Wilderness Honey

by Frank Lillie Pollock

“We might let him have that lumber for the winter cases that we put into the raft,” Carl whispered to his brother. “It’s scorched and soaked with water now so that it would hardly do for hives, but it would be all right to mend a roof.”

“Good idea!” Bob answered, “and we’ll help him mend it. We’re pretty crowded here, and the sooner he can get into his own house again the better for us.”

That afternoon Larue accompanied them to the lake apiary. Where the yard had been was nothing but a waste of wet ashes and rocks, but the fire was out, and at any rate the ground was thoroughly cleared at last. From the shore they could see the hives scattered over the little islet, with the raft aground beside them.

It was quite a problem how to get out to them. But finally, by Larue’s advice, they constructed a small raft which carried the three of them over, with a great deal of ricketing and splashing. The bees were all safe, with the exception of three colonies that had been melted down by the heat of the fire, and they set to work at once to load them on the raft again.

Larue was useful at the rafting. It turned out that he was an expert lumberman and river-driver. He seemed as strong and wiry as a panther, worked gaily and heroically, unmindful of an occasional sting. In fact, the boys could not help liking him, now that they met him on terms of peace. He might have been lawless enough, but he insisted on handling the heaviest end of everything, sang, chatted, laughed, and seemed so determined to win their good feeling, that they were both ready to forgive him all the trouble he had caused them.

The lumber in the raft was now really unfit for use in the bee-hives, and Larue was intensely grateful when they offered it to him. Immediately he went off and hunted up a friend of his, also a half-breed, who had been living unsuspected all this time not five miles away. This man owned a horse and wagon, and next morning he hauled the lumber from the lake to the river, and they rafted it down to Larue’s farm. He must also have sent word to Morton in some way, for a couple of days later half a dozen dark-faced fellows came up the river in canoes, carrying saws, hammers, and axes, to assist at the “bee.”

Bob and Carl also took part. Two of the visitors were skilful carpenters, and they made the house-roof tighter than it had been before. There was not lumber enough for the barn, but the half-breeds contrived a wonderfully ingenious thatch of logs, mud, and cedar boughs which would turn water as well as shingles.

Bob took the opportunity of sending word back to the Morton sawmill for more lumber. It arrived a few days later, and the boys were amazed to find Larue and the same gang of half-breed helpers come with it. They all went out to the lake, and unloaded the cargo. The half-breeds had been under the impression that a house was to be built, but they were all men who, with an axe and a knife, could make anything from a gunstock to a boat. It was only necessary to show them how the winter cases were to be made, and the speed with which the boards were cut up and nailed together was marvelous. There was a constant fire of song and chaff in French patois kept up, but the work was all finished so early that the men went into the woods, cut timbers, and ran up the framing of an extracting-house, which could be finished the next season.

They would not hear of taking any pay for this work. However, they all came back to the cabin, where Alice had a great supper prepared of everything eatable that she could find within reach. It was the honey that found greatest favor, however, with the guests; they all seemed to have a child’s appetite for sweets, and it vanished in immense quantities. Luckily there was plenty of it, and each of the men was provided with some to take away.

Later in the evening they built a great fire in the clearing, and there by the red light the half-breeds sang voyageur songs, habitant chansons, old songs that had been sung in Quebec for two hundred years, and some of them in Normandy before that. The half-breeds had excellent voices, and the songs were all new to the Harmans—“Entre Paris et St. Denis,” “La Claire Fontaine,” and the canoe song with the rattling chorus of “En Roulant ma Boule.” This last was a particular favorite.