The Adventures of Bobby Orde Part 1

The Adventures of Bobby Orde.

by Stewart Edward White.

I

THE BOOMS

At nine o'clock one morning Bobby Orde, following an agreement with his father, walked sedately to the Proper Place, where he kept his cap and coat and other belongings. The Proper Place was a small, dark closet under the angle of the stairs. He called it the Proper Place just as he called his friend Clifford Fuller, or the saw-mill town in which he lived Monrovia--because he had always heard it called so.

At the door a beautiful black and white setter solemnly joined him.

"Hullo, Duke!" greeted Bobby.

The dog swept back and forth his magnificent feather tail, and fell in behind his young master.

Bobby knew the way perfectly. You went to the fire-engine house; and then to the left after the court-house was Mr. Proctor's; and then, all at once, the town. Father's office was in the nearest square brick block. Bobby paused, as he always did, to look in the first store window. In it was a weapon which he knew to be a Flobert Rifle. It was something to be dreamed of, with its beautiful blued-steel octagon barrel, its gleaming gold-plated locks and its polished stock. Bobby was just under ten years old; but he could have told you all about that Flobert Rifle--its weight, the length of its barrel, the number of grains of both powder and lead loaded in its various cartridges. Among his books he possessed a catalogue that described Flobert Rifles, and also Shotguns and Revolvers. Bobby intoxicated himself with them. Twice he had even seen his father's revolver; and he knew where it was kept--on the top shelf of the closet. The very closet door gave him a thrill.

Reluctantly he tore himself away, and turned in to the straight, broad stairway that led to the offices above. The stairway, and the hall to which it mounted were dark and smelled of old coco-matting and stale tobacco. Bobby liked this smell very much. He liked, too, the echo of his footsteps as he marched down the hall to the door of his father's offices.

Within were several long, narrow desks burdened with large ledgers and flanked by high stools. On each stool sat a clerk--five of them. An iron "base burner" stove occupied the middle of the room. Its pipe ran in suspension here and there through the upper air until it plunged unexpectedly into the wall. A capacious wood-box flanked it. Bobby was glad he did not have to fill that wood-box at a cent a time.

Against the walls at either end of the room and next the windows were two roll-top desks at which sat Mr. Orde and his partner. Two or three pivoted chairs completed the furnis.h.i.+ngs.

"Hullo, Bobby," called Mr. Orde, who was talking earnestly to a man; "I'll be ready in a few minutes."

Nothing pleased Bobby more than to wander about the place with its delicious "office smell." At one end of the room, nailed against the wall, were rows and rows of beautifully polished models of the firm's different tugs, barges and schooners. Bobby surveyed them with both pleasure and regret. It seemed a shame that such delightful boats should have been built only in half and nailed immovably to boards. Against another wall were maps, and a real deer's head. Everywhere hung framed photographs of logging camps and lumbering operations. From any one of the six long windows he could see the street below, and those who pa.s.sed along it. Time never hung heavy at the office.

When Mr. Orde had finished his business, he put on his hat, and the big man, the little boy and the grave, black and white setter dog walked down the long dark hall, down the steps, and around the corner to the livery stable.

Here they climbed into one of the light and graceful buggies which were at that time a source of such pride to their owners, and flashed out into the street behind Mr. Orde's celebrated team.

Duke's gravity at this juncture deserted him completely. Life now meant something besides duty. Ears back, mouth wide, body extended, he flew away. Faster and faster he ran, until he was almost out of sight; then turned with a whirl of s.h.i.+ngle dust and came racing back. When he reached the horses he leaped vigorously from one side to the other, barking ecstatically; then set off on a long even lope along the sidewalks and across the street, investigating everything.

Mr. Orde took the slender whalebone whip from its socket.

"Come, d.i.c.k!" said he.

The team laid back their pointed delicate ears, shook their heads from side to side, snorted and settled into a swift stride. Bobby leaned over to watch the sunlight twinkle on the wheel-spokes. The narrow tires sunk slightly in the yielding s.h.i.+ngle fragments. _Brittle!_ _Brittle!_ _Brittle!_ the sound said to Bobby. Above all things he loved to watch the gossamer-like wheels, apparently too light and delicate to bear the weight they must carry, flying over the springy road.

At the edge of town they ran suddenly out from beneath the maple trees to find themselves at the banks of the river. A long bridge crossed it.

The team clattered over the planks so fast that hardly could Bobby get time to look at the cat-tails along the bayous before blue water was beneath him.

But here Mr. Orde had to pull up. The turn-bridge was open; and Bobby to his delight was allowed to stand up in his seat and watch the wallowing, churning little tug and the three calm s.h.i.+ps pa.s.s through. He could not see the tug at all until it had gone beyond the bridge, only its smoke; but the masts of the s.h.i.+p pa.s.sed stately in regular succession.

"Three-masted schooner," said he.

Then when the last mast had scarcely cleared the opening, the ponderous turn-bridge began slowly to close. Its movement was almost imperceptible, but mighty beyond Bobby's small experience to gauge. He could make out the two bridge tenders walking around and around, pus.h.i.+ng on the long lever that operated the mechanism. In a moment more the bridge came into alignment with a clang. The team, tossing their heads impatiently, moved forward.

On the other side of the bridge was no more town; but instead, great lumber yards, and along the river a string of mills with many smokestacks.

The road-bed at this point changed abruptly to sawdust, springy and odorous with the sweet new smell of pine that now perfumed all the air.

To the left Bobby could see the s.h.i.+pyards and the skeleton of a vessel well under way. From it came the irregular _Block!_ _Block!_ _Block!_ of mallets; and it swarmed with the little, black, ant-like figures of men.

Mr. Orde drove rapidly and silently between the s.h.i.+pyards and the rows and rows of lumber piles, arranged in streets and alleys like an untenanted city. Overhead ran tramways on which dwelt cars and great black and bay horses. The wild exultant shriek of the circular saw rang out. White plumes of steam shot up against the intense blue of the sky.

Beyond the piles of lumber Bobby could make out the topmasts of more s.h.i.+ps, from which floated the pointed hollow "tell-tales" affected by the lake schooners of those days as pennants. At the end of the lumber piles the road turned sharp to the right. It pa.s.sed in turn the small building which Bobby knew to be another delightful office, and the huge cavernous mill with its shrieks and clangs, its blazing, winking eyes beneath and its long incline up which the dripping, sullen logs crept in unending procession to their final disposition. And then came the "booms" or pens, in which the logs floated like a patterned brown carpet. Men with pike poles were working there; and even at a distance Bobby caught the dip and rise, and the flash of white water as the rivermen ran here and there over the unstable footing.

Next were more lumber yards and more mills, for five miles or so, until at last they emerged into an open, flat country, divided by the old-fas.h.i.+oned snake fences; dotted with blackened stumps of the long-vanished forest; eaten by sloughs and bayous from the river. The sawdust ceased. Bobby leaned out to watch with fascinated interest the sand, divided by the tire, flowing back in a beautiful curved V to cover the wheel-rim.

As far as the eye could reach were marshes grown with wild rice and cat-tails. Occasionally one of these bayous would send an arm in to cross the road. Then Bobby was delighted, for that meant a float-bridge through the cracks of which the water spurted up in jets at each impact of the horses' hoofs. On either hand the bayou, but a plank's thickness below the level of the float-bridge, filmed with green weeds and the bright sc.u.m of water, not too stagnant, offered surprises to the watchful eye. One could see many mud-turtles floating lazily, feet outstretched in poise; and bullfrogs and little frogs; and, in the clear places, trim and self-sufficient mud hens. From the reeds at the edges flapped small green herons and thunder pumpers. And at last----

"Oh, look, papa!" cried Bobby excited and awed. "There's a snap'n'

turtle!"

Indeed, there he was in plain sight, the boys' monster of the marshes, fully two feet in diameter, his rough sh.e.l.l streaming with long green gra.s.ses, his wicked black eyes staring, his hooked, powerful jaws set in a grim curve. If once those jaws clamped--so said the boys--nothing could loose them but the sound of thunder, not even cutting off the head.

Ten of the twelve miles to the booms had already been pa.s.sed. The horses continued to step out freely, making nothing of the light fabric they drew after them. Duke, the white of his coat soiled and muddied by frequent and grateful plunges, loped alongside, his pink tongue hanging from one corner of his mouth, and a seraphic expression on his countenance. Occasionally he rolled his eyes up at his masters in sheer enjoyment of the expedition.

"Papa," asked Bobby suddenly, "what makes you have the booms so far away? Why don't you have them down by the bridge?"

Mr. Orde glanced down at his son. The boy looked very little and very childish, with his freckled, dull red cheeks, his dot of a nose, and his wide gray eyes. The man was about to make some stop-gap reply. He checked himself.

"It's this way Bobby," he explained carefully. "The logs are cut 'way up the river--ever so far--and then they float down the river. Now, everybody has logs in the river--Mr. Proctor and Mr. Heinzman and Mr.

Welton and lots of people, and they're all mixed up together. When they get down to the mills where they are to be sawed up into boards, the logs belonging to the different owners have to be sorted out. Papa's company is paid by all the others to do the floating down stream and the sorting out. The sorting out is done in the booms; and we put the booms up stream from the mills because it is easier to float the logs, after they have been sorted, down the stream than to haul them back up the stream."

"What do you have them so far up the stream for?" asked Bobby.

"Because there's more room--the river widens out there."

Bobby said nothing for some time, and Mr. Orde confessed within himself a strong doubt as to whether or not the explanation had been understood.

"Papa," demanded Bobby, "I don't see how you tell your logs from Mr.

Proctor's or Mr. Heinzman's or any of the rest of them."

Mr. Orde turned, extending his hand heartily to his astonished son.

"You're all right, Bobby!" said he. "Why, you see, each log is stamped on the end with a mark. Mr. Proctor's mark is one thing; and Mr.

Heinzman's is another; and all the rest have different ones."

"I see," said Bobby.

The road now led them through a small grove of willows. Emerging thence they found themselves in full sight of the booms.

For fifty feet Bobby allowed his eyes to run over a scene already familiar and always of the greatest attraction to him. Then came what he called, after his Malory, the Stumps Perilous. Between them there was but just room to drive--in fact the delicate points of the whiffle tree scratched the polished surfaces of them on either hand. Bobby loved to imagine them as the mighty guardians of the land beyond, and he always held his breath until they had been pa.s.sed in safety.

Shying gently toward each other, ears p.r.i.c.ked toward the two obstacles, the horses shot through with pace undiminished and drew up proudly before the smallest of the group of buildings. Thence emerged a tall, spare, keen-eyed man in slouch hat, flannel s.h.i.+rt, shortened trousers and spiked boots.

"Hullo, Jim," said Mr. Orde.