SCENES ON FERRY AND RIVER--LAST WINTER'S NIGHTS
Then the Camden ferry. What exhilaration, change, people, business, by
day. What soothing, silent, wondrous hours, at night, crossing on the
boat, most all to myself--pacing the deck, alone, forward or aft. What
communion with the waters, the air, the exquisite _chiaroscuro_--the
sky and stars, that speak no word, nothing to the intellect, yet so
eloquent, so communicative to the soul. And the ferry men--little they
know how much they have been to me, day and night--how many spells
of listlessness, ennui, debility, they and their hardy ways have
dispell'd. And the pilots--captains Hand, Walton, and Giberson by day,
and captain Olive at night; Eugene Crosby, with his strong young arm
so often supporting, circling, convoying me over the gaps of the
bridge, through impediments, safely aboard. Indeed all my ferry
friends--captain Frazee the superintendent, Lindell, Hiskey, Fred
Rauch, Price, Watson, and a dozen more. And the ferry itself, with its
queer scenes--sometimes children suddenly born in the waiting-houses
(an actual fact--and more than once)--sometimes a masquerade party,
going over at night, with a band of music, dancing and whirling like
mad on the broad deck, in their fantastic dresses; sometimes the
astronomer, Mr. Whitall, (who posts me up in points about the stars
by a living lesson there and then, and answering every question)
--sometimes a prolific family group, eight, nine, ten, even twelve!
(Yesterday, as I cross'd, a mother, father, and eight children,
waiting in the ferry-house, bound westward somewhere.
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