And 'twas there they called me the Roving Blade."

All the rest of the story was of a hanging. No wonder it was hard
sometimes for an Irishman to reverence the law. They sang of hanging and
things leading up to it from their childhood. I remember, too, how the
boys of Iowa used to sing a song celebrating the deeds of the James boys
of Missouri--and about the same time we had troubles with horse-thieves.
There is a good deal of power in songs and verses, whether there's much
truth in poetry or not.

2

I am spending too much time on this part of my life, if it were my life
only which were concerned; but the Erie Canal, and the gaps through the
Alleghany Mountains, are a part of the history of Vandemark Township.
The west was on the road, then, floating down the Ohio, wagoning or
riding on horseback through mountain passes, boating it up the
Mississippi and Missouri, sailing up the Lakes, swarming along the Erie
Canal. Not only was Iowa on the road, spending a year, two years, a
generation, two generations on the way and getting a sort of wandering
and gipsy strain in her blood, but all the West, and even a part of
Canada was moving. We once had on board from Lockport west, a party of
emigrants from England to Ontario. They had come by ship from England to
New York, by steamboat to Albany and canal to Lockport; and for some
reason had to take a deck trip from Lockport to Buffalo, paying Captain
Sproule a good price for passage. Their English dialect was so broad
that I could not understand it; and I abandoned to Ace the company of
their little girl who was one of a family of five--father, mother, and
two boys, besides the daughter. I suppose that their descendants are in
Ontario yet, or scattered out on the prairies of Western Canada. Just so