THE YANKEE STOREKEEPER.
Three men stood with their axes amid the primeval forest. Vast trunks
rose around them to an altitude of thirty or even fifty feet without
a bough; above, 'a boundless contiguity of shade,' and below, a dense
undergrowth of shrubs, which seemed in some places impenetrable jungle.
Three axes against thirty thousand trees. The odds were immensely in the
dryads' favour; the pines and hardwoods might have laughed in every leaf
at the puny power threatening their immemorial empire, and settled that
_vis inertiae_ alone must overcome.
If, as Tennyson has bestowed upon the larkspur ears, the higher vegetation
can listen also, the following conversation would that day have been
heard from the triad of axe-men beginning their campaign against the
forest, and 'bating no jot of heart or hope' in the contest.
'Here's the site for your shanty,' said Mr. Holt, dealing a blow on a
fine maple before him, which left a white scar along the bark. 'It has
the double advantage of being close to this fine spring creek, and
sufficiently near the concession line.'
'And I'm sanguine enough to believe that there will be a view at some
future period,' added Robert, 'when we have hewed through some hundred
yards of solid timber in front. By the way, Holt, why are all the
settlers' locations I have yet seen in the country so destitute of wood
about them? A man seems to think it his duty to extirpate everything
that grows higher than a pumpkin; one would imagine it ought to be easy
enough to leave clumps of trees in picturesque spots, so as to produce
the effect of the ornamental plantations at home. Now I do not mean
exclusively the lowest grade of settlers, for of course from them so
much taste was not to be expected; but gentlemen farmers and such like.'
'I dare say they contract such an antipathy to wood of every species
during their years of clearing, that it is thenceforth regarded as a
natural enemy, to be cut down wherever met with. And when you have seen
one of our Canadian hurricanes, you will understand why an umbrageous
elm or a majestic oak near one's dwellings may not always be a source of
pleasurable sensations.'
'Still, I mean to spare that beautiful butternut yonder,' said Robert;
'of all trees in the forest it is prettiest. And I shall try to clear
altogether in an artistic manner, with an eye to the principles of
landscape gardening. Why, Holt! many an English _parvenu_ planning the
grounds of his country seat, and contemplating the dwarf larches and
infantine beeches struggling for thirty years to maturity, would give a
thousand guineas for some of these lordly oaks and walnuts, just as they
stand.'
Sam Holt refrained from expressing his conviction that, after a winter's
chopping, Robert would retract his admiration for timber in any shape,
and would value more highly a bald-looking stumpy acre prepared for fall
wheat, than the most picturesque maple-clump, except so far as the
latter boded sugar.
'To leave landscape gardening for after consideration,' said he, with
some slight irony, 'let us apply ourselves at present to the shanty. I
think, by working hard, we might have walls and roof up before dark.
Twenty by twelve will probably be large enough for the present--eh,
Robert?'
Oh yes, certainly; for the house was to be commenced so soon, that
the shanty could be regarded only as a temporary shelter. Blessed,
labour-lightening sanguineness of youth! that can bound over intermediate
steps of toil, and accomplish in a few thoughts the work of months or
years.
So Mr. Holt measured the above dimensions on the ground, choosing a spot
where the trunks appeared something less massive, than elsewhere, and
set his auxiliaries to cut down all the trees within the oblong, and for
a certain distance round; arranging also that the logs should fall as
near as might be to where they were wanted for the walls.
Now, the settler's first-felled tree is to him like a schoolboy's first
Latin declension, or a lawyer's first brief--the pledge of ability, the
earnest of future performances. Every success braces the nerves of mind,
as well as the muscles of body. A victory over the woodland was embodied
in that fallen maple. But Andy was so near getting smashed in the coming
down of his tree, that Mr. Holt ordered him to lay by the axe, and bring
his spade, to dig a hole in a certain spot within the oblong.
'An' its mighty harmless that crathur 'ud be agin the wood,' muttered
the Irishman; 'throth, the earth in this counthry is mostly timber. An'
in the name of wondher what does he want wid a hole, barrin' we're to
burrow like rabbits?'
But the others were too busy felling or chopping trees into lengths of
log to heed Andy's wonderment; and the novices were agreeably surprised
to find how dexterous they became in the handling of the axe, after even
a few hours' practice. Their spirits rose; for 'nothing succeeds like
success,' saith the Frenchman.
'Now I'll give you a lesson in basswood troughs,' said Mr. Holt. 'This
shanty of yours is to be roofed with a double layer of troughs laid
hollow to hollow; and we choose basswood because it is the easiest split
and scooped. Shingle is another sort of roofing, and that must be on
your house; but troughs are best for the shanty. See here; first split
the log fair in the middle; then hollow the flat side with the adze.'
Robert was practising his precepts busily, when he was almost startled
by a strange nasal voice beside him.
'Considerable well for a beginner; but I guess you put a powerful deal
too much strength in yer strokes yet, stranger.'
The speaker was a tall lank man, with black hair to correspond, and
lantern jaws; little cunning eyes, and a few scrubby patches of rusty
stubble on chin and cheeks. Robert disliked him at once.
'Why didn't you stop at the "Corner" yesterday? 'Twarn't neighbourly
to go on right away like that. But it all come, I reckon, of Britisher
pride and impudence.'
Robert looked at him full, and demanded, 'Pray who are you, sir?'
'Zack Bunting as keeps the store,' replied the other. 'I'm not ashamed
neither of my name nor country, which is the U--nited States, under the
glorious stars and stripes. I come up to help in raising the shanty, as
I guessed you'd be at it to-day.'
Young Wynn hardly knew what to reply to such an odd mixture of insolence
and apparent kindness. The Yankee took the adze from his hand before he
could speak, and set about hollowing troughs very rapidly.
'You chop, and I'll scoop, for a start. Now I guess you hain't been used
to this sort of thing, when you was to hum? You needn't hardly tell, for
white hands like yourn there ain't o' much use nohow in the bush. You
must come down a peg, I reckon, and let 'em blacken like other folks,
and grow kinder hard, afore they'll take to the axe properly. How many
acres do you intend to clear this winter?'
'As many as I can.'
'Humph! you should blaze 'em off all round, and work 'em reglar. You
han't more than a month's "brushing" now. Are you married?'
'No,' replied Robert, waxing fierce internally at this catechism. 'Are
you?' by way of retaliation.
'This twenty year. Raised most of our family in the States. The old
woman's spry enough yet, as you'll see when you come to the "Corner."'
All this time Mr. Bunting was chewing tobacco, and discharging the
fluid about with marvellous copiousness, at intervals. Robert thought
his dried-up appearance capable of explanation. 'What made you come to
settle in the bush?' was his next question.
'Holt!' called out Robert, quite unable patiently to endure any further
cross-examination; and he walked away through the trees to say to his
friend,--'There's an intolerable Yankee yonder, splitting troughs as
fast as possible, but his tongue is more than I can bear.'
'Leave him to me,' answered Sam; 'his labour is worth a little annoyance,
anyhow. I'll fix him.' But he quietly continued at his own work,
notwithstanding, and kept Robert beside him.
Mr. Bunting speedily tired of manufacturing the basswood troughs alone,
and sloped over to the group who were raising the walls of the shanty.
'Wal, I guess you're gitting along considerable smart,' he observed,
after a lengthened stare, which amused Arthur highly for the concentration
of inquisitiveness it betrayed. ''Tain't an easy job for greenhorns
nohow; but you take to it kinder nateral, like the wood-duck to the
pond.' He chewed awhile, watching Sam's proceedings narrowly. 'I guess
this ain't your first time of notching logs, by a long chalk, stranger?'
'Perhaps so, perhaps not,' was the reply. 'Here, lend a hand with this
stick, Mr. Bunting.'
Zack took his hands from the pockets of his lean rusty trousers, and
helped to fit the log to its place on the front wall, which, in a
shanty, is always higher than the back, making a fall to the roof. Mr.
Holt managed to keep the Yankee so closely employed during the next
hour, that he took out of him the work of two, and utterly quenched his
loquacity for the time being. 'He shall earn his dinner, at all events,'
quoth Sam to himself.
'Wal, stranger, you _are_ a close shave,' said Zack, sitting down
to rest, and fanning himself with a dirty brownish rag by way of
handkerchief. 'I hain't worked so hard at any "bee" this twelve month.
You warn't born last week, I guess.'
'I reckon not,' replied Sam, receiving the compliment as conscious
merit should. 'But we're not half done, Mr. Bunting; and I'd like such
a knowledgeable head as yours to help fix the troughs.'
'Oil for oil in this world,' thought Robert.
'Throth, they'll build me up entirely,' said Andy to himself; 'an' sorra
door to get out or in by, only four walls an' a hole in the middle of
the floor. Of all the quare houses that iver I see, this shanty bates
them hollow. Masther Robert,' calling aloud, 'I wondher have I dug deep
enough?'
'Come out here, and get dinner,' was the response. 'We'll see to-morrow.'
''Tis asier said than done,' remarked Andy, looking for a niche between
the logs to put his foot in. 'I hope this isn't the way we'll always
have to be clamberin' into our house; but sorra other way do I see,
barrin' the hole's to be a passage ondherground.'
'You goose! the hole is to be a cellar, wherein to keep potatoes and
pork,' said his master, overhearing the tale of his soliloquy. Andy
departed to his cookery enlightened.
Before the pan had done frizzling, whole rows of the ready-made troughs
were laid along the roof, sloping from the upper wall plate to the back;
and Mr. Bunting had even begun to place the covering troughs with either
edge of the hollow curving into the centre of that underneath. Robert
and Arthur were chinking the walls by driving pieces of wood into every
crevice between the logs: moss and clay for a further stuffing must be
afterwards found.
If the Yankee were quick at work, he fulfilled the other sequent of the
adage likewise. His dinner was almost a sleight-of-hand performance.
Arthur could hardly eat his own for concealed amusement at the gulf-like
capacity of his mouth, and the astonishing rapidity with which the
eatables vanished.
'While you'd be sayin' "thrapstick," he tucked in a quarter of a stone
of praties and a couple of pound of rashers,' said Andy afterwards.
'Before the gintlemen was half done, he was picking his long yellow
teeth wid a pin, an' discoorsin' 'em as impident as if he was a
gintleman himself, the spalpeen!'
All unwitting of the storm gathering in the person of the cook, Mr.
Bunting did indulge in some free and easy reflections upon Britishers in
general, and the present company in particular; also of the same cook's
attendance during their meal.
'Now I guess we free-born Americans don't be above having our helps to
eat with us; we ain't poor and proud, as that comes to. But I'll see ye
brought down to it, or my name's not Zack Bunting. It tickles me to see
aristocrats like ye at work--rael hard work, to take the consait out of
ye; and if I was this feller,' glancing at Andy, 'I'd make tracks if ye
didn't give me my rights, smart enough.'
The glow in the Irish servant's eyes was not to be mistaken.
'I guess I've riled you a bit,' added the Yankee wonderingly.
'An' what's my rights, sir, if yer honour would be plasin' to tell me?'
asked Andy, with mock obsequiousness; 'for I donno of a single one this
minit, barrin' to do what my master bids me.'
'Because I calc'late you've been raised in them mean opinions, an' to
think yerself not as good flesh an' blood as the aristocrats that keep
you in bondage.'
'Come now,' interrupted Sam Holt, 'you shut up, Mr. Bunting. It's
no bondage to eat one's dinner afterwards; and he'll be twice as
comfortable.'
'That's thrue,' said Andy; 'I never yet could ate my bit in presence of
the quality; so that's one right I'd forgive; and as for me--the likes
of _me_--bein' as good blood as the Masther Wynns of Dunore, I'd as soon
think the Yankee was himself.'
With sovereign contempt, Andy turned his back on Mr. Bunting, and
proceeded to cook his dinner.
'Wal, it's the first time I see a feller's dander riz for tellin' him
he's as good as another,' remarked Zack, sauntering in the wake of the
others towards the unfinished shanty. 'I reckon it's almost time for me
to make tracks to hum; the ole woman will be lookin' out. But I say,
stranger, what are you going to do with that heaver meadow below on the
creek? It's a choice slice of pasture that.'
'Cut the grass in summer,' replied Sam Holt, tolerably sure of what was
coming.
'I've as fine a red heifer,' said the Yankee confidentially, 'as ever
was milked, and I'd let you have it, being a new-comer, and not up to
the ways of the country, very cheap.' His little black eyes twinkled.
'I'd like to drive a trade with you, I would; for she's a rael prime
article.'
'Thank you,' said Mr. Holt, 'but we don't contemplate dairy farming as
yet.' Zack could not be rebuffed under half-a-dozen refusals. 'Wal, if
you won't trade, you'll be wantin' fixins from the store, an' I have
most everythin' in stock. Some of my lads will be along to see you
to-morrow, I reckon, and any whisky or tobacco you wanted they could
bring; and if you chose to run a bill'--
Refused also, with thanks, as the magazines say to rejected contributions.
This, then, was the purport of Mr. Bunting's visit: to gratify curiosity;
to drive a trade; to estimate the new settlers' worldly wealth, in order
to trust or not, as seemed prudent. While at dinner he had taken a mental
inventory and valuation of the boxes and bales about, submitting them
to a closer examination where possible. At the time Robert thought it
simply an indulgence of inordinate curiosity, but the deeper motive of
self-interest lay behind.
'In their own phrase, that fellow can see daylight,' remarked Mr. Holt,
as Zack's lean figure disappeared among the trees. 'I never saw little
eyes, set in a parenthesis of yellow crowsfeet at the corners, that did
not betoken cunning.'