CHANGED PROSPECTS.
Twelve years have passed since that stormy night when Titus Bright
Toodleburg--for the young gentleman as I have said before, was named
after the inn-keeper, came into the world. Great changes have taken
place since then. Tite, as the neighbors all call him, is now a bright,
intelligent boy, and a great favorite in the village. Hanz and Angeline
are proud of him, and he promises to be the joy of their declining
years. Hanz had always held to the opinion that men with too much
learning were dangerous to the peace of a neighborhood, inasmuch as it
caused them to neglect their farms and take to pursuits in which the
devil was served and honest people made beggars. He had, however, sent
Tite to school, and now the young gentleman could read, write, and
cypher; and this, he declared, was learning enough to get a man safe
through the world if he but followed an honest occupation and saved his
money. In addition to so much learning, the young gentleman had early
discovered an enterprising spirit, and a remarkable taste for
navigation. When only six years old he had his tiny sloops and
schooners, rigged by himself, on every duck-pond in the neighborhood.
And he could sail them with a skill remarkable in one so young. Indeed,
these duck-ponds were a source of great annoyance to Angeline, for
whenever one of Tite's crafts met with an accident he would wade to its
relief, no matter what the condition or color of the water.
Hanz shook his head, and felt that no good would come of this taste for
the sea on the part of Tite. He intended to bequeath him the farm, so
that he could spend his life like an honest man in raising good
vegetables for the New York market. Following the sea, Hanz urged, was a
very dangerous occupation, and where one man made any money by it, more
than a dozen lost their lives by storms. But Tite was not to be put off
by such arguments. The spirit of adventure was in the boy, and all other
objects had to yield to his natural inclinations. And now, at the age of
twelve, we find Tite a smart, sprightly cabin-boy, on board the good
sloop Heinrich, making the voyage to New York and back once a week, and
taking his first lessons in practical seamanship.
Wonderful changes had been developed along the beautiful Hudson during
these twelve years. People in the country said New York was getting to
be a very big, and a very wicked city. Already her skirmishers, in a
line of little houses, were pushed beyond the canal, and were
obliterating the cow-paths. The honest old Dutch settlers shrugged their
shoulders, and said it was not a good sign to see people get rich so
fast. Indeed, they declared that these fast and extravagant New Yorkers,
who were building great houses and sending big ships to all parts of the
world, would bring ruin on the country.
A ship of five hundred tons had been added to the old London line, and
her great size was an object of curiosity. But the man who projected her
was regarded by careful merchants as very reckless, and not a safe man
to trust.
That which troubled the minds of these peaceable old settlers most was
Mr. Fulton and his steamboat. Steam they declared to be a very
dangerous thing. And, as for this Mr. Fulton, he should be sent to an
insane asylum, before he destroyed all his friends, and lost all his
money in this dangerous undertaking. He might navigate the river with a
big tea-kettle in the bottom of his boat, but he would be sure to set
all the houses along the river on fire. And who was to pay the damages?
Steam was, however, a reality, and the little Fire Fly went puffing and
splashing up and down the river, alarming and astonishing the people
along its banks. She could make the voyage from the upper end of the
Tappan Zee to New York in a day, no matter how the wind blew. Hanz
Toodleburg called the Fire Fly an invention of the devil, and nobody
else. The bright blaze of her furnaces, and the long trail of fire and
sparks issuing from her funnel of a dark night, gave a spectre-like
appearance to her movements, that rather increased a belief amongst the
superstitious that she was really an invention of the evil one, sent for
some bad purpose.
A meeting was called at Hanz Toodleburg's house to consider the
dangerous look of things along the river. The Dominie and the
schoolmaster, and all the wise men in the settlement, were present, and
gave their opinions with the greatest gravity. If this Mr. Fulton, it
was argued, could, with the aid of the evil one, build these steamboats
to go to New York and back in a day, why there was an end to the
business of sloops and barges. And if the honest men who owned these
vessels were thrown out of business, how were they to get bread for
their families? These new inventions, Hanz argued, would be the ruin of
no end of honest people.
The schoolmaster, who assumed great wisdom on all such occasions, and
who had tossed off several pots of beer during the evening, put the
whole matter in a much more encouraging light. He had read something
about steam, he said, and knew that it was a very dangerous thing for a
man to trifle with. Mr. Fulton had built his steamboat one hundred and
nine feet long; and he could get to New York and back in a day, if
nothing happened to his boiler, which was all the time in danger of
bursting. Then if the boiler bursted, very likely the boat and all in
her would go to the bottom. Just let that happen once in the Tappan Zee,
and there would be an end to Mr. Fulton and his invention for getting
people to New York quick. Just let him set the Tappan Zee afire once,
and people would make such a storm that nothing more would be heard of
his inventions. When there was such danger of losing one's life
travelling in this way, what careful farmer, who had a family depending
on him, would think of either going himself or sending his produce to
market in such a way? There was no wisdom in the thing. The people would
stick to the sloops. That was the only safe way for sensible people to
get to market. Let them stick to the sloops, and Mr. Fulton would not
build a castle of what he got by his inventions.
The meeting was highly gratified at what the schoolmaster had said, and,
indeed, felt so much relieved that Hanz ordered a keg of fresh beer to
be tapped. These noisy, splashing steamboats would frighten people, and
by that means the good old-fashioned way of getting to market would not
be interfered with. It was also a source of great relief to these honest
people, that when those extravagant New Yorkers had spent all their
money on such wild and dangerous experiments, they would be content to
stay at home and mind their own business. Another source of great alarm
to these honest people was that several New Yorkers had come to Nyack,
and were building large houses, and otherwise setting examples of
extravagance to their children, when it was reported that they did not
pay their honest debts in town. The people of Hudson, too, were going
wild over a project for establishing a South-sea Company, and sending
ships to the far off Pacific ocean--where the people were, it had been
said, in the habit of eating their friends--to catch whales. Now, as the
people of Hudson had no more money than was needed at home, this
dangerous way of spending all they had was not to be justified.
Satisfied that they had settled a question of grave importance, and in
which the great interests of the country were involved, these honest
Dutchmen smoked another pipe and drank another mug of beer, and then
went quietly to their homes, feeling sure that the world and all Nyack
would be a gainer by what they had done.