We were very patient. The rim of the lock became lined with small boys and smaller girls, for this is Saturday, and a school holiday; and there was great wonderment at the men in the canoe, who "were having a bloody old row with Barney, the lock-tinder," as one boy vigorously expressed the situation to a bevy of new-comers. By and by Barney returned to see if we were still there. We were, and were so abstracted that we did not heed his presence.
"Will, ye ain't gone yit, I see?" said Barney.
The Doctor roused himself, and pulling out his watch, appeared to be greatly surprised. "I do declare," he ejaculated, "if we haven't been waiting here nearly half an hour! I say, my man, this sort of delay is inexcusable. It will read badly in a report to the Engineering Bureau. What is your number, sir?" And with a stern expression he produced his tablets, prepared to jot down the numeral.
Barney was clearly weakening. His return to see if the "bluff" had worked was an evidence of that. The Doctor's severe official manner, and our quiet persistence appeared to convince Barney that he had made a grave mistake. So he hurried off to the lower capstans, growling something about being "oft'n fooled with fish'n' parties." When we were through we left Barney a cigar on the curbing, and gently admonished him never again to be so rude to canoeists, or some day he would get reported. As we pushed off he bade us an affectionate farewell, and said he had sent his "lad" ahead to see that we had no trouble at the four lower locks. We did not see the lad; but certain it is that the other tenders were prompt and courteous, and we felt that the cigars which we distributed along the Kaukauna Canal were not illy bestowed.
Progress was slow to-day, owing to the delays in locking. Ordinarily, we make from thirty to forty miles,—on the Rock, you remember, we averaged forty. But it was nearly sunset when we passed under the old wagon bridge at Wrightstown, only seventeen miles below our starting-point of this morning. We paused for a minute or two, to talk with a peaceably disposed lad, who was the sole patron of the bridge and lay sprawled across the board foot-walk, with his head under the railing, fishing as contentedly as though he lay on a grassy bank, after the manner of the gentle Izaak. When old Mr. Wright was around, Wrightstown may have been quite a place. But it is now going the way of so many river towns. There is a small, rickety saw-mill in operation, to which farmers from the back country haul in pine logs, of which there are some hundreds neatly piled in an adjoining field. Another saw-mill shell is hard by, the home of owls and bats,—a deserted skeleton, whose spirit, in the shape of machinery, has departed to Ashland, a more modern paradise of the buzz-saw. The village, dressed in that tone of pearly gray with which kind Nature decks those habitations left paintless by neglectful man,—is prettily situated on the high banks which uniformly hedge in the Lower Fox. On the highest knoll of all is a modest little frame church whose spire—white, after a fashion—is a prominent landmark to river travelers. There are the remains of once well-kept gardens, upon the upper terraces; of somewhat elaborate fences, now swaying to and fro and weak in the knees; of sidewalks which have become pitfalls; of impenetrable thickets of lilacs, hedging lonely spots that once were homes. On the village street, only a few idlers were seen, gathered in knots of two or three in front of the barber shop and the saloons; the smith at his forge was working late, shoeing a country team; and two angular dames, in rusty sun-bonnets, were gossiping over a barn-yard gate. That was all we saw of Wrightstown, as we drifted northward in company with the reeling bubbles, down through the deepening shadow cast by the western bank.
Here and there, where the land chances to slope gently to the water's edge, are small piles of logs, drawn on farm sleds during the winter season from depleted pineries, all the way from three to ten miles back. When wanted at the saw-mills down the river, or just above, at Wrightstown, they are loosely made up into small rafts and poled to market. Along the stream there are but few pines left, and they generally crown some rocky ledge, not easily accessible. A few small clumps are preserved, however, relics of the forest's former state, to adorn private grounds or enhance the gloomy tone of little hillside cemeteries. There must have been an impressive grandeur about the scenery of the Lower Fox in the early day, before the woodman's axe leveled the great pines which then swept down in solid rank to the river beach, closely hedging in the dark and rapid flood.
We lunched upon a stone terrace, above which swayed in the evening breeze the dense, solemn branches of a giant native, one of the last of his fated race. The channel curved below, and the range of vision was short, between the stately banks, heavily fringed as they are with aspen and scrub-oak. As we sat in the gathering gloom and gayly chatted over the simple adventures which are making up this week of ideal vacation life, there came up from the depths below the steady swish and pant of a river steamboat,—rare object upon our lonesome journey. As the bulky craft came slowly around the bend, the pant became a subdued roar, awakening a dull echo from the wooded slopes. A small knot of passengers lolled around the pilot-house, on which we were just able to discern the name "Evalyn, of Oshkosh," in burnished gilt; on the freight deck there were bales and boxes of merchandise, and heaps of lumber; two stokers were feeding cord-wood to the furnace flames, which lit the scene with lurid glare, after the fashion of theatric fires; the roustabouts were fastening night lanterns to the rails. The V-shaped wake of her wheelbarrow stern broke upon the shores like a tidal wave, and the canoe, luckily well fastened to the roots of a stranded tree, bobbed up and down as would a chip tossed on the billows.
Four miles below Wrightstown is Little Kaukauna. There are three or four cottages here, well up on the pleasant western bank, overlooking a deserted saw-mill property; while just beyond, a government lock does duty whenever needed, and the rest of the now broadened stream is stemmed by a magnificent dam, from the foot of which arises a dense cloud of vapor, such is the force of the torrent which pours with a mighty sweep over the great chute. As we stole down upon the hamlet, the moon, a day or two past full, was just rising over the opposite hillocks; a tall pine standing out boldly from its lesser fellows, was weirdly silhouetted across her beaming face, and in the cottage windows lights gleamed a homely welcome.
We were cordially received at the house of the patriarch of the settlement. We made our craft secure for the night, "toted" our baggage up the bank, and paused upon the broad porch of our new-found friend to contemplate a most charming moonlit view of river and forest and glade and cataract; the cloud of mist rising high above the roaring declivity seemed as an incense offering to the goddess of the night.
