by Annie Proulx
“Fairly soon. In ten days perhaps. I have some affairs to set in order and need to make arrangements for certificates of deposit and surety for the payments.”
“I have nightmares of interlopers getting those lands before we do. It is urgent that we buy now. We can always buy on credit—that would hasten acquisition.”
“Duke and Sons have never bought on credit,” said Edward stiffly. “We pay cash and that is why our custom is favored. It is our signature.”
“If we commence buying townships, with such large purchases we may need to proceed with buying on credit,” said Lennart. “The day will come.”
• • •
A week later James went west again. In Detroit he took rooms near the government land office. In three days of intense work with the clerk, a cold-syrup sort of man he thought, Duke & Sons owned all the timberlands Breitsprecher had surveyed on their exploratory trip, a hundred thousand acres. He bought three city lots and hired carpenters to begin putting up an office building and three houses. He returned to Boston to await the land patent certificates. Breitsprecher stayed in Michigan surveying, marking sections and whole townships.
“We should buy up the townships sight unseen,” said Lennart. “We know the trees are there. It is not essential to send a landlooker to comb through every acre before purchase.”
Edward and Freegrace recoiled. “What, take a flyer on getting worthless swampland or cliffs and sinkholes? Or nothing but grass or spindly trees?”
“It is not in the nature of these Michigan lands to deviate from pine. It would save a great deal of anxiety if we bought sight unseen straight from the land office map.” Lennart’s voice was hoarse with talking. But the two oldest Dukes flamed up with such passion, and Cyrus Hempstead unaccountably sided with them, that he dropped the idea.
• • •
In December, Breitsprecher returned. It was a cold day. He went up the cramped stairs of the old Duke building and into the boardroom to make his report. As he heard the first figures Cyrus sucked in his breath. The board foot estimates were so enormous they could barely be grasped.
“It is all standing timber. I saw no sign of other landlookers but I did see a government surveyor and his chainman on the trail. He said there are many such surveyors at work in Michigan Territory now, those in the south doing section work, the men to the north in the timberlands roughing out townships. He said some of the early surveyors were far from expert and because of their inexperience Michigan has two base lines. I do not know how much Mr. James has procured of the timberland that we saw on our first journey. I have heard of connivance and foul play at the land offices, though I think the men in Detroit are reasonably honest.”
Cyrus spoke up. “Mr. James Duke procured most, if not all, of those lands you examined earlier. And now we must acquire these you have just marked for us. We cannot move quickly enough. No reflection on your excellent work, Armenius, but we need more landlookers. If you have any names to put forward this is the time to do it.”
He had no ready names.
As they left the meeting room Lennart drew Cyrus aside and said, “We need you to help James make the purchases. There is another Michigan land office in Monroe, and I think it would be best to use it and allay possible competitors’ suspicions that Duke and Sons are taking all of Michigan. We have liquidated some of the New England holdings now and there is money for this. I wish you to think how important it may be to buy on credit if we want to secure large holdings. The immediate investment is small compared to the future income. So far we have only begun. There are many millions of acres of pineland in Michigan, and perhaps contiguous areas to the west and south. You can take the coordinates Breitsprecher has just given us, go to Monroe and start buying. Come with me now and I will give you the bonds. Buy as fast as ever you can.”
• • •
Armenius Breitsprecher left the overheated office, walked home enjoying the smell of a coming storm. At his small house Frau Stern welcomed him back with his favorite, a lemon posset. There was a great sack of accumulated mail on the kitchen floor. He swallowed the posset and four roast pigeons and slept for sixteen hours.
The next morning he got at the mail. The Christmas season was at hand and the homeland Breitsprechers flooded their relative with affectionate greetings and presents—cakes and Blutwurst, a small keg of best sauerkraut, tins of nuts and candied fruits, and his grandmother Fredda had written out a description of the geese that were to be roasted. The Blutwurst delighted him and before he opened the rest of the letters he sent Frau Stern for some good dark bread.
With the plate of sliced Blutwurst and bread and a thumb-size blob of Flower of Mustard beside him he read the letters one by one. The Blutwurst was gone, the bread gone and only a smear of mustard left by the time he reached the pages from his cousin Dieter Breitsprecher. Dieter had suffered in his childhood—both his parents on a holiday in the Jura had been caught in an unseasonable snowstorm and avalanche. The orphan was brought up by his severe maternal grandmother. Armenius could almost see Dieter before him, tall and with gooseberry eyes. He had studied privately with Heinrich von Cotta in Saxony and now was working as a forester on the estate of Graf Ernst-August von Rotstein. The estate’s most distinguished feature, he wrote, was a large forest. Armenius moaned with envy at Dieter’s description of his catalog of the forest’s insects and how they affected the different species of trees, temperature diaries and rainfall measurements, boundary plantings, a coppice experiment. Yet Armenius had seen enough wild American forest to slightly dampen his enthusiasm for management. How could one possibly control the fantastic complexity of the New World forests?
Several days passed before he could begin to answer his cousin’s letter and so filled with discontent were his paragraphs that he crumpled and threw down page after page. Hopeless, hopeless to try to describe the situation in North America, where people spurned the age-old craft of forestry, a craft he knew only partially from books, his father’s lectures and his own observations. He had to get Dieter to come and see for himself the Michigan forest, a massive but innocent forest standing complete before the slaughter began. What discussions they would have! He scribbled rapidly and posted the result without rereading it.
• • •
An answer came in March. Dieter was making the journey. Armenius worked it out that his cousin was at that moment on the high seas and with fair weather would arrive within two weeks.
• • •
With his dog, Hans Carl von Carlowitz, beside him he stood on the wharf staring, as he had for the last half hour, at the docked Hansa. Passengers lined the rails, eager to get off. He looked for Dieter’s head, which should be among the highest, but did not see him. Nor did he see him in the flood of passengers. He was startled when a hand closed on his shoulder and the familiar voice said, “Wie geht’s, Menius?”
“Ach. You startled me. I was looking for you.”
“Yes, I saw you staring. I tipped my hat. Sehr kalt hier.”
“It is. Amerikanischer Frühling. Komm, komm, we’ll be at my house very soon.”
“You have your own house? And is this your Hund?” He patted Hans Carl’s head.
“Ja, this is Hans Carl von Carlowitz, who goes everywhere with me, and as for the house, it was my parents’ and I am not often in it as I spend most of my time in the forest making computations of board feet. As I mentioned in my letters.”
“Ideal name. So the observant one is always at your side, nicht wahr?”
“Ja, ja. Always. And on cold nights— Ach, Dieter, I can’t say how glad I am you have come, and with time enough for me to show you everything.”
“I have always wanted to see the famous forests of North America, and the Graf, who is a second cousin, though reluctant to see me go, was generous with the time—because of your letter, which I showed him. ‘See everything,’ he said, ‘and if you find good timber investments for me write at once.’ ”
“Ah, he is just like the Duk
es. Just like the Americans.”
“I think not,” said Dieter, laughing, his pronounced Adam’s apple rising and falling, his gooseberry eyes trying to see everything at once. “He suffered a great deal from the Peasants’ Uprising a few years ago. They reject his control of the forest, the laws, they hate the managed plantations.”
“As soon as you have rested from your voyage we will start for Michigan. But first I will introduce you to the Dukes and Lennart Vogel. We will go to the Duke office tomorrow morning.”
“Dear cousin, while I get warm with some hot spirit and water you will tell me all about the Dukes, their plan to seize the forests of the earth, their fiendish little ways.”
In half an hour the two cousins had finished Frau Stern’s boiled pigs’ feet and kraut and settled in front of the Franklin stove with their pipes and the port decanter to talk about the Dukes and forestry while the wind shrieked around the corner of the house.
• • •
Edward Duke did not take to Dieter Breitsprecher. Later he complained to Freegrace. “Why, he looks like Ichabod Crane, a great thin tall gawk. And how he stares!”
“Yes, but Armenius says he is a forester on a great estate in Germany. He manages a large forest. He might be useful to us.”
“God’s sake, how on earth does he ‘manage’ a forest?” snorted Edward. “Cut ’em down! That’s forest managing. Tell Ichabod to take his managing back to Germany. No use to us.”
• • •
James sat at the breakfast table with his plate of toast and the honey jar. He smiled when Lavinia came in. She had changed from a child with a sullen expression to a young woman whose greatest charm was the bloom of youth. Her mustard-colored wool dress caught the stream of sunlight as she passed the window.
“My dear Lavinia,” he said. “How very well you look. Well kempt and soigné. Will you join me at breakfast this morning and tell me all your secrets?”
“I have no secrets,” said Lavinia, turning scarlet, tears suddenly brimming over and running down her cheeks.
“Good lord, girl, I do not mean to pry. I only wanted to be agreeable. I have seen so little of you since I came back and I cherish each hour in your company.”
But Lavinia was weeping loudly into her napkin. It seemed a long time until she stopped and James felt it was rude for him to attack his toast while his daughter wept. So he waited.
“Papa,” she said, mopping the tears. “I do have—” She wept again.
“For God’s sake, child, what is it? Tell me. And here, have a piece of toast.” He buttered a now-cold slice and dabbed on honey, handed it dripping to Lavinia. She took it and held it at arm’s length as though it were a poison snake, then put it on the edge of his plate.
“It drips honey,” she said and unaccountably began to laugh at James with his tower of cold toast when the whole world knew he liked it hot and crunchy.
“Yes, that is a known property of honey—it drips. Would you care for toast without honey?”
“Yes.” She took the toast, put it on a plate, went to the sideboard and slid a poached egg onto the toast, brought the plate back to the table and began to cut up her breakfast. James observed that the egg also dripped, perhaps more fluidly than honey. They sat in companionable understanding while they ate.
“Papa,” said Lavinia. “I do have a secret.”
“Yes, I thought you might. We all have ’em. What’s yours?”
“I think I might shock you.”
“Oh try, dear girl, do try. It has been years since I was shocked and I am keen to know the sensation again.”
“You are too silly.” She was a trifle fat, with dimpled hands and a plump chin.
“Not in the least. Silliness finished. I am your adoring papa and wish to know if there is any wish, no matter how picayune, I might grant you. You have only to speak.”
“Very well. It is this: I do not want to be ‘finished.’ Nor do I want to ‘come out’ nor catch a beau nor marry.” She took a breath. “I want to learn the timber trade.”
His hand lurched and coffee spilled. If she had said she wished to learn how to slaughter pigs she could not have startled him more.
“But my dear girl, there simply are no women in the timber trade. It is a man’s affair from ax to beeswax. If you were a boy we might place you in one of the lumber camps for a season so you could know the work, but I can’t imagine what role a girl—a woman—could have in the timber trade. I just cannot! Have you considered what you might do as a ‘timberwoman’?” He smiled at the preposterous image the word raised. She did not return the smile but scowled.
“Mother helped her father in his timber business. She learned a great deal and was considerable use in all those affairs. She said she even helped you when you came from commanding ships. Papa, I know I would be good at it. I am very good with mathematics. I could work out problems with board feet and measurements. I am good at compiling papers and sorting them into categories. I am interested in finance, in banks and loans, in credit and assets, in prices and factors that change them. I know I could do something of value. And I will not get married. Mama is harping on marriage day and night and I shall run away rather than marry. I am quite, quite serious about this. I think of nothing else. Why cannot I do something in the office of Duke and Sons? I know you have clerks—I could be a clerk. I would learn much that way. You say the company is going to open new offices in Detroit. I will be a part of this. I will!” Now she resembled Posey, eyes flashing dangerously, bosom heaving.
For a very brief second James considered how a lumber buyer might respond to such a display. Ye gods, he thought, ye gods, what can I do, what say? He ate the last piece of toast, very poor toast now, cold and somewhat sodden from spilled coffee.
“Lavinia. Give me several days to think about your surprising request. I will seriously consider how something might be arranged.”
The chance came sooner than he imagined. Lennart stopped by one May morning and begged James to go with him to the offices. “We have several applicants for clerical positions in Detroit and even two landlookers from New Hampshire. One of them has been as far west as Ohio. Clerks are another matter. Most of them are barely able to read, and as for ciphering—you might whistle.”
“I have a rather unusual applicant for a clerk,” said James. “Let me find my hat and I will tell you on the way.”
• • •
Armenius thought his cousin Dieter Breitsprecher was, aside from Hans Carl von Carlowitz, the best traveling companion he had ever known. Their large knapsacks were packed, they were ready for the wild forests. Armenius brought tobacco, not Cuban cigars but dark and tarry twists. Dieter carried his heavy .60 caliber jaeger rifle, and Armenius a new .50 caliber plains rifle with a beaver tail cheek piece—Dieter slavered over this gun and before they left he ordered one from the Missouri gunsmith.
“It will be my memento of this journey,” he said.
“You will have other mementos.”
The journey, familiar to Armenius, was full of shocks and wonders for Dieter. The Erie Canal boat was insufferably tiresome at four miles an hour. On fine days they ran along the towpath, sometimes ranging out to see the countryside. They had time for talk.
“The thing is,” said Armenius, “there is here a complete lack of knowledge of forest management. Americans do not understand shelter belts, they have never heard of thinning trees nor pruning them, they cannot believe that soil has anything to do with forests, nor water. Hedgerows? What an idea! They do not believe in hedgerows. Nor coppices. The most elemental precepts of forestry are as Chinese.”
“Surely they have some sense of soil erosion, so painfully obvious when it appears?”
“Not at all. They accept it as the natural order of the world. And although they choke in the fumes of the city they do not make a connection with the purer air in the forest. ‘Why is the air clean and fresh near the forest but not in the city?’ one can ask. The answer is ‘Because God made it thus.’ So ex
tensive are the forests here that Americans cannot see an end to them. Therefore, they have no interest in preserving them.”
“Do not your employers see the economic advantages of maintained forests? Is there no reforestation at all?”
“None. They do not even leave seed trees in their vast cutover lands. One hard rain or a deep snow comes and the soil begins to run downhill like molten gold. If I say anything to the Dukes about commonsense ways to protect and repair their cut forestlands for the future they look at me as if I were mad. Well, perhaps I am mad. I hate aiding them in their quest to destroy every forest in North America.”
“This is quite sad. What are the most pressing uses here for cut timber? Houses, I suppose.”
“Railroad ties. I think that the railroads should manage private forests where they might grow trees for ties. But it is not done. They take down wild forests and transport the timber at high cost. Charcoal furnaces for smelting use uncountable numbers of trees. Moreover, every household consumes almost one hundred cords of wood during the long cold winters. The fireplaces here are large enough to roast an entire ox. But stoves are making an advance. And speaking of fires! Mein Gott, the forests are constantly on fire, but not controlled fire—the settlers set vast acreages ablaze to clear the way for farms and houses. Then, disappointed that the soil is poor, they move on west, always west, and do the same elsewhere. Not one in a hundred American farmers can tell you the characteristics of soils. The Indians were better managers of the forest than these settlers. They were very good observers of water, weather, all animals and growing things. And they forbore to cut lavishly. They used many parts of many trees for different tools and medicines, not unlike the old German peasantry.”
“I wonder you do not return to Germany,” said Dieter.
“Dieter, through no doing of my own I was born in this country. It is a population where each settler vies to be more of a Nichtswisser than his neighbor—learning is considered shameful—but I am used to it. It would be difficult to change. Besides, Germany now is not the Germany I have in my mind.”
