3stalwarts (144 page)

Mary laughed.

“I expect it will look queer.”

But now she was bundled up from the top of her head to her small toes nesting in the grass in Melville’s boots. She had a sheepskin coat over all and a heavy flannel skirt of dark red-brown, and a deep-blue woolen shawl upon her head, pinned close beneath her chin.

Her face was pink. The shadows under her eyes brought out their depth of grey.

“She’s going to tell Jerry,” Dorothy said to herself. “It’s troubling her.”

She watched Mary along the road to the beginning of the corduroy. The stuffed boots made her shuffle and the erect figure moved very slowly. Her short shadow, flickering along the ruts, was vivid blue.

Mary took her time. She thought that if she arrived when they were nearly finished at the lock, Jerry would let her wait and come back with her.

The sun had peeled the snow from long stretches of the corduroy, leaving the scarred logs bare. Where the snow lingered, she could make out Bourbon’s tracks, blurred by the slight noon thawing. She looked about her as she walked. The cold lacked fierceness and the air was clean to breathe. From time to time she stopped to view her shadow.

In half an hour she came into view of the shanty. A thin smoke from the stovepipe vanished just above the roof, as if in the cold air it could no longer live. A few of the men had been living on there of late, and yet the shanty wore a look of utter desolation. Then she saw that no more dish towels hung on the wash-line, and that the kitchen window had been boarded over. That meant one thing: tonight the rest of the men were going to move on down to Number Two, and Jerry would come home with her.

Two week-day nights together, she would have him. Suddenly she felt the cold. She shivered, and for an instant she felt ill. Then she turned to the lock. She could see it now; there were two walls of grey stone rising side by side. The mason was working at one end of the near wall. Caleb knelt upon the other shouting down directions. She heard Jerry’s voice answering. Then the odd little man, whose name was Cosmo Turbe, bawled loudly for helpers. In a moment half a dozen men were lifting up a great square frame of planks. They had a pulley on a tripod to let it slowly down, and Cosmo’s sleepy helper was gripping the rope in monstrous red chapped hands. Their figures were all tense, their voices brittle with excitement.

Mary stayed where she was to watch. Left and right she saw a line cut through the marsh grass, alders rooted up and dragged aside— a broad av-enue, like the commencement work up on a turnpike. But the red marking stakes stood just where they had been. As far as she could see, the ground lay open, torn and uneven, black with frost, ready for the bite of shovels. It was like a wound from a gigantic ragged knife, and the marsh was white and deathly. But the men’s voices, their red sweaty faces, dripped with life… .

“There,” said Lewis, cutting the mortar cannily along the outside corner of the capstone. “You can dog that gate in now.”

His pointed trowel tinkled where he dropped it. He fished in his pockets for tobacco and slowly stuffed a pipeful.

“That mortar’s all set solid. She’ll hold frost. I’d like to have the water cement, but even so them walls will not fall down like Jericho’s.”

Jerry, walking the board floor of the pit, moved to the southwest corner. On either side the light-grey walls of stone rose twice his height. The edges fitted true, each stone had settled neatly; a monument could be no smoother.

One of the men shouted.

“Here comes Roberts! There’s a feller with him.”

“Never mind them,” said Caleb. “Put that gate in. Heave her up.” He signaled with one hand. “Way up. Easy now. A little more.” The gate shut out the sunlight over Jerry’s head. The end beams rubbed off splinters on the stone. There was a squeak of wood on stone. Then the lower edge tilted down. He put up his hands to guide it. “Lower, easy,” Caleb cried. The iron socket in the base of the hingepost slowly swung to meet the upright quoin point. Suddenly it clanged and the rope in Piute’s red hands went slack.

Hammil was on the gate in one squat spring.

“Hold her!” he roared. “I’ve got to get that anchor strap screwed on.”

He passed a three-inch iron strap over the top of the hingepost and rammed the threaded ends through the sockets in the tie-straps grouted into the stone wall. His fat fingers twirled the heavy nuts.

“Where in hell’s the wrench?”

Cosmo came running with it. Caleb heaved the long handle till the nuts bit solid.

“Ease off.”

Piute sighed and let the rope go. The timbers groaned as the gate settled.

Jerry stood for a moment in the pit. All four gates were open, and he looked eastward. The mounting courses of stone gave meaning to the floor he had laid in so many days ago. They showed the step down at the head that made the lock’s descent, their wings stretched wide as if they waited for the water. He turned to west. Again there were wings, pointing the full width of the canal, showing the track of the grubbers.

It was his work that he had done with his own hands. Sunk in the sprawling marshland, its exactitude was beautiful. He stood quite still, till Caleb cried, “Climb out, Jerry! Here’s the Chief Engineer.”

Jerry climbed the ladder, slowly. Roberts greeted him. Standing beside

Roberts was an elderly man, with a wise, strong face. He was shaking Caleb’s hand, but his eyes were staring into the lock-well. Jerry saw them noting everything.

“Roberts tells me it’s solid work, Hammil. He ought to know. But I can see from here the work is right. It’s fine, square workmanship.”

Caleb beamed.

“It’s honest, every inch. I can vouch for it. I know the man that built it under me is right.”

He gestured.

Mr. Wright looked up at Jerry, smiled, held out his hand.

“It’s good work, Fowler. Roberts has told me about you.” He turned back to Caleb. “The commissioners aren’t quite so eager to come inspecting at this time of year. But I’m glad I came. We’ve got three completed sections finished west of Rome, but this is the first stone work. The whole canal will rest on the stone and timber work.”

Caleb swelled with pride as Mr. Wright added, “I hope it all will look as well as this does.”

A little later, the men turned away. Caleb was beaming.

“Let’s try the gates!”

Cosmo Turbe yelled and ran across the beams, his nailed heels leaving marks at every step. They manned the gates together, eight men, six wondering how they worked while Caleb explained to them.

“She’s at high level for a boat from Rome.” His stout voice bellowed. “There comes the mules. Stand back, you dumb bezabor. Do you want to get kicked by a hinny mule?” A tall man ducked aside, so vivid was the sudden picture. Piute guffawed, and clapped his hand upon his mouth. “Whoa!” shouted Hammil, red cheeks all a-sweat. “Easy on that boat there. Do you want to knock her bow in? Here she comes. Right in. Sixty feet of her, loaded to draw three feet with Devereux whiskey bound for O-hio. Now we close the upper gates. You work that one, Cosmo. The water’s at high level. Open up the sluice-leaves in the lower.” They ran in two groups down along the lock walls. Only the mason continued sitting on his stone. He had laid up walls that wouldn’t come down like Jericho’s. Hammil cranked the sluice-leaf open on his side. “The water’s running out. You can hear the overflow from east commence upon the tumble bay. The boat’s going down. See her! She’s eight foot, ten foot, lower than she was. There she is at bottom level. Push round that beam, there, Cosmo!” The lower gates swung open. “Git, you hinny! Git, you mules! There she’s easing out. See her. She’s bound for Buffalo. Maybe the boater passes me a quart drawed from a keg in fair exchange for water.”

With staring eyes the men followed his pointing finger along the black muck track the grubbers left. They saw the marsh, and the shadow of a cloud slowly moving.

Suddenly Caleb laughed and tossed his hands apart.

“By gravy, boys! We’ve finished Number One!”

Jerry looked up, and he became aware of Mary, standing off a little way, the slight wind riffling the edge of her shawl, a still figure against the snow… .

Caleb said, “I’m closing up this shanty, now. Will you two ride along with me?”

The men had moved on down to Number Two.

Lewis had gone with his mule and his helper. The marsh was empty but for the three of them and Bourbon standing at the shanty door. The shadows had drawn out. The evening cold was stealing in.

“I’d like to walk,” said Mary. “Thank you, Mr. Hammil.”

She looked at Jerry. Jerry nodded.

“All right, then. I’m going back to Utica, Jerry. I’ll deposit for you, shall I?”

“Yes.”

“All right. I’ve sold this shanty as she stands to the man that’s got the digging contracts. A good sell. I didn’t lose a penny. Jerry, you’ll go down to Cossett’s lock and finish up the boarding. Maybe Lewis can lay stone for two weeks more if the frost don’t bear down too heavy. I’ll come up in two weeks if the roads are passable.”

He poked the latchstring in.

“Good-bye, you both.”

He climbed over the wheel. Bourbon set himself to start. Jerry suddenly broke his silence.

“Don’t leave Bourbon stand outside unblanketed.”

Caleb looked down. He seemed to estimate the tone. His fat face was set seriously. Then he grinned.

“I’m not a complete fool.”

He waved his hand and rattled off.

Mary touched Jerry’s arm.

“What’s the matter, Jerry?”

“There’s no matter.”

“I thought the way you said that, that you and Caleb might have quarreled.”

“No,” he said. His face stared sombrely at his toes in the snow. He walked slowly to the lock and took a last look at it. “I’m glad you wanted to walk. I wouldn’t want to ride with him just now.”

Mary was concerned.

“But why?”

“Oh, he acts as if he’d built the lock himself. It’s funny, Mary. When he hired me and showed me that-there plan, I thought he knew a lot. He don’t. Self knows more than him. It’s me that did the work.”

“But he put up the money. He’s responsible.”

“Just the same, they think he did it.”

Mary stole a sidewise glance.

“They know your work. Caleb said so. Mr. Roberts must have said so to Mr. Wright, from what Mr. Wright said. I’d judge so anyway.”

He looked down.

“Anyway it’s good work, Mary. Lewis does fine work in his masonry. The gates fit tight. Look how easy they handle.”

He swung one of them.

“You could do it. Try against it.”

Smiling, Mary tried. It was surprising how easily the gate swung.

“I built them,” Jerry said. “Just from plans.”

His eyes were moody. He did not seem to want to leave his work.

After a while, though, Mary said, “I take so long to walk in all these bundlings. Hadn’t we better start?”

He looked up quickly at her.

“Yes. Let’s go. It’s cold.” He started out beside her. But as they came to the bend in the corduroy, he turned for a last look at the lock.

“Eight weeks we’ve been there. Maybe I’ll never take another look at it. But it’s a good job.”

Mary looked at his face, turned in profile. She could see a little muscle quivering behind his jaw bone. It seemed so silly to have an affection for a thing of stone that you yourself would never handle. He looked unkempt, but she loved him so.

Beyond him, the sun was setting— a flat reddish disc, without warmth, giving no color to the sky, but touching the clouds with bronze. The horizon rose no higher than his shoulders, the marshland lay flat beneath his hand. Down by Number Two she saw a light gleam in the shanty window. Far away under the sun was Cossett’s tavern. It showed no light, only a line of smoke to northward of the sun. Everywhere between, the skeleton grass lifted broken leaves.

He loomed before her, larger and larger as she saw these things, and the dim, half-felt sorrow that stilled his face also made it beautiful. He let out a steamy breath, and turned to her.

“Why, Mary, what’s the matter? What are you crying for?”

She sniffled up her sob.

“It’s nothing, Jerry.”

He put his arm across her shoulders. She could hardly feel it through the thickness of her wraps, but the weight of it lay on her.

“What is it? I know something’s been troubling you.”

“I want to tell you, but I can’t.” She tried to laugh. “It’s funny, ain’t it, Jerry?”

“Tell me what you were thinking of, looking out over there.”

“It looked so lonesome, Jerry.”

“It does look lonely,” he said. “I never liked it just as land.”

He shivered.

“I’d hate to be that lock-tender.”

“Esquire Forman plans a town here, Dorothy says.”

“A town?” He laughed, his laughter making clouds. “I do believe a lot will happen, but not that.”

He stared westward.

“A town ‘twixt here and Cossett’s!” His arm tightened round her shoulders. “Mary, it makes me glad to be wedded to you, you coming along with me this way. It wasn’t just the lonesomeness that made you cry?”

“I’m not crying now.”

“No. But what was it?”

“Jerry, why don’t we get land now that you’ve saved up money? We’ve got enough to start. I’ll work hard. I’m strong. I’ll make it comfortable. I want to work along with you.” Her voice grew lower; she spoke hurriedly, her eyes fixed straight ahead. “Now you’re just bringing me along, just as if I was a fancy—”

She bit her lip.

Jerry’s arm almost fell away. He was examining her with wide eyes.

“Why, Mary. What made you think of that?” His face grew set and his eyes cold. “You know I never thought of no such thing.”

“I don’t care. It makes me feel that way.”

“Can’t you forget those papers?”

“No. I never can. Jerry, I feel just like a satchel property.”

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

She raised her eyes, and suddenly the tears broke out.

“I didn’t mean it, Jerry. Honestly. I’ll go anywhere. I don’t feel so— only it seems you are way off from me. Back there in Utica.”

“It was just as bad for me,” he said grimly. “Maybe worse.” He thought of Dencey.