Blackwater Ben

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  TADPOLE, Ruth White

  MR. TUCKET, Gary Paulsen

  TUCKET'S RIDE, Gary Paulsen

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  THUNDER ROLLING IN THE MOUNTAINS, Scott O'Dell

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  DELL YEARLING BOOKS are designed especially to entertain and enlighten young people. Patricia Reilly Giff, consultant to this series, received her bachelor's degree from Marymount College and a master's degree in history from St. John's University. She holds a Professional Diploma in Reading and a Doctorate of Humane Letters from Hofstra University. She was a teacher and reading consultant for many years, and is the author of numerous books for young readers.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book would not have been possible without the help of the Minnesota Historical Society's Forest Center in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. The skill of the historical reenactors and the knowledge of Skip Drake, Terri Kilduff, and Ed Nelson made it possible for me to step back in time and visit a turn-of-the-century logging camp.

  I would also like to extend special thanks to my friends Vic, Frank, Don, Elmer, Bud, Bill, Tony, and Roger, fine lumberjacks one and all, and to Judith Blycert for helping me with my French.

  Finally, my gratitude goes out to my editor, Wendy Lamb, and her staff at Wendy Lamb Books; my agent, Barbara Markowitz; and my family, Barbara, Jessica, and Reid, for their continued support and encouragement.

  TO BARBARA JO, AGAIN AND ALWAYS

  LOGGING CAMP GLOSSARY, OR LUMBERJACK LINGO

  What does it mean when a lumberjack says, “The ground-hogs are sending a blue butt up to the sky hook”? Use this glossary of logging camp terms to find out.

  BARN BOSS: Cares for the horses and maintains the horse barn.

  BLACKJACK: Coffee.

  BLUE BUTT: Pine log with a big “bell” at one end. It is dangerous to load because it can easily spin out of control.

  BOILING-UP SHACK: Place to bathe and do laundry. Rarely used.

  BULL COOK: General maintenance man of the camp. Also in charge of the bunkhouse.

  CALKS, CAULKS, OR CORKS: Sharp spikes set in the soles of loggers’ boots. Also, the spikes in the horses’ shoes.

  COOK: Head cook. Orders the food, supervises the kitchen staff, and plans all the meals.

  COOKEE: Cook's helper.

  CUT: Area of the woods where the loggers are harvesting timber.

  DEACON'S BENCH: Seat built at the foot of each bunk.

  DENTIST OR FILER: Sharpens the teeth on the crosscut saws.

  FORGE: Furnace for heating metal to be wrought or welded.

  FOUR-HORSE TEAMSTER: Hauls the logs to the landing.

  GAZEBO: Greenhorn or beginner.

  GRAYBACKS: Lice. Also known as traveling dandruff, blue jackets, and crumbs.

  GROUNDHOG OR SENDING-UP MAN: Helps guide the logs onto the hauling sleds.

  IRON MAN: Blacksmith. Repairs the steel and iron in camp. Also makes and fits horseshoes.

  LANDING: Area where logs are piled before being transported by rail, river, or road to the sawmill.

  LOG DRIVER OR RIVER RAT: Helps drive the logs downriver to the mill after the spring breakup.

  MISERY WHIP: Two-man crosscut saw used by sawyers to fell trees.

  NOTCHER OR UNDERCUTTER: Notches the trees with an ax to determine in which direction they will fall.

  PENCIL PUSHER: Camp clerk. Keeps the payroll, orders supplies, and manages the camp store.

  PUSH: Foreman.

  ROAD MONKEY: Helps with road maintenance, shoveling road apples (manure) off the ice roads, and haying the hills.

  SAWYERS OR FELLERS: Work in pairs, using a crosscut saw to fell trees.

  SHOEPACK PIE: Pie made out of vinegar, cornstarch, and sugar, sometimes flavored with lemon extract or vanilla.

  SKID MAN OR SKIDDING TEAMSTER: Skids the logs out of the woods to the edge of the ice roads.

  SKY HOOK OR TOP LOADER: Aristocrat of the logging camp. In charge of loading the logs onto the hauling sleds.

  SKY PILOT: Minister who travels from camp to camp.

  SNOOZE: Snuff. A tobacco product. Also known as Scandihoovian dynamite, galloping dust, Swedish brain food.

  SWAMPER: Clears the trails for the skid men and saws the logs into sixteen-foot lengths after they are felled.

  SWAMP WATER: Tea.

  SWINGDINGLE: Lunch sleigh that is used to haul food to the loggers working at the cut.

  TOTE TEAMSTER: Drives a wagon or a sleigh to and from town, delivering supplies to the logging camps.

  WANIGAN: Floating cookshack that follows the log drivers.

  WATER TANK CREW: Pulls a sled-mounted wooden water tank down the road to build up the ice ruts.

  WOOD BUTCHER: Carpenter. Also does harness work.

  DAYLIGHT IN THE SWAMP BLACKWATER LOGGING CAMP, 1898

  “Daylight in the swamp!” Pa yelled. Ben groaned and turned over. Pa's voice had two volumes: loud and louder. Ben squinted in the lantern light. Pa's square shoulders filled the doorway of the bunk room. “Roll out or roll up,” he said.

  Ben scrambled to pull on his wool pants and socks. Before he had tied his boots, he heard Pa lift the lid of the kitchen range and chuck in a stick of wood. “Hey, cookee, our bread will never rise if we don't get it warmed up in here,” Pa called.

  Ben buttoned his shirt and looked at his pocket watch. It was quarter past four. His eyes burned from woodsmoke as he stepped from the bunk room into the kitchen. He hurried over and added wood to the potbellied stove. Then he filled a washbasin from the pail of water on top of the range and splashed his hands and face. But when he reached for a towel, Pa said, “Don't forget the soap.”

  The second cook's helper, Skip, smirked like he always did whenever Pa corrected Ben.

  Ben hustled to the counter to help. “About time you got here.” Pa didn't look up from the bean pot he was stirring. “Ain't you forgetting something?”

  “I washed my hands.”

  When Ben saw Skip grin again, he remembered that he hadn't put on his apron. “Sorry, Pa,” Ben said, reaching for the wooden rack where they hung the towels and aprons.

  “Sorry won't cut it if these lumberjacks get sick from a dirty kitchen.” Pa wouldn't let Ben or Skip near the food without scrubbing their hands and tying on their aprons, and he insisted that they wear white shirts. “I seen cookees come straight from the barn without washing. We ain't gonna have that in this camp.”

  “It wasn't like I was out feeding the horses,” Ben said, knowing it was wrong to argue but not being able to stop himself.

  “You forgot the rules.”

  “But—”

  “Everybody in this cookshack follows my rules.” Pa set down his spoon. “Am I clear?” Pa had learned his cooking in the army, and he was a stickler for rules. Skip was grinning bigger now.

  “Yes, sir,” Ben said.

  “What are the two questions a jack always asks before he signs on at a logging camp?” Pa asked. Pa was one of the few lumberjacks without a beard, and his clean-shaven jaw was tight. His hair was neatly parted down the middle and slicked back.

  “Well?” Pa said.

  Skip jumped in. “He asks, ‘Who's the cook?'”

  “And ‘Who's the foreman?’ ” Ben added.

  “Say push, stupid, not foreman,” Skip said.

  “That's right,” Pa said, putting the lid back on the bean pot. “Nobody wants to spend a winter in the woods with a dirty hash slinger or an ornery push. There's only two things these jacks can look forward to: mealtime a
nd springtime.”

  “And mealtime comes a whole lot sooner,” Skip said, finishing one of Pa's favorite sayings.

  “Which is what makes our job so important,” Pa added, beaming.

  No matter how often Pa told Ben to be proud of his cookee's duties, greasing pans, frying flapjacks, cleaning lamp chimneys, and washing dishes were not Ben's idea of important jobs. Last fall when Pa asked Ben to work at the Blackwater Logging Camp, Ben had imagined himself felling giant pines and driving a four-horse team. So far the closest he'd gotten to holding reins was tying his apron strings.

  Ben started the oatmeal boiling and opened a gallonsized can of stewed prunes. The men called prunes logging berries, and they insisted on having them at every meal. Baked beans were also served for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Ben set four pans of sowbelly in the oven to brown. Then he helped Pa mix up the batter for his sourdough flapjacks, known as sweat pads.

  As soon as breakfast was ready, Pa said, “Fetch me the Gabriel horn.” Ben took down the five-foot-long tin horn from its hook on the log wall and handed it to Pa. Steam rushed in as Pa stepped through the door and blew into the bugle-style mouthpiece.

  Before the third blast had echoed over the clearing, the bunkhouse door swung open and Packy Peloquin stepped out. Tucking in his wool shirt and tying a bright red sash around his middle—the other lumberjacks wore suspenders—Packy trotted toward the cookshack. “Look who's up,” Pa said, knowing that Packy was the first in line for every meal. He was barely five feet tall, but he ate so much that Pa teased him about having a hollow leg.

  Unlike most of the jacks, Packy was always friendly.“ Bonjour, Benjamin,” he said, smiling, but the moment he stepped inside the cookshack, he was quiet. The jacks were allowed to wave an empty platter and call for more food, but table talk was forbidden. Anyone who violated Pa's rule missed the next meal.

  Skip was scraping the fried spuds onto a platter, and Ben was about to scoop the last batch of doughnuts out of the big cast-iron frying pan when he heard a yell out the back door. “Was that Pa?” Ben asked.

  “He just stepped outside to go to the root cellar,” Skip said. “I hope he didn't hurt hisself.”

  Ben was used to Pa's shouting, but the only time he had heard Pa yell that loudly was when he'd plowed over a wasps’ nest.

  Skip pushed the back door open and ran to the root cellar.

  Ben lit a lantern and followed. At the cellar, he heard Skip say, “I'm real sorry, Mr. Ward. I meant to close the syrup spigot, but—”

  “But nothing!” Pa roared.

  Ben noticed a sweet scent as he walked down the steps. Pa's face was flushed, and amber liquid dripped from his hands. He'd tripped and fallen into an inch-deep puddle of maple syrup.

  “I'll teach you a lesson.” Pa grabbed at Skip, and the cookee trampled Ben's feet as he ran up the stairs. “Come back here, you laggard pup.”

  “Don't, Pa,” Ben called, but Pa brushed past him. Ben raced up the steps and out of the cellar, but Skip was already scooting into the cookshack with Pa only two strides behind. “Pa,” Ben yelled, but he might as well have been shouting at the wall.

  When Ben opened the back door, the air was filled with black smoke. The doughnuts were on fire. While Pa chased Skip toward the front door, Ben ran to the wood range and slid the pan aside. Then he turned.

  Twenty openmouthed lumberjacks had cleared a path down the middle of the cookshack. They were lined up like they were watching a race at a Fourth of July picnic. A row of sticky footprints led across the floor. Pa's apron flapped to one side, and he was waving a soup ladle at Skip as he ran. “Wait till I get my hands on you, you little pipsqueak.”

  Pa hit top speed just as Arno Edwards, the blacksmith, opened the front door. Arno, who was half asleep, made the mistake of watching Skip leap off the steps. He turned, and Pa and Arno crashed belly to belly and pitched off the steps and onto the ground.

  Pa was covered with snow when he got up. He yelled,

  “You better run, you pup, you.” Then he reached down and helped Arno up. Arno looked at his syrup-coated hand and mumbled, “Thanks, I guess.”

  The men in the cookshack burst out laughing.

  “What's so funny?” Pa marched back inside. “Haven't you ever seen a—”

  “You mean haven't we ever seen a man take a bath in maple syrup?” interrupted the push, Bob Collins.

  Pa said, “Ben, you see these boys get their breakfast. I've got to clean up a little.”

  As Pa filled a washbasin at the back counter, Ben set out the serving platters. The push lent a hand in carrying out the oatmeal and fried spuds and sowbelly.

  The jacks normally ate without so much as a whisper, but today they couldn't help chuckling.

  By the time Pa had put on a clean white shirt, the jacks had left for the cut. Ben was hoping Pa would appreciate how he'd saved the meal and see how funny it all was, but Pa only said to the push, “You gonna see that scoundrel is sent down the road?”

  “I'll take care of Skipper as soon as I finish my coffee, Jack,” the push said.

  Ben was about to tell Pa that he had a bunch of syrup stuck in his hair, but he thought better of it when Pa stepped into the kitchen and pointed at the burned doughnuts. “You plan on goin’ into the charcoal business?”

  WINTER DREAMS

  As Ben picked up the breakfast dishes, he thought back to the day Pa had asked him to the logging camp. That particular morning began like any other in Blackwater. Ben walked across town to the one-room schoolhouse, wishing he could skip his classes.

  It was only the last week in October, but Ben was already sick of school. No matter how hard he tried to behave, he was always getting in trouble. He never sassed his teacher, Miss Stanish, or called her by her nickname, Miss Stench, like some of the boys did, but he was always getting scolded for blurting out answers and not being able to sit still. Ben couldn't help that he was talkative. He'd grown up chatting with Mrs. Wilson, a kindly, white-haired widow who'd helped raise him after his mother died. Ben was just a baby when he and Pa had moved into Evy Wilson's boardinghouse in Blackwater, and Mrs. Wilson had been like a grandma, mother, and aunt all rolled into one.

  Mrs. Wilson was fond of saying, “Conversation is an art worthy of cultivation,” but in Miss Stanish's room a student wasn't allowed to say a word unless they were called on to stand beside their desk and recite.

  When Ben forgot himself and spoke out of turn, Miss Stanish aimed her ruler at him like she was sighting down a rifle. “Benjamin J. Ward,” she'd say. Her hair was pulled into such a tight bun that her eyebrows were half-moons.

  “Must I remind you to show proper decorum like your classmates?”

  Ben wasn't sure what decorum meant, but he knew that the only other students in seventh grade were two prissy, apple-polishing girls named Abigail Montgomery and Martha Newcomb.

  At exactly eight o'clock every morning, Miss Stanish rang her bell, and the nineteen first- through eighth-grade students lined up outside the front door of the school. With girls on the left and boys on the right, they marched silently in and hung their coats on opposite sides of the room.

  Once the students took their seats, they had to keep their feet flat on the floor, backs straight, and hands folded on top of their desks. When Ben tugged at his itchy collar, Miss Stanish pointed her ruler and said, “Stop that fidgeting, Benjamin Ward.”

  After she took attendance, Miss Stanish said, “Class, you may stand and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.” By then Ben was twisting in his seat and grateful for a chance to stretch.

  The school day was a steady stream of reading, spelling, arithmetic, and penmanship. As difficult as it was for Ben to sit in silence, it pained him more to watch the younger students forced to be so quiet. At recess Ben did his best to see that everyone had fun. King of the Hill was their favorite game, and Ben made sure that everyone got to play, even though Abigail and Martha teased him from the girls’ side of the playground.

  Ben didn
't get yelled at again until after lunch, when Miss Stanish held her once-a-week Blab School session. During Blab School everyone opened their McGuffey readers and read out loud at the same time. It was hard enough for Ben to concentrate when it was quiet. His book was filled with dull poems by authors with yard-long names like William Cullen Bryant and Oliver Wendell Holmes. As soon as the chorus of readings began, he got an instant headache. Ben only moved his lips and pretended to read. But after a while he got bored and tried to improve on the seashell poem he was supposed to be studying:

  T HIS IS THE SHIP OF PEARL,

  WHICH, POETS FEIGN

  SAILS THE UNSHADOWED MAIN.

  Instead, he recited his own lines:

  I F ONLY THIS SHIP

  WOULD GO DOWN THE DRAIN

  A ND SPARE MY ACHING BRAIN.

  “Benjamin!” Miss Stanish suddenly shouted behind him. “How dare you defile the words of ‘The Chambered Nautilus'?”

  That afternoon Ben had to stay after school and wash the blackboards, fill the inkwells, and carry in firewood.

  On his way home he met Nell, a lady with bright red hair who owned the fanciest saloon in town. Nell favored purple dresses and tall, feathered hats. “You look like you've had a rough day, Mr. Ward,” she called, her raspy voice blaring through the open door. “Care to belly up to the bar?”

  “No, thank you, ma'am.” Ben blushed even though he knew she was teasing. Most of the joints on Main Street were tents and rough board shacks, but Nell's place had a player piano, a plateglass mirror, and a polished mahogany bar with a brass foot rail.

  Nell's long ruffled skirts swished as she stepped outside. The wooden sidewalk echoed under her high buckled shoes. “Is that old Miss Stinker being mean to you again?” Nell laughed and tousled Ben's hair.

  Ben looked across the muddy street to see if anyone had overheard. “She ain't been too bad,” he said.

  Nell smiled. “You're a crafty man, damning by faint praise like that.”

  “I'd better get home, ma'am. I promised to help Mrs. Wilson with her canning.”