Jim Spurling, millman

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. Plan and Plot . i

II. A Vest-pocket Sawmill 19

II

J UNE 1 2th found Jim, Budge, Throppy, and Percy on the train, bound for Barham. Their Sophomore examinations lay behind them and all had passed successfully. Under ordinary circumstances the trip would have been a hilarious one; but Throppy’s poor health and the unfamiliar enterprise on which they were embarked had a sobering effect upon their minds.

With them were Otis Briggs and ’Gene Doggett, New Hampshire men from Lane’s native town. Briggs was a sandy-complexioned, solidly built Yankee of about forty, with twinkling blue eyes and a humorous mouth overhung by a drooping yellow mustache; he talked and joked freely. His chum, Doggett, was in appearance and disposition almost his exact opposite — tall, lank, dark and taciturn. Each was an expert in his line, Briggs as sawyer, Doggett as marker.

“Wouldn’t have dared to tackle this job if I hadn’t been sure of getting Ote and ’Gene to come with us,” confided Roger to Jim. “Ote’s been sawing lumber ever since he was a boy. He can set up a mill and make all kinds of repairs; and at a pinch he could jump in and fill the place of any man about the plant. ’Gene’s almost as handy. The two of ’em make a team that’s hard to beat. They’ll teach us the business. I’m glad, on Throppy’s account, we’ve got started early; he doesn’t look any too good to me.”

Stevens was sitting alone two seats in front of Budge and Jim. From his languid attitude it was easy to see that the ride was tiring him. Now and then he coughed slightly. Jim’s face clouded.

“He’ll feel better, after he’s been outdoors awhile,” he said; but his voice held a note of apprehension.

The conductor came along the aisle.

“Tickets!” he demanded, briskly.

The boys surrendered their pasteboards.

“I want a rebate,” petitioned Percy.

The conductor stared at him.

“Why?”

Percy pointed to Jim.

“I’m thirty pounds lighter than he is. It doesn’t cost the railroad near so much to haul me.”

The man in blue coat and brass buttons passed on.

“If you classify yourself by your weight,” he flung back, “you’ve taken the wrong train. You ought to have had yourself loaded on the freight. Tickets!”

“One on you, Perce,” laughed Lane.

Percy touched his chest, giving the fencer’s sign.

“Hit!” he acknowledged.

Their seventy-mile ride at last came to an end, and they disembarked at ten o’clock at the little country station of Edginton. They were the only passengers to alight. Their baggage was put off, and the train soon disappeared round a curve.

“ Stage for Barham!”

The voice came from a short, gray-haired, bowlegged man in straw hat and linen duster.

‘‘That means us!” said Budge.

The stage driver scrutinized them with a gimletlike gaze. He seemed to have been aware of their coming.

“My name’s Zenas Strout,” he volunteered. “So you’re the fellows who ’re goin’ to lumber on the Peavey lot, hey?”

A peculiar smile, almost a grin, wrinkled his lips, while he contemplated them with a long, curious, appraising stare, as if he were taking their measure and comparing them with some unseen personality.

“This way!” he directed, curtly.

Following him round the end of the station, the boys came upon a battered, nondescript vehicle, half coach and half buckboard, standing beside the platform; to it were harnessed a pair of stout, gray horses.

“That’s the stage,” said Zenas. “Ain’t much on looks, but it’s got two redeemin’ features: it ’ll hold everythin’ an’ everybody you can pile onto it, an’ there’s always room for one more. Lend us a hand with your duffle!”

They soon loaded on the baggage, including a crated, second-hand motor cycle which Budge, foreseeing that it might be useful, had bought at a low figure. Everybody clambered aboard, Zenas spoke to his horses, and the stage started on its twelvemile trip to Barham.

It was a beautiful June day. Drifting islands of white clouds were scattered over the blue sky. A gentle breeze was blowing, and the balmy air was redolent with the scent of spring blossoms. Flights of robins rose and alighted in the pastures that lined the road; the brisk tapping of an occasional woodpecker resounded through the hard-wood growth; while frequent lines of flapping black crows made the landscape re-echo with the nasal tremolo of their cawing.

“Oso’s cousins, talking to you, Perce! Remember the piece of steak he stole from you that first night on Tarpaulin ?” said Jim. “ Wonder how Uncle Tom’s doing with his traps! I almost wish I was down there with him.”

A shadow crossed Lane’s unusually sober face. He did not like to hear Jim talk in that way.

The cultivated fields and pastures fell behind. The road, snakelike in its crookedness, became rougher and more hilly. Now and then they passed through dark-green, shady tracts of second-growth spruce and pine, successors to the giants that had once towered over the country. Briggs and Doggett, scanning these trees with professional eyes, com- 22 merited on their size and the amount of lumber they would make; while Lane and the stage driver contributed an occasional remark. Jim and the other two boys were silent. The woods were new to them. So they used their eyes instead of their tongues, and kept their ears open to catch what they could from the talk of the more experienced men.

By degrees the scenery grew still wilder and rougher. The road climbed steep hills and wound among mountains of very respectable size. Finally, on a bare, lofty summit Zenas brought his sweaty, panting horses to a willing stop. He pointed with his whip.

“ ‘On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand an’ cast a wistful eye,’ ” he quoted. “That’s Barham basin, straight ahead! Yonder to the right’s Nebo Mounttain; you can see Mount Washington from it on a clear day. That cucumber-shaped sheet of water at its foot’s Lake Agawam; it’s four miles long, and almost two across at the widest place. The Peavey lot comes down to its northern end.”

The boys looked with all their eyes. Before them stretched a broad, saucer-shaped hollow, hemmed in by low mountains and comprising about twenty-five square miles, mostly wooded, but dotted here and there with white houses surrounded by farms and pastures. At the base of the hills on its western edge a little village clustered round a pointed church spire.

“Barham Four Corners!” said Zenas. “That’s where you’ll do your shopping. Giddap, Bill!”

Twenty minutes later they rolled up to the crossroads, and unloaded themselves and their belongings on the platform of Holway & Benner’s store, which was also the post office.

Barham Four Corners was a typical Maine country village of perhaps two hundred people. Like many similar villages, it was much smaller than it had been years before. Three general stores, a wheelwright and blacksmith’s shop, and a gristmill on Borden Stream did most of the business of the surrounding region. There was also a lawyer’s office, bearing the sign, “Milo Grannitt.” Two small churches and a grange hall ministered to the religious and social life of the community. The boys looked about with great interest. Barham Four Corners was to represent civilization to them for the next three months.

Their arrival apparently occasioned no surprise to the score of men and boys lounging about the crossroads just before the dinner hour. Nods, winks, and nudges, accompanied by low talk and some laughter, passed between the onlookers. Across the street on the sidewalk, under the lawyer’s sign, stood two men, one dressed in black, tallish, stoop-shouldered, and rather cadaverous; the other, rougherlooking, burly, red-faced, and clad in a brown checked suit. After watching the boys for a short time, the two turned and entered the stairway leading to Grannitt’s office.

A few minutes in Holway & Benner’s gave the budding lumbermen the information they needed.

Roger, accompanied by Briggs and Doggett, went for dinner to John Creamer’s, a few hundred feet from the comer; while Throppy, Percy, and Jim took their suitcases over to Ezra Barker’s, about as far in the opposite direction. They arranged to stop at these houses until their camps should have been built in the woods near the mill.

After dinner they hired two teams and drove out four miles to the Peavey lot. Following Creamer’s directions, they turned into a pasture on the right, after passing a large maple. Briggs surveyed the open, sloping field with an approving eye.

“This ’ll make a first-class ‘ sticking ground,’ ” he exclaimed.

“What’s that?” asked Percy.

“A place to dry the boards after they’ve been sawed. If possible, pick an open, windy slope, not too far from the mill, and near the road, so that it ’ll be easy to haul ’em away. If they lie on the ground, or are put up solid without any air spaces, they soon sap-stain and spoil. So they’re always piled several feet high, and the layers are separated by ‘stickings,’ narrow strips sawed an inch thick, set about eight feet apart. There’s a good five acres in this pasture, and it ought to give an easy chance to stick a million feet.”

They followed a wood road for some distance through a scrubby growth of spruce. Suddenly it entered a tract where the trees changed their appearance and became larger and straighten 25

“This must be the beginning of the Peavey lot,” said Lane. “Look at that pine! Yes, there’s the blazed cross Mr. Creamer told us about.”

He pointed to two straw-colored gashes, crossing each other at right angles, slashed through the reddish-brown bark into the underlying wood.

“The mill’s about twenty rods farther on.”

Briggs and Doggett had been casting keen glances at the tall, straight trunks about them.

“ ’Gene,” said the former, “this is the finest stand of pine I ever set my eyes on. If the rest of it is as good as what we’ve seen already, it ought to saw out over fifty thousand to the acre.”

Doggett nodded without replying. They drove on between the lines of lofty trees. A rabbit flitted across the road before them. On their left a partridge boomed up and flew heavily away to cover. The green twilight, checkered with sun and shadow, was steeped in balsamic odors.

It grew lighter ahead. Rounding a turn, they came in sight of a clearing, in the centre of which stood a wooden-roofed structure, without sides, and with a smokestack at one end.

“There’s the mill!” exclaimed Lane.

Two minutes later everybody was examining the edifice that was to be the center of their thoughts and activities for the next three months. Briggs and Doggett at once began to inspect the machinery to learn if it was in shape for commencing operations, while Budge, realizing that the other three knew <16 practically nothing about the mill, gave them a general idea of its construction and the way in which it worked.

“Here at the left end is a sixty-horse-power boiler that furnishes the steam to the engine right behind it. The two belts from those big fly wheels run to the pulleys that turn the arbor, the shaft on which the saw is fixed. This short corduroy roadway of spruce sticks on our right leads up to the ‘brow.’ The logs are hauled in on wooden ‘scoots/ drawn by two horses. They are rolled off* onto those two long stringers, reaching from the ‘brow’ to the track on which the carriage runs. Then the roller (that ’ll be you, Jim) rolls ’em down, one by one, and puts ’em on the carriage, which the sawyer has jigged back to just the right place. After the stick has been ‘dogged’ so that it can’t shift, the sawyer pulls his lever, moving the carriage forward and bringing the end of the log against that fifty-two-inch circular saw in the center of the mill. It’s got sixty teeth, and it’s going round seven hundred times a minute, so it doesn’t do a thing to Mr. Log. As fast as the slabs and boards come off, the marker, who stands a few feet to the left of the sawyer, takes ’em in charge. He cuts the slabs into short pieces with that little slab saw near the central post, and shoves ’em down that shoot between the belts to the fireman (you, Perce). The marker measures the boards and chalks on ’em the number of feet they contain, and his helper pushes ’em out of the end of the mill 27 into the pit. Then I put each size on the Tigging ’ where it belongs, and the yardman hauls ’em off to the sticking ground. That’s all there is to it.”

The process sounded simple enough; but the others stared somewhat dubiously at the silent collection of machinery.

“You haven’t told me what I’m to do,” said Throppy.

“Don’t you fret,” counseled Budge. “You’re to be general utility man, and I’ll guarantee there’ll be enough odd jobs to keep you busy. There’s always something happening round a mill.”

Percy was gazing at the smokestack which rose from the front end of the boiler, just outside the board roof.

“What’s that wire barrel on top of the iron chimney?” he demanded.

“The sparker! Some call it the bonnet. A mill of this sort has a strong draught, which carries no end of cinders up the stack; so there has to be something on its top to catch ’em, or the whole crew’d be kept busy putting out fires in the woods to leeward. Even with that, some little sparks get through the meshes, and you have to watch sharp on a windy day.”

“You said I was to be fireman. Where do I stand?”

“In the fire room, this open space back of the boiler at the foot of the slab-shoot. You’ll know every square inch of it before the end of the summer, and sometimes you’ll be liable to find it pretty warm.

Still, it won’t be so bad as you might think, for there’s ahvays some air stirring under this open roof, even on the hottest days.”

“I suppose my place ’ll be between those stringers,” said Jim.

“Yes; and from the size of the pines we’ve just come through, I should say that your arms and shoulders wouldn’t soften up much from lack of exercise.”

“What are those two barrels for?” asked Throppy.

“To hold water. That outside one’s for emergencies. The other, nearer the boiler, furnishes a supply for making all the steam used in the engine. This pipe is the inspirator, which keeps the barrel filled by drawing water through the supply pipe from some pond or brook; sometimes it has to be brought hundreds of feet. This other pipe’s the injector, which sucks the water from the barrel into the boiler. Perce ’ll find that steel tank rather thirsty on a busy day; it’s likely to drink up between two and three thousand gallons in nine hours.”

Briggs and Doggett had by this time finished their inspection of the engine and other machinery.

“How do you find things, Ote?” questioned Lane.

“Very fair, considering the mill’s several years old. Two or three little parts are missing, but nothing that we can’t replace easily. We’ll probably find everything we need in those chests you’ve got the keys of. Well, let’s take a stroll over the rest of the lot!”

The mill was advantageously located on a gentle slope, making it possible for the logs to be rolled easily upon the stringers. It had been set near the center of the fifty acres, so that the trees cut on the outer edges of the tract could be dragged in with the shortest possible average haul. Roads, radiating like wheel spokes, had been swamped out from it, and along these lay trunks enough for several days’ sawing. The source of the water supply was a goodsized brook, about four hundred feet distant.

For almost two hours the party tramped along the stumpy roads or threaded their way between the barky trunks over the thick, soft, mounded carpet of dead needles. The growth was almost entirely white pine, with here and there a large spruce. The New Hampshire men were enthusiastic over the outlook.

“I’ve run a saw through millions of feet of lumber,” said Briggs, “and much of it’s been first-class stuff; but this tract, right through, beats anything I’ve ever seen or heard of. These trees are between eighty and two hundred years old. Some of ’em ’ll go over a hundred feet tall, and ’ll measure above thirty inches through, breast high. It’s a wonder they’ve been allowed to stand so long; if they’d grown in our part of the country they’d have been in boards years ago. Eh, ’Gene?”

“That’s right,” agreed the less demonstrative Doggett.

“There’s a group of five-log trees, and better.

Look at that giant! Bet he’ll scale over two thousand feet!”

Doggett did not answer. He lifted his head and sniffed.

“I smell smoke,” he said.

So did all the others. Budge looked serious.

“Somebody camping here? That won’t do!”

They walked in the direction from which the breeze came, the fumes all the while growing stronger. Presently they reached a clearing in which stood a small shack. A white cloud was floating from its stovepipe.

“Might as well take the bull by the horns!” remarked Budge.

Going round to the front of the cabin, he rapped smartly on the door. It was opened by a tall, stoopshouldered man with white hair and beard; his features expressed surprise and suspicion as he scanned his unexpected visitors. Budge went at once to the point.

“What right have you to be living here?” he demanded.

Amazement struggled with indignation on the supposed squatter’s face. He glanced from one to another of the group. Gradually understanding dawned upon him, but his expression grew, if anything, more unfriendly.

“A better right than you have to be standing on my doorstep, insulting me,” he replied at last. “I own the land under my feet, and you don’t.”

Budge felt his face reddening. He, too, began to see light.

“ Aren’t we on the Peavey lot?” he stammered.

“No. You crossed the line fifty feet back. I’m Hiram Merrithew. I’ve owned this land, one hundred acres of it, and lived in this cabin more years than you are old. And further, young man, let me tell you this: So long as I’m above ground, neither you nor any other tree butchers will have a chance to slaughter God’s green woods by running a portable mill on this lot!”

His face grew hard and his eye brightened as, disregarding Budge’s attempted apologies, he turned away and slammed his door.

The timber cruisers beat a hurried retreat to the Peavey lot.

“Here’s the line,” said Budge, flushed and sheepish. “I ought to have noticed when we crossed it. John Creamer told me about Merrithew; queer I didn’t remember! Said he’d lived the life of a hermit for over twenty years, and that he thought a sight more of his trees than he did of men. Well, we’ve made a bad start with our only neighbor. Next time I’ll know enough to approach a stranger like a gentleman, even if I think he is in the wrong.”

“Then that knot of big pines wasn’t on our lot, after all,” mourned Briggs.

It was almost five o’clock when they returned to the mill clearing; and all, Throppy in particular, 32 were more or less tired. For some time Percy had been indulging in sudden, violent gestures, and muttering emphatically to himself.

“You may say all you please about big pines,” he burst out, “but this lot produces one thing that I don’t believe any other spot on earth can match, and that’s mosquitoes! They’re the thickest, healthiest, hungriest lot that ever presented their bills to me. I ran across some in the hollow back there that were almost as big as humming birds. Strange the rest of you haven’t noticed ’em ! They’ve drawn a gallon of blood from me since three o’clock.”

“You don’t look very pale, Perce,” consoled Budge. “Cheer up! They won’t stop very long.”

“If they stay, I sha’n’t,” said Percy. “They’re even worse than Jim’s flute.”

Unhitching their horses, they prepared to start back.

“We’ll build a couple of camps the first thing we do,” remarked Lane. “A small one for Ote and ’Gene, and a bigger shack, about the size of the cabin on Tarpaulin, for us four. We’ll fit it up inside as near as we can like the other, so that it ’ll remind Jim of the island.”

After supper that evening Lane came over to Ezra Barker’s to discuss the situation with his mates. His bearing showed that he felt the responsibility that rested upon him. The others, even Jim, looked to him as their leader in their new venture. Win 33 or lose, the die was cast; they were in for it; it was too late to back out. The situation called for all the brains and grit they could muster.

“We’ve got to make a success of this,” insisted Roger, resolutely. “We can do it; I know we can.”

“There’s something odd about this place,” said Percy. “I can’t tell why, but somehow I feel it in my bones that the people here aren’t particularly glad to see us.”

“I’ve noticed the same thing,” assented Jim. “They look at us in a peculiar way; and some are positively surly.”

“Well, we can’t help that,” observed Budge. “The only thing we can do is to give everybody a square deal and expect them to give us the same. Now, Jim, you’ve seen the mill and the lot, and you understand what we’ve got to do. How do you like the outlook?”

“I don’t like it,” Jim replied, briefly and honestly. “I’m homesick for the salt water. It ’ll be the first summer I was ever away from it. There isn’t enough change in the scenery to suit me. Everything ’ll be the same every morning, w T oods, mountains and all. Then there’s the mill; you wouldn’t say there was much beauty about that. But . . .”

He glanced toward Throppy and stopped. Budge and Percy understood. Jim would be glad to stand anything, no matter how unpleasant, if Throppy would only get well.

A few hundred feet off, in Grannitt’s office, dimlylighted by a sooted kerosene lamp, another conference was being held between the lawyer and his principal client.

“Well, Milo, now you’ve seen ’em, what do you think of ’em?” queried Legore.

Grannitt laughed.

“What do you think?” he parried.

Hard Cash dropped his heavy hand carelessly on the table. The lamp flared, shooting a long, smoky tongue of flame toward the ceiling.

“Nothin’ there to be afraid of! The two men may know how to run a mill, but they don’t know anythin’ else. The others don’t count, ’ceptin’ p’r’aps that hulkin’ dark-haired feller, an’ he’s jest overgrown boy, a big lump o’ putty. They’ll last quick. We’ll git our money, Milo!”

The lawyer shifted his unlighted cigar from the left corner of his mouth to the right.

“That big fellow’s got more stuff in him than you think,” he said. “But he’s only in the gristle yet. Ten years from this time, when he’s butted into a few stone walls and hardened up, he’ll be a tough proposition to buck against. But I guess you’re right about him now. We’ll probably divide the cash, you taking the lion’s share, as usual. Still,

I don’t like the set of his jaw!”

Ill

INURING the next few days Budge was more than busy. The bulk of the planning fell upon him, as generalissimo of the expedition; but he found Jim and Percy most efficient lieutenants. Briggs and Doggett assumed the responsibility of getting the mill into shape to run, and of making out a list of everything that was needed, such as missing parts, tools, oil, and other supplies.

There were many important matters to be attended to before the business would be fairly under way. Men and horses were to be hired; camps must be built and furnished; food had to be arranged for; a contract must be entered into with the owner of the pasture, so that his land could be used as a sticking ground; a loan of five thousand dollars, with Lane, senior, and the other owners of the Peavey lot as security, was to be negotiated in Parcherville, the county seat, fifteen miles off; and an account had to be opened with the Parcherville Savings and Trust Company, so that several hundred dollars would be forthcoming each week for current expenses. Last, but no means least, Throppy, under Budge’s direc- 36 tion, entered into correspondence with various lumber dealers and box factories, regarding the sale of their prospective output.

Budge, assisted by Percy, uncrated his motor cycle, and devoted several hours to putting it in running order. On this machine he made a quick trip to Parcherville, where the loan was successfully engineered and satisfactory arrangements made with the bank; he also engaged an auto truck to take a load of miscellaneous supplies out to the mill. On his return to Barham he met Parker Slocum, owner of the pasture, in Milo Grannitt’s office; and there a contract was drawn securing to Roger Lane and his associates the right to use said land as a sticking ground. Budge realized that he was paying double what the property was worth; but it was the only tract available for his purpose, and he had no time to quibble over the price.

Lumbermen have hearty appetites; so Budge arranged for a liberal supply of eggs, butter, and vegetables, and engaged Holway & Benner’s delivery team to call twice a week. Milburn’s meat cart passed the sticking ground on Tuesdays, and Wesley Murch went by with fish on Fridays; and both were notified to turn in to the mill. Joshua Kimball, who owned the nearest farm, a half mile off, agreed to send his boy Morgan down every morning with four quarts of milk.

“What do you take us for, Budge?” asked Jim. “Cormorants?”

“ Don’t you worry, old man! After you’ve been at work a few days in this bracing pine air, you’ll be hungry enough to eat boards; and we can’t afford to have you do that.”

But the hardest work of all was the assembling of the rest of their working force. It was necessary to hire fifteen men more: six choppers; one loader; three teamsters, each with a two-horse team, to drag the heavily burdened scoots to the mill; a man to help roll logs across onto the brow and make himself generally useful; a pusher, to assist the marker; a yardman and his double team to haul the sawed lumber along the pit road to the yard; and two stickers to pile the boards.

“Boys!” exclaimed Budge. “Somehow we’ve simply got to dig up fifteen men. In a business way it means life or death to us. No men, no boards!”

The natives with whom they had dealt had been perfectly willing to take their money; but when it came to rendering any assistance in securing workers, they exhibited a strange lukewarmness. But Budge, spurred by necessity, did not relax his efforts. Ably seconded by Jim and Percy, and grudgingly aided by John Creamer, Ezra Barker and Holway & Benner, he canvassed the region for ten miles in every direction from Barham Four Corners, by team, motor cycle, and telephone. At the end of three days, by dint of coaxing, arguing, and particularly by promise of liberal payment, he had gotten his fifteen men, with the requisite number of two-horse teams.

The three pairs of choppers were Corydon Stokes and Ike Murray; Peter Huston and Lem Bridge; and two Frenchmen, Joe Maliber and Louis Benoit. A sturdy, flaxen-haired Dane, Hans Jensen, had agreed to act as loader. Nat Goodhow, Jerry Ladd, and Gordon McAuliffe, all sons of Barham farmers, were to team the logs in to the mill; and Brad Martin had been secured as general-utility man. Young Tug Prince had hired out as marker’s helper. Christian Bremer, Jensen’s cousin, with his pair of strong blacks, was to haul the boards to the sticking ground, where Mark Potter and Sereno Goff had engaged to do the piling.

Budge drew a long breath, as he turned away from Holway & Benner’s telephone, after clinching the last man; but he did not unbosom himself until he met the other boys after supper in their room at Ezra Barker’s.

“I can’t understand,” he exploded, “why it’s so hard to hire men to work for us. I know, of course, that a farmer’s time is pretty well taken up in the summer; but none of these fellows I’ve been after have been especially busy, and I’ve offered ’em top-notch wages. They seem to be afraid of us. I don’t see why, for they’re sure of their pay every week.”

The others were unable to lend him any help in solving the riddle. The last few days had increased Jim’s respect for Lane’s knowledge and business ability to positive admiration.

“Budge/’ said he, “I never realized you knew so much. Where in the world did you get it, and how have you managed to hide it from us so long?”

Early the next morning the Peavey lot woke to life. During the forenoon men and horses kept coming in, until by the dinner hour the entire force had mustered. The choppers were busy along the roads with ax and saw, and the forest aisles resounded with the splintering crash of falling pines. Shouting teamsters hauled in scoot-loads of heavy logs, filled the stringers, and started a pile just above the brow.