Document text
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
STATE New York
NAME OF WORKER. Mei Swenson
ADDRFS 228 W. 22nd St. New York City
DATE CO 11, 1938
SUBJECI• LORE OF THE LOUBERJACE8
1. Date and time of interview
2. Place of interview
3. Name and address of informant
October 5th Mud 6th, 1938
His home
1151 !!!117gth St. N. Y. C.
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanyin you
6. Description of room, house, surroundimr,s, etc.
FOLKLORE
NEW YORE
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
yoRM C
Iuxt of Iiiterview (Lnedited)
STATE Vew York
Ni\!: E OF R May Swenson
ADDUSS
DATE
226 W. 22nd St. New York City
October 118 1938
LORE OF Ti-iE LUMBLRJACKS
FOLKLOBP
NE1.4. YORK
John Rivers was sitting on the stoop smoking his pipe. He
had on a well-worn black overcoat, but no hat on his grisly close -cropped head.
-*Pretty cool today in spite of the sump. I greeted him.
*New- he said. ...I likes it... I like a nip to the aire., A slyness
crept into his smiles and he closed one eye. **Irreokon you've come to pester me
for a story. Mal, cone on in... lie took me to his roam at the back of the flat.
-The wife ain't home- be stated after we were seated. -Good thing
be laughed. .She was askint me who the young lady was that was here thl other day.
told her 'teas none a her bis. She got a little hopped about it. She's likely
-V take a broomhandle to ye if she catches a young gal anoopin' in here.... Vial,
y, know I'm just foolin'...just a little joke, a little gag as yl might say.
le laughed again.
*Will you think me too personal if 1 ask how you lost your fingerI•
I asked, thinking there might be a story behind the stub of a forefinger came
against which his pipe rested.
-Wal, the cross -saw got it, long ago... Yoh, the two -handled saw
y, use at the base of a big tree cuttin" it down* Yfals 'bout forty yearn it's been
I've been minus ne finger. I dont 4 it no more ...News lumberjaokin$ ain't
so dangerous for them as knows their job... I member one yoling feller though...
a high.0olimber* he was.., up a big un 400 foot or more... loppie the top.
Wel, it was a young tree., plenty spring in it yet, an' wnen the top ripped
off it thrawed the guy right off, from the way it snapped back. A lover limb
oaught him by the chin where he fell, and his nook was broke before he hit the
ground. his safety belt broke on 'in. But that sort a thing only happened
very seldom...very seldom an accident or nothin. ...Y1 know my wife laughs
tt me for talkinl always like I'm doin' about ma lumberin' days...says I got a
fix** on it. hal, I guess there** a grain a truth there...YUps them was the days
I like to remember ant I liked that work...bein out doors all ye:ether* an' all.
It's a man's work alright...nonl a yerehite collars has got the stuff nawdays....
I been in lots a businesses. I been in rail-roading a ICUs, an I worked in the
mills***, an I been in fruit produce.. trucking. Seen a good bit a the country
imply younger days an I tell you thar mu:nit no talk of depression then... not
that times were better. They was tough. Ant tougher than now. Yup. But nobo4
cried for better or sat dawn and waited for government relief. No sir. The yo,Ing
buoks them days was up an doint an they made their awn way. 1Thout college
edioationa too. Ay pinion this college degree business does more harm than good*
Uakes 'ou soft. Aakes gem all think they're oollet-,e professor* an workine with
their hands not ,00d enough for 'sm. Listen. .trouble with young people today is hey
think too much and do too litt.e Yup. Ylotte postpone settini and thirkin' till
yer old like me, When there ain't nothinl better tl look forward to. Be up an' doinl,
young lady. That's my adtiroe t' young people. Go ahead and get some place an' ea.
yor thinkine later.
Them days there was a frontier of industry, yl say? Yoh, that's
an o f argement. There ain't nothine new t' explore, yl say, eh? No room for new
*High olimbersi.. A man who tops off the top of a tall tree before it is sawed down
from below.
**fox: fixation
***mills.sew mills.
enterprise, the frontier onet Listen, don't let haa kid ye, sister. There's
always room to spread out.... Hey, what about the frontiers of the sky? Haw,
I don't mean Venus and lArs.• an' we can't quite reach fbr the moon yet, neither...
ha, ha. But lookit airyplanes. Don't yah knaw there's a fronteer ain't hardly been
touched. It's one my ideas, that there Frontier of the Sky. Y' know it was
machinery all along, by golly, made new industry. It was autymobiles,
first mail, than transportation, thendevelopment till soon everyday use of them
new contraptions speedin employment an' progress. Transportation had a lot t* do
with settling the country. An' now we got the airyplane ant the radio. The
airyplane is just a gadget of luxury yet, but wait. Pretty soon for them as has
get-up to Ism, airyplanes '11 he used for everything...all kinds of hauling ant
commereial traffic: an' for vehicles for any person to go places. You, sir, the
sky'll be full a'emp.....ant they'll have to have traffic lights up there. An' listen,
when Europe comes to be no further away accord/no to time, Y' unlerstan, than say,
Ploridy or up North, Ca:lady...why a little two-bit squirt won't stand a Chinaman's
chance a takin things over. Cause airyplanes an' radios are gonna make the
world one same state. An' a little squirt of a two-bit upstart with a smudge
on his upper lipoll get slanned in the jug for meddlint with what's too blig fer
him. An' listen, don't get no wrong. I ain't no Coominist. But I cot my awn
ideas, y9 unoerstan. An you put a mark on my word, the world ain't so big but
what a few men with brains an' the gadgets they can think up with them brains, can't
shrink it, till its small enough to handle uner one govermint system. Yup, air's
the thing novdays. Y9 see men are getting their litnGs badk..-see? An' radio.- air
see what I mean? Air --the new frontieri--
After this impressive harangue, I ventured to ask Ur. Rivers,
haw a woman assuming she comes within his category of the "go-getting type",
ought to go about securing a place on the "new frontier of the sky."
-Listen. he loaned forward in his rocker, and roved his pipe,
gesturing for emphasis* 0Listsm* 1 *int got nothin* against winin* un*erstan*
limin are a most nesossary ga4got in a en's Wows lie winked broadly* But
wimin aro *akin* a mistake floundrie *round like they do in a mange world*
limin has forgotten her Auto* Liston* do you see a chicken struttin* around
orawin* an* wearin* a comb? IlOyuh see a good milk ovw tryin* t* dry up her
toots an* runnia* round bellerin** boliovin* shell be gain* in the bull ring?
Animal:8 got more sense than humans some nays* Rope. By golly a mum should
stay a moan an* not try t* mix in with menis dome. Now, you'd bo a lot
happier yerself* stayta* ham: 000kint for a good man than runain* around the town
gettin* stories for a newspapor or whatever it is yer gottin 'en for* A eonan
ought to fix on bean* a good wife an* mother* belt& sweet an compaaionablo to some
busboy.** an* helpin* him in his wort: by not Nan* too curious about it. limin
gat funny minds* They're made good for arguin* but never far settlie anythin**
Lot's a 'Amin are smarter than men when it comas to thiYkin* up highootatutin*
things* but they ain't prastiolo* They ain't Got Good prestiols hose Bence* an*
so their minds are dangerous* The more a woman leaves her mind alone the bettor
woman she makes, I always may. An above all it's unb000mmin* to a WOMOA to try
to be like a man* A ehistlial gal an* a orowin* hen Neither will come to no
good end 0 they used t say. Ant there's a lot a truth in that there
While ve were talking, had heard stops moving about in the
kitohon, and now Mrs. Rivers appeared in the doorway, arms akimbo over her apron*
She is a short plump woman with very white hair, pulled back in a
*bun* on the nape of her neck* Looks to be about 60* Pale blue eyes* small
features, false teeth with very red gums, which click as she talks*
Mr* Rivers wriggled in his chair* seeming slightly diswmaforted*
and :raids
.40110 'Gail,* (Re had told me his wife's name was Abigail)
*Tou just °one in frtatmarketins? This here young lady same's was hero thl
other day is peatorin =for t' tell her a story about the lumber oamp**but I
ain't told her nothint yet.*
*Hoy do? 40 woo Rivers nodded to no. And to her husbands *Ws34
yer willin' enough to talk, I know that.*
mmkrult you toll her a story, Wail? Tell her how.* went on our
honeymoon.* Be winked* *An' hove midi a wish our married We'd be niess an
geoid with no grief or aeoidents, ant then horyah, went an' tumbled over the
bridge into the falls. an' I had te jump in an' save yuh. Tell her about our
first night we spent in a tourist **bin** an there warn't no blinds on the
windows**
Mrs. Rivers put an indignant danger to her husband's joshing
by going over to him an emptying the ashtrey in the gratis and milling his
attention to the ashes be had spilt on the rug. Then she tumid to me and said:
ot101024 a big one for talkin. Miss. Ant the best you can do is not
pay a mind to half of what he me, ammo he'll talk a log off yuh an" nothin but
lies.... Supper's on. she informed her husband. *An' I want you to get through
satin" Wore Bert an' Margaret (their son and daughterodmolaw come in..
I arose to leave. As John. Rives shuffled into the kitchen, be sniffed
at the pea soup heating on the stows, and as he held the door formai he remarked
slyly bohind his hands
"''Gail's a awful good cook angwey. Yup. See what I man? A, monanon
pies* is in the homed*
C
Thursday, I made an appointment by phone with U. VW*, hoping
this time to get some lumborjaek lore fronhim. I asbed him to sU ne *how *old
it was that year in the lumber es" in Wisoonsia.* The following talo and the one
about How. Jack and his Dirty, **cording to Mr. Tiers, are sample* of the tall
tales swapped by the lumberjacks during long winter montie while confined to thoir
bunkhouse, waiting for the their to set in, so that the logs *mid go down the riven
'Happy Jim*, and 'Noggin', characters in these stories, were the
names of luiberjaeks in the outfit. And the custom **ems to have been for he min
telling the story to use as his hero (usually derisively) one of his buddies in the
°amp.
lel, I'll tell yuhmoby golly it was so (told that time, I 'member that...
male yisoe this was right after a big snowfall lasting three leeks. Nveryda$ moue
snore, snowootill we was up to the gables in snow. Right up to the roof of thl
bunkhousos Then it began t# frees.. Ant *fors long we was 'sowed in a solid mill
of Jo*. Only air we had was from ths ehimbley which was kepi open by thi *mike
from thl firs. The heat of the smoke kept th* chimbley °loan
lel, thy cold spill it seemed like it'd never let up. Ant every night
veld out cards for a man tt stay over the fire when the' rest turned in, to watch
tht fir*, not let it go out. Ant one night Noggin, that was one of tht fellers,
he got the low card and *tarot with th fire.
0
Wale I guess colt Noggin got sleepy what with tht Applejack bed put
away ant all. An* ho look him a nap. An* meanwhile thl fir, died, an* next thing
we was in a ftx. Tht ohlehloy plugfull of icicles, so tough ant so thick that there
wasn't no draft come down enough to light a nateh and make even a stick burn.
lile there we was due to suffooate ant freeze at the same time. NO
heat, no air, ant it gettint solder by ths minute. So utat to do? Nernst but one
thing...dig ourself* out. So ths bunch of us we got out our cross sun ant some
band saws we had an' we got out picks an' one thing another, an' opened up the
door (luoky it opened in. °sums a solid wall of ice hit right snook up against
th' bunkhouso on all sights) Ante' oommeneed to saw oursalfe a tunnel through
that ice.
Now, th' bunkhouso was set in a sort of gullyelike, with th' front
facing a hill, seal Only to the UWE thl ground was flat for quite some spa.*
to th' other side of the gully. An' we figgered dig out toward the hill am'
first thing you bum, diggim upsolope that smy, you'd hit the suet**, swain'
the *maw, before it froze solid, had drifted down into th" gully. Am' most
likaly loft th' top a the hill at least shallow enough so when you got that far
you'd be above the drift.
Now unierston we eoultait hardly see our way, th' lea bola' so deep
an' thick it shut out all but a little bit a daylight. Am' bola limey above our
haadamootourtimes as tall as a sum4 at loast.wwe oouldn't see above us just where
we was gain'.
Melo it must a been near onto a week we dug along that tunnel
expecting to reach th' top 'shore th' hill sloped enough. Course th' bigger an'
longer th' tunnel got, th' more air we had, but whew/ haw cold it Iles.' ES it
hadn't been for that Applejack whiskey..(we had aplenty a jugs of it an hand, an
we took amplamty with us)..I doubt of a one of us would a oome out a that ordeal
alive. But as it was we had away to keep us earn inside anyhow.
Wel, by gollyi as I was swim', we sawed an' dug end sawed aW dug,
for it musta been a week or more. Am' it looked like wed never make it to tit'
top. An' the leo *foam' is' get denser an' the light amino through fainter. But
we went on sawin' an' diggin0 our tunnel for another week or tie, every day expeotine
to hit the topo
vol. now Noggin...ha was th' feller lot the fire die out... we
penalised him. seal We made him stay at th' cabin and never told blasters th"
Applejack was hid. It was in th' bottom the wood barrel all the time... And
by not lottin' him go long with us an' outtinl down on his liquor* we figured
that was a fit punishment for a foliar who'd lay down an watch an* mmytv 'danger
the lives of his pals that way like he done.
Sc. wel, like I so.td. we was digging en' digging angsawing an'
sawing, an' with very diseouraclereaulte. Ant I tell yuh it 11M4 so cold that
our hands fro'e to thl sawhandlee an' when we laid down now an' *bons usually
on Sundays1 t* got a little shuteye, weld have to sleep with our saw ara etaehod
up to the handles whore thl same were sin* in the ice.
Now we never know if it was hardly night or day ang so a.00urso we
had to make our own system of keeping track of thi Ilays passing, So we bad a
timekeeper who did nothin" but stand an' court the saw strokvs of ono feller,
ant we figored roughly five billion, four million eight thousaad. six hundred
ant ninetr..nine saavtrokes mad* about twenty.four hours. (tos boys we had up
there in the gConsin hills could saw fast alright.), An so we °punted to' day, that
way. An' Sunday, like I said, we sot apart for sloop, figgerin* one sleep a week'
ought to be *Aplenty for toughs hardy fellers like us juts, especially in an
emergency.
Nal, vakine up an' startine work Monday morning was sure a problso,
'count vegd have to pick the icicles often our beards an' °utile. our cryslashes, an'
sometimes hold a lighted match in our mouths so as to thaw a hole dont our throat*
for th' Applejack to run down.
reknow, a good whiskey is a godsend in cold weather. rup, this bare
Applojack..I reckon you wonder why it didn't frees* too,bein a liquid. Nal, ylknow
why in winter they put alcholol in ear radiators..? YUp. that Applejack was good
stuff by golly...about 112 peroontS
So we wont on sqldigging. Now, course all the tee we dug away, it had
te go someplace, didn't it? It had to take up space some place. Ant so the only
thing we could do was keep pushint it behind us, makial t& tuhnel, an' by
an' by all th' apace intaok of us was filled up* so we was standia' in a sort
of roommlike„ ant diggin. An' this way, not *stein' either backlards or forsards,
we had very little notion where we was headin', leapt we kepi aomheadial as close
as we could figer ior th' side a that hill.
Golly* that was an awful long cold spell that year. 'Cardin' to
our figgerint, when we'd been diggin2 for two month an' eight days, it was time
fer th' thaw to set in, but nope, it kep' as cold as over.
It was so cold that pipe amokine got to be a mehaoa., liew was that-?
May, you'd light up an' you'd puff an' you'd happen -V blow a ring or two —au' what
happened? It was so cold that th' smoke rings mould freeze solid* like dougha ts,
an' drop down on yuh. One feller nearly got his eye put out from havin, a frozen
smoke ring drop back into his daoe.
ariyhow, we just kop( on diggint--ani t2 make th' story short,
I'll take you to till end right now.
Yup, one day we hit th' end a our trail at last. It was three months
ant 24 days to b6 exact when we quit diggin'. Know why? li44 hit right
up against th' bunkhouse doort Yup. light where we started from —right at th'
front door. Naturally, just like children lost in th' mood, we traveled 'round in a
perfeo' oirole. We'd swung say out to th' left, away from till hill, made a wide
circle over flat land an' fetched up back where we started from.
Vial, some of the boys was for eein' discouraged. but right away I
figgered that things was gonna be alright. Cause through th' crack th' door I
seen firelight. Yup, as clomps(' in, an there we seen how Noggin was all humped
up cozy afore thl fire, which was biaxial away pretty as yuh please, an' him
Ouddlie a jug of Applejack like it was a baby, an' a big contented grin on his
face.
An' when we come in froze sLiff, our saws an' picks hanging off our
•-10-
hands froze solid, why all Noggin he commonoed to laugh. Ant he laughed till
he was tied in knots.
.0/ been here soft an' warm a gettin myself liquored up nice,*
be says. ..While you fellers been traipsin' off to hell an' gone through the
cold. Ef that's punishine 0. he says, punish me some more. I like it.
Mal, we axed him haw he cot th' fire started, an' after while
he up an told haw he poked around an' poked aroun' till he found where th'
Applejack was hid.-anl wilen he found it bottom th' woodbox4 it was a cinch to
pour a little on the fire an/ with that firewatervettini the wood, th' touch of a
matoh sent th' flames roarint up an' thawed out that ohimbley in no time.
Wel, we: settled dawn to wait for th' thaw, an' it wasn't long afore
all that ice loosened ant slid down th' gully to th' river. An' soon after that
we had th" logs rollin, again.
But Noggin never cot tire ribbinl us about haw we was fer kinishin°
him, an' the Applejack startie the fire an' all.... Yup, by golly, yuh gotta
admit there ain't nothint like good oll 112 percent in cold meather....1