From Canal Boy to President | Page 8

in
the answer to this question.
"We pay from eight to ten dollars a month, according to length of
service and fidelity. Of course, as a new hand, you can not expect ten
dollars."
"I shall be satisfied with eight, cousin."
"Now, as to your duties. You will work six hours on and six hours off.
That's what we call a trick--the six hours on, I mean. So you will have
every other six hours to rest, or do anything you like; that is, after you
have attended to the horses."
"Horses!" repeated James, puzzled; for the animals attached to the boat
at that moment were mules.
"Some of our horses are mules," said Captain Letcher, smiling.
"However, it makes no difference. You will have to feed and rub them
down, and then you can lie down in your bunk, or do anything else you
like."
"That won't be very hard work," said James, cheerfully.
"Oh, I forgot to say that you can ride or walk, as you choose. You can
rest yourself by changing from one to the other."
James thought he should like to ride on horseback, as most boys do. It
was not, however, so good fun as he anticipated. A canal-boat horse is
by no means a fiery or spirited creature. His usual gait is from two to
two and a half miles an hour, and to a boy of quick, active temperament
the slowness must be rather exasperating. Yet, in the course of a day a
boat went a considerable distance. It usually made fifty, and sometimes
sixty miles a day. The rate depended on the number of locks it had to
pass through.

Probably most of my young readers understand the nature of a lock. As
all water seeks a level, there would be danger in an uneven country that
some parts of the canal would be left entirely dry, and in others the
water would overflow. For this reason at intervals locks are constructed,
composed of brief sections of the canal barricaded at each end by gates.
When a boat is going down, the near gates are thrown open and the
boat enters the lock, the water rushing in till a level is secured; then the
upper gates are closed, fastening the boat in the lock. Next the lower
gates are opened, the water in the lock seeks the lower level of the other
section of the canal, and the boat moves out of the lock, the water
subsiding gradually beneath it. Next, the lower gates are closed, and the
boat proceeds on its way. It will easily be understood, when the case is
reversed, and the boat is going up, how after being admitted into the
lock it will be lifted up to the higher level when the upper gates are
thrown open.
If any of my young readers find it difficult to understand my
explanation, I advise them to read Jacob Abbot's excellent book, "Rollo
on the Erie Canal," where the whole matter is lucidly explained.
Railroads were not at that time as common as now, and the canal was
of much more importance and value as a means of conveying freight.
Sometimes passengers traveled that way, when they were in not much
of a hurry, but there were no express canal-boats, and a man who chose
to travel in that way must have abundant leisure on his hands. There is
some difference between traveling from two to two and a half miles an
hour, and between thirty and forty, as most of our railroad express
trains do.
James did not have to wait long after his engagement before he was put
on duty. With boyish pride he mounted one of the mules and led the
other. A line connected the mules with the boat, which was drawn
slowly and steadily through the water. James felt the responsibility of
his situation. It was like going to sea on a small scale, though the sea
was but a canal. At all events, he felt that he had more important work
to do than if he were employed as a boy on one of the lake schooners.
James was at this time fifteen; a strong, sturdy boy, with a mass of

auburn hair, partly covered by a loose-fitting hat. He had a bright,
intelligent face, and an earnest look that attracted general attention. Yet,
to one who saw the boy guiding the patient mule along the tow-path, it
would have seemed a most improbable prediction, that one day the
same hand would guide the ship of State, a vessel of much more
consequence than the humble canal-boat.
There was one comfort, at any rate. Though in his rustic garb he was
not well enough dressed to act as clerk in a Cleveland store, no one