A Busy Year at the Old Squire's

by C. A. Stephens

There were several families of French-Canadians living at clearings on Lurvey's Stream, three miles below the lake; and since I was the youngest and least efficient axman of the party, they sent me down there every afternoon to buy milk and eggs, for more white monkey. Of cheese and butter we had a sufficient supply; and the yellow corn-meal which we had brought for the teams furnished sheetful after sheetful of johnny-cake, which Aunt Olive split, toasted, and buttered well, as a groundwork for the white monkey.

And for five days we ate it as we toiled twelve hours to the day, chopping, hauling and sawing birch!

We had a slight change of diet on the fourth day, when Aunt Olive cooked two old roosters and a chicken, which I had coaxed away from the reluctant French settlers down the stream.

But it was chiefly white monkey every day; and the amount of work which we did on it was a tribute to Aunt Olive's resourcefulness. The older men of the party declared that they had never slept so well as after those evening meals of white monkey on johnny-cake toast. Beyond doubt, it was much better for us than heavier meals of meat and beans after days of hard labor.

From half an hour before sunrise till an hour after sunset, during those entire five days, the tall white birches fell fast, the saw hummed, and the bolts went rolling out on the ice-clad lake.

I never saw a crew work with such good-will or felt such enthusiasm myself as during those five days. We had the exhilarating sensation that we were beating a malicious enemy. Every little while a long, cheery whoop of exultation would be raised and go echoing across the lake; and that last day of February we worked by the light of little bonfires of birch bark till near midnight.

Then we stopped—to clear the law. And I may state here, although it must sound like a large story, that during those five working days the ten of us felled, sawed and rolled out on the ice two hundred and eighty-six cords of white-birch bolts. Of course it was the saw and the two relieving spans of horses which did the greater part of the work, the four axmen doing little more than fell the tall birch-trees.

The next day, after a final breakfast of white monkey, we went home triumphant, leaving the bolts on the ice for the time being. All were tired, but in high spirits, for victory was ours.

Two days later the old Squire came home from Three Rivers, entirely unaware of what had occurred, having it now in mind to organize and begin what he supposed would be a month's work up at the birch lot for the choppers and teams from the two logging-camps farther north.

Neither grandmother Ruth nor the rest of us could resist having a little fun with him. After supper, when we had gathered in the sitting-room, grandmother quietly handed him Mrs. Lurvey's letter, with the notification about the birch.