. Then I don’t know who I’ll come back with.”

  He looked round at her suddenly.

  “But I aim to get a boat some day soon.”

  “You’ll find it hard unless you’re awful lucky.”

  “Maybe. Maybe I could get Mr. Butterfield to help me.”

  “Maybe you might.”

  “Listen,” he said, “if I got a boat of my own? …”

  “Yeanh.”

  “Would you— I’d need a cook,” he said.

  “That’s right,” she said, puckering the corners of her eyes. “You’d need a cook and a pair of mules and a driver.”

  “Yeanh,” he said, swallowing.

  She laughed, putting out her chin at him a little.

  “And you’d like for me to be your cook?”

  “Yeanh,” he said. “That’s right.”

  “Well,” she said, “when you come and ask me, I’ll let you know.”

  “Where’ll you be?”

  “If I ain’t otherwise taken, I’ll be at Lucy Cashdollar’s Agency. That’s over Bentley’s.”

  He leaned back heavily against the bench.

  “Mr. Harrow—”

  “Yeanh?”

  He glanced up; but she was looking at her lap, where her fingers were opening and closing her reticule.

  “If you’d ask me, I’d say I’d like to cook for you a lot.”

  His breath caught. After a while he managed to say, “I aim to ask you, Molly.”

  They did not speak, but watched the shadows come in under the trees and lights spring up in the windows over the front doors of the houses. A couple walked past them without noticing them. And a flock of sparrows took possession of a tree near them for the night.

  “My land!” exclaimed Molly. “It’s time I was getting back to supper.”

  Bentley’s

  On Genesee Street Molly left him. He walked slowly down the hill to the canal. The moon was still low in the eastern bowl of the great valley, and it sent an uneven thread along the course of the canal. Through the city, the warehouses cast black shadows far into the stream, at times cutting off the thread of moonlight; but every here and there night lanterns hung in the bows of boats pierced the blackness and traced the ripple. A wind was rising out of the northwest, and rumpled clouds were bearing down upon the moon.

  Dan paused for a time on the bridge. It was very still there. Close at hand was Bagg’s Hotel; but it was quiet— whatever noise issued from its windows was hidden by the slap of the ripple on the piles. He stared away to the east and thought of Molly. “By grab,” he said under his breath, “if I had a boat I could have her. She said pretty near that much.” But there was small chance of his getting a boat. He could ask Mr. Butterfield for a job, maybe, and make more money than he was making now; but he would be asking in his father’s name, and he did not want to do that.

  “There ain’t much chance,” he said to himself. “I guess I’ll find Bentley’s.”

  But as he turned to take his course along the canal there was still a glow in him. “Like to cook for you a lot,” she had said.

  Coming along the dock were two men, one a stockily built boater, the other a mild-looking clerk. They both stopped when Dan asked them where to find Bentley’s.

  “Keep on how you’re headed,” said the boater. “Turn into Liberty Street after you pass Gridley’s warehouse. Walk a block to your right, and if you can’t detect it by the noise, ask a man and he’ll do it for you.”

  “It would be simpler—” began the clerk.

  “Now you shut up,” said the boater. “Don’t listen to him. It’s folks educated like him lead people off the track.”

  Dan went along slowly. The city down by the docks seemed to have come to life. There were few lights, and the warehouses loomed high and dark. But in the streets round them there was a pulsation of indistinguishable sound. When he passed a corner, he sometimes heard voices in loud talk, or a fiddle playing high and fast, or someone singing a snatch— a snatch of “Hoosen Johnny,” and other voices coming into the chorus:—

  “Long time ago, long time ago. The little black bull came down the meadow. Oh, a long time ago.”

  He stopped to listen to it. While he stood there, a man passed him, smoking a cigar. The wind brightened the ash, and, dimly lit as they were, Dan recognized the bulging eyes and pursed mouth of the fat man, Henderson, who claimed to be a horse trader. He was walking along slowly, his gaze on the upper windows of the warehouses.

  Dan went on, turned into Liberty Street as he had been directed. A little way down, an alley branched off on the right, and from the end of it sounded voices singing, men’s voices, with a swing and bellow that filled the air. It was a canal song.

  “We were loaded down with barley, We were chuck up full with rye; And the captain he looked down at me With his goddam wicked eye.

  “Oh the E-ri-e was arising, The strap was getting low, And I scarcely think We’ll get a drink Till we get to Buffalo, Till we get to Buffalo.”

  The swing of it took hold of him and drew him towards the door. He did not need to be told it was Bentley’s. It was a three-story building with an eaveless roof, standing stiff as a box at the end of the alley. Bentley’s Bar, a boaters’ hangout; it hadn’t had “Oyster Booth” put into the name then.

  Dan pushed his way through the door, and his eyes blinked. The air was thick with tobacco, the sharp-smelling he
at of oil lamps, the heavy sound of men talking in a close room.

  “Well, well! Look what just come in! And on Sunday, too!”

  Someone guffawed.

  Dan paid no attention, but let the door swing to behind him. Running down the length of the room on his left was the bar. Four keeps were working behind it in their shirt sleeves; they worked hard.

  Dan wedged into an opening in the line before it.

  “What’s yours?” asked the nearest keep.

  “Whiskey.”

  The glass slid up to his hand. He paid and made his way to a table in a corner of the room.

  He drank his whiskey slowly, and its sting brought water to his eyes. Two boaters at the next table were grumbling over low wages. “Good solid rates, heavy trade, where does the money go?” said one. “We don’t see it.” The other nodded. He wore a cap tilted back on his head and blew his nose often into a red handkerchief. His forehead bulged like a philosopher’s. “The coat and pants does all the work,” he observed, “but the weskit gets the gravy.”

  Dan looked round for Wilson and the Jew; but they were not in sight. As he drank, he lost interest in them, and thought of Molly instead, in her red dress. With the surge of talk about him, the laughter, the stamp of men’s feet, the clinking at the bar, he felt the push of the canal behind him… .

  There was a lift to the floor when he got to his feet and went over to the bar for another glass. But the act of walking gave him a feeling of increased strength, and he leaned his elbow on the bar and glanced round him. It was pleasant for him to stand there, not to feel nervous when a man jostled him.

  “Beg pardon,” said a man when his heel slipped and he lurched against Dan.

  “Surely,” said Dan, making to steady him with his hand. He was getting a gauge of his own strength. “I’d like to see Klore now,” he said to himself, thinking of what Molly had told him. “I’d like to see him now.”

  Down the room someone was stamping on the floor. “Song! Song!”

  A man lurched to his feet and a tumbler smashed.

  “Abel Marsters going to sing.”

  Dan’s glass came sliding back, and he gazed over the rim at a tall boater who was standing by himself beside the great round stove, and pulling his moustache away from his mouth. Then he lifted his chin a trifle and half closed his eyes and took one hand in the other. He had a fine, moving tenor.

  “Drop a tear for big-foot Sal, The best damn cook on the Erie Canal; She aimed for Heaven but she went to Hell-Fifteen years on the Erie Canal.

  The missioner said she died in sin; Hennery said it was too much gin: There weren’t no bar where she hadn’t been, From Albany to Buffalo.”

  The heave, the pull, the plod of the towpath, the people, the men about Dan; all were in the song, all joining the refrain: —

  “Low bridge! Everybody down! Low bridge! We’re coming to a town!

  You’ll always know your neighbor, you’ll always know your pal, If you’ve ever navigated on the Erie Canal.

  “Low bridge! …”

  The long drag, the meadows, the marshes, the woods and the hills and the rivers, and the canal going through, with the boats, slowly, slowly, one step after another, slow, slow, and the mules’ ears flop, and the snake whips crack, and the dust in your throat, and …

  … “we’re coming to a town.”

  And here they were, after the long week’s plodding at three miles an hour, on Sunday night, letting off energy to ease themselves.

  Then, as Dan watched, a light sprang to the eyes of an old Irishman, red still in his hair, sitting alone in the corner; and, looking toward the door, he saw the white head of Benjamin Rae over the crowd, and the swaggering shoulders of Julius Wilson, and William Wampy with his fiddle. A cry of “William! William Wampy!” and William was hoisted to a table, and the Irishman called for a jig.

  Dimly through the swaying smoke Dan saw William seat himself, and tables and chairs rasped over the floor to clear a space. The lantern over him shed yellow light on his bald head and mild brown eyes as he cuddled the fiddle and talked it into tune. Then his hand and the bow awoke, his shoulders swayed to the left, came up, held still, and the bow flashed… . And the old man who had called for a jig was doing it, earnestly, concentrating on his feet, for a moment, till the fiddle gave them the rhythm; and the “Irishman’s Shanty” was in full swing… . The great Jew slapping his hands on his knees in time. Julius grinning and shouting “Hye!” Men shuffling their feet… . Another Irishman on the floor, a young man, springing like a buck deer, a shrill cry from the old man, and an old step of his feet, forgotten, a double tap, a roar of delight… . William Wampy shaking the sweat from his face, mild-eyed… . The barkeeps snatching a moment’s rest… . Dan looked on, the blood pounding in his head, singing like the fiddle, an itch in his feet… .

  The tune stops. William Wampy tears open his shirt, bends over, another rush of notes, quick, shrill— “Jamesville on a Drunk,” high laughter, men dance together… .

  Dan stood at the bar, near the end, staring, half seeing the faces come and go, some old, some young, bearded, smooth, laughing, or serious in liquor … and then a face materialized in front of him— a black beard, and pale grey eyes, with white spots made by the lamps beside the pupils —that held him stiff against the bar. He was conscious of his right foot feeling its way from the rail to join his left upon the floor, and he braced himself. Still the faces swept by, back and forth, dimly now behind Jotham Klore’s; but the fiddle had a rowdy shrillness in his ears.

  Jotham Klore was saying something; Dan could see the words coming through his beard, but they sounded vague, without syllables. Suddenly his face stung where Klore had hit him with his open hand, and then the other side. Dan hit out. His balance wavered, he caught it, but the action brought courage to his fists. He struck again, saw Klore’s head snap in toward his chest, and hit his ear, and knew that he had landed twice. Then Klore was close to him, and dull pain entered his stomach, but he found he could hit and land as often as he liked. The pain continued; it did not hurt as badly as he had thought, but for some strange reason it made him drowsy, and shook something in his head… .

  He was aware of Wilson grabbing Klore’s collar, of a roar of voices, and Wilson had vanished. Over a mass of faces he saw the great hands and white head of the Jew coming toward him. But Klore was in again, his teeth showing in his beard, and a bit of blood at his mouth gumming the hair. He pounded back, but the purchase was leaving his toes, and the hands came in against his stomach, one two, one two. The faces behind Klore swept in; he saw the Jew’s hands reach forward; but the beat and hammer in his head carried him back. … A man grabbed his shoulders, he felt his legs dragging on the floor, the lights swam in the smoke, the roar closed in upon him… . The feet of one of the keeps vaulting over him, a big cool man, using a bung starter… . The cold, the darkness, and faintly the voice of the fiddle, a soothing tune, “The Little Stack of Barley.” …

  “Sick?”

  The sound of water lapping against the piles. He was looking down along a tall man’s side. The black water of the canal, and over it a plank as thin as a thread, and boards under his back. The deck of the boat… .

  “Feel better pretty quick.”

  He was rolled on his stomach, head over the side, a sharp slap over the kidneys and a pain in his stomach… . The water, the black water… .

  “That sort of evens us up.”

  The voice was familiar. He recognized dimly. He had heard it always in the dark.

  “Got a taste of the canal,” said the voice. “You’ll feel better now.”

  He struggled to sit up and saw a man bending over him, back to the faint light of the moon; a wide hat— Gentleman Joe. Suddenly the man cocked his head alertly.

  “Working for Wilson?”

  Dan managed to nod.

  “It’s his boat. I’ve got to cut out of here.”

  The man moved down the plank and disappeared into the shadows along the warehouses.r />
  Dan sat with his back to the rudder post, the sweep curving out over his head. He felt sore and still sick; but it was not as bad as he had thought it would be. He wasn’t afraid. He had tasted the canal; he had become part of it.

  He heard a faint whistling moving along the docks, and a man came opposite the Xerxes and paused long enough for Dan to recognize the fat man, Henderson, and then moved on.

  Dan got to his feet and went down to the cabin and felt his way to his bunk.

  Utica Weighlock

  When he woke, Benjamin Rae’s hand was on his shoulder, shaking him.

  “Hustle up, Dan. We’re loading in half an hour.”

  He helped Dan sit up.

  “Belly sore?” The Jew grinned.

  “Yeanh.”

  “Klore sure set out to rangdangle you. What happened to you?”

  “I haven’t much of a notion.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  He passed out through the curtains.

  Dan heaved his feet to the floor; his shoes were still on. The bunks swam dizzily from right to left, and he grabbed his head. But in a moment things came steady.

  Through the curtain he could hear the others eating, blowing on the coffee and gulping it.

  “Come on out if you want to eat,” Wilson called.

  Dan stepped into the cabin a bit unsteadily. It was still dark, and a lamp was giving a feeble light over the table. Wilson looked up.

  “Who brought you back, Dan?”

  “Why, I sort of come to on the boat,” said Dan.

  “Fill him some coffee, William. You took a lot round the stomach-something hot’ll help unlimber you.”

  “It won’t hurt you,” said Benjamin Rae. “The best fighter never really fit until he’d got licked once or twicet.”

  The coffee eased Dan considerably, and cleared his head, but he still felt sore when he went on deck.

  A heavy fog misted the Basin; and when Benjamin Rae went down the plank after the mules his broad shoulders were swallowed up in it before he had passed the bow.

  “You get the towline ashore,” said Wilson.

  In a few minutes Dan heard the Jew returning, the sharp thump of hoofs on the dock, and then the heads of the mules came out of the fog. He hooked the towline to the evener and the mules relaxed their off hips and let their ears flop back against their necks.