Christmas at Cedar Hill

by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

"'Can you drive?' was the next question. 'Do you know anything about horses?'"

"'I should think so!' was my reply. And indeed I had learned to be very skilful and bold both as a rider and driver."

"'Then you had better take hold with me and work your way through,' said the boat captain. 'I want a driver. My last boy contrived to fall off his horse and break his clumsy neck a while ago; but you look as if you would have more sense. I will give you his place and his wages, if you choose to try.'"

"I had heard plenty of hard stories about canal boys and their captains, but my case seemed desperate, and I agreed to his terms, only stipulating that I should have some supper at once. A sufficiently plentiful and good meal was served up to me, and I went to bed, congratulating myself on my good luck. I little guessed into what a trap I had fallen. At three o'clock in the morning I was called, and told to turn out and relieve the man who had been driving, and, more asleep than awake, I obeyed. The morning air was damp and raw, and I had nothing to keep me warm but my thin summer clothes, for I had forgotten to take my overcoat. I shivered to my very bones. I was desperately sleepy too, and came near tumbling off my horse a dozen times before daylight."

"That was the very longest day that I ever spent in my life. As the sun came up it grew very hot, and there was no shade upon my path. The two old horses plodded along at a snail's pace, with their heads banging down, after the fashion of canal horses; so different from the beautiful grays I had been used to driving for the last few weeks. We were passing through one of the long marshes on the Erie canal, and the mosquitoes were so thick that I could hardly breathe for them. Long before night my head ached as though it would split, but it was not till nearly midnight that the boat was tied up and I got a chance to rest."

"It was now that my real troubles began. My companions in the menagerie, though a hard and graceless set enough, had always treated me with a degree of rough kindness, and indeed I was rather a favorite with them. I had my fair share of rest, food, and amusement, and the captain, though he would swear at me and abuse me terribly in words when he got angry, never ill-treated me in any other way, and would often give me a reward when I had performed particularly well. The men were honest in their dealings with each other, and, if one were sick or injured, his mates were ready to take care of him to the best of their ability. But now I found myself exposed to every sort of abuse. I was worked till I was ready to drop from fatigue, and allowed only such food as my companions did not want; and if I ventured to complain, a curse or a blow was all I gained by it. More than once I got a box in the ear which made me deaf for half a day, and once the captain struck me such a blow with a handspike that I lay senseless for half an hour, and they all thought I was dead."

"But even the abuse I received was not so distressing to me as the appalling wickedness of my companions. Every species of vice prevailed among them. Gambling was the amusement of every spare hour, and the game hardly ever concluded without a fight. Our table was almost entirely supplied from the spoils of the gardens and hen-roosts of the farms and villages by which we passed. Sunday brought me no rest, for we travelled all day long, and the hours were passed away in more than usually shameless vice."

"I do not mean to say that this is a true picture of all the boats' crews upon the canal by any means, but I know that it applied to far too many of them at that time. This state of things had just begun to excite the attention of Christian people, and some missionaries had been sent among the boatmen. After I heard of this, I began to hope I might encounter one of these good men, but our captain swore that he would duck within an inch of his life any parson who dared to set a foot on his boat."

"All this made me sick at heart, and I began to look back with regret and remorse to the advantages and comforts I had so recklessly cast away. On Sundays especially, as we passed within hearing of the bells of some country village calling the people to come up to the house of the Lord, I pictured to myself my father and his wife, with my little sister, walking slowly up the street to church, perhaps dressed in mourning for the graceless son they believed to be dead, and the bitter tears would flow in spite of myself. I began to think of things at home in a very different light."

"I reviewed the conduct of my step-mother from beginning to end without finding anything of which to complain. True, she had sometimes checked me, but never without just cause, and her reproofs were always tempered with kindness. My father had been most indulgent ever since I could remember, and had provided me not only with all the necessaries and comforts of life, but with every luxury which was proper for me and which his means could procure."