Careers of Danger and Daring

IT came to my knowledge, one bracing day in October, that "Steeple Bob" had agreed to "do" that famous Brooklyn Church of the Pilgrims, with its queer, crooked spire and big brass ball, a landmark from the river on Columbia Heights.

"It's one of those easy jobs that are the hardest," said Merrill. "If you want to see us use the stirrups come over."

That was exactly what I did want to see, this puzzling stirrup process which allows a man to lift himself by his boot-straps, as it were, up the last and narrowest and most dangerous length of a steeple; so I agreed to be there.

"If you like, you can go up on the swing yourself!" said Merrill, with the air of conferring a favor. I expressed my thanks as I would to a lion-tamer offering me the hospitality of his cages, then asked how he meant that easy jobs are the hardest.

"Why, easy jobs make a man careless, and that gets him into trouble. Another thing, little old churches look easy, but they're apt to be treacherous. Now, this steeple on the Church of the Pilgrims is built of wood, with loose shingles on it, and a tumble-down iron lightning-rod, and rickety beams, and shaky ladders, and – well, you feel all the time as if you were walking on eggs. It's just the kind of a steeple that killed young Romaine about a month ago."

Of course I asked for the story of young Romaine, and was told of certain climbers who advertise their skill by using a steeple-top for acrobatic feats that have nothing to do with repairing. Upon such Merrill frowned severely.

"Romaine was a fine athlete," said he, "and a fearless man, but he went too far. He would stretch out on his stomach across the top of a steeple, and balance there without touching hands or knees, and he'd do all sorts of circus tricks on lightning-rods and weather-vanes and flagpoles – anything for notoriety. I told him he'd get killed sure some day, but he laughed at me. Well, it wasn't a week after I warned him when he was killed. He climbed an old lightning-rod without testing it (it was on a little church up at Cold Spring, New York), and just as he was reaching the steeple-top, with a whole town watching him, the end of the rod pulled out, and he swung off with it, ripping out every dowel, like the buttons off a coat, right down to the ground – smash. Poor fellow, when I read the news I left my job at Trinity and took the first train up to bury him."

This sad story lingered in my mind that night, and was there still the next afternoon as I drew near the Church of the Pilgrims to witness the first day's climbing. Already, at a distance, I knew that the men were at work from the upbent heads of people on the street who stared and pointed. And presently I made out two white figures on the steeple, one swinging about fifteen feet below the ball, the other standing against the shingled side without any support that I could see. Up the old tower (inside) I made my way, and two ladders beyond the "bell-deck" came upon Walter Tyghe, "Steeple Bob's" assistant, astride of a stone saddle on one of the four peaks where the tower ends and the steeple begins. There was a clear drop of a hundred feet all around him. He was "tending" the two men aloft, as witnessed a couple of ropes dangling by him. It was two jerks to come down and one to go up. Were he to lose his balance and let go the hauling-rope, the men on the swing would instantly be killed, as they had no "lock-blocks" on.

"Come out here," said Walter, "there's plenty of room," and, thus encouraged, I straddled the peak, and we sat face to face, as two men might sit on a child's rocking-horse, while the tower pigeons circled beneath us, alarmed at this intrusion. Far down on the sidewalk were little faces of distorted people; far up at the steeple-top were legs kicking at ropes. And off over red housetops was the river, and the great towers of New York spread with silver plumes by the steam jets.

"Now you can see the stirrups working," said Walter, and, looking up, I saw a figure swing back from the steeple, an arm shoot out, and a length of rope go wriggling around the shaft, cast like a lasso. Then the rope was drawn into a noose, and the noose hauled tight. The legs kicked, the figure hitched itself up about a foot, and again the rope was cast (another rope), and a second noose still higher made secure. That is all there is to it. The steeple-climber stands in a stirrup held by one noose while he lassoes the shaft above him with another noose, supporting another stirrup on which he presently stands. And so, foot by foot, the climber rises, shifting noose and stirrup at each change, resting now on one, now on the other, and finally reaching the cross, or ball, or weather-vane at the very top.

"That's Joe Lawlor chuckin' the rope," explained Walter; "Merrill, he's on the swing. Say, Lawlor's a wonder at rigging. He can do anything with ropes. He's the feller that climbs up the front of a house with suckers on his feet."

Of this fact I took note, and then inquired if I couldn't get up further inside the steeple, so as to be nearer the men. Walter said I could climb ladders up to where they had punched a hole through for the rope to hold the block and falls, and I tried it. Alas! when I got there, after breathing dust and squeezing between beams, I found that I could see nothing. I was almost at the steeple-top, and could hear Merrill, through the wooden shell, humming a tune as he worked, but I was further away than before.

"Hello in there!" came a voice. "Don't monkey with that line." And it came to me that this rope, reaching down by me from yonder little hole (the one knocked through), held the block which held the swing which held the man. And an accident to this rope would mean instant death. I touched it, and drew my hand away, as one might touch some animal through the cage bars, and I felt like saying, "Good little rope!"

It was coming on to dark now, and we all went home together, over the bridge and up the avenues, talking of steeples the while. And Lawlor explained the action of his suckers in climbing walls, which is precisely that of a boy's sucker in lifting a brick. The big climbing-leathers, well soaked in oil, are pressed alternately against the stones, the right leg resting on one while the left leg presses the other against the wall a step higher. And so you walk right up the building or church or flagpole, and the smoother the surface the easier you go up. In fact, if the surface is rough you cannot use the suckers at all, as the air gets under and prevents their holding.

Then the men spoke of various jobs aloft that called up memories. Merrill told of cleaning the fifteen-foot Diana statue on the Madison Square Garden tower. "It's hard getting over her," he said, "because she's so blamed smooth. I guess I took three quarts of rust out of her ball-bearings. You know she's a weather-vane, and turns with the wind." I wondered how many New-Yorkers who see the Diana every day of their lives have ever dwelt on the fact that she turns.

Talking of weather-vanes reminded my friends of a ticklish job they did on St. Paul's steeple, in New York, when Merrill, standing under the ball, held Lawlor on his giant shoulders so that Joe could lift off the weather-vane on top and ease the shaft where it had jammed. With Lawlor's weight and the weather-vane's weight, "Steeple Bob" held four hundred pounds on his shoulders during those important minutes, and, it might almost be said, stood on the dizzy edge of nothing while he did it.

Finally, Lawlor expressed the opinion that there isn't any meaner job in the business than a chimney.

"A chimney?" said I.

"That's what. I mean one o' them big ones you see on factories. We have to scrape 'em and paint 'em just like steeples, and that means climbing up the whole length inside. The climbing's easy enough on bolts and braces, but it's something fierce the air you breathe. Why, I've gone up a two-hundred-and-forty-foot chimney with a five-foot opening at the bottom, and found the soot so thick about half-way up – so thick, sir, that I've been almost stuck in it. Yes, sir, just had to shove my head into an eight-inch hole and bore through black stuff, beds of it. And mind, not a hole for air as big as a pin-head from bottom to top."

After bidding the men good night I reflected, with a kind of shame, that I had drawn back from daring only once what they dare every day, what they must dare for their living. And I reasoned myself into a feeling that it was my duty under the circumstances to go up that steeple on the swing, as Merrill had proposed. Having begun this investigation, I must see it through; and in this mind I went to the church again the next day.

I found all hands on the "bell-deck" spreading out packets of patent gilding for the ball which awaited its new dress, all sticky from a fresh coat of sizing. Lawlor remarked that there was better gold in these little yellow squares than in a wedding-ring. "It's twenty-four carats fine," said he, "and about as thick as a cobweb."

As to my going up on the swing there was no difficulty. Lawlor would go first, and be there to keep me in good heart, for they say it is not well for a novice to be at a steeple-top alone. Merrill would see to the lashings, and Walter would give a hand at the hauling-line. Thus all conditions favored my ascent; even the sun smiled, and after taking off coat and hat I was ready. There we were at the top of the tower, and at the base of the steeple Lawlor, red-faced and red-shirted, preparing to ascend; Merrill, pale, as he always is, but powerful, standing at the ropes; and I, in shirt-sleeves and bareheaded, watching Walter make a little harness for my kodak.

After a time Lawlor, having reached the top, called down something, and Merrill answered. It was my turn now. I climbed out through a small window and stood on the ledge, while "Steeple Bob" dropped the swing noose over my head and proceeded to lash me fast to seat and ropes.

"That's in case a suicidal impulse should get hold of you!" he said, smiling, but meaning it. "Now, keep this rope between your legs, and work your hands up along it as we lift you. It's anchored to St. Peter."

Then he explained how I was to press my toes against the steeple side, so as to keep my knees from barking on the shingles.

"And don't look down at all," he told me. "Just watch your ropes and take it easy. Are you ready?"

At this moment Walter said something in a low tone, and Merrill asked me to lend him my knife. I handed it out, and he stuck it in his pocket. "You don't need this now," said he, and a moment later the pulley ropes tightened and my small swing-board lifted under me. I was rising.

"Shove off there with your toes!" he cried. "Take short steps. Put your legs wider apart. Wider yet. You don't have to pull on the rope. Just slide your hands along. Now you're going!"

I saw nothing but the steeple side in front of me, and the life-line hanging down like a bell-rope between my spread legs, and the pulley block creaking by my head, and the toes of my shoes as I pressed them against the shingles step by step. It struck me as a ridiculous thing to be climbing a steeple in patent-leather shoes. I smiled to think of the odd appearance I must present from below. And then for the first time I let my eyes turn into the depths, and caught a glimpse of men on housetops watching me. I saw Merrill's upturned face down where the ropes ended. And I saw little horses wriggling along on the street.

There were three places where the steeple narrowed into slenderer lengths, and at each one was a sort of cornice to be scrambled over (and loose nails to be avoided), and then more careful steering with legs and toes to keep on one particular face of the steeple and not swing off and come bumping back, a disconcerting possibility. "Hello!" called Lawlor presently, from above. "You're doing fine. Come right along." And before I knew it the swing had stopped. I was at the top, or as near it as the tackle could take me. The remaining fifteen feet or so must be made with stirrups. And there was Lawlor standing in them up by the ball. There was not a stick of staging to support him (he had scorned the bother of hauling up boards for so simple a job), and he was working with both hands free, each leg standing on its stirrup, and several hitches of life-line holding him to the shaft top by his waist.

This steeple-lassoing exploit was one of the things I certainly would not attempt – would not and could not.

Strangely enough, as I hung here at rest I felt the danger more than coming up. It seemed most perilous to rest my weight on the swing-board, and I found myself holding my legs drawn up, with muscles tense, as if that could make me lighter. Gradually I realized the foolishness of this, and relaxed into greater comfort, but not entirely. Even veteran steeple-climbers waste much strength in needless clutching; cannot free their bodies from this instinctive fear.

I stayed up long enough to take three photographs (some minutes passed before I could unlash my kodak), and here I had further proof of subconscious fright, for I made such blunders with shutter and focus length as would put the youngest amateur to shame. Two pictures out of the three were failures, and the third but an indifferent success. There is one thing to be said in extenuation, that a steeple is never still, but always rocking and trembling. When Lawlor changed his stirrup hitches or moved from side to side the old beams would groan under us, and the whole structure rock. "She'd rock more," said Lawlor, "if she was better built. A good steeple always rocks."

There wasn't much more to say or do up here, and presently we exchanged jerks on the line for the descent. And Lawlor cried: "Lower away! Hang on, now!" And I did over again my humble part of leg-spreading and toe-steering, with the result that presently I was down on the "bell-deck" again, receiving congratulations.

"Here's your knife," said Merrill, after he had unlashed me.

"What did you take it for?" I asked.

"Oh, men sometimes get a mania to cut the ropes when they go up the first time. And that isn't good for their health. I was pretty sure you'd keep your head, but I wasn't taking any chances."

After this came thanks and warm hand-grips all around, and then I left these daring men to their duties, and went down the lower ladders. I am sure I never appreciated the simple privilege of standing on a sidewalk as I did, a few minutes later, when I left the Church of the Pilgrims and came out into the pleasant autumn sunshine.

THE DEEP-SEA DIVER

I

SOME FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF MEN WHO GO DOWN UNDER THE SEA

IN old South Street, far down on the New York river-front, is a gloomy brick building with black fire-escapes zigzagging across its face, and a life-size diver painted over its door, in red helmet and yellow goggle-eyes, to the awe and admiration of the young – to the awe and admiration of anybody who comes through this wicked-looking street by night, and smells the sea, and stares along miles of ships' noses that reach right over the car-tracks, and finally stops at the black-lettered announcement that wrecks are looked after here day or night, and mysteries of the deep penetrated by gentlemen of the diving profession in just such gigantic suits as this painted one.

None of this had I noticed, late one night (being occupied with the silent, hungry ships, and the fire-cars trailing over the dim bridge), until a brisk banjo-strumming caught my ear, and I paused at the house of wrecks, whence the sounds came. Somebody back in these moldering shadows was playing the "Turkish Patrol," and playing it remarkably well.

I followed the light down a narrow passage, and presently came upon the modern wrecker, in the person of Benjamin F. Bean, a large man smoking contentedly at a table whereon rested a telephone and phonograph. The phonograph was playing the "Turkish Patrol," and a single incandescent lamp, swinging overhead, illumined the scene. There were coils of rope about, and photographs of vessels in distress, and a bunk with tumbled sheets at one side, where Mr. Bean slept, often with his clothes on, while awaiting the ring of sundry danger-bells.

Divers fully expect to be objects of curiosity, for never do they work except before wondering audiences; so this one found my visit natural enough – was glad, I think, to talk a little and let the phonograph rest. It must be rather lonely, after all, watching for wrecks hour after hour, night after night, listening always for footsteps (the officer's tramp or the thug's stealthy tread), listening always to the hoot of passing vessels, listening always for bad news.

He explained to me what happens when the bad news comes, say a collision up the Hudson, a ferry-boat on fire down the bay, a line of barges sunk in the Sound, any one of a dozen ordinary disasters. In olden times such tidings must have traveled from mouth to mouth, and the wreckers of those days flashed their calls and warnings with beacon-fires. Now electricity does all this much better with the click of a key; and presently somebody, somewhere, has the office at the end of a wire telling what the trouble is, and forthwith the man in charge puts machinery in motion that will change this trouble into cash. Br-r-r-r calls the telephone; up spring messenger-boys in distant all-night stations, and in half an hour door-bells are ringing in Harlem or Jersey City, and the men who ought to know things know them, and whistles are sounding on big pontoons that can lift two hundred tons, and sleepy men are tumbling out of their bunks, and great chains are clanking, and tug-boats are sputtering forth for the towing of sundry hoisting- and pumping-craft that go splashing along to the danger-spot with all appliances aboard, pneumatic, hydraulic, not to mention savory hot coffee served to the divers and the crew.

Most divers are poor story-tellers (perhaps because the marvelous grows commonplace to them from over-indulgence in it), but the stories are there in their lives, if only you can dig them out. I asked Bean if he often went down himself, and found that he was still in active service, after twenty-odd years of it, which certainly had agreed with him. He was just back from a sad errand in Pennsylvania. A boy had gone swimming in a slate-quarry, and been drowned; they had dragged for him, and fired cannon over the water, but nothing had availed, and so, finally, a diver was sent for from the city, the diver being Bean. The quarry was a great chasm four or five hundred feet deep, with eighty feet of water filling various galleries and rock shelves, in one of which the poor lad had been caught and held. The question was in which one.

"Well," said Bean, coming abruptly to the end, "I went down and got him."

That was his way of telling the story: he "went down and got him." There was nothing more to say; nothing about the two days' perilous search through every tunnel and recess of those rocky walls; nothing about the three thousand excited people who crowded around the quarry's mouth, awaiting the issue, nor the scene when that pitiful burden was hauled up from the depths.

I asked Bean if he had ever been in great danger while under the water.