The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI

The Captain here told Thompson to take six cords, which would last till daylight—and again turned his attention to the game.

The pilots here changed places. When did they sleep?

Wood taken in, the Caravan again took her place in the middle of the stream, paddling on as usual.

Day at length dawned. The brag-party broke up and settlements were being made, during which operation the Captain's bragging propensities were exercised in cracking up the speed of his boat, which, by his reckoning, must have made at least sixty miles, and would have made many more if he could have procured good wood. It appears the two passengers, in their first lesson, had incidentally lost one hundred and twenty dollars. The Captain, as he rose to see about taking in some good wood, which he felt sure of obtaining now that he had got above the level country, winked at his opponent, the pilot, with whom he had been on very bad terms during the progress of the game, and said, in an undertone, "Forty apiece for you and I and James (the other pilot) is not bad for one night."

I had risen and went out with the Captain, to enjoy a view of the bluffs. There was just fog enough to prevent the vision taking in more than sixty yards—so I was disappointed in my expectation. We were nearing the shore, for the purpose of looking for wood, the banks being invisible from the middle of the river.

"There it is!" exclaimed the Captain; "stop her!" Ding—ding—ding! went the big bell, and the Captain hailed:

"Hallo! the woodyard!"

"Hallo yourself!" answered a squeaking female voice, which came from a woman with a petticoat over her shoulders in place of a shawl.

"What's the price of wood?"

"I think you ought to know the price by this time," answered the old lady in the petticoat; "it's three and a qua-a-rter! and now you know it."

"Three and the d—l!" broke in the Captain. "What, have you raised on your wood, too? I'll give you three, and not a cent more."

"Well," replied the petticoat, "here comes the old man—he'll talk to you."

And, sure enough, out crept from the cottage the veritable faded hat, copperas-colored pants, yellow countenance and two weeks' beard we had seen the night before, and the same voice we had heard regulating the price of cottonwood squeaked out the following sentence, accompanied by the same leer of the same yellow countenance:

"Why, darn it all, Capting, there is but three or four cords left, and since it's you, I don't care if I do let you have it for three—as you're a good customer!"

After a quick glance at the landmarks around, the Captain bolted, and turned in to take some rest.

The fact became apparent—the reader will probably have discovered it some time since—that we had been wooding all night at the same woodyard!

WHEN THE ALLEGASH DRIVE GOES THROUGH

BY HOLMAN F. DAY

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 dead-water 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 follow 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 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 whirlpool's bellowing mouth,
Death we clinch and Time we fight, for behind 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 goes through.

notes

1

From "At the Sign of the Dollar," by Wallace Irwin. Copyright, 1905, by Fox, Duffield & Co.

2

Lippincott's Magazine.