“Some men seem to lose their wits when they’re workin’ on logs,” observed Mr. Wiley, who had deeply resented Long Dennett’s telling of a story which he knew fully as well and could have told much better. “Now, nat’rally, I’ve seen things on the Kennebec ”—
“Three cheers for the Saco! Hats off, boys!” shouted Jed Towle, and his directions were followed with a will.
“As I was sayin’,” continued the old man, peacefully, “I’ve seen things on the Kennebec that wouldn’t happen on a small river, an’ I’ve be’n in turrible places an’ taken turrible resks—resks that would ’a’ turned a Saco River man’s hair white; but them is the times when my wits work the quickest. I remember once I was smokin’ my pipe when a jam broke under me. ’T was a small jam, or what we call a small jam on the Kennebec,—only about three hundred thousand pine logs. The first thing I knowed, I was shootin’ back an’ forth in the b’ilin’ foam, hangin’ on t’ the end of a log like a spider. My hands was clasped round the log, and I never lost control o’ my pipe. They said I smoked right along, jest as cool an’ placid as a pond-lily.”
“Why’d you quit drivin’?” inquired Ivory.
“My strength wa’n’t ekal to it,” Mr. Wiley responded sadly. “I was all skin, bones, an’ nerve. The Comp’ny wouldn’t part with me altogether, so they give me a place in the office down on the wharves.”
“That wa’n’t so bad,” said Jed Towle; “why didn’t you hang on to it, so’s to keep in sight o’ the Kennebec?”
“I found I couldn’t be confined under cover. My liver give all out, my appetite failed me, an’ I wa’n’t wuth a day’s wages. I’d learned engineerin’ when I was a boy, an’ I thought I’d try runnin’ on the road a spell, but it didn’t suit my constitution. My kidneys ain’t turrible strong, an’ the doctors said I’d have Bright’s disease if I didn’t git some kind o’ work where there wa’n’t no vibrations.”
“Hard to find, Mr. Wiley; hard to find!” said Jed Towle.
“You’re right,” responded the old man feelingly. “I’ve tried all kinds o’ labor. Some of ’em don’t suit my liver, some disagrees with my stomach, and the rest of ’em has vibrations; so here I set, high an’ dry on the banks of life, you might say, like a stranded log.”
As this well-known simile fell upon the ear, there was a general stir in the group, for Turrible Wiley, when rhetorical, sometimes grew tearful, and this was a mood not to be encouraged.