"The books say so."
"Kin he lick a Beaver?"
"Well, I should say so."
"Well, that's me."
"No, you don't. I'm not going around with a fellow that licks me. It don't fit you as well as 'Woodpecker,' anyhow. I always get you when I want a nice tree spoiled or pecked into holes," retorted Yan, magnanimously ignoring the personal reason for the name.
"Tain t as bad as beavering," answered Sam.
"Beavering" was a word with a history. Axes and timber were the biggest things in the lives of the Sangerites. Skill with the axe was the highest accomplishment. [198] The old settlers used to make everything in the house out of wood, and with the axe for the only tool. It was even said that some of them used to "edge her up a bit" and shave with her on Sundays. When a father was setting his son up in life he gave him simply a good axe. The axe was the grand essential of life and work, and was supposed to be a whole outfit. Skill with the axe was general. Every man and boy was more or less expert, and did not know how expert he was till a real "greeny" came among them. There is a right way to cut for each kind of grain, and a certain proper way of felling a tree to throw it in any given direction with the minimum of labour. All these things are second nature to the Sangerite. A Beaver is credited with a haphazard way of gnawing round and round a tree till somehow it tumbles, and when a chopper deviates in the least from the correct form, the exact right cut in the exact right place, he is said to be "beavering"; therefore, while "working like a Beaver" is high praise, "beavering" a tree is a term of unmeasured reproach, and Sam's final gibe had point and force that none but a Sangerite could possibly have appreciated.