Love of the Wild

by Archie P. McKishnie

Logging-bees were not uncommon events among the Bushwhackers. But usually logging-bees were held after the winter snows had fallen, when with oxen and sleds the men moved the great logs to where they were wanted.

But, as Mrs. Declute explained it, this was “a sorter unusual loggin’;” it was “more of a raisin’ than a loggin’,”—all of which was quite true. Mrs. Declute had set her mind upon having a new cow-stable erected, one that would be tight and warm, “with no chinks to let in death to the poor dumb critters.” Ander, at first adverse to the idea, had reluctantly given in to having a bee, and bee it was to be.

Thursday morning dawned clear and bright, and with it came all the Bushwhackers, big and little, in Bushwhackers’ Place.

Buck and Bright, the champion ox-team, bedecked with a new yoke of white elm in honor of the occasion, were driven forth to the contest by their proud master, who cracked his whip in time to the rattle of the long chains, and commanded, “gee there, Buck; haw, Bright,” in a voice that Mrs. Ross declared could be heard “quite plain on the Point.” Peeler with his span of oxen was already on the ground, and by the time he and Big McTavish had got through chaffing each other on the respective deficiencies of each other’s team, three more span with their owners had arrived on the scene.

An hour later all throughout the nearby wood could be heard the “k-whack” of axes, and every now and again a great tree would fall with a swish and a crash that seemed to jar the earth.

While the young men chopped down and trimmed the trees, the older ones laid out the foundation of the new building. So thoroughly was this done that Declute avowed in the hearing of his good wife, who naturally was close at hand to admonish and advise the architects, that he wouldn’t be surprised but that he’d desert the house and live in the new cow-stable himself. Whereupon that good woman flashed a look of scorn upon him and jeeringly remarked: “A cow-stable is too good for a man what allars smells o’ rat-musk an’ can’t take a skunk outin a trap without scentin’ up th’ whole neighborhood.” The little man hid his discomfiture by suggesting that the men who claimed their oxen could haul two tons of green timber “at a wallop” come along and prove it. Laughing, the men sought their patient cattle and proceeded with a chorus of “gees” and “haws” to haul the trimmed tree-trunks up to the clearing.

It was a great trial of strength and patience and endurance on the part of both team and driver, the hauling of those heavy logs across rough ground to the wide square marked off in the clearing. The young men left off trimming trees to watch the oxen pull. There was much excitement while the rival teams pitted their muscle against one another. The spans were very evenly matched, and it is likely the friendly contest would have ended in a draw had not a circumstance arisen to put McTavish’s Buck and Bright away to the fore.

A great basswood log had nosed itself deep into a bank of moss, where, held securely by root-tendrils, it refused to budge to the repeated tugs of Peeler’s red oxen. Two other teams tried to break it out without success, and then Big McTavish, smiling broadly, declared that he would show them what a real span of oxen could do when they wanted to. Sure enough, Buck and Bright after tremendous exertion did break the log out, and lowering their broad, burly heads, and snorting and puffing, haul the timber up to the clearing. Peeler declared that McTavish had been “feedin’ up for this tug-o’-war for a month,” and Big Mac contended that he had “been starvin’ the poor oxen for weeks just so’s they wouldn’t beat the other spans too bad.”

Oh, they were a happy crowd, these young boys and old boys; happy in the hauling up, the mortising of the timber, and the laying “true” of the first logs for the building. They one and all forgot, for the time being, that new apprehension which had crept among them and stayed, and worked them up to disquietude. The bush-world was theirs still, and it was a very beautiful world with its autumn scents and sounds and colors.

High above, through the tree-tops, was the yellow-gold of the sky; on the tree-tops the old-gold of late fall; on the forest aisles an amber-gold commingled with the green moss that glowed through the yellow leaf-carpet.