Benjamin Franklin Taylor, 1822-1887, was born at Lowville, New York, and
graduated at Madison University, of which his father was president. Here
he remained as resident graduate for about five years. His "Attractions of
Language" was published in 1845. For many years Mr. Taylor was literary
editor of the "Chicago Journal." He wrote considerably for the magazines,
and was the author of many well-known fugitive pieces, both in prose and
verse. He also published several books, of which "January and June,"
"Pictures in Camp and Field," "The World on Wheels," "Old-time Pictures
and Sheaves of Rhyme," "Between the Gates," and "Songs of Yesterday," are
the best known. In his later years, Mr. Taylor achieved some reputation as
a lecturer. His writings are marked by an exuberant fancy.
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Did you ever ride on a snowplow? Not the pet and pony of a thing that is
attached to the front of an engine, sometimes, like a pilot; but a great
two-storied monster of strong timbers, that runs upon wheels of its own,
and that boys run after and stare at as they would after and at an
elephant. You are snow-bound at Buffalo. The Lake Shore Line is piled with
drifts like a surf. Two passenger trains have been half-buried for twelve
hours somewhere in snowy Chautauqua. The storm howls like a congregation
of Arctic bears. But the superintendent at Buffalo is determined to
release his castaways, and clear the road to Erie. He permits you to be a
passenger on the great snowplow; and there it is, all ready to drive.
Harnessed behind it, is a tandem team of three engines. It does not occur
to you that you are going to ride on a steam drill, and so you get aboard.
It is a spacious and timbered room, with one large bull's eye window,--an
overgrown lens. The thing is a sort of Cyclops. There are ropes, and
chains, and a windlass. There is a bell by which the engineer of the first
engine can signal the plowman, and a cord whereby the plowman can talk
back. There are two sweeps, or arms, worked by machinery, on the sides.
You ask their use, and the superintendent replies, "When, in a violent
shock, there is danger of the monster's upsetting, an arm is put out, on
one side or the other, to keep the thing from turning a complete
somersault." You get one idea, and an inkling of another. So you take out
your Accident Policy for three thousand dollars, and examine it. It never
mentions battles, nor duels, nor snowplows. It names "public conveyances."
Is a snowplow a public conveyance? You are inclined to think it is neither
that nor any other kind that you should trust yourself to, but it is too
late for consideration.
You roll out of Buffalo in the teeth of the wind, and the world is turned
to snow. All goes merrily. The machine strikes little drifts, and they
scurry away in a cloud. The three engines breathe easily; but by and by
the earth seems broken into great billows of dazzling white. The sun comes
out of a cloud, and touches it up till it out-silvers Potosi. Houses lie
in the trough of the sea everywhere, and it requires little imagination to
think they are pitching and tossing before your eyes. A great breaker
rises right in the way. The monster, with you in it, works its way up and
feels of it. It is packed like a ledge of marble. Three whistles! The
machine backs away and keeps backing, as a gymnast runs astern to get sea
room and momentum for a big jump; as a giant swings aloft a heavy sledge,
that it may come down with a heavy blow.
One whistle! You have come to a halt. Three pairs of whistles one after
the other! and then, putting on all steam, you make for the drift. The
superintendent locks the door, you do not quite understand why, and in a
second the battle begins. The machine rocks and creaks in all its joints.
There comes a tremendous shock. The cabin is as dark as midnight. The
clouds of flying snow put out the day. The labored breathing of the
locomotives behind you, the clouds of smoke and steam that wrap you up as
in a mantle, the noonday eclipse of the sun, the surging of the ship, the
rattling of chains, the creak of timbers as if the craft were aground and
the sea getting out of its bed to whelm you altogether, the doubt as to
what will come,--all combine to make a scene of strange excitement for a
landlubber.
You have made some impression on the breaker, and again the machine backs
for a fair start, and then another plunge, and shock, and twilight. And
so, from deep cut to deep cut, as if the season had packed all his winter
clothes upon the track, until the stalled trains are reached and passed;
and then, with alternate storm and calm, and halt and shock, till the way
is cleared to Erie.
It is Sunday afternoon, and Erie--"Mad Anthony Wayne's" old
headquarters--has donned its Sunday clothes, and turned out by hundreds to
see the great plow come in,--its first voyage over the line. The
locomotives set up a crazy scream, and you draw slowly into the depot. The
door opened at last, you clamber down, and gaze up at the uneasy house in
which you have been living. It looks as if an avalanche had tumbled down
upon it,--white as an Alpine shoulder. Your first thought is gratitude
that you have made a landing alive. Your second, a resolution that, if
again you ride a hammer, it will not be when three engines have hold of
the handle!
NOTES.--Chautauqua is the most western county in the state of New York; it
borders on Lake Erie.
The Cyclops are described in Grecian mythology as giants having only one
eye, which was circular, and placed in the middle of the forehead.
Cerro de Potosi is a mountain in Bolivia, South America, celebrated for
its mineral wealth. More than five thousand mines have been opened in it;
the product is chiefly silver.
"Mad Anthony Wayne" (b. 1745, d. 1796), so called from his bravery and
apparent recklessness, was a famous American officer during the
Revolution. In 1794 be conducted a successful campaign against the Indians
of the Northwest, making his headquarters at Erie, Pa.