one of all others best fitted
to win him to the earth, and in a measure it did. It was spring, and
along the tow-path strutted the large, glossy blackbirds which had just
come back, and made the boys sick with longing to kill them, they
offered such good shots. But the boys had no powder with them, and at
any rate the captain would not have stopped his boat, which was rushing
on at the rate of two miles an hour, to let them pick up a bird, if they
had hit it. They were sufficiently provisioned without the game,
however; the mother had baked bread, and boiled a ham, and provided
sugar-cakes in recognition of the holiday character of the voyage, and
they had the use of the boat cooking-stove for their tea and coffee. The
boys had to content themselves with such sense of adventure as they
could get out of going ashore when the boat was passing through the
locks, or staying aboard and seeing the water burst and plunge in around
the boat. They had often watched this thrilling sight at the First
Lock, but it had a novel interest now. As their boat approached the
lock, the lower gates were pushed open by men who set their breasts to
the long sweeps or handles of the gates, and when the boat was fairly
inside of the stone-walled lock they were closed behind her. Then the
upper gates, which opened against the dull current, and were kept shut
by its pressure, were opened a little, and the waters rushed and roared
into the lock, and began to lift the boat. The gates were opened wider
and wider, till the waters poured a heavy cataract into the lock, where
the boat tossed on their increasing volume, and at last calmed
themselves to the level within. Then the boat passed out through the
upper gates, on even water, and the voyage to the next lock began. At
first it was rather awful, and the little children were always afraid
when they came to a lock, but the boys enjoyed it after the first time.
They would have liked to take turns driving the pair of horses that drew
the boat, but it seemed too bold a wish, and I think they never proposed
it; they did not ask, either, to relieve the man at the helm.

They arrived safely at their journey's end, without any sort of
accident. They had made the whole forty miles in less than two days, and
were all as well as when they started, without having suffered for a
moment from seasickness. The boat drew up at the tow-path just before
the stable belonging to the house which the father had already t