The Workers: An Experiment in Reality. The East

by Walter A. Wyckoff

The piles were, some of them, in most inaccessible places. The hemlock-trees on that side of the mountain had first been felled, then the bark was cut round on the trunks at intervals of four feet. Next the bark was peeled off and carefully heaped near by, while the trees themselves were trimmed and then sawed into logs of desired lengths, and these were "skidded" into piles. From the piles, in the spring, when the streams are high, the logs are sent by "skid ways" into the run, and, once in the water, the lumbermen use their finest skill in floating them to the market at Williamsport.

In the meanwhile the bark must be got out and carted to the tannery, and Toler and I had our work laid out in cutting ways for the wagons.

Supplied each with an axe, a cant-hook, and a grabbing-hoe, we began the work of cutting through the brushwood and clearing away the stumps, and laying rough bridges over the small streams.

I was delighted at my good fortune in being set to work under Toler. My respect for him grew steadily. An experience of nearly forty years as a woodsman had developed his natural gifts to the point of highest skill, and he had a marvellous instinct for directing a course through the maze of tangled undergrowth and logs and stumps which marked the ruins of the forest. I was soon lost, but he turned hither and thither, with the ready familiarity of a gamin to whom there are no intricacies in the East End. He had the inspiring air of knowing what he was about, and the less common possession of actual knowledge, and he did his work in a masterly manner. "A workman that needeth not to be ashamed" constantly recurred to me as a phrase which aptly fitted him. And besides being a clever woodsman, Toler was clean of speech, that is, comparatively clean of speech—he swore, but his oaths were conventional and not usually of the blood-congealing kind of some of the other men.

That was a long morning's work, from earliest dawn until noon, and the ultimate advent of the dinner-hour was hugely welcome. Toler and I knocked off work at the sound of the noon whistle at the tannery four or five miles away. Only a few of us gathered at the camp. Fitz-Adams, with the other teamsters, and "Sam the Book-keeper," who is also the camp carpenter, and Toler and I made up the number. The rest of the crew were too far in the mountains to return at midday, and "Tim the Blacksmith" drove off in the buckboard with a hot dinner for them.

The first work of the afternoon was to help the teamsters get on a second load of bark. Again the boss forced me to his aid, and cursed me as he had done before, only I thought that he had been drinking, and there was certainly an added viciousness in his oaths, and in the threats of sudden death. But I had the consolation now of knowing that, as soon as the load was on, I should work with Toler for the rest of the day. Toler did not curse me, although it was impossible for him to wholly conceal the slender regard in which he held a man who never before had seen a grubbing-hoe, nor a cant-hook, and who handled an axe about as effectively as a girl throws a stone, and to whom the woods were a hopeless labyrinth. But Toler had the instincts of a gentleman; for all his want of respect for a man so ignorant as I, it was clear that there was not a little patient compassion in the feeling which he bore me, and he was at pains to teach me, and he eagerly encouraged any sign of improvement on my part.

But this time I was not done with Fitz-Adams when the afternoon's load was on. Toler and I soon needed a crowbar, and he sent me to fetch one from the blacksmith's shop.

Near the shop there is a depression in the road, and there the soil is somewhat soft. Much noise was coming from that quarter; and as I neared it I could see that Black Bob's wheels were fast in the mud, and that the boss's load was drawn close up behind and blocked.

Black Bob was on the ground beside his team, his reins in hand, and with frantic oaths he was urging his horses to their utmost strength. Fitz-Adams stood by and watched; but at sight of the weakening brutes, he quickly unbolted his own whiffle-trees, and driving his team ahead, made fast to the tongue of Black Bob's wagon. Then both together they started up their horses, lashing them with the far-reaching leather thongs that swung from the short stocks which they carried, and joining in a chorus of furious curses. Slowly the great wheels began to rise from the deep grooves in which they had settled; but in another minute, as the strength of the horses failed, the wheels sunk surely back again. Fitz-Adams was beside himself with rage, and at that moment he caught sight of me.

"What are you doing here?" he shouted with an oath.