CHAPTER IV.
THE BUILDING OF THE SHANTY.
Frank looked about him with quick curiosity, expecting to see some of themen in whose society he was to spend the jointer. But there were only thefarm-hands lounging listlessly about, their days work being over, andthey had nothing to do except to smoke their pipes and wait fornightfall, when they would lounge off to bed.
The shantymen had not yet arrived, Mr. Stewart always making a point ofbeing at the depot some days in advance of them, in order to have plentyof time to prepare his plans for the winter campaign. Noting Frank'sinquiring look, he laughed, and said,--
"Oh, there are none of them here yet--we're the first on the field-but bythe end of the week there'll be more than a hundred men here."
A day or two later the first batch made their appearance, coming up bythe heavy teams that they would take with them into the woods; and eachday brought a fresh contingent, until by the time Mr. Stewart hadmentioned the farm fairly swarmed with them, and it became necessary forthis human hive to imitate the bees and send off its superfluousinhabitants without delay.
They were a rough, noisy, strange-looking lot of men, and Frank, whoseacquaintance with the shantymen had been limited to seeing them in smallgroups as they passed through Calumet in the autumn and spring, on theirway to and from the camps, meeting them now for the first time in suchlarge numbers, could not help some inward shrinking of soul as he notedtheir uncouth ways and listened to their oath-besprinkled talk. Theywere "all sorts and conditions of men"--habitants who could not speak aword of English, and Irishmen who could not speak a word of French;shrewd Scotchmen, chary of tongue and reserved of manner, and loquacioushalf-breeds, ready for song, or story, or fight, according to the humourof the moment. Here and there were dusky skins and prominent featuresthat betrayed a close connection with the aboriginal owners of thiscontinent. Almost all bad come from the big saw-mills away down theriver, or from some other equally arduous employment, and were glad ofthe chance of a few days' respite from work while Mr. Stewart wasdividing them up and making the necessary arrangements for the winter'swork.
Frank mingled freely with them, scraping acquaintance with those whoseemed disposed to be friendly, and whenever he came across one with anhonest, pleasant, prepossessing face, hoping very much that he would be amember of his gang. He was much impressed by the fact that he wasevidently the youngest member of the gathering, and did not fail tonotice the sometimes curious, sometimes contemptuous, looks with which hewas regarded by the fresh arrivals.
In the course of a few days matters were pretty well straightened out atthe depot, and the gangs of men began to leave for the different camps.Mr. Stewart had promised Frank that he would take care to put him under aforeman who would treat him well; and when one evening he was called intothe office and introduced to a tall, powerful, grave-looking man, withheavy brown beard and deep voice, Mr. Stewart said,--
"Here is Frank Kingston, Dan; Jack's only son, you know. He's set hisheart on lumbering, and I'm going to let him try it for a winter."
Frank scrutinized the man called Dan very closely as. Mr. Stewartcontinued,--
"I'm going to send him up to the Kippewa camp with you, Dan. There'snobody'll look after him better than you will, for I know you thought abig sight of his father, and for his sake as well as mine you'll see thatnothing happens to the lad."
Dan Johnston's face relaxed into a smile that showed there were richdepths of good nature beneath his rather stern exterior, for he waspleased at the compliment implied in the superintendent's words, andstretching out a mighty hand to Frank, he laid it on his shoulder in akindly way, saying,--
"He seems a likely lad, Mr. Stewart, and a chip of the old block, if I'mnot mistaken. I'll be right glad to have him with me. But what kind ofwork is he to go at? He seems rather light for chopping, doesn't he?"
Mr. Stewart gave a quizzical sort of glance at Frank as he replied,--
"Well, you see, Dan, I think myself he is too light for chopping, so Itold him he'd have to be chore-boy for this winter, anyway."
A look of surprise came over Johnston's face, and, more to himself thanthe others, he muttered in a low tone,--
"Chore-boy, eh? Jack Kingston's son a chore-boy!" Then turning to Frank,he said aloud, "All right, my boy. There's nothing like beginning atthe bottom if you want to learn the whole business. You must make up yourmind to put in a pretty hard time, but I'll see you have fair play,anyway."
As Frank looked at the rugged, honest, determined face, and the stalwartframe, he felt thoroughly satisfied that in Dan Johnston he had a friendin whom he could place perfect confidence, and that Mr. Stewart's promisehad been fully kept. The foreman then became quite sociable, and askedhim many questions about his mother, and his life in Calumet, and hisplans for the future, so that before they parted for the night Frank feltas if they were quite old friends instead of recent acquaintances.
The following morning Johnston was bestirring himself bright and earlygetting his men and stores together, and before noon a start was made forthe Kippewa River, on whose southern bank a site had already beenselected for the lumber camp which would be the centre of his operationsfor the winter. Johnston's gang numbered fifty men all told, himselfincluded, and they were in high spirits as they set out for theirdestination. The stores and tools were, of course, transported by waggon;but the men had to go on foot, and with fifteen miles of a rough forestroad to cover before sundown, they struck a brisk pace as, in twos andthrees and quartettes, they marched noisily along the dusty road.
"You stay by me, Frank," said the foreman, "and if your young legs happento go back on you, you can have a lift on one of the teams until you'rerested."
Frank felt in such fine trim that although he fully appreciated his bigfriend's thoughtfulness, he was rash enough to think he would not requireto avail himself of it; but the next five miles showed him his mistake,and at the end of them he was very glad to jump upon one of the teamsthat happened to be passing, and in this way hastened over a good part ofthe remainder of the tramp.
As the odd-looking gang pushed forward steadily, if not in exactlymartial order, Frank had a good opportunity of inspecting its members,and making in his own mind an estimate of their probable good of badqualities as companions. In this he was much assisted by the foreman,who, in reply to his questions, gave him helpful bits of informationabout the different ones that attracted his attention. Fully one-halfof the gang were French Canadians, dark-complexioned, black-haired,bright-eyed men, full of life and talk, their tongues going unceasinglyas they plodded along in sociable groups. Of the remainder, some wereScotch, others Irish, the rest English. Upon the whole, they were quite apromising-looking lot of men; indeed, Johnston took very good care tohave as little "poor stuff" as possible in his gang; for he had long heldthe reputation of turning out more logs at his camp than were cut at anyother on the same "limits;" and this well-deserved fame he cherished verydearly.
Darkness was coming on apace, when at last a glad shout from the foremostgroup announced that the end of the journey was near; and in a fewminutes more the whole band of tired men were resting their wearied limbson the bank of the river near which the shanty was to be erected at once.The teams had arrived some time before them, and two large tents had beenput up as temporary-shelter; while brightly-burning fires and theappetizing fizzle of frying bacon joined with the wholesome aroma of hottea to make glad the hearts of the dusty, hungry pedestrians.
Frank enjoyed his open-air tea immensely. It was his first taste of reallumberman's life, and was undoubtedly a pleasant introduction to it; forthe hard work would not begin until the morrow, and in the meantimeeverybody was still a-holidaying. So refreshing was the evening mealthat, tired as all no doubt felt from their long tramp, they soon forgotit sufficiently to spend an hour or more in song and chorus that made thevast forest aisles re-echo with rough melody before they sank into thesilence of slumber for the night.
At daybreak next morning Dan Johnston'
s stentorian voice aroused thesleepers, and Frank could hardly believe that he had taken more thantwice forty winks at the most before the stirring shout of "Turn out!turn out! The work's waiting!" broke into his dreams and recalled him tolife's realities. The morning was gray and chilly, the men lookedsleepy and out of humour, and Johnston himself had it a stern distantmanner, or seemed to have, as after a wash at the river bank Frankapproached him and reported himself for duty.
"Will you please to tell me what is to be my work, Mr. Johnston?" saidhe, in quite a timid tone; for somehow or other there seemed to be achange in the atmosphere.
The foreman's face relaxed a little as he turned to answer him.
"You want to be set to work, eh? Well, that won't take long." And lookingaround among the moving men until he found the one he wanted, he raisedhis voice and called,--
"Hi, there, Baptiste! Come here a moment."
In response to the summons a short, stout, smooth-faced, and decidedlygood-natured looking Frenchman, who had been busy at one of the fires,came over to the foreman.
"See here, Baptiste; this lad's to be your chore-boy this winter, and Idon't want you to be too hard on him--_savez?_ Let him have plenty ofwork, but not more than his share."
Baptiste examined Frank's sturdy figure with much the same smile ofapproval that he might bestow upon a fine capon that he was preparing forthe pot, and murmured out something like,--
"_Bien, m'sieur_. I sall be easy wid him if ee's a good boy."
The foreman then said to Frank,--
"There, Frank, go with Baptiste, and he'll give you work enough."
So Frank went dutifully off with the Frenchman.
He soon found out what his work was to be. Baptiste was cook, and he washis assistant, not so much in the actual cooking, for Baptiste lookedafter that himself, but in the scouring of the pots and pans, the keepingup of the fires, the setting out of the food, and such othersupplementary duties. Not very dignified or inspiring employment,certainly, especially for a boy "with a turn for books and figures." ButFrank had come to the camp prepared to undertake, without a murmur, anywork within his powers that might be given him, and he now went quietlyand steadily at what was required of him.
As soon as breakfast was despatched, Johnston called the men together togive them directions about the building of the shanty, which was thefirst thing of all to be done; and having divided them up into parties,to each of which a different task was assigned, he set them at workwithout delay.
Frank was very glad that attention to his duties would not prevent hiswatching the others at theirs; for what could be more interesting than tostudy every stage of the erection of the building that was to be theirshelter and home during the long winter months now rapidly approaching?It was a first experience for him, and nothing escaped his vigilant eye.This is the way he described the building of the shanty to his mother onhis return to Calumet:--
"You see, mother, everybody except Baptiste and myself took a hand, andjust worked like beavers. I wish you could have seen the men. And Mr.Johnston--why, he was in two places at once most of the time, or at leastseemed to be! It was grand fun watching them. The first thing they didwas to cut down a lot of trees--splendid big fellows, that would make thetrees round here look pretty small, I can tell you. Then they chopped offall the branches and cut up the trunks into the lengths that suited, andlaid them one on the top of the other until they made a wall about ashigh as Mr. Johnston, or perhaps higher, in the shape of one big roomforty feet long by thirty feet wide, Mr. Johnston said. It looked veryfunny then--just like a huge pig-pen, with no windows and only onedoor--on the side that faced the river. Next day they laid long timbersacross the top of the wall, resting them in the middle on four greatposts they called 'scoop-bearers.' Funny name, isn't it? But they calledthem that because they bear the 'scoops' that make the roof; and a grandroof it is, I tell you. The scoops are small logs hollowed out on oneside and flat on the other; and they lay them on the cross timbers insuch a way that the edges of one fit into the hollows of two others, sothat the rain hasn't a chance to get in, no matter how bard it tries.Next thing they made the floor; and that wasn't a hard job, for they justmade logs flat on two sides and laid them on the ground, so that it was apretty rough sort of a floor. All the cracks were stuffed tight with mossand mud, and a big bank of earth thrown up around the bottom of the wallto keep the draught out.
"But you should have seen the beds, or 'bunks,' as they called them, forthe men. I don't believe you could ever sleep on them. They were nothingbut board platforms all around three sides of the room, built on a slantso that your head was higher than your feet; so you see I'd have hadnothing better than the soft side of a plank for a mattress if you hadn'tfitted me out with one. And when the other fellows saw how snug I was,they vowed they'd have a soft bed too; so what do you think they did?They gathered an immense quantity of hemlock branches--little soft ones,you know--and spread them thick over the boards, and then they laidblankets over that and made a really fine mattress for all. So that, yousee, I quite set the fashion. The last thing to be made was thefireplace, which has the very queer name of 'caboose,' and is queererthan its name. It is right in the middle of the room, not at one end, andis as big as a small room by itself. First of all, a great bank of stonesand sand is laid on the floor, kept together by boards at the edges; thena large square hole is cut in the roof above, and a wooden chimney builton the top of it; and then at two of the corners cranes to hold the potsare fixed, and the caboose is complete. And oh, mother, such roaring bigfires as were always going in it after the cold came--all night long, youknow; and sometimes I had to stay awake to keep the fire from going out,which wasn't much fun, but, of course, I had to take my turn. So now,mother, you ought to have a pretty good idea of what our shanty was like;for, besides a table and our chests, there was nothing much else in it todescribe."
Such were Frank Kingston's surroundings as he entered upon the humbleand laborious duties of chore-boy in Camp Kippewa, not attempting toconceal from himself that he would much rather be a chopper or teamsteror road-maker, but with his mind fully fixed upon doing his work, howeveruncongenial it might be, cheerfully and faithfully for one winter atleast, feeling confident that if he did he would not be chore-boy forlong, but would in due time be promoted to some more dignified andattractive position.
The Young Woodsman; Or, Life in the Forests of Canada Page 4