Man's Little Acts Are Grand,
Beheld From Land To Land,
There As They Lie In Time,
Within Their Native Clime
Ships with the noontide weigh,
And glide before its ray
To some retired bay,
Their haunt,
Whence, under tropic sun,
Again they run,
Bearing gum Senegal and Tragicant.
For this was ocean meant,
For this the sun was sent,
And moon was lent,
And winds in distant caverns pent.
Since our voyage the railroad on the bank has been extended, and
there is now but little boating on the Merrimack. All kinds of
produce and stores were formerly conveyed by water, but now
nothing is carried up the stream, and almost wood and bricks
alone are carried down, and these are also carried on the
railroad. The locks are fast wearing out, and will soon be
impassable, since the tolls will not pay the expense of repairing
them, and so in a few years there will be an end of boating on
this river. The boating at present is principally between
Merrimack and Lowell, or Hooksett and Manchester. They make two
or three trips in a week, according to wind and weather, from
Merrimack to Lowell and back, about twenty-five miles each way.
The boatman comes singing in to shore late at night, and moors
his empty boat, and gets his supper and lodging in some house
near at hand, and again early in the morning, by starlight
perhaps, he pushes away up stream, and, by a shout, or the
fragment of a song, gives notice of his approach to the lock-man,
with whom he is to take his breakfast. If he gets up to his
wood-pile before noon he proceeds to load his boat, with the help
of his single "hand," and is on his way down again before night.
When he gets to Lowell he unloads his boat, and gets his receipt
for his cargo, and, having heard the news at the public house at
Middlesex or elsewhere, goes back with his empty boat and his
receipt in his pocket to the owner, and to get a new load. We
were frequently advertised of their approach by some faint sound
behind us, and looking round saw them a mile off, creeping
stealthily up the side of the stream like alligators. It was
pleasant to hail these sailors of the Merrimack from time to
time, and learn the news which circulated with them. We imagined
that the sun shining on their bare heads had stamped a liberal
and public character on their most private thoughts.
The open and sunny interval still stretched away from the river
sometimes by two or more terraces, to the distant hill-country,
and when we climbed the bank we commonly found an irregular
copse-wood skirting the river, the primitive having floated
down-stream long ago to - - the "King's navy." Sometimes we saw
the river-road a quarter or half a mile distant, and the
particolored Concord stage, with its cloud of dust, its van of
earnest travelling faces, and its rear of dusty trunks, reminding
us that the country had its places of rendezvous for restless
Yankee men.
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