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CAREERS OF DANGER AND DARING
[Illustration: "DIVERS AT WORK NEAR A WRECK."]
CAREERS OF DANGER AND DARING
BY
CLEVELAND MOFFETT
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
JAY HAMBIDGE AND GEORGE VARIAN
AND OTHERS
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1903
Copyright, 1900, 1901, by
THE CENTURY CO.
Copyright, 1898, by
S. S. MCCLURE CO.
Copyright, 1901, by
CLEVELAND MOFFETT.
* * * * *
_Published October, 1901_
THE DEVINNE PRESS.
Dedication
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO
MY TWO LITTLE CHILDREN
ANNE EUNICE
AND
CLEVELAND LUSK
IN LOVE AND THE HOPE THAT
IT MAY HELP THEM, AS THEY
GROW UP, TO FORM HABITS OF
COURAGE AND USEFULNESS.
AUGUST, 1901. C. M.
CONTENTS
THE STEEPLE-CLIMBER PAGE
I In Which We Make the Acquaintance of "Steeple Bob" 3
II How They Blew Off the Top of a Steeple with Dynamite 14
III The Greatest Danger to a Steeple-Climber Lies in Being
Startled 21
IV Experience of an Amateur Climbing to a Steeple-top 29
THE DEEP-SEA DIVER
I Some First Impressions of Men Who Go Down Under the Sea 40
II A Visit to the Burying-ground of Wrecks 54
III An Afternoon of Story-telling on the Steam-pump
_Dunderberg_ 63
IV Wherein We Meet Sharks, Alligators, and a Very Tough
Problem in Wrecking 71
V In Which the Author Puts on a Diving-suit and Goes
Down to a Wreck 78
THE BALLOONIST
I Here We Visit a Balloon Farm and Talk with the Man
Who Runs It 87
II Which Treats of Experiments in Steering Balloons 99
III Something About Explosive Balloons and the Wonders of
Hydrogen 110
IV The Story of a Boy Who Ran Away in a Big Balloon 117
THE PILOT
I Some Stirring Tales of the Sea Heard at the Pilot's
Club 130
II Which Shows How Pilots on the St. Lawrence Fight the
Ice-floes 141
III Now We Watch the Men Who Shoot the Furious Rapids at
Lachine 148
IV What Canadian Pilots Did in the Cataracts of the Nile 160
THE BRIDGE-BUILDER
I In Which We Visit a Place of Unusual Fears and Perils 173
II The Experience of Two Novices in Balancing Along
Narrow Girders and Watching the "Traveler" Gang 182
III Which Tells of Men Who Have Fallen from Great Heights 197
THE FIREMAN
I Wherein We See a Sleeping Village Swept by a River of
Fire and the Burning of a Famous Hotel 209
II What Bill Brown Did in the Great Tarrant Fire 222
III Here We Visit an Engine-house at Night and Chat with
the Driver 233
IV Famous Rescues by New York Fire-boats from Red-hot
Ocean Liners 241
THE AERIAL ACROBAT
I Showing That it Takes More Than Muscle and Skill to
Work on the High Bars 255
II About Double and Triple Somersaults and the Danger of
Losing Heart 264
III In Which the Author Tries His Hand with Professional
Trapeze Performers 272
IV Some Remarkable Falls and Narrow Escapes of Famous
Athletes 284
THE WILD-BEAST TAMER
I We Visit a Queer Resort for Circus People and Talk
with a Trainer of Elephants 293
II Methods of Lion-tamers and the Story of Brutus's
Attack on Mr. Bostock 304
III Bonavita Describes His Fight with Seven Lions and
George Arstingstall Tells How He Conquered a Mad
Elephant 317
IV We See Mr. Bostock Matched Against a Wild Lion and
Hear About the Tiger Rajah 328
V We Spend a Night Among Wild Beasts and See the
Dangerous Lion Black Prince 339
THE DYNAMITE WORKER
I The Story of Some Millionaire Heroes and the World's
Greatest Powder Explosion 348
II We Visit a Dynamite-factory and Meet a Man Who Thinks
Courage is an Accident 358
III How Joshua Plumstead Stuck to His Nitro-Glycerin-Vat
in an Explosion and Saved the Works 367
THE LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER
I How it Feels to Ride at Night on a Locomotive Going
Ninety Miles an Hour 377
II We Pick Up Some Engine Lore and Hear About the Death
of Giddings 388
III Some Memories of the Great Record-breaking Run from
Chicago to Buffalo 395
IV We Hear Some Thrilling Stories at a Round-house and
Reach the End of the Book 406
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
About one half the chapters in this book appeared
serially in "St. Nicholas Magazine," the other
half in the "New York Herald," and two chapters on
the Locomotive Engineer, and one on the Wild-Beast
Tamer appeared in "McClure's Magazine." Thanks are
extended to all these for permission to republish.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
DIVERS AT WORK NEAR A WRECK _Frontispiece_
"I HAD TO CRAWL AROUND AND OVER IT" 5
AT THE TOP OF ST. PAUL'S, NEW YORK 10
"THEN MY PARTNER STOOD ON MY SHOULDERS" 12
"SOMETIMES IN HARD PLACES YOU HAVE TO THROW YOUR NOOSES
AROUND THE SHAFT" 16
PICTURE OF THE FALLING STEEPLE, PHOTOGRAPHED JUST AFTER
THE DYNAMITE EXPLODED. THE FALLING SECTION WAS 35
FEET IN LENGTH AND WEIGHED 35 TONS 20
LOOKING FROM THE GROUND UPWARD AT ST. PAUL'S SPIRE,
BROADWAY, NEW YORK CITY 25
GILDING A CHURCH CROSS, ABOVE NEW YORK CITY 30
HOW THE STEEPLE-CLIMBER GOES UP A FLAGPOLE 37
PORTRAIT OF A DIVER. DRAWN FROM LIFE 43
"THE DIVER'S HELMET SHOWED LIKE THE BACK OF A BIG TURTLE" 46
DIVER STANDING ON SUNKEN COAL BARGE 51
THE MEN AT WORK WITH THE AIR-PUMP 57
"I STAYED DOWN UNTIL THAT CHAIN WAS UNDER THE SHAFT" 60
THE MAN WHO ATTENDS TO THE DIVER'S SIGNALS 65
A DIVER AT WORK ON A STEAMBOAT'S PROPELLER 75
THE AUTHOR GOING DOWN IN A DIVER'S SUIT 80
THE AUTHOR AFTER HIS FIRST DIVE. THE FACE-PLATE HAS BEEN
UNSCREWED FROM THE HELMET 83
"BALLOON-CLOTH BY HUNDREDS OF YARDS" 88
"FIELDS THAT LOOK LIKE AN ESKIMO VILLAGE" 89
"A PAIR OF GREAT WINGS MADE OF FEATHERS AND SILK--WHICH,
ALAS! WOULD NEVER FLY" 91
PROFESSOR MYERS IN HIS "SKYCYCLE" 93
HOW THE EARTH LOOKS WHEN VIEWED FROM A HEIGHT OF ONE MILE.
(Photographed from a Balloon.) 96
MME. CARLOTTA STEERING A BALLOON BY TIPPING THE FOOT-BOARD 100
"IN SPITE OF ALL THEIR SKILL THESE INDIANS FOUND
THEMSELVES PRESENTLY LIFTED INTO THE AIR, CANOES AND
ALL" 103
MME. CARLOTTA CALLS FOR ASSISTANCE FROM ANOTHER BALLOONIST
THREE MILES AWAY 107
A BALLOON-PICNIC AT THE AERONAUTS' HOME 112
"STEVENS CAME DOWN ONCE WITH A PARACHUTE TWO MILES OUT IN
THE ATLANTIC OCEAN--AND WAS PROMPTLY RESCUED" 119
THE RESCUE OF THE "OREGON'S" PASSENGERS 132
A PILOT-BOAT RIDING OUT A STORM 138
RIVER-BUOYS ON THE BANK FOR THE WINTER 145
"BIG JOHN" STEERING A BOAT THROUGH THE LACHINE RAPIDS 150
By permission of William Notman & Son
FRED OUILLETTE, THE YOUNG PILOT 153
THE INDIAN PILOTS RESCUE PASSENGERS FROM THE STEAMER ON
THE ROCKS 156
"MAN OVERBOARD!" AN INDIAN CANOE TO THE RESCUE 158
THE PILOT, "BIG JOHN" 162
HAULING A STEAMER UP THE NILE RAPIDS 165
CUTTING THE LINE--A MOMENT OF PERIL 167
"OVER THEY WENT, THE WHOLE BLACK LINE OF THEM" 169
HOW THE ENGINEERS WERE CARRIED OVER TO THE NILE ISLANDS 170
THE WORK OF THE BRIDGE-BUILDERS. A TOWER OF THE NEW EAST
RIVER BRIDGE. THIS PHOTOGRAPH ALSO ILLUSTRATES THE
NARROW ESCAPE OF JACK MCGREGGOR ON THE SWINGING
COLUMN 175
"THERE WAS PAT, FAST ASLEEP, LEGS DANGLING, HEAD NODDING,
AS COMFORTABLE AS YOU PLEASE" 179
"THE IRON STREET LOOKED DELICATE, NOT MASSIVE" 184
WARMING THEIR LUNCHES AT THE BOILER-FIRE 186
A STRANGE WAY TO GO TO MEALS 186
"ITS MASCOT KITTEN, CURLED UP THERE BY THE ASH-BOX" 189
RIDING UP ON AN EIGHTEEN-TON COLUMN 191
ON THE "TRAVELER." HOISTING A STRUT 195
WALKING A GIRDER TWO HUNDRED FEET IN AIR 203
BURNING OIL-TANKS 210
"SNYDER, WHITE AS A GHOST, RACED AHEAD OF THE FIRE" 213
"THE VERY STREETS ARE BURNING" 215
USE OF THE SCALING LADDERS 218
A HOT PLACE 224
A FALLING WALL 231
A RESCUE FROM A FIFTH STORY 234
AT FULL SPEED 239
"INTO THE STREET OF FIRE, BETWEEN THE TWO PIERS, STEAMED
THE BIG FIRE-BOAT, STRAIGHT IN, WITH FOUR STREAMS
PLAYING TO PORT AND FOUR TO STARBOARD, ALL DOING
THEIR PRETTIEST" 243
GALLAGHER'S RESCUE OF A SWEDE FROM THE BURNING BARGE 245
SAVING THE MEN OF THE "BREMEN" 250
FIRE-BOATS WORKING ON THE "BREMEN" AND THE "SAALE" 253
"AS THEY SHOOT TOWARD THE MAN HANGING FOR THE CATCH FROM
THE LAST BAR" 259
"FOUR ELEPHANTS WAS ENOUGH FOR ANY MAN TO LEAP OVER" 267
CIRCUS PROFESSIONALS PRACTISING A FEAT OF BALANCING 279
THROUGH A PAPER BALLOON AT THE END OF A GREAT FEAT 289
HOW THE LIONESS WAS CAPTURED ON THE OPEN PRAIRIE 295
MAN IN CAGE WITH LIONS 301
BEGINNING THE TRAINING 305
COMING TO CLOSE QUARTERS 307
THE LION DESTROYS THE CHAIR 308
THE TAMER'S TRIUMPH. READING HIS NEWSPAPER IN THE LION'S
CAGE 310
BIANCA RESCUES BOSTOCK FROM "BRUTUS" 315
BONAVITA'S FIGHT WITH SEVEN LIONS IN THE RUNWAY 320
"RAJAH'S" ATTACK UPON BONAVITA IN THE RUNWAY 331
THE TIGER "RAJAH" KICKED BY THE QUAGGA 334
PUTTING THE TIGER "RAJAH" AGAIN UPON THE ELEPHANT'S BACK 337
A ROYAL BENGAL TIGER 345
YOUNG DUPONT WORKING TO SAVE THE POWDER-MILL 351
EFFECTS OF DYNAMITE EXPLODED UNDER WATER 354
THE EXPLOSION IN THE NEW YORK CITY TUNNEL 356
"EVERYTHING WAS BLOWN TO PIECES" 361
"HE WENT TO WORK THROWING WATER ON THE BURNING BOXES" 365
"A SWIFT, HEAVY CAR WAS PLUNGING TOWARD THE OPEN DOOR" 372
"HE KNEW THAT A SECOND EXPLOSION MIGHT COME AT ANY
MOMENT" 375
"A PLACE WHERE YELLOW EYES GLARE OUT OF DEEP SHADOWS" 379
AT THE THROTTLE 385
"THEY STRUCK THE MISSISSIPPI BRIDGE AT FULL SPEED" 390
"AS THE DRIVERS BEGAN TO TURN I JUMPED ON THE
COW-CATCHER" 397
A RECORD-BREAKING RUN 401
"DRAWN BY THE IDEA OF ITS GOING SO BLAMED FAST AND BEING
SO STRONG" 409
"CONVICTS HAD REVOLVERS ALL RIGHT THAT TRIP AND DENNY
THREW UP HIS HANDS" 413
CAREERS OF DANGER AND DARING
[Illustration]
THE STEEPLE-CLIMBER
I
IN WHICH WE MAKE THE ACQUAINTANCE OF "STEEPLE BOB"
DURING the summer months of 1900--what blazing hot months, to be
sure!--people on lower Broadway were constantly coming upon other people
with chins in the air, staring up and exclaiming: "Dear me, isn't it
wonderful!" or "There's that fellow again; I'm sure he'll break his
neck!" Then they would pass on and give place to other wonderers.
The occasion of this general surprise and apprehension was a tall man
dressed entirely in white, who appeared day after day swinging on a
little seat far up the side of this or that church steeple, or right at
the top, hugging the gold cross or weather-vane, or, higher still,
working his way, with a queer, kicking, hitching movement, up various
hundred-foot flagpoles that rise from the heaven-challenging office
buildings down near Wall Street. At these perilous altitudes he would
hang for hours, shifting his ropes occasionally, raising his swing or
lowering it, but not doing anything that his sidewalk audience could see
very well or clearly understand. Yet thousands watched him with
fascination, and a kodak army descended upon neighboring housetops, and
newspapers followed the movements of "Steeple Bob" in thrilling
chronicle.
That is what he was called in large black letters at the head of
columns--"Steeple Bob"; but I came to know him at his modest quarters on
Lexington Avenue, where he was plain Mr. Merrill, a serious-mannered and
an unpretentious young man, very fond of his wife and his dog, very fond
of spending evenings over books of adventure, and quite indifferent to
his day-time notoriety. I call him a young man, yet in years of service,
not in age, he is the oldest steeple-climber in the business, ever since
his teacher, "Steeple Charlie," fell from his swing some years ago in
New Bedford, Massachusetts, and died the steeple-climber's death.
I often saw books of the sea on Merrill's table, and accounts of whaling
voyages; and he told me, one evening (while through an open door came
the snores of his weary partner), about his own adventurous boyhood,
with three years' cruising in Uncle Sam's navy on the school-ships
_Minnesota_ and _Yantic_ (he shipped at the age of twelve) and two years
at whale-fishing in the North Sea. Quite ideal training, this, for a
steeple-climber; he learned to handle ropes and make them fast so they
would stay fast; he learned to climb and keep his head at the top of a
swaying masthead; he learned to bear exposure as lads must who are
washed on deck every morning with a hose, and stand for inspection,
winter and summer, bare to the waist. And he gained strength of arm and
back swinging at the oar while whale-lines strained on the sunk harpoon;
and patience in long stern-chases; and nerve when some stricken monster
lashed the waters in agony and the boat danced on a reddened sea.
Merrill laughed about the climb up old Trinity's spire, the first climb
when he carried up the hauling-rope and worked his way clear to the
cross, with nothing to help him but the hands and feet he was born
with, and did it coolly, while men on the street below turned away
sickened with fear for him.
"I'm telling you the truth," said Steeple Bob, "when I say it was an
easy climb; any fairly active man could do it if he'd forget the height.
I'm not talking about all steeples--some are hard and dangerous; but the
one on Trinity, in spite of its three hundred-odd feet, has knobs of
stone for ornament all the way up (they call them corbels), and all you
have to do is to step from one to another."
"How much of a step?"
"Oh, when I stood on one the next one came to my breast, and then I
could just touch the one above that."
[Illustration: "I HAD TO CRAWL AROUND AND OVER IT."]
He called this easy climbing!
"The only ticklish bit was just at the top, where two great stones,
weighing about a ton apiece, swell out like an apple on a stick, and I
had to crawl around and over that apple, which was four feet or so
across. If it hadn't been for grooves and scrollwork in the stone I
couldn't have done it, and even as it was I had two or three minutes of
hard wriggling after I kicked off with my feet and began pulling myself
up."
"You mean you hung by your hands from this big ball of stone?"
"I hung mostly by my fingers; the scrolls weren't deep enough for my
hands to go in."
"And you drew yourself slowly up and around and over that ball?"
"Certainly; that was the only way."
"And it was at the very top?"
"Yes, just under the cross. It wasn't much, though; you could do it
yourself."
I really think Merrill believed this. He honestly saw no particular
danger in that climb, nor could I discover that he ever saw any
particular danger in anything he had done. He always made the point that
if he had really thought the thing dangerous he wouldn't have done it.
And I conclude from this that being a steeple-climber depends quite as
much upon how a man thinks as upon what he can do.
"A funny thing happened!" he added. "After I got over this hard place, I
slid into a V-shaped space between the bulging stone and the
steeple-shaft, and I lay there on my back for a minute or so, resting.
But when I started to raise myself I found my weight had worked me down
in the crotch and jammed me fast, and it was quite a bit of time before
I could get free."
"How much time? A minute?"
"Yes, five minutes; and it seemed a good deal longer."
Five minutes struggling in a sort of stone trap, stretched out helpless
at the very top of a steeple where one false move would mean
destruction--that is what Merrill spoke of as a funny thing! Thanks, I
thought, I will take my fun some other way, and lower down.
"You would be surprised," he went on, "to feel the movement of a
steeple. It trembles all the time, and answers every jar on the street
below. I guess old Trinity's steeple sways eighteen inches every time an
elevated train passes. And St. Paul's is even worse. Why, she rocks like
a beautifully balanced cradle; it would make some people seasick.
Perhaps you don't know it, but the better a steeple is built the more
she sways. You want to look out for the ones that stand rigid; there's
something wrong with them--most likely they're out of plumb."
"Isn't there danger," I asked, "that a steeple may get swaying too much,
say in a gale, and go clear over?"
"Gale or not," said Merrill, "a well-made steeple must rock in the wind,
the same as a tree rocks. That is the way it takes the storm, by
yielding to it. If it didn't yield it would probably break. Why, the
great shaft of the Washington Monument sways four or five feet when the
wind blows hard."
Then he explained that modern steeples are built with a steel backbone
(if I may so call it) running down from the top for many feet inside the
stonework. At Trinity, for instance, this backbone (known as a dowel) is
four inches thick and forty-five feet long, a great steel mast
stretching down through the cross, down inside the heavy stones and
ornaments, and ending in massive beams and braces where the steeple's
greater width gives full security.
"What sort of work did you do on these steeples?" I asked.
"All kinds; stone-mason's work, painter's work, blacksmith's work,
carpenter's work--why, a good steeple-climber has to know something
about 'most every trade. It's painting flagpoles, and scraping off shale
from a steeple's sides, and repairing loose stones and ornaments, and
putting up lightning-rods, and gilding crosses, and cleaning
smoke-stacks so high that it makes you dizzy to look up, let alone
looking down, and a dozen other things. Sometimes we have to take a
whole steeple down, beginning at the top, stone by stone--unless it's a
wooden steeple, and then we burn her down five or six feet at a time,
with creosote painted around where you want the fire to stop; the
creosote puts it out. Once I blew off the whole top of a steeple with
dynamite; and, by the way, I'll tell you about that some time."
Conversing with a steeple-climber (when he feels like telling things) is
like breathing oxygen; you find it over-stimulating. In ten minutes'
matter-of-fact talking he opens so many vistas of thrilling interest
that you stand before them bewildered. He starts to answer one question,
and you burn to interrupt him with ten others, each of which will lead
you hopelessly away from the remaining nine.
"Did you ever have any experiences with lightning?" I asked Merrill, one
day.
"Oh, a few," he said. "A thunderbolt struck the Trinity steeple the very
day we finished our work. We had just taken down our tackle and staging
after gilding the cross when--by the way, they say there's a hundred
dollars in gold under that cross."
"Really?" I exclaimed. "How did it get there?"
"Somebody ordered it put there when the steeple was built. People often
do queer things like that. I painted a flagpole on a barn up in
Massachusetts where there was four hundred dollars in gold hidden under
the weather-vane. Everybody knew it was there, because the farmer who
put it there told everybody, and my partner was crazy to saw off the end
of that pole some night and fool 'em, but of course I wouldn't have it."
Here was I quite off my thunderbolt trail, and although curious about
that farmer, I came back to it resolutely.
"Well," resumed Merrill, "this lightning stroke came down the new rod
all right until it reached the bell-deck, and there it circled round and
round the steeple four or five times, wrapping my assistant in
bluish-white flame. Then it took a long jump straight down Wall Street,
smashed a flagpole to slivers, and vanished. Say, there are things about
lightning I've never heard explained. I know of a steeple-climber, for
instance, who was killed by lightning--it must have been lightning,
although no one saw it strike. There were two of them working on a
scaffolding when a thunder-storm came up, and this man's partner started
for the ground, as climbers with any sense always do. But this fellow
was lazy or out of sorts or something, and said he wouldn't go down,
he'd stay on the steeple until the storm was over. And he did stay
there, without getting any harm, so far as anybody on the ground could
see, except a wetting. Just the same, when his partner went up again, he
found him stretched out on the scaffolding, dead."
"Frightened to death?" I suggested.
[Illustration: AT THE TOP OF ST. PAUL'S, NEW YORK.]
Merrill shook his head. "No, they said it was lightning; but it's
queer how lightning could kill a man without being seen, isn't it?"
Then Merrill gave an experience of his own with a thunderbolt. It was
during this same busy summer of 1900, while he and his partner were
scraping the great steel smoke-stack that rises from ground to roof
along one side of the American Tract Society Building, that towering
structure which looks down with contempt, no doubt, upon ordinary church
steeples.
"We were in our saddles," Merrill explained, "swung down about two
thirds of the smoke-stack's length, when some black clouds warned us of
danger, and we hauled ourselves up to the roof. My partner, Walter
Tyghe, got off his saddle and stood there where my wife was waiting (she
often goes to climbing-jobs with me--she's less anxious when she can
watch me); but I thought the storm was passing over, and kept on
scraping, sort of half resting on the cornice, half on my saddle.
Suddenly a bolt shot down from a little pink cloud just overhead, and
splintered a big flagpole I had just put halyards on, and then jumped
past us all so close that it knocked Walter over, and made me sick and
giddy so that I fell back limp on my saddle-board, and swung there
helpless until my wife pulled the trip-rope that opens the lock-block
and drew me in from the edge. That's not the first time she's been on
deck at the right minute. Once she came up a steeple to tell me
something, and found the hauling-line smoldering from my helper's
cigarette. If that line had burned through it would have dropped me to
the ground from the steeple-top, saddle, lock-block, and all. The man
with the cigarette was so scared he quit smoking for good and all."
Here, in reply to my question, Merrill explained the working of a
lock-block, which is simply a pulley that allows a rope to pass through
it, but will not let it go back. With this block the steeple-climber can
be hauled up easily, but cannot fall, even if the man hauling should let
go the rope. When it is necessary to descend, a pull on the trip-rope
releases a safety-catch and the saddle goes down.
"Do steeple-climbers always work in pairs?" I asked him.
[Illustration: "'THEN MY PARTNER STOOD ON MY SHOULDERS.'"]
"Usually. It would be hard for one man to do a steeple alone. There are
lots of places where you must have some one to fasten a rope or hold the
end of a plank or pass you something. Besides, it wouldn't be good for a
man's mind to be spending days and days upon steeples all alone. It's
bad enough with a partner to talk to. That makes me think of poor old
Dan O'Brien. If I hadn't been up with him one day--" Merrill checked
himself and changed the subject.
"I'll give you a case where a man alone could never have done the thing,
I don't care how clever a steeple-climber he might be. It was on St.
Paul's, New York, after we had finished the job and taken everything
down. Then somebody noticed that the weather-vane on top of the ball
wasn't turning properly. I knew in a minute what the matter was; it was
easy enough to fix it, but the thing was to reach the weather-vane. I
don't mean that the climb up the steeple was anything; we had done that
before; but if I tried to climb around that big ball again (it was the
same sort of a wriggling business as that over the bulging stones at
Trinity) I would be sure to scrape off a lot of the fine gilding we had
just put on. And yet I couldn't get at the weather-vane without getting
over the ball. I studied quite a while on this little problem, and
solved it with my partner's help. We both climbed the steeple as far as
the ball; we went up the lightning-rod; then we roped ourselves on the
steeple-shaft by life-lines, and then my partner, that was Joe Lawlor,
stood on my shoulders and did the job. You see it was easy enough that
way."
"Easy enough!" Think of it! Two men clinging to the point of a steeple.
One of them braces himself with the toes of his rubber shoes in crannies
of the stone, and the other, balancing on his shoulders like a circus
performer, does a piece of work, no matter what, with a reeling abyss
all around (what is looking over a precipice compared to this?), and all
the time the spire swaying back and forth like a forest tree. And then
you hear that, instead of getting a large sum for such an achievement,
these men, taking it through the year, get scarcely more than ordinary
workmen's wages.
II
HOW THEY BLEW OFF THE TOP OF A STEEPLE WITH DYNAMITE
KNOWN over all Connecticut was the Congregational Church in Hartford,
that stood for years on Pearl Street, and was famous alike for the
burning words spoken beneath its roof, and the tall, straight spire that
reached above it; two hundred and thirty-eight feet measured the drop
from cross to pavement. But churches pass like other things, and near
the century-end came the decision by landowners and lease interpreters
that this graceful length of brownstone and the pile beneath it must
move off the premises, which meant, of course, that the steeple must
come down, the time appointed for this demolition being August, 1899.
Now, the taking down of a steeple two hundred and thirty-eight feet
high, that rises on a closely built city street, is not so simple a
proceeding as might at first appear. If you suggest pulling the steeple
over, all the neighbors cry out. They wish to know where it is going to
strike. Are you sure it won't smash down on their housetops? Can you
make a steeple fall this way or that way, as woodmen make trees fall?
How do you know you can? Besides, how are you going to hitch fast the
rope that will pull it over? And who will climb with such a rope to the
steeple-top? It must be said that there is usually some young man at
hand, some dare-devil character of the vicinity, who is ready to try
the thing and is positive he can succeed at it. But, luckily, he seldom
gets a chance to try.
"It's queer," said Merrill, telling me the story, "how people ever built
a steeple like this one without a window in it, or an air-passage, or
anything for ventilation. Between the bell-deck and the cross there
wasn't a single opening from the inside out, so I had to break my way
through up near the top. What a place for a man to work, squeezed in the
point of a stifling funnel, with no swing for his hammer, and no air to
breathe, and the scorch of an August sun! After fifteen minutes of it,
my wrists and temples would be pounding so I'd have to come down and
rest.
"Of course the purpose of this hole that I knocked through the
steeple-top was to make fast ropes and pulleys, so my partner and I
could hoist ourselves along the outside, and not have to climb up the
inside cross-beams, which, I can tell you, is a lively bit of athletics.
Well, we got our ropes fixed all right, about twenty-five feet below the
top, and the 'bosun's saddle' swung below for us to travel up and down
in, and then we made fast another set of ropes and pulleys about fifteen
feet higher up; this was for hoisting timber and stuff that we needed."
"How did you get up that fifteen feet?" I inquired.
"Worked up on the stirrups--that is, two nooses around the steeple, each
ending in a loop, one for the right foot, one for the left. You stand in
the right stirrup and work the left loop up, then you stand in the left
stirrup and work the right loop up. Sometimes in hard places you have to
throw your nooses around the shaft as a cowboy casts a rope. Come down
some day and watch us work; you'll see the whole thing."
To this invitation I gave glad acceptance; I certainly wished to see
this stirrup-climbing process.
[Illustration: "SOMETIMES IN HARD PLACES YOU HAVE TO THROW YOUR NOOSES
AROUND THE SHAFT."]
"The next thing," continued Merrill, "was to make another hole in the
steeple through a keystone a little below our first hole. In this hole
we set a block of Norway pine resting on an iron jack. The block was
about a foot square and twenty-two inches high, a big tough piece, you
see, and by screwing up the jack we could make that part as solid as the
keystone was. We made this hole on the east side of the steeple, which
was the side we wanted her to fall on, the only side she could fall on
without injuring something; and we had it figured out so close that we
dug a trench on that side straight out from the steeple's base, ten feet
wide and four feet deep, and told people we intended to have the whole
top of that steeple, say a length of thirty-five feet and a weight of
thirty-five tons, come off at one time and land right square in that
trench and nowhere else. That's what we intended to do.
"Now began the hoisting of materials; first a lot of half-inch wire
cable, enough for four turns around the steeple, then eight sixteen-foot
timbers, two inches thick and a foot wide, then a lot of maple wedges.
We bandaged the steeple with the cable and drew it tight with tackle.
Then we lowered the timbers lengthwise inside the cable, which we could
do because the steeple was an octagon with ornamented corners, and these
left spaces where the wire rope was stretched around. Then we wedged
fast the eight timbers so that they formed a sixteen-foot half-collar on
the west side of the steeple just opposite our hole where the jack was.
In other words, we had the steeple shored in so that when we let her go
no loose stones could fall on the west side; everything must fall to the
east.
"Last of all, we widened our hole on the east side, stripping away
stones until that whole side lay open in a half-circular mouth about
four feet high. And in this mouth were two teeth, one might say, that
held the stone jaws apart, the iron jack biting into the block of Norway
pine. On those two now came the steeple's weight, or, anyhow, one half
of it. To knock out one of these teeth would be to leave the east side
of the steeple unsupported, with the result that it must topple over in
that direction and fall to the ground. Anyway, that was our reasoning,
and it seemed sound enough; the only question was how we were going to
knock out that block of Norway pine.
"Well the day of the test came, and I guess five thousand people were
there to see what would happen. Everybody was discussing it, and farmers
had driven in for miles just as they do for a hanging. You understand I
was under the orders of the contractor, and he had his own plan about
getting the block out. He proposed to hitch a rope to it, drop this rope
to a donkey-engine in the yard, and set the engine winding up the rope.
He said the block would have to come out then and the steeple fall. I
agreed that the block might come out, but was afraid it would tip up
through the strain coming at an angle, and throw the steeple over to the
west, just the way we didn't want it to go. And if that steeple ever
fell to the west, there was no telling how many people it would kill in
the crowd, without counting damage to houses.
"However, the contractor was boss, and he stuck to it his way was right,
so we hitched the engine to the block and set her going. She puffed and
tugged a little, and then snapped the rope. We got another rope, and she
broke that too. Then we got a stronger rope, and the engine just kicked
herself around the yard and had lots of fun, but the block never budged.
All that morning we tried one scheme after another to make that engine
pull the block out, but we might as well have hitched a rope to the
church; the steeple's weight was too much for us. And all the time the
crowd was getting bigger and bigger, until the police could hardly
manage it.
"Finally the contractor, being very mad and quite anxious, said he'd be
hanged if he could get the block out, and for me to try my scheme, and
do it quick, for some men were going about saying the thing was
dangerous and ought to be stopped. He didn't have to speak twice before
I was on my way up that steeple carrying an inch auger, a fifty-foot
fuse, and a stick of dynamite--I'd had them ready for hours. It's queer
how people get wind of a thing; the crowd seemed to know in a minute
that I was going to use dynamite, and before I was twenty feet up the
ladder a police officer was after me, ordering me down. I went right
ahead, pretending not to hear, and when I got to the bell-deck he was
puffing along ten yards below me. I swung into my 'bosun's saddle' and
began pulling myself up outside the steeple, and I guess the whole five
thousand people around the church bent back their heads to watch me.
"As soon as I began to rise in the saddle I knew I was all right, for I
coiled up the hauling-line on my arm so the officer couldn't follow me.
All he could do was stand on the bell-deck and gape after me like the
rest and growl.
"When I reached the block I bored a six-inch hole into her at a downward
slant, and in this I put some crumbs of dynamite,--not much, only about
half a teaspoonful,--and then I stuck in the fuse and tamped her solid
with sand. Then I lit the other end, dropped it down inside the steeple,
and slid down the rope as fast as I could, yelling to the officer that
I'd touched her off. You ought to have seen him get out of that steeple!
He never waited to arrest me or anything; he had pressing business on
the ground!
"By the time I got down you could see a little trail of bluish smoke
drifting away from the hole, and there was a hush over the crowd, except
for the police trying to make them stand back behind the ropes. I don't
know as I ever saw a bigger crowd; the street was jammed for blocks
either way. Well, sir, that was a queer acting fuse. It smoked and
smoked for about ten minutes, and then the smoke stopped. The people
began to laugh--they said it had gone out; and the contractor was nearly
crazy: he was sure I had made another failure. I didn't know what to
think; I just waited. We waited ten minutes, twelve minutes; it seemed
like an hour, but nobody dared go up to see what the matter was. Then
suddenly the explosion came--no louder than a pistol-crack, for
dynamite isn't noisy, but it stirred me more than a cannon.
"'Start your engine!' I shouted, and the little dummy had just time to
wind up half a turn of the hitch-line when the old steeple-top swayed
and broke clean in two, right where the block was, and the whole upper
length fell like one piece, fell to the east just as we had planned it,
and landed in the trench, every stone of it; there wasn't a piece as big
as your fingernail, sir, outside that trench. And while she was falling
I don't know how many kodaks were snapped in the hope of getting a
picture; men and women with cameras had been waiting for hours on the
roofs of high buildings, and two or three of them actually caught a
picture of the steeple-top as it hung in the air for a fraction of a
second at right angles to the base."
[Illustration: PICTURE OF THE FALLING STEEPLE, PHOTOGRAPHED JUST AFTER
THE DYNAMITE EXPLODED. THE FALLING SECTION WAS 35 FEET IN LENGTH AND
WEIGHED 35 TONS.]
III
THE GREATEST DANGER TO A STEEPLE-CLIMBER LIES IN BEING STARTLED
IT appears that professional steeple-climbers are quiet-mannered men,
with a certain gentleness of voice (like deaf people) that impresses one
far more than any strident boasting. This habit of silence they form
from being silent so much aloft. And when they do speak it is in a low
tone, because that is the least startling to a man as he swings over
some reeling gulf. Next to an actual disaster (which usually kills
outright and painlessly) what a steeple-climber most dreads is being
startled. This was explained to me in one of our many talks by "Steeple
Bob," famous over the land for daring feats, but never reckless ones.
How plainly I call up his pale, serious face and the massive shoulders,
somewhat bent, and the forearm with muscles to impress a prize-fighter!
Pleasant to note that Merrill uses excellent English.
"Did you ever have an impulse to jump off a steeple?" I questioned,
recalling the sensations of many people in looking down even from a
housetop.
"I've kept pretty free from that," said he; "but there's no doubt
climbing steeples does tell on a man's nerves. Now, there was Dan
O'Brien; he had an impulse to jump off a steeple one day, and a strong
impulse, too. He went mad on one of the tallest spires in Cincinnati;
right at the top of it."
"Went mad?"
"Yes, sir, raving mad, and I was by him when it happened. I forget
whether the church was Baptist or Presbyterian, but I know it stood on
Sixth Street, near Vine, and there was a big hand on top of the steeple,
with the forefinger pointing to heaven. We were putting fresh gilding on
this hand. I was working on the thumb side and O'Brien on the
little-finger side, both of us standing on tiny stagings about the size
of a chair-seat, and both of us made fast to the steeple by life-lines
under our arms. That's an absolute rule in climbing steeples--never to
do the smallest thing unless you're secured by a life-line. It was
coming on dark, and I was hurrying to get the gold leaf on, because we'd
given the hand a fresh coat of sizing that would be dry before morning.
We hadn't spoken for some time, when suddenly I heard a laugh from
O'Brien's side that sent a shiver down my spine. Did you ever hear a
crazy man laugh? Well, if ever you do, you'll remember it. I looked at
him and saw by his face that something was wrong.
"'What are you doing?' said I.
"He answered very polite and steady like, but his tone was queer: 'I'm
trying to figure out how long it would take a man to get down if he went
the fastest way.'
"I thought I had better keep him in a good humor, so I said: 'I'll tell
you what, Dan, you brace up and get this gold on, and then we'll race to
the ground in our saddles.'
"'That's a fair idea,' said he in a shrill voice, 'but I've got a better
one. We'll race down without any saddles; yes, sir, without any lines,
without a blamed thing.'
"'Don't be a fool, Dan. What you want to do is to get that gold
on--quick.' I tried to speak sharp.
"'No, sir; I'm going to jump, and so are you.'
"I caught his eye just then and saw it wasn't any time to bother about
gold leaf. I reached up and eased the hitch of my line around the hand
so I could swing toward him. I knew if I once got my grip on him he
wouldn't make any more trouble. But I'd never had a crazy man to deal
with, and I didn't realize how tricky and quick they are. While I was
working around to his side and thinking he didn't notice it, he was
laying for me out of the corner of his eye, and the first thing I knew
he had me by the throat and everything was turning black. I let go of
the line and dropped back on my saddle-board helpless, and if it hadn't
been for blind luck I guess the people down below would have got their
money's worth in about a minute. But my hand struck on the tool-box as
he pressed me back, and I had just strength enough left to shut my
fingers on the first tool I touched and strike at him with it. The tool
happened to be a monkey-wrench, and when a man gets a clip on the head
with a thing like that he's pretty apt to keep still for a while. And
that's what O'Brien did. He keeled over and lay there, and I did, too,
until my head got steady. Even then I guess we'd both have fallen if it
hadn't been for the life-lines.
"The rest was simple enough after I got my senses back. Dan was
unconscious, and all I had to do was fasten a rope to him and lower
away. They took care of him down below until the ambulance came, and he
spent that night in a hospital. And he's spent most of his years since
then in an asylum, his mind all gone except for short periods, when he
comes to himself again, and then he always starts out to put an end to
me. That last impulse to destroy me has never left him."
It was after this that I learned about that other danger to
steeple-climbers, of being startled. Merrill says that men of his craft,
whether they realize it or not, work under constant nervous strain.
However calm a steeple-climber may think himself, his body is always
afraid, his muscles are always tense, his clutch on ropes and stones is
always harder, two or three times harder, than the need is; his knees
hug what comes between them so tightly that it hurts, even when they
might safely be relaxed. That is the trouble, a steeple-climber cannot
relax his body or control its instinctive shrinking. It is not looking
down into the gulf around him that he minds (the climber who cannot do
that with indifference is unfit for the business); what he sees he can
cope with; it is what he cannot see that does the mischief--what he
fears vaguely. And a sudden noise, an unexpected movement may throw him
into all but panic. So the veteran climber, swinging at the steeple-top
opposite his partner, is careful to say in a low tone, "I'm going to
lower my saddle," before he does lower it; or, "I'm going to strike a
match," before he strikes it.
Sometimes a new helper at the hauling-line down on the bell-deck will
shift his place from weariness or thoughtlessness, and let the line move
up an inch or two, which drops the saddle an inch or two far
aloft--drops it suddenly with a jerk. It's a little thing, yet the
climber's heart would not pound harder were the whole steeple falling.
Merrill told me that one of his greatest frights came from the simple
brushing against his legs of a rope pulled without a word by a careless
partner. To Merrill's nerves, all a-quiver, this was not a rope, but
some nameless catastrophe to overwhelm him. He knew only that something
had moved where nothing had any business to move, that something had
touched him where nothing was. A steeple-climber is like a child in the
dark--in terror of the unknown. In all the world, perhaps, there is no
one so utterly alone as he, swinging hour after hour on his steeple-top.
The aeronaut has with him a living, surging creature--his balloon; the
diver feels always the teeming life of the waters; but this man, lifted
into still air, poised on a point where nothing comes or goes, where
nothing moves, where nothing makes a sound--he, in very truth, is alone.
[Illustration: LOOKING FROM THE GROUND UPWARD AT ST. PAUL'S SPIRE,
BROADWAY, NEW YORK CITY.]
"It's always the little things that frighten you," reflected Merrill,
"not the big things. I'll give you an instance. When I went up inside
St. Paul's steeple the first time (I wanted to inspect the beams, and
see how the dowel was anchored) I got into a tight place that might well
frighten a man. I got squeezed fast between timbers that fill nearly all
the slender top space, and couldn't get up or down, but just hung there,
breathing air full of dust and calling for help. I called three quarters
of an hour before any one came, and then it was only by accident. But I
wasn't frightened. On the other hand, a day or two later, when I was
making fast a rope outside (I was just under the ball that holds the
weather-vane) I got a bad start from nothing at all. I had my arms
around the spindle of the steeple, making a hitch, and my head pressed
against the copper sheathing, when I heard a most unearthly screech. I
guess the shock of that thing did me five hundred dollars' worth of
harm--shortened my life days enough to earn five hundred dollars in. And
what do you think it was? The weather-vane had turned a little in the
wind and creaked on its bearings, that's all. It doesn't seem as if that
ought to scare a man, does it?"
There was something quite touching, I thought, in the humble frankness
of this big-shouldered man. Yes, he had been afraid, he whose business
it was to fear nothing, afraid of some squeaking copper, and his face
seemed to say that there are things about steeples not so easily
explained, things not even to be talked about. And abruptly, as by an
effort, he left this part of the subject and told a funny story of his
adventures coming home late one night without a key, and getting in by
way of the roof and an iron pipe; a simple enough climb had he not been
taken for a "purglaire" by an irate German lodger, who appeared in
nightgown and phlegmatic fright, and vowed he would "haf him a revolfer,
a skelf-skooter, in the morning."
This effort at diversion turned Merrill into gaiety for a moment, but
straightway memory brought back the somber theme.
"I'll give you another case," said he, changing again abruptly, "where I
wasn't frightened, but should have been. It was out in Chicago, and two
of us were on a staging hung down the front of a clothing factory. We
were painting the walls. My partner had made his end of the staging
fast, and I had made mine fast. Perhaps if I'd been longer in the
business I would have taken more notice how he secured his rope, for it
meant safety to me as well as him, and I knew he'd been drinking, but I
supposed it was all right. Well, it wasn't all right; his rope held for
three or four hours, and then, at just about eleven o'clock, it slipped,
and the staging fell from under us. We were six stories up, and right
below were the sidewalk flagstones. That's the time I ought to have been
frightened, but I only said to myself, 'Hello! this thing's going down,'
and caught the window-ledge in front of me. Then I hung there, wondering
if I could pull myself up or if any one would come to help me. I called
out not very loud, and I wasn't excited. Pretty soon I saw I couldn't
pull myself up, for I had a poor hold with my fingers, and the ledge was
smooth stone. Then I saw they'd have to hurry if they were going to pull
me in. Then I didn't care. I--I--"
"You fell?"
He nodded.
"What, six stories down?"
He nodded again. "The thing that saved me was an awning over the
sidewalk. Some man across the way saw me hanging from the window, and he
ran over quickly and let the awning down. I'd like to shake that man by
the hand, but I never knew who he was. When I came to myself I was at
the hospital done up in plaster, and I stayed there nine months."
"Badly hurt?" I asked, shrinking.
Merrill smiled. "It didn't do me any particular good. I'm a big, strong
fellow now, but I wasn't much after that fall. Both my legs were broken.
Both my arms were broken. My right shoulder and right wrist were
dislocated, and--let's see. Oh, yes, I had three ribs torn away from the
breast-bone."
"And your--"
"My partner? Poor lad! You wouldn't care to hear how they found him.
They laid him away kindly the next day."
He smiled in a sort of appealing way, and then came the worn, wistful
look I had noticed, and his forehead lines deepened. I fancy all men who
follow steeple-climbing get those strained, anxious eyes.
IV
EXPERIENCE OF AN AMATEUR CLIMBING TO A STEEPLE-TOP
IT came to my knowledge, one bracing day in October, that "Steeple Bob"
had agreed to "do" that famous Brooklyn Church of the Pilgrims, with its
queer, crooked spire and big brass ball, a landmark from the river on
Columbia Heights.
"It's one of those easy jobs that are the hardest," said Merrill. "If
you want to see us use the stirrups come over."
That was exactly what I did want to see, this puzzling stirrup process
which allows a man to lift himself by his boot-straps, as it were, up
the last and narrowest and most dangerous length of a steeple; so I
agreed to be there.
"If you like, you can go up on the swing yourself!" said Merrill, with
the air of conferring a favor. I expressed my thanks as I would to a
lion-tamer offering me the hospitality of his cages, then asked how he
meant that easy jobs are the hardest.
[Illustration: GILDING A CHURCH CROSS, ABOVE NEW YORK CITY.]
"Why, easy jobs make a man careless, and that gets him into trouble.
Another thing, little old churches look easy, but they're apt to be
treacherous. Now, this steeple on the Church of the Pilgrims is built of
wood, with loose shingles on it, and a tumble-down iron lightning-rod,
and rickety beams, and shaky ladders, and--well, you feel all the time
as if you were walking on eggs. It's just the kind of a steeple that
killed young Romaine about a month ago."
Of course I asked for the story of young Romaine, and was told of
certain climbers who advertise their skill by using a steeple-top for
acrobatic feats that have nothing to do with repairing. Upon such
Merrill frowned severely.
"Romaine was a fine athlete," said he, "and a fearless man, but he went
too far. He would stretch out on his stomach across the top of a
steeple, and balance there without touching hands or knees, and he'd do
all sorts of circus tricks on lightning-rods and weather-vanes and
flagpoles--anything for notoriety. I told him he'd get killed sure some
day, but he laughed at me. Well, it wasn't a week after I warned him
when he was killed. He climbed an old lightning-rod without testing it
(it was on a little church up at Cold Spring, New York), and just as he
was reaching the steeple-top, with a whole town watching him, the end of
the rod pulled out, and he swung off with it, ripping out every dowel,
like the buttons off a coat, right down to the ground--smash. Poor
fellow, when I read the news I left my job at Trinity and took the first
train up to bury him."