o I
never said enough; and in my second year I found I had quite a
reputation as a fighter--but I never got any joy out of it.

If I could have forgotten my wish to see my mother it would have been in
many ways a pleasant life to me. I was never tired of the new and
strange things I saw--new regions, new countries. I was amazed at the
Montezuma Marsh, with its queer trade of selling flags, for chair seats
and the like--and I was almost eaten alive by the mosquitoes while
passing through it. Our boat floated along through the flags, the horses
on a tow-path just wide enough to enable the teams to pass, with bog on
one side and canal on the other, water birds whistling and calling,
frogs croaking, and water-lilies dotting every open pool. My spirits
soared as I passed spots where the view was not shut off by the reeds,
and I could look out over the great expanse of flags, just as my heart
rose when I first looked upon the Iowa prairies. The Fairport level gave
me another thrill--an embankment a hundred feet high with the canal on
the top of it, a part of a seventeen-mile level, like a river on
a hilltop.

We were a happy crew, here. Ace was quite recovered from our temporary
difference of opinion--for I was treating him better than he expected.
He used to sing merrily a song which was a real canal-chantey, one of
the several I heard, the words of which ran like this:

"Come, sailors, landsmen, one and all,
And I'll sing you the dangers of the raging canawl;
For I've been at the mercy of the winds and the waves,
And I'm one of the merry fellows what expects a
watery grave.

"We left Albiany about the break of day;
As near as I can remember, 'twas the second day of May;
We depended on our driver, though he was very small,
Although we knew the dangers of the raging canawl."

The rest of it I forget; but I remember that after Bill had sung one of
his chanties, like "Messmates hear a brother sailor sing the dangers of
the seas," or, "We sailed from the Downs and fair Plymouth town,"
telling how

"To our surprise,
The storms did arise,
Attended by winds and loud thunder;
Our mainmast being tall
Overboard she did fall,
And five of our best men fell under,"

Ace would pipe up about the dangers of the raging canal; and finally
this encouraged Paddy to fill in with some song like this:

"In Dublin City, where I was born,
On Stephen's