Chapter 14

THE YANKEE STOREKEEPER.

Three men stood with their axes amid the primeval forest. Vast trunks rose around them to an altitude of thirty or even fifty feet without a bough; above, 'a boundless contiguity of shade,' and below, a dense undergrowth of shrubs, which seemed in some places impenetrable jungle. Three axes against thirty thousand trees. The odds were immensely in the dryads' favour; the pines and hardwoods might have laughed in every leaf at the puny power threatening their immemorial empire, and settled that _vis inertiæ_ alone must overcome.

If, as Tennyson has bestowed upon the larkspur ears, the higher vegetation can listen also, the following conversation would that day have been heard from the triad of axe-men beginning their campaign against the forest, and 'bating no jot of heart or hope' in the contest.

'Here's the site for your shanty,' said Mr. Holt, dealing a blow on a fine maple before him, which left a white scar along the bark. 'It has the double advantage of being close to this fine spring creek, and sufficiently near the concession line.'

'And I'm sanguine enough to believe that there will be a view at some future period,' added Robert, 'when we have hewed through some hundred yards of solid timber in front. By the way, Holt, why are all the settlers' locations I have yet seen in the country so destitute of wood about them? A man seems to think it his duty to extirpate everything that grows higher than a pumpkin; one would imagine it ought to be easy enough to leave clumps of trees in picturesque spots, so as to produce the effect of the ornamental plantations at home. Now I do not mean exclusively the lowest grade of settlers, for of course from them so much taste was not to be expected; but gentlemen farmers and such like.'

'I dare say they contract such an antipathy to wood of every species during their years of clearing, that it is thenceforth regarded as a natural enemy, to be cut down wherever met with. And when you have seen one of our Canadian hurricanes, you will understand why an umbrageous elm or a majestic oak near one's dwellings may not always be a source of pleasurable sensations.'

'Still, I mean to spare that beautiful butternut yonder,' said Robert; 'of all trees in the forest it is prettiest. And I shall try to clear altogether in an artistic manner, with an eye to the principles of landscape gardening. Why, Holt! many an English _parvenu_ planning the grounds of his country seat, and contemplating the dwarf larches and infantine beeches struggling for thirty years to maturity, would give a thousand guineas for some of these lordly oaks and walnuts, just as they stand.'

Sam Holt refrained from expressing his conviction that, after a winter's chopping, Robert would retract his admiration for timber in any shape, and would value more highly a bald-looking stumpy acre prepared for fall wheat, than the most picturesque maple-clump, except so far as the latter boded sugar.

'To leave landscape gardening for after consideration,' said he, with some slight irony, 'let us apply ourselves at present to the shanty. I think, by working hard, we might have walls and roof up before dark. Twenty by twelve will probably be large enough for the present--eh, Robert?'

Oh yes, certainly; for the house was to be commenced so soon, that the shanty could be regarded only as a temporary shelter. Blessed, labour-lightening sanguineness of youth! that can bound over intermediate steps of toil, and accomplish in a few thoughts the work of months or years.

So Mr. Holt measured the above dimensions on the ground, choosing a spot where the trunks appeared something less massive, than elsewhere, and set his auxiliaries to cut down all the trees within the oblong, and for a certain distance round; arranging also that the logs should fall as near as might be to where they were wanted for the walls.

Now, the settler's first-felled tree is to him like a schoolboy's first Latin declension, or a lawyer's first brief--the pledge of ability, the earnest of future performances. Every success braces the nerves of mind, as well as the muscles of body. A victory over the woodland was embodied in that fallen maple. But Andy was so near getting smashed in the coming down of his tree, that Mr. Holt ordered him to lay by the axe, and bring his spade, to dig a hole in a certain spot within the oblong.

'An' its mighty harmless that crathur 'ud be agin the wood,' muttered the Irishman; 'throth, the earth in this counthry is mostly timber. An' in the name of wondher what does he want wid a hole, barrin' we're to burrow like rabbits?'

But the others were too busy felling or chopping trees into lengths of log to heed Andy's wonderment; and the novices were agreeably surprised to find how dexterous they became in the handling of the axe, after even a few hours' practice. Their spirits rose; for 'nothing succeeds like success,' saith the Frenchman.

'Now I'll give you a lesson in basswood troughs,' said Mr. Holt. 'This shanty of yours is to be roofed with a double layer of troughs laid hollow to hollow; and we choose basswood because it is the easiest split and scooped. Shingle is another sort of roofing, and that must be on your house; but troughs are best for the shanty. See here; first split the log fair in the middle; then hollow the flat side with the adze.'

Robert was practising his precepts busily, when he was almost startled by a strange nasal voice beside him.

'Considerable well for a beginner; but I guess you put a powerful deal too much strength in yer strokes yet, stranger.'

The speaker was a tall lank man, with black hair to correspond, and lantern jaws; little cunning eyes, and a few scrubby patches of rusty stubble on chin and cheeks. Robert disliked him at once.

'Why didn't you stop at the "Corner" yesterday? 'Twarn't neighbourly to go on right away like that. But it all come, I reckon, of Britisher pride and impudence.'

Robert looked at him full, and demanded, 'Pray who are you, sir?'

'Zack Bunting as keeps the store,' replied the other. 'I'm not ashamed neither of my name nor country, which is the U--nited States, under the glorious stars and stripes. I come up to help in raising the shanty, as I guessed you'd be at it to-day.'

Young Wynn hardly knew what to reply to such an odd mixture of insolence and apparent kindness. The Yankee took the adze from his hand before he could speak, and set about hollowing troughs very rapidly.

'You chop, and I'll scoop, for a start. Now I guess you hain't been used to this sort of thing, when you was to hum? You needn't hardly tell, for white hands like yourn there ain't o' much use nohow in the bush. You must come down a peg, I reckon, and let 'em blacken like other folks, and grow kinder hard, afore they'll take to the axe properly. How many acres do you intend to clear this winter?'

'As many as I can.'

'Humph! you should blaze 'em off all round, and work 'em reglar. You han't more than a month's "brushing" now. Are you married?'

'No,' replied Robert, waxing fierce internally at this catechism. 'Are you?' by way of retaliation.

'This twenty year. Raised most of our family in the States. The old woman's spry enough yet, as you'll see when you come to the "Corner."'

All this time Mr. Bunting was chewing tobacco, and discharging the fluid about with marvellous copiousness, at intervals. Robert thought his dried-up appearance capable of explanation. 'What made you come to settle in the bush?' was his next question.

'Holt!' called out Robert, quite unable patiently to endure any further cross-examination; and he walked away through the trees to say to his friend,--'There's an intolerable Yankee yonder, splitting troughs as fast as possible, but his tongue is more than I can bear.'

'Leave him to me,' answered Sam; 'his labour is worth a little annoyance, anyhow. I'll fix him.' But he quietly continued at his own work, notwithstanding, and kept Robert beside him.

Mr. Bunting speedily tired of manufacturing the basswood troughs alone, and sloped over to the group who were raising the walls of the shanty.

'Wal, I guess you're gitting along considerable smart,' he observed, after a lengthened stare, which amused Arthur highly for the concentration of inquisitiveness it betrayed. ''Tain't an easy job for greenhorns nohow; but you take to it kinder nateral, like the wood-duck to the pond.' He chewed awhile, watching Sam's proceedings narrowly. 'I guess this ain't your first time of notching logs, by a long chalk, stranger?'

'Perhaps so, perhaps not,' was the reply. 'Here, lend a hand with this stick, Mr. Bunting.'

Zack took his hands from the pockets of his lean rusty trousers, and helped to fit the log to its place on the front wall, which, in a shanty, is always higher than the back, making a fall to the roof. Mr. Holt managed to keep the Yankee so closely employed during the next hour, that he took out of him the work of two, and utterly quenched his loquacity for the time being. 'He shall earn his dinner, at all events,' quoth Sam to himself.

'Wal, stranger, you _are_ a close shave,' said Zack, sitting down to rest, and fanning himself with a dirty brownish rag by way of handkerchief. 'I hain't worked so hard at any "bee" this twelve month. You warn't born last week, I guess.'

'I reckon not,' replied Sam, receiving the compliment as conscious merit should. 'But we're not half done, Mr. Bunting; and I'd like such a knowledgeable head as yours to help fix the troughs.'

'Oil for oil in this world,' thought Robert.

'Throth, they'll build me up entirely,' said Andy to himself; 'an' sorra door to get out or in by, only four walls an' a hole in the middle of the floor. Of all the quare houses that iver I see, this shanty bates them hollow. Masther Robert,' calling aloud, 'I wondher have I dug deep enough?'

'Come out here, and get dinner,' was the response. 'We'll see to-morrow.'

''Tis asier said than done,' remarked Andy, looking for a niche between the logs to put his foot in. 'I hope this isn't the way we'll always have to be clamberin' into our house; but sorra other way do I see, barrin' the hole's to be a passage ondherground.'

'You goose! the hole is to be a cellar, wherein to keep potatoes and pork,' said his master, overhearing the tale of his soliloquy. Andy departed to his cookery enlightened.

Before the pan had done frizzling, whole rows of the ready-made troughs were laid along the roof, sloping from the upper wall plate to the back; and Mr. Bunting had even begun to place the covering troughs with either edge of the hollow curving into the centre of that underneath. Robert and Arthur were chinking the walls by driving pieces of wood into every crevice between the logs: moss and clay for a further stuffing must be afterwards found.

If the Yankee were quick at work, he fulfilled the other sequent of the adage likewise. His dinner was almost a sleight-of-hand performance. Arthur could hardly eat his own for concealed amusement at the gulf-like capacity of his mouth, and the astonishing rapidity with which the eatables vanished.

'While you'd be sayin' "thrapstick," he tucked in a quarter of a stone of praties and a couple of pound of rashers,' said Andy afterwards. 'Before the gintlemen was half done, he was picking his long yellow teeth wid a pin, an' discoorsin' 'em as impident as if he was a gintleman himself, the spalpeen!'

All unwitting of the storm gathering in the person of the cook, Mr. Bunting did indulge in some free and easy reflections upon Britishers in general, and the present company in particular; also of the same cook's attendance during their meal.

'Now I guess we free-born Americans don't be above having our helps to eat with us; we ain't poor and proud, as that comes to. But I'll see ye brought down to it, or my name's not Zack Bunting. It tickles me to see aristocrats like ye at work--rael hard work, to take the consait out of ye; and if I was this feller,' glancing at Andy, 'I'd make tracks if ye didn't give me my rights, smart enough.'

The glow in the Irish servant's eyes was not to be mistaken.

'I guess I've riled you a bit,' added the Yankee wonderingly.

'An' what's my rights, sir, if yer honour would be plasin' to tell me?' asked Andy, with mock obsequiousness; 'for I donno of a single one this minit, barrin' to do what my master bids me.'

'Because I calc'late you've been raised in them mean opinions, an' to think yerself not as good flesh an' blood as the aristocrats that keep you in bondage.'

'Come now,' interrupted Sam Holt, 'you shut up, Mr. Bunting. It's no bondage to eat one's dinner afterwards; and he'll be twice as comfortable.'

'That's thrue,' said Andy; 'I never yet could ate my bit in presence of the quality; so that's one right I'd forgive; and as for me--the likes of _me_--bein' as good blood as the Masther Wynns of Dunore, I'd as soon think the Yankee was himself.'

With sovereign contempt, Andy turned his back on Mr. Bunting, and proceeded to cook his dinner.

'Wal, it's the first time I see a feller's dander riz for tellin' him he's as good as another,' remarked Zack, sauntering in the wake of the others towards the unfinished shanty. 'I reckon it's almost time for me to make tracks to hum; the ole woman will be lookin' out. But I say, stranger, what are you going to do with that heaver meadow below on the creek? It's a choice slice of pasture that.'

'Cut the grass in summer,' replied Sam Holt, tolerably sure of what was coming.

'I've as fine a red heifer,' said the Yankee confidentially, 'as ever was milked, and I'd let you have it, being a new-comer, and not up to the ways of the country, very cheap.' His little black eyes twinkled. 'I'd like to drive a trade with you, I would; for she's a rael prime article.'

'Thank you,' said Mr. Holt, 'but we don't contemplate dairy farming as yet.' Zack could not be rebuffed under half-a-dozen refusals. 'Wal, if you won't trade, you'll be wantin' fixins from the store, an' I have most everythin' in stock. Some of my lads will be along to see you to-morrow, I reckon, and any whisky or tobacco you wanted they could bring; and if you chose to run a bill'--

Refused also, with thanks, as the magazines say to rejected contributions. This, then, was the purport of Mr. Bunting's visit: to gratify curiosity; to drive a trade; to estimate the new settlers' worldly wealth, in order to trust or not, as seemed prudent. While at dinner he had taken a mental inventory and valuation of the boxes and bales about, submitting them to a closer examination where possible. At the time Robert thought it simply an indulgence of inordinate curiosity, but the deeper motive of self-interest lay behind.

'In their own phrase, that fellow can see daylight,' remarked Mr. Holt, as Zack's lean figure disappeared among the trees. 'I never saw little eyes, set in a parenthesis of yellow crowsfeet at the corners, that did not betoken cunning.'