Gaut Gurley; Or, the Trappers of Umbagog Part 9

"A merry morning to you," exclaimed the hunter, as the logmen turned off to the slash; "a merry morning to you, neighbor Elwood. This looks some like business to-day. You were not expecting us a very _great_ sight earlier than this, I conclude," he added, with a jocular smile.

"Earlier? Why, it is hardly sunrise yet, and I am wholly at a loss to know how men living at such distances could get here at this hour."

"Well, that is easily explained. They haven't had to travel so far this morning as you imagine. They came on as far as my place last night, mostly, and such as could be accommodated nestled with me in my house. The rest camped out near by in the bush, which is just as well generally with us woodsmen. But you, having no mistrust of this, as it seems, were taken, I suppose, by surprise at our appearance so early."

"I should have been, wholly so, but for the coming ahead of this gentleman," replied Elwood, pointing to Codman; "and then, I was rather at loss to know what he intended by his queer way of announcing you."

"Very likely. He never does or says any thing like other folks. Jonas,"

continued the hunter, turning to the odd genius of whom he was speaking, "you are a good trapper, but I fear you make a bad fore-runner."

"Well, I am all right now here in the rear, I suppose," replied the other, with an oddly a.s.sumed air of abashment. "A man is generally good for one thing or t'other. If I ain't a good forerunner, it then follows that I am a good hind-runner."

"You see he must have his fol-de-rol, Mr. Elwood," said the hunter. "But, for all that, he is a good fellow enough at the bottom, if you can ever find it: ain't all that so, Jonas?"

"Sort of so and sort of not so; but a little more not than sorter, they may say, perhaps. And I don't think, myself, there is much either at the top or bottom to brag on," rejoined Codman, suddenly darting off to join his companions in the slash; and now whistling a tune, as he went, and now crowing like a c.o.c.k, in notes and tones each of its kind so wondrous loud and shrill that the whole valley of the lake seemed wakened by the strange music.

The operations of the day having been thus auspicuously commenced in the slash, Elwood, retaining the hunter with him at the house to advise and a.s.sist in such arrangements and preparations for breakfast as might render the meal most acceptable to the company, entered at once upon his duties as host; and, it being found that neither the room nor tables in the house were sufficient to seat all the company, it was decided, for the purpose of avoiding every appearance of invidious distinction, to prepare temporary tables and seat the whole of them, except the females, in the open air near the house. Accordingly the hunter, who, from his experience as a woodman, was ever ready at such contrivances, went to work; and, clearing and levelling off a smooth place, driving into the ground three sets of short stout crotches, laying cross-pieces in each, and then two new pine planks longitudinally over the whole, he soon erected a neat and substantial table, long enough to seat a score of guests. Seats on each side were then supplied by a similar process; when Mrs. Elwood, who had watched the operation with a housewife's interest, made her appearance with a roll of fine white tablecloths, the relics of her better days, and covered the whole with the snowy drapery, making a table which might vie in appearance with those of the most fashionable restaurants of the cities. Upon this table, plates, knives and forks, with all other of the usual accompaniments, were speedily arranged by the quick-footed females; while the sounds of boiling pots, and the hissing frying-pans spreading through the house and around the yard the savory fumes of the cooking trout, betokened the advanced progress of the culinary operations within, which were now soon completed; when the fact was announced by Mr. Elwood by several long and loud blasts on his "tin horn" to the expectant laborers in the field, who, while the meal was being borne smoking on to the table, chained their oxen to stumps and saplings about the field, parcelled out to them the hay, and repaired to their morning banquet.

Banquet! A banquet among backwoodsmen? Yes; and why not? It is strange that a thousand generations of epicures should have lived, gluttonized, and pa.s.sed away from the earth, without appearing to understand the chief requisite for that cla.s.s of animal enjoyments which they seem to make the great end and aim of their lives,--without appearing to realize that it is the appet.i.te, not the quality of the food, that makes the feast; that there can be no such thing as a feast, indeed, without a _real_ not fact.i.tious appet.i.te; and that there can be no real appet.i.te without toil or some prolonged and vigorous exercise. Nero ransacked his whole kingdom, and expended millions for delicacies; and yet he never experienced, probably, one-half the enjoyments of the palate that were experienced from the coa.r.s.est fare by his poorest laboring subject. No, the men of ease and idleness may have surfeits, the men of toil can only have banquets. And it is doubtless a part of that nicely balanced system of compensations which Providence applies to men, that the appet.i.tes of the industrious poor should make good the deficiencies in the quality of their food, so that it should always afford equal enjoyment in the consumption with that experienced by the idle rich over their sumptuous tables.

The meal pa.s.sed off pleasantly; and when finished, the gratified and chatty workmen, with their numbers now increased by the addition of the two Elwoods and the hunter, returned, with the eager alacrity of boys hurrying to an appointed game of football, to their voluntary labors in the field, in which they had already made surprising progress.

The business of the day was now resumed in earnest. The teamsters having quickly scattered to their respective teams and brought them with a lively step on to the ground, and having there each received their allotted quota of log-rollers, to pile up the logs as fast as drawn, at once penetrated at different points into the thickest parts of the blackened ma.s.ses of timber before them, awaiting their st.u.r.dy labors. Here the largest log in a given s.p.a.ce, and the one the most difficult to be removed, was usually selected as the nucleus of the proposed pile. Then two logs of the next largest size were drawn up on each side, and placed at a little distance in a line parallel with the first, when the intermediate s.p.a.ces were filled with limbs, knots, and the smallest timber at hand; so that a fire, when the process of burning the piles should be commenced, communicated at the centre thus prepared, would spread through the whole, and not be likely to go out till all the logs were consumed. When this foundation was laid, the next nearest surrounding logs were drawn alongside and rolled up on skids, by the logmen stationed there with their handspikes for the purpose. Then generally commenced a keen strife between the teamster and the log-rollers, to see which should first do their part and keep the others the most closely employed. And the result was that in a very short time a large pile of logs was completed, and a s.p.a.ce of ten or fifteen square rods was completely cleared around it. This done, an adjoining thicket of timber was sought out, another pile started, and another s.p.a.ce cleared off in the same manner. And thus proceeded the work, with each team and its attendants, in every part of the slash; while the same spirit of rivalry which had thus began to be exhibited between the members of each gang soon took the form of a compet.i.tion between one gang and another, who were now everywhere seen vieing with each other in the strife to do the most or to build up the largest and greatest number of log-heaps in the shortest s.p.a.ce of time. The whole field, indeed, was thus soon made to exhibit the animated but singular spectacle of men, engaged in a wholly voluntary labor, putting forth all the unstinted applications of strength and displaying all the alertness and zeal of men at work for a wager. But, among all the partic.i.p.ants in the labors of the day, no one manifested so much interest in advancing the work, no one was so active and laborious, as Gaut Gurley.

Not only was he continually inciting and pressing up all others to the labor, but was ever foremost in the heaviest work himself, generally selecting the most difficult parts for himself, and often performing feats of strength that scarcely any two men on the ground were able to perform.

Nor was the Herculean strength which he so often displayed before the eyes of the astonished workmen, ever made useless, as is sometimes the case with men of great physical powers, by any misapplication of his efforts. He seemed perfectly to understand the business in which they were engaged; and, while all wondered, though no one knew, where he had received his training for such work, it was soon, by common consent, decided that he was much the most efficient hand on the ground, many even going so far as to declare that his equal was never before seen in that part of the country.

"You see that, don't you, captain?" said Codman, coming up close to Elwood, and speaking in a half whisper, as he pointed to Gaut Gurley, who, having noticed two of the stoutest of the hands vainly trying to roll up a large log, rushed forward, and, bidding them stand aside, threw it up single-handed without appearing to exert half his strength. "You see that, don't you, captain?" he repeated, with an air of mingled wonder and waggishness. "Now, what do you think of my story, and the great, stout, black-looking devil that came, on reading the first chapter, and made the big stones fly so?"

"I haven't thought much about it," carelessly replied Elwood, evidently wishing not to appear to understand the allusion of the other. "But why do you ask such a question?"

"Don't know myself, it's a fact; but I happened to be thinking of things.

But say, captain, you haven't been reading any chapters in any strange book yourself, lately, have you?" said Codman, with a queer look.

"No, I guess not," replied Elwood, laughingly, though visibly annoyed by the subject.

"No? Nor none of the family?" persisted the other, glancing towards Claud Elwood, who was standing near by. "Well, I wish I knew what put that story into my head, when I let it off this morning. It is de-ive-lish queer, at any rate, considering." So saying, he walked off to his work, croaking like a rooster at some questionable object.

Although none of the settlers present seemed disposed to attribute the extraordinary physical powers, which Gaut Gurley had so unmistakably shown, to any supernatural agency, as the trapper, Codman, whose other singularities were not without a smart sprinkling of superst.i.tion, was obviously inclining to do, yet those powers were especially calculated, as may well be supposed of men of their cla.s.s, to make a strong impression on the minds of them all, and invest the possessor with an importance which, in their eyes, he could in no other way obtain. Accordingly he soon came to be looked upon as the lion of the day, and suddenly thus acquired, for the time being, as he doubtless shrewdly calculated he could do in this way, a consequence and influence of which no other man could boast, perhaps, in the whole settlement.

Meanwhile the work of clearing off the logs was prosecuted with increasing spirit and resolution. And so eagerly intent had all the hands become, in pressing forward to its completion their self-imposed task, which all could see was now fast drawing to a close, that they took no note of the flight of time, and were consequently taken by surprise when the sound of the horn summoned them to their midday meal.

"Why! it can't yet be noon," exclaimed one, glancing up at the sun.

"No" responded another. "Some of us here have been counting on seeing the whole job nearly done by noon, but it will take three hours yet to do that.

No, the women must have made a mistake."

"Well, I don't know about that: let us see," said the hunter, turning his back to the sun, and throwing out one foot as far as he could while keeping his body perpendicular. "Now my clock, which, for noon on the 21st of June, or longest day of summer, is the shadow of my head falling on half my foot, and then pa.s.sing off beyond it about half an inch each day for the rest of the season, makes it, as _I_ should calculate the distance between my foot and the shadow of my head, now evidently receding,--makes it, for this last day of August, about a quarter past twelve."

"I am but little over half past eleven," said Codman, pulling out and inspecting an old watch. "Phillips, may be, is thinking of that deer that he has been promising himself and us for dinner; and, before I take his calculation on shadows and distances, I should like to know how many inches he allowed for the hurrying influence of his appet.i.te."

"What nonsense, Comical! But what you mean by it is, I suppose, that I can't tell the time?"

"Not within half an hour by the sun."

"Why, man, it is the sun that makes the time; and, as that body never gets out of order or runs down, why not learn to read it, and depend directly upon it for the hour of the day? If half the time men spend in bothering over timepieces were devoted to studying the great clock of the heavens, they need not depend on such uncertain contrivances as common clocks and watches to know the time of day."

"But how in cloudy weather?"

"Tell the time of day by your feelings. Take note of the state of your appet.i.te and general feelings at the various hours of the day, when it is fair and you know the time, and then apply the rule when you have no other means of judging; and you may thus train yourself, so that you need not be half an hour out of the way in your reckoning through the whole day."

"Well, supposing it is night?"

"Night is for sleep, and it is no consequence to know the time, except the time waking. And, as to that, none need be in fault, if they had you anywhere within two miles to crow for them."

"A regular hit! I own it a hit, Mr. Hunter. But here comes Mr. Elwood: we will leave the question of the time of day to him."

"We have a correct noon-mark at the house, and the women are probably right," replied Elwood. "At all events, men who have worked like lions, as you all have this forenoon, must by this time need refreshment. So, let us all drop work, and at once be off to dinner."

With such familiar jokes and converse, the light-hearted backwoodsmen threw off their crocky frocks, and, after washing up at a runlet at hand, marched off in chatty groups to the house, where they found awaiting their arrival the well-spread board of their appreciating hostess, this time made more tempting to their vigorous and healthy appet.i.tes by the addition, to the fine trout of the morning, of the variously-cooked haunches of the hunter's venison. And, having here done ample justice to their excellent meal, they again hastened back to their labor in the field, unanimously declaring for the good husbandman's rule, "Work first and play afterwards," and saying they would have no rest nor recreation till they had seen the last log of the slash disposed of. And with such animation did they resume their labors, and with such vigor continue to apply themselves in carrying out their resolution, and in hastening the hour of its fulfilment, that by the middle of the afternoon their task was ended; and the gratified Mr. Elwood had the satisfaction of seeing the formidable-looking slash of the morning converted into a comparatively smooth field, requiring only the action of the fire on the log heaps, with a few days' tending, to make it fit for the seed and harrow.

"Come, boys," said the hunter to the company, now all within speaking distance, except two or three who had somehow disappeared; "come, boys," he repeated, after pausing to see the last log thrown up in its place, "let us gather up here near the middle of the lot. Comical Codman and some others, I have noticed, have been putting their heads together, and I kinder surmise we may now soon expect some sort of christening ceremony of the field we have walked through in such fine style to-day; and, if they make out any thing worth the while, it may be well to give them a good cheer or two, to wind off with."

While the men were taking their stand at the spot designated by the hunter, Codman was seen mounting a conspicuous logheap at the southerly end of the field; and two more men, at the same time, made their appearance on the tops of different piles on opposite sides of the lot, and nearly abreast of the place where the expectant company were collected and standing, silently awaiting the commencement of the promised ceremony. Presently one of the two last-named, with a preliminary flourish of his hand, slowly and loudly began:

"Since we see the last logs fairly roll'd, And log-heaps full fifty, all told, We should deem it a shame If so handsome and well-cleared a field, Bidding fair for a hundred-fold yield, Be afforded no name."

To this, the man standing on the opposite pile, in the same loud and measured tone promptly responded:

"Then a name we will certainly give it, If you'll listen, and all well receive it, As justly you may:

We will call it the thing it will make, We will name it the Pride of the Lake, Or the Job of a Day."

Before the last words of this unique duet had died on the ear, Comical Codman on his distant perch straightened up, and, triumphantly clapping his sides like the boastful bird whose crowing he could so wonderfully imitate, raised his shrill, loud, and long-drawn _kuk-kuk-ke-o-ho_ in a volume of sound that thrilled through the forest and sent its repeating echoes from hill to hill along the distant borders of the lake.

"There, the dog has got the start of us!" exclaimed the hunter, joining the rest of the company in their surprise and laughter at the prompt action of the trapper as well as at the striking character of his performance,--"fairly the start of us; but let's follow him up close, boys.

So here goes for the new name!"

And the prolonged "hurra! hurra! hurra!" burst from the lips of the strong-voiced woodmen in three tremendous cheers for the "_Pride of the Lake and the Job of a Day_."

All the labors and performances of the field being now over, the company gathered up their tools, and by common consent moved towards the house, where, it was understood, an hour or so, before starting for their respective homes, should be spent in rest, chatting with the women, or other recreation, and a consultation also be held, among those interested, for forming a company, fixing on the time, and making other arrangements for the contemplated trapping and hunting expedition of the now fast-approaching season.

As the company were proceeding along promiscuously towards the house, Gaut Gurley, who had thus far through the day manifested no desire for any particular conversation with Mr. Elwood, nor in any way deported himself so as to lead others to infer a former acquaintance between them, now suddenly fell in by his side; when, contriving to detain him till the rest had pa.s.sed on out of sight, he paused in his steps and said:

"Well, Elwood, I told you in the morning, you know, that we would do the work first and the talking afterwards. The work has now been done, and I hope to your satisfaction."

"Yes--O yes--entirely," replied Elwood, hesitating in his doubt about what was to follow from the other, whose unexpected conduct and stand for his benefit he hardly knew how to construe. "Yes, the neighbors have done me a substantial favor, and you all deserve my hearty thanks."

"I was not fishing for thanks," returned Gaut, half-contemptuously, "but wished a few words with you on private matters which concern only you and myself. And, to come to the point at once, I would ascertain, in the first place, if you know whether you and I are understood, in this settlement, to be old acquaintances or new ones?"