ed.

"On a railroad track it can grab hold of a house full o' folks and run
off with it. Goes like the wind, too."

"Does it eat 'em up?" Joe asked.

"No. It eats wood and oil and keeps yellin' for more. I guess it could
eat a cord o' wood and wash it down with half a bucket o' castor oil in
about five minutes. It snatches folks away to some place and drops 'em.
I guess it must make their hair stand up and their teeth chatter."

"Does it hurt anybody?" Joe asked hopefully.

"Well, sir, if anybody wanted to be hurt and got in its way, I rather
guess he'd succeed purty well. It's powerful. Why, if a man was to ketch
hold of the tail of a locomotive, and hang on, it would jerk the toe
nails right off him."

Joe began to have great respect for locomotives.

Soon they came in view of the famous Erie Canal, hard by the road.
Through it the grain of the far West had just begun moving eastward in a
tide that was flowing from April to December. Big barges, drawn by mules
and horses on its shore, were cutting the still waters of the canal. They
stopped and looked at the barges and the long tow ropes and the tugging
animals.

"There is a real artificial river, hundreds o' miles long, hand made of
the best material, water tight, no snags or rocks or other imperfections,
durability guaranteed," said Samson. "It has made the name of DeWitt
Clinton known everywhere."

"I wonder what next!" Sarah exclaimed.

They met many teams and passed other movers going west, and some
prosperous farms on a road wider and smoother than any they had traveled.
They camped that night, close by the river, with a Connecticut family on
its way to Ohio with a great load of household furniture on one wagon and
seven children in another. There were merry hours for the young, and
pleasant visiting between the older folk that evening at the fireside.
There was much talk among the latter about the great Erie Canal.

So they fared along through Canandaigua and across the Genesee to the
village of Rochester and on through Lewiston and up the Niagara River to
the Falls, and camped where they could see the great water flood and hear
its muffled thunder. When nearing the latter they overtook a family of
poor Irish emigrants, of the name of Flanagan, who shared their camp site
at the Falls. The Flanagans were on their way to Michigan and had come
from the old country three years before and settled in Broome County, New
York. They, too, were on their way