thing I ever did so well that I never met any one who could beat me.

I was of a fair complexion, with blue eyes, and my upper lip and chin
were covered with a reddish fuzz over a very ruddy skin--a little like
David's of old, I guess. On the passenger boats I met a great many
people, and was joked a good deal about the girls, some of whom seemed
to take quite a shine to me, just as they do to any fair-haired,
reasonably clean-looking boy; especially if he has a little reputation;
but though I sometimes found myself looking at one of them with
considerable interest there was not enough time for as slow a boy as I
to begin, let alone to finish any courting operations on even as long a
voyage as that from Albany to Buffalo. I was really afraid of them all,
and they seemed to know it, and made a good deal of fun of me.

We did not carry our horses on this boat; but stopped at relay stations
for fresh teams, and after we had pulled out from one of these stations,
we went flying along at from six to eight miles an hour, with a cook
getting up nine meals; and we often had a "sing" as we called it when in
the evening the musical passengers got together and tuned up. Many of
them carried dulcimers, accordions, fiddles, flutes and various kinds of
brass horns, and in those days a great many people could sing the good
old hymns in the _Carmina Sacra_, and the glees and part-songs in the
old _Jubilee_, with the soprano, tenor, bass and alto, and the high
tenor and counter which made better music than any gathering of people
are likely to make nowadays. All they needed was a leader with a
tuning-fork, and off they would start, making the great canal a pretty
musical place on fine summer evenings. We traveled night and day, and at
night the boat, lighted up as well as we could do it then, with lanterns
and lamps burning whale-oil, and with candles in the cabin, looked like
a traveling banquet-hall or opera-house or tavern.