himself with the toes of his rubber shoes in crannies
of the stone, and the other, balancing on his shoulders like a circus
performer, does a piece of work, no matter what, with a reeling abyss
all around (what is looking over a precipice compared to this?), and all
the time the spire swaying back and forth like a forest tree. And then
you hear that, instead of getting a large sum for such an achievement,
these men, taking it through the year, get scarcely more than ordinary
workmen's wages.

II

HOW THEY BLEW OFF THE TOP OF A STEEPLE WITH DYNAMITE

KNOWN over all Connecticut was the Congregational Church in Hartford,
that stood for years on Pearl Street, and was famous alike for the
burning words spoken beneath its roof, and the tall, straight spire that
reached above it; two hundred and thirty-eight feet measured the drop
from cross to pavement. But churches pass like other things, and near
the century-end came the decision by landowners and lease interpreters
that this graceful length of brownstone and the pile beneath it must
move off the premises, which meant, of course, that the steeple must
come down, the time appointed for this demolition being August, 1899.

Now, the taking down of a steeple two hundred and thirty-eight feet
high, that rises on a closely built city street, is not so simple a
proceeding as might at first appear. If you suggest pulling the steeple
over, all the neighbors cry out. They wish to know where it is going to
strike. Are you sure it won't smash down on their housetops? Can you
make a steeple fall this way or that way, as woodmen make trees fall?
How do you know you can? Besides, how are you going to hitch fast the
rope that will pull it over? And who will climb with such a rope to the
steeple-top? It must be said that there is usually some young man at
hand, some dare-devil character of the vicinity, who is ready to try
the thing and is positive he can succeed at it. But, luckily, he seldom
gets a chance to try.

"It's queer," said Merrill, telling me the story, "how people ever built
a steeple like this one without a window in it, or an air-passage, or
anything for ventilation. Between the bell-deck and the cross there
wasn't a single opening from the inside out, so I had to break my way
through up near the top. What a place for a man to work, squeezed in the
point of a stifling funnel, with no swing for his hammer, and no air to
breathe, and the scorch of an August sun! Af