Life In The Backwoods Part 5

The Devil sat on a log heap, A log heap, a log heap-- A red hot burning log heap-- A-grinning at the bee;

And there was lots of swearing, Of boasting and of daring, Of fighting and of tearing, At that logging bee

J. W. D. M.

A logging-bee followed the burning of the fallow, as a matter of course.

In the bush, where hands are few, and labour commands an enormous rate of wages, these gatherings are considered indispensable, and much has been written in their praise; but, to me, they present the most disgusting picture of a bush life. They are noisy, riotous, drunken meetings, often terminating in violent quarrels, sometimes even in bloodshed. Accidents of the most serious nature often occur, and very little work is done, when we consider the number of hands employed, and the great consumption of food and liquor. I am certain, in our case, had we hired with the money expended in providing for the bee, two or three industrious, hard-working men, we should have got through twice as mueh work, and have had it done well, and have been the gainers in the end.

People in the woods have a craze for giving and going to bees, and run to them with as much eagerness as a peasant runs to a race-course or a fair; plenty of strong drink and excitement making the chief attraction of the bee. In raising a house or barn, a bee may be looked upon as a necessary evil, but these gatherings are generally conducted in a more orderly manner than those for logging. Fewer hands are required; and they are generally under the control of the carpenter who puts up the frame, and if they get drunk during the raising they are liable to meet with very serious accidents.

Thirty-two men, gentle and simple, were invited to our bee, and the maid and I were engaged for two days preceding the important one, in baking and cooking for the entertainment of our guests. When I looked at the quant.i.ty of food we had prepared, I thought that it never could be all eaten, even by thirty-two men. It was a burning-hot day towards the end of July, when our loggers began to come in, and the "gee!" and "ha!" of the oxen resounded on every side. There was my brother S----, with his frank English face, a host in himself; Lieutenant ---- in his blouse, wide white trowsers, and red sash, his broad straw hat shading a dark manly face that would have been a splendid property for a bandit chief; the four gay, reckless, idle sons of ----, famous at any spree, but incapable of the least mental or physical exertion, who considered hunting and fis.h.i.+ng as the sole aim and object of life. These young men rendered very little a.s.sistance themselves, and their example deterred others who were inclined to work.

There were the two R----s, who came to work and to make others work; my good brother-in-law, who had volunteered to be the Grog Bos, and a host of other settlers, among whom I recognized Moodie's old acquaintance, Dan Simpson, with his lank red hair and long freckled face: the Youngs, the hunters, with their round, black, curly heads and rich Irish brogue; poor C----, with his long, spare, consumptive figure, and thin, sickly face. Poor fellow, he has long since been gathered to his rest!

There was the ruffian squatter P----, from Clear Lake,--the dread of all honest men; the brutal M----, who treated oxen as if they had been logs, by beating them with handspikes; and there was Old Wittals, with his low forehead and long nose, a living witness of the truth of phrenology, if his large organ of acquisitiveness and his want of conscientiousness could be taken in evidence. Yet in spite of his derelictions from honesty, he was a hard-working, good-natured man, who, if he cheated you in a bargain, or took away some useful article in mistake from your homestead, never wronged his employer in his day's work.

He was a curious sample of cunning and simplicity--quite a character in his way--and the largest eater I ever chanced to know. From this ravenous propensity, for he eat his food like a famished wolf, he had obtained the singular name of "Wittals." During the first year of his settlement in the bush, with a very large family to provide for, he had been often in want of food. One day he came to my brother, with a very long face.

"'Fore G.o.d! Mr. S---, I'm no beggar, but I'd be obliged to you for a loaf of bread. I declare to you on my honour that I have not had a bit of wittals to dewour for two whole days."

He came to the right person with his pet.i.tion. Mr. S---- with a liberal hand relieved his wants, but he entailed upon him the name of "Old Wittals," as part payment. His daughter, who was a very pretty girl, had stolen a march upon him into the wood, with a lad whom he by no means regarded with a favourable eye. When she returned, the old man confronted her and her lover with this threat, which I suppose he considered "the most awful" punishment that he could devise.

"March into the house, Madam 'Ria (Maria); and if ever I catch you with that scamp again, I'll tie you up to a stump all day, and give you no wittals."

I was greatly amused by overhearing a dialogue between Old Wittals and one of his youngest sons, a sharp, Yankeefied-looking boy, who had lost one of his eyes, but the remaining orb looked as if it could see all ways at once.

"I say, Sol, how came you to tell that tarnation tearing lie to Mr.

S---- yesterday? Didn't you expect that you'd catch a good wallopping for the like of that? Lying may be excusable in a man, but 'tis a terrible bad habit in a boy."

"Lor', father, that worn't a lie. I told Mr. S----, our cow worn't in his peas. Nor more she wor; she was in his wheat."

"But she was in the peas all night, boy."

"That wor nothing to me; she worn't in just then. Sure I won't get a licking for that?"

"No, no, you are a good boy; but mind what I tell you, and don't bring me into a sc.r.a.pe with any of your real lies."

Prevarication, the worst of falsehoods, was a virtue in his eyes. So much for the old man's morality.

Monaghan was in his glory, prepared to work or fight, whichever should come uppermost; and there was old Thomas and his sons, the contractors for the clearing, to expedite whose movements the bee was called. Old Thomas was a very ambitious man in his way. Though he did not know A from B, he took it into his head that he had received a call from Heaven to convert the heathen in the wilderness; and every Sunday he held a meeting in our logger's shanty, for the purpose of awakening sinners, and bringing over "Injun pagans" to the true faith. His method of accomplis.h.i.+ng this object was very ingenious. He got his wife, Peggy--or "my Paggy," as he called her--to read aloud for him a text from the Bible, until he knew it by heart; and he had, as he said truly, "a good remembrancer," and never heard a striking sermon but he retained the most important pa.s.sages, and retailed them secondhand to his bush audience.

I must say that I was not a little surprised at the old man's eloquence when I went one Sunday over to the shanty to hear him preach. Several wild young fellows had come on purpose to make fun of him; but his discourse, which was upon the text, "We shall all meet before the judgment-seat of Christ," was rather too serious a subject to turn into a jest, with even old Thomas for the preacher. All went on very well until the old man gave out a hymn, and led off in such a loud, discordant voice, that my little Katie, who was standing between her father's knees, looked suddenly up, and said, "Mamma, what a noise old Thomas makes!" This remark led to a much greater noise, and the young men, unable to restrain their long-suppressed laughter, ran tumultuously from the shanty. I could have whipped the little elf; but small blame could be attached to a child of two years old, who had never heard a preacher, especially such a preacher as the old back woodsman, in her life. Poor man! he was perfectly unconscious of the cause of the disturbance, and remarked to us, after the service was over,

"Well, ma'am, did not we get on famously? Now, worn't that a _bootiful_ discourse?"

"It was, indeed; much better than I expected."

"Yes, yes; I knew it would please you. It had quite an effect on those wild fellows. A few more such sermons will teach them good behaviour.

Ah! the bush is a bad place for young men. The farther in the bush, say I, the farther from G.o.d, and the nearer to h.e.l.l. I told that wicked Captain I---- of Dummer so the other Sunday; 'an',' says he, 'if you don't hold your confounded jaw, you old fool, I'll kick you there.' Now, ma'am, now, sir, was not that bad manners in a gentleman, to use such _appropriate epitaphs_ to a humble servant of G.o.d, like I?"

And thus the old man ran on for an hour, dilating upon his own merits and the sins of his neighbours.

There was John R----, from Smith-town, the most notorious swearer in the district; a man who esteemed himself clever, nor did he want for natural talent, but he had converted his mouth into such a sink of iniquity that it corrupted the whole man, and all the weak and thoughtless of his own s.e.x who admitted him into their company. I had tried to convince John R---- (for he often frequented the house under the pretence of borrowing books) of the great crime that he was constantly committing, and of the injurious effect it must produce upon his own family, but the mental disease had taken too deep a root to be so easily cured. Like a person labouring under some foul disease, he contaminated all he touched.

Such men seem to make an ambitious display of their bad habits in such scenes, and if they afford a little help, they are sure to get intoxicated and make a row. There was my friend, old Ned Dunn, who had been so anxious to get us out of the burning fallow. There was a whole group of Dummer Pines: Levi, the little wiry, witty poacher; Cornish Bill, the honest-hearted old peasant, with his stalwart figure and uncouth dialect; and David and Ned--all good men and true; and Malachi Chroak, a queer, withered-up, monkey-man, that seemed like some mischievous elf, flitting from heap to heap to make work and fun for the rest; and many others were at that bee who have since found a rest in the wilderness: Adam T----, H----, J. M----, H. N---- These, at different times, lost their lives in those bright waters in which, on such occasions as these, they used to sport and frolic to refresh themselves during the noonday heat. Alas! how many, who were then young and in their prime, that river and its lakes have swept away!

Our men worked well until dinner-time, when, after was.h.i.+ng in the lake, they all sat down to the rude board which I had prepared for them, loaded with the best fare that could be procured in the bush. Pea-soup, legs of pork, venison, eel, and raspberry pies, garnished with plenty of potatoes, and whiskey to wash them down, besides a large iron kettle of tea. To pour out the latter, and dispense it round, devolved upon me. My brother and his friends, who were all temperance men, and consequently the best workers in the field, kept me and the maid actively employed in replenis.h.i.+ng their cups.

The dinner pa.s.sed off tolerably well; some of the lower order of the Irish settlers were pretty far gone, but they committed no outrage upon our feelings by either swearing or bad language, a few harmless jokes alone circulating among them.

Some one was funning Old Wittals for having eaten seven large cabbages at Mr. T----'s bee, a few days previous. His son, Sol, thought himself, as in duty bound, to take up the cudgel for his father.

"Now, I guess that's a lie, anyhow. Fayther was sick that day, and I tell you he only ate five."

This announcement was followed by such an explosion of mirth that the boy looked fiercely round him, as if he could scarcely believe the fact that the whole party were laughing at him.

Malachi Chroak, who was good-naturedly drunk, had discovered an old pair of cracked bellows in a corner, which he placed under his arm, and applying his mouth to the pipe, and working his elbows to and fro, pretended that he was playing upon the bagpipes, every now and then letting the wind escape in a shrill squeak from this novel instrument.

"Arrah, ladies and jintlemen, do jist turn your swate little eyes upon me whilst I play for your iddifications the last illigant tune which my owld grandmother taught me. Och hone! 'tis a thousand pities that such musical owld crathurs should be suffered to die, at all at all, to be poked away into a dirthy dark hole, when their canthles shud be burnin'

a-top of a bushel, givin' light to the house. An' then it is she that was the illigant dancer, stepping out so lively and frisky, just so."

And here he minced to and fro, affecting the airs of a fine lady. The supposit.i.tious bagpipe gave an uncertain, ominous howl, and he flung it down, and started back with a ludicrous expression of alarm.

"Alive, is it ye are? Ye croaking owld divil, is that the tune you taught your son?

"Och! my owld granny taught me, but now she is dead.

That a dhrop of nate whiskey is good for the head; It would make a man spake when jist ready to dhie, If you doubt it--my boys!--I'd advise you to thry.

"Och! my owld granny sleeps with her head on a stone,-- 'Now, Malach, don't throuble the gals when I'm gone!'

I thried to obey her; but, och, I am shure, There's no sorrow on earth that the angels can't cure.

"Och! I took her advice--I'm a bachelor still; And I dance, and I play, with such excellent skill, (_Taking up the bellows, and beginning to dance._) That the dear little crathurs are striving in vain Which first shall my hand or my fortin' obtain."

"Malach!" shouted a laughing group. "How was it that the old lady taught you to go a-courting?

"Arrah, that's a sacret! I don't let out owld granny's sacrets," said Malachi, gracefully waving his head to and fro to the squeaking of the bellows; then, suddenly tossing back the long, dangling, black elf-locks that curled down the sides of his lank, yellow cheeks, and winking knowingly with his comical little deep-seated black eyes, he burst out again--

"Wid the blarney I'd win the most dainty proud dame, No gal can resist the soft sonnd of that same; Wid the blarney, my boys--if you doubt it, go thry-- But hand here the bottle, my whistle is dhry."

The men went back to the field, leaving Malachi to amuse those who remained in the house; and we certainly did laugh our fill at his odd capers and conceits.

Then he would insist upon marrying our maid. There could be no refusal--have her he would. The girl, to keep him quiet, laughingly promised that she would take him for her husband. This did not satisfy him. She must take her oath upon the Bible to that effect. Mary pretended that there was no bible in the house, but he found an old spelling-book upon a shelf in the kitchen, and upon it he made her swear, and called upon me to bear witness to her oath, that she was now his betrothed, and he would go next day with her to the "praist." Poor Mary had reason to repent her frolic, for he stuck close to her the whole evening, tormenting her to fulfil her contract. After the sun went down, the logging-band came in to supper, which was all ready for them.

Those who remained sober ate the meal in peace, and quietly returned to their own homes; while the vicious and the drunken staid to brawl and fight.

After having placed the supper on the table, I was so tired with the noise, and heat, and fatigue of the day, that I went to bed, leaving to Mary and my husband the care of the guests.

We were obliged to endure a second and a third repet.i.tion of this odious scene, before sixteen acres of land were rendered fit for the reception of our fall crop of wheat.

My hatred to these tumultuous, disorderly meetings was not in the least decreased by my husband being twice seriously hurt while attending them.