CHAPTER IXLIGHTFOOT GOES ASHORE
Lightfoot, down in the hold of the canal boat, felt the craft slipping through the water easily. He was being carried with it.
“Well, this is not so bad, for a start,” thought the goat. “It is much easier than riding in a wagon, as I once did.”
When Lightfoot was a small goat, before he had come to live with Mike and his mother, he remembered being taken from one place to another, shut up in a box and carried in a wagon. The wagon jolted over the rough road, tossing Lightfoot from side to side and hurting his side. The motion of the canal boat was much easier, for there were no waves in the canal, except at times when a steam canal boat might pass, and even then the waves were not large enough to make theSallie Janebob about.Sallie Janewas the name of the boat on which Lightfoot was riding.
“This is a nicer ride than I had in the wagon,” thought Lightfoot, “only I don’t know where I am going. But then,” he thought, “I didn’t know where I was going the other time. However, I came to a nice place—the shanty where Mike and his mother lived, and maybe I’ll go to a nice place now. Anything is better than being beaten with a stick and chased by boys with lumps of coal to throw at you.”
Then Lightfoot began to feel more hungry. From somewhere, though the exact place he did not know, he could smell hay and oats.
“I guess it must be from the stable where the horses are that I was talking to,” he said to himself. “I’m going to ask them if they can’t hand me out something to eat. It isn’t any fun to be hungry, even if you are on a canal boat voyage.”
So Lightfoot went to the end of the boat where the stable was, and, tapping on the wall with his horns, waited for an answer:
“What is it, Lightfoot?” asked one of the horses, for he had told them his name.
“If you please,” said the goat, “I am very hungry. Could you not kindly pass me out some of the hay or oats that I smell?”
“We would be glad to do so,” said a kind horse, “only we can not. There is no opening from our stable into the hold where you are. Ifyou could jump out you could get right in where we are.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” said Lightfoot. “It is pretty high to jump. But I’ll try.”
Lightfoot did try to jump up, but he could not. It is easy to jump down, but not easy, even for a goat, to jump up.
“I can’t do it!” sighed the goat. “And the smell of your hay and oats makes me very hungry! Why is it I can smell it so plainly if there is no opening from your stable to where I am?”
“I don’t know,” answered one horse.
“No, but I do!” whinnied another. “Don’t you remember, Stamper,” he said to the horse in the stall next to him, “on the last voyage this boat was loaded with hay and grain? Some of that must be left around in the corners of the hold. That is what Lightfoot smells so plainly.”
“So it is,” said the first horse. Then he called: “Lightfoot, look and smell all around you. Maybe you will find some wisps of hay or some little piles of grain in the dark corners of the hold where you are. If you do find them, eat them.”
“Thank you, I will!” called Lightfoot.
Then he began to walk around in the big hollow part of the canal boat, sniffing here and there in corners and cracks for something to eat. He could smell hay very plainly, and as he wenttoward a corner, in which some boards were piled, the smell was very much stronger. Then, all of a sudden, Lightfoot found what he was looking for.
“Oh, here’s a nice pile of hay!” he called, and the horses in their stalls heard him.
“That’s good,” one of them said. “Now you will not be hungry any more, Lightfoot.”
“No, I guess I won’t,” said the goat. “At last, after I have had some bad luck, I am going to have some good.”
Then he began to eat the wisps of hay which had lodged in the corner of the canal boat when the cargo had been unloaded a few days before. There was hay enough for more goats than Lightfoot, but the men who unloaded the canal boat did not bother to sweep up the odds and ends, so the goat traveler had all he wanted.
After Lightfoot had eaten he felt sleepy, and, lulled by the pleasant and easy motion of the canal boat, he cuddled up in a corner near the horse-cabin, and, after telling his unseen friends what had happened to him, he went to sleep.
How long he slept Lightfoot did not know, but he was suddenly awakened by hearing a rumbling sound, like thunder.
“Hello! What’s this?” cried the goat, jumping up. “If it’s going to rain I had better look for some shelter.”
“Oh, it isn’t going to rain,” said a voice from the horse stable. “Those who have been pulling the boat are tired and are coming down the plank into their stalls. We are going out to take their places. It is our turn now.”
“Oh, I see,” returned Lightfoot. “But how do you horses get on shore? Do you swim across the canal?”
“No, though we could do that,” said Cruncher, a horse who was called that because he crushed his oats so finely. “You see,” he went on, “when the captain wants to change the teams on the towpath he steers the boat close to the shore. Then he puts a plank, with cross-pieces, or cleats, nailed on it, so we won’t slip, down to our stable, and we walk up, go ashore, and take our places at the end of the towline. The tired horses come in to rest and eat.”
“Then is the boat close to the shore now?” asked Lightfoot.
“Yes, right close up against the bank,” answered Cruncher as he made ready to go out on the towpath.
“Oh, I wish I could get ashore,” said Lightfoot. “I like you horses, and I like this boat, because it saved me from the boys who were chasing me, but still I had rather be out where I can see the sun.”
“I don’t blame you,” said Nibbler, who wascalled that because he used to nibble the edge of his manger. “Sometimes I get tired of this dark stable. But then, twice a day, we go out in the air to pull the boat.”
“Do you think I could get on shore?” asked Lightfoot.
“Well, if you could jump up out of the hold, where you are, you could,” said Cruncher, his hoofs making a noise like thunder on the planks as he walked up. “If you can do that you can go ashore.”
“I’m going to try,” said Lightfoot, and he began jumping up as high as he could to get out of the deep hole into which he had leaped.
But, jump as he did, Lightfoot could not get out of the hold. It was like being down in a deep well. If he had been a cat, with sharp claws to stick in the wooden sides of the boat, or a bear, like Dido, the dancing chap, Lightfoot might have got out. But as he was neither of these, he could not.
Again and again he tried, but it was of no use. Then he felt the boat moving again, and he knew it was being pulled along the canal by the horses.
“There is no use jumping any more,” thought Lightfoot. “If I did jump out now I would only land in the water. I must stay here until I can find some other way to get out.”
Lightfoot found more hay and a mouthful of grain in one of the corners of the boat, and after he had eaten he felt better. But still he was lonesome and homesick.
Pretty soon it grew dark, and Lightfoot could see the stars shining over head. He cuddled up in a corner, among some old bags, and went to sleep.
For three days Lightfoot traveled on in the canal boat. All he could see were the dark sides of the hole in which he was. He could talk to the horses through the wooden walls of their stable, but he could not see them.
Now and then the boat would pull up to shore, and the tired horses would come aboard while the others would take their turn at the towrope. All this while Lightfoot lived on the hay and grain he found in the cracks and corners of the canal boat. Had it not been for this the goat would have starved, for neither the captain nor his wife knew Lightfoot was on board, and the horses, much as they wished, could not pass the goat any of their food.
One day the boat was kept along the shore towpath for a long while. Lightfoot tried again to jump out but could not. Then, all at once he heard a very loud noise. It was louder than that made by the hoofs of the horses, and the goat cried:
“Surely that is thunder!”
He saw something black tumble down into the hold at the end farthest from him.
“No, it is not thunder,” said Cruncher. “The captain is loading the boat with coal. Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” said Lightfoot. “Only coal is very black and dirty stuff.”
“Yes, it is,” agreed Nibbler. “But it may be a good thing for you, Lightfoot.”
“How?” asked the goat.
“In this way,” said Nibbler. “I have seen this boat loaded with coal before. They fill the hold as full as they can, and they don’t put the covers on.”
“But if they fill it full,” said Lightfoot, “they will cover me with the coal, and then how can I get out?”
“I’ll tell you,” answered Nibbler. “They will not fill all the boat at once. It takes about two days. And when half the boat is full the coal is in a pile in the middle, like a hill. You can climb up the side of the coal-hill, Lightfoot, and then you will be out of the hold. You can scramble up on top of our stable-cabin and from there you can easily jump to shore.”
“Oh, that will be fine!” cried the goat.
“Do you think you can walk up the hill of coal in this boat?” asked Cruncher.
“Surely I can,” Lightfoot said. “I could climb up the rocky, rocky path back of the cabin, and surely I can climb up the coal hill.”
All that day men with wheelbarrows dumped coal into the hold of the canal boat. It made a black dust, and Lightfoot kept as far away from it as he could.
“It is a good thing I am going to get out,” he said. “For the coal will soon cover up all my hay and grain and I would starve.”
Lightfoot waited until after dark, so no one would see him. Then he scrambled up the sloping sides of the pile of coal in the middle of the canal boat until he could jump to the edge and so to the roof of the stable cabin.
“Good-by, kind horses,” he called to Cruncher and the others. “I am sorry I can’t stop to see you, but I had better go ashore.”
“Yes, while you have the chance,” said Nibbler.
Then, with a nimble leap, Lightfoot jumped from the canal boat to the towpath. He had gone ashore.
“I wonder what adventures I’ll have next,” he said to himself as he wiggled his way into the bushes at the edge of the path.