Canal Town by Samuel Hopkins Adams

Author:Samuel Hopkins Adams [Adams, Samuel Hopkins]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-82798-2
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2013-04-09T16:00:00+00:00

* Nearly a generation before General Abner Doubleday “invented” baseball at Cooperstown.

– 23 –

You Never can Tell till you Try.

(AN APOTHEGM FREQUENTLY REPEATED IN DINTY’S DIARY)

That minor Neptune who holds sway over artificial waterways withdrew the light of his countenance from the Ganargwa Valley. In spite of favorable rains, the canal level in that stretch of navigation slowly diminished to a scant two feet. Optimistic Palmyra shut its eyes to the threat. Then came disaster.

The blow fell in the night, as July merged into August. The village, waking, looked out upon a vista of sodden mud patches between dreary pools, where clear water should have rippled. A few boats canted at unsightly angles while their captains raged upon the decks. Opposite the scaler’s office a four-ply raft carpeted the canal floor.

There had been a breach in the berm toward East Palmyra, but this, in itself, could not account for the suddenness of the decrease. Others there must be to have caused so catastrophic a leakage. Urgent appeals were sent to the Canal Board for engineers. Contractors were dispatched to round up labor gangs. Plans were advanced for further tapping of the Genesee River. Prayers for rain were offered in all the churches. Palmyra, repentant of the pride and arrogance which had led it vaingloriously to exalt itself above less fortunate communities, abased itself in sackcloth and ashes.

Rumors and reasons for the misfortune were freighted about. One had it that Exhorter Sickel, notoriously a foe to the Erie, had prayed the water away. Another opinion held that an outraged Heaven had wrought the calamity in reprisal upon the political cabal which was scheming to oust Governor Clinton from the Commission, a plot which subsequently succeeded. The canallers ascribed it to the vengefulness of the Powers of Darkness.

Drunken Bill Simmons was their chief witness. Having unobtrusively borrowed a batteau on the creek to sleep off a spree, he had cast off and waked to find himself far downstream, staring up into a livid sky wherein bat-winged apparitions performed a hideous saraband. One figure which bore a striking likeness to the corporeal form of Witch Crego, had plunged like Lucifer down upon the very spot where the berm had given way.

The brotherhood of the towpath was for hunting down Mistress Crego. But even the most militant lost countenance when it became known that Elder Strang and Dr. Amlie had rescued her from a cave, helpless from shock and exposure, and had taken her to the Strang home, where the parson defied all the hosts of evil to touch her. The hosts of evil had no stomach for the job; one experience at the hands of the formidable man of God had sufficed them. Counsels of peace prevailed; let the hex be!

Tip Crego was nowhere to be found. Nor would his “aunt” be prevailed upon to give any information. She was fearful of everybody now, including Dr. Amlie. As soon as the Pinch rose from its ashes, which it quickly did in character hardly less noisome than before, she went back there to live.

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