Old Times on the Upper Mississippi

just the right angle, or he himself would have been the "goner". Sometimes he would not locate me until he had met three or four big ones. Then he would rise over the tops of the waves at the same time and would be able to reassure himself that I was still right side up and paddling for life, and that he was out another bet. I do not know that I thought of the danger at all, as I simply had my canoe to look out for. Had Sam been in front I would have realized, as he did, that we were taking lots of chances, and would have learned from the diving of his craft just how great the danger really was, as he did. We shipped a good deal of water--that is, a good deal for the amount we could afford to take in and maintain any margin between the gunwales of our canoes and the water outside. Before we got across we were sitting in several inches of water, but a little baling cleared this out as soon as we reached the Wisconsin side, and we proceeded up the river, hugging the shore and keeping in the eddies and under the points, without further adventures. I do not think we mentioned the crossing as anything to brag of, as under the circumstances any of the boys would have done the same thing in the same way. One other incident in which the little canoe figured, involved the closest call to drowning I ever had as a boy. Again I was out with my brother, some ten miles down the river, near Diamond Bluff, fishing and scouting about in the customary manner. Sam was ahead of me, and had landed on a pile of driftwood lodged against a giant cottonwood which had been undermined by the eating away of the river bank. In falling, one or more of its branches had been so deeply driven into the bottom of the river that it held at right angles with the current, extending out fifty feet or more into the channel. Against this obstruction all sorts of logs, lumber, and other drift had lodged, forming a large raft. My brother had run in under the lower side of this and climbed out, preparatory to dropping his line for fish. I, doubtless carelessly, drifted down toward the upper side. One of the limbs which did not quite reach the surface so as to be seen, caught my little vessel and in an instant I was in the water, and under the raft. I thought I was surely gone, for I supposed that the driftwood was deep enough to catch and hold me. I had presence of mind enough left, however, to do the only thing which was left--dive as deeply as possible, and with open eyes steer clear of the many branches through which I had to find my way toward the open water on the lee side of the raft. Sam ran to the lower side to catch me if I came up--an expectation which he had little hope of realizing, thinking as I did that I would be caught like a rat in a trap, and never come up until dug out. Fortunately the drift was not deep, and the limbs not very close together, and I popped up as I cleared the last log, but with so little breath left that another ten feet would have drowned me. Sam caught me by the hand and "yanked" me out on the drift, where I lay and took in air for some minutes to fill out my collapsed lungs. In another ten minutes we were fishing as if nothing had happened. In these upsets which we were almost daily experiencing, our costumes played an important though passive part. The entire uniform of the average river lad of those days consisted of a pair of blue jean trousers, a calico shirt, a home-made straw hat, and sometimes a pair of "galluses". The last named item indicated an extravagant expenditure; one "gallus" was ample for all practical purposes; the second represented luxury and wanton extravagance. With such a costume a boy in the water was practically unhampered, and could and did swim with all the freedom of an unclothed cupid. One of the customary relaxations of the Prescott boys was to run down Orange Street when school "let out", in single file, dressed as above described, hats and all, and dive from the ledge of rocks fifteen feet high into water forty feet deep. It was on one of these excursions that I had the only real scare of my life. This may sound like braggadocio, but it is a fact. I have been in places since that time, where I thought death imminent, and knew that it was possible, if not probable, at any moment; but in such situations I have more or less successfully been able to conceal the fact of fear. In the case in question I did not attempt to conceal from myself the fact that I was sincerely alarmed. We had, late in the autumn, landed at a desolate _coulee_ several miles below Prescott. I had gone back about half a mile from the river, on to the prairie, leaving my brother at the canoe. Suddenly I heard the long-drawn hunting cry of a wolf. Looking in the direction of the sound I saw a big grey timber wolf loping toward me with the speed of a race horse. His cries were answered from a distance, and then I saw six other big wolves bounding over the prairie after me. I looked around for some place of safety and saw at some distance--a good deal less than a quarter of a mile, as I know it now, but it looked all of that at the time--a small burr oak, the only tree near enough to be available in this crisis. I knew enough about the big timber wolves to know that I would instantly be in ribbons after they were upon me. One alone might be kept off; but seven would have the courage of numbers, and would make short work of a single boy. Then I was scared. I could actually feel every hair upon my head standing straight on end, as stiff as Hamlet's "quills upon the fretful porcupine". It has been worth all that it cost, this hair-raising experience, as an interpretation of the much-quoted expression from the immortal Bard of Avon. A good runner, I had a full half mile the start of the leading wolf. I did not wait for him greatly to diminish the lead, but "lit out" for the little burr oak. I covered the ground in the shortest time I had ever devoted to a like distance, and although very nearly winded jumped for the lower limbs and pulled myself up just in time to escape the teeth of the forward beast. In another minute there were seven of them, leaping to within a few feet of my legs as I stood on a branch of the small tree, as high up as I dared to go. My brother had heard the cries of the wolves, and running to the top of the bank had watched the race with great interest. When the tree was safely reached he shouted to me to hold on and he would go for help, and he at once started for Prescott, four miles away, against the current. For some reason which I have never been able to explain, the wolves, after yelping and leaping for an hour or so, suddenly started off across the prairie, and when they had gone a mile away I climbed down and ran for home. In the meantime my hair had resumed its normal position, and never since, under any circumstances, have I experienced a like sensation. I presume that the thought of being torn to pieces by the wolves, a contingency which seemingly was quite probable, added a horror to the imminence of death which was not present at a time when there was an equal chance of being drowned. It was not because I did not know all about wolves, for I did. Their cries were familiar sounds in that wild country, and their ferocity had been proven time and again; but I had never heard nor seen them when it meant quite so much to me, nor when the chances seemed so slim. Chapter III _On the Levee at Prescott_ When we first knew it, Prescott was in many respects a typical river town. But in one, it differed from all others with the possible exception of Wacouta and Reed's Landing. "Towing through" had not then been inaugurated. The great rafts of logs and lumber from Stillwater and the upper St. Croix, were pushed to Prescott by towboats from Stillwater, at the head of the lake. From there to Lake Pepin they drifted. They were again pushed through that lake by other boats, and from Reed's Landing, at the foot of the lake, drifted to their destination at Winona, La Crosse, Clinton, Le Claire, or Hannibal. The necessary preparation for the trip down river was made at Prescott. Stores of pork, beans, flour, molasses, and whiskey were laid in. The hundreds of rough men who handled the great steering oars on these rafts spent their money in the saloons which lined the river front and adjacent streets, filling themselves with noxious liquors, and often ending their "sprees" with a free fight between rival crews. A hundred men would join in the fray, the city marshal sitting on a "snubbing post", revolver in hand, watching the affair with the enlightened eye of an expert and the enjoyment of a connoisseur. Prescott was also a transfer point for freight consigned to Afton, Lakeland, Hudson, Stillwater, Osceola, and St. Croix Falls. The large boats, unless they were heavily freighted for Stillwater and Hudson, did not make the run of thirty miles up the lake. The freight was put ashore at Prescott, and reshipped on the smaller boats plying between Prescott and St. Croix River points. This made necessary large warehouses in which to store the transshipped goods. My father, L. H. Merrick, engaged in this business of storing and transshipping, as well as dealing in boat-stores and groceries. Buying one warehouse on the levee, he started a store in the basement, which opened directly on to the levee. Moving his family into the two upper stories, he began at once the erection of a second and larger warehouse. These being insufficient for his business, he bought, in 1855, a third warehouse. These were filled, in summer, with goods in transit, and in winter with wheat awaiting the opening of navigation for shipment to Eastern markets, via Dunleith, Illinois, at that time the nearest railroad connection on the river. The name of this one-time prosperous city has, however, disappeared from the map, to be replaced by East Dubuque. From 1854 until 1858 the firm of L. H. Merrick & Co. (the company being William R. Gates, my brother-in-law) did all the transfer and storage business for the regular packets belonging to the Galena, Dubuque, Dunleith & St. Paul Packet Company, commonly shortened to Minnesota Packet Company, and also for such "wild" boats as did not make the run up the lake. The business was very profitable. Much of the freight consisted of pork and beef in barrels, whiskey, sugar in hogsheads (refined sugar was then scarcely known on the upper river), rice, soap, etc., which, if there was no boat ready to receive it, could be covered with tarpaulins on the levee, thus saving the cost of putting it in the warehouses. The perishable freight and household goods were of course stored under cover. A man was always on duty to meet incoming boats at night, and to watch the freight piled on the levee. Sometimes, when there was a large amount of such freight left outside, we boys spent the night skylarking about the piles, keeping our eyes open to see that the ubiquitous raftsmen did not surreptitiously transfer some of the packages to the everpresent rafts. The transfer agents paid the freight on the goods from the lower river points to Prescott, and charged a commission of from five to twenty-five per cent for such advance. In addition, a charge was made for storage, whether the freight was actually placed in the warehouse or simply covered and watched on the levee. If the goods were from Pittsburg or St. Louis, the freight bills were usually large, and a five per cent commission would produce a quite respectable income. If the cargo were divided into small lots, so much the better. No package, however small, escaped for less than a quarter ("two bits", as money was then reckoned); and in addition to the commission on the money