At first Scott did not notice any difference between this forest and the
one they had traversed earlier in the day; he was too busy thinking of
that enchanted pond, but he soon realized that there was a difference.
There was a little earthen flowerpot hanging near the ground on the side
of each tree. On some of the larger ones there were three or four of
them. For three or four inches above each cup the tree was scratched as
though some great bear had been sharpening his claws there. These
scratches were very regular and there was exactly the same number above
each cup. At the bottom of the scratches and draining into the
flowerpots were two little tin gutters stuck into slits in the tree.
Scott knew that they must be in the turpentine orchard. It was the first
one he had ever seen. He was very curious to know all about it, but he
did not want to appear too ignorant. “Is this a very large orchard?” he
asked.
“About twenty crops,” Mr. Graham answered absently.
That meant over two hundred thousand cups and it seemed to Scott like an
enormous number. It did not seem possible to take care of so many. It
was not long till they saw a darky in overalls and undershirt shambling
about from tree to tree.
“Ever seen them chip?” Mr. Graham asked, suddenly realizing that it must
all be entirely new to Scott. Scott admitted that he had not.
“They are pretty clever at it,” Mr. Graham continued, riding over to the
darky, who greeted them with a pleased grin. “Show us a good one now,
Josh. This gentleman has never seen it done.”
There is nothing that a darky likes better than showing off an
accomplishment to a stranger. He was carrying a heavy iron, weighted
with a ball at the lower end and bent into a loop of sharpened steel at
the top. He gave this instrument a fantastic flourish, leaned down over
a cup, and with a few deft strokes cut a new scratch in the outer wood
of the tree, perfectly straight and overlapping just a little the streak
below it. He repeated the operation on the other side of the cup and
straightened up with another grin.
“Pretty good!” Mr. Graham exclaimed approvingly.
“Couldn’t beat dat one, boss,” replied the darky with a chuckle.
“Been over to the pond lately, Josh?”
“Who, me? No, suh, you don’t ketch dis heah niggah hangin’ roun’ deah.
Dat eah place hanted, boss, sho nuf hanted. Dey tell me you kin put a
log in de watah deah and see it ’solve smack befo’ yo’ eyes.” And his
own eyes rolled strangely and showed a broad expanse of white.
“Sounds bad,” said Mr. Graham, laughing as he turned to ride away. “No
danger of his stealing any logs out of there,” he remarked to Scott when
they were out of hearing. “Looked easy enough to see him cut that
streak, didn’t it? Try it yourself once. It would take you ten minutes
and then it would look like beaver work. That man has to make the rounds
of his crop every week; over three thousand streaks a day.”
Just twenty men were putting two streaks a week over each one of those
two hundred thousand cups. It seemed marvelous to Scott. In another
place he saw a man with a large wooden bucket and a paddle going from
tree to tree, emptying the cups. He emptied his bucket into barrels
beside the road and a wagon collected the barrels. Scott could not help
thinking what a glorious fire there would be if it ever got started in
all that resin.
Before long they came in sight of a group of rough board buildings
strung along the road like the main street of a small town.
“That,” Mr. Graham explained, “is the still. The darkies and their
families live in those little board shacks pretty much as they used to
in slavery days. The company keeps a store here for them, the
superintendent lives in that house next to the store and the still is
down at the other end of the street. It’s quite a town. They will use
this camp for their turpentine operations for thirteen years and then
log for three years more.”
Slovenly negro women, many of the older ones smoking pipes, gazed at
them from the doorways, and shiny black pickaninnies rolled the whites
of their eyes in awed attention as they passed. Near the store they met
Mr. Roberts, the superintendent, coming home to dinner. He acknowledged
Scott’s introduction very effusively and promptly invited them both in
to dinner. His wife was of the cracker type and looked old at
thirty-five.
In spite of the man’s cordiality Scott did not like his looks. He had a
sallow, malarial complexion, shifty eyes and loose-knit, gangling build.
There was a hard, cunning look about his mouth, and he wore a large
revolver very conspicuously on his belt. Scott had the feeling that he
was being very narrowly watched, but whenever he looked at Mr. Roberts
he found him deeply absorbed in something else. They finished their salt
pork, hominy and grease-soaked beet greens in comparative silence.
“Reckon maybe you’d like to see the still if you are new to these
parts,” Mr. Roberts remarked to Scott.
“Yes,” Mr. Graham answered for him, “we both want to see it. I never get
tired of hearing that old still growl.”
They walked down the street a little way to the still. It was not a very
imposing-looking building. A roof set on posts over a copper still which
was built into a brick firebox. There was a platform at the side on
which the crude resin was unloaded from the wagons and dumped into the
retort and a shed on the other side where the turpentine was stored.
Sitting on the ground and a little apart from the shed was a small army
of rough barrels full to the top with solid resin.
Mr. Graham explained the process to Scott. “You see they dump the resin
just as they bring it in from the woods into that retort and heat it.
The turpentine is boiled out and goes out of that little pipe at the top
in the form of gas. Then they run the pipe down through some cold water
and the gas condenses into liquid turpentine which they put into those
tight barrels. When it makes just the right noise they pour some water
into the retort to help the process along. Is she pretty near ready to
growl, George?” he called to an old darky who was tending the retort.
“Ought to be pretty nigh, boss,” the old man grinned. It was evidently a
familiar question for which he was listening and it tickled him.
“When all the turpentine has gone off they pour the resin into those
rough barrels,” Mr. Graham continued. “It hardens so quickly that the
barrels do not have to be very tight. They put them together right
here.”
“Is that all they have to do to get the kind of turpentine that is used
in paint?” Scott asked.
“Oh, some of it is redistilled and refined a little for certain uses but
much of it is used just so.”
They walked around the place a little and Scott learned many interesting
facts about the turpentine industry. There was a lot more he wanted to
know but the old darky called them excitedly. “She’s startin’ to howl,
boss.”
They hurried over to the still and could hear a peculiar growling sound
coming from the retort. “That’s the stuff,” Mr. Graham chuckled. “Now
listen to her when the water goes in.”
The water was poured in and the roar was up to expectations. “That makes
her talk,” Mr. Graham laughed. “Now we might as well be going. She won’t
growl again for a long time.”
“Dat’s right,” the old darky chuckled. “Won’t be nuffin’ mo’ fo’ yo’ to
heah for some time.” He fully appreciated Mr. Graham’s joke of hearing
the old still growl.
Mr. Roberts walked back to the house with them to get their horses. “See
anything suspicious at the pond this morning, Mr. Burton?” he asked
casually.
“Oh, no, nothing except Murphy,” he added with a laugh. He said it as
carelessly as he could, but he watched Roberts keenly. He felt somehow
that this sallow cracker was surely connected with the pond mystery and
he wanted to see if the mention of Murphy’s name as a suspicious
character would affect him. If it did, he did not show it. He seemed to
have asked the question simply to make conversation and only grinned at
Scott’s answer.
As they were mounting Mr. Roberts pulled his revolver and carelessly
shot a toad which was hopping across the road some fifteen yards away.
“Getting near pay day,” he said in explanation, “and I have to get in
practice.”
Possibly it was nothing more than the natural temptation for a man with
a gun to shoot any live thing he sees, but Scott, with his intuitive
dislike of the man, felt sure that it was meant for a warning display of
his skill with a gun and he thought about it in silence on the ride home
through the whispering pines.