CHAPTER XIII

SPRING APPROACHES

For some time after my adventure with the lynx no event worth recording occurred and I led a humdrum, lonely life. I had much to be thankful for, however, for I had little difficulty in obtaining game. With the disappearance of the lynx I again resorted to traps. I was comfortably housed and I suffered little from the cold. No symptoms of smallpox had developed, my foot and ankle were as well and strong as ever, and I was in the best of health and condition.

There was little to be done save to hunt and trap, gather fire-wood, and sleep and eat. To occupy my time I made a large number of stone arrow-heads and numerous arrows, for I realized that I would lose and break many, and that when I finally started away in the spring I must be well provided with weapons.

I also tried fishing in the lake, cutting holes through the ice with my knife and spear, and setting lines which would raise a signal when there was a bite, as I had done when pickerel-fishing in my youth.

On these lines I used hooks of horn which I made by grinding down the forked portions of the deer’s antlers, where the prongs sprung from the main branches. It was tedious work, cutting these on the grindstone and with my knife, but the results more than repaid me for all the labor, for I caught a number of pickerel, several bass, and a few splendid lake-trout, and the fish proved a most welcome change of diet.

There were many heavy snowfalls during the winter, and had it not been for my snow-shoes I would have fared badly. Even as it was I was compelled to remain indoors for days at a time as the storms raged without, and by the time the days began to lengthen and the worst of the winter was over my hut was completely snowed under. Only the rude chimney and the tunnel-like entrance to my door were visible, but the deeper the snow piled around the cabin the warmer and more comfortable it was within.

But if the weather kept me much indoors I made good use of my time, and during the long winter I made many discoveries and accomplished many things which added wonderfully to my happiness and comfort.

One of my greatest troubles was lack of light, for the winter days were short, and within the windowless hut it was dark by mid-afternoon, and I was thus obliged to cease work and sit idle for many hours each day. The fire gave enough light to enable me to see to cook and even to perform certain tasks which required little care, such as cutting up fire-wood, whittling sticks to form triggers for traps, and similar work, but the fitful, unsteady glare of the flames was not sufficient to enable me to accomplish any fine or delicate work.

I had often thought of making an artificial light of some sort and had tried torches of birch bark, resinous sticks, and other devices, but none of these was satisfactory. The bark burned brightly and cast a fine light, but it flared wildly, sputtered, crackled, and soon burned out, while the pine knots made the interior of the cabin unbearable with their dense smoke.

Then it occurred to me that I might make tallow candles, for I had an abundance of fine bear’s grease and deer’s fat stored away, and this, I judged, would serve as well as mutton tallow. For wicks I decided to use strips torn from the remnants of my civilized clothes, and, having conceived the idea, I immediately proceeded to put it into execution. I knew that I would have to melt the fat and cast it in molds to form the candles, but I had now learned to make use of the resources at my command, and birch bark at once came to mind as suitable for making the molds. By rolling strips of the bark around a smooth stick, wrapping them with sinew, and then withdrawing the cylinders from the stick I formed the molds, but at my first attempt I found the melted grease ran out between the edges of the bark and from beneath the bottom of the molds as fast as I poured it in.

For a time I was greatly puzzled to devise a method of sealing up the cylinders, and then a happy idea occurred to me, and stepping to the door I dug a quantity of snow and packed it solidly in a corner of the hut away from the fire. Slipping one of the birch-bark molds over the stick, I pushed both down into the cake of snow, and then, withdrawing the stick, left the cylinder of bark remaining in the snow. By means of a small, slender stick I pushed one end of a narrow strip of cotton into the snow at the bottom of the mold, and poured in the melted tallow. Although the hot grease melted the surrounding snow somewhat, yet little escaped from the mold, and as soon as it commenced to thicken I moved the wick to the center of the mass of grease and held it in position until the tallow hardened. I could hardly wait until the tallow was fully hard before withdrawing the mold from the snow to examine the result of the experiment. By pushing on the lower end of the tallow with the stick about which I had formed the mold I slipped the rude candle from the bark, set it upright on the table, and touched a blazing stick to the wick. Instantly it burst into flame and burned brightly, casting a steady light about the room. I was immensely pleased, for with half a dozen such lights I could see to work despite the darkness outside. My joy was short-lived, however, for the wick burned rapidly, curled over to one side, flared and smoked, and melted the candle away.

Evidently something was wrong, some small detail had been overlooked, and, casting the remnants of my first candle into the can of melted grease, I sat down to try and reason it out. Soon it came to my mind that all the candle-wicks I had ever seen were twisted or braided. I thought that with a braided wick my candles might succeed, and, tearing a strip of cloth into narrow ribbons, I braided it tightly. But I soon found the result would be far too coarse for a wick, and again I was at a loss. Not for a long time did I hit upon the plan of unraveling cloth and braiding the yarns together to produce the compact, firm cord which I desired. When at last this was accomplished and another candle was cast, with the braided wick, it proved a great success and thereafter I never wanted for light. But it was slow work making the birch-bark molds and casting the candles in them, and I sought for some easier and more rapid means of making them, and kept my eyes open for something better than the birch-bark cylinders for molds. It was some time before I thought of anything better, but finally I remembered that as a boy I had often made willow whistles and had slipped the cylinders of bark from the branches without splitting them. I had noticed willows near the outlet to the lake and soon I gathered a number of smooth, straight branches free from knots or sprouts. At first the bark refused to budge, for the wood was frozen, and, moreover, no sap was flowing through the bark, but I discovered that by steaming the branches or by soaking them in boiling water the bark stripped easily from the twigs, and thereafter I had little difficulty in casting my candles rapidly and easily, without wasting tallow or requiring the snow about the molds.

Oddly enough, my candle-making led me to two other most important discoveries, one of which was soap, the other a method of removing the hair or fur from hides without waiting for them to decompose.

I discovered how to make soap quite by accident. While working at my candles I upset a quantity of grease on the hearth, and this, running down into a hollow at one side, formed quite a pool, which remained liquid, owing to the warmth of the fire. In order to cool it so I could scrape it up, I poured water upon it, but when I tried to remove it I discovered that it was full of wood-ashes and was soft, slippery, and stringy. Deciding that it was not worth bothering about, I abandoned the idea of recovering it, and proceeded to wash my hands. Much to my surprise, the water bubbled and frothed and my hands became cleaner than they had been for months. Then, all at once, it dawned upon me that I had made soap—crude, greasy, imperfect soap, to be sure, but still soap which possessed wonderful cleansing properties.

Any school-boy should have known that wood-ashes contained potash and that potash or lye and water would transform fat to soap, but during all my life in the woods it had never once occurred to me.

Now, however, I lost no more time. By soaking fine wood-ashes in water and then boiling this with grease I soon succeeded in producing soft soap which served my purposes exceedingly well.

It was a great comfort to be able to wash myself thoroughly, although the free potash in the soap stung and burnt my skin.

But of far greater importance to me than the soap itself was the fact that in making it I learned how to remove the hair or fur from hides both rapidly and easily. The first batch of soap which I made was prepared with deer’s tallow, but I could ill afford to use this material for such a purpose. I carefully gathered together all the fat which I could obtain from the hares, partridges, and other game which I secured. In addition I saved all the remnants of meat from my meals, as well as the bones, all of which I boiled together with the lye-water. Among the other odds and ends were small pieces of skin, such as the feet of the hares, etc., and after the mass had boiled thoroughly I strained off the clear, liquid soap. While doing this I discovered that every sign of hair had been removed from the pieces of skin and this fact led me to experiment, and I soon found that by soaking hides in a mixture of water and wood-ashes I could remove all the hair or fur without injuring the skin in the least. Moreover, the action of the potash removed the grease from the skin and left it clean and I was thus saved the tedious process of scraping the hides with my knife. Of course the first few trials of this method were something of a failure, for the lye was too strong and the skins were weak, rotten, and worthless, but by gradually decreasing the quantity of ashes and the length of time the skins were allowed to soak I found that the hair could be loosened so it was easily rubbed off without affecting the toughness of the skin itself.

Now that I had learned how to remove the hair from the skins, I was anxious to devise a method of tanning them without cutting them up as I had been obliged to do hitherto. My only means of tanning was to soak the pieces of hide in the iron pot. But the pot was small and it was needed for many other purposes. I could not use it while the skins were soaking, and I was obliged to cleanse it most carefully after the tanning, yet there was no other receptacle which would serve and I had no means of making any. I had already thought of hollowing out a log to form a trough, but after several hours’ work which resulted only in a cavity hardly large enough to tan a chipmunk’s skin, I gave up in despair.

Birch bark seemed to offer the only solution, but I found that pieces of bark of sufficient size for my purpose were always full of holes and cracks. I pondered over the matter for a long time before I thought of making a vat, or tank, after the manner of a birch-bark canoe. I had often used Indian canoes and knew, in a general way, how the pieces of bark were sewed together and rendered water-tight by means of pitch and gum. While I had too little confidence in my skill to attempt building a canoe, yet I decided it was quite possible to follow out similar methods and make a good-sized tank or basin.

My first step was to construct an oval frame about three feet in length by a foot and a half wide, which I formed from light birch withes. To this I lashed other withes, in the manner of the ribs to a canoe, and then by weaving small branches in and out and lashing them to the ribs I at last produced a sort of basket-like affair without any square corners or straight lines. This form was not intentional on my part, but was the result of necessity. As this turned out, it was fortunate, for I ultimately discovered that to make a good, tight joint at a sharp corner or a right angle was exceedingly difficult. The framework being completed, I placed it upon a large sheet of bark and by dint of a great deal of work and many trials I drew the bark tightly over the frame and secured it firmly to the edges with strips of moosewood bark and hemlock roots. Other kinds of bark were then secured over the frame until the whole was covered, and then came the most difficult work of all, which was to sew the overlapping edges of the various pieces of bark together. Despite every care, I found that holes made by my file-awl would tear out when I drew the root-threads tight, and it was not until I hit upon the plan of burning holes through the bark with the hot awl that I met with any success.

But practice makes perfect, even when one labors with primitive tools in the heart of the wilderness, and before I had half finished with my work I learned to bore holes with a deer’s-horn awl and to run the roots at an angle, or crisscross, from hole to hole, so that the strain did not come with the grain of the bark. It was slow, tedious work even then, however, and several days’ steady labor was required before the last seam was closed.

Rude and uncouth as was this great, bathtub-like affair, I was greatly pleased at my handiwork and I was in a great hurry to patch up the seams and holes with pitch and to try it.

There was an abundance of pitch and gum to be had with little trouble, and I gathered a great quantity of it. This I melted and smeared over the seams of the bark, and when at last I had daubed every crack, seam, and knot-hole with the sticky mess I felt that I had successfully accomplished a great undertaking.

The birch-bark tub held water, only leaking slightly in a few spots, which were readily closed up by daubing on more pitch, and I at once started in to prepare enough tanning liquor to fill it. Then I almost undid all my hard work by my own stupidity, for as soon as the first potful of liquor was ready I poured it into the bark tub and the hot liquor softened the pitch and the tan ran out over the floor.

Fortunately it opened up only one seam, and this I soon repaired, but it served to teach me a lesson, and thereafter I cooled each lot of liquor by placing it outside in the intensely cold air before pouring it into the vat.

It must not be supposed that all this was accomplished in a day or in several days. I was obliged to attend to my traps, hunt for game, cook my meals, cut and gather fire-wood, and do many other necessary things meanwhile, and, moreover, I found that a great deal of time was required to gather the oak and sumach bark. As I could only boil a small quantity of bark at one time and as I was obliged to use my pot for other purposes betweentimes, the work progressed very slowly, and fully two weeks elapsed from the time I finished the birch-bark tub until I had filled it with sufficient liquor to tan a large skin.

Long before the tub was quarter-full I commenced to make use of it, however, and after removing the fur from the skins, by means of wood-ashes and water, I had placed several hares’ hides in it. The result was all I expected, and while the thin, papery rabbit-skins had little strength, yet I was greatly elated at being able to remove the hair and make leather. My intention was to attempt tanning the deer’s hide as soon as I had accumulated enough liquor to cover it. Since I really had no need of a second fur robe, the bear’s skin serving all my purposes, I determined to try to remove the hair from the deer-skin.

To be sure, I had no second receptacle in which to soak the hide in wood-ashes and water, but by stringing up the hide by its four corners and filling it with water I softened it, and then, turning it over, I filled the hair side with the potash solution. I was in some doubt about the success of this experiment. I watched the skin with great care and frequently tested the hair. At last I was rewarded by finding that it came away readily. As soon as this happened I drained off the solution, scraped and rubbed off the hair, and placed the hide in the tanning liquor.

Each day I turned and soused it about and gradually it assumed the texture and appearance of leather. When at last it was drawn out, drained and worked and rubbed until dry, I possessed a fine, large piece of excellent buckskin which I knew would make splendid moccasins and strong, durable garments for use in the spring, when my furs would have to be discarded and I started on my journey to the settlements.

My success was so great that I longed to tan the bear-skin with the fur upon it, for it was a stiff, ungainly thing in its plain dried state, but I could not spare it while cold weather lasted, and I was compelled to continue using it as it was.

Now that I had the means of making leather, I was most anxious to secure hides to tan, and I made long trips into the woods, searching for larger game than hares and partridges. But either the larger creatures had migrated to some part of the country where there was less snow, or else they had seldom been in the vicinity, for, despite every effort, I found few signs of their presence and secured still less. Only twice did I see where deer had passed, and one raccoon, a fox, and two martens were the sole results of all my hunts, aside from the hares and partridges which I had little difficulty in obtaining.

At first I was greatly puzzled by this scarcity of big game, for I was in a wilderness where deer, moose, bear, and even caribou might be found, but after giving the matter due thought I came to the conclusion that it was, no doubt, due to the proximity of the deserted settlement I had found.

Ever since I had first devised my simple calendar I had kept account of the days, weeks, and months, and now I knew that the worst of the winter was past. With each day spring was approaching, and before many months were over I would be on my way toward civilization and my life in the wilderness would be a thing of the past.

With the thought I was filled with pride and happiness to think that I had overcome all obstacles which had arisen, that the long winter—which I had so greatly dreaded—was nearly over, that, after all, it had not been such a terrible experience, and that I had managed to live in comparative comfort and in plenty by my unaided efforts.

Strange as it may seem, I really felt rather sorry at the thought of leaving the cabin where I had lived so long, for I had become so accustomed to it that it seemed quite like home, and the woods about, the friendly jays, the twittering redpolls, and gray-clad chickadees, and even the dainty little wild mouse that crept forth from its hiding-place to share my meals, all seemed like old friends. Even without my calendar I should have known that the backbone of winter was broken, for each morning, when I stepped forth, the rays of sunlight were brighter, the sky held a softer, warmer hue, at midday the snow upon the cabin roof melted and trickled down in little streams that turned to great icicles at night, and the snow was covered with a crust each morning.

Slowly, imperceptibly, the height of the drifted snow about the hut decreased, the roof and walls rose above the surrounding surface of white, and stumps and bushes long hidden from view jutted upward through the snow.

Great cracks spread across the vast, white plain that marked the lake; a few days later broad, black spaces spoke of open water, and when, one morning, I heard the honk of geese, and, looking up, saw a great, V-shaped flock of black specks winging swiftly toward the lake, I knew that spring was near at hand.