_Wooding Up_
As second clerk, I was early taught to hold my own with the pirates
who conducted the woodyards scattered along the river, from which the
greater part of the fuel used on old-time river boats was purchased.
There was a great variety of wood offered for sale, and a greater
diversity in the manner of piling it. It was usually ranked eight
feet high, with a "cob-house" at each end of the rank. It was the
rule on the river to measure but one of the end piles, if the whole
rank was taken, or one-half of one end pile if but a part of the
rank was bought. For convenience, the woodmen usually put twenty
cords in a rank, and allowed enough to cover the shortage caused by
cross-piling at the ends. Being piled eight feet high, ten lengths of
the measuring stick (eight feet long) equalled twenty cords, if it
were fairly piled. Woodmen who cared for their reputation and avoided
a "scrap" with the clerks, captains, and mates of steamboats, usually
made their twenty-cord ranks eighty-four feet long and eight feet
high. Such dealers also piled their sticks parallel to each other
in the ranks; they also threw out the rotten and very crooked ones.
When the clerk looked over such a tier, after having run his stick
over it, he simply invited the owner aboard and paid him his fifty or
sixty dollars, according to the quality of the wood, took him across
the cabin to the bar, and invited him to "have one on the boat",
shook hands, and bade him good night.
It took the "pirates" to start the music, however. When only scant
eighty feet were found in the rank, with rotten and green wood
sandwiched in, all through the tiers, and crooked limbs and crossed
sticks in all directions, it became the duty of the clerk to estimate
his discount. After running his rod over it, he would announce,
before the first stick was taken off by the deck hands, the amount
of wood in the rank--nineteen and a half cords, nineteen cords,
eighteen and a half cords, or in extreme cases only eighteen. When
the mate could stand behind the rank and see, through a cross-piled
hole, more than half the length of the steamboat, it was deemed a
rather acute case, calling for the eighteen-cord decision. When
this decision was made and announced, it was, on our boat at least,
always adhered to. We always took wood some time before our visible
supply was exhausted, in order to meet just such emergencies. The
owner might, and usually did, damn everybody and everything connected
with the craft in the most lurid terms. But the one question he had
to answer, and answer quickly, was: "Will you take it?" If "No",
the bell was struck and the boat backed off, while the woodman and
roustabouts exchanged a blue-streaked volley of vituperation. If, on
the other hand, a sale was made, the owner usually took his money and
the inevitable drink at the bar, and then went down to the main deck
and had it out with the mate, who was always a match, and more than
a match, for any merely local and provincial orator. His vocabulary
was enriched with contributions from all ports between St. Louis and
St. Paul, while that of the squatter was lacking in the elements of
diversity necessary to give depth and breadth to the discussion.
It would be unjust to class all woodyard men with squatters like the
foregoing specimens, of whom there were hundreds scattered along the
islands and lowlands bordering the river, cutting wood on government
land, and moving along whenever the federal officers got on their
trail. On the mainland were many settlers, opening up farms along
the river, and the chance to realize ready money from the sale of
wood was not to be neglected. In many places chutes had been built
of heavy planks, descending from the top of the bluff, from one to
two hundred feet above the river. The upland oak, cut into four-foot
lengths, was shot down to the water's edge, where a level space was
found to rank it up. These men were honest, almost without exception,
and their wood always measured true. The upland wood was vastly
superior to the lowland growth; steamboat captains not only paid the
highest price for it, but further endeavored to contract for all the
wood at certain yards. I remember one, run by a Mr. Smith, between
Prescott and Diamond Bluff, and another near Clayton, Iowa, that
always furnished the best dry oak wood, and gave full measure.
It was at the latter place that I nearly lost my berth, through a
difference with the "Old Man"--the captain. I had measured the rank
and announced the amount of wood as twenty cords. The captain was on
deck at the time, and watching the measurement. When the announcement
was made he ordered the wood remeasured. I went over it carefully,
measuring from the centre of the cross-pile at one end to the centre
of the cross-pile at the other end of the rank, and again reported
"twenty cords". Captain Faucette called down to "measure it again",
with an inflection plainly intimating that I was to discount it,
adding, "You measured both ends." The rank was full height, closely
piled, and the best of split white oak, and I had already taken out
one of the ends; further, I had already twice reported twenty cords
in the hearing of all the crew and many passengers, who were now
giving their undivided attention to this affair. I therefore did not
feel like stultifying myself for the sake of stealing a cord or two
of wood, and replied that I had already measured it twice, and that
I had not measured both ends of the rank. The "Old Man" flew into
a rage and ordered me to go to the office and get my money, and he
would find a man who knew how to measure wood. There being nothing
for it but to obey an order of this kind, I went aboard, hung up
my measuring stick in its beckets, and reported at the office for
my money. Mr. Hargus, my chief, was astonished, and asked for an
explanation, which I gave him. He rushed out to the woodpile with the
rod, ran over it in a flash, and reported to the captain on the roof,
"Twenty cords, sir!" and came back to the office. He told me to go on
with my work and say nothing, which I was ready enough to do. In the
meantime, the crew were toting the wood aboard.
When the boat backed off, the captain sent for Mr. Hargus to meet
him in his private room in the "Texas", where they had it out in
approved style. Hargus only replied to Captain Faucette that if
Merrick was discharged he would also take his pay and go ashore with
him. Faucette was a new man in the line, from the far South, and a
comparative stranger, while Hargus was a veteran with the company, a
stockholder in the line, and backed by all the Dubuque stockholders,
as well as by the officers and directors of the company; so the
captain thought better of it and dropped the whole matter, never
deigning to speak to the second clerk, either in way of apology,
which was not expected, or of caution "not to let it occur again",
which would have been an insult. The affair was "dropped overboard",
as Hargus said, and the wood-measuring was thereafter left to the
proper officer, without comment or interference.
With a crew of forty men looking on and hearing the whole colloquy,
a change in the amount of wood reported at the suggestion of the
captain, would have simply wiped out any respect they may have had
for the authority of the boy officer; and his usefulness on that
boat, if not on the river, would have ended then and there. It was
one of the unwritten rules of the service that the officers were to
stand by each other in every way; there was to be no interference
while on duty, and each was held responsible for such duty. If there
was cause for reprimand it was to be administered in the privacy of
the captain's office, and not in the presence of the whole crew. It
was not desirable to have either office or officer held in contempt.
As the steamboat business developed, and as immigration into the new
Territory of Minnesota increased, there was necessity for getting as
many trips into a season as possible. This led to the adoption of
every device that might lessen the running time of steamers between
the lower ports and St. Paul. Not the least of these innovations was
the use of the wood-boat for the more ready transfer of fuel from
the bank to the deck of the steamer. Flatboats, or scows, capable
of carrying twenty cords of wood, and even forty, were loaded at
the woodyards in readiness for the expected steamer. As the wood
was worth more loaded in the scow, a higher price was given by
steamboatmen, and contracts were made ahead; the date of arrival of
the boat was determined, and the wood-boat was in readiness, day or
night, with two men on board. It was the work of a few minutes only
to run alongside, make fast the towlines, and while the steamer was
on her way up river, thirty or forty men pitched or carried the wood
aboard.
Ordinarily, the wood-boat was not in tow more than half an hour,
which would take her five or six miles up river. When the wood was
out, the towlines were cast off, a large sweep or steering oar
was shipped up at each end of the scow, and it drifted back to
be reloaded for the next customer. The steamboat, meanwhile, had
lost practically no time in wooding, as the tow was so light as but
slightly to impede her speed. The greatest danger in the transaction
was that the great packet might swamp the scow by running at too
great speed, towing her under by the head, as sometimes occurred. To
avoid this contingency the wood was always taken first from the bow
of the flatboat. As it was only the fast packets that patronized the
wood-boats, this danger of towing under was always present, and the
pilots were always very careful in the handling of their boats at
such times. Flats were seldom towed downstream, for the reason that
there was no way of getting them back, except to pay for a tow. And
again, the packets were not in so much of a hurry when going down
river, for then they had but few passengers to feed, and no fast
freight.