dispute.
His eye could nail a fish-slick off a league or so
away,
--He could look around a corner, so his fel-
lows used to say;
But the thing’twas most uncommon--where
our whole dependence hung,
Was his long and round and peak-ed champion
taster of a tongue.
’Twas always out and chasin’ round the edges
of his lip;
When a nasty time was brewin’
It was always out and doin’
Like as though it felt responsible for helpin’
handle ship.
It had tasted ev’ry bottom soil from Quero to
the Cow,
It knew the taste and savor, the place and where
and how.
--Darkest night or wildest hurricane that ever
ramped or blew,
We never lost our bearin’s, for old Jason always
knew.
We would take some mutton taller and we’d
fill the hollowed head
Of the plummet, smooth and even, then a man
would throw the lead.
And we’d pass her back to Jason and he’d turn
the plummet up,
Taste the scrimp of soil that stuck there on the
taller in the cup,
And he’d tell us where we headed, though the
night be black’s a coal,
For he knew the taste of bottoms from the Cow
to Quero Shoal.
--Told us easy, off the reel,
What was underneath our keel,
--Didn’t need the sun or quadrant with old
Jason at the wheel;
He was only once mistaken in the memory of
men,
--And we’ve always kept insistin’ that he
wa’n’t mistaken then.
The storm came down upon us from the nor’-
nor’east by east,
--’Twas an equinoctial pealer,
A reg’lar ring-tail squealer,
The sky was hasty puddin’ and the sea beneath
was yeast.
When the Hanks went tossin’ up’ards it really
seemed we flew,
And the sky seemed splittin’ open for to let
our vessel through;
When we wallowed down wher-rooshin’ in the
gulf that gawped beneath,
We’d’a’ left our hearts behind us if we hadn’t
clinched our teeth.
We’d really seem to feel
Old Hankses’ battered keel
Go bumpin’ on the bottom when she made her
downward reel.
But the more she blew and blew,
Old Jason cheered his crew,
--His whiskers whipping snappin’ as the wind
went screamin’ through.
So we hung to brace and riggin’ and we let her
roar and roll,
While each man pinned to Ellison the safety of
his soul.
Then at last we knew’twas night-time by the
thick’nin’ overhead,
And Jason licked his taster and he yelled:
“Now throw the lead!”
An’ we--we blinked to watch him from the
darkness where we clung,
And waited for the verdict, of that long and
peak-ed tongue.
He tasted--then he waited, and he smacked his
lips a spell,
He tasted--tasted--tasted, then he gave an
awful yell:
“My God, ye critters, pray!”
--He slung the lead away,--
And howled: “The world is endin’! It’s the
final Judgment Day!
That plummet, there, has brought us up a hand-
ful of the loam
From the Widder Abbott’s garden on the Neck
ro’d, back at home.
A tidal wave has lifted us--the Hanks has run
away!
--It has tossed’er over Glo’ster,
And we sartin sure have lost’er,
’Less ye pray, ye sin-struck critters,’less ye
pray, pray, pray!”
Each clung to rope and stanchion, each hung to
stay and brace,
Each prayed up at the heavens while the spin-
drift lashed his face;
We prayed and prayed till mornin’
Till the early, yaller dawnin’
Lit up the sea around us, and it also lit our
case;
Then we found an explanation
Of the sing’lar situation
That was figgered in the darkness of the night
by Uncle Jase.
For we noticed there was settin’ up against the
le’ward rail
Some lavender and other yarbs, a-growin’ in a
pail.
--They’d been brought aboard by Jase
Who had worn a meechin’ face,
For his sparkin’ of the widder was the gossip
of the place.
He knowed a flower-garden looked peecooliar
on the Hanks,
But he wanted some momentum of the widder
on the Banks.
Now, the plummet bein’ handled in the dark-
ness of that night
Somehow cuffed that dirt in passin’--as ye
might say, took a bite.
And Jason knew the flavor of that scrimp of
garden loam,
--There wa’n’t a soil to fool him’twixt Quero
Shoal and home.
By the flavor and the feel
He could tell us off the reel,
The name of any bottom that was underneath
our keel.
He was only once mistaken in the memory of
men,
And his crew will keep insistin’ that he wa’n’t
mistaken then.
BALLADS OF DRIVE AND CAMP
THE RAPO-GENUS CHRISTMAS BALL
[Illustration: 0115]
There had been no social doings since the drive
had passed the flume,
And the section from Seboomook to the
Chutes was rather blue;
So the folks at Rapo-genus, where there’s rum
enough and room,
Arranged a Christmas function and invited
Murphy’s crew.
The folks at Rapo-genus hired Ezra Hewson’s
hall,
And posted up the notice for “Our Yearly
Christmas Ball.”
Now Murphy’s crew was willing and they
walked the fifteen miles,
And arrived at Rapo-genus wearing most be-
nignant smiles.
The genial floor director waited near the outer
door,
And pleasantly suggested they remove the
boots they wore.
He said that Rapo-genus wished to make of
this affair
An elegant occasion, “reshershay and day-
bonair;”
So it seemed the town’s opinion, after many
long disputes,
That’twas time to change the custom and ex-
clude the spike-sole boots.
He owned’twas rather drastic and would cause
a social jar
’Twixt Upper Ambejejus and the Twin Deps-
connequah,
“But ’tis settled,” so he told them, “that nary
lady likes
To do these fancy dances with a gent what’s
wearin’ spikes.
So I asks ye very kindly, but I asks ye one and
all,
To leave your brogan calkers on the outside of
this hall.”
“This ’ere is sort o’ sudden,” said the boss of
Murphy’s crew,
“Jest excuse us for a minute, but we don’t
know what to do.
We’ve attended social functions at the Upper
Churchill Chutes,
An’ the smartest set they had there was
a-wearin’ spike-sole boots.
Excuse us for the mention, but we feel com-
pelled to say,
’Tisn’t fair to shift a fashion all a sudden, this
’ere way;
An’ the local delegation, when it came with the
in-vite,
Omitted partunt leathers in its mention of to-
night.
So I guess ye’ll have to take us with these
spikes upon our soles,
We can’t appear in stockin’s,’cause the most of
us have holes.”
But the genial floor director guarded still the
outer door
And declared that “gents with spikers weren’t
allowed upon the floor.”
He said’twas very awkward that special guests
should thus
Be kept in outer darkness, and he didn’t want a
fuss.
But so long as Rapogenusites had issued their
decree
He hadn’t any option, “as a gent with sense
could see.”
So he passed his ultimatum, “Ye must shed
them spike-sole boots!
For we hain’t the sort of humstrums that ye’ll
find at Churchill Chutes.”
Then up spoke Smoky Finnegan, the boss of
Murphy’s crew,
Said he, “The push at Churchill sha’n’t be
slurred by such as you.
We’re gents that’s very gentle an’ we never
make a fuss,
But in slurrin’ folks at Churchill ye are also
slurrin’ us.
We have interduced the fashions up at Church-
ill quite a while,
An’ no Rapo-genus half-breeds have the right
to trig our style.
If ye’ve dropped the vogue of spikers at the
present Christmas ball
We will start the fashion over, good and solid,
that is all!
So, mister, please excuse us, but ye’ll open up
your sluice,
Or God have mercy on ye if I turn these gents
here loose!”
Then the genial floor director shouted back
within the room,
“Ho, men of Rapo-genus, here is trouble at
the boom!”
But even as he shouted, with a rush and crush
and roar,
Like a bursting jam of timber Murphy’s angels
stormed the door.
Then against them rose the sawyers of the
Rapo-genus mill,
Who rallied for the conflict with a most in-
trepid will,
But by new decree of fashion they were wear-
ing boughten suits
And even all the boomsmen had put off their
spike-sole boots.
So that gallant crew of Murphy’s simply trod
upon their feet,
And backward, howling, cursing, they com-
pelled them to retreat.
The air was full of slivers as the spikers chewed
the floor,
And the man whose feet were punctured didn’t
battle any more.
“Now, fellers, boom the outfit,” shouted Fin-
negan, the boss,
His choppers formed a cordon and they swept
the room across;
The people who were standing at the walls in
double ranks,
Were pulled and thrown to center at the order,
“Clear the banks!”
Then they herded Rapo-genus in the middle of
the room,
And slung themselves around it like a human
pocket-boom.
All the matrons and the maidens were as
frightened as could be
When Finnegan commanded, “Now collect the
boomage fee!”
At a corner of the cordon they arranged a sort-
ing-gap
And one by one the women were escorted from
the trap,
And without a word of protest, as they drifted
slowly through,
They paid their tolls in kisses to the men of
Murphy’s crew.
And at last when all the women had been sorted
from the crowd,
The men were “second-raters,” so the boss of
Murphy’s vowed.
“We will raft them down as pulp-stuff!” and
he yelled to close about,
“Now, my hearties, start the windlass,” or-
dered he, “we’ll warp ’em out!”
Through the doorway, down the stairway, grim
and struggling, thronged the press,
--All the brawn of Rapo-genus fighting hard
without success,
They were herded down the middle of the
Rapo-genus street,
--If they tried to buck the center they were
bradded on the feet;
They were yarded at the river; Murphy’s pea-
vies smashed the ice,
Though the men of Rapo-genus couldn’t smash
that human vise
That held them, jammed them, forced them!
When the water touched their toes,
Then at last they fought like demons for to
save their boughten clothes.
But as fierce were Murphy’s hearties, and their
spikers helped them win,
For they kicked and spurred their victims and
they dragged them shrieking in.
Then with water to their shoulders there they
kept them in the wet
While they gave them points on breeding and
the rules of etiquette.
And at midnight’twas decided by a universal
vote
That the strict demands of fashion do not call
for vest or coat;
That’twixt Upper Ambejejus and the Twin
Depsconnequah
BALLADS OF DRIVE AND CAMP
Shirts of red and checkered flannel are the
smartest form, by far.
And that gents may chew tobacco was declared
in all ways fit
If they only use discretion as to when and
where they spit.
And above all future cavil, sneer or jeer or vain
disputes,
High was set this social edict: “Gents may
wear their spike-sole boots.”
Then the men of Rapo-genus and the men of
Murphy’s crew
They dissolved their joint convention--they
were near dissolving, too!
And to counteract the action of the water on
the skin
They applied some balmy lotion to the proper
parts within.
Then they danced till ruddy morning, and their
drying garments steamed,
And awful was the shrinkage of those seven-
dollar suits!
And the feet of Murphy’s woodsmen gashed
and slashed and clashed and seamed,
Till a steady rain of slivers rained behind
those bradded boots.
--And all disputes of etiquette were buried once
for all,
At that Christmas social function, the Rapo-
genus Ball.
WHEN THE ALLEGASH DRIVE GOES THROUGH
We’re spurred with the spikes in our soles;
There is water a-swash in our boots;
Our hands are hard-calloused by peavies and
poles,
And we’re drenched with the spume of the
chutes.
We gather our herds at the head
Where the axes have toppled them loose,
And down from the hills where the rivers are
fed
We harry the hemlock and spruce.
We hurroop them with the peavies from their
sullen beds of snow;
With the pickpole for a goadstick, down the
brimming streams we go;
They are hitching, they are halting, and they
lurk and hide and dodge,
They sneak for skulking eddies, they bunt the
bank and lodge.
And we almost can imagine that they hear the
yell of saws
And the grunting of the grinders of the paper-
mills because
They loiter in the shallows and they cob-pile at
the falls,
And they buck like ugly cattle where the broad
deadwater crawls.
But we wallow in and welt ’em with the water
to our waist,
For the driving pitch is dropping and the
Drouth is gasping “Haste!”
Here a dam and there a jam, that is grabbed
by grinning rocks,
Gnawed by the teeth of the ravening ledge that
slavers at our flocks;
Twenty a month for daring Death; for fighting
from dawn to dark--
Twenty and grub and a place to sleep in God’s
great public park;
We roofless go, with the cook’s bateau to fol-
low our hungry crew--
A billion of spruce and hell turned loose when
the Allegash drive goes through.
My lad with the spurs at his heel
Has a cattle-ranch bronco to bust;
A thousand of Texans to wheedle and wheel
To market through smother and dust.
But I with the peavy and pole
Am driving the herds of the pine,
Grant to my brother what suits his soul,
But no bellowing brutes in mine.
He would wince to wade and wallow--and I
hate a horse or steer!
But we stand the kings of herders--he for
There and I for Here.
Though he rides with Death behind him when
he rounds the wild stampede,
I will chop the jamming king-log and I’ll match
him, deed for deed.
And for me the greenwood savor and the lash
across my face
Of the spitting spume that belches from the
back-wash of the race;
The glory of the tumult where the tumbling
torrent rolls
With a half a hundred drivers riding through
with lunging poles.
Here’s huzza for reckless chances! Here’s
hurrah for those who ride
Through the jaws of boiling sluices, yeasty
white from side to side!
Our brawny fists are calloused and we’re mostly
holes and hair,
But if grit were golden bullion we’d have coin
to spend, and spare!
Here some rips and there the lips of a whirl-
pool’s bellowing mouth,
Death we clinch and Time we fight, for be-
hind us gasps the Drouth.
Twenty a month, bateau for a home, and only
a peep at town,
For our money is gone in a brace of nights
after the drive is down;
But with peavies and poles and care-free souls
our ragged and roofless crew
Swarms gayly along with whoop and song
when the Allegash drive does through.
THE KNIGHT OF THE SPIKE-SOLE BOOTS
They had told me to’ware of the “Hulling
Machine,”
But a tenderfoot is a fool!
Though the man that’s new to a birch canoe
Believes that he knows, as a rule.
They had told me to carry a mile above
Where the broad deadwater slips
Into fret and shoal to tumble and roll
In the welter of Schoodic rips;
But knowing it all, as a green man does,
And lazy, as green men are,
I hated to pack on my aching back
My duffle and gear so far.
So, as down the rapids there stretched a strip
With a most encouraging sheen,
I settled the blade of my paddle and made
For the head of the “Hulling Machine.”
It wasn’t because I hadn’t been warned
That I rode full tilt at Death--
It was simply the plan of an indolent man
To save his back and his breath.
For I reckoned I’d slice for the left-hand shore
When the roar of the falls drew near,
And I braced my knees and took my ease--
There was nothing to do but steer.
(_There are many savage cataracts, slavering
for prey,
’Twixt Abol-jackamcgus and the lower Brass-
u-a,
But of all the yowling demons that are wicked
and accurst,
The demon of the Hulling Place is ugliest and
worst._)
Now the strip in that river like burnished steel
Looked comfortable and slow,
But my birch canoe went shooting through
Like an arrow out of a bow.
And the way was hedged by ledges that
grinned
As they shredded the yeasty tide
And hissed and laughed at my racing craft
As it drove on its headlong ride.
I sagged on the paddle and drove it deep,
But it snapped like a pudding-stick,
Then I staked my soul on my steel-shod pole,
And the pole smashed just as quick.
There was nothing to do but to clutch the
thwarts
And crouch in that birchen shell,
And grit my teeth as I viewed beneath
The boil of that watery hell.
I may have cursed--I don’t know now--
I may have prayed or wept,
But I yelled halloo to Connor’s crew
As past their camp I swept.
I yelled halloo and I waved adieu
With a braggart’s shamming mien,
Then over the edge of the foaming ledge
I dropped in the “Hulling Machine.”
(_A driver hates a coward as he hates diluted
rye;
Stiff upper-lip for living, stiff backbone when
you die!
They cheered me whcn I passed them; they
followed me with cheers,
That, as bracers for a dying man, are better far
than tears._)
The “Hulling Place” spits a spin of spume
Steaming from brink to brink,
And it seemed that my soul was cuffed in a
bowl
Where a giant was mixing his drink.
And ’twas only by luck or freak or fate,
Or because I’m reserved to be hung,
That I found myself on a boulder shelf
Where I flattened and gasped and clung.
To left the devilment roared and boiled,
To right it boiled and roared;
On either side the furious tide
Denied all hope of ford.
So I clutched at the face of the dripping ledge
And crouched from the lashing rain,
While the thunderous sound of the tumult
ground
Its iron into my brain.
I stared at the sun as he blinked above
Through whorls of the rolling mists,
And I said good-by and prepared to die
As the current wrenched my wrists.
But just as I loosened my dragging clutch,
Out of the spume and fogs
A chap drove through--one o’ Connor’s crew--
Riding two hemlock logs.
He was holding his pick-pole couched at Death
As though it were lance in rest,
And his spike-sole boots, as firm as roots,
In the splintered bark were pressed.
If this be sacrilege, pardon me, pray;
But a robe such as angels wear
Seemed his old red shirt with its smears of dirt,
And a halo his mop of hair;
And never a knight in a tournament
Rode lists with a jauntier mien
Than he of the drive who came alive
Through the hell of the “Hulling Ma-
chine.”
He dragged me aboard with a giant swing,
And he guided the rushing raft
Serenely cool to the foam-flecked pool
Where the dimpling shallows laughed.
And he drawled as he poled to the nearest
shore,
While I stuttered my gratitude:
“I jest came through to show that crew
I’m a match for a sportsman dude.”
There are only two who have raced those falls
And by lucky chance were spared:
Myself dragged there in a fool’s despair
And he, the man who dared!
I make no boast, as you’ll understand,
And there’s never a boast from him;
And even his name is lost to fame--
I simply know’twas “Jim.”
If Jim was a fool, as I hear you say
With a sneer beneath your breath,
So were knights of old who in tourneys bold
Lunged blithesomely down at Death.
And if I who was snatched from the jaws of
hell
Am to name a knight to you,
Here’s the Knight of the Firs, of the Spike-
S’ole Spurs,
That man from Connor’s crew!
’BOARD FOR THE ALLEGASH”
A hundred miles through the wilds of Maine
You soon may ride on a railroad train.
Some Yankee hustlers have planned the scheme
To take the place of the tote-road team.
They have the charter, the grit and cash
To stretch their tracks to the Allegash.
Along the length of the forest route
The woodland creatures will hear the hoot
Of the bullgine’s whistle, where up to now
The big bull moose has called his cow.
And old Katahdin’s long fin-back
Will echo loud with the clickity-clack
Of wheels that merrily clatter and clash
Through the sylvan wastes toward the Allegash.
Sing hey! for the route to Churchill Lake,
But oh, for the chap who twists the brake.
His buckskin gloves will save the wear
On his good stout palms, you know, but where
Will he find relief when his throat is lame
With the wrench of a yard-long Indian name?
’Tis something, friend, of a lingual trick
To say “Seboois” and “Wassataquoick,”
“Lunksoos,” is tame and “Nesourdneheunk,”
But what do you say to a verbal chunk
To chew at once of the size of this:
“Pok-um-kes-wango-mok-kessis”?
I don’t believe’twould phase a man
To bellow out “Lah-kah-hegan
His windpipe scarcely would get a crook
By spouting forth, “Pong-kwahemook,”
And even “Pata-quon-gamis”
Is easy. But just look at this:
Ah, where is he who wouldn’t run
From “Ap-mo-jenen-ma-ganun”?
E’en “Umbazookskus” scratches some,
But doesn’t this just strike you dumb?
“Nahma-juns-kwon-ahgamoc”?
Just think of having that to sock
Athwart the palpitating air
Straight at a frightened passengaire.
Hot bearings can be swabbed with oil,
And busted culverts yield to toil,
One can replace a broken rail
But larynxes are not on sale.
So, while it’s hey for Churchill Lake
It’s oh, for the chap who twists the brake.
THE WANGAN CAMP
_The wangan camp! *
The wangan camp!
Did ye ever go a-shoppin’ in the wangan
camp?_
You can get some plug tobacker or a lovely
corn-cob pipe,
* _The wangan is the woods store that most of the
Maine lumber camps maintain._
Or a pair o’ fuzzy trowsers that was picked
before they’s ripe.
They fit ye like your body had a dreadful
lookin’ twist;
There is shirts that’s red and yaller and with
plaids as big’s your fist;
There are larrigans and shoe-packs for all
makes and shapes of men,
As yaller as the standers of a Cochin China
hen,
The goods is rather shop-worn and purraps a
leetle damp,
--But you take ’em or you leave ’em--either
suits the wangan camp.
_The wangan camp!
The wangan camp!
There is never any mark-downs at the
wangan camp._
The folks that knit the stockin’s that they sell
to us, why say--
They’d git as rich as Moses on a half of what
we pay.
I haven’t seen the papers, but I jedge this
Bower war
Is a-raisin’ Ned with prices--they are wust I
ever saw.
I was figg’rin’ t’other ev’nin’ what I’d bought,
--by Jim, I’ll bet
That a few more pairs o’larrigans will fetch me
out in debt.
For I’ve knowed a stiddy worker to go out as
poor’s a tramp
‘Cause he traded som’at reg’lar at the com-
p’ny’s wangan camp.
_The wangan camp!
The wangan camp!
They tuck it to you solid at the wangan
camp_.
PLUG TOBACCO AT SOURDNAHUNK
Now just for a moment I’ll let the machine,
Grind lyrical praise of the base nicotine.
--An ode of a sort of a commonplace stripe
Addressed to plebeian cut-plug and the pipe.
Oh, answer me now, gentle friends of the line,
Who have sought the blest haunts of the
spruce and the pine,
Have you found in the woods that a fragrant
cigar
Tastes worse than an elm-root slopped over
with tar?
Queer thing, that, my friend, but it’s none the
less true,
--This quirk of tobacco--I’ll leave it to you!
But there’s savor in wreaths from the brier and
cob,
In the depths of the forest afar from the mob;
And an incense that’s sweet to ecstatic degree
Curls up from the bowl of the ancient T. D.
While choicest Perfectos smell ranker than
punk
In the shade of the hemlocks of Sourdnahunk.
Ah, here do the tables most wondrously turn!
The city olfactories sniff if you burn
Aught else than the finest Havana in rolls;
Folks turn up their noses at cut-plug in bowls;
You may roam where you like with the base
cigarette
But you can’t smoke your pipe in the house,
now you bet.
For curtains and pictures and hangings and
lace
All flutter rebukingly there in your face;
And wife and the daughters and neighbors all
cough
And wish that the pipe-smoking man would
break off.
But ah, gentle fisher, the woods shout to thee,
With fervent request that you bring the T. D.
For the reek that the flavored tobacco roll pours
Belongs back in town and not here out-of-
doors.
Leave there city manners, creased trousers,
your “job,”
Bring here to the woods your tobacco and cob,
The hemlocks above you will tenderly sigh
As the incense from pipe bowls drifts past to
the sky.
Ah, human magician, the secret is yours!
Would you work mystic charms in the world
out-of-doors?
Take you the alembic of chastened brown bowl.
Touch fire--and visions will comfort your soul,
As you gaze out at Life through the wreaths
from a junk
Of good plug tobacco at Sourdnahunk.
O’CONNOR FROM THE DRIVE
_Men who plough the sea, spend they may--and
free!
But nowhere is there prodigal among those
careless Jacks,
Who will toss the hard-won spoil of a year of
lusty toil,
Like the Prodigals of Pick-pole and the Ish-
maels of the Axe._
You could hear him when he started from the
Rapogenus Chutes,
You could hear the cronching-cranching of his
swashing, spike-sole boots,
You could even hear the colors in the flannel
shirt he wore,
And the forest fairly shivered at the way
O’Connor swore.
’Twas averred that in the city, full a hundred
miles away,
They felt a little tremor when O’Connor drew
his pay.
Though he drew it miles away,
When O’Connor drew his pay,
The people in the city felt the shock of it that
day.
And they said in deepest gloom,
“The drive is in the boom,
And O’Connor’s drawn his wages; clear the
track and give him room.”
He rode two giant spruces thro’ the smother of
the Chutes,
He rode them, standing straddled, shod and
spurred in spike-sole boots;
And just for exhibition, when he struck Che-
suncook Rip
He rolled the logs and ran them with never
miss or slip.
For a dozen miles thro* rapids did he balance
on one log,
And he shot the Big Seboomook at a mighty
lively jog.