PLEASURE AND PROFIT.
It is the latter part of December, just before sunset. The snow, which
had fallen in successive storms since the first of the month, now
lay deep on the ground. Making their way in Indian file through the
forest are four persons, in whom we recognize Uncle Isaac, Joe Griffin,
Charlie, and John. They are each of them harnessed to a singular sort
of a vehicle, called in hunters’ phrase “toboggin,” by long thongs of
deer-skin, which are put across the breast, and secured to the neck by
another strap to prevent their slipping down, like the breastplate of
a horse. The vehicle consists of a cedar board, eight feet long and
eighteen inches wide, quarter of an inch thick, made perfectly smooth,
and the forward end bent up like the nose of a sled, some bars put
across to strengthen it, to which to fasten the load. This formed the
lightest sled imaginable, being so long, in proportion to its width,
as to receive but little obstruction from the snow. The forward part,
bent up, glided easily over the drifts or logs, and it was withal so
thin, that it bent, and accommodated itself to the inequalities of the
surface. Upon the sledges they carry their rifles, powder, balls, and
buckshot, steel-traps, blankets, and a small kettle, pork, bread, and
parched corn, a large file, whetstone, axe, and other necessaries,
including a frow (a large knife) for splitting shingles. They wear
moccasons and snow-shoes; in their belts a knife and hatchet. Each man
also has a horn of tinder, flint, steel, and brimstone matches.
The boys were, evidently weary with their unaccustomed work, and
Charlie cast many a furtive glance towards the setting sun, the light
of which shone red through the trees. It was also evident that even Joe
was not unaffected by fatigue; but upon the seasoned frame of Uncle
Isaac the journey apparently made no impression.
“There ought to be a brook somewhere about here,” said he. “Ah! I see
the place. It’s just beyond that hemlock, though the water itself is
all covered with ice and snow. We’ll camp there. We ought to have
camped two hours ago, but I wanted to reach this spot.”
This was the first experience of real camp and hunter’s life the boys
had ever known. To be sure they had camped out in summer, on Smutty
Nose and in other places; but now it was bitter cold, and the snow
two feet deep. They were also tired. Uncle Isaac, taking counsel only
of his own toughened sinews, had not made sufficient allowance for
the little practice they had ever known in snow-shoe walking. Their
shoulders ached with the cutting of the straps, and their feet from the
pressure of the snow-shoes. Their loads, light at first, grew heavier
every mile.
As they looked around upon the trees covered with snow, their loads
white with frost, realized that they were in a wilderness, no house
within thirty miles, they began to feel that the hunting, to which they
had looked forward with such rapturous anticipations, had its rough as
well as its romantic side. The place where they had halted was in a
heavy growth of hard wood, largely mixed with hemlock, which, in the
gathering twilight of the short winter day, with their long branches,
gave a peculiar black and gloomy appearance to the spot in the eyes of
Charlie and John; but not so with the others.
“What a glorious place for a camp!” said Joe, going up to a large
hemlock, which had been turned up by the wind the year before, which
made, with its great roots matted together and filled with frozen
earth, an impenetrable barrier against the north-west wind, blowing
keen and cold; “and here is something to warm us,” taking his axe from
the sled, and attacking with vigorous blows a large beech, that stood
with its dead, dry branches extended to the wintry sky.
Uncle Isaac and the boys now took off their snow-shoes, and with them
scraped off the snow around the stump to the ground; then, cutting
some crotched poles, set them up in the snow, trod it around to keep
them steady, then putting other poles into the crotches, rested their
ends on the top of the stump, thus forming rafters, and over them
threw brush, till they made it all tight, leaving a hole in the centre
for the smoke to go out; then covered the floor thickly with hemlock
branches, and flung their blankets on it. By this time Joe had the tree
cut up. They first carried the large logs into the camp, then brought
along the smaller limbs and dry twigs, adding them to the pile.
Meanwhile Uncle Isaac and John collected a whole armful of birch bark
from the trees, and kindled it. In a moment the fire, catching the
great mass of dry wood, streamed through the hole in the top of the
camp, and glancing upon the dark masses of hemlocks, lit up the faces
of the group, as they stood around the fire, with a ruddy glow, and
changed the whole character of the scene as by enchantment.
The next morning they broke camp, and travelled till noon, camped, and
rested during the remainder of the day. Next morning, being refreshed
by rest, and well seasoned to their work, they started before daylight,
and travelled through a dense forest till Saturday noon, when they came
to a place where fires had destroyed the growth of trees many years
before, and the land was overrun with bushes, alternating with clear
spots. Its northern edge was broken into gentle hills and vales.
While eating dinner, they espied some deer on the side of one of the
hills, browsing among the young growth that had come up after the fire,
and scraping away the snow with their feet to get at the dead grass.
A fresh breeze was blowing and roaring in the tree tops, which would
conceal the noise of their approach. It was evident that the deer did
not see them, as they had not yet emerged from the wood, and had
instantly lain down on seeing the deer. The wind was also blowing
directly from the animals, so that they could not scent them.
There were clumps of bushes, thickly matted, with large open spaces
between them. Those nearest to the deer were within gunshot; but the
difficulty lay in crossing the open spaces, as they would have to do so
in sight of the herd. But Uncle Isaac said if Charlie and John would
remain where they were, he and Joe would surprise them.
He then cut a parcel of pine boughs, and tied them all around Joe’s
head, Joe in turn doing the same for him; so that when they got down
on the snow, which was hard enough to bear them, they, at a distance,
resembled a bush. Then they crawled along, watching the deer, remaining
motionless when they saw them looking towards them; but when they
turned from them to feed, crawled on till they reached a clump of
bushes. Charlie and John watched them with breathless attention as they
entered the last clump of bushes. It seemed to them an age after they
disappeared from sight; still they heard nothing. The deer now began to
manifest distrust. The leader raised his head and snuffed the air. The
greater part of them began to move their tails violently, and left off
feeding. At that moment the report of the rifles was heard, the leader
fell down in his tracks, and another, after two or three leaps, fell
on his knees, when Joe, rushing to his side, drew his knife across his
throat.
They were now highly elated, as they had provisions enough for a long
time. Hanging the carcasses in trees, to prevent the wolves from
getting them, they pressed on, in order to reach a suitable place to
camp before night.
Long before dark, they arrived at a place pronounced by Uncle Isaac to
be just the thing: it was a great precipice of rock, that rose, for
the most part, perpendicular to the height of twelve or fifteen feet,
but in one place jutted over very much, forming quite a cave at its
base, filled with stones of no great size, that had fallen from the
precipice, and lay buried beneath the snow. They cut a lot of dry and
green limbs and bushes, and threw into this cavity, and then set them
on fire, which melted all the snow, and warmed the whole cliff. Then
they rolled out the scattering rocks, and had a floor on one side, and
a roof overhead of stone. They now cut some long poles, and leaned
them against the precipice, leaving a hole for the smoke, and covered
them with brush. There was a crack in the ledge, into which Uncle
Isaac drove a stake, and affixed a crotch to it, to hang the kettles
on. As the morrow was the Sabbath, an extra quantity of wood was to be
prepared; the camp being so high and large, they put a good portion of
it inside.
While Uncle Isaac and Joe were doing this, and making all snug, the
boys unloaded one of the sledges, and went back after the deer.
It was a glorious camp: the rock retained the heat received from the
fire; they had plenty of venison, and now rested, and laid plans for
the future. That night, at twelve o’clock, began a most furious snow
storm; but little did they heed it in their snug camp, with plenty to
eat, and a rousing fire. The snow drifting over the camp made it all
the warmer.
The storm continued two days, clearing off with a high wind, and they
remained in camp three days.
Just afternoon on the following Saturday, Uncle Isaac informed them
that they were in the vicinity of the river, upon a feeder of which
they expected to find the beavers. Joe told them there was an old
logging camp near by: they found the walls of the old camp (which was
built of very large logs) as good as ever; but the roof had fallen
in. The deacon’s seat, as it is called (made of a plank hewed from a
stick of timber, and which is always placed beside the fire in logging
camps), being well preserved with grease and smoke, still remained. It
was but a light labor for so many skilful hands to repair the roof,
scrape out part of the snow, and cover the remainder with brush.
After supper, during which Joe had been uncommonly silent, he sat
upon the deacon’s seat, his arms folded upon his breast, and looking
intently into the fire.
This was so contrary to his usual custom (as he was always the life of
the camp-fire, with his merry laugh), that they all gazed upon him with
astonishment, and Uncle Isaac was just about to ask if he was sick,
when he broke the silence by saying, “This camp seems very natural to
me; but it calls up many different feelings: every inch of this ground
is familiar to me, though I haven’t been on it, till I came here summer
before last with the surveyors, for ten years. I was just turned of
seventeen, a great, strapping boy, like John here, when Richard Clay,
who was foreman of the scout that was going into the woods, persuaded
my father to let me go with them. Father was very loath to consent;
he said I was too young for such work; that I was a great, overgrown
boy, and, though large and smart, had not got my strength, and it might
strain and hurt me for life; that he had known many such instances.
But Richard hung on, saying he would see that I did not overdo. The
gang was made up of our neighbors, and young men, with all of whom I
was acquainted, and I was crazy to go. Dick offered me high wages;
father was poor, and wanted the money; I coaxed mother, and got her
on my side; finally we prevailed, and wrung it out of father, and I
went. Well, as you may suppose, taking care of me didn’t amount to a
great deal. Dick wanted to get all the logs cut he could, and I wanted
no favors, and it was just who could do the most; but I was naturally
tough, though I had grown fast; for we were very poor when I was a boy,
and I had lived hard; my bones were made of Indian corn, which I shall
always think is the best stuff to make bones of.”
“That’s so,” said Uncle Isaac, by way of parenthesis.
Without heeding the interruption, Joe went on. “Well, as I was saying,
we were poor: father was clearing up his farm; I had a natural turn to
an axe, and had been used to falling and chopping ever since I was
fifteen years old, and, boy as I was, could hold play with most men.
Uncle Isaac, you knew Sam Apthorp?”
“O, yes, very well; and a fine young man he was.”
“Well,” continued Joe, “the Apthorps were our neighbors. John Apthorp,
Sam’s father, began his clearing at the same time with mine; they cut
their first tree the same day. Sam was several years older than I, and
a powerful, smart fellow. He took a great liking to me, and taught me
about hunting, trapping, and many other things, for he was a master
hunter; and as for me, I almost worshipped him: it was for the sake of
being with him that made me so anxious to go. Sam and I, Dick Clay, and
another by the name of Rogers, came up here in August to build a camp,
cut hay, and look out the timber. O, what a happy time that was to me,
though it was the worst and hardest work I ever did before or since! It
was all new to me, and wild. That swale below where we shot the deer
hadn’t any bushes on it then, for it was all covered with grass as high
as your shoulder; there is a brook runs through it, and the beaver had
dammed and flowed it, killing all the trees, I suppose, a thousand
years before; and then the Indians, or somebody else, had broken the
dam, killed the beaver, let the water out, and the grass had come
in; you can see the old dam there yet. Well, we came up to cut this
hay: it was hot--scorching hot--not a breath of wind; for it was all
surrounded with woods except a little gap, where the brook ran into the
river, and that was filled with alders, and sich like. The black flies
and mosquitos were awful: the only way we could live was to grease
ourselves; but that only lasted a little while, for the hot sun, and
the heat of our bodies sweating, would soon take it off, and then they
would come worse than ever. We came up in a bateau, cut the hay, and
stacked it up for our oxen the next winter. O, how natural everything
here looks! There is not a log I helped cut and roll up but has a
memory belonging to it. This seat we are sitting on Sam and I hewed
out; we cut the sapling within three feet of the door, and there are
our names, which he cut on it one Sabbath morning; right in that corner
we slept side by side for two long winters; many a rousing meal we’ve
eat, and many a merry evening we’ve spent around the fire; many’s the
deer we’ve shot and the beavers we’ve trapped together here. Poor Sam!
He had found a bear’s den, and we’d made a plan for all hands to leave
off work early in the afternoon, and go and take them. All the evening
before we were sitting round the fire, I on that seat and Sam in that
corner, stretched out on the brush, with his boots off, and his feet to
the fire. We were all laughing and talking, telling how we would get
them, and what we would do with them; and Sam said he would carry a cub
home, learn it to dance, and go to Boston with it, as he had read about
their doing in the old country, and make his everlasting fortune out
of it. Sam Chesley, our old cook, was rubbing his hands, and telling,
in high life, what steaks he’d fry, and how he would cook it; and we
agreed to cast lots for the skin, on expectation, before we had got the
bears, or even seen them. We little thought, in our happiness, what
was in store for us. The next day, about ten o’clock, Sam and I fell a
large pine; it had more top than such pines commonly have; it came down
between two big hemlocks, breaking their branches, and clearing the
way as it went. A large limb, that we didn’t see, lodged in the thick
top of the hemlock; and as Sam went under it, to cut off the top log,
the second blow he struck, down came the limb, as swift and silent as
the lightning, and struck him on the head and shoulders, crushing him
dead to the ground! He never spoke or moved; when I got to him he was
dead. It was only a week before we were to break camp, and go home. Sam
and I had often, during the last month, talked of the good times we
would have when we got home,--and then to bury him, without a prayer
or sermon, in the wilderness! We had nothing to make a coffin, and so
we took two barrels that we had emptied of pork, and put his head and
shoulders in one, and the lower part of his body in the other, and then
fastened them together, and buried him in his clothes, beneath that
great blazed pine that stands on the bank. It was the first real sorrow
I ever had. I had never seen or thought anything of death before, and
this almost broke me down. I was through here, as I told you, visited
the grave, and saw the camp, though I didn’t go into it; but it didn’t
make me feel as it does to sit here on this very bench where I have sat
with him, and see his name cut on it, and the very place where we used
to sleep--” And hiding his face in his hand, he burst into tears. There
was not a dry eye in the group.
“We didn’t stay but a week after this,” continued Joe; “we couldn’t
work with any heart, any of us; we never molested the bears, and were
glad to get away from the spot; nothing went right; we lamed one of the
oxen, one man cut himself real bad, and we had sad news to carry home;
for they never heard a word till we came in the spring.”
The next day being Sunday, they remained in camp.