Part 5

warn’t no wind, you know!

Yas, sir, spite of all that churnin’, warn’t a whis-

per of a breeze

--No excuse for all that upset and those strange

and dretful seas.

Couldn’t spy a thing around us--every way

’twas pitchy black,

And I couldn’t seem to comfort them poor crit-

ters on my back.

Couldn’t give ’em information, for ’twas dark’s

a cellar shelf;

--Couldn’t tell ’em nothing ’bout it--for I

didn’t know myself.

So I gripped the “Johnson’s” tiller, kept the

rudder riggin’ taut,

Kept a-praying, chawed tobacker, give her steam,

and let her swat.

Now, my friend, jest listen stiddy: when the sun

come out at four,

We warn’t tossin’ in the breakers off no stern

and rockbound shore;

But I’d missed the gol-durned river, and I swow

this ’ere is true,

I had sailed eight miles ’cross country in a heavy

autumn dew.

There I was clear up in Sidney, and the tossings

and the rolls

Simply happened ’cause we tackled sev’ral miles

of cradle knolls.

Sun come out and dried the dew up; there she

was a stranded wreck,

And they soaked me eighteen dollars’ cartage to

the Kennebec.

DRIVE, CAMP, AND WANGAN

THE LAW ’GAINST SPIKE-SOLE BOOTS

It’s a case of scuff in your stocking-feet, from

Seboomook down, my hearties;

Sling your spikers around your neck and swear

your way to town.

The dudes that we sent to legislate, and figger

at balls and parties,

Haye tinkered the laws to suit themselves, and

they’ve done us good and brown.

There’s a howl, you bet, from the Medway dam

across to the Caucmogummac,

For the laws came up in the tote-team mail, and

we’ve got the new statoots,

And of all the things that was ever planned to

give us a gripe in the stomach,

The worst is the corker that t’runs us down for

a-wearin’ our old calked boots.

You can’t chank on to a hotel floor,

You’ve got to leave calked boots at the door.

They make ye peel your hucks in the street

And walk to the bar in your stocking-feet.

It’s a blank of a note that a man with chink

Can’t prance to the rail and get his drink,

But it’s five and costs if ye mar the paint,

And ten if the feller that makes complaint

Gets mad at a playful push in the eyes

And goes into court with a lot of lies.

It’s ten if ye sliver a steam-bo’t’s deck

--There ain’t no argue--it’s right in the neck.

And they soak you, too, on the railroad train;

--Why, there’s hardly a loggin’ crew in Maine

But what has claimed, as a nat’ral right,

A chance to holler and heller and fight,

And knock the stuffin’ out of the seats,

Rip off the blinds and club with the cleats.

But now if the bloomin’ brakeman talks,

And you vaccinate him once with calks;

If you feel like a man with a royal flush

And, jest for the joke of it, rip some plush,

Oh, they take that law and they peel you sore;

You pay for the damage, and ten plunks more.

’Tain’t much like the days when we had some

rights,

When we roosters sharpened our spurs in fights,

When never a crowd put up galoots

That could scrap with the fellers with spike-sole

boots.

It’s a case of step to the wangan camp, and buy

some partent leathers;

And go a-snoopin’ along to town like a dude on

his weddin’-trip;

And the only thing you can do to a guy is to tickle

his nose with feathers,

And curl in your seats in the smokin’-car when

a drummer gives you lip.

There was fun, by gee, in the good old days

when we whooped ’er into the city,

And you trailed our way by the slivers we left

from the railroad down to the dives,

And we owned the town where we left our cash;

and now it’s a thunderin’ pity

If all of a sudden you’ve grown too good for the

boys who are off the drives.

Oh, make the laws, go make the laws with your

derned old Legislature,

Jest give us orders to wear plug hats and come

down in full dress suits.

We’ll wear the togs; but give us spikes, or

you’ve busted the laws of nature,

For angels can just as well shed wings as a

driver his spike-sole boots.

THE CHAP THAT SWINGS THE AXE

Sing a song of paper; first the tall, straight

spruce,

Torn from off the mountains for the roaring

presses’ use.

--A shrieking laceration by the “barker” and

the saw;

A slow, grim maceration in the grinder’s grum-

bling maw;

A dizzy dash through calenders and over whir-

ring rolls,

--And the press can smut the paper so to save

or damn your souls;

The press has got the paper, it can give you lies

or facts

--That vexes not the fellow up in Maine who

swings the axe.

Chock!

Chock!

Chock!

The throb stuttered up from the heart of the

wood,

Erratic and faint, yet the trees understood,

--Though distant and dull like the tick of a

clock

It started a tremor through all the great flock.

King Spruce was a-shiver and rooted with dread,

While past him to safety the wood people fled;

The fox with his muzzle turned backward to

snuff

The bear trundling on like an animate muff,

And rabbits up-ending in wonder and fright,

Then scudding once more with the others in

flight.

Yet that which has reason most urgent to flee

Stands grim in the rout of the panic--the

Tree!

While up the long slope, glaring red ’gainst the

snow,--

His shirt of the hue of the butcher,--the foe,

Beating fierce at the trunks with relentless

attacks,

Comes on to the slaughter, the Man with the Axe.

Chock!

Chock!

Chock!

Shudder and totter and shiver and rock!

--Pygmy assailing with dull steady knock.

Trunk yawning wide with a hideous gash.

Snow-covered limbs thrown a-sprawl; and

then crash!

The pens and the presses are waiting, and eyes

That will glow with delight, or dilate with sur-

prise.

For there in the heart of the spruce there is

rolled

The fabric for thousands of stories untold.

And on the white paper may later be spread

The fall of a nation, or fame of one dead

Who now strides abroad in his health and suc-

cess,

But will pass to the tomb when that log meets

the press.

There under the bark of that spruce there is

furled

A web that will carry the news of a world,

That clamors and crowds at the swaying red

backs

Of the toilers of Maine, the rough men of the

axe.

THE SONG OF THE WOODS’ DOG-WATCH

’Tis the weirdly witching hour of the woods’

“dog-watch,”

When the guide suspends the kettle in the ash

limb’s crotch,

Stirs the drowsy, drowsy embers till the cozy

fire beams

And flickers dance like gnomes and elves athwart

the glowing dreams

Of the sleeping town-bred fisher who is stretched

with placid soul

On the earth in sweeter slumber than his town

couch can cajole.

Ah, ’tis tough on bone and muscle, is this chas-

ing after fun--

And a sleeper gets to sleeping forty knots along

’bout one.

But the guide is up a-stirring--monstrous shape

with flaring torch,

Prodding up the dozing fire for the woods’ “dog-

watch.”

And the slow unclosing eyelids of the startled

dreamer see

This dreadful apparition thrown in shadows on a

tree.

And his heart for just a second goes to skirrup-

ing about

As it flopped when he was wrestling with that

five-three-quarter trout.

But the ogre leaves the shadows, leans against

a handy tree

And remarks: “The water’s bilin’; won’t ye

have a cup o’ tea?”

And he wakes to a night of the fisherman’s

June,

--Afar the weird lilt of the dolorous loon

Floats up from the heart of the fair, velvet

night--

A globule of sound winging slow in its flight.

As elfin a note as a gnome ever blew,

It wells from the waters, “Ah-loo-hoo-ah-hoo-

o-o-o.”

O spell of the forest! O glimmer and gleam

From the sheen of the lake and the mist-breath-

ing stream!

The night and the stars and the dolorous loon

Make mystic the spell of the fisherman’s June.

The spruces sing the lyric of the wood’s dog-

watch;

The kettle as it bubbles in the ash limb’s crotch,

The rustle of the spindles of the hemlock and

the pine,

The crackle where the licking tongues of ruddy

fire twine,

The oboe, in the distance, of the weird and lone-

some loon,

--This chorus sings the lyric of the blessed

month of June.

What June? Your June of meadows or your

June of scented breeze,

Or your June begirt with roses stretched in

hammock at her ease?

Such a deity for maidens! I can bow to no

such June!

I extol the mystic goddess of the Forest’s Silent

Noon.

--Noon of day or noon of night-time--in the

vast and silent deeps,

Where human care or human woe or human

envy sleeps,

Where rugged depths surround me, dim and

silent, deep and wide,

And no human shares my joy but that second

self, my guide.

--Here’s a June that one can worship. Here’s

a June by right a queen,

’Neath her hand eternal mountains, ’neath her

feet eternal green..

And here will I adore her, seeking out her

awful throne

With the Silence swimming round me, and

alone, thank God, alone!

FIDDLER CURED THE CAMP

Wal, things they was deader’n old Billy-be-darn,

The boss was pernickity, cook wouldn’t yam;

For we’d heard ev’ry story old Beans had to spin,

And we hadn’t no longin’s to hear ’em agin;

Old Pitts, the head chopper, we’d pumped him

out, too,

--And he swow’d that he’d sung ev’ry song

that he knew.

As the rest wasn’t gifted, a sort of a damp

Old glister of silence fell over Peel’s camp.

The deacon-seat doldrums were blacker’n old Zip,

We’d set there an hour with never a yip,

’Cept the suckin’ o’ lips at the quackin’ T.D.’s,

With the oof and the woo of the lonesome pine

trees

Wistling over our smok’-hole. It grew on us,

too;

Our thoughts got as thick an’ as musty an’ blue

As the cloud o’ tobacker smoke, mixed with the

steams

From the woolens that dried on the stringers

and beams.

Old Attegat Peter said we was bewitched;

He said that he seed the Old Gal when she

twitched

A fistful o’ hair out the gray hosses’ tail

For a-makin’ witch tattin’. She’d hung on a nail

The queerisome web, so he said, an’ the holes

--They were fifty--they stood for the whole

of our souls.

An’ there we would swing, an’ hang there we

must,

Till the hoodoo was busted. Eternally cussed,

So he said, was the buffle-brained feller that

dared

To touch the witch-web that was holding us

snared.

Aw, we didn’t believe it--‘tain’t like that we

did!

But still we warn’t fussy! If we could get

rid

Of the dumps by a charm, we was ready to try,

And Peter said singin’ would knock ’em sky

high.

Wal, Peter said “singin’;” I can’t tell a lie,

’Twarn’t singin’, ’twarn’t nothin’--that mourn-

ful ki-yi!

That seemed like a beller in ev’ry man’s boot,

An’ ’twarn’t none surprisin’ the witch didn’t

scoot.

So there did we set in a stew an’ a cloud,

A grumpy old, lumpy old dob of a crowd.

But oh, landsy sake a-Peter, when the fiddle come

to camp,

W’y you wouldn’t know the place:

--Wuz a grin on ev’ry face

W’en we know’d the critter’d got it. An’ it

reely seemed the lamp

Had a ’leetric light attachment; an’ you

oughter heard us stamp

When that feller took his fiddle out an’ rosined

up the bow.

Then he yawked an’ yeaked an’ yawked

’Twistin’ keys ontil she squawked,

An’ we set there jest a-gawpin’; not a word to

say, but, oh,

We was right on pins an’ needles fer to have

him let ’er go.

Tweedle-weedle, yeaky, yawky, ’nother twist,

an’ pretty soon

He was waitin’ to begin,

With ’er underneath his chin;

He a-askin’, all a-grinnin’, “Wall, boys, name

it; what’s your tune?”

An’ we hollered all in concert, “Whoop ’er up

on ‘Old Zip Coon’!”

Oh, the deacon-seat had cushions an’ the bunks

were stuffed with down,

While the feller sawed the strings;

We could feel our sproutin’ wings,

An’ we wanted to go soarin’, go a-sailin’, wear a

crown,

Tear the ground up, whoop-ta-ra-ra, mix some

red and paint the town.

Oh, he played the “Lights o’ London” an’ he

played “The Devil’s Dream,”

--All the old ones--played ’em all;

Rode right on ’er--made ’er squall;

Didn’t stop to semi-quiver, tip-toe Nancy, pass

the cream;

No; he let ’er go Jerooshy, clear the track an’

lots o’ steam.

Thought I’d never heerd such playin’ sence the

Lord had giv’ me breath

An’ that P. I.--seems as if

He could put the bang an’ biff

In the chitter of a cat-gut like to touch the very

peth

In yer marrow; like to raise yer from the very

jaws of death.

So, oh, landsy sake a-Peter, when that fiddle

come our way,

Say, you wouldn’t know the place,

--Wus a grin on ev’ry face.

--Went to workin’ like the blazes an’ our vittles

set--an’ say,

Guess the Hoodoo flew to thunder when the

Haw-Haw come to stay.

THE SONG OF THE SAW

The song is the shriek of the strong that are

slain,

--The monarchs that people the woodlands of

Maine;

--‘Tis the cry of a merciless war.

And it echoes by river, by lake, and by stream,

Wherever saws scream or the bright axes gleam,

--‘Tis keyed to the sibilant rush of the steam,

And the song is the song of the saw.

Come stand in the gloom of this clamorous

room,

Where giants groan past us a-drip from the

boom,

Borne here from the calm of the forest and hill,

--Aghast at the thunderous roar of the mill,

At rumble of pulley and grumble of shaft

And the tumult and din of the sawyer’s rude

craft.

Stand here in the ebb of the riotous blast,

As the saw’s mighty carriage goes thundering

past,

One man at the lever and one at the dog.

The slaughter is bloodless and senseless the

log,

Yet the anguish of death and the torment of

hell

Are quavering there in the long, awful yell,

That shrills above tumult of gearing and wheel

As the carriage rolls down and the timber meets

steel.

Scream! And a board is laid bare for a home.

Shriek! And a timber for mansion and dome,

For the walls of a palace, or toil’s homely use,

Is reft from the flanks of the prostrate King

Spruce.

And thus in the clamor of pulley and wheel,

In the plaint of the wood and the slash of the

steel,

Is wrought the undoing of Maine’s sturdy lords,

--The martyrs the woodlands yield up to our

swords.

The song is the knell of these strong that are

slain,

The monarchs that people the woodlands of

Maine.

And the Fury that whirls in the din of this

war,

With rioting teeth and insatiable maw, is the

saw!

And this is the song of the saw.

DOWN THE TRAIL WITH GUM PACKS

Ev’ry nugget clean and sound,

Red’s a jewel, smooth and round,

Worth a dollar’n ten a pound;

Here’s your gum, ye giddy girls,

Here’s your Maine spruce gum.

The chaps that went off with the Klondike

diggers

For gold--jest gold,

Have slumped in the snow, and they work like

niggers,

And they haven’t got rich, we’re told.

We’re snowshoeing down from the north of

Katahdin,

See here! Yum, yum!

Here’s a tole to tease Maud to come into the

garden

--These rich, rosy lumps o’ spruce gum.

Our fires are dowsed in the lonesome old camps,

We’ve left them to wolves and the foxes and

damps.

The trail of our snowshoes lies snakin’ behind,

For we’re clawing for home with the treasures

we’ve mined.

We’ve no sort of use for the pick and the sluice;

Our Klondike has been the straight trunks of

the spruce.

Let them that elect grub the dirt for a “gleam,”

Our ore is the gum and our lode is the seam

That doesn’t go sneaking in mire and clay,

But grins at the sun and drinks deep of broad day.

Go grope for your gold in the bowels of mud!

We’ll cleave our fresh nuggets of resinous blood

Forced out from the heart through the fibre and

vein

Of the giants who lurk in the woodlands of

Maine.

Just squint through this bubble and gaze at the

blaze:

That red is the fire of hot summer days;

That glimmer is autumn; that glow is the tint

That was lent by some campfire’s guttering glint.

And here is a globe like the eye of a cat,

And this one is amber like honey; and that

Is a tear rosy red with the anger and shame

Of a king glooming down as the axe-heavers

came;

--Staring down as around him his kin roared

to earth

Midst the oaths of the swampers and Labor’s

rude mirth.

That tear of the spruce, may it go to the pearls

Flashing bright ’neath the lips of some sweetest

of girls!

These, then, are the treasures we bring in our

packs,

--Each round, rosy globule as sweet as the

smacks

We’ll get from the kids when they swoop with

a roar

At dad just the second he opens the door.

Clear out your old scraps, Mr. Druggist: we

come

With a good hefty jag of the season’s new gum.

Ey’ry nugget clear and sound,

Red’s a jewel, smooth and round,

Worth a dollar’n ten a pound.

Here’s your gum, ye giddy girls,

Here’s your Maine spruce gum.

REAR O’ THE DRIVE

The rain has raised the river an’ she’s np to

driving pitch,

An’ it’s oh, an’ grab your peavies an’ go sloppin’

in the wet.

We’ve got ter send ’er whoopin’ now without a

ketch or hitch,

But it won’t be kid-glove bus’ness, oh, my

hearties, you can bet.

Empty the water out of your boots

And gaffle your peavies, you P.I. galoots.

There’s the rips at Rundy’s Corner, and the

sluice at Puzzle Gorge;

You can drive ’em and connive ’em, but the

timber’s bound to lodge.

An’ sticks will buck--with best of luck--as

offish-like as hogs,

For there ain’t no calkerlatin’ how you’ll run a

drive o’ logs.

Chase the heathen with a sword,

Run the cattle with a goad,

All we want’s our Oldtown peavies, when our

drives go overboard.

An’ we’ll foller, sloshin’ in,

Yes, we’ll waller to the chin,

An’ we’ll herd ’em through the wildest stream

that ever frothed and roared.

So, look alive,

It’s after five,

An’ the drouth is a-chasin’ the rear o’ the drive.

Foller down, foller down with your peavies on

your backs,

For the herd that runs ahead of us goes loafin’

’less it’s chased.

They know they’re off to market, an’ they dread

the saw an’ axe,

An’ you’ve got to go and welt ’em, though the

water’s to your waist,

For they balk on Depsconneagon when a sixty-

footer halts;

Ev’ry eddy stands a-ready for to swing ’em in a

waltz.

An’ ev’ry rock is chock-a-block with jack-strawed

pine an’ spruce,

Ontil you’ve got the devil’s job to try and turn

’em loose.

But our goadstick is the peavy, an’ our cant-dog

is the pup

That’ll worry ’em an’ hurry ’em an’ rush ’em,

chase ’em up.

Oh, the drouth is right behind us, but we’ve

passed the North Twin flume,

An’ we’ll beat the sun in heaven in the race for

Pea Cove boom.

MATIN SONG OF PETE LONG’S COOK

It’s dark in the camp, and the woods outside

Are dark, dark, too!

And a hundred men still open wide

Their loud bay-zoo.

It’s sort of mean to rout ’em jus’

To work once more;

I’d like to let each tired cuss

Jus’ lay and snore.

But I’ve been up for an hour or two

And grub’s all on;

And now as the cook of Pete Long’s crew

I toot my horn.

The weirdest of all wood-sounds, by the way,

Is a cook’s queer cadence at break of day:

Whoo-e-e-e!

Git UP!

The grub is on the table, boys, the coffee’s on

the bile:

The swagon’s hotter’n Tophet and I swear ’twill

make you smile.

There’s whiskers on the gingerbread, the biskit

can’t be beat;

I’ve got molasses sinkers made from mother’s

old receipt.

--Oh, I’ve got molasses sinkers built around

some extra holes;

They’ll make you think of home and friends and

tickle up your souls.

The beans come out a-roarin’ when I boosted

up the lid;

They chuckled when I pried ’em out--they

laughed, I swear they did.

Don’t jolly me about your smells of Araby the

blest,

--Jus’ take a snuff of ground-baked beans all

hot from out their nest.

The grub is on the table, boys, hurroop, hurroop,

whoo-e-e-e!

Come, tumble out, git on a move! Good Lord,

it’s after three!

Rise up and shine, my gentle lambs, surround

your breakfast quick,

Or else you’ll git the sun’s ha-ha from over

Tumble Dick.

And if the timer heaves a growl and docks you

in his book,

Jus’ blame your own durn lazy luck--don’t

lay it on the cook.

For ev’ry man who’s et my cream-of-tartar bis-

kit knows

The cook of this ’ere camp, by smut, ’s the

earliest bird that crows.

For I’m old enough to spell a-a-a-ble!

The grub is all on the ta-a-a-ble!

Whoo-e-e-e!

Git UP!

OFF FOR THE LUMBER WOODS

The duffle is packed, and the babies are smacked,

and the wife has a buss and a hug;

And she’s done it up brown in a-loading me

down with about all the grub I can lug,

So long! Good-by!

I’m off! Don’t cry!

--Just about a month of Sundays and you’ll

see my homely mug.

Now look ye, ye towzled-haired son of a gun,

Be good to your mother or you’ll see some

fun

When your daddy comes down on the drive in

the spring

And fetches a withe with a hornetty sting.

Ha! ha! you young rascal, you’d rather have

gum?

Well, be a good baby and pa’ll fetch you some.

Yes, mother, you’re right, it does seem kinder

wrong

To leave you alone here the whole winter

long.

And it’s tough that I have to pack dunnage and

break

For the big timber wrassle at Chamberlain lake.

But folks are a-waiting for lumber and boards,

They’ve picked up their saws, now they’ve laid

down their swords.

They’re wanting the timbers for new city domes,

They’re wanting the shingles for humble new

homes.

The hammers are waiting, the nails are on end,

And the chorus of clatter’ll commence when we

send

A billion of lumber down race-way and sluice,

From the lonesome dominions of gloomy King

Spruce.

The men who print papers are wanting fresh

sheets,

The folks who build ships will be launching new

fleets,

For, mark me, no matter what Uncle Sam

planned,

He finds he can’t reach his new back lots by

land.

Don’t smile at me, wife, but I feel when I swing

That sweaty old axe from the fall to the spring,

That I hear one grim cry swimming up on the air

Through the dim, silent forest,--a pleading

prayer.

The clank of the press, and the scream of the

saws.

The grunt of the grinder that slavers and chaws

At the fibre of pulp wood; the purr of the plane

Are blent in one chorus, attuned to one strain,

--That sighs in the breezes or throbs in the roar

Of the tempest; and ever the cry is for “More.’’

And we men with our axes and horn-covered

palms

Hear the call as a man hears the summons “To

arms,”

And forward we plunge with no quarter, no

truce,

With axes a-gleam in the realms of King Spruce.

The duffle is packed, and the babies are smacked;

now wife, for a buss and a hug.

Save a smile ’gainst the spring, for I’m going to

bring just all the spruce gum I can lug.

I’m off! Good-bye!

So long! Don’t cry!

In about a month of Sundays you will see my

homely mug.

HERE’S TO THE STOUT ASH POLE

Hooray for to-day, and hooray for to-night, and

forget all the rest of it, boys.

Hold on, Mister Barkeeper, close up your jaw,

we’re paying for all of this noise.

We won’t mosey out, and we won’t set down,

and you can’t keep a one of us still;

You can charge, if you want to, so much for a

yawp; we’ll settle all right in the bill.

For this is our very last evenin’ on earth; the

last night we’ll be here alive.

To-morrow at six we all cut sticks for the rear of

the West Branch drive.

Hooray!

For Seboomook, and rear of the drive.

Oh, bartender, say, can’t you hustle them up?

Come, push out your reddest of paint,

We’re here for to splatter the carnation on, now

blow us for fools if we ain’t!

So set out your varnish for coffins, my boy,--

that brand called the “Grave-diggers’ Boast.”

I’ve got enough chink--now down with your

drink! and I’ll give ye a riverman’s toast.

While you’re raising up your glasses,

Jest forget the giddy lasses

That have coaxed away your dollars, and have

given you the laugh.

Turn away from them connivers,

And as honest, hearty drivers

Drink a good, round jorum to the stout ash staff.

When the girls have filched your cash,

There is still the hearty ash,

It is waiting at Seboomook for to cheer your

foolish soul.

Ah, you know we love it most; and I give

you this, my toast,

The river driver’s darling, oh, his long ash pole.

We’ve ridden the gorges on rioting logs, and

we’ve always swept safe to the land.

So long as we rode with the spikes in our boots,