Read Ebook: The Prairie Schooner by Hooker William Francis

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When in the vaulted arch Lucina gleams, And gaily dances o'er the azure streams; 60 When in the wide cerulean space on high The vivid stars shoot lustre through the sky; On silent Ether when a trembling sound Reverberates, and wildly floats around, Breaking through trackless space upon the ear-- Conclude the Bacchanalian Rustic near; O'er Hills and vales the jovial Savage reels, Fire in his head and Frenzy at his heels; From paths direct the bending Hero swerves, And shapes his way in ill-proportion'd curves; 70 Now safe arriv'd, his sleeping Rib he calls, And madly thunders on the muddy walls; The well-known sounds an equal fury move, For rage meets rage, as love enkindles love; The buxom Quean from bed of flocks descends } With vengeful ire, a civil war portends, } An oaken plant the Hero's breast defends. } In vain the 'waken'd infant's accents shrill The humble regions of the cottage fill; In vain the Cricket chirps the mansion through, 80 'Tis war, and Blood and Battle must ensue. As when, on humble stage, him Satan hight Defies the brazen Hero to the fight; From twanging strokes what dire misfortunes rise, What fate to maple arms, and glassen eyes; Here lies a leg of elm, and there a stroke From ashen neck has whirl'd a Head of oak. So drops from either power, with vengeance big, A remnant night-cap, and an old cut wig; Titles unmusical, retorted round, 90 On either ear with leaden vengeance sound; 'Till equal Valour equal Wounds create, And drowsy peace concludes the fell debate; Sleep in her woolen mantle wraps the pair, And sheds her poppies on the ambient air; Intoxication flies, as fury fled, On rocky pinions quits the aching head; Returning Reason cools the fiery blood, And drives from memory's seat the rosy God. Yet still he holds o'er some his madd'ning rule, 100 Still sways his Sceptre, and still knows his Fool; Witness the livid lip and fiery front, With many a smarting trophy plac'd upon't; The hollow Eye, which plays in misty springs, And the hoarse Voice, which rough and broken rings. These are his triumphs, and o'er these he reigns, The blinking Deity of reeling brains.

See Inebriety! her wand she waves, And lo! her pale, and lo! her purple slaves; Sots in embroidery, and sots in crape, 110 Of every order, station, rank, and shape; The King, who nods upon his rattle-throne; The staggering Peer, to midnight revel prone; The slow-tongu'd Bishop, and the Deacon sly, The humble Pensioner, and Gownsman dry; The proud, the mean, the selfish, and the great, Swell the dull throng, and stagger into state.

Lo! proud Flaminius at the splendid board, The easy chaplain of an atheist Lord, Quaffs the bright juice, with all the gust of sense, 120 And clouds his brain in torpid elegance; In china vases see the sparkling ill, From gay Decanters view the rosy rill; The neat-carv'd pipes in silver settle laid, The screw by mathematic cunning made; The whole a pompous and enticing scene, And grandly glaring for the surplic'd Swain; Oh! happy Priest whose God like Egypt's lies, At once the Deity and sacrifice! But is Flaminius, then, the man alone, 130 To whom the Joys of swimming brains are known? Lo! the poor Toper whose untutor'd sense Sees bliss in ale, and can with wine dispense; Whose head proud fancy never taught to steer Beyond the muddy extacies of Beer; But simple nature can her longing quench Behind the settle's curve, or humbler bench; Some kitchen-fire diffusing warmth around, The semi-globe by Hieroglyphics crown'd; Where canvas purse displays the brass enroll'd, 140 Nor Waiters rave, nor Landlords thirst for gold; Ale and content his fancy's bounds confine, He asks no limpid Punch, no rosy Wine; But sees, admitted to an equal share, Each faithful swain the heady potion bear. Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of taste Weigh gout and gravel against ale and rest. Call vulgar palates, what thou judgest so; Say, beer is heavy, windy, cold and slow; Laugh at poor sots with insolent pretence, 150 Yet cry when tortur'd, where is Providence? If thou alone art, head and heel, not clear, Alone made steady here, untumour'd there; Snatch from the Board the bottle and the bowl, Curse the keen pain, and be a mad proud Fool.

FOOTNOTES:

"The mighty Mother, and her Son, who brings The Smithfield Muses to the ear of Kings, I sing. Say ye, her instruments, the great, Call'd to this Work by Dulness, Jove, and Fate; You by whose care, in vain decry'd, and curst, Still Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first; Say, how the Goddess bade Britannia sleep, And pour'd her spirit o'er the land and deep."

Pope's Dunciad.--

"Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind Sees God in Clouds, and hears him in the wind; Whose Soul proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk, or milky way, Yet simple nature to his hope has given Behind the cloud-top't hill an humbler Heaven; Some safer world, in depth of woods embrac'd, Some happier island, in a watry waste: Where slaves once more their native land behold, Nor friends torment, nor Christians thirst for Gold; To live, contents his natural desire, He asks no Seraph's wing, no Angel's fire, But thinks admitted to that equal Sky, His faithful Dog, shall bear him company: Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense Weigh thy opinion against Providence; Call imperfection what thou fancy'st such, Say here he gives too little, here too much, Destroy all creatures for thy sport and gust, Yet cry, if man's unhappy, God's unjust; If man alone engross not Heaven's high care, Alone made perfect here, immortal there: Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod, Rejudge his Justice, and be God of God."

Pope's Essay on Man.--

End of PART the FIRST.

PART the SECOND.

In various forms the madd'ning Spirit moves, This drinks and fights, another drinks and loves. A bastard Zeal of different kinds it shows, And now with rage, and now Religion glows; The frantic Soul bright reason's path defies, Now creeps on Earth, now triumphs in the Skies; Swims in the seas of error and explores, Through midnight mists, the fluctuating Shores; From wave to wave in rocky Channel glides, And sinks in woe, or on presumption slides; 10 In Pride exalted, or by Shame deprest, An Angel-Devil, or a human-Beast. Without a pilot who attempts to steer, Has small discretion or has little care; That pilot Reason, in the erring Soul, Is lost, is blinded in the steaming Bowl, Charm'd by its power, we cast our guide away, And at the mercy of conjecture lay; Discretion dies with reason, Revel wakes! And o'er the head his fiery banners shakes. 20 With him come frenzy, folly and excess, Blink-ey'd conceit and shallow emptiness; At Folly's beck a train of Vices glide, Murder in madness cloak'd, in choler, Pride; Above, Impiety, with curses bound, Lours at the skies, and whirls Damnation round.

Good honest Curio elbows the And strives, a social sinner, how to shine; The dull quaint tale is his, the lengthen'd tale, That Wilton Farmers give you with their ale: How midnight Ghosts o'er vaults terrific pass, Dance o'er the Grave, and slide along the grass; 80 How Maids forsaken haunt the lonely wood, And tye the Noose, or try the willow flood; How rural Heroes overcame the giants, And through the ramshorn trumpet blew defiance; Or how pale Cicely, within the wood, Call'd Satan forth and bargain'd with her blood. These, honest Curio, are thine, and these Are the dull Treasures of a brain at peace. No wit intoxicates thy gentle skull, Of heavy, native, folly full; 90 Bowl upon Bowl in vain exert their force; The breathing Spirit takes a downward course, Or, vainly soaring upwards to the head, Meets an impenetrable tence of lead.

Hast thou, Oh Reader! search'd o'er gentle Gay, Where various animals their powers display? In one strange Group, a chattering race was hurl'd, Led by the Monkey who had seen the world. He, it is said, from woodland shepherds stole, And went to Court, to greet each fellow fool. 100 Like him, Fabricio steals from guardian's side, Swims not in stream, but sips the tide; He hates the Bottle, yet but thinks it right } To boast next day the honours of the night; } None like your Coward can describe a fight. } See him, as down the sparkling potion goes, Labor to grin away the horrid dose; In joy-feign'd gaze his misty eye-balls float, Th' uncivil Spirit gurgling at his throat; So looks dim Titan through a wintry scene, 110 And faintly cheers the woe-foreboding swain; But now, Alas! the hour, th'increasing flood, Rolls round and round, and cannot be withstood; Thrice he essays to stop the ruby flow, To stem its Force, and keep it still below; In vain his Art, it comes! at gaze, Ye stancher Sots, and be not near the place. As when a flood from Ossa's pendant brow Rolls rapid to its fellow streams below, It moves tempest'ous down the Mountain's sides, 120 } O'er lesser hills and vales like light'ning glides, } And o'er their beauties fall'n triumphant rides, } Each verdant spot and sunny bank defaces, And forms a minor Ocean at its basis; So from his rueful lips Fabricio pours, With melancholy Force, the tinctur'd showers; O'er the embroider'd vest they take their way, And in the grave its tinsel honours lay. No Nymph was there, to hold the helpless face, Or save from ruin's spoil the luckless lace; 130 No guardian Fair, to turn the head aside And to securer paths the torrent glide; From silk to silk it drove its wayward Course, And on the diamond buckle spent its Force. Ah! gentle Fop! what luckless fate was thine To sin through fashion, and in woe to shine. But all our Numbers why should rascals claim? Rise, honest Muse, and sing a nobler name. Pleas'd in his Eye good humour always smiles, And Mirth unbought with strife the hour beguiles, 140 Who smoothed the frown on yonder surly brow? From the dry Joke who bade gay Laughter flow? Not of affected, empty rapture full, Nor in proud Strain magnificently dull, But gay and easy, giving without Art Joy to each sense, and Solace to the heart. Thrice happy Damon, able to pursue What all so wish, but want the power to do. No cares thy Head, no crimes thy Heart torment, At home thou'rt happy, and abroad content; 150 Pleas'd with thyself, and therefore form'd to please, With Moderation free, and gay with Ease, Wise in a medium, just to an extreme, "The soul of Humour, and the life of Whim," Plac'd from thy Sphere, amid the sons of shame, Proud of thy Jest, but prouder of thy Name.

Pernicious streams from healthy fountains rise, And Wit abus'd degenerates into vice; Timon, long practic'd in the School of art, Has lost each finer feeling of the Heart, 160 Triumphs o'er shame, and with delusive whiles, Laughs at the Idiot he himself beguiles. So matrons, past the awe of Censure's tongue, Deride the blushes of the fair and young. Few with more Fire on every subject spoke, But chief he lov'd the gay immoral joke; The Words most sacred, stole from holy writ, He gave a newer form, and call'd them Wit; Could twist a Sentence into various meaning, And save himself in dubious explaining; 170 Could use a manner long taught art affords, And hint Impiety in holy words. Vice never had a more sincere ally, So bold no Sinner, yet no Saint so sly; Sophist and Cynic, mystically cool, And still a very Sceptic at the soul; Learn'd but not wise, and without Virtue brave, A gay, deluding, philosophic Knave. When Bacchus' joys his airy fancy fire, They stir a new, but still a false desire; 180 The place of malice ridicule then holds, And woe to teachers, ministers and scolds; And, to the comfort of each untaught Fool, Horace in English vindicates the Bowl. "The man" "who is drunk is blest, No fears , no cares destroy his rest; In thoughtless joy he reels away his life, Nor dreads that worst of ills, a noisy wife. Of late I sat within the jangling bar, And heard my Rib's hoarse thunder from afar; 190 Careless I spoke, and, when she found me drunk, She breath'd one Curse, and then away she slunk, Oh! place me, Jove, where none but women come, And thunders worse than thine afflict the room; Where one eternal Nothing flutters round, And senseless sense of mirth confound; Or lead me bound to Garret, babel-high, Where frantic Poet rolls his crazy eye; Tiring the Ear, with oft-repeated chimes, And smiling at the never ending rhymes; 200 E'en here or there, I'll be as blest as Jove, Give me tobacco, and the wine I love." Applause from Hands the dying accents break Of stagg'ring sots, who vainly try to speak; From Milo, him who hangs upon each word, And in loud praises splits the tortur'd board, Collects each sentence, ere it's better known, And makes the mutilated joke his own, At weekly club to flourish, where he rules The glorious president of grosser fools. 210

But cease, my Muse; of those or these enough, The fools who listen, and the knaves who Scoff; The jest profane, that mocks th' offended God, Defies his power, and at nought his rod. The empty Laugh, discretion's vainest foe, From fool to fool re-echo'd to and fro; The sly Indecency, that slowly springs From barren wit, and halts on trembling wings: Enough of these, and all the charms of Wine; Be sober joys and social evenings mine, 220 Where peace and Reason unsoil'd mirth improve, The powers of friendship and the joys of love; Where thought meets thought ere Words its form array, And all is sacred, elegant, and gay; Such pleasure leaves no Sorrow on the mind, Too great to , to sicken too , Too soft for Noise, and too sublime for art, The social solace of the feeling Heart, For sloth too rapid, and for wit too high, 'Tis Virtue's Pleasure, and can never die. 230

FOOTNOTES:

"But all our praises why should Lords engross? Rise honest Muse and sing the Man of Ross. Pleas'd Vaga echo's, through her winding bounds, And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds; Who hung with woods, yon mountain's sultry brow? From the dry Rock, who bade the waters flow? Not to the skies in useless columns tost, Nor in proud falls, magnificently lost. But clear and artless, pouring through the plain Health to the Sick, and solace to the Swain."

POPE.--

"Integer vitae, scelerisque Non eget &c. &c."

HORACE.

End of PART the SECOND.

PART the THIRD.

Pardon, ye Fair, the Poet and his Muse, And what ye can't approve, at least excuse; Far be from him the iron lash of Wit, The jokes of Humour, and the sneers that hit; 20 He speaks of Freedom, and he speaks to you, His Verse is simple, but his Subject new; And novelty, ye Fair, beyond a doubt, Is philosophic truth, the World throughout.

First know yourselves, and frame your passions all, In proper order, how to rise and fall; Woman's a Being, dubiously great, Never contented with a passive state; With too much Knowledge to give Man the sway, 80 With too much Pride his humours to obey, She hangs in doubt, humble or brave; In doubt to be a Mistress or a Slave; In doubt herself or Husband to controul; Born to be made a tyrant or a fool; In one extreme, her Power is always such Either to show too little, or too much; Bred up in Passions, by their sway abus'd, The weaker for the stronger still refus'd; Created oft' to rise, and oft' to fall, 90 Changing in all things, yet alike in all; Soft Judge of right or wrong, or blest or curst, The happiest, saddest, holiest, or the worst.

And why? because your failings ye suppress, And what ye dare to act, dare not confess. Would you, ye Fair, as Man your vices boast, And she be most admir'd, who sins the most; Would ye in open revel gaily spring, And o'er the wanton Banquet vaunting sing; The doubtful Precedence we then should own, 100 And you be first in mazes known.

Nor think of Nature's state I make a jest: The state of Nature is a state undrest; The love of Pleasure at our birth began, Pleasure the aim of all things, and of Man. Law then was not, the swelling flame to kill, Man walk'd with beast, and--so he always will; And Woman too, the same their board and bed, And would be now, but Folks are better bred; In some convenient grot, or tufted wood, 180 All human beings Nature's circuit trod; The shrine was her's, with no gay vesture laid; Unbrib'd, unmarried stood the willing maid; Her attribute was universal Love, And man's prerogative to range and rove. But how unlike the Pairs of times to come, Wedded, yet separate, abroad at home, Who foes to Nature, and to evil prone, Despising all, but hating most their own. A wayward craving this Neglect succeeds, 190 As every Monster monst'rous children breeds; Strange motly passions from this vice began, And Man unnatural turn'd to worship Man.

For this the Muse now calls the Fair to rise, To shew our failings, and to make us wise; Be now to Bacchus, now to Venus prone, And share each folly Man has thought his own; Shame him from Vice, by shewing him your shame, And part with yours, to reinstate his Fame; Be generously vile, and this your view: 200 That Man may hate his errors seen in you.

Say, when the Coxcomb flatters and adores, When your pity he implores; With many a gentle Dem'me swears to die, And humbly begs Destruction from your eye; When your own arts he takes, and speaks in smiles, With Softness woos, and with a Voice beguiles; Does it not move your pity and disdain, Such flow'ry passion, and such mincing pain; Your various Follies you with anger scan, 210 So shewn by one whom Nature meant for Man. E'en so do we our faults in you despise, And Vice has double malice in those Eyes. When Chloe toasts her Beau, or raves too loud; When Flavia leaves her home, and joins a croud; When Silvia fearless rolls the roguish eye, And Damon's want of confidence supply; When betts, and duns, and every rougher name, Sound in the ear of either Sex the same; How should we tell, when thus you love and hate, 220 Who acts the Man, and who's effeminate?

Drink, then! disclaim your Sex, be Man in all, Shew us at once, distinction ought to fall; And from the humble things ye were of old, Be reeling Caesars in a cyprian mould.

Better for us, 'tis granted, it might be, Were you all Softness, and all Honour we; That never rougher Passion mov'd your mind; That we were all or excellent or blind; But, as we now subsist by passions strife, 230 Which are the elements of life, The general order, since the whole began, Should be dissolv'd, and Manners make the Man.

Nor fear, if once ye break through general Laws, To draw in thousands, and gain our applause; Nor fear but Fame your merits shall make known, And female Bravos trample Hectors down; From Man himself you'll learn the art he boasts, Rule in his room, and govern in his posts.

And where are these? within the Bowl they lie; Thence spring ambitious thoughts, there doubtings die; From thence we trace the horrors of a War, 270 Chaotic counsel, ministerial jar; This makes a gambling Lord, a Patriot vain, The Soldier's fury, and the Lover's pain; Fills Bedlam's wards with souls of aerial mould; This makes the Madman, this supplies the Scold; Here rules the one grand Passion in extreme, A love of lucre, or a love of fame; The Scholar's boast, the Politician's plan; Here shines the Bubble, and here falls the Man.

Oh! happy fall of insolence and pride, 280 Which makes the humblest with the great allied; Which levels like the Grave all earthly things, For drunken Coblers are as proud as Kings; Which plucks the sons of grandeur from their sphere, For who is lower than a stagg'ring Peer? Yet here, ye Fair, tho' ev'ry Soul's the same, And Prince and Pedlar differ but in name, Folly with Fashion is discreetly grac'd, And, if all sin, not all can sin in taste; For who, ye Gods! would ever go astray, 290 If 'twas not something in a modish way?

Far as the power of human vice extends, Her scale of sensual vanity ascends; Mark how it rises to the gilded Throne, 310 From the poor wretch who dully topes alone. What modes of folly, each in one extreme, The sots dim sense, th' Epicurean's dream; Of scent, what difference 'twixt the pungent rum And noxious vapours of fermenting stum; Of hearing, to Champain's decanted swell From the dull gurgle of expiring ale? The touch, how distant in the mean and great, Who feel all roughness, or who feed from plate; In the nice Lord, behold what arts produce; 320 From vases carv'd is quaff'd the balmy juice; How palates vary in the poor Divine, Compar'd, half-reasoning Nobleman! with thine.

FOOTNOTES:

"Awake, my St. John, leave all meaner things To low ambition, and the pride of Kings; Let us Expatiate free o'er all this scene of Man, A mighty maze, but not without a plan; A Wild, where weeds and flowers promiscuous shoot Or Garden, tempting with forbidden fruit. Together let us beat this ample field, Try what the open, what the covert yield; The latent tracts, the giddy heights explore, Of all who blindly creep, or sightless soar; Eye Nature's walks, shoot Folly as it flies, And catch the Manners, living as they rise; Laugh where we must, be candid where we can, But vindicate the ways of God to Man."

Pope's Essay on Man.--

"Know then thyself, presume not God to scan, The proper study of Mankind is Man. Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state, A Being darkly wise, and rudely great; With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side, With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride, He hangs between: in doubt to act, or rest; In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast; In doubt his Mind or Body to prefer; Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err; Alike in Ignorance, his reason such, Whether he thinks too little or too much; Chaos of Thought and Passion; all confus'd; Still by himself abus'd, or disabus'd: Created half to rise, and half to fall, Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all; Sole judge of Truth, in endless Error hurl'd; The glory, jest, and riddle of the World!"

Pope's Essay on Man.--

"Go, wondrous creature! mount where Science guides; Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides; Instruct the planets in what orbs to run, Correct old Time, and regulate the Sun; Go, soar, with Plato, to th' empyreal sphere, To the first Good, first Perfect, and first Fair; Or tread the mazy round his foll'wers trod, And quitting sense call imitating God; As eastern Priests in giddy circles run, And turn their heads to imitate the Sun; Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule; Then drop into thyself, and be a Fool."

Pope's Essay on Man.--

"Nor think, in Nature's State they blindly trod; The state of Nature was the reign of God: Self-love and social at her birth began, Union the bond of all things, and of Man. Pride then was not; nor Arts, that Pride to aid; Man walk'd with beast, joint tenant of the shade; The same his table, and the same his bed; No murder cloath'd him, and no murder fed. In the same temple, the resounding wood, All vocal beings hymn'd their equal God; The shrine with gore unstain'd, with gold undrest; Unbrib'd, unbloody, stood the blameless priest; Heav'n's attribute was universal care, And Man's prerogative to rule, but spare. Ah! how unlike the man of times to come! Of half that live the butcher and the tomb; Who, foe to Nature, hears the gen'ral groan, Murders their species, and betrays his own. But just Disease to luxury succeeds, And ev'ry death its own avenger breeds; The Fury-passions from that blood began, And turn'd on Man a fiercer savage, Man."

Pope's Essay on Man.--

"Better for us, I grant, it might appear, Were there all Harmony, all Virtue here; That never air or ocean felt the wind, That never passion discompos'd the mind; But all subsists by elemental strife, And passions are the elements of life; The general Order, since the whole began Is kept in Nature, and is kept in Man."

I have eaten meals that mother used to cook, I've been famished during a sea voyage, and devoured a Norwegian sailor's pea soup; I've participated in several real banquets in New York; I've dined at Delmonico's and at Sherry's, at Young's in Boston, and I've feasted in a circus cook tent; but my Christmas dinner in the foothills of Wyoming in 1874, under the circumstances I have but faintly described, still is a fond memory and holds the record as the best meal I ever ate. It was as follows:

MENU Marrowbone Soup--"Tex" Water Cress Beef Stew--"Tex" Hamburg Steak--"Tex" Planked Porterhouse Steak--"Tex" Tenderloin Steak-"Tex" Roast Beef--"Tex" Corn Bread Wheat Bread English Plum Pudding--Hard and Soft Sauce Raisins Cake Coffee Tea

The corn bread was made from meal milled by the cook from shelled corn in the cargo. The "plums" were raisins, of which the cook had a few pounds. He used wheat flour, baking powder and grease saved from the final ration of the bacon which gave out a week before Christmas. The hard sauce was made with sugar and grease and a flavoring extract. The soft or liquid sauce contained a "remedy" requisitioned from a homeopathic quantity found in the wagon-boss' medicine chest--a few spoonfuls of brandy. The watercress was found two miles away at a spring. The boys called it "pepper grass." There it was fresh and green, protected by spring water which never freezes, and in some places it was peeping out from the edge of the snow at the brookside.

And now about whisky. There were sixty men in this camp, and in one of the big wagons were three barrels of whisky, but it belonged to the post trader at Fort Fetterman, and it was a tradition not even broken on this exceptional passage from Medicine Bow on the U. P. to Fort Fetterman on the North Platte that a consignment of hard liquor was as safe in a bull train as it would be anywhere on earth, and that it would reach its destination untouched. Few men drank intoxicants on these trips. It was a crime to be found with whisky, punishable by banishment from camp, and that might have meant death. But at both ends of the journey--that's another story.

The plainsman and mountaineer, the bullwhacker and the stage-driver, when chilled, drank water. Whisky caused him to perspire, and that was bad. He did not often use it when on duty.

One of the peculiar things about this Christmas dinner is the fact that there were no mountain grouse, no sage hen, no antelope, deer, nor elk for the menu. The truth is the storm drove everything of the kind in another direction--the direction in which we were slowly moving--and some time later, when we emerged upon the other side of the range with our ox-power so greatly reduced that we made less than a mile of progress a day, the herds of elk stampeded a dozen times past our camps, and the "fool grouse" sat a dozen in a group upon the pine boughs in the mountains and refused to move, allowing us to kill them, if so disposed, one at a time; but we did it only once, just to prove that it could be done.

It took us a couple of weeks to shovel our way out, and while the sun shone in the middle of the day hardly a flake of the snow melted. The air was at times biting cold, but invigorating, and every man, including the boss and the cook and even the night herder, fell to the work with a will that finally meant victory. In places we operated in the drifts as you see the excavators in a city cellar or subway operate, digging down to the surface and then benching as the open-ground miners or cellar excavators do, the men below tossing the blocks of snow up to the bench above and they in turn passing it to the top of the drift.

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