After some judicious blows from the more experienced axe, the pine was good enough to fall just as required.
'Now the trunk must be chopped into lengths of twelve or fourteen feet;' and Mr. Holt gashed a mark with his axe at such distances, as well as he could guess. When it was done—
'What's the rate of speed of this work?' asked Robert. 'It seems so slow as to be almost hopeless; the only consideration is, that one is doing it all for one's self, and—for those as dear as self,' he could have added, but refrained.
'About an acre in eight or nine days, according to your expertness,' was the reply. Robert did a little ciphering in his mind immediately. Three axes, plus twenty-seven days (minus Sundays), equal to about the chopping of ten acres and a fraction during the month of December. The calculation was somewhat reassuring.
'What curious curves there are in this Canadian axe!' he remarked, as he stood leaning on the handle and looking down. 'It differs essentially from the common woodman's axe at home.'
'And which the English manufacturers persisted in sending us, and could not be induced to make on precisely the model required, until we dispensed with their aid by establishing an edge-tool factory of our own in Galt, on the Grand River.'
'That was a declaration of independence which must have been very sensibly felt in Sheffield,' remarked Robert.
They worked hard till dinner, at which period they found Arthur limping about the shanty.
'I practised those villainous snow-shoes for several hours, till I walked beautifully; but see what I've got by it,' he said: 'a pain across the instep as if the bones would split.'
'Oh, just a touch of mal de raquette,' observed Sam Holt, rather unsympathizingly. 'I ought to have warned you not to walk too much in them at first.'