by Annie Proulx
• • •
The meeting room was warm with a fire to spite the autumn chill. Freegrace said, “Let us begin.” There was a great scraping of chair legs and a rustle of paper.
“This year the Maine drives got under way late, all was delayed, with the contractors hoping for rain to raise the rivers,” said Freegrace. “We hear from those jobbers that it was only a fair winter, not at all like the snows we had here. Meager snow forced the men to resort to dams to get the sticks down feeder streams and into the river—much labor and time. The jobber is demanding recompense. He won’t get it. I do have some figures for the previous year, which should cheer.”
James interrupted in a low voice. “Excuse my ignorance—how many men do we employ in the woods?”
Lennart Vogel answered, the figures ready in his mouth. “Better than one thousand this year for six to eight months. At ten dollars a month and their bed, board and tools. Ridiculous as it may seem, we’ve increasingly had to hire well-known cooks as other camps will get the better men by dishing up fancy vittles. Vittles!” He clearly relished the slangy American word and thought of himself as an adept slang slinger. “We figure twenty cents a day to board each man, which is a great deal of provision. We are forced to hire cooks who might command the kitchens of elegant restaurants save for personality blemishes.”
Edward spoke up. “But victualing is not the greatest expense. Corn and hay for the oxen. Hay is almost twenty dollars a ton and we last year used more than five thousand tons. Corn is a dollar a bushel and the oxen will gorge on four thousand bushels the season. The oxen are dear and so are the drivers—twenty thousand dollars in costs. Then there are timberland purchases and palms to be greased, especially in procuring the so-called Indian lands that the idiot Congress strives to keep from us with its ‘Nonintercourse Act.’ ”
Freegrace muttered, “In what other country must businessmen trouble with murderous barbarians coddled by the government?”
Edward continued on his set path. “We have high survey expenses, and though we have been cutting most on our own lands and have our own mills and so have few stumpage or mill rent costs, there are a hundred other expenses—axes and tools, grindstones, oil, iron, blacksmiths and their forges, log boomage and lockage.” The clerk’s pen scratched violently as he tried to keep up with Edward’s rapid speaking.
Cyrus thought James looked puzzled and said, “Sir, boomage is the cost for making booms to hold the logs in a body and lockage—” But Edward disliked being interrupted and said curtly, “Cyrus, you may please save your explanations for later. I am sure James understands the terms. What we need to discuss today is first, the precipitous decline in large, first-rate white pine, and second, the persistent problem of timber thieves plundering our holdings and other cheatings and malfeasances. And among the thieves those who manufacture shingles and clapboards are the most terrible dishonest. The thieves are worse on the public lands, but they show no hesitation in cutting Duke trees. New Brunswick loggers are the bane of the forest. Wherever they see it they cut it and then run with it. New Brunswick has no thriving farms nor vigorous towns. Its residents are the locusts of the forest. We regard New Brunswickers as our enemies.” He stopped to draw breath, reviewed what he had said and allowed that “the problem might be somewhat ameliorated if ever the boundary lines with Canada were clearly drawn.” He was stuttering a bit, uneasy with James Duke’s presence—the man too closely resembled his dictatorial father, Sedley, who had made Edward’s life miserable with harping and picking. And James’s awful watch fob flashing its censorious stare rattled him.
James leaned back. He had planned to tell his cousins over the evening dinner that the widow Posey Brandon had accepted his proposal of marriage and that they had set the wedding date for May. After news of Mr. Brandon’s death from pneumonia in Virginia he had waited a decent interval—twenty-four hours—before proposing to her. She had accepted on the spot and he had embraced her and tried to seal the betrothal with a tender kiss. How surprised he had been by the fierce and spitty ardor with which she returned his dry kiss. Later, much later, he was to think back on it and interpret it as a warning, a warning he did not—could not—heed. But now his brain whirred with alarming scenarios of how his cousins would take the news that he was marrying the daughter of David Breeley, a New Brunswick logging contractor. He had not yet met his future father-in-law, but from what Posey told him he had no doubt that Mr. Breeley flourished a free hand with the ax, damnation to any damned border.
James, gazing out the window, saw a distant smudge in the sky that he had learned to recognize as a body of passenger pigeons.
Cyrus spoke up. “I thought we were to hear today of new markets—was I mistaken in this apprehension?”
“Not at all,” said Lennart, speaking out of turn to judge by Edward’s glare. James guessed that Lennart too often put himself forward. “We are shipping more and more lumber every year, and not from Boston, but out of Bangor. We have heard that Cuba wants sugar boxes. Freegrace is in correspondence with a Cuban dignitary on this possibility. The West Indies are hungry for everything—boards, shingles, clapboards, pickets and lath, hemlock bark, even some hardwood. Even some hackmatack knees. We cannot send enough shiploads to the West Indies, and of course we bring back rum, sugar and molasses. Many European cities have discovered the utility of wood paving blocks, and such a market allows us to dispose of wood otherwise wasted. And not only Europe, but Charleston, Buenos Aires, yes, even Australia. I have not mentioned the growing coast trade.”
“We are straying from the subject,” said Freegrace.
“Quite, and thank you, Freegrace, for hauling us back so smartly,” said Edward. “Well, then, Armenius Breitsprecher, our timberland looker since his father passed on, was gulled with a false map and a false report for the lands on the White Moose branch and we have just now discovered the fraud. The surveyor’s map showed that the timber grew thick along a watercourse, the north branch of the Moose, but the reality proved the stream lay miles distant from the pine. Breitsprecher says he went to see the timber at the time, now four years past, but it was winter and deep snow. The surveyor insisted the frozen stream lay under the snow beneath their feet. And because of the waist-deep snow Armenius could not thoroughly investigate the trees. He admits it. So the report on which we based our purchase indicated a good stream and a hundred million of pine. In fact, there were only fourteen million. And a distant stream. We had great expenses in road building and drawing the timber out with hired ox teams. The question now is whether or not we should continue to retain Breitsprecher as our land looker. He made an expensive error. He relied overly on a thieving surveyor.”
Freegrace sighed. “Yes, we could discharge Breitsprecher but he is an experienced and able land looker and has served us for many years and made Duke and Sons a great deal of money. This is almost the only instance of bad judgment on his part. I know he regrets it. I suggest we speak sternly to him but retain his services.”
“I agree,” said Lennart Vogel. “Judgment of the costs and profit to be obtained from a standing forest is difficult and takes many years of experienced looking.” He, too, had noticed the unwinking watch fob and felt the presence of the unknown original.
“What do you think, Cyrus?”
“Why, how difficult can it be to find good timberland judges? Surely Breitsprecher is not the only fellow who can look at trees. Are there not legions of such men trooping through the forest?” He leaned back carelessly in his chair, crossed one leg over the other and dandled his right foot.
Edward spoke again. “There are indeed, most of them crooked scalawags who tender false reports about the quality of the pine, all sound trees, of course, which turn into core-rotted hulks when the ax smites. James, what do you think?”
“If he has been an honest employee all these years—how long has he worked for us?”
“Since he was a boy under the tutelage of his father, say thirty-odd years now.”
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p; “After thirty years of faithful service and only one misjudgment of a lying surveyor, it seems to me extreme to let the man go. I argue to keep him on.”
“All in favor,” droned Freegrace. “Now, let us pass on to the problems of trespass and plundering, which grow apace. We have put out warning notices that trespassing on our woodlands will lead to prosecution. We only hope the notices are noticed!”
He flourished a paper and read aloud:
This gives notice that the Timber marked D&S stacked on Distress Brook Lot 17 is the property of Duke & Sons, Boston. All persons are hereby warned not to meddle with same or drive it from where it now lays or risk prosecution. Measures will be taken to detect persons evading this notice.
“A hollow threat,” said Edward. “Maine juries are utterly corrupt. They find for the criminals—their relatives and associates—every time.”
James said, “Who are these lawless men who cut your—our—timber?”
“Every man!” Edward said angrily, spit flying. “They are mostly small, mean men seeking to make some money. But there are so many of them. They are often savage hungry fellows who stop at nothing. They fight the owners until blood flows and heads are cracked. Even when we catch and prosecute them, they and their friends slip back at night and continue cutting. Settlers, failed businessmen, shingle makers and clapboard sawyers, those are the thieves. And moonlight nights see many good pines fall.”
“It is more than just the stealage,” said Edward. “Their campfires do great harm and burn much timber. Some of these men will deliberately set fires on the edge of good timber, then connive to purchase the entire valuable woods as burned wasteland for a meager cost. And in any case the damned poxy settlers clear their wretched plots with fire when they will, and in the dry season the fire escapes and devours our wood.”
Cyrus pulled at his cravat and tried to sum up the situation. “The truth is, gentlemen, that Maine—and New Brunswick—forests are swarming with lawless men. What we long for is virgin woodland without these human locusts. As Maine used to be.”
James asked if the Ohio lands his father had visited were not just such a virgin Eden.
“No, it is good timber, but there is not that much. A few years’ worth. We must think far ahead into the future. We hear of great forests farther west, and this may be the time to investigate the reports. I have several times proposed we meet with Armenius Breitsprecher and ask him to make the journey westward. Would he not be eager to reclaim his honor after the mishap on the north branch of the White Moose?”
“Sensible if one of us went with him,” said Lennart Vogel. “For an unbiased report. It could be a valuable expedition.”
“Easy for you to say, Lennart—you are a world traveler, but most of us prefer to stay put in Boston and deal with the accounts and contracts. Perhaps you should go.” Vogel shook his head.
“Might we not look closer to home? I have heard that there is a vast kingdom of white pine along the Susquehanna and Allegheny Rivers in Pennsylvania. Some say that this is the finest white pine that ever grew,” said Cyrus.
“Ah, they said the same about Maine pine, the same of New Brunswick pine. We should start buying with an eye to fifty years hence,” said Freegrace.
“God knows why. Take what we can get as soon as we can get it is what I say. I am not interested in fifty years hence as there is no need for concern. The forests are infinite and permanent,” said Edward.
• • •
The dinner, at an inn on Rowes Wharf, was simple—baked golden plovers, salmon and succotash, fresh pease. They talked freely, loosened from the fetters of the formal meeting. Cyrus explained boomage and lockage at length to James, then moved on to fire.
“You know, talk of fire could well have included our own depredations. One of our contractors, on Edward’s orders, set fire to several haystacks the thieves had brought to one of our pineries to feed their oxen. The fire got away and burned not only the haystacks but the pines they were trying to steal. So you see, we can give as good as we get.” James found the logic of this summation impaired, but said nothing. He began to wonder if Cyrus Hempstead was not a dunce.
“James,” said Lennart Vogel, “by now you know that timber profits are almost entirely based on transportation costs. Steamboats can change the way we move our logs.”
Edward spoke up as soon as he had swallowed his mouthful of pandowdy. “We know the English are using steam locomotives in collieries. Why shouldn’t steam engines succeed? In a few years, Freegrace, we might be building a railway into our dryland pineries, where no rivers flow. Right now every penny we gain still depends on the rivers. The steam engine could have a profound effect on our business.”
“Edward, you are right,” said Lennart. “There is certainly a mood of great things in the air, days of glorious prosperity ahead.”
The rum went around the table and around until the Board members were speaking so loudly at one another that a florid man at a distant table asked the proprietor if they might be put out in the street.
“That’s Saltonstall,” said Cyrus, “the old barnacle. He believes himself the most important man in Boston. If he wants quiet let him stay home in his mausoleum.”
• • •
At midnight James lurched out to his coach, where Will Thing sat waiting in the darkness. In half an hour he was in his library, where the embers still glowed. Here he had a final glass of brandy. And so, his head spinning, James Duke went to bed.
• • •
It seemed only minutes before the maid Lily woke him.
“Sir, sir, Mistress Brandon is downstairs and wishes to breakfast with you.”
“Oh my heart and soul,” said James, “tell her I will be down in a few minutes. Do give her some tea or coffee or—”
“Yessir.”
It was close to forty minutes before he came into the breakfast room, bathed, freshly shaven, in clean linen and a black cashmere suit, for the day was chilly.
“My dear,” he said. “What brings you here so very early?”
“Why, James, I am eager to hear every detail of the business meeting. You know my great interest in your business affairs. You must tell me all about your cousins, who said what, the problems, the decisions, the plans for the future.”
He buttered a hot biscuit and dipped it in a dish of honey, leaned over his plate, bit it and avoided dripping on his waistcoat. He began to talk. It was exhilarating to have someone pay such close attention to his descriptions. She asked intelligent questions and quizzed him on the Board members’ mannerisms.
• • •
Mrs. Brandon, back at her house, went to a little walnut escritoire James had had made for her, withdrew a brown leather-bound book half-filled with misspelled notes in her sprawling hand. She began to set down the salient points of the business meeting. She made special note of Lennart Vogel’s recommendations that Duke & Sons make investments outside the timber industry, especially in the booming textile mills, or cane sugar production.
47
needles and pins, needles and pins
James Duke’s oft-postponed wedding day—he feared his cousins’ reaction to his connection with a New Brunswick lumberman—began with a shock like a snapped fiddle string. His future father-in-law arrived in midmorning astride a limping, rolling-gaited woods horse of indifferent color. And who had ever seen such a physiognomy as that possessed by Phineas Breeley? His head looked as though it had been lopped off with a broadax just above the eyebrows and then squeezed back together leaving a great horizontal scar. Below the scar sat two anthracite-black eyes, a much-broken nose (a sure sign of coarseness) and a lipless mouth opening. His left ear was missing, only a hairy hole remained. The man let himself carefully down to the ground and advanced on Posey. He gripped her in a mighty hug, plastered her face with kisses that sounded like popping corn and turned to James.
“Well,” he said. “Here I be. Ready for the shivaree and our Grand Trip.” Posey had invited her father to accom
pany them on their honeymoon to New York. She had wanted James to invite Freegrace and Edward Duke and their wives to the ceremony and the celebratory dinner, but he found excuses—Edward was traveling, Freegrace’s wife was abed with pleurisy—and he presented very excellent reasons for not asking the others. Indeed, he had not told them of his impending marriage. Not yet, not yet, he temporized.
“I know you’ll love my papa,” she had said, “and he’s always wanted to see that New York. It will be company for us in a place we don’t know no one.” Now the moment had arrived. James and Posey would be getting into a hired coach with this man in a few hours. Unsure how to greet the fellow, James looked covertly at the horse’s hooves, which showed founder rings. No wonder the wretched beast limped.
“Let us turn out your horse in the pasture,” he said. “I see he is sore-footed. He may have a holiday while we tour New York.”
“Now, fellows, don’t spend too much time talkin,” said Posey, looking at the brass mantel clock. “We are to be at the magistrate’s eleven sharp. It lacks only half an hour to that time.”
“Sore foot or not, all the same to me,” said Phineas Breeley. “They are all jades and nags. I have No Love for Horses.”
I can see that, thought James, somewhat put off by the fellow’s odd emphases.
• • •
The ceremony was brief and, as James had hoped, unknown to his cousins. Father and daughter chattered animatedly on the long coach trip while James, across from them but huddled into the corner, tried to doze. The father’s arm encircled Posey and occasionally he peppered her with his clicking kisses. The day waned and twilight darkened the coach interior and they talked on of people born and dead, accidents, departures from the scene, violent weather, amusing happenings, the faults of the men who worked for Breeley. All night they talked, a great telling of names and antics. The coach stopped for a change of horses just after dawn and Breeley, who seemed quite lively, obligingly ran into the hostelry and came back with a pan of weak coffee and six cold boiled eggs. He swallowed half the contents of the coffee pan and four of the eggs, tossing the shells out the window. Refreshed by this repast he addressed his first remarks to James.
