Ace was
sure the hunchback was a witch[3] who had spirited off my folks; and
looked upon the situation without much hope. He would agree to sing out
if he saw this monster; but that was as far as he would promise to
help me.
[3] "Witch" in American dialect is of the common gender. "Wizard" has no
place in the vocabulary.--G.v.d.M.
The summer went by with no news and no hunchback; and that winter I
stayed with an aunt of Captain Sproule's, taking care of her stock. I
got five dollars a month, and my keep, but no schooling. She wanted me
to stay the summer with her, and offered me what was almost a man's
wages; which shows how strong I was getting, and how much of a farmer I
was. I did stay and helped through the spring's work; but on Captain
Sproule's second passing of Mrs. Fogg's farm, I joined him, not as a
driver, but as a full hand. I kept thinking all the time of my mother,
and felt that if I kept to the canal I surely should find some trace of
her. In this I was doing what any detective would have done; for
everything sooner or later passed through the Erie Canal--news, goods
and passengers. But I had little hope when I thought of the flood which
surged back and forth through this river of news, and of the little bit
of a net with which I fished it for information.
All this time the stream of emigration and trade swelled, and swelled
until it became a torrent. I thought at times that all the people in the
world had gone crazy to move west.
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