Backwoodsman

“ A backwoodsman, laden with his axe, wading here, ploutering there, stumbling over rotted trees, protruding stumps, a bit of half-submerged corduroy road for one short space, then an adhesive clay bank, then a mile or two or more of black muck swamp, may, possibly,—clay-clogged and footsore, and with much pain in the small of his back,—find himself at sundown at the foot of a hemlock or cedar, with a fire at his feet, having done manfully about ten miles for his day's work. ”

“ We walked for some time through the forest, amused more than once by the proceedings of two young clerks from Boston, who saw a wild animal in every thicket, and repeatedly leveled their guns at some bear or panther, which turned out to be neither more nor less than a bush or tree-stump. They pestered our guide with all sorts of simple questions, which he, with a true backwoodsman's indifference, left for the most part unanswered. ”

“ Both the gentlemen turned in surprise at the young backwoodsman's abrupt approach. Both were much older and taller than he, and very different altogether from this square-built, rough-mannered youth. But they may have felt the power that was his as well as theirs, for neither gave a sign of the impatience that both were quick to feel and almost as quick to show. ”

“ A backwoodsman from the Western States is in some respects a good sort of fellow to be with in the mountains, especially where there are hostile Indians about, for he knows their ways, and can teach them manners with his five-foot-barrel rifle when there is occasion for it; he can also put up a log cabin in no time, and is of course up to all the dodges of border life ”

“ Each had a burden of fifty or sixty pounds, which consisted largely of the blankets and skins with which he was permitted to cover himself at night. Such a load would tire the ordinary man in an hour, but these hardy backwoodsmen could carry it all day and over fifteen miles of heavy ground, not without great fatigue, of course, but without breaking down. Thus they tramped along under the dripping boughs of the silent forest, their moccasins squelching the spongy earth and their long hair hanging wet and stringy about their necks. ”

“ He was a great hunter; and, like so many other young colonial gentlemen of good birth and bringing up, and adventurous temper, he followed the hazardous profession of a backwoods surveyor. With chain and compass, as well as axe and rifle, he penetrated the far places of the wilderness, the lonely, dangerous regions where every weak man inevitably succumbed to the manifold perils encountered, but where the strong and far-seeing were able to lay the foundations of fame and fortune. ”

“ All of us, except Antonio, hurried off to look for firewood, in search of which we had to go some distance; still the movement did us good, and each brought an armful of wood back, so that we soon had a good fire at which to warm our benumbed hands. ”

“ As the days grow warmer, the woodpile invites idlers as well as busy bees and wood-cutters. The big logs are comfortable seats to lounge on while whittling a pine chip, and breathing the mingled [248] odors of the many woods freshly cut and the indescribable woodsy smell brought home in the bark and moss, and listening to the hum of the bees and harsher music of the saws and axe, the sharp, quick swish of the whip-saw, the longer drawn and deeper ring of the crosscut, and the regular beat of the axe,—fiddle, bass-viol, and drum, each with its own time, but all somehow in tune. ”

“ Observant, keen of vision, skilled in woodcraft though he was, the grave-faced old lumberman saw nothing in the tranquillity about him save tree trunks, and fallen, rotting remnants, and mossed hillocks, and thickets of tangled shrub. He noted the difference, not known to the general eye, between white spruce, black spruce, and fir, between grey birch and yellow birch, between withe-wood and viburnum; and he read instinctively, by the lichen growth about their edges, how many seasons had laid 6 their disfeaturing touch upon those old scars of the axe which marked the trail. ”

“ Fancy would starve for lack of marvellous food to keep her alive in the backwoods. We have neither fay nor fairy, ghost nor bogle, satyr nor wood-nymph; our very forests disdain to shelter dryad or hamadryad. No naiad haunts the rushy margin of our lakes, or hallows with her presence our forest-rills. ”

“ When traveling in the northern bush during cold weather I frequently carried a bunch of birch bark in the top of my pack, so that if I wanted to build a fire quickly I would not have to hunt for kindling.
There is one more woodcraft trick that I think everybody who goes into the woods should know. While the woodsman invariably carries an axe with which to cut firewood, there may come a time when he has no axe and is obliged to camp out over night. Then getting together sufficient wood to keep fire over night is a real problem. ”

“ Louis was to carve wooden platters and dishes, and some stools were to be made with hewn blocks of wood till something better could be devised. Their bedsteads were rough poles of ironwood, supported by posts driven into the ground, and partly upheld by the projection of the logs at the angles of the wall. Nothing could be more simple. The frame-work was of split cedar; and a safe bed was made by pine boughs being first laid upon the frame, and then thickly covered with dried grass, moss, and withered leaves. Such were the lowly but healthy couches on which these children of the forest slept. ”

“ With these were the axe, the wedge, the dogwood gluts, and the mauls made with no little labour from the curled knots of the chestnut oak, and hooped with an iron tire-piece.
It was said on the country side that old Simon knew lost secrets of woodcraft taught by the early man;—in what moon to fell the shingle timber that it might not curl on the roof; on what face of the hill the sassafras root was red; how to know the toughest hickory by hammering on its trunk; when twigs cut from the forest would grow, if thrust in the earth ”

“ The larches or firs, in the stiff and angular enclosure, are always crowded together; and if not thinned by the care of the woodsman, will inevitably choke each other, or shoot up thin and unhealthy, in consequence of their close proximity to each other, and the dense mass of foliage which overshadows the upper part of the wood. But no such danger need be apprehended In the natural forest. No woodman is called to thin its denizens. No forester's eye is required to tell which should be left, and which cut away, in the vast array. ”

“ They, in answer, remarked the distant sound of my voice, and inquired if I were behind the tree!—When the road through this forest was forming, a man who had only about 200 yards to go, from one company of the work-people to another, lost himself: he called, and was repeatedly answered; but getting further astray, his voice became more indistinct, till it ceased to be heard, and he perished. The largest trees do not always carry up their width in proportion to their height, but many that are mere spars, are 200 feet high. ”

“ The trees grew less thickly, the ground more broken, strewn with flinty bowlders. Through the clear moonlight could be seen distant hills rising darkly, with their covering of trees, or bleak and bare, their rocky summits scarce affording subsistence for a scant growth of shriveled, prematurely-growing grass.
True to his latter calculation, the Wood King reached the gorge at a point only a few steps from the vine-wreathed elm tree, and then one stroke of his keen knife severed the pendent grape-vine close to its root. ”

“ Such days, with such scenes and emotions, do come in the life of the woodsman, the land hunter, who is alone in the forest, except that if he be at all sentimental, he approaches nearer to the Great Creator than at almost any other time in his life's experiences. ”

“ A safe rock has to be selected for the conflagration, lest the sparks set on fire the dry wood and destroy the beauty of the island forever. The second growth, after a forest fire, is invariably scrub-oak and small hardwood trees, which afford no shade and are not beautiful in themselves. ”

“ The wood on the other side of the road to Bury Wood, called in the map Woodman’s Glade, has not suffered from felling, and stands as an object lesson to show how unnecessary such felling is. It is one of the thickest parts of the forest, and looks in all respects like such woods were forty years ago, the growth of the heads of the hornbeams being but slow; but there is no difficulty in getting through it in all directions, and it has a peculiar charm of its own not to be found in any other forest ”

“ Some years hence the timbers that are now burned up will be regretted. Yet it is impossible to preserve them; they would prove a great encumbrance to the farmer. The oaks are desirable for splitting, as they make the most durable fences; pine, cedar, and white ash are also used for rail-cuts; maple and dry beech are the best sorts of wood for fires: white ash burns well. In making ley for soap, care is taken to use none but the ashes of hard wood, as oak, ash, maple, beech; any of the resinous trees are bad for the purpose, and the ley will not mingle with the fat. ”

“ All through the winter the lumberers work in the woods, from sunrise to sunset, making the forest resound with the strokes of their axes as they fell tree after tree in amazing quantities. Often they divide into bands of six or eight men, each company striving to outrival the other in the amount of work it gets through. ”

“ He has to feed his eighteen kids, he has to clothe his wife and auntie; he has to buy them pies and lids, and put new paint upon his shanty. And thus the forest giant falls, there’s none to shield it or deliver; now other men in overalls, will float it down some rushing river. And then through loud and busy mills the good old tree in fragments dashes, and makes its bow as doors and sills, as scantling, joists and window sashes. ”

“ He had just enough money to let him float through his world without work. Health he had not, and the poor semblance of it which mere youth supplied he had squandered childishly. Hearing of new health in the gift of the northern spruce woods, with their high, balsam-sweet airs, he had drifted away from his temptations, and at last sought out this remote backwoods settlement as a place where he might expect to get much for little. He was very good to look upon,—about as tall as Kirstie herself,—slender, active, alert in movement when not wearied, thoroughbred in every line of face and figure. ”

“ The sound of the woodman's axe echoed in the leafless oakwood shaw and the brown thickets of Ardgour, and everywhere the hedges and trees were being lopped and trimmed by the shears or bill-hook of the gardener and husbandman. ”

“ There are a lot of little helpful wrinkles regularly used by woodsmen that can hardly be imparted to the green-hand because of their number, their insignificance, and the fact that each must be adapted to the prevailing condition, but they immediately brand the user as an old hand at the game. They are simply the result of experience and are used almost unconsciously. I refer to such things as the manner of placing wood on the fire, handling embers, moving cooking utensils, etc. ”

“ In the first place, you must underbrush. With an axe or a strong, long handled bill-hook, made to be used with both hands, you cut away for some distance round—a quarter or half an acre perhaps—all the small saplings and underwood which would otherwise impede your operations upon the larger trees. In "a good hard-wood bush," that is, where the principal timber is maple, white oak, elm, white ash, hickory, and other of the harder species of timber—the "underbrush" is very trifling indeed ”

“ They could fashion arrow-heads, and knew how best to season the wood for making both the long and cross bow. They had seen the fish-hooks these people manufactured from bone and hard wood. They knew that strips of fresh-cut skins would make bowstrings, or the entrails of animals dried and rendered pliable. They had watched the squaws making baskets of the inner bark of the oak, elm, and bass-wood, and mats of the inner bark of the cedar, with many other ingenious works that they now found would prove useful to them, after a little practice had perfected their inexperienced attempts. ”

“ Is it not sad to know that the brave, bold dogwood, holding out its spring flag of truce [Pg 200] from arduous weather, and its autumn store of sustenance for our feathered friends, is in danger of extinction from the forest because its hardy, smooth, even-grained white wood has been found to be especially available in the "arts"? I feel like begging for the life of every dogwood, as too beautiful to be destroyed for any mere utility. ”

“ As for Rosy-Lilly, her feelings were this time so 129 outraged that she would no longer look at McWha.
III
The long backwoods winter was now drawing near its end, and the snow in the open spaces was getting so soft at midday as to slump heavily and hinder the work of the teams. Every one was working with feverish haste to get the logs all out to the “landings,” on the river banks before the hauling should go to pieces. At night the tired lumbermen would tumble into their bunks as soon as supper was over, too greedy of sleep to think of songs or yarns. ”

“ Having fairly the start of them, however, I succeeded in making my escape, and soon left their merriment and riot at a good distance in the rear. Its fainter tones assumed a kind of mournfulness, and were finally lost in the hush and solemnity of the wood. In my haste, I stumbled over a heap of logs and sticks that had been cut for fire-wood, a great while ago, by some former possessor of the soil, and piled up square, in order to be carted or sledded away to the farm-house. ”

“ One piece of outdoor work I have continued religiously, for the reason, no doubt, that I love wood fires, even in warm weather. I never neglect my wood-stack, the foundations of which were laid for me by Isaiah Fetch. Every day I take axe and saw and cut a certain amount of logwood. My hearth will take logs of just four feet in length, and I feed it royally. The wood costs nothing ”