Canal Town

by Samuel Hopkins Adams

  “No thanks to you.” As a matter of fact, he did not know. The daughter of Thespis had left town early in the Conestoga troupe-wagon, without vouchsafing him so much as a message of farewell.

  Horace was, indeed, rather relieved over the turn of events. The salvage of his virtue was not so much in his mind as his extrication from an entanglement by which, prudence warned him, his reputation might and his exchequer certainly would be gravely compromised.

  For the fair and frail soubrette had already nicked him for free medical services, a vial of Paradine’s Complexion Water, and a new Leghorn flat from Stone-Front Sarcey’s. This at a time of financial stress when he was still, in the current phrase, living down to his shoe thongs.

  – 11 –

  Getting affiansed does not Improve some Folks.

  (DINTY’S DIARY)

  After the first impetus of the Little Sunbeams’ advertising died out, Horace’s practice flagged. Partly the diminution was due to the young doctor’s own restrictions. Free treatment he could afford to give, but not free drugs. Sorely though it went against the grain to turn away those in need of his ministrations, he was forced in self-defense to weed out his list. But for the Levering patronage he would be running behind his bare living expenses.

  Old Bill Shea staggered into his office one August evening with a load of liquor on his breath. But Old Bill was not drunk. He was shaking with ague which he had been trying to counteract by the popular corrective of hot buttered rum. Horace filled him up with wine-and-bark and put him to bed at the Eagle. In the morning he insisted on returning to his job. He begged Horace to accompany him.

  “We’re rotten with fever,” said he. “Come out and help us.”

  Horace hesitated. “Genter Latham booted me off his payroll.”

  “He wishes he hadn’t, only he don’t know how to say so without ownin’ he was in the wrong.”

  “Did he send you?”

  “No. But I told him I was comin’, and he let it pass. That’s further’n I reckoned he’d go.”

  “He’ll have to go further still if he wants my services.”

  “Well, to hell with him! I need you. Some of the boys are liable to die on me if I don’t get help. Somethin’s got to be done.”

  “I’ve told Mr. Latham what to do.”

  “Move camp? He hain’t come to that yet.”

  “He’ll never get rid of the fever till he does.”

  “It ain’t fever alone. The dysentery’s bad, too.”

  “Will you spend some money on an experiment?”

  “If you say so.”

  “Buy a dollar’s worth of quicklime. I’m going to sweeten up that stinkhole of yours.”

  “Then you’ll come?”

  Horace nodded. It was the kind of appeal which he could not resist. Besides, he liked Shea. Furthermore, it would bring in a bit of money and fill up his idle time. Anything was better than sitting in the office, watching the leeches wriggle with hunger.

  Camp conditions were about as he had expected to find them. A little worse perhaps. The malaria was not of the extreme type. But he was hampered by the fact that several of the sick rejected his wine-and-bark, disliking the bitter tang of the quinine and the consequent ringing in the ears, and preferring to drink out the chills on the time-honored prescription of unlimited booze. The dysentery was severe and disabling. Five of his best workers, Shea said, claimed that it left them too weak to lift a pick, and quit cold. And look at the job!

  Horace looked and got a shock. Almost no progress had been made since his previous visit. Not more than half the force that he had originally seen now made up the gangs, and that half worked with languid indifference.

  “They’ve been advertisin’ my men away from me,” explained the overseer.

  “Who?”

  “Them Montezuma contractors. Advertisin’ no chills, no fever, no gripes; work with your feet dry and make seventy-five cents a day. The lyin’ sons-o’-bitches. Lucky most of my Irishers can’t read or I’d have lost them, too.”

  Horace strewed a portion of the lime where it was most needed and gave instructions for the disposition of the rest.

  “If that doesn’t ease up the dysentery, I miss my guess,” he said. “But you won’t be rid of the fever till cold weather comes.”

  “Why cold weather?”

  “They say it kills the miasmas,” answered Horace after hesitation.

  “Well, I seen ’em risin’ so thick in November it was like fog. But I never seen no fever in November,” argued the Irishman.

  Nor had Horace. It had troubled him before, that discrepancy. Where was it that he had read that article casting doubt upon the miasmatic origin of malaria and the other low fevers? And the one about the flies and mosquitoes? He must remember to look them up.

  “Are you much bothered with mosquitoes now?” he asked Shea.

  “Not in the daytime. You can see for yourself. Evenin’s, it’s hell. You go out without a smudge-box and they’ll eat you alive.”

  “Do they stand on their heads?”

  The Irishman stared. “How the hell would I know? They light on my tail. That’s enough for me.”

  It was all very confusing and discouraging. Then Shea said,

  “Squire Jerrold’s worse off than we are. But Geneseo Martin, up beyond Macedon, ain’t had hardly no trouble to speak of, so I hear tell. I dunno why. Why’n’t you ride up there and see him?”

  Horace accepted the suggestion. But before he found Martin at his project, he had the solution, and it was one that bolstered his faith and raised his spirits. No habitation was to be seen anywhere in the bottom-lands. He waited around for the boss, who readily explained.

  “This is a small contract and I’ve got mostly natives working on it. They won’t sleep or eat in the damps. Say it’s unhealthy and they can’t stand the skeeters. So we put tents up on the hillsides. Even got the grub shack up there. No, we haven’t had much of any fever. A little belly trouble, here and there, but that’s all. We’re keeping ahead of our contract time.”

  On the way back, Horace took a look at Squire Jerrold’s area. A handful of men dolorously dragged themselves through the motions of work. If that were the measure of progress elsewhere, Governor Clinton’s ditch would never be dug! Horace continued his ride to where Old Bill Shea was striving to speed up his force. The overseer listened to the report on the Martin project. He cocked an eye at Horace.

  “Goin’ to tell Genter Latham?”

  “I don’t expect to have any communication with Genter Latham.”

  Shea grinned. “You will have, though. He’ll be comin’ to see you.”

  Horace doubted it. But the Irishman was right. The great man thrust his bulk into Horace’s office and said without preliminary greeting,

  “Hear you’ve been out to my camp again.”

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Latham. Sit down.”

  The caller grunted. “How did you find things?”

  “There’s more sickness than there ought to be.”

  “Still got your crazy notions of moving the camp away from the work, huh?”

  “I still believe that’s the thing to do. Geneseo Martin’s camp is healthy.”

  “Well, you won’t get me to do it.”

  “Suit yourself. You’ll have more fever.”

  “That’s my lookout. Nobody tells me what to do. I tell them. Want your job back on those terms?”

  “Yes,” said Horace placidly. “I will report to you in a few days. Good day, Mr. Latham.”

  “I haven’t gone yet.”

  “Is there something else?”

  “Yes. My daughter.”

  “Have you any cause to be worried about her?”

  “Nothing special.”

  “No further symptoms?”

  “No, it ain’t that.” With an effort he said, “Her ma died of lung fever. I’m scared all the time she might go the same way.”

  “Oh! If that’s all. Wealthia is an unusually sound and healthy
child. You need have no fears on that score, I think.”

  The father’s face warmed. “You’re a sensible young chap in some ways,” said he and went out.

  Horace had the understanding to perceive that this represented the Latham substitute for an apology.

  Prosperity seemed to be coming Horace’s way; it cast a glow of hope before it. What economic status might be regarded as sufficient for matrimony in Palmyra? Young Fort, the school teacher, had married on his ten-dollar-a-month salary. But the Forts lived straitly on their little garden and the trout and sticklebacks that he caught in Red Creek; and in winter, he set traps. To ask a luxury-reared girl to share such an existence would be absurd. On the other hand, the Rev. Theron Strang had buried two wives and raised a brood of nine well-nurtured offspring, imminently to be increased to ten with the connivance of his third consort, on his stipend of five hundred dollars a year. Such rewards were not too distant a vision for a hopeful young M.D. How much did Murchison take in from his firmly established practice of twenty-five years? Sixty dollars per month? Possibly. Out of that he must pay for store-drugs and instruments. Figure as optimistically as he might, Horace could not foresee himself equaling that amount in the current year. Nor could he trust to any permanence in the renewed deal with a man of Latham’s temper. Nevertheless and without undue conceit, he felt that if he spoke, his suit would not be rejected.

  It was the sign of an expanding community that young people married on bold assumptions.

  Horace was in a tentative, Agatha in a receptive mood on that unseasonably warm Indian Summer night of early November when he made his regular Wednesday call. The young lady, seated in the parlor, looked daintily cool. Horace found himself wondering whether she ever, in any imaginable circumstances, could be anything other than cool. Through the open window floated the tang of burning leaves and with it a heavier incense which his trained nostrils identified as the effluence from the Leverings’ private drain, pursuing its fragrant course from privy to creek. There was also a definite suggestion of the family garbage heap in which a couple of stray, nocturnal pigs were rooting. Horace inwardly rebuked himself for allowing his attention to be diverted from his fair companion by such gross details. The Leverings’ way of life was not different from that of their prosperous neighbors. Why be finicky? Well-bred folk ignored such things.

  Several left-over mosquitoes were present at the interview. In spite of himself Horace could not control his eyes from straying to the rose-papered wall to see whether any of the pests assumed that grotesque right-angled posture. Two did. He wasted precious moments, after the worsted was duly balled, killing them. The maiden coyly rallied him on his interest in so insignificant a pursuit.

  That precipitated the crisis, as was possibly intended. Before he knew quite how it had come about, Horace found himself an engaged man, had implanted a chaste kiss upon the marble brow of his betrothed, and was back holding a second skein of yarn. Agatha stipulated for the unconscionably long period of a year’s engagement. She might be a willing, she was certainly not an impatient, fiancée.

  Horace went home, telling himself with determination that he was the happiest man in the world.

  Agatha now assumed a sweetly proprietary attitude toward her fiancé. With her mother acting as chaperon, she visited his quarters, where she proved herself gently critical. The place was not properly kempt. His books lacked orderly arrangement. (She opened one and clapped it shut with a hot blush.) Dinty’s sampler attracted her unfavorable attention. The colors were gaudy, the workmanship crude, the sentiment too professional. Would he mind transferring it to his bedroom? Again she blushed as she uttered the intimate word.

  Horace’s next unofficial visit was from his two youthful friends. They sniffed around suspiciously.

  “You’re awfly redd up,” commented Dinty.

  “Mrs. Harte must be getting particularer,” said Wealthia.

  “It isn’t Mrs. Harte,” said Horace.

  “I know. It’s Miss Aggie.”

  “Her name is not Aggie. She does not like to be called so.”

  “Miss Agatha, then. Are you going to marry her?” asked Dinty.

  “I am.”

  “You’ll be sorry.”

  “You’ll be cruel sorry,” added Wealthia.

  “I am not aware of having solicited your opinions,” said their host haughtily.

  Dinty regarded him with compassion. “She’s too good for you,” she asserted.

  “I am proud to admit it.”

  “You’ll have to go to church three times a week,” said Wealthia. “You won’t like that.”

  “And sign the pledge,” supplemented Dinty. “You won’t like that, either.”

  “And never go to see a laughable farce because it’s sinful,” pursued the other tormentor. “You’ll hate that.”

  Dinty now addressed her chum. “She’ll make him all over different.”

  “He won’t be half as nice,” agreed Wealthia.

  “He won’t be nice at all.”

  Two little hornets. Who would have expected that sort of grinning malice from them? Horace said through compressed lips,

  “You are an impudent and interfering pair of young baggages.”

  “Oh-h-h-h! Listen to him, Wealthy.” Dinty began a grotesque step, singing,

  Doctor’s mad

  And I am glad,

  And I know what will tease him.

  A bottle of wine

  To make him shine …

  Dance and song stopped simultaneously. The singer’s eyes were focused upon an empty wall-space.

  “My sampler,” she breathed. “Where is it?”

  Horace stated the obvious. “It’s gone.”

  “Where?” she demanded. “My sampler that I worked so hard at and pricked my thumb till it bled awfly.”

  “Miss Aggie took it,” surmised Wealthia. “Didn’t she?” she challenged Horace.

  “No, she did not.”

  “Isn’t that hers on the other wall?” asked Wealthia. She considered it with upturned nose. “I think it’s pockish,” she said. “All wishy-washy. Like—somebody we know.”

  Dinty of the dogged purpose insisted, “Where is my sampler gone?” It was almost a wail. The stricken-doe expression had come into her eyes. Horace looked away. She was a pesky brat, but he could not bear to hurt her.

  “Someone must have put it away,” he said weakly.

  “Where Miss Aggie won’t have to see it when she comes,” said the malignant Wealthia.

  Dinty gathered her dignity about her like a shroud. “I presume,” said she in high, affected tones, “our services are no longer required.”

  “Well, you see, children, the fact is, my betrothed and her mother have kindly offered to look after my little place.”

  Extending a hand to her comrade, Dinty said, “Come, Wealthia. I guess we know when our room is preferred to our comp’ny. Good day, Dr. Amlie.”

  “Good day, Dr. Amlie.” An echo from the other visitor.

  Two little queens stalked haughtily forth to exile.

  – 12 –

  It is Safer to think as other Folks think and do as other Folks do, but What is the Fun in that?

  (DINTY’S DIARY)

  Mid-November brought the premonitory cold snap. Any day now winter might lift an icy hand in the stop signal. Rod by rod the Ditch pushed its way toward Palmyra. In a strong west wind the townsfolk could hear the lusty Song of the Canal, with its tang of challenge and defiance:

  We are digging the Ditch through the mire;

  Through the mud and the slime and the mire, by heck!

  And the mud is our principal hire;

  Up our pants, in our shirts, down our neck, by heck!

  We are digging the Ditch through the gravel,

  So the people and freight can travel.

  And, in softer antiphony, the rich voices of the black gang, exslaves from the lake ports:

  Methodis’ an’ Baptis’ jus’ gone along

 
For to ring dem chahmin’ bells.

  Singin’ freegrace, undyin’ love

  Freegrace, undyin’ love,

  Freegrace, undyin’ love,

  For to ring dem chahmin’ bells.

  Ague died out. Dysentery became sporadic. In place of them came chillblains, “putrid sore throat,” and the dread peripneumony. Dr. Amlie’s practice increased as the prophetic Dinty had foretold. He lost three lung cases in the first severe cold, and Dr. Murchison openly charged that it was because the opinionated young squirt had refused to bleed the patients. Old Murch himself wielded the lancet early and late. Of his patients, drawn from the town and less exposed than the canallers, he lost only two and bragged loudly of it.

  Winter fell early in December with a crash of gales and an avalanche of snow. All canal work stopped except on the locks, where the half frozen masons held on for a few rigorous days. Stump engines, cranes and dredges were stored or abandoned to the drifts. Most of the men returned to their homes. Others took to the frozen turnpikes, itinerant job-hunters, a few of them to vanish until the spring opened and they were found by some casual trapper or marauding bear, long dead beside their long dead fires. Perhaps a quarter of the entire number wintered-in at Palmyra, bringing to the peaceful village its first foretaste of prosperity, confusion and sin.

  The rum trade took a jump. Two new ginneries and a coffee house of bad repute, established by an ex-convict from Herkimer, opened up. Several of the womenfolk who arrived to join the new populace brought no marriage lines with them. There was singing in the streets at night, sometimes after nine o’clock. The Palmyra Register reported that “a French Hell has sprung up and is flourishing on the outskirts of our fair village,” sourly inquiring what the authorities proposed to do about it.

  The authorities did nothing. Since the “moral pox-spot” (the Register again) was beyond the confines of the village, the fathers washed their hands of responsibility, and the two sorry drabs representing the “oldest profession” were unmolested of officialdom. To protect the threatened virtue of the community, several of the enterprising ladies organized the Palmyra Society for the Suppression of Vice & Immorality. Dames and damsels flocked to join, provoking from that hardened cynic, Carlisle Sneed, the observation that, “You can feel ’em shakin’ in their pretty little shoes for fear they’ll hear something they hadn’t oughta, and hopin’ to God they will.” Agatha Levering was a charter member. Horace joined perforce. He could find no way of avoidance which did not put him in the position of advocatus diaboli.