THE BRUSH CAMP.
Great was the uproar when Bertie and Peter found that James was going to
sell the colt.
“Husband,” said Mrs. Whitman, “I do hope you are not going to let James
part with that colt he has brought up, and thinks so much of. Give him
the money to pay for his land,—he only lacks forty dollars,—and let him
keep his colt.”
But Mr. Whitman was firm. “James,” he said, “was getting along well, let
him struggle, it was better for him, too much help was worse than none;
when he is sick or unfortunate ‘twill be time enough to give him. I had
rather give him a chance to help himself,” and with that view he gave
him twenty-seven dollars a month for the summer, and also half an acre
to plant or sow, and Bertie and Peter the same.
James sent on his money and received a deed of the land, and through Mr.
Creech, the landlord with whom he had put up, made arrangements with
Prescott, his nearest neighbor, to fell the trees on an acre of land.
When the time drew near for James to start for the Monongahela, Bertie
said to him,—
“What will you do for a horse now you have sold the colt? I mean to ask
father to let you have Frank.”
“I don’t want him, Bertie, as I shall go right to my place from
trapping, and you will want Frank early in the spring. I have nothing to
carry but a rifle; my traps are all there. I shall go afoot or in one of
the wagons that haul goods over the mountains, and in the spring I can
buy a horse there or a mule for ten dollars, and sell him this side of
the mountains for seventy-five, perhaps a hundred.”
The night before he started, Miss Conly said to him,—
“You will be at work on the place before we meet again, I want you to
promise me one thing, and that is that you will not tear down the camp,
for I intend to live in it.”
“That is the very first thing I intended to do.”
“I thought as much; well, don’t you do it, I don’t want you should.”
“But you wouldn’t think of moving into such a place as that, and I could
not consent that you should.”
“Why not? Did not Mrs. Chadwick live there four years with a sick
husband and two little children? I hope I can do what any other woman
has done.”
“I don’t doubt that, but there is no necessity. I intend in the spring
to get Mr. Prescott’s oxen and haul some of the trees he will cut this
fall to the spot, hew them, and put up a comfortable timber house.”
“You will have work enough to do without that. It is a great expense to
_begin_; we must lessen it all we can. It will be but little work to
repair that camp, and when we are on the spot and you have cattle of
your own, and your tools are all there, you can do it in the intervals
of other work, and can do it much more to your mind.”
“That is all true, Emily, but——”
“But what?”
“Do you think I want to take you into the woods to suffer?”
“I have not the least idea of suffering unless I am called to. Then, I
trust, I shall be supported. Tell me honestly, cannot such a camp be
made comfortable? You know well enough what I mean by that?”
Thus appealed to, James hesitated, looked every way but at her, and
finally said,—
“It is true that the camp can be made a shelter from rain and snow, and
can be kept warm.”
“Warm enough?”
“Yes, hot as an oven, for it is not much larger,” said James, with a
groan; “but what a hole to take you from a good home and put you into.”
“I was born in a log house and passed my childhood in it, and one not
much better than that camp, nor much larger, and there were seven of us.
Sister and William tell of what they have been through. Father and
mother and our boys are always telling the neighbors of how much William
and Mary have been through and how resolute they are and faculized. I
mean to have something to tell of and be praised for. Come, promise, you
may put down a floor in the camp and make it three poles higher, that I
may have room for my loom and spinning wheel, and that the wheels and
loom may stand firm on the floor. I don’t care whether there’s any
chimney or not. We didn’t have any in our log house for years, and the
hole in the roof was about as good, for the clay was all the time
falling off the cob-work and dropping into mother’s pots and
frying-pan.”
“You won’t want to stay there long, I hope?”
“Only till we can see our way clear to build a log house.”
James reluctantly promised, and they parted. He set forth, mounted on
Frank. Bertie took Dick and accompanied him to the foot of the North
Mountain. He then took his pack and rifle, and proceeded on foot, while
Bertie went back with the horses.
Starting much earlier in the season than before, they abandoned the Big
Beaver and went on the Little Beaver, and far up that stream. They met
with fewer beavers, but more otters, and took in log traps and in one
large steel trap which they possessed, and by killing with the rifle,
more bears than ever before, so that although they went farther and came
out of the woods much earlier (as James wanted to go on his land), they
obtained furs to the amount of five hundred and twenty-five dollars.
When they were at the mouth of the Little Beaver, on their return, they
met some Delaware Indians on their way to Pittsburg, encamped on the
bank of the main river, their canoes turned up on the grass.
“I want a birch as I am going to live on a stream. I wonder if I can buy
one, of these Indians?” said James.
“You can buy anything of an Indian, but his rifle or tomahawk, but if
you buy one take that dark-colored one, even if they ask more for it,
because the bark of which it is made was peeled in the winter and it is
worth, double.”
“I thought bark wouldn’t run in the winter?”
“It will if you pour hot water on it or hold a torch to the tree.”
James, after considerable talk with the Indians, who wanted him to take
another one, bought the dark-colored birch. It was twenty-eight feet in
length, twenty inches deep, and four feet six inches wide. It required a
person possessed of the strength of James to carry it, as it was a load
for two Indians, but James, much to the astonishment of the savages,
turned the birch over his head and took it to the water. He now took all
his traps and some tools that he had carried to make dead-falls, and
parted with William and Mary, much to their regret, as they had
cherished the hope that he would settle near _them_.
Jonathan Whitman had told him before he left home if he could find a
good young horse that would weigh twelve hundred, and was used to team
work, to buy him, for Frank was failing somewhat, and he wanted to favor
his faithful servant and should not work him much more. He hired a
wagoner to haul the traps and canoe and other articles to the
Susquehannah at Harristown, bought a horse, pack-saddle, and some tools;
an axe, auger, trowel, chain, and handsaw, irons made at a blacksmith’s
to peel bark, irons for a whiffletree. He also bought some white paper
and oiled it, and a window sash with six squares of glass in it, put his
traps and other matters into the birch, and managed at a small expense
to send his horse to Mr. Creech his former landlord. He then got into
the birch and, having a fair wind to start with, made a sail of his
blanket, and by alternate sailing and paddling landed at length in the
early twilight before his own camp. At the gray dawn and while it was
still dark in the forest, he took his way to the brook with his rifle on
his arm, and returned with two wood-ducks, one of which together with
the provisions in his pack, furnished him with a substantial breakfast.
His nearest neighbor, Prescott, had been ten years on his clearing and
kept a large stock of cattle. His family consisted of three strong,
active boys, Dan, the eldest, being nineteen, which enabled him to work
for others when disposed. James had engaged with Prescott the previous
spring to cut all the grass to be found in the field pasture and
openings in the woods, and to fell in the course of the summer an acre
of trees; upon looking around he found the work all done, and the felled
trees in just the right state to burn.
James now sat down under the shadow of the great maple to reflect, and
lay his plans for a summer’s work, and to make the most of his means. He
had left in Bertie’s care at Swatara, when he went into the woods, two
hundred and fifteen dollars, after paying for his land. This money was
the result of the sale of the colt, his summer’s work with Mr. Whitman,
the proceeds of his potato crop, and the money he had earned on his way
home by surveying. He could not expect however to obtain two dollars and
three quarters a day in future for surveying, two dollars was the
customary price, but in the former case he was delayed on his journey,
and kept on expense, and his employer had not the time to go for another
surveyor at a great distance.
When James left Mr. Whitman’s he took but five dollars with him. He
obtained his birch of the Indians by barter, letting them have some of
his traps in exchange. They had sold their furs at Pittsburg; but the
buying of the horse, tools, and other expenses, and the money due Mr.
Prescott for labor, brought it down to about one hundred and eighty-six
dollars, and there was much still to be bought. The money for the horse,
however, would be repaid by Mr. Whitman, who would take the beast off
his hands, and in the meantime James would have the use of him. He had
carpenter’s tools enough for ordinary purposes, but not a single farming
implement, not even a narrow axe, only a broad axe, and no seed to sow
or plant, and all the harness he had in which to work his horse was a
pack-saddle, an open bridle, and no description of cart or sled.
Having matured his plans, he cooked the remaining duck for his dinner,
put in his purse the money he intended to use, hid the rest under a heap
of stones, and swinging his pack started for Prescott’s.
When settling with him he found that there was a great difference in
wages between the place he was now in and Swatara. He could hire
Prescott for fifty cents a day, his oxen at the same price, and Dan for
two shillings.
Arriving at Creech’s, he was received with great cordiality, and found
there his horse and pack-saddle. He inquired in regard to the surveyor,
and was informed that the rheumatic fever had left him a cripple on
crutches.
“The best thing you can do, Mr. Renfew,” said Creech, “if you mean to
settle here, is to buy his instruments.” James bought them for fifteen
dollars, and told Creech if he heard of any one that wanted land run, to
send them to him.
He bought a narrow axe, and what farming tools he needed for the
present, and some rope and nails, and returned; put the fire into his
trees, and got a good burn. With the rope and cedar-bark for a
breastplate he contrived, by chopping the logs into short lengths, to
twitch and roll them together sufficiently for a second burn, and
planted his corn. He was dropping the last kernels of his corn when a
man, sent by the proprietors, came to ask if he would go twenty miles
into the woods to lay out a road, and measure some lots; that they would
send three men to his place, one to carry the chain, and two to clear
the way, if he concluded to go. They thought it would take about ten
days.
James replied that he must have the next day to make his preparations,
and would then be ready to go.
He hired Prescott to plough and sow to wheat two acres of ground; plant
half an acre with potatoes, except a few rods reserved for beans.
When James returned, his first care was to peel hemlock bark, and put
the bark under pressure to flatten the sheets to cover the roof, and to
cut the timber for the roof, and logs to raise the walls, and haul them
to the camp.
There was a mill at the mouth of the creek, and from thence he brought,
in his birch, boards to lay a floor, make an outside door and a large
chest, with a cover and partings, for cornmeal and flour.
James rather exceeded the instructions of Emily, and raised the wall
high enough to make a good chamber above; laid the floor with boards,
and made a ladder to reach it.
He went seven miles to a limekiln and brought lime in the pockets of the
pack-saddle, that would contain half a bushel each, and built a
fireplace and chimney of stones, with the chimney at the end of the camp
and outside, thus affording more room.
The camp was twenty feet long by twelve wide; he put a bark partition
across at thirteen feet, leaving a room of seven feet by twelve. This
room he divided by a bark partition into a bedroom and a storeroom; the
doors were a bear’s skin and a blanket hung up. His single glazed window
and two windows filled with oiled paper were put in the kitchen, as
there all the spinning, weaving and sewing was to be done, and the most
light would be needed. In the intervals of hoeing he cleared a road to
the highway, and made it passable with wheels by great labor and two
days’ help from Prescott and his boys.
Haying and wheat harvest were now at hand. There was not a pair of
wheels in the whole section of country in which James lived; the
settlers hauled their hay and grain on sleds, or carried it on poles and
hand-barrows. James contrived a singular vehicle for the present
necessity. He hewed out two pieces of tough ash eighteen feet in length,
fashioned one end of each into the form of cart-arms, and by pouring on
hot water bent the other ends to a half circle; he then spread them the
width of a sled, put cross-bar and whiffletree on, and two stakes behind
the cross-bar and some light slats across. The trouble now was in
respect to a harness; the rope traces did as well as leather, but the
breastplate of cedar-bark needed constant renewal, and he had neither
saddle or lugs to support the arms. He put a torch on the stem of the
birch, paddled about five miles up the creek in the night, and shot a
deer that attracted by the light came to the water’s edge. With this
rough hide he went to Prescott, who had shoemaker’s tools, and by
doubling the hide made a breastplate that would bear all the horse could
pull; he also made lugs to support the arms and put them over the
pack-saddle, and on this he hauled hay and grain, and even stones; it
went much easier than a sled would have done, because there was less
surface to drag on the ground, and a good portion of the weight was on
the horse’s back. As he had neither barn nor threshing-floor, when his
grain was ripe he threshed it on a platform of timber placed on the
ground, and the hovel being filled with hay, stored it in the kitchen as
a makeshift, and went to ask advice of Prescott, who he knew began very
poor and had passed through many similar exigencies.
“You may put it in my barn, Mr. Renfew, but there is a better method
than that. There are a great many emigrants passing along the valley of
the Susquehannah going west, and a good many settling round the mouth of
the creek. They want supplies. Grain and pork have gone up, and the
miller is buying all the old corn and grain he can get to grind, and all
the new wheat, and storing it for a rise. I have no doubt you could sell
it.”
The next day James received a letter from Bertie, who informed him that
during the winter his father and Peter had made him a wagon to move
with, and his mother had woven the cloth to cover it, and as he was not
much of a mechanic he was going to paint it as his share of the work.
James wrote Bertie to thank his father and mother and Peter, and to ask
his father to put in a tongue suitable for cattle to work, as he should
move with oxen.
He now went to the mill and sold his wheat for ninety cents, and carried
it down in the birch; it measured sixty bushels. He brought back some
flour, cornmeal, a grindstone, pork, and a keg of molasses.
“This is better than living on the Monongahela,” said James to himself;
“there wheat won’t pay to carry over the mountains or down the Ohio, but
it will pay to carry it yourself in a birch down a creek.”
He now dug a potato hole in which to store his potatoes for the winter,
and built over it a log house eight feet in width and fourteen in
length, underpinned it, and pointed the underpinning with lime mortar,
hewed the logs at top and bottom, put on a bark roof and laid a floor
with flattened poles, and made a good door with wooden hinges and latch
and two windows closed by shutters; here he put all his tools and traps,
intending to make at some future time a workshop of it, and for the
present it served as a convenient storehouse and protected his potatoes
from freezing, otherwise he must have covered them with such a depth of
earth that it would have been difficult to get at them during the
winter.
He was now ready to set out for home; and mounting his horse rode to
Prescott’s, and exchanged his pack-saddle for a riding-saddle, and
happened to mention to his neighbor that he had left a keg of molasses
in the camp.
“You should not have done that, for if a bear happens to come along and
smells it, he’ll set his wits at work to get to it.”
“Is that so?”
“Sartain; a bear is raving crazy after molasses or honey or sugar; he’ll
stave the door in or make the bark fly off that roof a good deal faster
than you put it on.”
“Then what will become of my corn while I am away?”
“There will be nothing to hinder all the wild animals from helping
themselves.”
“They’ll destroy it all before I get back.”
“Oh, no, they won’t! They may hurt it a good deal, and they may not.
There’s one thing in your favor: it is a great year for acorns and
beech-nuts, and hickory, and all kinds of nuts and cranberries,—the bogs
are full of cranberries, and the bears and coons love them dearly, so
they won’t be so hard upon the corn as they would otherwise be. But I
don’t think there are many bears round this fall; the coons and the
turkeys are the worst, because there are so many of them; but the coons
are ten times as bad as the wild turkeys, because there are so many of
them, and they come when you are asleep—the turkeys come in the daytime,
and a shot or two at them scares them off for a week, and they are
first-rate eating. If they take the bread out of your mouth, they put
meat into it.”
“I wouldn’t object to the bears if I was to be here—a bear’s skin is
worth about thirty bushels of corn.”
“Ay; but you might lose your corn and not get the bear.”
“I wish I had sowed wheat on the burn, I could have taken care of that
before I went; but I think I’ll go back and get the molasses, and leave
it here.”
“I think I can help you, neighbor. Here’s my Dan; he’s the master
critter for hunting and trapping you ever saw—plagues me to death with
his nonsense. He’d sit up two nights to shoot one coon. We arn’t much
driven with work now, and shan’t be till you get back, and if you’ll let
him use some of your traps, I know he’d be tickled to death to live in
your camp and hunt and trap; and you may depend on it no wild critter
will do any damage while he’s around, for he’d take the dog with him,
and nothing can stir in the night but the dog will let him know it.”
“I should be very glad to have him, and will pay him.”
“The traps will be pay enough and more too.”
“I should like to have him pull my beans and thresh ‘em out.”
“Yes, he can do that, and dig the potatoes and put them in the pit; he
can do it as well as not; he’ll have a great deal of idle time, and I
don’t want him to get too lazy; and so you won’t need to go back after
your ‘lasses.”
“It must be a great change to Miss Conly to leave a pleasant home and
kind neighbors and come here, and I had thought of getting some hens. It
would make it seem a little more like home to her to hear the hens
cackle and the rooster crow, and have eggs to get; and if Dan is going
to be there to feed ‘em, I can have ‘em as well as not.”
“We can find you in hens, and Dan can take ‘em down with him.”
“What are they worth apiece? I’ll take half a dozen.”
“Look here, neighbor, hens nor geese nor turkeys ain’t worth anything
here ‘cept to eat; there’s no market for such things here. I perceive
you have carpenter’s tools, and know how to use them, which none of us
do. Take all the hens you want, for I believe we’ve got a hundred, and
if you could make me a good ox-yoke I should be more than paid; and any
little thing that you can’t do alone just call on the boys, and they or
I will help you, and we will change about in that way. I can make
things, to be sure—have ter—but it takes me forever, and then I’m
ashamed to have any body see ‘em, only shoes. I can make a good shoe or
boot, and I can tan a hide or skin as well as anybody.”
“Can you curry?”
“No, but it isn’t much to carry a hide to the village to get it
curried.”
“There’s one thing, Mr. Renfew, that I want to tell you,” said Mrs.
Prescott, “that you wouldn’t be likely to think of, and that is to get a
pig and have it in the pen when you get there. When we came on to this
place we were eleven miles from neighbors, and you don’t know how much
company and comfort it was to me when Mr. Prescott was away at his work
and before we had so many children, to hear a pig squeal and to have him
to feed; and so it is to have a cat or a dog. When we have no company of
our own kind, we take to the dumb creatures.”
“Have you any pigs to spare, Mr. Prescott?”
“We’ve got a whole litter of late pigs and a dozen shoats, and there’s a
black and white kitten you may have; and when you come with your woman
we want you to come right here, because you’ll both be fatigued, and the
wife won’t want to go right to cooking the first moment, and then you
can take the kitten and the pigs along with you. I wish we had a puppy
for you; a dog is valuable to a new settler as well as company.”
“I’ve got a dog at home if he has not forgotten me. I do not feel that I
ought to put myself upon you; perhaps I shall have four oxen and other
cattle when I come.”
“No matter if there’s ten oxen. Thank God there’s room enough in house
and barn, and victuals enough, and nothing will suit the boys better
than to wait on you. You must pass your word, and then we shall know,
for the good Book says, ‘Better is a neighbor that is near, than a
brother afar off.’”
James promised.
James reached home safely.