THE CLEARING.
Uncle Tim was very glad to see Mr. Davenport and Clinton, as he always
was to see travellers. He called Bill, one of his boys, to go and put
up the horse, while he led the strangers into the house, where his wife
had already set about preparing something for them to eat, for it was
past noon, and the family had just finished their dinner.
Clinton soon slipped outside, to take a look at the premises, for his
curiosity was much excited by the novel appearance of things. The
clearing was very large, and not a native tree had been left upon
it; but it was completely surrounded by a straight, unbroken line of
forest, which looked like a perpendicular wall. The land consisted of
gentle slopes and valleys, and was divided into separate fields, by
fences made of stumps and logs. Nearly in the centre of the clearing
stood the house and barn. They were both built of spruce logs, placed
one upon another, cob-house fashion, the chinks between them being
filled up with clay and moss. From the centre of the house rose a huge
stone chimney. The windows were glazed in the common manner. As Clinton
was looking around, Uncle Tim came out and spoke to him:—
[Illustration: The log house]
“What do you think of it, young man?” he said; “do you suppose you
could build as good a house as this, with nothing but an axe?”
“I guess not,” replied Clinton; “but you didn’t build it with an axe,
did you?”
“I didn’t have much of anything else to work with, I assure you,” said
Uncle Tim. “There’s no knowing what you can do with an axe, until you
set out and try. But come in—I guess your dinner’s about ready.”
Uncle Tim guessed right. The table was covered with tempting food, in
great profusion, and Clinton and his father sat down to it with a good
appetite.
“You don’t starve yourselves, up here in the woods,” said Mr.
Davenport, glancing at the heaping dishes.
“No,” said Uncle Tim, “we can generally find something to eat; but it’s
a pity you didn’t come along a little sooner, so as to have had some of
our dinner.”
But the travellers did not pity themselves, if Uncle Tim did; for with
the fried ham and eggs, the nice wheaten bread, the delicious milk,
the sweet cakes and mountain cranberry sauce, the rich cheese, and tea
sweetened with molasses, they were in no danger of starving.
After their meal, Clinton renewed his examination of the house; and
Uncle Tim seeing he was interested in it, began to tell him how he
built it. He pitched upon the spot about twenty years before; and
after securing his title, he took his axe and went to work cutting
down trees. The first trees he felled, he used in building a “camp,” a
hut made of logs and covered with bark. After he had cleared about an
acre, and lopped off the limbs of the fallen trees, he set them on fire
in the fall. The logs, which remained unconsumed, were afterwards cut
into lengths of ten or twelve feet, piled together in heaps, and again
set on fire. Thus he had burned hundreds of cords of wood, to get rid
of it, which would have sold for six or seven dollars a cord, could he
have sent it to Portland or Boston. In the spring he planted his corn
and potatoes, and then went to work again with his axe and cleared
another piece. By-and-by he began to feel lonesome, for thus far he had
been entirely alone, with the exception of a couple of trusty dogs; so
he went back to the town from which he came, married a wife, and then
returned to his home in the forest. After a while their family began
to increase, and so they built a larger and better house,—the one in
which they were now sitting.
This was the substance of Uncle Tim’s story, although he made a much
longer one of it than I have done; for it was not very often that he
saw a stranger, and when he did, his tongue was pretty sure to enjoy a
holiday,—not of rest, but of action.
By this time, Mrs. Lewis had cleared off the table, and Clinton was
not a little astonished to see it suddenly converted into a rude but
capacious arm-chair! The round top of the table was turned up against
the wall, thus forming the back of the chair; and the frame which
supported it, became the arms. The object of this was to economize
space as well as furniture,—for in log houses there is seldom any room
to waste upon useless articles.
There were five rooms, but the partitions, instead of being of
plastering, were made of wood. Clinton, noticing this, said:—
“I thought you said you built this house with an axe; but how did you
make your boards for the doors, and partitions, and floors?”
“Boards? Why, bless you, there isn’t a board in the house. These things
are splints, not boards. I made them by splitting spruce logs. The roof
is covered with them, too, and I’m going to clapboard the house with
the same things afore next winter.”
Clinton’s mistake was very natural, for the floor and partitions were
almost as smooth and straight as though made of sawed and planed
boards. Clinton noticed in the floor, however, a great number of
small holes, which Uncle Tim told him were made by the spikes that
the drivers fix upon their boots to prevent their slipping off the
logs. This led Clinton to another discovery. The river, to whose head
waters they were going, passed through Uncle Tim’s clearing; but as it
was frozen over, and the ice partially covered with snow, Clinton had
not noticed it before. It was down this river that the logs and their
iron-shod drivers came, and the latter were in the habit of stopping at
uncle Tim’s for supplies.
Seeing a noble looking dog asleep in the chimney-corner, Clinton
inquired if that was one of the two that came with him when he first
settled in the woods.
“No,” said Uncle Tim, “but he’s a son of theirs, and a worthy
successor he is, too,—aint you, Hunter?” Hunter, at the mention of his
name, started from his doze, and wagged his bushy tail, which said
“Yes,” as plain as tail could speak. “He considers the poultry under
his charge,” continued Uncle Tim, “just as his father and mother did
afore him, and he wont suffer a hawk or any big bird to come within
twenty rods of the chickens. He’s great on Ingins, too,—he smells ’em a
mile off, and barks long afore they’re in sight.”
“Do you have many Indians about here?” inquired Clinton.
“Not many; a few stragglers come along once in a while. Red-skins
aint so plenty as they were when I first came here, nor half so saucy
either. They know it’s their fate to give way to their betters, and it
makes them sort of humble like.”
Clinton now went out to the barn, where he found two stout, hearty
lads, larger than himself, giving the cattle their suppers. These
were Uncle Tim’s sons. “Bill” and “Jim” were the only names by which
he heard them called. Their faces were brown, their hands large and
rough, and their clothing was of the coarsest description; but their
bodies were finely developed, and, like their father, they were shrewd
and intelligent, though they had never enjoyed a day’s schooling.
Clinton took hold and helped them about their work, and soon he felt
very well acquainted with them. They asked him a great many questions
about Brookdale, and he, in return, was quite as inquisitive about
their home. He was astonished to learn, as he did, in the course of the
conversation, that Bill, the eldest of these great, broad-shouldered,
wide-chested, and long-legged boys, was only about a year older than
himself, while Jim was actually his junior by three months. Hard work,
constant exposure to the air, and hearty food, had hastened their
growth to a remarkable degree.
The barn was larger than the house, and was built in much the same way,
though there were only wooden shutters to the windows instead of glass,
and the wood generally was not so smoothly finished as it was in the
house. The stock consisted of horses, cows, oxen, pigs and hens. The
ground served as a floor, in the lower story; but overhead there was
a loft, in which hay, straw, and other articles were stored. Clinton
learned from the boys, that their father raised all the hay and
grain necessary for the stock. Potatoes, grass, and oats, were their
principal crops, but they generally had small patches of wheat and
Indian corn. There were a few apple trees, which Uncle Tim had raised
from the seed, but the boys said the fruit was sour and crabbed, fit
only for “sarse,” or the pigs.
When Clinton returned to the house, he found preparations making for
supper. The fire-place,—the only one the house could boast,—was almost
large enough to admit of roasting an ox whole; and the heap of burning
logs, four feet long and unsplit, looked as if Mrs. Lewis was intending
to accomplish some such feat. But it was only her ordinary fire, such
as she always had to boil the tea-kettle, and bake a pan of cakes.
The fire-place was built of stone, and there was a hearth of the same
material before it. An iron crane swung over the fire, from which the
tea-kettle and baking kettle were suspended, by hooks shaped like the
letter S. Near the ceiling, over the hearth, a string was stretched
across the room, on which a few stockings were drying.
The arm-chair was now converted into a table, and supper was soon
ready. It was very similar to the meal of which Mr. Davenport and
Clinton had already partaken. Uncle Tim’s two boys did not come to the
table until the others had risen, as there was not room enough for
all. After the boys had finished their supper, Clinton asked them if
they would not go down with him to the river. They complied with his
request, and as they were on their way, they passed some logs, by the
side of which there was an axe, with a remarkably long helve or handle.
“Hullo,” said Clinton, “I guess that axe was made for a giant.”
“No,” said Bill, “the helve has to be long so that the chopper can
stand on the log when he cuts, so fashion,” and he jumped upon the log,
and gave it two or three blows that made it crack to the centre.
Clinton found the river narrower than he expected, and as the snow
had drifted in, there was not much ice to be seen. The boys told him,
however, that in the spring the stream was two or three times as wide
and deep as it was now, and they described to him its lively appearance
in a freshet, when thousands of logs were swept down its swift current,
every day, and the jolly drivers were continually passing, to start off
those timbers that happened to lodge against the rocks or shores.
“I’m going to be a logger,” said Bill; “they have first-rate times up
in the woods, in the winter, and it’s real fun to see them go down the
river in the spring.”
“Poh,” said Jim, “I’ll bet you’ll get enough of it in one season.
Father says it’s the hardest life a fellow can choose.”
“And what do you mean to be, Jim?” inquired Clinton.
“I want to be a carpenter,” replied Jim, “but father wont get me any
tools, nor let me go away to learn the trade. Do you have any tools
where you live, Clinton?”
“Yes, lots of them. My father used to be a carpenter, and has got a
whole set of tools, and lets me use them as much as I please.”
“O, how I wish I had some tools,” continued Jim. “I mean to ask father
to let me go over and see yours some time.”
“I wish he would let you go,” said Clinton. “I’d show you all our
tools, and how to use them, too.”
Night was fast drawing on, and the boys had now reached the house,
where they found Uncle Tim and Mr. Davenport talking about the
elections. There was in the room an article of furniture called a
settle, a bench large enough for three or four to sit upon, with a high
back, and arms to lean upon at each end. Clinton did not notice this
particularly as it stood in the back part of the room; but when the
boys moved it up to the fire, and all three seated themselves upon it,
he was much pleased with it.
“Father,” he said, during a pause in the conversation, “I wish we had
one of these seats—don’t you suppose I could make one?”
“I think very likely you could,” replied Mr. Davenport.
“I mean to try, when I get home,” added Clinton, and he examined it
still more carefully, to see how it was constructed.
“That settle was my grand-father’s, Master Clinton,” said Uncle Tim,
“and you must see if you can’t make one that will last as long as that
has—then your grand-children will have something to remember you by.”
“I’ll try,” said Clinton, with a laugh.
“‘I’ll try’—those are good words, my boy,” said Uncle Tim. “That’s
what Col. Miller said, when Gen. Brown asked him if he could carry
Queenstown Heights. ‘I’ll try,’ said he, and sure enough he did try,
and gained a splendid victory, and Congress gave him a gold medal, with
‘I’ll try’ engraved on it. So you stick to that motto, Master Clinton,
and I guess your grand-children will have a settle to remember you
by—don’t you think so?”
Clinton laughed, and seeing Uncle Tim was in so pleasant a mood, he
asked him if he wouldn’t let Jim go over to see him, some time. Jim,
finding the ground was broken, lost no time in putting in a word for
himself; and as Mr. Davenport said he should like to have the boys
visit Clinton, Uncle Tim gave a sort of half promise that Jim should
go, some time when he could spare him.
The rest of the evening was spent in listening to Uncle Tim’s stories
of his early life in the woods. He related many interesting accounts of
his adventures with bears and wolves, and other savage animals, which
were then more numerous than now. One of his anecdotes, which greatly
amused Clinton, was as follows:—
“Now I’m going to tell you a story,” said Uncle Tim, “that happened a
good many years ago, up in Vermont. I guess it was afore I was born,
but never mind, it may be just as new to you, for all that. There were
three brothers that went from Massachusetts and settled close together
in the wilderness, up there. They all lived in one log hut, and ate out
of the same porringer, but each fellow had his own patch of land, and
as it was pleasanter being together than alone, they agreed to take
turns in working upon each other’s farms. One day, all hands worked on
Jake’s farm, the next day on Sam’s, and the next on Bill’s—perhaps I
haven’t got the names right, but never mind that. But by-and-by one of
them got sort of jealous, or dissatisfied, or something of that kind,
and said he would not work that way any longer, no how. So the other
two stuck together, and let the odd sheep do as he pleased. Well, one
day, while the two that agreed were working in the field, they heard a
tremendous outcry from the other brother’s lot. So they up and seized
their rifles, which they always kept right under their noses, and ran
to see what the matter was. They expected to see some horrible sight,
you know, but what do you suppose they found? Why, there was their
brother up in a little sapling, rocking to and fro, and bellowing with
all his might, and below was a great bear, looking up dreadful earnest
at him. It seems the bear came suddenly at him, and as he hadn’t time
to go after his rifle, he sprung to the nearest sapling, which he knew
the bear couldn’t climb. But the sapling was so slender it bent over
like a bow, bringing him in such a position that he had to hold on
with both his feet and hands, and the bent part of his body, which was
covered with his buckskin breeches, hung down almost within reach of
the bear. Old Bruin soon discovered this, and so stood up on his hind
legs, to see if he couldn’t reach him that way; but all he could do
was to give the fellow a push with his fore paw, which set him and his
sapling to swinging back and forth. His claws did not go through the
buckskin breeches, but the man thought he was a gone case, and roared
dreadfully. The bear then squatted on his haunches to enjoy the sport,
and when the force of the blow was spent, and the man began to get
steady, he up and gave him another start. When the other two fellows
saw the state of the case, they laughed about as loud as their brother
hollered, and it was some time afore they could steady their hands so
as to put a bullet into the bear. After that scrape all three of them
hitched horses together again and went to work on the old plan. The old
bear paid dear for his sport, but you can’t say he didn’t do some good
in the world, can you? If it hadn’t been for him, just as likely as not
the fuss among those brothers would have grown bigger and bigger, until
they quarrelled just like cats and dogs.”
At nine o’clock, Uncle Tim wound up his yarns, and soon after all
retired to bed. They ascended to the second floor by means of a ladder.
There were two bed-rooms, with a space between them, which served both
as an entry and a store room. The great chimney came up through this
entry. Each bed-room had one window, in the gable end of the house, but
the space between the rooms was dark, except when the chamber doors
were open. The roof came down nearly to the floor, on each side, and
in the centre of the rooms, a tall man could hardly stand erect. Mr.
Davenport and Clinton slept in one of these rooms, and Bill and Jim in
the other. Uncle Tim and his wife had a bed-room down stairs. A straw
bed made up upon the floor, without a bedstead, a large chest, and
one chair, were the only furniture in the room where Clinton slept.
There were several long wooden pegs driven into the logs which served
as rafters, upon which they hung their clothing; and soon both were
sleeping as sweetly as though they had been quartered in the best room
of a “first-class hotel.”