Part 5

Go bumpin’ on the bottom when she made her downward reel.

But the more she blew and blew,

Old Jason cheered his crew,

--His whiskers whipping snappin’ as the wind went screamin’ through.

So we hung to brace and riggin’ and we let her roar and roll,

While each man pinned to Ellison the safety of his soul.

Then at last we knew’twas night-time by the thick’nin’ overhead,

And Jason licked his taster and he yelled: “Now throw the lead!”

An’ we--we blinked to watch him from the darkness where we clung,

And waited for the verdict, of that long and peak-ed tongue.

He tasted--then he waited, and he smacked his lips a spell,

He tasted--tasted--tasted, then he gave an awful yell:

“My God, ye critters, pray!”

--He slung the lead away,--

And howled: “The world is endin’! It’s the final Judgment Day!

That plummet, there, has brought us up a hand- ful of the loam

From the Widder Abbott’s garden on the Neck ro’d, back at home.

A tidal wave has lifted us--the Hanks has run away!

--It has tossed’er over Glo’ster,

And we sartin sure have lost’er,

’Less ye pray, ye sin-struck critters,’less ye pray, pray, pray!”

Each clung to rope and stanchion, each hung to stay and brace,

Each prayed up at the heavens while the spin- drift lashed his face;

We prayed and prayed till mornin’

Till the early, yaller dawnin’

Lit up the sea around us, and it also lit our case;

Then we found an explanation Of the sing’lar situation

That was figgered in the darkness of the night by Uncle Jase.

For we noticed there was settin’ up against the le’ward rail

Some lavender and other yarbs, a-growin’ in a pail.

--They’d been brought aboard by Jase Who had worn a meechin’ face,

For his sparkin’ of the widder was the gossip of the place.

He knowed a flower-garden looked peecooliar on the Hanks,

But he wanted some momentum of the widder on the Banks.

Now, the plummet bein’ handled in the dark- ness of that night

Somehow cuffed that dirt in passin’--as ye might say, took a bite.

And Jason knew the flavor of that scrimp of garden loam,

--There wa’n’t a soil to fool him’twixt Quero Shoal and home.

By the flavor and the feel He could tell us off the reel,

The name of any bottom that was underneath our keel.

He was only once mistaken in the memory of men,

And his crew will keep insistin’ that he wa’n’t mistaken then.

BALLADS OF DRIVE AND CAMP

THE RAPO-GENUS CHRISTMAS BALL

There had been no social doings since the drive had passed the flume,

And the section from Seboomook to the Chutes was rather blue;

So the folks at Rapo-genus, where there’s rum enough and room,

Arranged a Christmas function and invited Murphy’s crew.

The folks at Rapo-genus hired Ezra Hewson’s hall,

And posted up the notice for “Our Yearly Christmas Ball.”

Now Murphy’s crew was willing and they walked the fifteen miles,

And arrived at Rapo-genus wearing most be- nignant smiles.

The genial floor director waited near the outer door,

And pleasantly suggested they remove the boots they wore.

He said that Rapo-genus wished to make of this affair

An elegant occasion, “reshershay and day- bonair;”

So it seemed the town’s opinion, after many long disputes,

That’twas time to change the custom and ex- clude the spike-sole boots.

He owned’twas rather drastic and would cause a social jar

’Twixt Upper Ambejejus and the Twin Deps- connequah,

“But ’tis settled,” so he told them, “that nary lady likes

To do these fancy dances with a gent what’s wearin’ spikes.

So I asks ye very kindly, but I asks ye one and all,

To leave your brogan calkers on the outside of this hall.”

“This ’ere is sort o’ sudden,” said the boss of Murphy’s crew,

“Jest excuse us for a minute, but we don’t know what to do.

We’ve attended social functions at the Upper Churchill Chutes,

An’ the smartest set they had there was a-wearin’ spike-sole boots.

Excuse us for the mention, but we feel com- pelled to say,

’Tisn’t fair to shift a fashion all a sudden, this ’ere way;

An’ the local delegation, when it came with the in-vite,

Omitted partunt leathers in its mention of to- night.

So I guess ye’ll have to take us with these spikes upon our soles,

We can’t appear in stockin’s,’cause the most of us have holes.”

But the genial floor director guarded still the outer door

And declared that “gents with spikers weren’t allowed upon the floor.”

He said’twas very awkward that special guests should thus

Be kept in outer darkness, and he didn’t want a fuss.

But so long as Rapogenusites had issued their decree

He hadn’t any option, “as a gent with sense could see.”

So he passed his ultimatum, “Ye must shed them spike-sole boots!

For we hain’t the sort of humstrums that ye’ll find at Churchill Chutes.”

Then up spoke Smoky Finnegan, the boss of Murphy’s crew,

Said he, “The push at Churchill sha’n’t be slurred by such as you.

We’re gents that’s very gentle an’ we never make a fuss,

But in slurrin’ folks at Churchill ye are also slurrin’ us.

We have interduced the fashions up at Church- ill quite a while,

An’ no Rapo-genus half-breeds have the right to trig our style.

If ye’ve dropped the vogue of spikers at the present Christmas ball

We will start the fashion over, good and solid, that is all!

So, mister, please excuse us, but ye’ll open up your sluice,

Or God have mercy on ye if I turn these gents here loose!”

Then the genial floor director shouted back within the room,

“Ho, men of Rapo-genus, here is trouble at the boom!”

But even as he shouted, with a rush and crush and roar,

Like a bursting jam of timber Murphy’s angels stormed the door.

Then against them rose the sawyers of the Rapo-genus mill,

Who rallied for the conflict with a most in- trepid will,

But by new decree of fashion they were wear- ing boughten suits

And even all the boomsmen had put off their spike-sole boots.

So that gallant crew of Murphy’s simply trod upon their feet,

And backward, howling, cursing, they com- pelled them to retreat.

The air was full of slivers as the spikers chewed the floor,

And the man whose feet were punctured didn’t battle any more.

“Now, fellers, boom the outfit,” shouted Fin- negan, the boss,

His choppers formed a cordon and they swept the room across;

The people who were standing at the walls in double ranks,

Were pulled and thrown to center at the order, “Clear the banks!”

Then they herded Rapo-genus in the middle of the room,

And slung themselves around it like a human pocket-boom.

All the matrons and the maidens were as frightened as could be

When Finnegan commanded, “Now collect the boomage fee!”

At a corner of the cordon they arranged a sort- ing-gap

And one by one the women were escorted from the trap,

And without a word of protest, as they drifted slowly through,

They paid their tolls in kisses to the men of Murphy’s crew.

And at last when all the women had been sorted from the crowd,

The men were “second-raters,” so the boss of Murphy’s vowed.

“We will raft them down as pulp-stuff!” and he yelled to close about,

“Now, my hearties, start the windlass,” or- dered he, “we’ll warp ’em out!”

Through the doorway, down the stairway, grim and struggling, thronged the press,

--All the brawn of Rapo-genus fighting hard without success,

They were herded down the middle of the Rapo-genus street,

--If they tried to buck the center they were bradded on the feet;

They were yarded at the river; Murphy’s pea- vies smashed the ice,

Though the men of Rapo-genus couldn’t smash that human vise

That held them, jammed them, forced them! When the water touched their toes,

Then at last they fought like demons for to save their boughten clothes.

But as fierce were Murphy’s hearties, and their spikers helped them win,

For they kicked and spurred their victims and they dragged them shrieking in.

Then with water to their shoulders there they kept them in the wet

While they gave them points on breeding and the rules of etiquette.

And at midnight’twas decided by a universal vote

That the strict demands of fashion do not call for vest or coat;

That’twixt Upper Ambejejus and the Twin Depsconnequah

BALLADS OF DRIVE AND CAMP

Shirts of red and checkered flannel are the smartest form, by far.

And that gents may chew tobacco was declared in all ways fit

If they only use discretion as to when and where they spit.

And above all future cavil, sneer or jeer or vain disputes,

High was set this social edict: “Gents may

wear their spike-sole boots.”

Then the men of Rapo-genus and the men of Murphy’s crew

They dissolved their joint convention--they were near dissolving, too!

And to counteract the action of the water on the skin

They applied some balmy lotion to the proper parts within.

Then they danced till ruddy morning, and their drying garments steamed,

And awful was the shrinkage of those seven- dollar suits!

And the feet of Murphy’s woodsmen gashed and slashed and clashed and seamed,

Till a steady rain of slivers rained behind those bradded boots.

--And all disputes of etiquette were buried once for all,

At that Christmas social function, the Rapo- genus Ball.

WHEN THE ALLEGASH DRIVE GOES THROUGH

We’re spurred with the spikes in our soles;

There is water a-swash in our boots;

Our hands are hard-calloused by peavies and poles,

And we’re drenched with the spume of the chutes.

We gather our herds at the head

Where the axes have toppled them loose,

And down from the hills where the rivers are fed

We harry the hemlock and spruce.

We hurroop them with the peavies from their sullen beds of snow;

With the pickpole for a goadstick, down the brimming streams we go;

They are hitching, they are halting, and they lurk and hide and dodge,

They sneak for skulking eddies, they bunt the bank and lodge.

And we almost can imagine that they hear the yell of saws

And the grunting of the grinders of the paper- mills because

They loiter in the shallows and they cob-pile at the falls,

And they buck like ugly cattle where the broad deadwater crawls.

But we wallow in and welt ’em with the water to our waist,

For the driving pitch is dropping and the Drouth is gasping “Haste!”

Here a dam and there a jam, that is grabbed by grinning rocks,

Gnawed by the teeth of the ravening ledge that slavers at our flocks;

Twenty a month for daring Death; for fighting from dawn to dark--

Twenty and grub and a place to sleep in God’s great public park;

We roofless go, with the cook’s bateau to fol- low our hungry crew--

A billion of spruce and hell turned loose when the Allegash drive goes through.

My lad with the spurs at his heel Has a cattle-ranch bronco to bust;

A thousand of Texans to wheedle and wheel To market through smother and dust.

But I with the peavy and pole

Am driving the herds of the pine,

Grant to my brother what suits his soul,

But no bellowing brutes in mine.

He would wince to wade and wallow--and I hate a horse or steer!

But we stand the kings of herders--he for There and I for Here.

Though he rides with Death behind him when he rounds the wild stampede,

I will chop the jamming king-log and I’ll match him, deed for deed.

And for me the greenwood savor and the lash across my face

Of the spitting spume that belches from the back-wash of the race;

The glory of the tumult where the tumbling torrent rolls

With a half a hundred drivers riding through with lunging poles.

Here’s huzza for reckless chances! Here’s hurrah for those who ride

Through the jaws of boiling sluices, yeasty white from side to side!

Our brawny fists are calloused and we’re mostly holes and hair,

But if grit were golden bullion we’d have coin to spend, and spare!

Here some rips and there the lips of a whirl- pool’s bellowing mouth,

Death we clinch and Time we fight, for be- hind us gasps the Drouth.

Twenty a month, bateau for a home, and only a peep at town,

For our money is gone in a brace of nights after the drive is down;

But with peavies and poles and care-free souls our ragged and roofless crew

Swarms gayly along with whoop and song when the Allegash drive does through.

THE KNIGHT OF THE SPIKE-SOLE BOOTS

They had told me to’ware of the “Hulling Machine,”

But a tenderfoot is a fool!

Though the man that’s new to a birch canoe Believes that he knows, as a rule.

They had told me to carry a mile above Where the broad deadwater slips

Into fret and shoal to tumble and roll In the welter of Schoodic rips;

But knowing it all, as a green man does,

And lazy, as green men are,

I hated to pack on my aching back My duffle and gear so far.

So, as down the rapids there stretched a strip With a most encouraging sheen,

I settled the blade of my paddle and made

For the head of the “Hulling Machine.”

It wasn’t because I hadn’t been warned That I rode full tilt at Death--

It was simply the plan of an indolent man To save his back and his breath.

For I reckoned I’d slice for the left-hand shore When the roar of the falls drew near,

And I braced my knees and took my ease-- There was nothing to do but steer.

(_There are many savage cataracts, slavering for prey,

’Twixt Abol-jackamcgus and the lower Brass- u-a,

But of all the yowling demons that are wicked and accurst,

The demon of the Hulling Place is ugliest and worst._)

Now the strip in that river like burnished steel Looked comfortable and slow,

But my birch canoe went shooting through Like an arrow out of a bow.

And the way was hedged by ledges that grinned

As they shredded the yeasty tide And hissed and laughed at my racing craft As it drove on its headlong ride.

I sagged on the paddle and drove it deep,

But it snapped like a pudding-stick,

Then I staked my soul on my steel-shod pole, And the pole smashed just as quick. There was nothing to do but to clutch the thwarts

And crouch in that birchen shell,

And grit my teeth as I viewed beneath The boil of that watery hell.

I may have cursed--I don’t know now--

I may have prayed or wept,

But I yelled halloo to Connor’s crew As past their camp I swept.

I yelled halloo and I waved adieu

With a braggart’s shamming mien,

Then over the edge of the foaming ledge I dropped in the “Hulling Machine.”

(_A driver hates a coward as he hates diluted rye;

Stiff upper-lip for living, stiff backbone when you die!

They cheered me whcn I passed them; they followed me with cheers,

That, as bracers for a dying man, are better far than tears._)

The “Hulling Place” spits a spin of spume Steaming from brink to brink,

And it seemed that my soul was cuffed in a bowl

Where a giant was mixing his drink.

And ’twas only by luck or freak or fate,

Or because I’m reserved to be hung,

That I found myself on a boulder shelf

Where I flattened and gasped and clung. To left the devilment roared and boiled,

To right it boiled and roared;

On either side the furious tide Denied all hope of ford.

So I clutched at the face of the dripping ledge And crouched from the lashing rain, While the thunderous sound of the tumult ground

Its iron into my brain.

I stared at the sun as he blinked above Through whorls of the rolling mists,

And I said good-by and prepared to die As the current wrenched my wrists.

But just as I loosened my dragging clutch,

Out of the spume and fogs A chap drove through--one o’ Connor’s crew-- Riding two hemlock logs.

He was holding his pick-pole couched at Death As though it were lance in rest,

And his spike-sole boots, as firm as roots,

In the splintered bark were pressed.

If this be sacrilege, pardon me, pray;

But a robe such as angels wear Seemed his old red shirt with its smears of dirt, And a halo his mop of hair;

And never a knight in a tournament Rode lists with a jauntier mien Than he of the drive who came alive

Through the hell of the “Hulling Ma- chine.”

He dragged me aboard with a giant swing, And he guided the rushing raft Serenely cool to the foam-flecked pool

Where the dimpling shallows laughed. And he drawled as he poled to the nearest shore,

While I stuttered my gratitude:

“I jest came through to show that crew I’m a match for a sportsman dude.”

There are only two who have raced those falls And by lucky chance were spared:

Myself dragged there in a fool’s despair And he, the man who dared!

I make no boast, as you’ll understand,

And there’s never a boast from him;

And even his name is lost to fame--

I simply know’twas “Jim.”

If Jim was a fool, as I hear you say With a sneer beneath your breath,

So were knights of old who in tourneys bold Lunged blithesomely down at Death.

And if I who was snatched from the jaws of hell

Am to name a knight to you,

Here’s the Knight of the Firs, of the Spike- S’ole Spurs,

That man from Connor’s crew!

’BOARD FOR THE ALLEGASH”

A hundred miles through the wilds of Maine You soon may ride on a railroad train.

Some Yankee hustlers have planned the scheme To take the place of the tote-road team.

They have the charter, the grit and cash To stretch their tracks to the Allegash.

Along the length of the forest route The woodland creatures will hear the hoot Of the bullgine’s whistle, where up to now The big bull moose has called his cow.

And old Katahdin’s long fin-back Will echo loud with the clickity-clack Of wheels that merrily clatter and clash Through the sylvan wastes toward the Allegash.

Sing hey! for the route to Churchill Lake,

But oh, for the chap who twists the brake.

His buckskin gloves will save the wear On his good stout palms, you know, but where Will he find relief when his throat is lame With the wrench of a yard-long Indian name? ’Tis something, friend, of a lingual trick To say “Seboois” and “Wassataquoick,”

“Lunksoos,” is tame and “Nesourdneheunk,” But what do you say to a verbal chunk To chew at once of the size of this:

“Pok-um-kes-wango-mok-kessis”?

I don’t believe’twould phase a man To bellow out “Lah-kah-hegan His windpipe scarcely would get a crook By spouting forth, “Pong-kwahemook,”

And even “Pata-quon-gamis”

Is easy. But just look at this:

Ah, where is he who wouldn’t run From “Ap-mo-jenen-ma-ganun”?

E’en “Umbazookskus” scratches some,

But doesn’t this just strike you dumb?

“Nahma-juns-kwon-ahgamoc”?

Just think of having that to sock Athwart the palpitating air Straight at a frightened passengaire.

Hot bearings can be swabbed with oil,

And busted culverts yield to toil,

One can replace a broken rail But larynxes are not on sale.

So, while it’s hey for Churchill Lake It’s oh, for the chap who twists the brake.

THE WANGAN CAMP

_The wangan camp! *

The wangan camp!

Did ye ever go a-shoppin’ in the wangan camp?_

You can get some plug tobacker or a lovely corn-cob pipe,

* _The wangan is the woods store that most of the Maine lumber camps maintain._

Or a pair o’ fuzzy trowsers that was picked before they’s ripe.

They fit ye like your body had a dreadful lookin’ twist;

There is shirts that’s red and yaller and with plaids as big’s your fist;

There are larrigans and shoe-packs for all makes and shapes of men,

As yaller as the standers of a Cochin China hen,

The goods is rather shop-worn and purraps a leetle damp,

--But you take ’em or you leave ’em--either suits the wangan camp.

_The wangan camp!

The wangan camp!