OLD WIGGETT'S SECTION CORNER.
The horse was driven to a good shady place on the edge of the woods,
relieved of his bridle, and left in charge of the dog. In the mean while
the old man cut a few oak saplings and hewed them into stakes.
"Now, I want ye to give me a notion of how you're gwine to work," he
said, as the youth brought his compass and set it up on its tripod at
the foot of the tree. "For, otherwise, how am I to be sure of my corner,
when you say you've found it?"
"O, I think we shall find something to convince you! However, look here,
and I'll explain."
While waiting for the wavering needle to settle in its place, the youth
made a hasty diagram in a page of his notebook.
"Here we are on the edge of the timber. _A_ is your first tree. _B_ is
the one where we are. Now if the bearings are correct, and I run two
lines accordingly, the place where they meet will be the place for your
corner stake; say at _C_."
"That looks cute; I like the shape of that!" said the old man,
interested.
[Illustration: SETTING THE STAKES.]
"If the distance was short,--feet instead of rods,--all the instruments
we should want," said the young surveyor, with his peculiarly bright
smile, "would be a foot measure and two strings."
[Illustration]
"How so?" said the old man, who could not believe that science was as
simple a thing as that.
"Why, for instance, we will say the tree _A_ is eighteen feet from the
corner you want to find; _B_, sixteen feet. Now take a string eighteen
feet long, and fasten the end of it by a nail to the centre of the
blazed trunk, _A_; fasten another sixteen feet long to _B_; then stretch
out the loose ends of both until they just meet; and there is the place
for your stake."
"I declar'!" exclaimed the old man. "That's the use of the tew trees.
Banged if I dew see, though, how you're gwine to git along by runnin' a
line from jest one."
"If I run two lines, as I have shown you, where they meet will be the
point. Now if I run one line, and measure it, I shall find the point
where the other line ought to meet it. We'll see. Here on my compass is
a circle and a scale of degrees, which shows me how to set it according
to the bearings. Now look through these sights, and you are looking
straight in the direction of your section corner."
"Curi's, ain't it?" grinned the old man. "'Cordin' to that, my corner is
out on the perairie, jest over beyant that ar knoll."
"You're right. Now go forward to the top of it, while I sight you, and
we'll set a stake there. As I signal with my hands this way, or this,
move your stake to the right or left, till I make _this_ motion; then
you are all right."
The young surveyor had got his compass into position, by looking back
through the sights at the tree. He now placed himself between it and the
tree, and, sighting forward, directed the old man, who went on over the
knoll, where to set his stakes.
On the other side of the knoll, it was found that the line crossed a
slough,--or "slew," as the old man termed it,--which lay in a long,
winding hollow of the hills. This morass was partly filled with stagnant
water; and the old man gave it a bad name.
"It's the wust slew in the hull country. I've lost tew cows in 't. I
wouldn't go through it for the price of my farm. Couldn't git through; a
man would sink intew it up tew his neck."
"Then we may have to get a boat to find your section corner," laughed
the young surveyor.
"But it's noth'n' but a bog this time o' year; ye can't navigate a boat
thar. And it'll take till middle o' next week to build a brush road
acrost. Guess we're up a stump now, hey?"
"O, no; stumps are not so plenty, where I undertake jobs! Let's have a
stake down there, pretty near the _slew_; then we will measure our line,
and see how much farther we have to go."
The old man helped bear the chain; and a careful measurement showed that
the stake at the edge of the slough was still four rods and thirty links
from the corner they sought.
"Banged if it don't come jest over on t' other side of the slew!" the
old man exclaimed, computing the distance with his eye. "But we can't
measure a rod furder; and yer we be stuck."
"Not yet, old friend!" cried the young surveyor. "Since we can't cross,
we'll measure the rest of our distance along on this shore."
The old man looked down upon him with indignation and amazement.
"Think I'm a dog-goned fool?" he cried. "The idee of turnin' from our
course, and measurin' along by the slew! What's the good of that?"
Finding that the old man would not aid or abet what seemed to him such
complete folly, the young surveyor made another little diagram in his
notebook, and explained:--
[Illustration]
"Here is the end of our line running from the direction
_B_,--theoretically a straight, horizontal line, though it curves over
the knoll. You noticed how, coming down the slope ahead of you, I held
my end of the chain up from the ground, to make it horizontal, and then
with my plumb-line found the corresponding point in the ground, to start
fresh from. That was to get the measurement of a horizontal line; for if
you measure all the ups and downs of hills and hollows, you'll find your
surveying will come out in queer shape."
The old man scratched his bushy gray head, and said he hadn't thought of
that.
"Well," the young surveyor continued, "we are running our line off
towards _C_, when we come to the slew. Our last stake is at _D_,--say
this little thing with a flag on it. Now, what is to be done? for we
must measure four rods and thirty links farther. I measure that distance
from _D_ to _E_, along this shore, running my new line at an angle of
sixty degrees from the true course. Then, with my compass at _E_, I
sight another line at an angle of sixty degrees from my last. I am
making what is called an equilateral triangle; that is, a triangle with
equal sides and equal angles. Each angle must measure sixty degrees.
With two angles and one side, we can always get the other two sides; and
the other angle will be where those two sides meet. They will meet at
_C_. Now, since the sides are of equal length, the distance from _D_ to
_C_ is the same as from _D_ to _E_,--that is, four rods and thirty
links, just the distance we wish to go; _C_, then, is the place for your
corner stake."
"It looks very well on paper," said the old man, "but"--casting his eye
across the bog--"how in the name of seven kingdoms are ye ever gwine to
fix yer stake thar?"
"That is easy. Go round to the other side of the slew, get yourself in
range with our line from the tree, by sighting across the stakes, and
walk down toward the slew,--that is, on this dotted line. Having got my
angle of sixty degrees at _E_, I will sight across and stop you when I
see you at _C_. There stick your last stake."
"Banged if that ain't cute! Young man, what mout be your name?"
"I was only boy a few minutes ago," said the young surveyor, slyly.
"Now, if you are ready, we'll set to work and carry out this plan."
The line from _D_ to _E_ was measured off. Then the youth set his
compass to obtain the proper angle at _E_; while the old man, with his
axe and a fresh stake, tramped around to the eastern side of the slough.
Having got the range of the stakes, he was moving slowly back toward
them, holding his stake before him, when the youth signalled him to stop
just in the edge of the quagmire.
The new stake stuck, the young surveyor, taking up his tripod and
compass, went round to him.
"That stake," said he, "is not far from your corner. Are there any
signs?"
"I've been thinkin'," said the old man, "the 'arth yer looks like it had
been disturbed some time; though it's all overgrowed so with these
clumps of slew-grass, ye can't tell what's a nat'ral hummock and what
ain't. Don't that look like a kind of a trench?"
"Yes; and here's another at right angles with it. Surveyors cut such
places on the prairies, pile up the sods inside the angle, and drive
their corner stakes through them. But there must have been water here
when this job was done, which accounts for its not being done better.
We'll improve it. Go for the shovel. I'll get the bearings of those
trees in the mean while, and see how far wrong they make us out to be."
When the old man returned with the shovel, he found his boy surveyor
standing by the compass, with folded arms, looking over at the woodland
with a smile of satisfaction.
Sighting the trees, the tall, straight stems of which were both visible
over the knoll, he had found that their bearings corresponded with those
copied in his notebook. This proved his work to his own mind; but the
old man would not yet confess himself convinced.
"We may be somewhur _nigh_ the spot, but I want to be sure of the
_exact_ spot," he insisted.
"That you can't be sure of; not even if the best surveyor in the world
should come and get it from these bearings," replied the youth.
"Probably the bearings themselves are not exact. The government
surveyors do their work in a hurry. The common compass they use doesn't
make as fine angles as the theodolite or transit instrument does; and
then the chain varies a trifle in length with every variation of
temperature; the metal contracts and expands, you know. Surveying, where
the land is worth a dollar and a quarter a foot, instead of a dollar and
a quarter an acre, is done more carefully. Yet I am positive, from the
indications here, that we are within a few inches of your corner."
"A few inches, or a few feet, or a few rods!" muttered the old man,
crossly. "Seems like thar's a good deal of guess-work, arter all."
"I am sorry you think so," replied the young surveyor, quietly removing
his tripod. "If, however, you are dissatisfied with my work, you can
employ another surveyor; if he tells you I am far out of the way, why,
then, you needn't pay me."
The old man made no reply, but, seizing the shovel, began to level the
hummock a little, in order to prepare it for a pile of fresh sods. He
was slashing away at it, with the air of a petulant man working off his
discontent, when he struck something hard.
"What's that ar?" he growled. "Can't be a stone. Ain't a rock as big as
a hazel-nut this side the timber."
Digging round the obstacle, he soon exposed the splintered end of an
upright piece of wood. He laid hold of it and tried to pull it up. The
youth, with lively interest, took the shovel, and dug and pried.
Suddenly up came the stick, and the old man went over backwards with it
into the bog.
He scrambled to his feet, dripping with muddy water, and brandished his
trophy, exclaiming:--
"Dog my cats! if 't ain't the end of the ol' corner stake, left jest
whur't was broke off, when the rest was wanted to pry a wheel out o' the
slew, or to kill a rattler with!"
He appeared jubilant over the discovery, while the young surveyor
regarded it simply as a piece of good luck.