JAMES LEAVES THE CANAL.


James was not long to fill the humble position of driver. Before the
close of the first trip he was promoted to the more responsible office
of bowman. Whether his wages were increased we are not informed.

It may be well in this place to mention that a canal boat required,
besides the captain, two drivers, two steersmen, a bowman, and a cook,
the last perhaps not the least important of the seven. "The bowman's
business was to stop the boat as it entered the lock, by throwing the
bowline that was attached to the bow of the boat around the snubbing
post." It was to this position that James was promoted, though I have
some doubt whether the place of driver, with the opportunities it
afforded of riding on horse or mule-back, did not suit him better.
Still, promotion is always pleasant, and in this case it showed that
the boy had discharged his humbler duties satisfactorily.

I have said that the time came when James showed that he was not a
coward. Edmund Kirke, in his admirable life of Garfield, has condensed
the captain's account of the occurrence, and I quote it here as likely
to prove interesting to my boy readers:

"The _Evening Star_ was at Beaver, and a steamboat was ready to tow her
up to Pittsburg. The boy was standing on deck with the selting-pole
against his shoulders, and some feet away stood Murphy, one of the boat
hands, a big, burly fellow of thirty-five, when the steamboat threw the
line, and, owing to a sudden lurch of the boat, it whirled over the
boy's head, and flew in the direction of the boatman. 'Look out,
Murphy!' cried the boy; but the rope had anticipated him, and knocked