Blackwater Ben

by William Durbin

  As the head teamster, it was Day's job to supervise all the horses. When Ben asked him how he picked his teams, Day said, “You want to match 'em in size, gait, and personality. And though you wouldn't think it'd matter, I even factor in their color. A team that looks good pulls good.”

  Since Ben had always wanted to be a teamster, one day after supper he asked Pa, “How does a fellow get a team-ster's job?”

  “Same way as you learn to bake a pie. You practice.”

  “What your pa means,” Day said as he got up from the table, “is that it don't matter whether you're pulling a plow or a freight wagon, just as long as you study horses. The way a horse takes a bit in his mouth, the way he tenses his flanks or lifts his hind feet can tell you a world about how he's feeling. I'd wager that you've learned a few things piloting the swingdingle.”

  “I learned to keep my seat while Old Dan rests on a hill.”

  “Then you're on your way to being a teamster.” Day chuckled.

  “For now, our Mister Would-be Teamster better be picking up these dishes,” Pa said.

  CHARLIE'S STORY, OR PUNTING ON THE CHERWELL

  One Saturday morning Ben set down the breakfast tray and looked at Charlie.

  “Are you waiting for something?” Charlie asked.

  “Ain't you gonna finish that story about you waiting at the train station in Grand Rapids?”

  “Don't you have to run back to the cookshack?”

  “I'm not so rushed since Nevers hired on.”

  “Let me see.” Charlie set his glasses on the table. “I believe I told you about arriving in Grand Rapids?”

  “That's where you left off.”

  “On that particular day I was set on getting as far away from the civilized world as I could. That's why I'd bought a ticket to Pembina.”

  “And you said your problems were all due to a girl. But it wasn't that one.” Ben pointed to a photo by the bookcase.

  “You are an astute listener.” Charlie grinned. “The girl I refer to was the daughter of a mathematics professor. Back in Oxford I'd worked my way through school by singing in the choir and studying hard. You can't imagine how dull it is to spend your whole life translating old poems from Latin to English, but I'd done my A-level exams and won a scholarship to college. That's when the new professor arrived.”

  “I've read a few dull poems myself,” Ben said. “Did that professor by any chance have a pretty daughter?”

  “You guessed it. I fell for her hard, but her father was a mean bloke who despised commoners. He had hopes of his daughter marrying a titled man, but she and I saw each other in secret. One day I took her punting on the River Cherwell.”

  “What's punting?” Ben asked.

  “A punt's a flat-bottomed boat that you pole along. If you pack a basket lunch, it makes for a romantic afternoon. Her father happened to walk across the bridge as we were returning to the boat works. He took a swing at me with his umbrella and slipped on the wet planking. I reached out to catch him, but we both tumbled into the river. That was the end of my Oxford career. A month later the girl announced her engagement to a nobleman from Kent. I packed up my books and headed for America.”

  “But how does that other gal figure in?” Ben asked.

  “Remember how I told you that I was killing time at the station in Grand Rapids?”

  Ben nodded.

  “The train finally pulled in, and I climbed on board.But I'd no sooner handed the conductor my ticket when I saw a pretty girl out of the corner of my eye. Something clicked inside me. I hollered, ‘Hold the train,’ and got right off.”

  “She must have been real pretty,” Ben said.

  “The truth is I only had one glance, yet I sensed she was something special. I introduced myself to her father and asked permission to speak with her. Her name was Lucinda Warren, and she'd just been hired as the teacher in Blackwater.”

  “‘Why, isn't that a coincidence,’ I said to her, ‘I'm traveling to Blackwater, too.’ At the time I had no clue where Blackwater was, but I would have bought a ticket to China if she'd been headed there.”

  A strange thought struck Ben. “Did anyone call her Lucy?”

  “Some folks did. Is something wrong?”

  Ben stood up and walked closer to the picture. “Did she always wear that necklace?”

  “It was her favorite.”

  Ben thought back to the wedding picture on the wall back home. “And she was hired to teach in Blackwater?”

  “What are you driving at?”

  “My mother wore a necklace just like that,” Ben said slowly. “And before she got married she was a teacher.”

  Charlie's eyes widened.

  “I've never heard anyone call my mother anything but Lucy.”

  “Blimy O'Reilly!” Charlie's mouth dropped open and his glasses nearly fell off the end of his nose. “Don't tell me your mum was Lucinda Warren?”

  “And you were her beau!” Ben gaped at Charlie. It was even harder to imagine the filer going courting than it was to see him as a choirboy. Ben took a breath to steady himself. “Can you tell me what my mother was like? She died when I was real little.”

  “Died? Lucinda… gone?” Charlie stared at Ben. Then he turned away. When he finally looked up, he spoke slowly. “Of course, I'd heard that your pa was a widower. But I had no idea that—” He sighed. “And you sitting here and being her boy all along. It's too much to swallow at once.” Charlie and Ben both fixed their eyes on the photograph for a long time.

  “When did you start courting her?” Ben asked.

  “I tried to win her hand from the first moment that I saw her. But your pa is the lucky man she married.” Charlie stopped again. “The whole thing flabbergasts me.”

  “What sort of a lady was she?” Ben asked.

  “Like I said before, she was real pretty. But she had more than good looks. You could call it grace or style.”

  Charlie waved toward his bookshelf. “A poem in one of my books comes closest to telling what she was like. It's called ‘She Walks in Beauty.’ Lucinda had a light in her eyes that could lift you off your feet.”

  “Whatever happened between the two of you?”

  “Bennnn …” It was Pa yelling.

  “Sorry”—Ben opened the door—“but I gotta go.” Charlie nodded.

  Ben ran back to the cookshack. “Pa, you'll never guess what Charlie told me.”

  “Who cares what that cranky old dentist said? We ain't got time for guessing games around here, unless you plan on driving an empty swingdingle out to the cut and letting those loggers lunch on you.”

  Fine, Ben thought. This can stay between me and Charlie.

  The next day Ben was so anxious to hear Charlie finish his story that he brought the man's lunch over a half hour early. Charlie began where he'd left off. “I had big hopes for me and Lucinda, but her father took to me more than she did. Her pa was so pleased to hear that I was going to Blackwater that he asked if I would look after his daughter. It was a big improvement over that blighter in Oxford knocking me into the River Cherwell.”

  “So you went to Blackwater?”

  “That very day,” Charlie said.

  Just then Nevers tapped on the door. “Your pa asked me to get Old Dan, so you'd better hurry.”

  “I need to get cracking on these saws, anyway,” Charlie said.

  “Promise you'll finish telling the story?”

  “Of course.”

  When Ben got back to the cookshack, Pa was talking to Nevers. “You do any teamstering in Carolina?”

  “I've done some plowing,” Nevers said, “but we favor smaller animals. Lots of farmers get by with a pair of mules.”

  “Mules are smart,” Pa said, “but they could never move the tonnage of wood we need. Some camps use oxen, but that old saying dumb as a ox is true. Only advantage to an ox is it makes decent soup if it dies on the job.”

  Nevers was still laughing at Pa's joke when Ben walked in. “'Member that blind mule the
Montgomerys owned?” Ben asked, trying to keep Pa in his good mood. “He could plow all day and all night, but Maggie went and sold him'cause he kicked her cat in the head.”

  But Pa only said, “We'd better quit gabbing about livestock and get back to work, here.”

  THE DEACON'S BENCH

  Nevers made his daily contributions to the hospital kitty without complaining until one Sunday. The trouble started when Jiggers reached in front of Packy and stabbed the last two sweat pads off Nevers's platter.

  Packy looked mean at Jiggers and mumbled, “Il faut savoir tirer parti du pire.”

  Nevers marched back to the kitchen and spoke to Pa.

  “Packy's swearin’ in French.”

  “How do you know he's swearin'?”

  “Cussin’ should cost a fellow a penny no matter what language it's in.”

  “French don't count,” Pa said, “but I'm liable to start chargin’ whiners a penny if you don't quit complainin'.”

  “I still say it ain't fair.”

  Because it was Sunday and Ben didn't have to get the swingdingle ready, he was hoping to quiz the dentist about his mother. But when Ben stepped inside the filer's shack, Charlie wouldn't even look up from his saw.

  Ben looked at Charlie and then at the picture of Lucinda Warren. Charlie finally said, “You waiting for something?”

  “You promised you'd finish your story.”

  “Your father must know a lot more about your mum than me.”

  “Whenever I ask him, he always changes the subject.”

  “But your grandpa must have talked—” Charlie stopped. “I forgot that Lucy's father died, didn't he? I'll be. So you know absolutely nothing about your mother?”

  Ben nodded.

  “You can see for yourself she was lovely,” Charlie said.“But the thing I admired most about Lucinda was her good humor and her grit. She was only seventeen the fall she started teaching in Blackwater. Some of the lads were twice her size, but that didn't make a whit of difference to her.”

  “And you followed her all the way there?” Ben asked.

  “I was a bloody nutter for doing it.” Charlie shook his head. “But there was something about her I couldn't resist. Looking back, I should've known better. The fact that her father took a liking to me was the kiss of death. You know how young folks are. If their parents want them to do a thing, they do the opposite.” Charlie paused. “I tried everything I could to win her over. There were other fellows trying to court her, but I always got there first. I'd sweep out the schoolhouse. I'd take her to church. When there was a dance, I'd slick back my hair and dress up in a fancy evening coat that I'd brought from England. But Lucy never seemed to be impressed.”

  “Didn't you tell her how you felt?” Ben was trying to imagine how different Charlie must have looked back then.

  “I talked myself blue. And looking back, I can see that was another miscalculation.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “She must have thought I was barmy. I told her I loved her every time I saw her. I bought her flowers and candy. I proposed marriage at least twice each week.”

  “Did she ever hint that she might say yes?” Ben asked.

  “Whenever things started going well, her father wrote to her, asking how the handsome young Englishman was doing and if we'd set a date yet. His hints and me campaigning like I was in the final week of a parliamentary election got to be too much for her.”

  Ben tried to imagine what it would have been like to have an educated fellow like Charlie for his pa.

  “Like a fool, I kept pressing,” Charlie said. “One afternoon we got into an argument. I said, ‘Either we get engaged right now or else.'”

  “She said, ‘Or else what?’ ”

  “I was too proud to take it back. So I said, ‘Or else I'm taking a job at a logging camp.’ ”

  “ ‘Have a good time,’ she said.”

  “By the next day I realized I'd been daft, but I headed to a camp in Silverdale anyway. That winter I figured I'd teach her a lesson by never writing a single letter.”

  “Is that when you learned to be a filer?” Ben asked.

  “Filer?” Charlie laughed. “I was the most useless logger you've ever seen. The push tried me at every job in camp. He finally settled on road monkey. All I'd known at Oxford was singing and studying.”

  “Did you ever go back to see her?”

  “After the spring breakup I got spiffed up and planned on surprising her. But on my way to a dance a fellow told me that Lucy was engaged to another man—that must have been your pa.” Charlie looked down at his bench and tapped his file. “I balled up my swallowtail coat and threw it into the river.”

  “Is that when you decided not to take any more baths?”

  Charlie smiled sadly. “It wasn't as if I decided to give up bathing on a certain day. First I stopped shaving. Then I stopped buying new clothes. Pretty soon I'd worked a whole winter without setting foot in the boiling-up shack. Instead of heading to town that spring, I signed on as a summer watchman. For one stretch I stayed in the woods eleven straight years.”

  “Weren't you lonesome?”

  “Nary once. It's peaceful out here in the summer. There's fishing and berry picking. Best of all, a fellow's got time to read and think. Another writer named Henry David Thoreau—he was one of your mum's favorites— summarized it best when he said, ‘I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.'

  “That fall I hired on as a lumberjack again, and an old Scotsman taught me the filer's trade. Since those fellows tend to be secretive, I was flattered that he showed me his technique. He must have known he didn't have much time left. He passed on the next summer.”

  “What's the big secret about saw filing?”

  “There's more to sharpening a misery whip than putting an edge on the steel,” Charlie said. “Before I start, I want to know the temperature, humidity, and the kind of wood the saw will be used on.”

  “Like if you're cutting oak or pine?”

  “I try to be even more exact. I set the teeth a little differently depending on whether the jacks will be in red or white pine.

  “Speaking of filing, I'd better get back to my sharpening, or the boys will be knocking my door down tomorrow morning.”

  Later that afternoon Ben and Nevers walked down to the bunkhouse. Since Ben couldn't stand keeping Charlie's courting a secret anymore, he told Nevers.

  “Go on,” Nevers said.

  “I'm serious.”

  Nevers turned to Ben, talking fast for a change.“You mean to tell me that ole coot coulda been your daddy?”

  “Charlie said he used to dress up real fancy and go to country dances,” Ben said.

  “I wouldn't let that man into a barn dance if the cows were still inside,” Nevers said. “You fixin’ to tell your pa?”

  “He don't care.”

  “Your pa cares more than you think.” Ben was about to ask Nevers what he meant when Nevers asked, “Is this a dry camp?”

  “The push don't allow no liquor.”

  “Good,” Nevers said. “At my last camp whenever the boys got liquored up a fight would start.”

  “Jacks and drinking don't mix,” Ben agreed. “We had a fellow named Bill Malone rooming at Mrs. Wilson's. No one knew he was a drinker until Mrs. Wilson got called to the doctor's office one evening. Bill was so kegged up he'd mistook a mannequin for a pretty girl and jumped through the dress shop window. Had twenty stitches across his cheek and arm.” Ben paused. “That reminds me that I haven't got Mrs. Wilson her Christmas present yet.”

  “Presents is scarcer than hens’ teeth out here,” Nevers said. “What'd you get her last year?”

  “A little mirror,” Ben said. “But the pencil pusher's got nothing but clothes and jackknives in his store.”

  “You could make her something,” Nevers said.

  “How would I do that?”

  “There was a carpenter—the only decent fellow at the orphanage—who sh
owed me some woodworking projects.”

  “Do you think we could find some wood?”

  “This here's a lumber camp, ain't it?” Nevers said.

  As the boys neared the bunkhouse, Nevers asked, “Do any of the jacks dose themselves?”

  “A few buy patent medicines from the pencil pusher,” Ben said. “They complain of everything from rheumatism to heart palpitations, but they'll buy any ole bottle that has alcohol in it. Arno's favorite brand is Dr. Bingham's Liver Tonic. He claims it eases a shoulder ache, but I've noticed his pain magically shifts from here to here.” Ben jabbed Nevers in the right shoulder and then the left.

  “Cut that out,” Nevers said, poking him back. When Ben opened the door, Windy called, “Hey, Benny Boy. Looks like you brought your new helper.”

  Packy's eyes lit up when he saw Nevers. “Hi there, second cookee. Tout ce qui brille n'est pas or.”

  “Cut that out,” Nevers said. “Cussing at me in the cookshack is bad enough.”

  “En Avril ne te découvre pas d'un fil,” Packy shot back.

  Nevers turned to Windy. “Tell him to stop.”

  “Packy can talk any language he wants in this bunkhouse.”

  “Just ignore him,” Ben said. “And be careful where you sit. Every deacon's bench is shared by the two fellows who have the nearest bunks. That one looks open.” He pointed beside Windy.

  “You look a little glum today,” Windy said to Ben.

  “Pa's been crabby lately.”

  “Crabby!” Jiggers laughed from the card table. “Jack Ward is the most gentlemanly cook I've ever met.”

  “Nevers said the same thing.”

  “He's right,” Jiggers said. “I knew a cook who tossed a meat cleaver at a jack. He missed his target and clipped the earlobe off an innocent fellow who was sipping his swamp water.”

  “Pa seems plenty grouchy to me,” Ben said.

  “Jack is a talented flapjack flipper, too,” Windy said.“Try working off the Gut and Liver Line Railroad sometime. The cook is a short fellow named Mickey Mannheim who serves nothing but wieners and liver.”