Would they heave to, to gratify
his wishes? No, it was favor enough to know faintly of their
destination, or the time of their possible return. I have seen
them in the summer when the stream ran low, mowing the weeds in
mid-channel, and with hayers' jests cutting broad swaths in three
feet of water, that they might make a passage for their scow,
while the grass in long windrows was carried down the stream,
undried by the rarest hay-weather. We admired unweariedly how
their vessel would float, like a huge chip, sustaining so many
casks of lime, and thousands of bricks, and such heaps of iron
ore, with wheelbarrows aboard, and that, when we stepped on it,
it did not yield to the pressure of our feet. It gave us
confidence in the prevalence of the law of buoyancy, and we
imagined to what infinite uses it might be put. The men appeared
to lead a kind of life on it, and it was whispered that they
slept aboard. Some affirmed that it carried sail, and that such
winds blew here as filled the sails of vessels on the ocean;
which again others much doubted.
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