THE FLOATING BOG
In settling up some business affairs, Mr. Allen had come into
possession of a tract of two thousand acres of swamp land lying toward
the western side of the bed of the ancient sea. At the time of which I
write there were vast tracts of such supposedly valueless land owned by
the state, and which could be purchased for ten dollars per “forty,”
twenty-five cents per acre. Timber scouts had ranged over it, and
selecting the forties upon which there were sand knolls covered with
a goodly amount of pine timber, the land would be purchased by their
employers, the lumber companies, to be cut over at their convenience.
The low-lying prairies, flooded in the spring season, and the lower
marshes covered with water much of the year, were thought to be not
worth the twenty-five cents per acre asked by the state. In later
years, by a system of drainage, and through scientific farming, much of
this land became highly productive and valuable.
In some of the deeper marshes, where there had been an abundance of
water for several years, cranberry vines had covered the surface of the
moss and yielded astonishing crops of mottled green and red berries.
This was the character of much of the land of which Mr. Allen found
himself possessed. A granite rock rising with nearly perpendicular
sides over three hundred feet above the level surface of the country,
gave the name of North Bluff marsh to the locality, as distinguished
from the country about a similar bluff some ten miles to the south.
After considerable persuasion on the part of the boys, Mr. Allen had
leased this cranberry marsh to Rob and Ed, and their chum Dauphin. The
boys already had a good start on the fund they were gathering for a
planned year in college, and if they should be successful in getting
the berries from the North Bluff to market, it would bring them nearer
to the desired goal.
While the cranberry, as it is picked from the vine, is as firm and
meaty as a little apple, it bruises easily in handling, and so requires
great care in getting to market. The boys had purposed using two-bushel
grain sacks for the transportation of the crop, but Mr. Allen wisely
persuaded them to make a preliminary trip to Lisbon and secure light
ash barrels to take with them to the marsh and so prevent much loss
from bruised and damaged berries.
On the twentieth of August the boys had their outfits assembled: two
yokes of oxen hitched to two broad-tired wagons, upon which were long
racks each containing thirty empty barrels. With these they carried a
tent, cooking utensils, supplies of bacon, flour, brown sugar, matches,
axes, guns, and ammunition, sacks to carry the berries from the marsh
to dry land, and not least in importance, three cranberry rakes. Of
these latter Uncle Sam Thompson had made one for each of the boys.
A slab of ash was taken and fingers about ten inches long sawn and
whittled down smooth in one end. Sides and back were put to this, with
a handle on top and back. With these “rakes” the boys would literally
scoop up the berries from the vines.
The trip of fifty miles to the marsh was, in itself, a great
undertaking. There were no roads; logs and tree roots had to be
chopped out of the way, and overhanging limbs cleared from before
the stacks of barrels. More serious were the occasional deep bogs
encountered, through which the oxen, though accustomed to wallowing
in mud, were unable to pull the wagons. Over these the boys were
obliged to build a “corduroy,” sometimes for several rods. To one
accustomed to a boulevard or even a macadam pike, the corduroy would
seem an impossibility as a means of travel, but pioneers are frequently
required to accomplish the seemingly impossible. Small trees are felled
and cut into lengths suitable to the width of the wagon, and these
placed side by side until the way across has been covered. When the
marsh is unusually deep and soft, a second layer of smaller logs is
placed upon the first. It is not a good road, nor easy to ride over,
but it can be crossed, and that is the main thing.
Not alone were the bad roads, or lack of roads, a cause of distress
to the boys and their teams; mosquitoes in clouds attacked them day
and night. Frequently they were compelled to make “smudges” of fire
covered with green grass, so that in the smoke they might be able
to eat their meals in some sort of comfort. At night the oxen were
likewise protected from the attacks of the pestiferous insects. Much
annoyance and no little suffering were caused by a spotted fly, called
from its markings, the “deer fly,” which persistently crawled up into
their hair and under their clothing, its bite always drawing blood.
The boys averaged not quite five miles a day on the trip, and it was
the last day of August before the camping place at the foot of North
Bluff was reached.
The first day of their arrival was spent in arranging camp; putting up
the tent, digging the shallow well in the sand at the marsh’s edge,
and building moss-lined pole-pens in which to store the berries as
they should be picked. Cranberry harvest and the arrival of frost are
usually too close together to allow any time to be taken away from the
one occupation of picking. So the boys would sort over and clean the
berries and then barrel them after the frosts had come.
The bog was a wonder to the Allen boys. Around the edge, for perhaps
ten rods out into the marsh, were growing tamarack trees, from little
switches a dozen feet high that could be easily pulled up by hand, to
older ones six inches in diameter, and thirty feet in height. Further
out, beyond the line of tamaracks, the bog looked much like a prairie
covered with moss, with here and there a sandy mound upon which
blackberry vines, huckleberry bushes, and a few scattering pine trees
were growing.
When they had walked out into the marsh several rods over shoe-top deep
in the moss, Dauphin called out, “Stand still a minute, boys, I want
to show you something,” and he began to spring up and down in rhythmic
motion. In a few moments, at first slightly, then in increasing motion
the trees began to sway and bend, and the surface of the bog, for many
rods around, could be seen in regular, wave-like motion, trees and all
rising and falling, bending and rolling as if on the bosom of a rolling
sea.
“It is like this,” said Dauphin in answer to the boys’ astonished
questioning, “this marsh is really a lake over which the moss has
grown until it is now completely covered. Here, near the edge where
it started in to grow and spread over the water, the old moss falling
down each year has been succeeded by the new growing up, and so for
ages, until there is now quite a solid covering at the surface, enough
even to support the trees, but, as you see, it is only after all a
floating cover to a lake. Not all over is the moss so thick as here,
and there are places dangerous to try to walk over. One might easily
drop through. Then--”
“Don’t, Dauph,” exclaimed Ed; “I don’t want to think of anything so
horrible.”
“You had best pick your steps, then,” replied Dauphin; “if you attempt
to cross the bog, or you may find something worse than hearing about
it.”
“How far is it to the bottom?” asked Rob.
“We can soon see,” replied Dauphin. Cutting down a slender dead
tamarack he thrust it down through the moss until it rested upon the
solid sand.
“Twelve feet!” exclaimed the boys as the pole was drawn up and
measured. Further out from the edge they took a measurement of sixteen
feet from the mossy surface to the bottom.
There was a fine crop of cranberries on the vines, and the boys were
busy from early morning until late at night with their rakes. The
unaccustomed stooping all day was back-breaking work, and it was not
at all pleasant to stand in cold water wet to the knees, but the
two-bushel sack of berries each boy was able to carry to camp every
half day made the labor endurable.
As the best patches near the camp were soon raked over, the boys would
take turns searching for new places. On one of these excursions Rob had
an adventure which came near to a tragedy for him, but which led to
happy termination. In a cove of perhaps an acre, jutting up into one
of the pine islands, lying nearly a mile out into the bog, Rob found a
patch of beautiful “bell” berries, and over near the edge it appeared
as though the vines had been recently disturbed. Closely scanning the
land nearby he at length discovered a mound of freshly-pulled moss over
which pine boughs had been carelessly strewn, as if in attempt to hide
something. His curiosity was of course aroused, and digging away the
moss he came upon several sacks filled with berries. Evidently somebody
had been there at work. He determined to carry one of the sacks of
berries to camp with him, and then get the boys and hunt for the
trespassers. Instead of returning in the way he came, Rob struck out
straight across the bog, his mind full of excited imaginings about his
find. Suddenly he found himself dropping, and like a flash he realized
that he had come upon a thin place in the bog, and was falling through
to the cold, dark depths of the lake beneath. Instinctively he had
thrown himself forward, with arms out-stretched, his hands clutching
the moss. This stayed him for a moment, but the heavy sack of berries
was upon him, forcing his head and shoulders down into the moss. He
could feel himself sinking; the water seemed to be rising about his
face. He thought of how the boys would miss him, of their fruitless
search, for the moss would soon close over him leaving no mark to show
where he had gone down. Then the thought came that he must not die;
that he might work backward from under the sack and get free. It was a
desperate struggle, and before he succeeded his face was under water,
and his strength nearly exhausted for lack of breath. But at last he
was free, and throwing his arms up over the sack he raised his head,
regained his breath, and rested. Slowly he pulled his body up, and
using the sinking sack for a foothold, he threw himself sprawling upon
the track over which he had come. He crawled in the moss for several
yards before he dared to rise to his feet and resume his journey to the
camp.
“I should like to see that lake drained,” said Dauphin, as Rob told of
his narrow escape. “Think of the different kinds of animals that have
probably left their bones on the sands of that lake bottom in the ages
past.”
“Well, I’m glad that your future scientist will not have the pleasure
of classifying my bones, anyway,” replied Rob.
Next day the boys found the trespassers to be a band of Winnebago
Indians, and they were able to make satisfactory arrangements whereby
the Indians stayed and helped them harvest the crop of berries, which
the boys finally got safely to market.