Cedar Creek Part 23

'How extraordinary!' said Argent. 'Why were they not burned equally through?'

'I hae been thinkin' the fire caught them in the spring, when the sap rins strong; so the sap-wood saved thae sh.e.l.ls, to misguide the puir axmen. I thought I had a fair couple o' cribs o' lumber a' ready to hand, when I spied the holes, and found my fine pines naething but empty pipes.'

He had been fashioning two saplings into strong handspikes, and now offered one each to the gentlemen. 'Ye'll not be too proud to bear a hand wi' the mast aboon: it'll be a kittle job lugging it to the pond; so just lend us a shove now and then.'

The great ma.s.s was at last got into motion, by a difficult concerted starting of all the oxen at the same moment.

Round the brilliant log fire, while pannikins of tea circulated, and some flakes of the falling snow outside came fluttering down into the blaze, the lumberers lay on their bunks, or sat on blocks, talking, sleeping, singing, as the mood moved. French Canadians are native-born songsters; and their simple ballad melodies, full of _refrain_ and repet.i.tion, sounded very pleasing even to Argent's amateur ears.

'I can imagine that this shanty life must be pleasant enough,' said Argent, rolling himself in his buffalo robe preparatory to sleep by the fire.

'I'll just tell ye what it is,' returned the foreman; 'nane that has gane lumbering can tak' kindly to ony ither calling. They hae caught the wandering instinct, and the free life o' the woods becomes a needcessity, if I might say sae. D'ye ken the greatest trouble I find in towns? Trying to sleep on a civilised bed. I canna do't, that's the fact; nor be sitting to civilised dinners, whar the misguided folk spend thrice the time that's needfu', fiddling with a fork an' spune. I like to eat an' be done wi' it.'

Which little social trait was of a piece with Mr. Foreman's energy and promptness in all the circ.u.mstances of life. In a very few minutes from the aforesaid speech he was sound asleep, for he was determined to waste no time in accomplishing that either.

Argent and Arthur left this wood-cutting polity next morning, and worked, or rather hunted their way back to the settled districts. The former stayed for another idle week at Cedar Creek; and then the brothers were again alone, to pursue their strife with the forest.

It went on, with varying success, till 'the moon of the snow crust,' as the Ojibbeways poetically style March. A chaos of fallen trunks and piled logs lay for twenty-five acres about the little shanty; Robert was beginning to understand why the French Canadians called a cleared patch 'un desert,' for beyond doubt the axe had a desolating result, in its present stage.

'Why, then, Masther Robert, there's one thing I wanted to ax you,' said Andy, resting a moment from his chopping: 'it's goin' on four months now since we see a speck of green, an' will the snow ever be off the ground agin, at all, at all?'

'You see the sun is only just getting power enough to melt,' returned his master, tracing with his axe-head a furrow in the thawing surface.

'But, sure, if it always freezes up tight agin every evenin', that little taste of meltin' won't do much good,' observed Andy. 'Throth, I'm fairly longin' to see that lake turn into wather, instead ov bein'

as hard as iron. Sure the fish must all be smothered long ago, the crathurs, in prison down there.'

'Well, Andy, I hope they'll be liberated next month. Meanwhile the ice is a splendid high road. Look there.'

From behind a wooded promontory, stretching far into the lake, at the distance of about half a mile from where they were chopping, emerged the figure of a very tall Indian, wrapped in a dark blanket and carrying a gun. After him, in the stately Indian file, marched two youths, also armed; then appeared a birchen traineau, drawn by the squaw who had the honour of being wife and mother respectively to the preceding copper-coloured men, and who therefore was const.i.tuted their beast of burden. A girl and a child--future squaws--shared the toil of pulling along the family chattels, unaided by the stalwart lords of the creation stalking in front.

'Why, thin, never welcome their impidence, an' to lave the poor women to do all the hard work, an' they marchin' out forenenst 'em like three images, so stiff an' so sthraight, an' never spakin' a word. I'm afeard it's here they're comin.' An' I give ye my word she has a child on her back, tied to a boord; no wondher for 'em to be as stiff as a tongs whin they grows up, since the babies is rared in that way.'

Not seeming to heed the white men, the Indians turned into a little cove at a short distance, and stepped ash.o.r.e. The woman-kind followed, pulling their traineau with difficulty over the roughnesses of the landing place; while husband and sons looked on tranquilly, and smoked 'kinne-kanik' in short stone pipes. The elderly squaw deposited her baby on the snow, and also comforted herself with a whiff; certain vernacular conversation ensued between her and her daughters, apparently about the place of their camp, and the younger ones set to work clearing a patch of ground under some birch trees. Mrs. Squaw now drew forth a hatchet from her loaded sledge, and chopped down a few saplings, which were fixed firmly in the earth again a few yards off, so as to make an oval enclosure by the help of trees already standing.

'Throth an' I'll go an' help her,' quoth good-natured Andy, whose native gallantry would not permit him to witness a woman's toil without trying to lighten it. 'Of all the ould lazy-boots I ever see, ye're the biggest,'

apostrophizing the silent stoical Indians as he pa.s.sed where they lounged; 'ye've a good right to be ashamed of yerselves, so ye have, for a set of idle spalpeens.'

The eldest of the trio removed his pipe for an instant and uttered the two words--'I savage.' Andy's rhetoric had been totally incomprehensible.

'Why, then, ye needn't tell me ye're a savidge: it's as plain as a pikestaff. What'll I do with this stick, did ye say, ma'am? Oh, surra bit o' me knows a word she's sayin', though it's mighty like the Irish of a Connaught man. I wondher what it is she's tryin' to make; it resimbles the beginnin' of a big basket at present, an' meself standin'

in the inside of the bottom. I can't be far asthray if I dhrive down the three where there's a gap. I don't see how they're to make a roof, an'

this isn't a counthry where I'd exactly like to do 'athout one. Now she's fastenin' down the branches round, stickin' 'em in the earth, an'

tyin' 'em together wid cord. It's the droll cord, never see a rope-walk anyhow.'

Certainly not; for it was the tough bast of the Canadian cedar, manufactured in large quant.i.ties by the Indian women, twisted into all dimensions of cord, from thin twine to cables many fathoms long; used for snares, fishing nets, and every species of st.i.tching. Mrs. Squaw, like a provident housekeeper, had whole b.a.l.l.s of it in her traineau ready for use; also rolls of birch-bark, which, when the skeleton wigwam was quite ship-shape, and well interlaced with crossbars of supple boughs, she began to wrap round in the fashion of a covering skirt.

Had crinoline been in vogue in the year 1851, Robert would have found a parallel before his eyes, in these birch-bark flounces arranged over a sustaining framework, in four successive falls, narrowing in circ.u.mference as they neared the top, where a knot of bast tied the arching timbers together. He was interested in the examination of these forest tent cloths, and found each roll composed of six or seven quadrangular bits of bark, about a yard square apiece, sewed into a strip, and having a lath st.i.tched into each end, after the manner in which we civilised people use rollers for a map. The erection was completed by the casting across several strings of bast, weighted at the ends with stones, which kept all steady.

The male Indians now vouchsafed to take possession of the wigwam.

Solemnly stalking up to Andy, the chief of the party offered his pipe to him for a puff.

'Musha thin, thank ye kindly, an' I'm glad to see ye've some notions o'

civiltude, though ye do work the wife harder than is dacent.' But after a single 'draw,' Andy took the pipe in his fingers and looked curiously into its bowl. 'It's the quarest tobacco I ever tasted,' he observed: 'throth if I don't think it's nothin' but chips o' bark an' dead leaves.

Here 'tis back for you, sir; it don't shute my fancy, not bein' an Indjin yet, though I dunno what I mightn't come to.' The pipe was received with the deepest gravity.

No outward sign had testified surprise or any other emotion, at the discovery that white men had settled close to their 'sugar-bush,' and of course become joint proprietors. The inscrutable sphinx-like calm of these countenances, the strangeness of this savage life, detained Robert most of the afternoon as by a sort of fascination. Andy's wrath at the male indolence was renewed by finding that the squaw and her girls had to cut and carry all the firewood needful: even the child of seven years old worked hard at bringing in logs to the wigwam. He was unaware that the Indian women hold labour to be their special prerogative; that this very squaw despised him for the help he rendered her; and that the observation in her own tongue, which was emphasized by an approving grunt from her husband, was a sarcasm levelled at the inferiority and mean-spiritedness of the white man, as exemplified in Andy's person.

One of the young fellows, who had dived into the forest an hour before, returned with spoil in the shape of a skunk, which the ever-industrious squaw set about preparing for the evening meal. The fearful odour of the animal appeared unnoticed by the Indians, but was found so hateful by Robert and his Irish squire, that they left the place immediately.

CHAPTER XXVI.

ON A SWEET SUBJECT.

This Indian family was only the precursor of half a dozen others, who also established 'camps,' preparatory to their great work of tapping the maple trees. The Wynns found them inoffensive neighbours, and made out a good deal of amus.e.m.e.nt in watching their ways.

'I'd clear 'em out of that in no time,' said Zack Bunting, 'if the land were mine. Indians hain't no rights, bein' savages. I guess they darsn't come nigh my farm down the pond--they'd be apt to cotch it right slick, I tell you. They tried to pull the wool over my eyes in the beginnin', an' wanted to be tappin' in my bush as usual, but Zack Buntin' warn't the soft-headed goney to give in, I tell you. So they vamosed arter jest seein' my double-barrel, an' they hain't tried it on since. They know'd I warn't no doughface.'

'Well, I mean to let them manufacture as much sugar as they want,' said Robert; 'there's plenty for both them and me.'

'Rights is rights,' returned Zack, 'as I'd soon show the varmints if they dar'st come near me. But your Britisher Government has sot 'em up altogether, by makin' treaties with 'em, an' givin' 'em money, an'

buyin' lands from 'em, instead of kickin' 'em out as an everlastin'

nuisance.'

'You forget that they originally owned the whole continent, and in common justice should have the means of livelihood given to them now,'

said Robert. 'It is not likely they'll trouble the white man long.'

'I see yer makin' troughs for the sap,' observed Zack. 'What on airth, you ain't never hewin' 'em from ba.s.swood?'

'Why not?'

''Cos 'twill leak every single drop. Yer troughs must be white pine or black ash; an' as ye'll want to fix fifty or sixty on 'em at all events, that half-dozen ain't much of a loss.'

'Couldn't they be made serviceable anyhow?' asked Robert, unwilling quite to lose the labour of his hands.

'Wal, you might burn the inside to make the grain closer: I've heerd tell on that dodge. If you warn't so far from the "Corner," we could fix our sugar together, an' make but one bilin' of it, for you'll want a team, an' you don't know nothin' about maples.' Zack's eyes were askance upon Robert. 'We might 'most as well go shares--you give the sap, an' I the labour,' he added. 'I'll jest bring up the potash kettle on the sled a Monday, an' we'll spill the trees. You cut a hundred little spouts like this: an' have you an auger? There now, I guess that's fixed.'

But he turned back after a few yards to say--'Since yer hand's in, you 'most might jest as well fix a score troughs for me, in case some o'

mine are leaked:' and away he went.

'That old sharper will be sure to have the best of the bargain,' thought Robert. 'It's just his knowledge pitted against my inexperience. One satisfaction is that I am learning every day.' And he went on with his troughs and spouts until near sundown, when he and Arthur went to look at the Indian encampment, and see what progress was being made there.

'I can't imagine,' said the latter, 'why the tree which produces only a watery juice in Europe should produce a diluted syrup in Canada.'

'Holt said something of the heat of the March sun setting the sap in motion, and making it sweet. You feel how burning the noon is, these days.'