The Edward S. Ellis Megapack

by Edward S. Ellis

  “Tell me something about that evergreen,” said the Instructor to Isaac Rothstein, who was prompt in answering:

  “It is a red cedar and I think one of the finest of all trees.”

  “Why do you think so?”

  “Its heart is almost as red as blood, and the wood has a sweet fragrance; the sap is nearly white, the grain soft and weak, but it will last for hundreds of years. I have seen beams of cedar that were laid before the Revolution and they were as sound as when hewn. Cedar wood makes a good bow; the little berry-like cones are light blue in color and hardly a quarter of an inch in diameter.”

  “What ground does it prefer?”

  “It is fonder of dry than of damp places.”

  “You have done so well, Isaac, you may enlighten me as to that tree which stands a little to the left of the cedar.”

  “That,” replied the boy after a quick survey, “is a hemlock, which I don’t think much of. The wood is soft, coarse and doesn’t endure well. I have heard it said that a hemlock knot is the hardest vegetable growth of the American woods.”

  “Such is the fact; a hemlock knot will turn the edge of a finely tempered axe or hatchet. Now, boys, take a look at the topmost twig, and tell me whether you notice anything peculiar.”

  Several replied that the twig drooped several inches to one side, though there seemed nothing remarkable in that fact. Mike gravely remarked:

  “The same being a branch, it is trying to bough.”

  The Instructor turned sharply:

  “How do you spell that last word, young man?”

  “B-a-w-h-g-x,” was the instant response.

  “All right,” commented the mollified Instructor; “everything in the nature of punning is barred while I am in command.”

  “That is, if we try to pun you will pun—”

  Mike dodged the upraised staff, and the Instructor resumed:

  “The highest twig of a hemlock in nearly every instance dips to the east, as does the one before us. You can understand how it may help a person who has gone astray in the woods. I am sure you all admire that towering oak, the picture of majesty and beauty.”

  As Uncle Elk spoke he indicated the forest monarch he had in mind, by leveling his staff at it. The boys looked from it to him in surprise. Mike loftily remarked:

  “I was wondering, byes, how ye could give attintion to any other tree whin the oak raised its head afore ye. It is like a lion among a lot of lambs or mesilf amid a group of ignorant Boy Scouts. We have the oak in Ireland, and ye can’t fool me as to the same; it is a noble oak, Mr. Insthructor.”

  “It is not an oak,” said Patrol Leader Chase; “but a white pine.”

  “I agree with you,” added Uncle Elk.

  “So do I; ye can’t flop quicker than mesilf; it isn’t the first time me tongue has stubbed its toe.”

  “I shall be glad,” said the Instructor, addressing Jack Grandall of the Stag Patrol, “if you will tell me something about the white pine.”

  “It is the most famous tree in Maine and gives its name to the state. Many hundreds of thousands of acres are covered with it and millions of feet are taken out every year. It forms the basis of the lumbermen’s industry, one of the chief sources of wealth and in whose behalf the utmost care is taken to save it from destruction by fire.”

  “Describe it more particularly.”

  “The leaves grow in bunches of five; they are four or five inches long, with the cones a little longer. The wood is soft, pungent, easily split, very buoyant, with straight grain and very inflammable. The resinous pine knots make the best of torches.”

  “Suppose a fire gets started among the pines?”

  “It sweeps everything before it. There are a good many kinds of pines, which are told from one another by their cones. The tree is an evergreen.”

  “How tall is the one before us?”

  Several made guesses and it was generally agreed that the splendid specimen was very nearly if not quite two hundred feet high.

  “I shall not accept any guesses,” remarked the Instructor; “I wish to know the exact height.”

  “How can we learn that?” asked Chester Haynes.

  “Measure it. You know little of woodcraft if you cannot tell the precise height of such a tree when the sun is shining.”

  And now came Mike Murphy’s triumph.

  CHAPTER X

  A Few Native Trees

  It was the qualification in the Instructor’s remark, “when the sun is shining,” that gave the quick-witted Mike his clue.

  “My first plan was to climb to the top,” said he with that gravity which he knew so well how to assume, “but I feared I should tumble before I could complete the measuring of the same, as me mither’s second cousin did whin he tried to climb the lightning rod of the church backward. Obsarve me.”

  Every eye was fixed upon the Irish youth who, while speaking, had been scrutinizing his surroundings. The pine towered fully twenty feet above any of its near neighbors. The wood was so open that the shadow of the top fell athwart a small natural clearing to the westward. Mike walked to the conical patch of shade, stood on its farthest edge, and facing the puzzled spectators, crooked his finger.

  “Have one of ye sich a thing as a measuring tape in yer pockets?”

  The majority carried the useful article, coiled around a spring in a flat, circular metal box. Three boys started on a trot toward Mike, but Kenneth Mitchell out-sped his companions.

  “Now, if ye’ll measure the precise distance from the tip of me shoe to the fut of the pine, ye’ll have the satisfaction of doing a good turn for the rest of the byes, as me dad did whin he fixed things so that six men instead of two had a share in the shindy at Tipperary on his birthday.”

  While Kenneth was carefully stretching the tape over the ground in a straight line to the base of the pine, a couple of the boys smiled, for they had caught on to the ingenious scheme of Mike. The yellow tape was a dozen feet long and divided as usual into fractions of an inch. When the owner after using the full length several times grasped it part way between the ends with his thumb and forefinger, so that they touched the bark near the ground, he straightened up and made a quick mental calculation.

  “How fur are we apart?” asked Mike from his first position.

  “Sixty-two feet, eight inches,” was the reply.

  “Come hither and while me young friend is doing the same, the rist of ye may get your pencils and bits of paper riddy.”

  When Kenneth reached the master of ceremonies, he was standing in the oasis of sunlight. Resting one end of the buckthorn cane which he carried on the ground, he held the stick exactly vertical.

  “Will ye oblige me by measuring the shadow of the same?”

  It was done in a twinkling.

  “It is one foot, one inch.”

  By this time every one of the smiling scouts understood the simple method by which Mike proposed to solve the problem. He called to them:

  “The length of me shillalah is three feet, two inches; the length of its shadow is one foot, one inch; the length of the shadow of the pine is sixty-two feet, eight inches: what more can ye ask of me?”

  “Nothing,” replied Scout Master Hall, “figure it out, boys.”

  This is the “statement” which the lads jotted down in their note books or on pieces of paper:

  Length of

  Length

  Length of

  Height

  cane’s shadow

  of cane

  pine’s shadow

  of pine

  1 foot, 1 inch

  3 feet, 2 inches

  62 feet, 8 inches

  ?

  The fractional ratios made considerable computation necessary, and several boys erred in their work, but when nine of them reached the same result, and a comparison proved their accuracy, there could be no question as to the correctness of the result, which was that the height of the noble pine was more than one hundred and eighty feet. (Figure out the exact nu
mber of feet and inches for yourself.)

  “You did well,” said the pleased Instructor to Mike, who made a quick salute and gravely remarked to the scouts:

  “Don’t be worrying, byes; I’ll recognize ye the same as before.”

  At a nod and wink from Patrol Leader Chase, the whole troop lined up in front of the astonished Mike and silently made the regulation salute. So far as it was possible to do so, his red face blushed and for the first time the waggish youth showed slight embarrassment, but he was instant to rally.

  “Comrade,” said Colgate Craig, “you can tuck in the end of your necktie.”

  “And why should I do the same?”

  “You have done your good turn for today.”

  “I’ll let me banner wave on the outside, for who shall say how many more good turns I shall have to do ye before night?”

  “There may be more truth in that remark then he suspects,” remarked Uncle Elk, who now gave the word to push on to his home, still fully a mile away. The Instructor kept pace with the scouts, walking a little to their right, while the Scout Master did the same on the left of the laughing, chattering, straggling party. All, however, made good use of their eyes and nothing worth seeing escaped them. It must be remembered that a goodly number of the boys lived in the country and had a more or less knowledge of the woods in the neighborhood of their own homes. Moreover, there is no marked difference between most of the trees in their neighborhood and those of Maine. Thus, a superb black walnut, nearly as tall as the giant pine, was identified at a glance by several of the youths, and Ernest Oberlander told of its hard, close-grained wood, dark, purplish gray in color and very durable; and of its fruit, two inches round, the stain from whose green husks has a way of sticking to one’s hands until sandpaper and soap are necessary to remove it.

  Every one was familiar with the white walnut or butternut. Its height is generally about half that of the walnut, its bark is smoother and its leaves similar in shape, but larger and coarser. Its leaflet stalks and new twigs are covered with a sticky brown substance. The leaves are very long, though the leaflets are less than six inches in length.

  “You know the delicious, oblong fruit with its prickly shell,” said the Instructor; “when you lay the nut on its side to break it open—”

  “No, you don’t,” interrupted Corporal Robe, quick to detect the little subterfuge of Uncle Elk to draw them out: “that isn’t the right way to crack a butternut.”

  “It isn’t!” repeated the old gentleman, in pretended surprise; “will you be good enough to explain the proper method?”

  “I don’t think there is much need of explaining, for every fellow knows or ought to know that you should stand the nut on one end and strike the top.”

  “What advantage do you gain by that plan?”

  “The meat is not broken,—that is if you are careful. I have often cracked a butternut so that the meat came out without a break.”

  “I like the butternut more than the walnut,” remarked Alvin Landon.

  “So do I, but it has another use than to serve as food or a luxury. Of course you can tell me what that is.”

  He looked into the expectant faces, but no one could answer him.

  “The oil is, or once was, very popular with jewelers. I remember that my father would squeeze out a drop, which was sufficient to lubricate all the works of the family clock. He applied the oil with a tiny feather and never needed more than the single drop. The jewelers have a refined fluid which serves their purposes, but father would never admit that any oil equaled that of the butternut. It has always been one of my favorites, much more so than that small tree growing in that dry sandy soil, which we call—what?”

  Considerable discussion took place before the Instructor accepted the name and description of the common or aspen-leaved birch, whose wood is soft, close grained, weak, splits in drying and is valueless for weather and ground work. Each armpit has a black, triangular scar, which does not appear in the canoe birch.

  Uncle Elk gave the boys a brief talk on the genus of trees known as the Betulaceœ or birch.

  “Its flowers grow in catkins—so called from their resemblance to a cat’s tail—whose scales are thin and three-lobed. With one exception the species grows beyond the tropic in the northern hemisphere.”

  “Will you tell us something about the birch from which canoes are made?” asked Scout Master Hall, and the faces of the boys showed their eagerness to hear the explanation which they knew awaited them.

  “The paper or canoe birch is the most valuable American kind. Cabinet makers sometimes use the wood, but it quickly decays when exposed to climatic changes. It sounds strange, but the bark is most esteemed because of its durable nature. Many times I have come upon a fallen birch which appeared to be perfectly sound, but on examination, I found the wood entirely rotted away, with the bark as firm and perfect as when the tree stood erect and was growing. You can easily see why it is so valuable for canoes. Would you like me to tell you how we make a birch canoe?”

  Every head nodded.

  “Of course I pick out the largest trees with the smoothest bark. In the spring I make two circular incisions several feet apart, with a longitudinal incision on each side. Pushing a wedge under the bark, it is easily lifted off. With threads prepared from the fibrous roots of the white spruce fir, the pieces of bark are sewn together over a framework of wood, and the seams are caulked with resin of the Balm of Gilead fir. Such boats are so light that they are readily carried over the shoulders of a boy when he finds it necessary to make a portage. My canoe weighs less than fifty pounds and will bear up four or five boys.”

  “I obsarved, Uncle Elk,” said Mike, who was one of the most interested of the listeners, “that ye have no seats in yer boat, which the same I fail to understand, as Jerry Hooligan said whin his taicher told him that if ye multiply one fraction by anither, the answer is less than aither of ’em.”

  “A birch canoe has no seat because the craft is so unstable it is almost certain to tip over with you; you have to sit as low as possible. The birch not only serves well for canoes, but log houses are often thatched with it, and small boxes, cases and even hats are manufactured from the same material. You are all fond of sweet birch and I can see you chewing the tender, aromatic bark, when you were barefooted boys on your way home from school.

  “The canoe is so unstable and sensitive that care is necessary to avoid accidents. In the first place there is the right and wrong way to enter it, with the probability that you will take the wrong one every time. This is what you should do: take the paddle in your right hand and lay it across the gunwale. Seize the outside gunwale with your left hand, resting the right on the other gunwale. Then put your left foot gently but steadily into the boat, being careful to place it exactly in the middle and follow with the other foot, after which you will kneel or sit as you prefer and can push away from the float. By this method you will preserve the equilibrium of the canoe and escape mishap.

  “By the way, you should never let the paddle pass out of your grasp, for in case of an upset, it will keep you afloat until help arrives. Nor should you go far without an extra paddle in case of breakage. If you have a lady companion, regard safety before grace. Grasp the nearest gunwale with your left hand, reach up your right and take her nearest hand. She should step in right foot first, grasping the outside gunwale to balance herself. Thus steadied, she can easily lift the left foot into the boat and sit down comfortably, using her right hand to arrange her skirts.

  “You should sit near the middle when alone, for, if too far toward the stern, the prow lifts up, and a puff of wind is sufficient to tip over the boat. If an upset occurs, don’t forget to keep a firm grasp upon your paddle, and don’t swim away from the overturned canoe. One of the craft seldom overturns completely, because you are pretty sure to plunge overboard so suddenly that the boat hasn’t time to take in much water. It is easy to climb in again, provided you know how to do it. Lay your paddle across the gunwale, yo
ur left hand grasping the paddle and middle brace; bring your legs sharply together as you do when climbing aboard a raft. This will lift the body far enough out the water to enable you to reach for the farther gunwale and you can roll yourself into the boat with no trouble at all.

  “Suppose you fall overboard with a companion. Remember the canoe will not sink of itself and each of you has retained his paddle. You approach from opposite directions, and one holds down his side of the canoe, while the other carefully climbs in, after which he can readily preserve the equilibrium while his friend joins him.

  “Remember these precautions: never change places in a canoe after leaving the shore, and avoid moving quickly. It is the easiest thing in the world to grasp a pond lily in passing and by means of the sudden pull overturn the craft; don’t even turn your head suddenly to look at another canoe that is passing; don’t frolic or try to stand up in the canoe, and in no case take out a lady without having a cork-stuffed pillow with you. Finally, no person should ever have anything to do with a canoe until he has learned how to swim.”

  “What kind of birch produces the most valuable timber?” asked Scout Master Hall.

  “The black or mahogany. Its reddish brown wood is hard and close-grained. When it attains the height of seventy feet, with a diameter of three feet, it is one of the handsomest trees in the forest. It buds early in spring, at which time its leaves are covered with a short thick coat of down, which disappears later in the season and leaves them of a vivid green color.”

  A little way ahead, the Instructor halted the scouts again. This time it was no pretence on his part when he expressed himself as surprised by what he saw. He stood for a minute or two viewing a tree some thirty feet high, with a score of green prickly burrs scattered here and there among the branches.

  “Why are you surprised?” asked the Scout Master.

  “Maine lies above the range of the chestnut, though now and then you come upon a specimen in the southern part of the state. That is the first one I have seen in this section and I doubt if another exists. I should be glad to welcome this tree, did I not know that it is already doomed. We have plenty of horse chestnuts, however.”