“You won’t at first, but after a while you will. You may cut off small limbs on a block in your fashion, but you could not work to any purpose in cutting large wood on the ground. I’ll cut a while and you may hold on, and you’ll see how I cut.”
The blows of the senior were delivered with the precision of a machine.
James took the axe again, and though, at first, he seemed to retrograde, it was not long before he became accustomed to the new method. The old gentleman now began to put on the block sticks that were so large that it required two or three blows to sever them when the blows were delivered with precision, but it required seven or eight of James’. For instance, if it was a stick that might be cut at two blows, he would deliver one and cut it half off, and then, instead of striking in the same scarf and severing it he would strike a little on one side or the other and the blow went for nothing. He now saw that it was necessary to strike fair, for by striking once in a place he could never cut a stick of any size off, and feeling that when he did strike into the same place it was more by chance than skill, began to be somewhat discouraged.
The senior noticed this and said,—
“Let me cut a spell, you are tired and will strike better after resting a while.”
James could not but admire the precision and ease with which he lopped the sticks, so true were the blows that when he took and looked at the ends they seemed to have been cut at one blow, whereas the ends of his sticks looked like a pair of stairs and the bark was in shreds.
When at the expiration of an hour the old gentleman gave him the axe, and he saw what a pile of wood the former had cut, James could not help saying,—
“I don’t believe I shall ever strike true.”
“Indeed you will; it’s all in practice. You mustn’t be discouraged if you should find that little Bertie can strike truer than you can now, for the boys here begin to chop as soon as they can lift an axe, whereas it is a new thing to you.”
The next morning his instructor set James to cutting large logs, showed him how to cut his scarfs and told him to strike slow, and as fair as possible, for every miss clip was so much time and strength laid out for nothing, and thinking it would only discourage James if he should go to cutting logs with him, employed himself in splitting.