THE CABIN IN THE WOODS
“Reckon the feller that lived here had matches, though,” he reflected
half aloud. “Maybe there’s one around somewhere.” Then began a most
careful and minute search that ended after some time in the discovery
of a match head and about a half inch of stick attached to it in a
crack between two boards. It looked all right, too. He gathered the
brittle, yellowed paper from the floor and laid it in the stove. Then
he selected the driest and most resinous of the bits of wood and placed
them carefully atop the paper. Finally, holding a wisp of the paper in
his left hand, he anxiously drew the match head along the edge of the
stove. The first attempt brought no result, but at the second there was
a heartening little crackle and the match lighted. Jerry held the paper
to it and then tucked the flaming torch down to the bottom of his pile.
Success was instantaneous. So was smoke. By the time he had filled
the tiny fire box with wood and slid the cover back on again it was
necessary to seek the door. That something was radically wrong with
the draft was very evident, but that was a small matter just then. The
important thing was that he had heat to dry his clothing, and leaving
his newly-discovered residence he hurried back for his possessions.
He found them without trouble and returned to the cabin. The fire was
burning most enthusiastically, the top of the stove was red-hot in
places and the smoke poured merrily from every crevice.
Choking but happy, Jerry improvised a rack of a maple branch and hung
his clothes over it. Twice it fell to the floor, but eventually he got
it to stay, one end on the box nailed by the stove and the other poked
into a crevice of the end wall. Then he gathered more fuel and heaped
it conveniently by the stove. It began to be unpleasantly warm inside
and he took his knife and went out again. Finding a straight, stiff
branch an inch thick, he fell to work and severed it from the parent
stem. Then he trimmed off the twigs at one end and began to cut smaller
branches some two feet long. When he had enough of the latter he pulled
some creeping vines from the soft, leafy earth, bringing the brown
roots with them. The roots he cut off and then, holding the shorter
branches around one end of the stick, he bound them there with the
pliable tendrils. When his work was finished he had a very satisfactory
broom, and, returning to the smoke-filled cabin, he set to work.
Cobwebs, litter and dust were alike attacked, and presently he stopped,
panting and gasping, and viewed with tear-filled eyes the result of
his labor. The cabin looked quite respectable and Jerry’s heart warmed
to it anew. With a bed over there――just a frame with branches and
leaves piled on it――a couple of boxes for chairs and a table such as he
could soon knock together with hatchet and nails, the place would be
palatial! Perhaps Jerry didn’t use the word palatial, but it is what he
meant.
Then he faced the problem of the smoky stove. There were no dampers
save one halfway up the sagging pipe, and that experiment showed to
be properly open. So he went outside and viewed the little chimney of
cross sticks and clay. That, too, appeared to be all right save that
the amount of blue smoke escaping from the top into the sunlight was
about a quarter of what was going into the cabin! It was no task to
squirm to the roof, and once there the mystery was solved. The opening
of the chimney was choked with an accumulation of leaves and twigs, and
when these were pulled out a veritable volcano of smoke followed. After
that the little stove behaved very well, although it proved a most
greedy consumer of fuel, and manipulation of the pipe damper appeared
to have no effect on its appetite. However, fuel was plentiful and
Jerry didn’t begrudge it. By this time his clothes, if not actually
tinder-dry, were fit to put on again, and he dressed, disposed his
watch and other treasures in their various pockets and considered his
next undertaking.
Without a hatchet, however, there wasn’t much he could do. He looked at
his watch, still going in spite of its recent immersion in the brook,
and found that the time was just short of eleven. The distance from
school was not more than two miles, he judged. He could return there,
borrow a hatchet and some nails from Cicero, and get back in time to
eat his lunch in his own dwelling. For Jerry no longer thought of the
cabin as any one’s property save his! So, making sure that the fire
was safe to leave, he started out, following the path that led down
the hillock. The path brought him, as he had supposed it would, to the
brook at a place some twenty yards beyond where he had crossed it so
sensationally. But here there was a tree trunk athwart the stream, and
its worn surface showed that it had been frequently used as a bridge.
It looked rather rotten, but Jerry took a chance on it and crossed
safely. The path turned to the left and wound through the woods in the
general direction of the road. In some places it was hard to follow,
since it had probably not been used in some time, and young shrubs and
weeds had taken possession. But his wood lore carried him to the end
and he came out on the road. He blazed a sapling at the entrance so
that he might readily find it again and set forth for North Bank.
By the time he was back at the school his mental list of requirements
had lengthened remarkably, and he spent nearly a half hour there
collecting his articles. The hatchet and nails were speedily found, and
so was a box of matches and a piece of harness strap, but a coffeepot
and some coffee and a little sugar required time and diplomacy.
Fortunately, the colored cook, an ancient, white-wooled darky, was
good-natured, and Jerry’s explanation that he wanted to have a picnic
in the woods and cook his own food aroused a sympathetic memory,
perhaps. At all events, the colored woman found an old, discolored
enamel-ware coffeepot after some search and poured a good half pound
of coffee into it. The sugar went into a paper bag. Then Jerry became
the recipient without intent of three eggs and a small slice of ham.
At the cook’s suggestion, he made his way from the kitchen by the back
entrance, thus escaping the likelihood of meeting the inquisitive gaze
of such of the faculty as remained at school. He reached the stable by
a circuitous route and gathered the rest of his load, which, at the
last moment, was made to include an empty box. While he was within
sight of the grounds――most of the boys were on the ball field――he
swung the box carelessly in one hand, but later, on the road, he
emptied his other loot into it and placed it comfortably on his head.
Of course he remembered when he was halfway back to the cabin that he
should have provided himself with a knife and fork and spoon, but those
were things that for the present could be fashioned with a jackknife.
The return trip was not so easy, for the sun was considerably warmer
and it tired his arms to hold the box in place. Occasionally he shifted
the latter to one shoulder or the other and brought relief to aching
muscles. He missed the blaze and had to retrace his steps quite some
distance before he found it. The half shade of the woods was a welcome
relief after the glare of the road and he set down his burden and
himself and rested. It was nearly half past twelve when the cabin came
into sight once more and well after that time when a new fire had been
built――at the expense of many matches, since he had neglected to bring
more paper――and the old frying pan, thoroughly cleaned with sand and
water, held the slice of ham and one of the eggs. Jerry decided to save
the other two eggs against a future visit.
Coffee-making was a crude and expeditious ceremony with Jerry. He
dumped about two tablespoonfuls of the ground coffee and the eggshell
into the pot, half filled it with water from the brook, set it on
the stove――and remembered that he had neither cup nor mug! That was
a serious lack, but he decided that it wouldn’t keep him from having
coffee for dinner; for he had begun to think of the impending feast
as dinner rather than luncheon. Luncheon, anyway, was something Jerry
had never heard of before coming to North Bank. At home a meal was
one of four things, a breakfast, a dinner, a supper or a “snack,” and
the present repast was far too hearty to deserve the name of snack.
While the ham and egg frizzled cheerfully and the coffee began to ooze
vapor from the blunt spout of the pot, Jerry set about fashioning
utensils. A pointed stick served as a fork and a shovel-shaped stick
as a spoon: he had a knife ready to hand. The empty box was placed
bottom-up and became a table. On it Jerry spread his banquet: the
sandwiches――a trifle soggy, but still appetizing――the cake of chocolate
and, presently, the frying pan containing a sizzling slice of ham and
a golden-and-white egg. The coffee pot, lid open, was placed at the
doorway to cool while Jerry hungrily attacked the food. As the table
was low, he took his place on the floor beside it. He wished that he
had some drinking water, but there was nothing to hold it. Besides, he
had somewhere read that it was not healthful to drink water with your
meals!
So Jerry feasted, with the open door an oblong of golden sunlight and
the window beside it a square of tender green, with the little stove
cooling to an accompaniment of sharp cracking sounds and the ham still
sizzling softly in the hot pan. He had set his “table” near the doorway
for coolness, and presently, by the simple expedient of rolling over
and rolling back again, he added the coffee to the repast. The first
time he tried to drink it, after adding sugar and stirring it with
his improvised spoon, he burned his lips against the rim of the pot.
Even after that it was no easy matter, for the lid got in his way, but
the coffee wasn’t half bad and he was satisfied. That meal tasted far
better than had any meal for a long, long time, and when he had sopped
up the last drop of ham fat with a last scrap of bread and drained the
last drop of coffee――together with some of the grounds――he went out to
the shade of the trees at the back of the hut and consumed his dessert.
And when the cake of chocolate had gone the way of all else he went
down the path and, sprawling on the log that crossed the brook, drank
his fill of the cool, clear water.
Back at the cabin, he seated himself on the low sill and laid his
plans, searching the near-by wood for material. Presently he was up
again, hatchet in hand, and had set to work. The sun passed overhead
and was well down the afternoon sky by the time he ceased. But the
cabin had suffered quite a transformation. The door hung evenly on
two hinges and, although there was no way to fasten it from without,
bolted securely from the inside. In the end away from the stove was a
low bed formed of green maple wood. For this he had cut two and three
inch saplings and with them worked out a design of his own. Instead
of trying to set the bed on upright legs, he took two lengths about
four feet long and spread them in a wide V. Then he crossed them with
a third piece two and a half feet in length and securely nailed it
there. He repeated the operation and had “headboard” and “footboard.”
His next task, that of securing side strips to the crosspieces, was
not so easy, for his workbench, which had been a dining table an hour
before, was too low, but he succeeded finally. Then, his two V’s
having been inverted into A’s, he was ready for his slats. As he had
fitted the upper ends of the slanting pieces forming the sides of the
A’s together as closely as was possible with only a hatchet and a
knife to work with, and nailed them so, the danger of the legs of his
bed spreading was obviated. The more weight that was placed on them
the closer they pressed together at the apex. There was, however, a
tendency on the part of the bed to sway endwise, and this feature he
had to remedy with braces running from side rails to legs, which to
some extent marred the symmetry of the article. After that he laid
inch-sized poles crosswise of the bed and, because the green wood split
when he tried to nail it, bound them there with withes. In a way, while
less secure, the withes were better since they allowed more play when
Jerry experimentally stretched himself on the bed. Then he piled small
branches atop his slats and went far afield for armfuls of bracken and
ferns to top the whole. And when he had finished and again laid his now
somewhat tired body down the result was so successful that he had hard
work urging himself up again!
A table had been easier, though when the wood is green and your hatchet
only fairly sharp, manufacturing furniture is something of a slow and
tedious task, and long before he had finished the second article of his
suit his arms were pretty tired. The table was not a very ambitious
affair. It stood on four not overly straight legs, braced at the
corners, and its top was formed of the bottom and one side of the empty
box. When he set it up near the stove it wobbled badly, but, lacking a
saw, he hadn’t the heart to tackle the task of making the legs even.
That could wait for another day.
There was still work to be done, for coffeepot and skillet confronted
him, and he took them rather tiredly down to the brook and cleaned
them, setting them at last against the front of the cabin to dry in
the sun. After a rest, ambition returned and he spent ten minutes
gathering firewood and piling it beside the stove. On his next visit,
he reflected, he might be glad to find fuel ready to his hand,
especially if it should rain meanwhile. Having neither pencil nor
fountain pen with him, he couldn’t set down as he wished he might the
list of things he meant to bring back the next time: a saw, another
empty box――two if he could manage them――more nails, plenty of stout
cord, a pail for water, a padlock for the door, two tin cups, fork,
knife and two spoons, a cake of soap――the list was interminable! And,
of course, he must have food as well! In the end he took a piece of
charcoal, wrenched another board from the vanishing box and wrote down
everything he could think of. He would carry the board home with him
and so have the list to refer to. He ended the visit by rebuilding the
stone fireplace out front, and finally, when the spring shadows were
lengthening, closed the door from the inside, shot the wooden bolt and
squirmed through a window, carrying hatchet and board. So ended Jerry’s
perfect day; perfect save for one slight mishap. In carrying the board
home Jerry tucked it under one arm and when, later, he tried to read
his list there was nothing there to read!