A TALK IN THE WOODS.
Early the next morning, Mr. Davenport and Clinton decided to start
for home, as there were indications of an approaching change in the
weather, which might render the roads very uncomfortable, if it did
not compel them to prolong their stay at the loggers’ camp longer
than would be agreeable. After a breakfast of hot bread and molasses,
fried pork, and tea, Fanny was harnessed, and bidding farewell to
their forest friends, they jumped into the sleigh, and set their faces
towards Brookdale. As they were riding along the solitary road, Mr.
Davenport asked Clinton if he thought he should like to be a logger.
“I don’t know but I should,” he replied; “there are a good many things
about the business I should like. It makes them strong and healthy,
and I guess they have good times in the camps, and on the rivers. It
is quite a romantic life, too, and they seem to meet with a good many
curious adventures.”
“The novelty and romance of it soon wear off,” replied Mr. Davenport.
“These gone, do you think you should like the business well enough to
follow it up year after year?”
“Why, no, I suppose I should get tired of it, being away from home so
much of the time,” said Clinton.
“The work is very hard, too,” suggested his father.
“Yes, sir.”
“And the pay is not very great, in proportion.”
“Isn’t it?”
“It is, however, a very useful employment,” continued Mr. Davenport,
“and there must be men to engage in it. It is an honorable employment,
too, for all useful labor is honorable. But I should not call it a very
desirable employment. The logger not only has to labor very hard, but
he must go far away from his home, and deprive himself of nearly every
comfort of civilized life, and expose himself to many dangers. And for
all this hardship and toil, he does not receive so much pay as many a
mechanic earns in his shop, with half the effort.”
“Does not Mr. Preston make a great deal of money at logging?” inquired
Clinton.
“I suppose he makes a fair business of it,” replied his father; “but he
is a contractor, and employs a good many hands. I was speaking of the
hired men, not of those who manage the business.”
“Is Mr. Jones a contractor?”
“No, he works by the month, and hard work he finds it, too, I fear.”
“Then why does he follow it?”
“Because he is obliged to. He has a family to support, and this is the
only way by which he can provide for them. Should you like to know
how it happened that he cannot make money by an easier and pleasanter
method?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Clinton.
“When he and I were boys together,” continued Mr. Davenport, “his
father was rich, but mine was poor. When I was nine years old, I
was taken from school, and put out to work; but Henry Jones was not
only kept at school, for many years after, but was not required to
do any work, even in his leisure hours. He was well dressed, and had
everything he wanted, and I can remember to this day how I used to
envy him. I could not go to school even in winter, but had to work
constantly, and earn my own living. When I was about fourteen years
old, I engaged myself as an apprentice to a carpenter. I liked the
work, and soon made pretty good progress. As I had the long winter
evenings to myself, it occurred to me that I might make up for my
lack of school privileges, by an improvement of those leisure hours.
So I got some school books, and set myself to studying. Soon after
I reached my sixteenth year, I offered myself as a candidate for
schoolmaster in our town, and was accepted, for the winter term, my
master having agreed to release me for three months, as he usually
had little business during that portion of the year. And I, the poor
self-taught boy, was not only a school teacher, but Henry Jones, whose
privileges I had so often envied, was one of my scholars! A very dull
scholar he was, too, for he did not take the slightest interest in his
studies. Before I had finished my term, he left school, against the
wishes of his parents, having been fairly shamed out of it. He remained
about home several months, doing nothing, until his father secured
a situation for him in a merchant’s store in Portland; but when he
made his appearance in the counting-room, the merchant found him so
deficient in penmanship and arithmetic, that, after a week’s trial,
he sent Henry back to his father, with the message that he would not
answer. His failure discouraged him from attempting to do anything
more. Instead of remedying the defects in his education, he refused to
go to school any more, but spent his time principally in lounging about
his father’s place of business, and in sauntering around the town. He
was a perfect idler, and as his father continued to support and clothe
him, he took no more thought for the morrow, than the pigs in our sty
do, and I doubt whether he was half so valuable to the world as they
are.
“But this state of things could not last for ever. His father had
embarked very largely in the famous eastern land speculations, and
when the crash came, he found himself ruined. And yet even then, Henry
managed to hang upon him like a dead-weight for two or three years,
sponging his living out of his father’s shattered fortunes. But after
a while, his father died, and then Mr. Jones had to shift for himself.
But what was he fit for? It took him a great while to find out. He
tried several lighter kinds of employment, but did not succeed. At
length a man came along who was making up a gang of loggers, and
despairing of any better employment, he engaged in that, and has
continued at it ever since. He is with his family only four or five
months in the year, and during that time he works hard, at farming, not
for himself, but as a hired man.”
“I should think he would feel bad, when he thinks how he wasted his
youth,” said Clinton.
“He does,” said Mr. Davenport. “He is a worthy and industrious man
now, but he cannot repair the errors of his boyhood. Had he worked
half as hard when a youth as he has had to since, he would probably be
under no necessity of laboring now. But then his parents were rich and
indulgent, and he thought he should never be obliged to work. Whenever
we meet, he always says, ‘O dear, what a fool I have been! If my father
had only kicked me into the street when I was twelve years old, and
left me to shirk for myself, I might have been something now.’ And I
never see him, without thanking God that I was brought up to depend
upon myself, from my boyhood.”
Fanny had now come to a long and steep hill, and Mr. Davenport and
Clinton got out and walked up, to lighten her load. When they reached
the top, the prospect was very extensive, and they stopped a few
minutes, to enjoy the scene, and to rest the horse. While they were
gazing around, Clinton discovered something moving on a distant hill,
and cried out:—
“A deer! a deer! don’t you see it, father?—right over that great pine
that stands all alone, there.”
Mr. Davenport soon discovered the object pointed out by Clinton, and
said:—
“No, that can’t be a deer, Clinty,—it is too large. It is a moose, and
a noble great one, too. I should like to have a shot at him, but he is
too far off.”
“I didn’t know there were moose around in this part of the State,” said
Clinton. “One of the loggers told me they hadn’t seen one this winter.”
“They are pretty scarce now in this section of the country,” said his
father; “but now and then one is seen. That fellow has probably been
pursued, and has strayed away from his yard.”
The moose continued in sight for several minutes. Its gait was a swift,
regular trot, which no obstacle seemed to break. There was something
noble in its bearing, and Clinton stood watching and admiring it,
until it disappeared in the woods. He and his father then got into the
sleigh, and drove on.
“The moose is a handsomer animal than I supposed,” said Clinton. “That
one Mr. Preston brought home, two or three years ago, was a coarse,
clumsy-looking fellow.”
“They always look so, seen at rest, and close to,” replied Mr.
Davenport. “But when they are in motion, and at a distance, there is
something quite majestic about them. They travel very fast, and they
always go upon the trot. It makes no difference if they come to a fence
or other obstruction five or six feet high,—they go right over it,
without seeming to break their trot. I have been told that they will
travel twenty miles an hour, which is almost as fast as our railroad
trains average.”
“I have heard of their being harnessed into sleds—did you ever see it
done?”
“No, but they are sometimes trained in this way, and they make very
fleet teams. The reindeer, which are used to draw sleds in some parts
of Europe, are not so strong or so fleet as our moose.”
“It is curious that their great antlers should come off every year,”
said Clinton.
“Yes, and it is even more curious that such an enormous mass should
grow out again in three or four months’ time. This is about the time
of the year that their new antlers begin to sprout. I saw a pair,
once, that weighed seventy pounds, and expanded over five feet to the
outside of the tips. The moose must have a very strong neck, to carry
this burden about upon his head. When the antlers are growing, they
are quite soft and sensitive, and the moose is very careful not to
injure them. This is one reason, I suppose, why they frequent the lakes
and rivers in the summer and autumn, instead of roaming through the
forests. At these seasons of the year, the hunter has only to conceal
himself on the shore of some pond or lake, and he is pretty sure to
fall in with them. But the best time to hunt them is in the winter or
spring, when they are in their ‘yards,’ as they are called.”
“Did you ever see a moose-yard, father?”
“Yes, I saw one a good many years ago. A party of us went back into
the forests on a hunting excursion, one spring, and as near as I can
remember, it was in this very part of the country that we came across
the yard. That was before the loggers came this way, and frightened
away the moose. There were no roads, then, in this section, and we
travelled on foot, on snow shoes, with our guns in our hands, and our
provisions on our backs. Some hours before we discovered the yard,
we knew we were near one, by the trees which had been barked by them
in the fall. Having got upon the right track, we followed it up, as
silently as possible, until we came to the yard. But the moose had
heard or smelt us, and vacated their quarters before we reached them.
The yard we found to be an open space of several acres, with paths
running in every direction, all trodden hard; for the moose does not
break fresh snow, when he can help it. Nearly all the trees in the
vicinity were stripped of their bark, to the height of eight or ten
feet, and the young and tender twigs were clipped off as smoothly as
if it had been done by a knife. We could not tell how many moose had
yarded here, but from the size and appearance of their quarters, we
judged there must have been five or six. Sometimes they yard alone, but
generally a male, female and two fawns are found together. But we did
not stop many moments to examine their quarters. We soon found their
track from the yard, but we could not tell from this how many there
were, for they generally travel single file, the male going first, and
the others stepping exactly into his tracks. We kept up the pursuit
until night, without catching a sight of our game. We then built a camp
of hemlock boughs, made up a good fire in front of it, ate our supper,
and went to bed.
“We started again early the next morning, and had not gone much more
than half a mile, before we found the place where the moose had spent
the night. Some how or other, they can tell when their pursuers stop,
and if tired, they improve the opportunity to rest. Having gone a
little farther, the track divided into two, and our party concluded to
do the same. After several hours’ pursuit, the gang with which I went
came in sight of a moose. He was evidently pretty stiff, and we gained
on him fast, as the thick crust on the snow, while it aided us, was a
great inconvenience to him. Finding at last that he could not get away
from us, he suddenly turned about, and stood prepared to meet us. But
we had no disposition to form a very close acquaintance with him. One
blow with his fore feet, or one kick with his hind legs, would have
killed the first man that approached him. But he would not leave his
place to attack us, and so we had nothing to do but to lodge a bullet
or two in his head, which quickly decided the contest. We took his
hide, and as much of the meat as we could carry, and went back to meet
our companions, who, we found, had followed up their trail all day
without getting sight of any game. At night they gave up the chase, and
returned to the place at which they had separated from us. That was
my first and last moose hunt. On the whole, we were as successful as
most hunting parties are, for the moose is a very shy animal, and it is
difficult to approach within sight of it, without its taking alarm.”
Mr. Davenport had scarcely finished his moose story when Uncle Tim’s
clearing appeared in sight. As a storm seemed to be gathering, which
might last several days, he concluded to stop here only long enough
for dinner, and then to push his way homeward. Uncle Tim and his wife
and boys were glad to see him and Clinton, and they seemed quite
disappointed when they found their guests were not going to stop over
night. After an hour’s visit, the travellers resumed their journey, and
arrived home early in the evening, without any remarkable adventure.
The storm which Mr. Davenport anticipated, set in about dark, in the
form of rain and sleet, and continued for two or three days. This kept
Clinton in the house, much of the time, and gave him an opportunity to
relate to his mother and Annie the various incidents of his excursion,
which he did with great minuteness and fidelity.