There is a sprinkling of Canadians
among the lumbermen, and as a whole they are the most honest,
good-natured, childlike set of men in existence. They are the true
priests of those high and dim-green temple-aisles--priests of Nature
one might call them. The cabins of the bark-peelers are made of rough,
sweet-smelling hemlock planks. The smell of the hemlock bark is fresh
and tonical, and appetizing in the highest degree. The men eat fabulous
quantities of food: some require five meals a day. I well remember my
first meal in a mountain hemlock shanty. Imagine a long table of
unpainted boards with X-shaped legs, and along each side of the table
benches for seats. Let there be upon the table three large bowls of
black sugar, here and there towering stacks of white bread (the slices
an inch thick at least), and beside each cover a teacup and saucer, a
huge bowl filled to the brim with steaming-hot apple-sauce, together
with a bowl of the same dimensions containing beans. Now blow the
supper-horn, and hearken to the far halloo from the mountain-side.
Twenty blowzed and bearded men, ravenous and wild-eyed with hunger,
presently file into the room. They sit down: there is an awful and
solemn silence--they are evidently impressed with the momentous
importance of the occasion.
Pages:
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353