The Von Toodleburgs | Page 8

enterprising spirit, and a remarkable taste for navigation.
When only six years old he had his tiny sloops and schooners, rigged
by himself, on every duck-pond in the neighborhood. And he could sail
them with a skill remarkable in one so young. Indeed, these duck-ponds
were a source of great annoyance to Angeline, for whenever one of
Tite's crafts met with an accident he would wade to its relief, no matter
what the condition or color of the water.
Hanz shook his head, and felt that no good would come of this taste for
the sea on the part of Tite. He intended to bequeath him the farm, so
that he could spend his life like an honest man in raising good
vegetables for the New York market. Following the sea, Hanz urged,
was a very dangerous occupation, and where one man made any money

by it, more than a dozen lost their lives by storms. But Tite was not to
be put off by such arguments. The spirit of adventure was in the boy,
and all other objects had to yield to his natural inclinations. And now,
at the age of twelve, we find Tite a smart, sprightly cabin-boy, on board
the good sloop Heinrich, making the voyage to New York and back
once a week, and taking his first lessons in practical seamanship.
Wonderful changes had been developed along the beautiful Hudson
during these twelve years. People in the country said New York was
getting to be a very big, and a very wicked city. Already her
skirmishers, in a line of little houses, were pushed beyond the canal,
and were obliterating the cow-paths. The honest old Dutch settlers
shrugged their shoulders, and said it was not a good sign to see people
get rich so fast. Indeed, they declared that these fast and extravagant
New Yorkers, who were building great houses and sending big ships to
all parts of the world, would bring ruin on the country.
A ship of five hundred tons had been added to the old London line, and
her great size was an object of curiosity. But the man who projected her
was regarded by careful merchants as very reckless, and not a safe man
to trust.
That which troubled the minds of these peaceable old settlers most was
Mr. Fulton and his steamboat. Steam they declared to be a very
dangerous thing. And, as for this Mr. Fulton, he should be sent to an
insane asylum, before he destroyed all his friends, and lost all his
money in this dangerous undertaking. He might navigate the river with
a big tea-kettle in the bottom of his boat, but he would be sure to set all
the houses along the river on fire. And who was to pay the damages?
Steam was, however, a reality, and the little Fire Fly went puffing and
splashing up and down the river, alarming and astonishing the people
along its banks. She could make the voyage from the upper end of the
Tappan Zee to New York in a day, no matter how the wind blew. Hanz
Toodleburg called the Fire Fly an invention of the devil, and nobody
else. The bright blaze of her furnaces, and the long trail of fire and
sparks issuing from her funnel of a dark night, gave a spectre-like
appearance to her movements, that rather increased a belief amongst

the superstitious that she was really an invention of the evil one, sent
for some bad purpose.
A meeting was called at Hanz Toodleburg's house to consider the
dangerous look of things along the river. The Dominie and the
schoolmaster, and all the wise men in the settlement, were present, and
gave their opinions with the greatest gravity. If this Mr. Fulton, it was
argued, could, with the aid of the evil one, build these steamboats to go
to New York and back in a day, why there was an end to the business
of sloops and barges. And if the honest men who owned these vessels
were thrown out of business, how were they to get bread for their
families? These new inventions, Hanz argued, would be the ruin of no
end of honest people.
The schoolmaster, who assumed great wisdom on all such occasions,
and who had tossed off several pots of beer during the evening, put the
whole matter in a much more encouraging light. He had read something
about steam, he said, and knew that it was a very dangerous thing for a
man to trifle with. Mr. Fulton had built his steamboat one hundred and
nine feet long; and he could get to New York and back in a day, if
nothing happened to his boiler, which was all the time in danger of
bursting. Then if the boiler bursted,