The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1912-10-10


opening and closing it and letting in the
water ourselves. task at which we had
become expert by this time. that poor,
half-awake. would-be profane tender
looked as utterly wilted as only q man
can look who has just been hopelessly
beaten at his own game. We had learned
our rights on the canals and how to get
them, and we did it this time 0. K.
Anyone who has seen Trenton's City
Hall can imagine my pleasure when it
burst upon me after coming through
those underground regions into the City
Square between two and three O'Clock in
the morning in sail boat-its white
marble Greek structure breaking sudden
ly upon us in a flood of electric light out
of the darkness. The lock-tender at the
foot of State street, this time friendly,
intelligent and communicative young
fellow, informed me that the building
had wonderful thing and decorations in-
side, ard cost over a million dollars. If
it affects everyone who looks at it as it
did me, in its chaste, dignitied, beautiful
lines and pure, cold marble, it is worth
the money to Trenton many times over,
for it put me into fine humor which
lasted all through the night and made
things correspondingly easy at the locks
to come.
l wish were able to picture adequate
ly the various lock-tenders we met from
the South, to the North, and tell the tales
they told of their life and the many diff
ferent craft they saw 60 by-some pass
ing and repassing almost daily or week.
ly, others going ''down South" in the
Fall to return in the Spring-or perhaps
never.
We often saw the lighter bridges being
swung or hoisted by women; the men
probably were away or at work in the
truck gardens near at hand. The free
dom of movement and sweeping, grace
full gesture with which one woman in
particular raised one bare, white arm in
answer to my hail while swinging wide
the operating level with the other, still
stands out in my memory like one of
lsraels' Dutch paintings. The back
ground too, was appropriate, for it was
wide, fiat country through which we
sailed, several feet above the land; little
grayish- cabbage heads were
just bursting through the red soil, and
against the blue sky, as far as the eye
could reach, was the pink of blossoming
peach orchards.
Few of the locks, however, were in
quite so idyllic setting as this one, and
the general attitude of most of the tend
ers seems to have become, from long
familiarity with the life and its comings
and goings, one of stolid Indifference to
all passers-by, and when l felt in the
mood, and the subject looked responsive
or promising, would delight in trying
to jolt him out of his lethargy with some
remark bit different from what was
usually handed out to him, and note the
reaction.
One tender recall wildly, who was
seated on lockside of this same canal
in New Jersey by the shore of that beau
tiful grass bordered body of water Mr..
Carnegie presented some years ago to
the students of Princeton for rowing
lake. The SUMS rays had just come up
over the lake, and by their light this
Falstaffian-looking individual was perus-
ing the columns of an early morning yell
low journal, just arrived from New
York. In reply to my hail and greeting,
he rose and rendered me the paper with
these words, which jotted down in my
note book while he was working the lock
bit later.
! eyes brother" he drawled, ''it's a
good mornin' but it's been the worst
winter l ever knowed; more ice, more
snow, more storms and floods and dis
aster of all kinds, ashore and afoat, than
sence kin recollec'. You was lucky to
be South an escape it. I've just been
a-readin' O. them awful floods in the
Mississippi country, an about them poor
unfOrtnit critters on the Titanic, an !
declare, brother, / was a-havin' hard
work to keep the tears out of my eyes
when you hollered to me-" They were
in his voice, II could hear them.
1t seemed to be case where first aid
to the injured should Immediately be ap-
piled, and l asked him if he thought il
would "help any, if we both steppec
down into the cabin and had drink to.
gether while the lock was filling up, anc
he spoke right up and "allowed it would -
in fact, he was sure of it. And before
| could jump down the six feet to Myr.
ties deck below the dock, he was dowr
there in her cabin. Incidentally, he was
a good lock-tender, too, and didn't lose t
minute getting us through the lock in
spite of our talk.
The locks themselves, as well as the
men who operate them. are interesting.
To one who has never been locked up
Or down" the sensation for the first
time is peculiar. Suppose, for instance,
your boat is being ''locked up" the ten
der tells you, if you don't know yourself,
just where to place your boat usually
about half way down the lock-, ana how
to make her fast with lines fore and aft
Then the huge gates are closed and the
tender opens the sluice-ways at the bot
tom of the lock by means of levers OR
wheels. Once we'll opened, the water,
forced from the pressure of head of
from two to three, to perhaps twelve
feet, according as the lock is a deep or
shallow one, rushes toward you and
gurgles and wells up under your bows,
and your craft surges at her lines and
tries to start off backwards, but is
swashed back again by the water hurled
in the rebound from the rear of the:lock.
The sensation is much as though you
were in the grasp of monstrous swirl
ing undertow. For while your boat
champs at her bit, but as the lock fills,
her backings and filings become less and
less: Soon you begin to see her move
up into the air along the damp, wet
Shiny sides of the cavernous lock. Pres