I
"Klahya, tilikum."
As Pitt River Pete spoke he entered the humming Fraser Mill by the
big side door chute down which all the heavier sawed lumber slid on
its way to the yard. He had climbed up the slope of the chute and
for some moments had stayed outside, though he looked in, for the sun
was burning bright on white sawed lumber and the shining river, so
that the comparative gloom of the Mill made him pause. But now he
entered, and seeing Skookum Charlie helping the Wedger-off, he spoke,
and Skookum, who could not hear in the uproar, knew that he said
"Klahya."
The Mill stretched either way, and each end was open to the East and
the West. It was old and grimed and covered with the fine meal of
sawdust. Great webs hung up aloft in the dim roof. In front of Pete
was the Pony Saw which took the lumber from the great Saws and made
it into boards and scantling, beams and squared lumber. To Pete's
right were the Great Saws, the father and mother of the Mill, double,
edge to edge, mighty in their curved inset teeth, wide in gauge and
strong whatever came to them. As they sang and screamed in chorus,
singing always together, the other Saws chimed in: the Pony Saw sang
and the Great Trimmer squealed and the Chinee Trimmer whined. Every
Saw had its note, its natural song, just as naturally as a bird has:
each could be told by the skilled hearer. Pete listened as he
stepped inside and put his back against the studs of the wall-plates,
out of the way of the hive of man, he only being a drone that hour.
And the Big Hoes, Father and Mother of the Mill, droned in the cut of
logs and said (or sang) that what they cut was Douglas Fir, and that
it was tough. But the Pony Saw said that the last big log had been
Spruce. The smell of spruce said "spruce" just as the Saw sang it.
And the Trimmers screamed opposing notes, for they cut across the
grain. Beneath the floor where the chorus of the Saws worked was the
clatter of the lath-mill and the insistent squeal of the Shingle Saw,
with its recurrent shriek of pride, "I cut a shingle, phit, I cut a
shingle, phit!"
The whole Mill was a tuned instrument, a huge sounding board. There
was no discord, for any discord played its part: it was one organic
harmony, pleasing, fatiguing, satisfying; any dropped note was
missed: if the Lath Mill stayed in silence, something was wanting,
when the Shingler said nothing, the last fine addition to the music
fell away. And yet the one harmony of the Mill was a background for
the soloes of the Saws, for the great diapason of the Hoes, for the
swifter speech of the Pony, for the sharp cross note of the Trimmers.
The saws sang according to the log, to its nature, to its growth:
either for the butt or the cleaner wood. In a long log the saws
intoned a recitative: a solemn service. And beneath them all was the
mingled song of the belts, which drove the saws, hidden in darkness,
and between floors. Against the song of the Mill the voice of man
prevailed nothing.
When any man desired to speak to another he went close to him and
shouted. They had a silent speech for measurements in feet; the
hand, the fingers, the rubbed thumb and finger, the clenched hand
with thumb up, with thumb down, called numbers for the length of
boards, of scantling, what not.
"Eleven feet!" said the rubbing thumb and forefinger.
If any spoke it was about the business of the Mill.
"Fine cedar this," said Mac to Jack, "fine cedar--special
order--for----" a lost word.
But for the most part no one spoke but the saws. Men whistled with
pursed lips and whistled dumbly: they sang too, but the songs were
swallowed in the song of the Saws. They began at six and ran till
noon unless a breakdown happened and some belt gave way. But none
had given this day and it was ten o'clock. The men were warm and
willing with work, their muscles worked warm and easy. It was grand
to handle the lever and to beat in the iron dogs: to use the maul
upon the wedges as the Saws squealed. They worked easy in their
minds. They looked up and smiled unenvious of idle Pitt River Pete.
They knew work was good, their breath felt clean: their hearts beat
to the rhythm of the Mill.
As mills go it was a small one. It could not compete with the giants
of the Inlet and the Sound who served Australia, which grows no good
working wood, or South America. It sent no lumber to Brisbane, no
boards to Callao or Valparaiso. It served the town of New
Westminster and the neighbouring ranches: the little growth of
townships on the River up to Hope and Yale. Sometimes it sent a
cargo to Victoria or 'Squimault. A schooner even now lay alongside
the wharf, piled high with new sawed stuff, that the saws had eaten
as logs and spewed as lumber.
As logs! Aye, in the pool below, in the Boom, which is a chained log
corral for swimming logs, a hundred great logs swam. Paul (from
nowhere, but a tall thin man) was the keeper and their herder. He
chose them for the slaughter, and went out upon them as they
wallowed, and with a long pike stood upon the one to be sacrificed
and drove it to the spot whence it should climb to the altar: a long
slope with an endless cable working above and below it. He made it
fast with heavy dogs, with chains may be, and then spoke to one above
who clapped the Friction on the Bull-Wheel and hove the log out of
the water, as if it were a whale for flensing. It went up into the
Mill and was rolled upon the skids, and waited. It trembled and the
Mill trembled.
"Now, now, that log, boys. Hook in, drive her, roll her, heave and
she's on! Drive in the dogs and she goes!"
Oh, but it was a good sight and the roar was filling. Pete's eyes
sparkled: he loved it: loved the sound and the song and itched to be
again on the log with the maul. Those who speak of sport--why, let
them fell a giant, drive it, boom it, drag it and cut it up! To
brittle a monarch of the forest and disembowel it of its boards: its
scantlings: its squared lumber: posts, fences, shingles, laths,
pickets, Oho! Pete knew how great it was.
"Oh, klahya, tilikum, my friend the log."
He spoke not now to Skookum, but strong Charlie, and lazy Charlie,
understood him. At one hour of the day even the lazy surrendered to
the charm of the song of the work and did their damnedest. So
Skookum understood that his old friend (both being Sitcum Siwashes,
or half breeds) loved the Mill and the work at that hour.
White, the chief Sawyer, the Red Beard, was at his lever and set the
carriage for a ten inch Cant when the slabs were off and hurtling to
the lath mill. Ginger White no one loved, least of all his
Wedger-Off, Simmons (a man, like silent Paul of the Boom, from
nowhere), for he too was gingery, with a gleam of the sun in his
beard and a spice of the devil in his temper. He was the fierce red
type, while White was red but lymphatic, and also a little fat under
the jowl and a liar by nature, furtive, not very brave but skilled in
Saws. Simmons took a wedge and his maul and waited for the log to
come to him. The carriage moved: the saws bit: the sawdust squirted
and spurted in a curve with strips of wood which were not sawdust,
for they use big gauges in the soft wood of the West and would stare
at a sixteenth gauge, to say nothing of less. Now Simmons leapt upon
the log and drove in the wedge to keep the closing cut open for the
saws. The lengthening cut gave opening for another and another.
Simmons and Skookum played swiftly, interchanging the loosened wedge
and setting it to loosen the last driven in. The Wedgers-Off on the
six-foot log were like birds of prey upon a beast.
"Oh, give it her," yelled Skookum. It was a way of his to yell. But
Ginger drove her fast, hoping to hear the saws nip a little and alter
their note so that he could complain. Simmons knew it, Skookum knew
it. But they played quickly and sure. They leapt before the end of
the cut and helped to guide the falling cant upon the skids.
Chinamen helped them. The Cant thundered on the skids and was thrust
sideways over to the Pony Saw.
"Kloshe kahkwa," said Pete. "That's good!"
And as he sent the carriage backward for another cut, Ginger White
looked up and saw Pete standing with his back to the wall. Ginger's
dull eye brightened, and he regarded Simmons with increased
disfavour. Pete he knew was a good Wedger-Off, a quick, keen man
very good for a Siwash, as good as any man in the Mill at such work.
He had seen Pete work at the Inlet. Oh, he was good, "hyas kloshe,"
said White, but as for Simmons, damn! He was red-headed, and Ginger
hated a red man for some deep reason.
It was a busy world, but even in the rhythm of the work hatred
gleamed and strange passions worked as darkly as the belts, deep in
the floor, that drove the saws. Quin, the manager (and part owner),
came in at the door by the big Saws, and he saw Pete standing by the
open chute. He smiled to himself.
"Back again, and asking for work. Where's his wife, pretty Jenny?"
She was pretty, toketie klootchman, a pretty woman: not a half breed:
perhaps, if one knew, less than a quarter breed, tenas Sitcum Siwash,
and the blood showed in the soft cheeks. She was bright and had real
colour, tender contours, everything but beautiful hands and feet, and
they not so bad. As for her face, and her smile (which was something
to see), why, said Quin, as he licked his lips, there wasn't a white
woman around that was a patch on her. Jenny had smiled on him. But
Pete kept his eye on her and so far as it seemed she was true to him.
But Quin----
In the busy world as it was Quin's mind ran on Jenny.
"Yes, Sir," he used to say, "we're small but all there. We run for
all we're worth, every cent of it, every pound of beef. If you want
to see bigger, try the Inlet or Port Blakeley. But we cut here to
the last inch. Thirty thousand feet a day ain't a hell of a pile,
but it's all we can chew. And, Sir, we chew it!"
He was a broad heavy man, dark and strong and much lighter on his
feet than he looked. If there hadn't been Skookum Charlie it might
have been Skookum Quin. He was as hard as a cant-log.
"We're alive," said Quin the manager. They worked where he was, and,
hard as they had worked before, White set a livelier pace and made
his men sweat. Quin smiled and understood that Ginger White was that
kind of a man. Now Mac at the Pony Saw always took a breather when
Quin came in. Just now he walked from his saw, dropped down through
a trapdoor into a weltering chaos of sudden death and threw the
tightener off his saw's belt. The Pony Saw ceased to hum and whined
a little and ran slow and died. The blurred rim of steel became
separate teeth. Long Mac stood over the saw and tightened a tooth
with his tools and took out one and replaced it with a better
washleather to keep it firm. He moved slow but again descended and
let the tightener fall upon the belt. The Pony Saw sprang to valiant
life and screamed for work. Quin smiled at Mac, for he knew he was a
worker from "Way Back," and the further back you go the worse they
get! By the Lord, you bet!
So much for Quin for the time. The Stick Moola, as the Chinook has
it, is the theme.
It was a beast by the water, that lived on logs. It crawled into the
River for logs, and reached out its arms for logs. It desired logs
with its sharp teeth. It hungered for Cedar (there's good red cedar
of sorts in the ranges, and fine white cedar in the Selkirks), and
for Spruce (the fine tree it is!) and Douglas Fir and Hemlock or
anything to cut that wasn't true hardwood. It could eat some of the
soppy Slope Maple but disdained it. It was greedy and loved lumber.
Men cut its dinner afar off and towed it around to the Mill, to the
arms, the open arms of the Boom with Paul helping as a kind of great
kitchen boy.
At early dawn its whistle blew, for in the dark (or near it) the
underlings of the Engineer stirred up the furnaces and threw in
sawdust and woke the steam. At "half after five" the men turned out,
came tumbling in for breakfast in the boarded shack by the Store and
fed before they fed the Mill. The first whistle sounded hungry, the
second found the men hungry no more, but ready to feed the Beast.
In winter it was no joke turning out to begin the day early, but when
frost had the Fraser in its arms the Mill shut down and went to
sleep. One can't get one's logs out of eighteen inches of ice and
then a frozen log cuts hard: it shines when cut. But at this season,
it was bright at five and sunny at six. The men came with a summer
willingness (that is, with less unwillingness than in frost time,
for, remember, it takes work to make work easy and your beginner each
day hates the beginning) and they were drawn from all ends of the
earth.
There were British Canadians:
And Americans: from Wisconsin, Michigan, Texas, Iowa and the Lord
knows where.
And Spaniards: one a man of Castile, and one from Mexico.
There were two Kanucks of the old sort from the East or there was one
at any rate.
There were Englishmen. Well, there was one Jack Mottram and he a
seaman.
There was one Swede, Hans Anderssen, in the Mill. There were two
Finns outside it.
And one Lett (from Lithuania, you understand).
There was a Scotchman of course, and, equally of course, he was the
Engineer.
There was a French Canadian, not by any means of the _habitant_ type
but very much there, and he knew English well, but usually cursed in
French as was proper.
There were two Germans. One was as meek as one German usually is
unless he is drunk. But one was not meek. More of him anon.
It was an odd crowd, a mixed crowd at meal times in the Mill hash
house. To add to everything Chinamen waited: Chinamen cooked.
"Now then, Sing, chuck the chow on!"
"Sing-Sing (that's where you ought to be), where's the muckamuck?"
"Sacré chien----"
"Der Teufel----"
"By the great Horn Spoon----"
"Holy Mackinaw!"
"Caramba--Carajo----"
"By Crimes----"
"Oh! Phit!"
"Oh, where's the grub, the hash--the muckamuck, you Canton rats!
Kihi, kiti, mukha-hoilo!"
And the hash was slung and the slingers thereof hurried.
The hash-eaters talked English (of sorts), American (North and
South), Swinsk, Norsk, Dansk, true Spanish (with the lisp), Mexican
Spanish (without it and soft as silk). They interlarded the talk
(which was of mills, lumber, and politics, and Indian klootchmen, and
the weather, and of horses and dogs and the devil and all) with
scraps of Chinook. And that is English and French and different
sorts of Indian fried and boiled and pounded and fricasseed and
served up in one jargon. It's a complete and God-forsaken tongue but
Easy, and Easiness goes. It is as it were brother to Pidgin English.
The grub was "muckamuck" and luckily was "kloshe." But as it
happened (it usually did happen) there was salmon.
"Cultus slush, I call it," said one. "Cultu muckamuck."
"That's Ned Quin's nickname up to Kamloops," said Jack Mottram.
"Our man's brother?"
"Him," said Jack. He picked his teeth with a fork and Long Mac eyed
him with disgust.
"I know Ned, he's tough."
But Jack was tough himself: he had been salted in all the seas and
sun-dried on all the beaches of the rough round world. He made short
stays everywhere: passages not voyages: skippers were glad to give
him his discharge, for after sixty days at sea he sickened for the
land and became hot cargo.
"Oh, I'm tough enough," he would prelude some yarn with.
Now Shorty Gibbs spoke, he of the Shingle Mill. Lately the Shingle
Mill had annexed half a thumb of his as it screamed out to him.
"He's a son of a----"
He completed the sentence in the approved round manner.
They all admitted that Quin the Manager was Tough, but that Ned Quin
of Kamloops was tougher admitted not a doubt.
They swept the food from the table. Just as the logs were divided by
the Saws and fell into various Chutes and disappeared, so the food
went here. Most of the men ate like hogs (the better Americans least
like): they yaffled, they gurgled, they sweated over the chewing and
got over it.
"I'm piled up," said Tenas Billy of the Lath Mill. He too was minus
a thumb and the tops of some fingers, tribute to the saw. Especially
do the Shingle Saw and Lath Saw take such petty toll. When the Hoes
ask tribute or the Pony Saw it's a different matter.
"I'm piled up."
As to being piled up, that was a Sawmill metaphor.
"You've put the tightener on your belt!"
To be sure they all had.
But as to piling up, when things were booming and men were warm and
feeling the work good, and when nothing went wrong with the belts or
with the Engines and the logs came easy and sweet, it was the
ambition of the Chief Sawyer to pile up the Skids of Long Mac who had
the Pony Saw. Then it was Long Mac's desire to pile up the skids for
the Chinee trimmer (not run by a Chinee) and it was that Trimmer's
desire to pile up the man opposing. To be piled up is to have bested
one's own teeth, when it comes to chewing.
"My skids are full," said the metaphorical.
At six the whistle blew again, with a bigger power of steam in its
larynx. The Mill said:--
"Give me the logs, the boom is full and I'm in want of chewin'! Nika
tiki hyas stick! Give me logs: I've new teeth this morning! I'm
keen and sharp. Hoot--too--oot--too--oot! Give me Fir and Pine and
Spruce--spru--ooce!"
The Hash-Room emptied till noontime, when next Hash-Pile was
proclaimed, and the men streamed across the sawdust road and the
piled yard to the open Mill. Some went in by the door, some by the
Engine-Room, some climbed the Chutes. The sun was aloft now and
shining over the Pitt River Mountains (where Pete came from) and over
Sumach. The river danced and sparkled: scows floated on its tide:
the _Gem_ steamer got up steam. The Canneries across the big River
gleamed white. The air was lovely with a touch of the breath of the
mountains in it. The smell of the lumber was good.
The men groaned and went to work.
They forgot to groan in twenty minutes.
It was good work in an hour and good men loved it for a while.
But it was work that Pitt River Pete saw as he leant against the
wall. It wasn't an English pretence, or a Spanish lie, or an Irish
humbug: it was Pacific Slope work, where men fly. They work out West!
"Oh, Klahya!"
"I wonder if I can get a jhob," said Pete. And the job worked up for
him under his very eyes, for Quin had a quick mind to give him work
and get pretty Jenny near, and Ginger White was sore against Simmons.
Yes, Pitt River Pete, you can get "a jhob!" Devil doubt it, for
you've a pretty wife, and White drove the carriage fast and faster
still, drove it indeed faster than the saw could take it, meaning to
hustle Simmons and have present leave to burst out into blasphemy.
Things happen quick in the Mill, in any mill, and of a sudden White
stopped the carriage dead and yelled to Simmons on the log:
"Can't you keep her open, damn you? Are you goin' to sleep there?
Oh, go home and die!"
Simmons, on the log on his knees, looked up savagely. Though the big
Hoes were silent there was row enough with the Pony Saw and the Big
Trimmer and Chinee Trimmer and the Lath Mill and the Shingle Saw and
the Bull Wheel and the groaning and complaining of the planing
machines outside. So Simmons heard nothing. He saw Ginger's face
and saw the end had come to work. He knew it. It had been coming
this long time and now had come. But Simmons said nothing: he
grinned like a catamount instead, and then looked round and saw Quin.
He also saw Pete.
"To hell," said Simmons.
As he spoke he hurled his maul at White, and Ginger dodged. The head
missed him but the handle came backhanded and smote Ginger on the
nose so that the blood ran.
"Oh, oh," said Ginger as sick as any dog. Simmons leapt off into the
very arms of Quin.
"I'll take my money, Mr. Quin," said Simmons.
"Take your hook," said Quin. "Look out, here's White for you with a
spanner!"
White came running and expected Simmons to run. But Simmons' face
was red where White's was white. He snatched a pickareen from the
nearest Chinaman, and a pickareen is a useful weapon, a sharp half
pick, and six inches of a pick.
"You----" grinned Simmons, "you----"
And White stayed.
"Yah!" said Simmons, with lips set back. And Ginger White retreated.
"Here, sonny, take your pick," said the Wedger-Off that had been to
the Chinaman; "fat chops don't care to face it."
He turned to Quin.
"Shall I go to the office, Mr. Quin?"
"Aye," said Quin carelessly enough.
He beckoned to Pete, whose eyes brightened. He came lightly.
"You'll take the job, Pete?"
Would he take it?
"Nawitka," said Pete, "yes, indeed, Sir."
Nawitka! He took the job and grinned with Skookum, who fetched the
maul and gave him the wedges with all the pleasure in the world, for
Skookum had no ambition to be Chief Wedger-Off. White came forward,
dabbing at a monstrous tender nose with a rag.
"I've seen you at the Inlet?" he asked.
"Yes," said Pete, "at Granville."
"You'll do," said White. He dabbed at his huge proboscis and went
back to the lever. Pete leapt upon the log and drove in the first
wedge.
"Hyas, hyas! Oh, she goes!"
She went and the day went, and Pete worked like fire on a dry Spruce
yet unfelled. He leapt on and off and handled things with skill.
But when he looked at White's growing nose he grinned. Simmons had
done that.
"If he ever talk to me that away," said Pete, "I'll give him
chikamin, give him steel!"
He didn't love White, at the first glance he knew that. But it was
good to be at work again, very good.
At twelve o'clock the whistle called "Hash," and the engine was shut
down. The Saws slackened their steady scream, they grew feeble, they
whined, they whirred, they nearly stopped, they stayed in silence.
Men leapt across the skids: they slid down the Chutes: they clattered
down the stairs: they opened their mouths and could hear their
voices. They talked of White (he grubbed at home, being married),
and of Simmons and of Pete (he being a Siwash, even if not married,
would not have grubbed in the Hash House) and heard the story. On
the whole they were sorry that Simmons had not driven the pickareen
through White. However, his nose was a satisfaction.
"Like a beet----"
"A pumpkin----"
"A water melon----"
A prodigious nose after contact with the Maul Handle.
"I knew Mr. White," said Jenny to Pete, "Mr. White bad man, hyu
mesahchie."
"Sling out the muckamuck," said Pete calmly.
He fell to with infinite satisfaction, and Jenny came and sat on his
knee as he smoked his pipe.
"She is really devilish pretty," said Quin, who had no one to sit on
his knee.
The whistle suddenly said that it was half after twelve and that it
would be infinitely obliged if all the working gentlemen from
everywhere would kindly step up in a goldarned hurry and turn to.
"Turn to, turn too--toot," said the whistle as brutally as any
Western Ocean bo'sun.
The full fed reluctant gentlemen of the Mill went back into the
battle, waddling and sighing sorely.
"Wish to God it was six o'clock," they said. There's no satisfying
everybody, and going to work full of food is horrid, it really is.
What happened in the morning happened in the afternoon, and all the
saws yelled and the planers complained and the men jumped till six,
when the Engines let steam into the Whistle high up against the Smoke
Stack and made it yell wildly that work was over for the day. Mr.
Engine-man played a fantasia on that pipe and hooted and tooted and
did a dying cadenza that wailed like a lost soul in the pit and then
rose up in a triumphant scream that echoed in the hills and died away
across the waters of the Fraser shining in the peaceful evening sun.
And night came down, the blessed night, when no man works (unless he
be in a night shift, or is a night watchman or a policeman or, or--).
How blessed it is to knock off! But there, what do you know about
it, if you never played with lumber in a Stick Moola? Nothing, I
assure you. Go home and die, man.