The great oak stood at the summit of gently descending ground. Directly before it was a clump of enormous pines, which the boys had been directed to chop into till they stood tottering to a fall, and before them were some large hemlocks and sugar-trees that had been cut half off, and below these smaller trees that had received but a few blows of the axe.
All were now assembled at the foot of the oak. A few well-directed strokes from the old gentleman’s axe, it began to nod, and small, dead limbs to fall from it; then came a short, sharp crack. Slowly it toppled, and seemed but to touch the trunks of the tall pines that stood seventy feet to a limb, when down they went with a tremendous roar upon the hemlocks, and the whole avalanche, smoking and cracking, plunged right down the descent into the mixed growth below: leaves, limbs, and bark flew high into the air, a wide lane was opened through the forest, as when a discharge of grape ploughs through a column of infantry; the very earth shook with the concussion, and the sunlight broke in where it had not shone for a hundred years.
Bertie leaped upon the trunk of the great oak, and swinging his hat, shouted,—
“Hoorah, grandfather, you know how to do it, don’t you?”
“I should be a dull scholar if I didn’t, considering how much experience and practice I’ve had.”
Scores of trees were prostrated, some torn up by the roots, others shorn of their branches, and sure to die when scorched by the clearing fire, others broken off at various heights. The trees broken off or stripped of their branches were not cut down, as, casting no shade, they did not interfere with the crop, but were left to rot down.
Finding the labor so much less than they had anticipated, the boys set to work with resolution, and before the ground froze, cut the trees, lopped the larger branches, and cleared up the work of the season. James raised three bushels of potatoes more than the previous year, and obtained two cents a bushel more for them of the same buyer.
The Whitmans all possessed musical ability. Mr. Whitman and his wife sang in the choir till they were married; and the children, though they had received no training, and could not read music, all sang by rote; and soon after school began, Bertie made a new discovery. One of the cows that he milked had spells of holding up her milk, and caused much inconvenience.
“I’ll swap cows with you, Bertie,” said James; “you milk my old line-back, and I’ll milk the black cow; perhaps she’ll give down her milk better to me.”
The black cow after this gave down her milk, which was for some time a great puzzle to Bertie and Peter, although their parents said it was because James milked faster, and it was easier to the cow.