"Yes; if that don't beat all the newfangled notions I ever heard of," she exclaimed.
"It's just begun doin' business," said Samson.
"What does it do?" Joe asked.
"On a railroad track it can grab hold of a house full o' folks and run off with it. Goes like the wind, too."
"Does it eat 'em up?" Joe asked.
"No. It eats wood and oil and keeps yellin' for more. I guess it could eat a cord o' wood and wash it down with half a bucket o' castor oil in about five minutes. It snatches folks away to some place and drops 'em. I guess it must make their hair stand up and their teeth chatter."
"Does it hurt anybody?" Joe asked hopefully.
"Well, sir, if anybody wanted to be hurt and got in its way, I rather guess he'd succeed purty well. It's powerful. Why, if a man was to ketch hold of the tail of a locomotive, and hang on, it would jerk the toe nails right off him."
Joe began to have great respect for locomotives.
Soon they came in view of the famous Erie Canal, hard by the road. Through it the grain of the far West had just begun moving eastward in a tide that was flowing from April to December. Big barges, drawn by mules and horses on its shore, were cutting the still waters of the canal. They stopped and looked at the barges and the long tow ropes and the tugging animals.