is all over with dear old Nolan. I have been with him on this
voyage more than I ever was, and I can understand wholly now
the way in which you used to speak of the dear old fellow. I
could see that he was not strong, but I had no idea the end
was so near. The doctor has been watching him very carefully,
and yesterday morning came to me and told me that Nolan was
not so well, and had not left his state-room—a thing I never
remember before. He had let the doctor come and see him
as he lay there—the first time the doctor had been in the
state-room—and he said he should like to see me. O dear! do you
remember the mysteries we boys used to invent about his room,
in the old _Intrepid_ days? Well, I went in, and there, to be
sure, the poor fellow lay in his berth, smiling pleasantly as
he gave me his hand, but looking very frail. I could not help
a glance round, which showed me what a little shrine he had
made of the box he was lying in. The stars and stripes were
triced up above and around a picture of Washington, and he had
painted a majestic eagle, with lightnings blazing from his beak
and his foot just clasping the whole globe, which his wings
overshadowed. The dear old boy saw my glance, and said, with
a sad smile, ‘Here, you see, I have a country!’ And then he
pointed to the foot of his bed, where I had not seen before a
great map of the United States, as he had drawn it from memory,
and which he had there to look upon as he lay. Quaint, queer
old names were on it, in large letters: ‘Indiana Territory,’
‘Mississippi Territory,’ and ‘Louisiana Territory,’ as I
suppose our fathers learned such things; but the old fellow
had patched in Texas, too; he had carried his western boundary
all the way to the Pacific, but on that shore he had defined
nothing.
“‘O Danforth,’ he said, ‘I know I am dying. I cannot get home.
Surely you will tell me something now?—Stop! stop! Do not speak
till I say what I am sure you know, that there is not in this
ship, that there is not in America—God bless her!—A more loyal
man than I. There cannot be a man who loves the old flag as I
do, or prays for it as I do, or hopes for it as I do. There
are thirty-four stars in it now, Danforth. I thank God for
that, though I do not know what their names are. There has
never been one taken away: I thank God for that. I know by
that that there has never been any successful Burr. O Danforth,
Danforth,’ he sighed out, ‘how like a wretched night’s dream a
boy’s idea of personal fame or of separate sovereignty seems,
when one looks back on it after such a life as mine! But tell
me—tell me something—tell me everything, Danforth, before I
die!’
“Ingham, I swear to you that I felt like a monster that I had
not told him everything before. Danger or no danger, delicacy
or no delicacy, who was I, that I should have been acting the
tyrant all this time over this dear, sainted old man, who had
years ago expiated, in his whole manhood’s life, the madness
of a boy’s treason? ‘Mr. Nolan,’ said I, ‘I will tell you
everything you ask about. Only, where shall I begin?’
“O the blessed smile that crept over his white face! and he
pressed my hand and said, ‘God bless you!’ ‘Tell me their
names,’ he said, and he pointed to the stars on the flag. The
last I know is Ohio. My father lived in Kentucky. But I have
guessed Michigan and Indiana and Mississippi—that was where
Fort Adams is—they make twenty. But where are your other
fourteen? You have not cut up any of the old ones, I hope?’
“Well, that was not a bad text, and I told him the names in as
good order as I could, and he bade me take down his beautiful
map and draw them in as best I could with my pencil. He was
wild with delight about Texas, told me how his cousin died
there; he had marked a gold cross near where he supposed
his grave was; and he had guessed at Texas. Then he was
delighted as he saw California and Oregon;—that, he said, he
had suspected partly, because he had never been permitted to
land on that shore, though the ships were there so much. ‘And
the men,’ said he, laughing, ‘brought off a good deal besides
furs.’ Then he went back—heavens, how far!—to ask about the
_Chesapeake_, and what was done to Barron for surrendering
her to the _Leopard_, and whether Burr ever tried again—and
he ground his teeth with the only passion he showed. But in
a moment that was over, and he said, ‘God forgive me, for I
am sure I forgive him.’ Then he asked about the old war—told
me the true story of his serving the gun the day we took the
_Java_—asked about dear old David Porter, as he called him.
Then he settled down more quietly, and very happily, to hear me
tell in an hour the history of fifty years.
“How I wished it had been somebody who knew something! But I
did as well as I could. I told him of the English war. I told
him about Fulton and the steamboat beginning. I told him about
old Scott, and Jackson; told him all I could think of about
the Mississippi, and New Orleans, and Texas, and his own old
Kentucky. And do you think, he asked who was in command of
the ‘Legion of the West.’ I told him it was a very gallant
officer named Grant, and that, by our last news, he was about
to establish his headquarters at Vicksburg. Then, ‘Where is
Vicksburg?’ I worked that out on the map; it was about a
hundred miles, more or less, above his old Fort Adams; and I
thought Fort Adams must be a ruin now. ‘It must be at old
Vick’s plantation, at Walnut Hills,’ said he: ‘well, that is a
change!’
“I tell you, Ingham, it was a hard thing to condense the
history of half a century into that talk with a sick man. And I
do not now know what I told him—of emigration, and the means of
it—of steamboats, and railroads, and telegraphs—of inventions,
and books, and literature—of the colleges, and West Point,
and the Naval School—but with the queerest interruptions that
ever you heard. You see it was Robinson Crusoe asking all the
accumulated questions of fifty-six years!
“I remember he asked, all of a sudden, who was President now;
and when I told him, he asked if Old Abe was General Benjamin
Lincoln’s son. He said he met old General Lincoln, when he was
quite a boy himself, at some Indian treaty. I said no, that Old
Abe was a Kentuckian like himself, but I could not tell him of
what family; he had worked up from the ranks. ‘Good for him!’
cried Nolan; ‘I’m glad of that. As I have brooded and wondered,
I have thought our danger was in keeping up those regular
successions in the first families.’
“Then I got talking about my visit to Washington. I told him
of meeting the Oregon congressman, Harding; I told him about
the Smithsonian, and the Exploring Expedition; I told him about
the Capitol, and the statues for the pediment, and Crawford’s
Liberty, and Greenough’s Washington: Ingham, I told him
everything I could think of that would show the grandeur of his
country and its prosperity; but I could not make up my mouth
to tell him a word about this infernal Rebellion!
“And he drank it in, and enjoyed it as I cannot tell you. He
grew more and more silent, yet I never thought he was tired
or faint. I gave him a glass of water, but he just wet his
lips, and told me not to go away. Then he asked me to bring
the Presbyterian ‘Book of Public Prayer,’ which lay there, and
said, with a smile that it would open at the right place—and so
it did.
“There was his double red mark down the page; and I knelt down
and read, and he repeated with me, ‘For ourselves and our
country, O gracious God, we thank Thee, that, notwithstanding
our manifold transgressions for Thy holy laws, Thou hast
continued to us Thy marvellous kindness,’—and so to the end of
that thanksgiving.
“Then he turned to the end of the same book, and I read the
words more familiar to me: ‘Most heartily we beseech Thee with
Thy favor to behold and bless Thy servant, the President of the
United States, and all others in authority,’—and the rest of
the Episcopal collect. ‘Danforth,’ said he, ‘I have repeated
those prayers night and morning, it is now fifty-five years.’
And then he said he would go to sleep.
“He bent me down over him and kissed me; and he said, ‘Look in
my Bible, Danforth, when I am gone.’ And I went away.
“But I had no thought it was the end. I thought he was tired
and would sleep. I knew he was happy and I wanted him to be
alone.
“But in an hour, when the doctor went in gently, he found
Nolan had breathed his life away with a smile. He had something
pressed close to his lips. It was his father’s badge of the
Order of the Cincinnati.
“We looked in his Bible, and there was a slip of paper at the
place where he had marked the text:—
“‘They desire a country, even a heavenly: wherefore God is not
ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a
city.’
“On this slip of paper he had written:—
“‘Bury me in the sea; it has been my home, and I love it. But
will not some one set up a stone for my memory at Fort Adams or
at Orleans, that my disgrace may not be more than I ought to
bear? Say on it:—
“‘_In Memory of_
“‘PHILIP NOLAN,
“‘_Lieutenant in the Army of the United States_.
“‘He loved his country as no other man has loved her, but no
man deserved less at her hands.’”
THE FOREMAN
By Stewart Edward White
A man is one thing; a man _plus_ his work is another, entirely different.
You can learn this anywhere, but in the lumber woods best of all.
Especially is it true of the camp boss, the foreman. A firm that knows
its business knows this and so never considers merely what sort of a
character a candidate may bear in town. He may drink or abstain, may
exhibit bravery or cowardice, strength or weakness—it is all one to the
lumbermen who employ him. In the woods his quality must appear. So often
the man most efficient and trusted in the especial environment of his
work is the most disreputable outside it. The mere dignifying quality
of labor raises his value to the _n_th power. In it he discovers the
self-respect which, in one form or another, is absolutely necessary
to the man who counts. His resolution to succeed has back of it this
necessity of self-respect, and so is invincible. A good boss gives back
before nothing which will further his job.
Most people in the North Country understand this double standard; but
occasionally someone, either stupid or inexperienced or unobservant,
makes the mistake of concluding that the town-character and the
woods-character are necessarily the same. If he acts in accordance with
that erroneous idea, he gets into trouble. Take the case of Silver
Jack and the walking boss of Morrison & Daly, for instance. Silver
Jack imagined his first encounter with Richard Darrell in Bay City
indicated the certainty of like results to his second encounter with that
individual in Camp Thirty. His mistake was costly; but almost anybody
could have told him better. To understand the case, you must first meet
Richard Darrell.
The latter was a man about five feet six inches in height, slenderly
built, yet with broad, hanging shoulders. His face was an exact triangle,
beginning with a mop of red-brown hair, and ending with a pointed chin.
Two level quadrilaterals served him as eyebrows, beneath which a strong
hooked nose separated his round, brown, chipmunk’s eyes. When he walked,
he threw his heavy shoulders slightly forward. This, in turn, projected
his eager, nervous countenance. The fact that he was accustomed to
hold his hands half open, with the palms square to the rear, lent him
a peculiarly ready and truculent air. His name, as has been said, was
Richard Darrell; but men called him Roaring Dick.
For upward of fifteen years he had been woods foreman for Morrison &
Daly, the great lumber firm of the Beeson Lake district. That would make
him about thirty-eight years old. He did not look it. His firm thought
everything of him in spite of the fact that his reputation made it
exceedingly difficult to hire men for his camps. He had the name of a
“driver.” But this little man, in some mysterious way of his own, could
get in the logs. There was none like him. About once in three months he
would suddenly appear, worn and haggard, at Beeson Lake, where he would
drop into an iron bed, which the Company maintained for that especial
purpose. Tim Brady, the care-taker, would bring him food at stated
intervals. After four days of this, he would as suddenly disappear into
the forest, again charged with the vital, restless energy which kept
him on his feet fourteen hours a day until the next break down. When he
looked directly at you, this nerve-force seemed to communicate itself to
you with the physical shock of an impact.
Richard Darrell usually finished banking his season’s cut a month earlier
than anybody else. Then he drew his pay at Beeson Lake, took the train
for Bay City, and set out to have a good time. Whiskey was its main
element. On his intensely nervous organization it acted like poison. He
would do the wildest things. After his money was all spent, he started up
river for the log-drive, hollow-eyed, shaking. In twenty-four hours he
was himself again, dominant, truculent, fixing his brown chipmunk eyes on
the delinquents with the physical shock of an impact, coolly balancing
beneath the imminent ruin of a jam.
Silver Jack, on the other hand, was not nervous at all, but very tall
and strong, with bronze-red skin, and flaxen white hair, mustache and
eyebrows. The latter peculiarity earned him his nickname. He was at
all times absolutely fearless and self-reliant in regard to material
conditions, but singularly unobservant and stupid when it was a question
of psychology. He had been a sawyer in his early experience, but later
became a bartender in Muskegon.
He was in general a good-humored animal enough, but fond of a swagger,
given to showing off, and exceedingly ugly when his passions were aroused.
His first hard work, after arriving in Bay City, was, of course, to
visit the saloons. In one of these he came upon Richard Darrell. The
latter was enjoying himself noisily by throwing wine-glasses at a beer
advertisement. As he always paid liberally for the glasses, no one
thought of objecting.
“Who’s th’ bucko?” inquired Silver Jack of a man near the stove.
“That’s Roaring Dick Darrell, walkin’ boss for M. & D.,” replied the
other.
Silver Jack drew his flax-white eyebrows together.
“Roaring Dick, eh? Roaring Dick? Fine name fer a bad man. I s’pose he
thinks he’s perticular reckless, don’t he?”
“I do’no. Guess he is. He’s got th’ name fer it.”
“Well,” said Silver Jack, drawing his powerful back into a bow, “I ain’t
much; but I don’t like noise—’specially roaring.”
With the words he walked directly across the saloon to the foreman.
“My name is Silver Jack,” said he, “I come from Muskegon way. I don’t
like noise. Quit it.”
“All right,” replied Dick.
The other was astonished. Then he recovered his swagger and went on:
“They tell me you’re the old he-coon of this neck of th’ woods. P’r’aps
you _were_. But I’m here now. Ketch on? I’m th’ boss of this shebang now.”
Dick smiled amiably. “All right,” he repeated.
This second acquiescence nonplussed the newcomer. But he insisted on his
fight.
“You’re a bluff,” said he, insultingly.
“Ah! get out!” replied Dick with disgust.
“What’s that?” shouted the stranger, towering with threatening bulk over
the smaller man.
And then to his surprise Dick Darrell began to beg.
“Don’t you hit me!” he cried, “I ain’t done nothing to you. You let
me alone! Don’t you let him touch me!” he called beseechingly to the
barkeeper. “I don’t want to get hurt. Stop it! Let me be!”
Silver Jack took Richard Darrell by the collar and propelled him rapidly
to the door. The foreman hung back like a small boy in the grasp of a
schoolmaster, whining, beseeching, squirming, appealing for help to the
barkeeper and the bystanders. When finally he was energetically kicked
into the gutter, he wept a little with nervous rage.
“Roaring Dick! Rats!” said Silver Jack. “Anybody can do him proper. If
that’s your ‘knocker,’ you’re a gang of high bankers.”
The other men merely smiled in the manner of those who know. Incidentally
Silver Jack was desperately pounded by Big Dan, later in the evening, on
account of that “high-banker” remark.
Richard Darrell, soon after, went into the woods with his crew, and began
the tremendous struggle against the wilderness. Silver Jack and Big
Dan took up the saloon business at Beeson Lake, and set themselves to
gathering a clientèle which should do them credit.
The winter was a bad one for everybody. Deep snows put the job behind;
frequent storms undid the work of an infinitely slow patience. When the
logging roads were cut through, the ground failed to freeze because of
the thick white covering that overlaid it. Darrell in his mysterious
compelling fashion managed somehow. Everywhere his thin eager triangle
of a face with the brown chipmunk eyes was seen, bullying the men into
titanic exertions by the mere shock of his nervous force. Over the
thin crust of ice cautious loads of a few thousand feet were drawn to
the banks of the river. The road-bed held. Gradually it hardened and
thickened. The size of the loads increased. Finally Billy O’Brien drew up
triumphantly at the rollway.
“There’s a rim-racker!” he exclaimed. “Give her all she’ll stand, Jimmy.”
Jimmy Hall, the scaler, laid his flexible rule over the face of each log.
The men gathered, interested in this record load.
“Thirteen thousand two hundred and forty,” announced the scaler at last.
“Whoopee!” crowed Billy O’Brien, “that’ll lay out Rollway Charley by two
thousand feet!”
The men congratulated him on his victory over the other teamster, Rollway
Charley. Suddenly Darrell was among them, eager, menacing, thrusting his
nervous face and heavy shoulders here and there in the crowd, bullying
them back to the work which they were neglecting. When his back was
turned they grumbled at him savagely, threatening to disobey, resolving
to quit. Some of them did quit: but none of them disobeyed.
Now the big loads were coming in regularly, and the rollways became
choked with the logs dumped down on them from the sleighs. There were
not enough men to roll them down to the river, nor to “deck” them there
in piles. Work accumulated. The cant-hook men became discouraged. What
was the use of trying? They might as well take it easy. They did take it
easy. As a consequence the teamsters had often to wait two, three hours
to be unloaded. They were out until long after dark, feeling their way
homeward through hunger and cold.
Dick Darrell, walking boss of all the camps, did the best he could. He
sent message after message to Beeson Lake demanding more men. If the
rollways could be definitely cleared once, the work would lighten all
along the line. Then the men would regain their content. More help was
promised, but it was slow in coming. The balance hung trembling. At any
moment the foreman expected the crisis, when the men, discouraged by the
accumulation of work, would begin to “jump,” would ask for their “time”
and quit, leaving the job half finished in the woods. This catastrophe
must not happen. Darrell himself worked like a demon until dark, and
then, ten to one, while the other men rested, would strike feverishly
across to Camp Twenty-eight or Camp Forty, where he would consult with
Morgan or Scotty Parsons until far into the night. His pale, triangular
face showed the white lines of exhaustion, but his chipmunk eyes and his
eager movements told of a determination stronger than any protest of a
mere nature.
Now fate ordained that Silver Jack for the purposes of his enlightenment
should select just this moment to drum up trade. He was, in his way, as
anxious to induce the men to come out of the woods as Richard Darrell was
to keep them in. Beeson Lake at this time of year was very dull. Only a
few chronic loafers, without money, ornamented the saloon walls. On the
other hand, at the four camps of Morrison & Daly were three hundred
men each with four months’ pay coming to him. In the ordinary course of
events these men would not be out for sixty days yet, but Silver Jack
and Big Dan perfectly well knew that it only needed the suggestion, the
temptation, to arouse the spirit of restlessness. That a taste or so of
whiskey will shiver the patience of men oppressed by long monotony is as
A B C to the North Country saloon-keeper. Silver Jack resolved to make
the rounds of the camps sure that the investment of a few jugs of whiskey
would bring down to Beeson Lake at least thirty or forty woods-wearied
men.
Accordingly he donned many clothes, and drove out into the wilderness a
cutter containing three jugs and some cigars in boxes. He anticipated
trouble. Perhaps he would even have to lurk in the woods, awaiting his
opportunity to smuggle his liquor to the men.
However, luck favored him. At Camp Twenty-eight he was able to dodge
unseen into the men’s camp. When Morgan, the camp foreman, finally
discovered his presence, the mischief had been done. Everybody was
smoking cigars, everybody was happily conscious of a warm glow at the pit
of the stomach, everybody was firmly convinced that Silver Jack was the
best fellow on earth. Morgan could do nothing. An attempt to eject Silver
Jack, an expostulation even, would, he knew, lose him his entire crew.
The men, their heads whirling with the anticipated delights of a spree,
would indignantly champion their new friend. Morgan retired grimly to the
“office.” There, the next morning, he silently made out the “time” of
six men, who had decided to quit. He wondered what would become of the
rollways.
Silver Jack, for the sake of companionship, took one of the “jumpers” in
the cutter with him. He was pleased over his success, and intended now
to try Camp Thirty, Darrell’s headquarters. In regard to Morgan he had
been somewhat uneasy, for he had never encountered that individual; but
Darrell he thought he knew. The trouble at Bay City had inspired him with
a great contempt for the walking boss. That is where his mistake came in.
It was very cold. The snow was up to the horses’ bellies, so Silver Jack
had to drive at a plunging walk. Occasionally one or the other of the
two stood up and thrashed his arms about. At noon they ate sandwiches of
cold fried bacon, which the frost rendered brittle as soon as it left
the warmth of their inside pockets. Underfoot the runners of the cutter
shrieked loudly. They saw the tracks of deer and wolves and partridge,
and encountered a few jays, chickadees, and woodpeckers. Otherwise the
forest seemed quite empty. By half-past two they had made nine miles, and
the sun, in this high latitude, was swinging lower. Silver Jack spoke
angrily to his struggling animals. The other had fallen into silence of
numbness.
They did not know that across the reaches of the forest a man was
hurrying to intercept them, a man who hastened to cope with this new
complication as readily as he would have coped with the emergency of a
lack of flour or the sickness of horses. They drove confidently.
Suddenly from nowhere a figure appeared in the trail before them. It
stood, silent and impassive, with forward-drooping, heavy shoulders,
watching the approaching cutter through inscrutable chipmunk eyes. When
the strangers had approached to within a few feet of this man, the horses
stopped of their own accord.
“Hello, Darrell,” greeted Silver Jack, tugging at one of the stone jugs
beneath the seat, “you’re just the man I wanted to see.”
The figure made no reply.
“Have a drink,” offered the big man, finally extricating the whiskey.
“You can’t take that whiskey into camp,” said Darrell.
“Oh, I guess so,” replied Silver Jack, easily, hoping for the peaceful
solution. “There ain’t enough to get anybody full. Have a taster,
Darrell; it’s pretty good stuff.”
“I mean it,” repeated Darrell. “You got to go back.” He seized the
horses’ bits and began to lead them in the reversing circle.
“Hold on there!” cried Silver Jack. “You let them horses alone! You old
little runt! Let them alone I say!” The robe was kicked aside, and Silver
Jack prepared to descend.
Richard Darrell twisted his feet out of his snow-shoe straps. “You can’t
take that whiskey into camp,” he repeated simply.
“Now look here, Darrell,” said the other in even tones, “don’t you make
no mistake. I ain’t selling this whiskey; I’m _giving_ it away. The law
can’t touch me. You ain’t any right to say where I’ll go, and I’m going
where I please!”