Workers - An Experiment in Reality: The East — Chapter 6 - Part II - In a Logging Camp

In the morning he was as cheerful as on the night before, and he put me in high spirits as, with many good wishes for my success, he told me again how sure he was that I could find work in the woods.

At Salladasburg I stopped for further directions about the way to English Centre; and the tavern-keeper, at whose door I inquired, confirmed me strongly in my expectation of ready employment.

An old plank road lead me through a mountain-pass, and along the course of a stream, far into the interior.

The earlier miles of the march were among mountains that had long been stripped of all valuable timber, and that now stood ragged and uncouth in their new growths, and in the blackened remnants of forest fires.

Here there were a few scattered farms; stony and of thin soil, where, for fences, uptorn stumps of trees had been placed side by side, with their twisted roots so interwoven as to form an impenetrable barrier.

A caravan of gypsies met and passed me; but except for these, the road was almost deserted, and seemed to be leading into yet lonelier regions.

Mountains now succeeded, on which the forests were untouched, and which, in autumn colors, were like huge mounds of foliage plant, so richly did the gorgeous hues of the maple-trees and chestnuts and beeches blend with the dark greens of hemlock and pine.

At a little after noon I came quite suddenly upon an iron bridge that crossed the wide bed of a mountain-stream, which was little more than a brook now, but gave evidence of rising, at times, to the volume and strength of a torrent.

A large tavern stood near the bridge, and beyond it, to the right, was a huge tannery which plainly provided the chief industry of the place.

The village street was lined with rows of wooden cottages, each an unpainted duplicate of its neighbor, and all eloquent, I thought, of the monotony of the life which they held.

I went at once to the post-office, and there learned that my journey was by no means at an end; for the lumber camps were yet some miles farther in the mountains.

The camp of "Wolf Bun" was mentioned as an important one, where work was plenty, and I set out at once for that.

I was tired and not a little hungry; for this mountain-air acts always as a whet upon your appetite, and I had eaten nothing since the early morning, and had already walked some fifteen miles.

But the camp road, although rough, was easy to follow, and I found much satisfaction in dramatizing my approach to some short-handed employer, who would take me on at once.

I dwelt longingly on supper and a restful night and Sunday in the camp, and thought hopefully of the work to be begun on Monday morning.

And then there was a peculiar interest in meeting lumbermen on the way.

Some were teamsters, who sat high in air on top of immense loads of bark, which they were carting to the tannery.

Many of these wore wide sombreros, and jackets made of blanket stuff in gay plaids.

Others were on foot, small companies of four and five together, walking to the village, for it was Saturday afternoon.

I was prepared for some degree of roughness in a lumber camp, and in the woodsmen themselves, but there was something in the appearance of these men whom I met that hinted at my not having guessed all the truth.

I judged of roughness by what I knew of the gang at West Point, and in the sewer ditch at the Asylum, but here was something of a widely different kind from the hardness of broken-spirited, time-serving laborers.

Instinctively you knew these men for men; and I respectfully kept silence, and looked to them for greeting, and got none.

When you, a total stranger, try to meet the questioning gaze of five strong men at once, all of them sturdy and lean, and deeply lined in face and keen of eye, there is bred in you a vague unease, not of fear, but an answering to that wonder as to what you are and what you are doing there.

I was conscious then only of the disturbing of my earlier confidence in entering the woods.

I could not analyze the look which met me, but now I know it for meaning, reft of its strongest words, "Who in ---- are you?

Gospel sharks we know, and camp cooks, and honest Jew pedlers who get our wages from us for their brass-gold watches and glass jewels, but such a ----!

----!

----!

----!

----!

----!

as you, we never saw before."

It was about the middle of the afternoon when a turn in the mountain-road brought to view a cluster of log-cabins, which I knew to be the camp of Wolf Run.

The cabins were splendid buildings of their kind.

The logs were clean and fresh and were securely fitted, while the chinks were well plastered with mud, and the roofs tightly shingled, and the gables closely boarded-up.

No one was in sight from where I stood; but there issued, from one of the smaller cabins, the ring of a blacksmith's hammer, and I found a group of men about the cabin-door.

The camp stood in a little clearing on the mountain; and in contrast with the shadowy gloom in the forest around it, the sunlight flooded this open rift with concentrated light.

The chestnut-trees on the edge of the wood shone like burnished gold, and the maple leaves, still green, nearest to the trees, and but lightly touched with red along the boughs, deepened gradually, until, in the full sunlight, they blazed in crimson splendor.

It was still with the stillness of autumn, and the sound of the blacksmith's stroke and the answering ring of the anvil were echoed far into the forest, where you could hear, fretting down its stony bed, a mountain-stream, which, in the speech of the lumbermen, is called a "run."

I had slipped the pack from my back, and carrying it in my hand I went up to a group of men.

One of them stood leaning against the door-post.

He was very tall and straight, and under his wide sombrero, the upper forehead was white and smooth as a girl's. The brows were arched above dark-brown eyes, and his nose was straight and sharply chiselled; the cheeks were lean and ruddy brown; and under a light mustache was a clean-cut, shapely mouth that answered in strength to a well-rounded, slightly protruding chin.

His hands were thrust into the side-pockets of a bright blanket jacket, and his dark trousers were tucked into a pair of top-boots, that were laced over the insteps and up the outer sides of the legs.

All the men were eying me with that disturbing look; even the blacksmith had quit his work and joined them.

In the questioning silence I summoned what courage I had, and walked up to young Achilles at the cabin-door, and thus addressed him: "Is this the camp of Wolf Run?"

"Yes."

"Is Mr. Benton here?"

[Benton is my version of the superintendent's name.

] "No, he's in English Centre."

"Is the camp boss here?"

[That was a rash plunge on my part, but it was successful.

] "Yes, that's him," and Achilles' head nodded slightly in the direction of the largest cabin.

From the door nearest us there stepped an elderly man of massive frame, bent slightly forward, and with arms so long that the hands seemed to reach to his knees.

He was dressed in an old suit of dark material--a long-tailed coat that fitted very loosely, and baggy trousers--and a soiled linen shirt and collar, and a black ribbon necktie.

His face was very set and stern, not with an expression of unkindness, simply the face of a man to whom life is a serious matter, and who means business all the time.

He was evidently absorbed, and, carrying an iron bar, he was about to enter the forge with no least notice of any of us, when I interrupted him.

"I beg your pardon, sir, I understand that you are the boss."

He stood still, and looked down upon me out of keen black eyes from under shaggy brows that bristled with coarse hairs; and in the deepening silence, I wondered what I should say next.

"I'm looking for a job, and I heard in English Centre that men were wanted here."

"Have you ever worked in the woods?"

"No." "Then you'll not get work in the woods this side of hell."

He moved on at once, and the blacksmith followed him into the shop.

I was left standing in the midst of the other men, who had listened intently, and were now soberly enjoying the quality of that _bon mot_, and were eyeing me in leisurely curiosity.

Again I appealed to Achilles: "Is there another camp near here?"

"There's Long's Camp, a quarter of a mile up the run," and a slight inclination of his head indicated the way.

Mr. Long did not want me, and knew of no one who might, if I was not wanted at Wolf Run, unless, on second thought, I could get a job at Fitz-Adams's Camp.

"And where is that?"

I asked.

"You remember a road which forked to the left about two mile back as you came up from English Centre?"

"Yes."

"Well, you follow that road about two mile and a half, and you'll come to Fitz-Adams's Camp."

The road was the roughest that I had so far travelled.

It cut its way along the sheer side of the mountain, following the course of the run.

Presently I came to a small log cabin, where, in a little yard beside it, a cow was munching straw, and in front, a fat sow wallowed in a pool in the middle of the road.

An old Irishman, who sat on the door-step, told me that I was not half a mile from the camp.

There was a stout log dam on the run a little farther up, but the gates were open and only a slender stream flowed through the muddy bottom, for the dam was undergoing repairs.

Near by was a cabin large enough for a score of lumbermen.

The sun had sunk behind the mountain a good half hour before; not even the trees on the summits were lighted up with its setting rays, and the still, clear air bit you with a sudden chill.

All the confidence which I had felt in the morning was gone; it was a very tired and hungry, a sobered and a chastened proletaire, that at length caught sight, in the gloom, of Fitz-Adams's Camp.

It stood in a clearing like the camp of Wolf's Run.

On the highest area was a long, stout log cabin, to which there was given an added air of security by an earth embankment, which sloped from the ground to the lower logs all around the building, as a means of preventing the air from sweeping under the floors.

A door was in the end of the cabin nearest me, and a window was cut in the boarded gable above.

A wooden block served as a step to the door, and near this a grindstone swung in its frame.

On the outer walls of the cabin were tacked some half dozen advertisements on tin, bidding you, in black letters on an orange background, "Chew----Cut."

Over a rough bridge that crossed the run near the cabin, I could faintly see one or two other smaller buildings like it, which proved to be the blacksmith's shop, and the stable for the teamsters' horses.

The mountain-road continued its course past the main cabin, and disappeared among the trees in the gorge.

So narrow was the ravine, that the mountain rose abruptly from one side of the cabin, and in much the same manner from the bank of the run on the opposite side, leaving a valley scarcely thirty yards in width.

The larger timber had been cut away, but the mountain-sides, all about the clearing and the road, were dense with poplar, and white-barked birch and chestnut, and the younger growths of evergreen.

There was perfect quiet in the camp; not a living thing was to be seen or heard.

I went up to the nearest door, and knocked.

There was no answer.

I knocked again, and still there was no answer.

At the side, far to the rear, I found another door, and knocked there.

It opened instantly, and in the twilight I could faintly see a young woman in a dark print dress.

"Is this Fitz-Adams's Camp?"

"Yes."

"Is Mr. Fitz-Adams here?"

And then in louder voice over her shoulder into the darkness behind her: "Say, Jim, here's a man that wants you."

There was the sound of heavy footsteps upon the wooden floor, and in another moment Fitz-Adams stood framed in the door-way.

I was standing on the ground, quite two feet below, and looking up at him in that uncertain light, he seemed to me gigantic.

A great muscular frame fairly filled the door.

He was dressed in a suit of light-gray corduroy, a flannel shirt, a dark felt hat, and top-boots, and I could see that he was young and not unhandsome, although of a very different type of good looks from those of Achilles.

His large, round head rested close upon a trunk that was massive yet quite splendidly shapely, and highly suggestive of agility and strength.

His face was round, and the features full and of uncertain moulding, but you did not miss the evidence of strength in his thick, firm lips and the clear, unfaltering eyes with their expression of perfect unconsciousness of self.

He was plainly Irish, but quite as plainly of American birth, which was clear when he spoke.

"I'm looking for a job," I began, "and I've come to see whether I can get one here."

"Who sent you?"

"They told me in Long's Camp that I might get a job here."

"They didn't want you, and so they sent you to me, eh?"

"They said that they didn't need more men there."

"Oh, they did, did they?

And you've worked in the woods before, I suppose?"

"No, but I have worked at other kinds of work, and if you'll give me a chance you can see what I can do, and then you can discharge me if you don't want me."

"Well, there's lots of work in this camp, Buddy.

I don't guess from the cut of you and the way you talk, that you know much about it.

But you can stay, and I'll see what's in you on Monday.

Look lively now, and split some of that wood, and build a fire in the lobby."

A pile of dry wood which had been sawed into lengths of two feet, lay near the kitchen-door.

On top of the pile was an axe; and as quickly as I could, I split up an armful, and carried it around to the front of the cabin and into the lobby.

Near the centre of this room, which is the loafing-place for the men, was an iron stove long enough to admit the sticks which I had cut.

It was the work of a minute to arrange some chips in the bottom of the stove, and to pile the wood loosely on top of these.

I was about to touch a match to the finer stuff, when Fitz-Adams appeared with a tin can in his hand.

He bent over the stove, and opening the door wide, he tossed in the contents of the can, and the room was instantly full of a strong odor of kerosene.

In another moment the fire was blazing like mad, and roaring up the stove-pipe, and fast turning the old cracked stove red hot, but Fitz-Adams stood by in perfect unconcern, and presently departed in the direction of the kitchen.

I began to look about me in the light that shone through the gleaming cracks.

Swift shadows were chasing one another over the walls and ceiling, and I soon grew familiar with a room about twelve feet deep, and which extended the width of the cabin.

The floor was bare, and was very damp with the Saturday's scrubbing, as were also the benches which reached all round the walls.

Besides the stove, the only piece of furniture that the room contained was a heavy table, about four feet square, which stood close to the benches in one corner, and directly under the single window of the room, which was a small opening in the logs, fitted with four panes of glass.

A rough wooden staircase led from the near corner through an opening in the ceiling to the loft; and a door was cut through the thin board partition which separates the lobby from the large room in the body of the cabin, where the men are fed, and where I am writing now.

The logs that formed the outer walls of the room had been rough-hewn to a plane; and along these walls, on two sides of the room, was a line of nails, on which hung coats and hats and flannel shirts and overalls.

On the partition-wall there was nailed a small mirror with a little shelf below, on which lay a comb.

Near this were three wooden rollers, and over them as many towels, large and coarse and fresh from the wash.