Young Giants Delight In Showing Their Strength At Barn Raising and Bee

In the preceding chapter Mr. Merrill told how stone "fences" were built, how the fields were cleared and dragged with home-made spike-tooth harrows, how the potatoes were planted. He told of the plans for the new barn and how the timbers were trimmed by hand.

Chapter 22

The next day after the rafters and lumber were all delivered, Darius told Mr. Weed of his great need of getting the barn ready for haying, and Mr. Weed quickly gave him three days off.

When Darius told his father of his plans and that he wanted him to go fishing with him to Little Trout River the next day, grandfather exclaimed:

"Mighty! Mighty; Dide! I reckon it's all as you say. Seems to me you'n Wes's pretty much running the farm now. Better dig the worms tonight so's we can get off 'bout daylight."

True to form, daylight saw the well on their way to Little Trout River. Grandfather started fishing at the bridge to fish down stream. Dide was to hit the upper rapids four miles south and fish down to the bridge. They were to meet at the bridge at four in the afternoon. Each had a lunch and a ten quart pail in which to carry the trout.

Little Trout River was well named, the sparkling clear cold water was literally alive with the speckled beauties, and long before Darius reached the bridge, his pail was running over with trout. When he reached the bridge it was about 4 o'clock, judging by hte position of "Old Sol" in the universe. Darius was suffering from a thousand mosquito bites, his face and neck and the backs of his hands were covered with little puffed up blotches and streaks of blood where he had vainly tried to scratch them off.

While waiting for his father he poured the fish upon the grass, and taking out his pocket knife proceeded to clean them. Before he had finished grandfather appeared with his pail not guite full, but Darius knew that between them there would be plenty for the supper. Before starting for home they cleaned the whole catch and in another hour were home.

Darius put the trout in a tight box and sunk it in the ice cold Balm of Gilead spring, placing a heavy stone on top of the ox to keep it in place.

Next day was the day appointed for the raising. In the house grandmother and Abbie had everything prepared for the next day's feast, figuring on about twenty men to feed. Wes had gone the rounds of the neighborhood and invited all to the raising and bee. Gill Dolloff had been retained for "boss" of the raising.

By nine next morning the men commenced to arrive and in another hour the work was well under way.

Carrying the heavy timbers to their relative positions, and posts and joists to their places on the platform, they put together the first "bent," fastening it with key ash pins.

Then fifteen or twenty men with pike poles (that Darius had borrowed from the mill pond) ranged in line abreast the bent, awaited the commands of the boss as he guided and steadied the corner posts.

"Now then! All together! Heave! Up! Up! Up! with her, boys. Heave ho! Up with her, I say!"

Such were the sharp orders from Gill, while every man was straining his utmost. Darius could hardly keep his eyes away from Gill Dolloff. The man's superb strength and cat-like activity, as he sprang from beam to beam, driving the key ash pins and giving the right orders at the right place and time. Just like clock-work that frame went together.

Nearly all were young men, agile, supple, with apparently no limit to their endurance. They were proud of their strength, each claiming he could outlift the other.

Twenty strong and willing men can put through a lot of work in two days' tim if they have a competent and energetic boss as foreman, and such a boss was Gill Dolloff. Darius always held that man in high esteem.

At the end of the second day the barn was roofed and shingled, much to the satisfaction of Wes and Darius. Grandmother and Abbie had done their share, too.

At the parting many a friendly slap on the shoulder did Wes and Darius get, with such exclamations as, "Well, Dide, let us know when you get another big catch of trout and we'll see that he get another barn 'throwed up," and "Wes, give us another husking bee, but send Dide fishing first;" and "Wes, don't let Dide steal any more kisses belonging to Nate, ha! ha! ha! ha!"

Darius was certainly well pleased with the outcome of his scheme for finishing the barn, and yet it was far from being finished. It was only ready for the storing of hay and grain, but that was all he had expected from the bee. Next spring they would have to plank the ground floor and build the stanchions for the cattle. But then he and Wes could do that on rainy days.

The following Monday found them looking up the old scythes and whetstones and Eli turning the grindstone while Wes held the scythe firmly on the stone.

When Eli's arm got tired and the stone commenced to slacken its speed, Wes would bear on with renewed energy and ask Ei to bring his baby brother, or someone who could turn the grind stone for him, whereupon Eli would take revenge by turn so fast that the water from the trough under the stone would fly all over Wes' face.

The whir-r-r- and shriek of the saw and carriage and the hoarse shouts of the men carrying lumber about the mill constituted the daily entertainment for Darius. After supper at home, a load of hay was waiting to be stowed away, to be pitched off by Wes and Eli. And if Darius failed to mow it away fast enough, they would bury him with huge forkfuls of dusty but sweet-smelling hay, and then shout in derision at the green "mill hand" as he would emerge from under the hay with the sweat ploughing furrows through the dust on his face and dripping from his nose and chin.

"Never mind, Dide, we'll make a farmer of you yet," shouted Wes.

Darius enjoyed the caprices of his brother Wes almost as much as Wes did himself, and took his cajoling good naturedly, the way it was sent.

Grandfather was not what could be termed an expert farm manager, preferring to tinker at this and that, fishing and trapping at odd times, but he was shrewd enough to observe in Wes and Darius the making of good business managers and he was keen enough to know that such men were as essential for success in farming as in any other business. So gradually the management of the farm devolved upon Wes, and with Darius' help, he proved himself master of the job.

Together these two brothers planned many improvements on the farm, but Darius had no intentions of becoming a farmer. He thought the labor was altogether too hard for the small compensation derived therefrom.

As a matter of fact Darius was endowed with what the old sages would call "long sight." He visioned the lakes and mountains and the wonderful works of nature, as something to be sought after, by intelligent people in the future as a place of recreation and rest, a place for the successful healing and rejuvenating of worn otu mentalities, and also a place where sportsmen could enjoy to the fullest extent the pleasures of fishing and hunting.

To Darius the visions had come involuntarily keeping pace with his physical development, constantly enlarging until they proved to be a reality, instead of a vision. Thus the magnet gradually overpowered him Resistance was useless and submission became a glorious pleasure.

Biding his time, waiting only to see his parents and brother Wes in comfortable circumstances, he would then save up for his own personal ambitions, viz, to sometime own a goodly portion of his beloved mountains and lakes.

With Darius' after-supper help, haying was soon finished. Then cam corn-hoeing. This was a long, tedious, disagreeable job, but like all other jobs it came to an end at last. Harvesting came next and was done done the same as haying, all by hand, mowing with the old scythes, raking into windrows, bunching with the forks, and after it was thoroughly dried in the sun, then hauled to the barn, to be threshed during the winter. Usually they threshed only enough for seed the next spring. Then cam potato hoeing, another hard task, and then a few days with nothing but the chores. Then a little later corn-cutting and "stooking." And last but not least, potato digging.

About the time potato digging was finishing, Darius cut the last log in the mill pond, and the next day he started for Malone to take the examination for a teacher's certificate.

Walking to Malone, he went directly to Mr. Wheeler's and he and Bill had a good visit.

Next morning he went to the Academy where the examinations were held. It took nearly half a day to answer the questions in the blank forms. Then Darius had to await his turn for the papers to be checked up and passed upon. It was quite late in the afternoon when he was informed that he had made ninety-eight points, or counts, out of a possible one hundred, for whicih they could give him a first grade certificate.

Darius was well pleased with the results of his examination. Friend Bill could not persuade him to spend another night in Malone, for he knew his mother was counting the minutes until his return. It was nearly midnight when he was the little candle light in his mother's bedroom where she was sitting up waiting for him.

Entering the front door, osftly, he went directly to his mother's room.

"Well, mother," he said, "I guess you and father can take a rest once in a while now."

Producing the certificate, he handed it to her.

"Well, my son, I expected you would get that, all right. Have y ou asked Mr. Weed for the school?" (Mr. Weed was trustee that fall).

"Yes, and he is going to let me have it, and wants school to commence next Monday."

"Oh, Darius, why didn't you get some store clothes when you were in Malone?"

"Well, mother, I prefer to wait until I earn some money teaching. I might perhaps have got them on credit, but that's not a good way to begin. So good-night, mother, I must get to bed."

Now Darius in most respects was not unlike other y oung men of his age, and though he was overjoyed at his success in securing the home school, he still had many misgivings, wondering how his former playmates would receive him as their instructor, especially those who had grown in the last three or four years, much taller and heavier than himself. Quite a number of the older ones belonged to the rougher element, including the big boy who had stolen his skipper a few years before.

Inexperienced as he was and only eighteen years old, he could not keep back an occasional feeling of dread as to how he would succeed in his newly acquired job.

Copyright 1930
By Charles E. Merrill.

In the next chapter the author tells of Darius' experience in teaching school, how he organized a singing class and about the trouble he had with the bullies of the neighborhood.