CHAPTER IX.
“Then came the woodman with his sturdy team
Of broad-horned oxen, to complete the toil
Which axe and fire had left him, to redeem,
For culture’s hand, the cold and root-bound soil.”
The next morning, it being the day appointed for the “logging bee,” the Elwoods were again up betimes, to be prepared for the reception of the expected visitants. On going out into the yard, while yet the coming sun was only beginning to flush the eastern horizon, Mr. Elwood perceived, early as it was, a man, whom he presumed, from the handspike and axe on his shoulder, to be one of the company, entering the opening and leisurely approaching, with an occasional glance backward along the road from the settlements below. Not recognizing the man as an acquaintance, Elwood noted his appearance closely as he was coming up. He was a rather young-looking man, of a short, compactly built figure, with quick motions, and that peculiar springy step which distinguishes men of active temperament and hopeful, buoyant spirits; while the fox-like cut of his features, the lively gray eyes that beamed from them, and the evidently quick coming and going thoughts that seemed to flash from his thin-moving nostrils and play on his curling lips, served to indicate rapid perceptions, shrewdness, and a kind and perhaps fun-loving disposition.
“Hillo, captain,—or captain of the house, as I suppose you must be,” he sang out cheerily, as with slackening step he approached Elwood; “did you ever hear spoken of, a certain rough-and-ready talking sort of a chap they call Jonas Codman?”
“I have heard of a Mr. Codman, and was told that he would probably be here to-day,” doubtfully replied Elwood.
“Well, I am he, such as he is, pushed forward as a sort of advanced guard,—no, herald must be the book-word,—to tell you that you are taken. Did you mistrust it?”
“No, not exactly.”
“You are, nevertheless. But I’ll tell you a story, which, if you can see the moral, may give you some hints to show you how to turn the affair to your advantage without suffering the least inconvenience yourself; and here it is:
“There was once a curious sort of a fellow, whose land was so covered with stones, which had rolled down from a mountain, that little or nothing could grow among them; and the question was, how he should ever remove them. Well, one day, when he was thinking on the matter, he found in the field an old Black-Art book, on the cover of which he read, ‘One chapter will bring one, two chapters two, and so on; but set and keep them at work, lest a worst thing befall.’ So, to see what would come of it, he read one chapter; when a great, stout, dubious-looking devil made his appearance, and asked what he should go about? ‘Go to throwing these stones over the mountain,’ said the man. The devil went at it. But the man, seeing the poor devil was having a hard job of it, read on till he had raised about a dozen of the same kind of chaps, and set them all at work. And so smashingly did they make the stones fly that, by sunset, the last were disappearing; and the man was about to set them to pulling up the stumps on his newly-cleared land. But they shook their heads at this, and, being pretty well tuckered out, agreed to quit even, if he would, and go off without the usual pay in such cases made and provided in devildom; when, he making no objections, they, with another squint at the green gnarly stumps, cut and run; and all the chapters he could read after that—for he began to like the fun of having his land cleared at so cheap a rate—would never bring them back again.”
So saying, the speaker turned; and, without the explanation or addition of a single word, retraced his steps and disappeared in the woods, leaving the puzzled Elwood to construe the meaning of his story as he best could. Very soon, however, sounds reached his ears which enabled him to form some conjecture what the man intended by his odd announcement. The mingling voices of ox-team drivers, with their loud and peculiarly modulated “Haw Buck! gee! and up there, ye lazy loons!” were now heard resounding through the woods, and evidently approaching along the road from the settlement. And soon an array of eight sturdy pair of oxen, each bearing a bundle of hay bound on the top of their yoke with a log chain, and each attended by a driver, with a handspike on his shoulder, marching by their side, emerged one after another from the woods, and came filing up the road towards the spot where he stood. As the long column approached, Elwood, with a flutter of the heart, recognized in the driver most in advance, the erect, stalwart figure and the proud and haughty bearing of Gaut Gurley.