138 Singing Valleys 



more brought immigrants: Irish, Germans, Danes, Swedes, 

 Norwegians. The Irish kept close to the cities; they were of 

 different breed from the Ulster folk who had helped settle the 

 Back Woods. The others turned west. They were strong- 

 armed men, eager to work on the land and to own the land on 

 which they worked. They sat on the decks of the barges that 

 were towed up the Hudson behind steamers like Captain 

 Harvey Temple's Connecticut. Cap'n Temple made nothing 

 of a string of sixty to eighty barges. When Cap'n Corneel van 

 der Bilt threatened his supremacy on the river, Cap'n Temple 

 hitched up one hundred and eight barges, ordered all hands 

 to stoke the boilers, and steamed up the Hudson with a broom 

 lashed tauntingly to his smokestack. 



Through the Mohawk Valley the canal threaded towns, and 

 farm lands where grain ripened. The immigrants got off and 

 walked along the towpath, feeling the good earth under their 

 feet, drawing in deep breaths of the rich, warm smell of August. 



Beyond Buffalo the lakes spread like great inland seas. 

 White-sailed brigs rode the waves, laden with grain and lum- 

 ber. There were steamboats on the lakes, too. The first of these, 

 named Walk-on-the- Water for the Wyandot chief, was built 

 in 1818 on the very spot where La Salle built his sailing ship 

 Griffin in 1679. 



In Cleveland, in Chicago, in Detroit, the foreigners found 

 work. Any work did, so long as it allowed them to save toward 

 the purchase of land. So the cities of the midwest grew on the 

 labor of men whose hearts were set on being corn farmers. 



As soon as they had a yoke of oxen, a home-made wagon, 

 tools, a plow, sacks of corn, they left the towns and started out 

 across the prairie. The matted grass was hard to break; but a 

 swing of an axe, and there would be a deep gash into which 

 to drop four kernels of corn. Why four? The Norskies, the 

 Hunkies, the Germans, the Danes didn't know only that that 

 was the American way. They tamped the earth down over the 

 seed with their heavy boots, and moved on two steps to swing 

 the axe again. And again. 



