Bushwackers’ Place
On that triangular forestland of extreme south-western Ontario there was
a block of hardwood timber, consisting of something over two thousand
acres. This was known as Bushwhackers’ Place. On its left lay a
beautiful body of water called Rond Eau, and so close to this natural
harbor grew the walnut trees that when the night was old the moon cast
their shadows far out across the tranquil waters. From the edge of the
bay northward and westward the forest swept in valleys and ridges until
the lower lands were reached. Then the hard timber gave way to the
rugged softwoods of the swales, where the giant basswood, elms, and ash
trees gripped the damp earth with tenacious fingers that ran far
underground, forming a network of fiber, which to this day wears down
the plow-points of the tillers of the soil.
Why this upland was called Bushwhackers’ Place, or why the people who
held possession there were called Bushwhackers, has never been
explained. In fact, those simple people were not bushwhackers, but
hunters, trappers, and fishermen. True, each landowner had cleared a
little land, quite sufficient to raise the vegetables necessary for his
table and fodder for his sheep, oxen, and pigs, during the winter
months; but the common tendency among the Bushwhackers seemed to be to
let the timber stand until it was required for firewood.
All buildings in Bushwhackers’ Place were constructed of logs mortised
at the ends. The beams, rafters, and floors of the homes were split or
hewn from the finest grained timber procurable. When the walls were
raised to a sufficient height doors and windows were cut in them, the
rafters of the roof were laid, and the wide slabs, split from
straight-grained ash blocks, were placed on the roof, overlapping one
another so as to shed the rain. Blue clay was dug from the earth to fill
in the chinks between the logs. The Bushwhacker’s home was roomy, warm,
and comfortable.
Nineteen years ago Daniel McTavish, or Big McTavish, as he was commonly
called on account of his great size, had settled in this spot with the
determination of making it a home for himself and wife. The shadowy
bushland appealed to him. He set to work with an ax and built a home.
Shortly after it was finished a little McTavish was ushered into the
world. Meanwhile, two other families had taken up claims near by. These
were Jim Peeler and Ander Declute, and they with their wives came over
to help name the baby.
Naming a baby in those old days was just as hard as it is in these. Each
person had a particular name to fasten upon the new arrival. Peeler
wanted to name him Wolfe, after a famous general he had heard of, but
his wife protested on the grounds that the Government was offering a
bounty for wolves and somebody might get mixed up and “kill him off.”
Mrs. Declute wanted to call the boy after some Bible hero. Moses, she
thought, would be a good name. He looked just like Moses must have
looked at his age, she said.
“I’ll tell you how we’ll decide,” said Ander Declute, after the debate
had lasted some three hours. “We all of us have a different name we want
to hitch to the youngster. I move that we let Mac here write out them
names on a piece of paper and we’ll pin it to a tree and let the little
chap decide for himself.”
“How?” asked the others.
“Well, after we’ve tacked up the paper somebody’ll hold a rifle and
we’ll let the baby pull the trigger. The name the ball comes nearest to
we’ll choose. What do you say?”
Everybody thought it a capital plan. The names were written on the sheet
of paper and it was pinned to a tree. The baby’s mother held the light
rifle and pressed the baby’s finger on the trigger. The little
Bushwhacker did not so much as blink at the report.
The bullet bored one of the names through the letter O, and the name was
B-O-Y.
“That’s the one I picked on,” grinned Declute, “an’ it’s a good one.”
So the baby was called Boy.
Others came to Bushwhackers’ Place and took up homesteads.
One, Bill Paisley, drifted in, from nobody knew where, and started
“clearin’” near to Declute’s place. He was a tall, angular young man,
with blue eyes which laughed all the time, and a firm jaw with muscles
that had been toughened by tobacco-chewing. His hair was long and
inclined to curl, and altogether he was a hearty, fresh, big piece of
manhood. He could swing an ax with any man on Bushwhackers’ Place, and
cut a turkey’s comb clean at eighty yards with his smooth-bore. He
needed no other recommendations. The neighbors had a “bee” and helped
Paisley up with his house. The Bushwhackers loved bees and “changin’
works,” for it brought them together. And although on account of much
talking, one man could have accomplished more alone than three could at
a bee, there was no hurry, and, as Peeler said, “a good visit beat work
all hollow anyway.” Whiskey was plentiful and a jug of it could always
be seen adorning a stump when a bee or “raisin’” was in progress. But
because it was good, cheap, and as welcome as the flowers of the
woodland, nobody drank very much of it. Maybe it would be a “horn all
’way ’round” after work was done, or a “night-cap” after the evening
dance was over; for, be it known, no bee or raising was considered
complete without a dance in the evening. Every Bushwhacker’s home had a
jug of whiskey in it—usually under the bed,—a dog on the doorstep, and
sheep, pigs, and cattle in the barnyard. These barnyards had tall
rail-fences around them. In the winter months the wolves sometimes tried
to scale the fences, and bears tried to dig beneath them. Then the dog
would bark and the man would come out with his long brown rifle, and
besides bear-steak for breakfast next morning there would be a pelt for
the Bushwhacker.
And so the years passed, and the Bushwhackers lived their simple, happy
lives and found life good. Little Bushwhackers were born, named, and set
free to roam and enjoy the Wild as they wished. Sometimes one of them
might stray away too far into the big forest, and then there would be a
hunt and the little strayaway would be brought safely back.
When the youngsters were old enough to be taught reading and writing,
their mothers washed their faces with soft home-made soap and sent them
over to “Big Mac’s” for their lessons.
Mrs. McTavish—a self-educated woman—found great pleasure in teaching
these children. They were quick to learn and slow to lose what they were
taught. As Peeler put it, “every child should know how t’ read and write
and do sums,” so the children of the bush were not allowed to grow up in
ignorance.
Bill Paisley, also, took a hand in instructing the youngsters of
Bushwhackers’ Place. He taught the boys how to shoot and handle a rifle.
It was quite necessary for one who shot to shoot well, as ball and
powder were costly commodities. He took the lads on long tramps through
the woods when the autumn glow was on the trees. He showed them how to
watch a deer-run and taught them how to imitate the wild turkey call.
Boy McTavish was his constant companion, and as a result Boy came to
know the wild things of bush and water well. He knew the haunts of the
brown and black bears, the gray wolves, and the wary deer. He knew just
what part of the clear, deep creek the gamey bass or great maskilonge
would be lying in wait for some unsuspecting minnow, and he could land
the biggest and gamest of them, too. Many a glorious summer morning’s
sport did he have drifting down the creek in his canoe and out on the
white bosom of Rond Eau Bay, trolling for bass. Boy loved those
beautiful mornings of the summer season when the air was all alive with
birds and their voices. Through the mist arising from the face of the
water he would watch the great bass leap, here and there, a flash of
green and gray high in air, and tumble back to glide and sight and dart
upon the shiners—wee innocent minnow-fish these, swimming happily
upstream like little children just out of school. There would be a
shower of little silvery bodies as the minnows in sheer terror leaped
from the water before the greedy cannibal’s rush, and Boy’s hook, with a
shiner impaled upon it, would alight amid the commotion, and there would
come a tug at his line that made the strong sapling rod bend and dip.
Many a string of great, beautiful bass did he catch on this creek close
beside his home, sometimes with Paisley, sometimes with Gloss, sometimes
alone.
Boy loved those early mornings of his dominion of marsh and wood; for
Rond Eau was very beautiful with morning tints upon her face, as up
above the pine-studded Point the lights of dawn came bounding. With that
dawn, swift-winged almost as its arrows of crimson, the wild,
harsh-voiced ducks came dipping and swerving, to settle and feed in the
rich rice-beds of the bay.
Along the marshes, blue-winged teal would hiss and whistle in their
irregular flight. Earliest of all the wild-ducks, they came when the
time was between darkness and daylight. Next came the blacks and grays,
quacking their way noisily along the shores. High above them a long,
dark line would whistle into view and pass onward with the speed of a
cloud-shadow. These were red-heads, newly arrived from the south. Still
swift of wing, though weary, they would follow on until their leader
called a halt. Now lost against the slate sky, now sweeping into view
against a splash of crimson, they would turn and flash along the farther
shore, sinking lower with diminished speed as they passed an
outstretching point of land. A number of their kind, arrived the night
before, would be feeding and resting there. Onward the line would pass,
and then turning drop down slowly and the ducks would settle among their
fellows with muffled spats and heads facing the wind.
Far over the pines of the Point another dark bunch would grow into
space, and, turning, throw a gleam of white upon the watcher’s sight.
These were blue-bills, hardiest of all wild-ducks. They were tired and
unafraid and ready to make friends with any water-fowl, whether they
were of their own kind or a flock of despised coot. Great flocks of
peerless canvasbacks, their wings dipping in unison, their white backs
gleaming in the morning light, would grow up and fade and grow to life
again. They would sweep around and around the bay, craning their long
necks suspiciously, settling ever lower, and passing many a flock of
dozing ruddy ducks, that were resting, having fed long before the dawn
of day.
Boy would watch these wild, free things with all the joy of a wild thing
in sympathy with them. As far as the eye could reach were ducks, and
beyond the bay was the wild Point, and above all the wild sky with angry
darts of light like ragged knives, slashing its breast here and there.
Naturally Boy resented the advance of anything that tended to destroy
the pictures of his world.
A big man from Civilization, who owned the strip of timber across the
creek, had built a mill thereon, and all day long, now, that mill sang
its song of derision, and the swaths in the wood were growing wider. It
was his own timber the man was cutting—nobody could gainsay that fact;
but he was destroying, each day, the creek, that silver thread that had
been for so long a home for duck and mink and water-rat. He was
destroying beauty and crippling the usefulness of the best trapping and
fishing ground of the Bushwhackers. A discord had been set vibrating
throughout that wooded fastness. The sibilant song of Hallibut’s mill
was driving the fur-bearing animals to seek more secluded haunts. The
wood-ducks that had nested close in along the wooded shore drifted far
back to another creek, and the black ducks did not flutter lazily along
the marsh throughout the breeding season now, but high in air and remote
from the noise and smoke and jar that was a new and fearful thing to
them.
Boy McTavish hated that mill; and that schoolhouse of white boards
clinging to the hill he hated, too. Hatred was a strange element with
him. It sickened his soul, crushed him, and robbed him of all his
old-time restfulness of spirit. The discord could not pass him by.