The Old Guide Tells How Fields Were Cleared and Stone 'Fences' Were Built

In the preceding chapter Mr. Merrill told of the difficulties experienced by the settlers in obtaining the necessities of life during a "hard" winter. He described the pills and remedies concocted by his grandfather and sold to a Chateaugay druggist for a few cents a dozen. The assistance given by the women of the household by their knitting, sewing, cooking and in a hundred other ways was also recalled by the author.

Chapter 21

Grandfather soon returned, his apple trees all delivered, and in the box was a pair of plump little Berkshire pigs which he had taken in payment for the apple trees. As Darius climbed into the wagon he commenced shooting questions:

"How's mother and Wes and Abbie? How much grain and corn and potatoes have you planted?"

"Hold on! hold on! boy, give me time or ye'll have to ask all over again," grandfather exclaimed.

"Wes has been working like a tiger. Mother and Abbie--Well, Well, all about the same. Got old Eli Darling to shave some more shingles. Wes says we must have a new barn before haying. Sowed so many oats the old barn won't hold 'em all, and nigh ten acres corn this summer. Potatoes ain't planted yet. Guess that's 'bout all. Got to stone the potato ground 'fore it's planted. Mill running? Yes, off an' on. Help's been mighty scarce, with everybody doing their spring work. Bill was asking the other day when you would be coming home. Guess he wants you again."

Darius like the mill work better than farming, so he asked:

"How much could you hire a farm hand for, father?"

"Well, I spoke to old Eli's boy 'bout helping us. Says he'll come for five a month and 'found.' He's big enough to do a man's work. Guess he's inclined to shirk when he's alone. But maybe if Wes or I keep him in sight he'd do pretty well."

"Don't you think we had better try him and let me work in the mill? Think I'll ask Mr. Weed for fifteen this summer. And if Eli's boy is no good you can probably find a good man before haying."

"Good idea, Dide. I was thinking that way myself."

Soon they passed Alec Drown's and now they would soon come to Little Trout River, and in spite of his recent experiences in these woods, Darius wished he had his fishing lines and hooks, because he would enjoy pulling out a nice mess of speckled beauties for his mother.

In reality his hunting trip had only the affect of making him all the more eager to explore the vast wilderness, but next time with a compass, he thought.

About two o'clock they pulled up on front of the new house and Darius was met at the door by his mother and Abbie.

"Well, my boy, how are you?" she asked. "My, but you look good. And how do you like Malone school?"

"Malone school is all right and a necessary institution for the good of the people," said Darius. "But I am ashamed to say that I prefer the Chateaugay lakes and mountains."

"Oh, Dide! don't say that," exclaimed Abbie. "You know you can never be anybody in the mountains. You should study law or be a doctor."

"Never mind Abbie," said grandmother. "There's nothing to be ashamed of for preferring the mountains and lakes. And," she added quickly, "you know what trying to be a doctor amounted to with your father in New Hampshire, don't you?"

"Yes, but I know Dide wouldn't be so foolish as that," said Abbie.

"Well, you know my dear sister," said Darius, "if everybody studied law or medicine who would cultivate the soil or subdue the forest? We need health resorts in these mountains as much as we need doctors, and tillers of the soil much more than we need lawyers."

Silenced, but not convinced, Abbie hastily prepared a good substantial lunch for Darius and her father.

Darius could hardly wait to slip on his old farm clothes and get out into the field in search of Wes and "Young Eli" as he was called. He found them at last down in the newly ploughed potato ground, digging and hauling stones preparatory to planting the potatoes.

Grandfather was down cellar as soon as he had swallowed his lunch, sorting and cutting the seed potatoes.

"Hello, Dide!" shouted Wes, "come on here and show us what you're good for. Don't believe you can roll a rock on the stone boat half as big as I can. Let's see you dirty them soft paddies of yours now."

"Huh! when you find a rock too big for you and Eli to roll together, I'll put it on for you," said Dide. Eli guffawed loudly at this good natured badinage and Darius, seizing the crowbar, commenced helping to pry up the big stones.

Wes and Eli had been digging and hauling all day, dumping the stones along the roadside where they wre to be placed to form a wall fence.

Upon the arrival of Darius, Wes directed Eli to take the team to the barn, and return and help lay the wall.

To build the wall, the largest stones were laid on the outer edge, or about four feet apart and then filled in between with the smaller ones. The rule was to start the wall four feet wide on the ground and build it four feet high and narrow to two feet at the top. First, stakes were driven at intervals of six rods in a straight line parallel with and twenty-five feet from the center of the highway. These stakes were to designate the center of the stone wall.

The boys laid up about three rods of wall before the supper horn sounded its welcome blast across the fields.

There was no class distinction in the backwoods settlement. The "hired" man was never called a servant and he also shared all the comforts of the household, as a member of the family.

The next day being Saturday, Darius again helped on the stone wall. Stones of all sizes and shapes, big and little, round and square, thick and thin, smooth stones and jagged stones, flat and three-cornered, and some with not much less than forty corners, and nearly all colors from green to white, all went to sleep for ages in the great line of fences which surrounded their lttle empire like the wall of China in its sense of protection.

The boys succeeded in laying about five rods of wall that day. Darius, with grandfather's help, placed them in the wall, while Wes and Eli kep up the digging and hauling. By night they had gone over practically the whole potato ground, and Wes declared that Monday night would see the last potato covered. Darius was glad when the supper horn sounded, for his "paddies" were sorely bruised and stained with handling the rough stones.

After supper Darius went down to Uncle Bill Weed's and soon had completed a bargain for his summer's work. Mr. Weed was to give Darius fifteen dollars per month, but Darius was to take one thousand feet of lumber at six dollars per thousand feet, each month in part payment of his wages.

Darius' work at the mill started the following Monday and as usual he carried a text book.

"Because," thought he, "if I never return to school, I must keep up my education as I possibly can."

Daylight Monday morning found Wes with the team leveling the potato ground with the old crotch, spike-tooth drag, which grandfather had made two years before. Commencing on one edge of the field, back and forth he would go, turning a sharp corner at each end of the ploughed ground, lapping one half of the drag each trip across the field, over the ground dragged by the preceding trip, thereby making a double dragging.

Grandfather followed with a bag of potatoes hung over his left shoulder. With his right heel he punched a hole in the soft dirt. At the same time with his right hand he dropped a seed potato in the hole so punched. Proceeding thus in a straight line, he crossed the field to a stake he had shoved into the ground for a guide. He removed the guide stake as each row was completed.

Eli followed grandfather with the hoe, pulling three or four hoefuls of dirt over each potato and then patting the dirt down with a resounding clap of the hoe blade on top of each hill.

By noon Wes had the field all dragged and in the afternoon helped grandfather finish dropping. By supper time there still remained about twenty rows to cover, so after supper Darius and grandfather finished covering while Wes and Eli milked and did the chores.

Strenuous indeed were those days of many years ago, when the sturdy thoroughbreds of our nation had to do with their hands what the modern machinery of many yeas of invention, are doing today. If they were to come back to earth at the present time and see what wonderful things are being accomplished at the pressing of a button, what would they think?

Only six weeks now to haying, and a barn to raise and finish, corn to how, butter to churn twice a week. No end to the daily round of labor which confronted them. Yet did they once think of neglecting or shirking the responsibilities that each day brought forth? No, their practical education had taught them a good lesson. Eternal vigilance was their watchword. A happy combination of morals had been injected into their physical training, which gave birth to future developments which they could well be proud of, had they had any conception of their outcome.

Grandfather and Wes had agreed that a twenty by sixty foot barn would fulfill the requirements of increased stock and crops for several years to come. And now with Dide's help nearly every night after supper, Wes would take the axe and crosscut saw away up on the spruce knoll back of the sugar bush and cut spruce trees and hew them into square timbers for the foundation and framework for the barn.

This was a slow, hard job. Perfectly straight trees had to be selected and felled, first placing some old logs and chunks of half rotten timber where the falling tree would land on them, thereby holding the trunks about one foot above the ground. The with the axe they would "ross off" a narrow strip of the rough bark on both sides from butt to top. The strips so rossed were ten inches apart and about three inches wide. Then with a long chalk line well blackened with a dead fire brand they would snap a black line the entire length. Then standing on top of the tree, with their axes they would (chop) into the opposite sides, as deep as to be perpendicular with the black lines, then with a broad-axe the scored sides would be hewn smooth and straight on these lines, making a straight stick of timber ten inches thick. (Railroad ties were made in the same manner a few years later.)

Cutting off the top end of hewed timber, they next turned it down on the flat side, and proceeded in like manner to hew the other two sides. That done they had a forty foot stick of timber ten inches square to be used as sills on the stone abutments for the barn.

Every ten feet the entire length of the barn a twenty foot cross sill had to be mortised into the side sills, and in turn the cross sills had to be mortised every three feet to receive the floor joists. The floor joists were made from smaller trees cut ten feet long and hewed or "straightened," as it was called, on one side, the ends flattened to fit the mortises.

Darius soon perceived that he and Wes could not get out all these timbers in time to raise and finish the barn before haying. So he engaged the services of Gilbert Dolloff, an expert framer, who lived in the lower settlement. Mr. Dolloff was kept busy most of the time framing barns for the farmers. With his valuable assistance they soon had everything in readiness for the raising.

Then it was that Darius, with his usual good foresight, planned a little extra for the raising. It was now only one week to commencement of haying, so as he and Wes were walking home from the last day's hewing, Darius said:

"Look here, Wes, you know we can never get that barn ready for haying alone."

Without waiting for a reply from Wes, he went on:

"Now, I've thought the thing over, and here's my plan. We'll keep Gill, and you and he get out the rafters. While you are doing that, send Eli with the team to the mill for the lumber for the roof. I will buy the lumber from Mr. Weed. Then we will get the rafters down, set the day for the raising, and tell all the men it's to be a double raising, or a bee, the second day to pout the roof on, and that we will give a trout and turkey supper each day."

"If you'll guarantee the trout," said Wes, "I'll do the inviting."

"I'll guarantee the trout, and," Dide added, "if they don't quite finish the roof, you and I won't take long to finish it up."

Copyright 1930
By Charles E. Merrill.

In the next chapter Mr. Merrill tells about the barn raising and how Darius and his father provided the trout dinner for the twenty hungry men. He describes the intricate work of "framing" the barn and tells of the herculean efforts required to get the big timbers into position.