In front of the White House with the Green Blinds by the Side of the
Road was the Canal; and beyond the Canal the River. They always flowed
along side by side, and Marmaduke thought they were like two brothers.
The Canal was the older brother, it was always so sure and steady and
ready for work. It flowed steadily and evenly and carried the big
canal-boats down to the Sea. The River also flowed towards the Sea,
but it wasn't at all steady, and never quiet. It was indeed like the
younger brother, ever ready for play, although, as a matter of fact,
it had been there long before the Canal had been even thought of by
the men who built it. But thousands of years couldn't make that River
grow old. It was full of frolicsome ripples that gleamed in the sun,
and of rapids and waterfalls. Here it would flow swiftly, and there
almost stop as if it wanted to fall asleep. And every once in a while
it would dart swiftly like small boys or dogs chasing butterflies.
Sometimes it would leap over the stones or, at the dam, tumble
headlong in sheets of silver.
Little fish and big loved to play in its waters. Of course they swam
in the Canal too, but life was lazier there and the fish, like
Marmaduke, seemed to prefer the River. There were pickerel and trout
and catfish and eels, and in the Spring the great shad would come in
from the Sea and journey up to the still cool pools to hatch out their
millions of children.
They looked very inviting this morning, the River and the Canal, and
Marmaduke decided he would take a stroll. He whistled to Wienerwurst,
who was always the best company in the world, and the little dog came
leaping and barking and wagging his tail, glad to be alive and about
in such lovely weather, and on they went by the side of the Canal.
They went along very slowly, for it is a mistake to walk too fast on a
Spring morning--one misses so many things.
Now and then a big fish would leap out of the River, it felt so gay,
and in the little harbours under the banks of the Canal the
scuttle-bugs went skimming, skimming, like swift little tugboats at
play. In the fields on the other side of the road a meadowlark sang;
swallows twittered overhead; and in the grass at his feet the
dandelions glowed like the round gold shields of a million soldiers.
Yes, altogether it was a wonderful day.
Marmaduke picked a great bouquet of the dandelions--for Mother--then
he looked up the towpath. He could see the Red Schoolhouse, and, not
so far away, the Lock of the Canal. He was very glad it was Saturday.
It was far too nice to stay indoors.
Just then he had a great piece of good luck, for a big boat came by, a
canal-boat, shaped like a long wooden shoe. It had no sails and no
smokestacks, either, so it had no engine to make it go. It was drawn
by two mules who walked on shore quite a distance ahead of it. A long
thick rope stretched from the collars of the mules to the bow of the
boat. A little boy walked behind the mules, yelling to them and now
and then poking them with a long pole to make them go faster. My! how
they pulled and tugged on that rope! They had to, for it was a pretty
big load, that boat. And it had a big hole in it laden with black
shiny coal--tons and tons of it!
Just behind the coal was a clothes-line with scores of little skirts
and pairs of pants on it, and behind that, a little house with many
children running in and out of the door. A round fat rosy woman with
great big arms was calling to the children to "take care," and a man
stood at the stern with his hand on the tiller. He had a red shirt on
and in his mouth a pipe which Marmaduke could smell a long way off.
The little boy waited until the stern came by so he could see the name
of the boat. There it was now, painted in big letters, right under the
tiller. He spelled it out, first "Mary," then "Ellen"--"Mary Ellen--"
a pretty name, he thought.
The Man With the Red Shirt and the Pipe, and the Round Fat Rosy Woman
With the Big Arms, and all the children waved their hands to Marmaduke
and he waved back, then hurried ahead, Wienerwurst trotting alongside,
to catch up with the boy who was driving the mules.
"'Llo!" said he to the boy, but the boy paid no attention at all, just
"licked up" his mules. But Marmaduke didn't mind this rudeness. He
thought that probably the boy was too busy to be sociable, and he
trotted along with the mules and watched their long funny ears go
wiggle-waggle when a fly buzzed near them. But they never paused or
stopped, no matter what annoyed them, but just tugged and strained in
their collars, pulling the long rope that pulled the boat that carried
the coal that would make somebody's fire to cook somebody's supper
some day down by the Sea.
For a long time Marmaduke trotted alongside the boy and the mules, not
realizing at all how far he had come. Once or twice he looked back at
the "Mary Ellen" and the Man With the Red Shirt and the Pipe, and the
little house on the deck. He wished he could go on board and steer the
"Mary Ellen," and play in that little house, it looked so cute. The
Round Fat Rosy Woman was coming out of it now with a pan of water
which she threw in the Canal; and the little children were running all
over the deck, almost tumbling in the water.
After quite a journey they drew near the Lock, a great place in the
Canal like a harbour, with two pairs of gates, as high as a house, at
each end, to keep the water in the Lock.
Outside one pair of gates the water was low; outside the others, which
were near him, the water was high; and Marmaduke knew well what those
great gates would do. The pair at the end where the water was high
would open and the canalboat would float in the Lock and rest there
for a while like a ship in harbour. Then those gates would shut tight,
and the man who tended the Lock would open the gates at the end where
the water was low. And the water would rush out and go down, down in
the Lock, carrying the boat with it until it was on a level with the
low part of the Canal. And the boat at last would float out of the
harbour of the Lock and away on its journey to the Sea.
But all this hadn't happened yet. There was much work to be done
before all was ready.
Now the boat had stopped in front of the high pair of gates. The Man
With the Red Shirt and the Pipe shouted to the boy who drove the
mules, without taking the pipe out of his mouth. The great towrope was
untied and the mules rested while the man who tended the Lock swung
the high gates open with some machinery that creaked in a funny way,
and the "Mary Ellen" glided in the harbour of the Lock.
Then the man who tended the Lock went to the gates at the lower end.
There were more shouts and those gates opened too. The water rushed
out of the Lock into the lower part of the Canal, and down, down, went
the boat. And down, down, went the deck and the little house on it,
and down, down, went the Man With the Red Shirt and the Pipe, and the
Round Fat Rosy Woman With the Great Arms, and all the children.
Marmaduke started to count them. He couldn't have done that before,
they ran around too fast. But now they stood still, watching the water
fall and their boat as it sank. Yes, there were thirteen--he counted
twice to make sure.
Now the boat had sunk so low that Marmaduke was afraid it would
disappear forever, with all the children on it. But there was no
danger, for when the water in the Lock was even with the water on the
lower side of the Canal it stopped falling, and the "Mary Ellen"
stopped, too. At least, there was no danger for the children, but
there was for Master Marmaduke, he had leaned over so far, watching
that boat go down, down, down.
All-of-a-sudden there was a splash. It was certainly to be expected
that one of the thirteen children had fallen in, but no!--
It--was--Marmaduke!
Down, down, down, he sank in the gurgly brown water. Then he came up,
spluttering and choking.
"Help, help!" he cried.
Then under he went again.
But the Round Fat Rosy Woman had seen him.
"Quick, Hiram!" she shouted to her husband in a voice that sounded
like a man's, "there's a boy fallen overboard!"
"Where?" asked the man at the tiller, still keeping the pipe in his
mouth.
She pointed into the brown water.
"Right there--there's where he went down."
Perhaps the Man With the Red Shirt and the Pipe was so used to having
his children fall into the coal, or the Canal, or something, that he
didn't think it was a serious matter, for he came to the side of the
"Mary Ellen" very slowly, just as Marmaduke was coming up for the
third time.
And that is a very important time, for, they say, if you go down after
that you won't come up 'til you're dead. Whether it was true or not,
Marmaduke didn't know, for he had never been drowned before, and no
one who had, had ever come back to tell him about it. Anyway, he
wasn't thinking much, only throwing his arms around in the water,
trying vainly to keep afloat.
The Round Fat Rosy Woman grew quite excited, as well she might, and
she shouted again to the Man With the Red Shirt and the Pipe:
"Don't stand there like a wooden Injun in front of a cigar-store.
Hustle or the boy'll drown!"
Then he seemed to wake up, for he ran to the gunwale of the boat, and
he jumped over with his shoes and all his clothes on. And, strange to
say, he still kept that pipe in his mouth. However, that didn't matter
so very much, for he grabbed Marmaduke by the collar with one hand and
swam towards the "Mary Ellen" with the other. The woman threw a rope
over the side; he grasped it with his free hand, and the woman drew
them up--she certainly was strong--and in the shake of a little jiffy
they were standing on board, safe but dripping a thousand little
rivers from their clothes on the deck. The man didn't seem to mind
that a bit, but was quite disturbed to find that his pipe had gone
out.
"Come, Mother," said he to the Round Fat Rosy Woman, "get us some dry
duds and a match."
And quick as a wink she hustled them into the little house which they
called a cabin, and gave Marmaduke a pair of blue overalls and a
little blue jumper which belonged to one of the thirteen children. Of
course, she found the right size, with so many to choose from. His own
clothes, she hung on the line, with all the little pairs of pants and
the skirts, to dry in the breeze.
Then she put the kettle on the cook stove and in another jiffy she was
pouring out the tea.
"M--m--m--m," said Marmaduke. He meant to say,--"Make mine 'cambric,'
please," for he knew his mother wouldn't have wanted him to take
_regular_ tea, but his Forty White Horses galloped so he couldn't
make himself heard.
"There, little boy," said the Round Fat Rosy Woman, "don't talk. Just
wrap yourself in this blanket and drink this down, and you'll feel
better."
It did taste good even if it was strong, and it warmed him all the way
down under the blue jumper, and the Forty White Horses stopped their
galloping, and while the men were hitching the mules up again, and the
"Mary Ellen" was drifting through the lower pair of gates out of the
Lock, he fell fast asleep.
He must have slept for a whole lot of jiffies. When he woke up at
last, he looked around, wondering where he could be, the place looked
so strange and so different from his room at home. Then he
remembered,--he was far from home, in the little cabin of the "Mary
Ellen." It was a cosy place, with all the little beds for the children
around the cabin. And these beds were not like the ones he usually
slept in. They were little shelves on the wall, two rows of them, one
row above the other. It was funny, he thought, to sleep on a shelf,
but that was what the thirteen children had to do. He was lying on a
shelf himself just then, wrapped in a blanket.
The Round Fat Rosy Woman was bending over the stove. It was a jolly
little stove, round and fat and rosy like herself, and it poked its
pipe through the house just above his head. In the pot upon it, the
potatoes were boiling, boiling away, and the little chips of bacon
were curling up in the pan.
Outside, he could see all the little skirts and the little pairs of
pants, dancing gaily in the wind. He could hear the children who owned
those skirts and pairs of pants running all over the boat. The patter
of their feet sounded like raindrops on the deck above him.
They seemed to be forever getting into trouble, those thirteen
children, and the Round Fat Rosy Woman was forever running to the door
of the little house and shouting to one or the other.
"Take care, Maintop!" she would call to one boy as she pulled him back
from falling into the Canal.
"Ho there, Bowsprit!" she would yell to another, as she fished him out
of the coal.
They were certainly a great care, those children, and all at once
Marmaduke decided he knew who their mother must be. The boat was
shaped just like a huge shoe and she surely had so many children she
didn't know what to do. Yes, she must be the Old Woman Who Lived in a
Shoe, only the shoe must have grown into a canalboat.
He wondered about the funny names she called them.
"Are those their real names?" he asked, as he lay on his little shelf.
"Yes," she said, "my husband out there with the pipe was a sailor
once, on the deep blue sea. But he had to give it up after he was
married, 'cause he couldn't take his family on a ship. We had a lot of
trouble finding names for the children started to call 'em Mary and
Daniel and such, but the names ran out. So, seeing my husband was so
fond of the sea, we decided to call 'em after the parts of a ship, not
a canalboat, but the sailing ships that go out to sea--that is, all
but Squall.
"Now that's Jib there, driving the mules, and that's Bowsprit--the one
all black from the coal. Cutwater's the girl leaning over the stern;
Maintop, the one with the three pigtails; and Mizzen, the towhead
playing with your dog."
"And what are the names of the rest?" Marmaduke asked, thinking all
this very interesting.
"Oh!" she replied. "I'll have to stop and think, there's so many of
them. Now there's Bul'ark and Gunnel--they're pretty stout; the twins,
Anchor and Chain; Squall, the crybaby; Block, the fattest of all;
Topmast, the tallest and thinnest; and Stern, the littlest. He came
last, so we named him that, seeing it's the last part of a ship.
"Now, let me think--have I got 'em all?" and she counted on her
fingers,--"Jib, Bowsprit, Cutwater, Maintop, Mizzen, Bul'ark, Gunnel,
Anchor, Chain, Block, Squall, Topmast, and Stern. Yes, that surely
makes thirteen, doesn't it? I'm always proud when I can remember 'em."
[Illustration: "The boat was shaped like a wooden shoe, and she surely
had so many children she didn't know what to do."]
By this time the potatoes and the bacon and coffee seemed about ready,
so she went out on deck, and Marmaduke slid off his little shelf bed
and followed her to see where she was going. On deck was a great bar
of iron with another beside it. She took up one bar of iron and with
it struck the other--twelve times. The blows sounded way out over the
Canal and over the fields and far away, like a mighty fire-alarm, and
all the children, that is all but Jib, who was driving the mules and
would get his dinner later, came running into the cabin.
A great clatter of tin plates and knives and forks there was, and very
nice did those potatoes and that bacon taste.
And it didn't take long for them to finish that meal, either. Then
they went out on deck.
The mules were pulling and pulling, and the boat was sailing on and on
towards the Sea. They passed by so many places--lots of houses and
lots of farms, the Red Schoolhouse and Reddy Toms' house, and Sammy
Soapstone's, and the funny place where Fatty lived, and the pigs, fat
like himself, ran all over the yard.
Fatty and Sammy were playing on the shore at that very moment. He
waved to them and they waved back, but they didn't know they were
waving to their old playmate Marmaduke, he was so mixed up with all
the children of the woman who lived on the canalboat that looked just
like a shoe. How Sammy and Sophy and Fatty would have envied him if
they had only known it was he sailing away to the Sea!
But he never arrived there, after all--at least he didn't on that
voyage. For, you see, after he had had a wonderful time, running all
over the deck with the thirteen children, and looking down into the
big hole where they kept the shiny coal, and exploring the little
house on the deck, the Round Fat Rosy Woman and her Husband With the
Red Shirt and the Pipe had a talk together.
"We must send him back home," said she, "or his folks'll be scared out
of their wits."
The man took a few puffs on his pipe, which always seemed to help him
in thinking, then replied,
"We might let him off at the Landing it's up the towpath a piece. We
kin find someone to give him a lift."
"That's the best plan," she agreed, "there's the Ruralfree'livery
now."
And she pointed to the shore where the horse and wagon of the postman
were coming up the road.
"What ho, Hi! Heave to!" she called, raising her hands to her mouth
and shouting through them just like a man, "here's a passenger for
you, first class."
"Mr. Ruralfree'liv'ry" shook his whip at them, then hollered "Whoa!"
and stopped the old horse; and Jib hollered "Whoa!" and stopped his
mules, right at the Landing.
Then Marmaduke said "Goodbye." It took him some time, for there was
the Man With the Red Shirt and the Pipe; and the Round Fat Rosy Woman;
and Jib, Bowsprit, Cutwater, Mizzen, Maintop, Bul'ark, Gunnel, Anchor,
Chain, Block, Squall, Topmast, and Stern; the "Mary Ellen"; and the
mules, to say "Goodbye" to. Just before he went ashore the Round Fat
Rosy Woman gave him his clothes back, for they were all dry by that
time, and she stuffed something in his pocket besides. And what do you
think it was? A toy anchor and chain that would just fit the "White
Swan," the ship the Toyman had made him.
So he rode home with Mr. Ruralfree'liv'ry and all his sacks of mail.
But he kept turning his head for a long while to watch the Man With
the Red Shirt and the Pipe, and the Round Fat Rosy Woman, and the
Thirteen Children, and all the little pairs of pants that seemed to be
waving farewell to him. But soon the "Mary Ellen" drifted out of
sight. She was a good boat, the "Mary Ellen."
He almost felt like crying, for he would have liked to have gone on
that voyage to see the rest of the world. But, after all, he had seen
a great deal of it, and he had that anchor and chain.