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Introduction to LCRE OF THE LUMBERJACKS
by May Swenson
He was sitting on a stomp uptown smoking his pipe.
The autumn sun was slowly sinking behind the huge grey building
down the street. He had his huge, grisly head, tilted to the
last rays of yellow light. Ta/X6V,XXXONX/Opi/fX0/ As the
sun finally disappeared behind the building, he took the pipe out
of his mouth and spat a Ada jawful of saliva into the gutter.
Then, sniffing the danp air, he drew his well-worn black overcoat
closer around him and iwagivximoowi/ and stared vacantly
at the darkening sky.
41.1.41K-Lti tir
SmilOWN1744iS thoughts4 travell,Arest with the suns A crafty
smile spread over his weatherbeaten Java' Tansolimonoweliimisniesesamilftg
Aderidiasemsaff',„.110.0%-jwitelwarmostemilsoisimat Ziggee-twoommikswiey s
00/#134644/41XWAOW/40i/OW. He glanced ruefully at me
keywoo the stub which was once his forefinger.
,14
"There's a new frontier," he muttered to himself, 70i0444
"airplanes, radio a new frontier, the frontier of the sky:"
(fifth'.),er
f.)-
Forms to be Filled out for Eacn Interview
FORM
Circumstances of Intervir,:w
STATE t
NAVE OF WORKER
ADDRESS
DATE
SUBJECT rVt t
1. Date and time of intervitnv
2. Place of interview
3. Name and address of informant
tc
1-4
V I:
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
tr--12,41
r 6p e -c) /7q At. '144f
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant.
3. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you
6. Description of room, house, surrougdings, etc.
(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.)
Swenson
701127
Oct. 11, 1938
Informant: John Rivers
656 W. 179th St.
3rd floor. N. Y. C.
Subject: Lore of the Lumberjacks
Interview held Wednesday, uct. 5th and Thursday, Oct. 6th.
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 sun- I greeted him.
-Naw- he said. -I like it... I like a nip to the air.
A slyness crept into his smile, and he closed one eye. -I reckon
you've come to pester me for a story. Wal, come on in.
He took me to his room at the back of the flat.
-The wife ain't home- he st6ted after we were seated.
-Good thing- he laughed. -She was askin'me who the yohng lady
was that was here th' other day. I told her‘twas none a her
biz. She got a little hepped about it. She's likely ti take
a broomhandle to ye if she catches a young gal snoopiri in here..
Wal, y'know I'm just foolin'... just a little joke, a little gag
as y' might say- He laughed again.
-Will you think me too personal if I ask how you lost your
finger?- I adked, thinking there might be a story behind the
stub of a forefinger against which his pipe rested.
_wai, the cross -saw got it, lolig ago... Yeh, the two -handled
saw r use at the base of a big tree cuttirf it down. Vial, bout
forty years it's been I've been minus na' finger. I dont miss it
no more. ....Naw, lumberjackid aidt so dangerous far them as
knows their job... I member one young feller though... a high
climber* he was... up a big un.. 400 foot or more... loppin.
the top. 'gal, it was a young tree.0 plenty spring in it yet,
an' when t e top ripped off it throwed the guy right off, from
the way it snaoped back. A lowytr limb caught him b the chin
when he fell, and his neck was broke before he hit the ground.
His safety belt broke on aim. But that sort a thing only happened
very selciom#/.. very seldom an accident or nothin. .Y. know
my wife laughs at me fer talkid always like I'm doid about ma
lumberin' days.... says I got a fix* on it. Vial, I guess there's
a grain a truth there... Yup, them was the days I like to remember
an' I liked that work... bein out doors all weathers an' all.
It's a man's work alright... nod a yer white collars has got the
stuff nowdays.... I been in lots a businesses. I been in
rail-roading a while, an I worked in the alit mills*, an/ I been
in fruit produce.. trucking. Seen a good bit a the country in
my younger days.. an I tell you thar wasn't no talk of depression
then.., not that times were better. They was tough. An' tougher
than now. Yup. But nobody cried for better or sat down and
waited fer gover int relief. No sir. The young bucks them days
was up an doin' an they made their own way. Thout college edications
too. My pion this college degree business does more harm than
good. Makes 'era soft. )(lakes 'em all think they're college pro-
•fessors ari workid ith th ands no en u for
az_ eztk.32.--_ 3 oK ir ea_
Pub,„ 441,s—uo .14
3
Listen.. trouble with young people today is they think too much
and do too little. Vra- Yup. Y' otta postpone settin' an thinkin'
till yer old like me. When there ain't nothini better t' look
foreard to. Be up art doin', young lady. That's my advice t` young
Delple. Go ahead and get some place an do yer thinkin' later.
Them days there was a frontier of industry, y'say?
Yeh, that's an or argement. There ain't nothin' new t' explore,
y'say, eh? No room fer new enterprise, the frontier gone:
Listen, don't let iem kid ye, sister. Ttrere's always room
V spread out.... Hey, what about the frontiers •of the sky?
Naw, I don't mean Venus and Mars.. anfwe can't quite reach for the
moon yet, neither... ha, ha. But lookit airyplanes. Don't yuh
know there's a fronteer airft hardly been touched. It's one of my
ideas, that there Frontier of the Sky. leknoil it was machinery
all alonglby golly,made new industry. It was autymobiles, trains
first mail, then transportation, then development till soon everyday
use of them new contraptions speeding employment an' progress.
Transportation had a lot t' do with settling the country. An' now
we got the airyplane an the radio. The airyplane is just a
gadget of' luxury yet, but wait. Pretty soon for them as has
get-uo to gem, airyplanes'll be used fer everything-- all kinds of
hauling an commercial traffic an' fer vehicles fer any person t'
go places. Yes, sir, the sky'll be full a 'era-- an they'll have
to have traffic lights 11D there. An' listen, when Europe comes to
be no further away accordin. to time, yl un'erstan, than say, T'iloridy
er up North, Canady-- why a little two-bit squirt imiligNISIMSair
won't stand a Chinaman's chance a takin things over. Cause airy
planes an' radios are gonna matt the world one same .state.
4
An'a iitle squirt of a two-bit upstart Zilcontfter
with a smudge on his upper lip'11 get slammed in the rer
meddlid with what's too big fer him. Ae listen, don't get me
wrong. I ain't no Co_arqinist. But I got my own ideas, y'unerstan.
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 nowdays.
Y'see men are getting their wings back-- see? Adradio-- air
see what I mean? Air-- the new frontier:
After this impressive harangue, I ventured to ask 14r.
Rivers how a woman, assuming she colftes within Mk his category
of the "go-getting type", ought to go about securing a place
an the "new frontier of the sky."
-Listen- he leaned forward in his rocker, and removed his
Pipe, gesturing for emphasis. -Listen, I airt got nothie against
wimin, ueerstan. Wimin are a most necessary gadget in a man's
life.- He winked broadly. -But wimin are makid a mistake
floundrie 'round like they do in a man's world. Wimin has
forgotten her place. Listen, do you see a chicken strutt& around
crowieae wearin'a comb? D'yuh see a good milk cow tryid t' dry
up her teets an'runnin'round bellerin% believin'she'll be gain'
in the bull ring? Animals got more sen4Ze than humans some ways.
Nope. By golly a woman should stay a woman an' not try t' mix in
with men's doins. Now, you'd be a lot happier yerself, stayin'
home cookingfer a good man than runnie around the town gettin'
stories fer a news-)aper er whatever it is yer gettin'em fer,
5
A woman ought to fix on bein'a good wife an' mother, hem' sweet an
companionable to some husbae, an'helpin' him in his work by not
bein' too curious about it. Wimin got funny minds. They're made
good fer arguin'but never fer settlinlanythin: Lot's a wimin
are smarter than men when it comes to thinkin' up high-falutin'
things, but they ain't gracticle. They airit got good gracticle
hoss sence, an' so their minds are dangerous. The more a woman
leaves her mind alone the better woman she makes, I always say.
An above all it's unbecommin'to a woman to try e be like a man.
A whistlie :al an'a crowin'hen
Neither will come to no good end they used t say. An' there's
a lot a truth in that there
While we were talking, I had heard steps moving about in
kitchen, 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 65. Pale
blue eyes, small features, false teeth with very red gums, which
click as she talks.
idr4 Rivers wriggled in his chair, seeming slightly dis-
comforted, and said:
-Hello 'Gail.- (He had told me his wife's name was Abigail)
You just come in frum marketin4? This here young lady sames was
here thsother day is pesterin me fer t' tell her a story about
the lumber camp-- but I aint told her nothins yet.-
-How do? Mrs. Rivers nodded to me. And to her husband:
Wal, yer whim' enough to talk, I kno* that.-
6
-Whyn't you tell her a. story, 'Gail? Tell her how we
went on our honeymoon.- He winked. -2.n! how y' de a wish our
married life'd be nice an placid with no grief or accidents, an'
then how rah went an' tumbled over the bridge into the falls,
an!: had to jump in an' save yuh. Tell her shout our first night
we spent in a tourist cabin-- an there warnit no blinds on the
windows
Mrs. Fivers put an indignant damper to her husband's joshing
by going over to him and emptying the ashtray in the grate, and
calling his attention to the ashes he had spilt on the rug. Then
she turned to me and said:
-John's a big one fer talkin, Miss. An the best you can do
is not pay a mind to half of what he says, cause he'll talk a leg
off yuh an'nothin but lies-- nothin but lies. ...Supper's on
she informed her husband. -An' i want you to get through eatin'
before Bert an' Margaret (their son and daughter-in-law) come in.
I arose to lea -e. As John Rivers shuffled into the kitchen,
he sniffed at the pea soup heating on the stove, and as he held the
Ina' door for me, he remarked slyly behind his hand:
-'Gail's a awful good cook anyway. Yup. See what I mean?
!_ woman's place is in the hone:-
7
Thursday, I made an appointment by phone with Er. Rivers,
hopir r this time to get some lumberjack lore from him. I
asked him to tell me "how cold it was the t year in the lumber camp
in 'Zisconsin." The following tale ani the one about Happy Jack
and his Derb accordirF, to Hr. Rivers, are samples of the tall
tales swapped by the lumberjacks during long w'nter months while
con ired to their bunkhouse, wait ing for the thaw to set in, so
that the logs could go down the river.
%Hapny Jack and Noggin, characters in these stories, were
the names of lumberjacks in the outfit. And the custom seems to
have been for the men telling the story to use as his hero (usually
derisively) one of his buddies in the camp.
Wei, I'll tell yuh-- by golly it was so cold that time,
I 'member that--- wal, y'see this was right after a big snowfall
lasting three weeks. Everyday snow, snow, snow-- till At- we was
up to thjp gables in snow. Right up to the roof of thi bunkhouse.
Then it began t freeze. I
'fox long we was 'cased in a solid
wall of ice. Only air we had was from thip chimbley which was
kep' open by thi smoke from thi fire. Thi heat of the smoke kep'
thp chimbley clear.
Wel, thi cold spell it seemed like it'd never let up. An'
every night we'd cut cards fer a man t' stay over the fire when
thio rest turned in, to —atch this. fire-, not let it go out. An'
one night Noggin that wes one of thip fellers, he got the low
card and stayed with till* fire.
8
Wel, I guess 01! Noggin got sleepy what with thi Applejack
he'd cut away an' all. Ant he took him a nap. An' meanwhile thS
fire died, an' next thing we was in a fix. Thi chimbley plugfull
of icicles, so tough an so thick that there wasn't no draft
come down enough to light a match and make even a stick burn.
there we was due to suffocate an' freeze at thlik same
time. No heat, no air, an' it gettin' colder by th;) minute. So
what to do'? Warn't but one thing-- dig ourselfs out. So thi
bunch of us we got out our cross saws an' some band saws we had
an' we got out picks an' one thing another, an' opened up thrit floor
(lucky it opened in, cause a solid wall of ice hit right smack
up against th'Ap bunkhouse on all sides) An'we commenced to saw
ourselfs a tunnel through that ice.
Now, tiff, bunkhouse was set in a sort of gully -like, with
th'op front facing a hill, see? Only to the back th4o ground was
flat for quite some space to thio other side of the gully. An'
we figgered dig out toward thi, hill an/first thing you know,
diggin up -slope that way, you'd hit the surface, seem' the snowri
before it froze solidd.ihad drifted down into thq gully. An/most
likely left thi top a the hill at least shallow enough so When
you got that far you'd be above the drift.
Now unerstan we. couldn't hardly see our way, tiff, ice bein'
so deep ar4 thick it shut out all but a little bit a day light.
An/ti bein'way above our heads--• four times as tall as a man,at
least-- we couldn't see above us just where at we was goin:
Wal, it must a been near onto a week we --ipg dug along that
tunnel expectie titeach thi top where thip hill sloped enough.
9
Course thp biTer an'. longer tile', tunnel 44, thy more air we had,
hut Inns* whew: how cold it was: Ef it hadn't been for that
2-onle jack whiskey--- we had a -plenty a jugs of it on hand, an we
took a -plenty with us)--- I doubt ef a one of us would a come out
a that ordeal alive. But as it was we had a way t' keep us
warm inside anyhow.
Wal, by golly, as I was isuidiestf sayins, we sawed ant dug and
sawed an dug, fer it musta been a week or more. An' it looked
like we'd never make it to this, top. An' the ice seemin' t' get
denser an' the light cumin' through fainter. But we went on sawin/
an' diggint our tunnel for 'nother week or two, every day expectins
to hit the top.
Vial, now Noggin-- he was thigp feller let the fire die out
we penalized him) see? We made him stay at th,4 cabin and never
told hi- where thit Applejack was hid. It was in th4 bottom thao
wood barrel all thi time--- And by not lettini him go long with us
Arc an' cuttin' down on his liquor, we figgered that was a fit
punishment for a feller who'd lay down on watch an/maybe 'danger
thsp lives of his pals that way like he done.
So, wal, like I said, we waw diggins an" digginl an' sawin' an'
sawin', an' with very disccuragin` results. An I tell yuh it was
so cold that our hands froze to thi sawhandles a/iv/hen we laid down
now an then, usually on Sundays, t'get a little shuteye, we'd have
to sleep with our sawt rmitached up to the handles where thi saws
i
were stuck in the ice. ow we never knew if it was hardly night
or day an' so a -course we had to make our own system of keepin' track
of thi days passin'. So we had a timekeeper who did nothini but
stand ant count thil saw strokes of one feller, an' we figgered
10
roughly five billion, four million, eight thousand, six hundred
arf ninety-nine sawstrokes made about twenty-four hours. Them
boys we had 11D there in thi 'Consin hills could saw fast alright.)
An so we counted thi days that way. An' Sunday, like I said,
we set apart fer sleep, figgerin' one sleep a week ought to be
a -plenty fer tough, hardy fellers like us jacks, 'specially in an
emergency.
Taal, waking up an startin' work Monday morning was sure a
problem, 'count we'd have to nick th‘ icicles offen our beards
ant out -a our eyela6thes, an' sometimes hold a lighted match in our
mouths so as to thaw a hole down our throats for thit applejack
41.2sivnismftiele- to run dowho
Ylknows a good whiskey is a godsend in cold weather. Yup,
this here Applejack-- I reckon you wonder why it didn't freeze
too, bein a liquid. 'Nal, y'know why in winter they put alcohol
in car radiators--? Yup, that Applejack was good stuff by golly
about 112 percents
So we went on a-diggin'. Now; course all the ice we dug
away, it had t' go someplace, didh't it? It had to take up space
some place. An' so thi only thing we could do was keep pushin'
it behind us, makie thi tunnel, an' by ang by all th4. space in back
of us was filled up, so we was standing in a sort of room -like,
an' diggin. Ang this way, not seeing either backtarcis or for' ards
we had very little notion where we was laead:ens, tcept we kep.
a -heading as close as we could rigger for thb side a that hill.
Golly, that was an awful long cold spell that year.
'Cordie to our figgering, when we'd been digging fer two month
an' eight days, it was time fer tbjiir thaw to set in, but nope,
11
it kepi as cold as ever.
It was so cold that pipe smokin' got to be a menace.
How was that-? Uhy, you'd light up an! you'd puff an' you'd
happen ti blow a ring or two-- an' what happened? It was so cold
that the smoke rings would freeze solid, like doughnuts, an'
drop down on yuh. One feller nearly got his eye put out from
havin' a frozen smoke ring drop back into his face.
anyhcbw, we just kelp' on a diggie-- an' t' make thl, story
short, take yuh t' thi end right now.
Yup, one day we hit thi end a our trail at last. It was
three month an' 24 days to be exact when we quit diggin'. Know
why? We finally hit right up against thi bunkhouse door:
Yup. Right where we started from-- right at tho front door.
Naturally, just like children lost in the woods, we traveled
'round in a perfec* circle. We 'd swung way out to tbs., left, away
from the hill, made a wide circle over flat land anit fetched up
back where we started from.
Wal, some of th, boys was for beini discouraged. But right
awily let I figgered that things wasgonna be alright. Cause through
thfr crack thip door I seer firelight. Yup, we clomped in, an'
there we see- how Noggin was all humped up cozy afore thj fire,
which was blazini away pretty as yuh please, an' him cuddling a *lir
jug of Applejack like it was a baby, an' a big contented grin on
his face.
An' when we come in froze* stiff, our saws an' picks hangins
off our hands frozet solid, why of Noggin he commenced t4 laugh.
An' he laughed till he was tied in knots.
12
-I been here soft an' warm a gettin myself liquored up nice,
he says. -While you fellers been traipsin' off to hell an' gone
through flag cold. Ef that's punishin' he says, -punish me some
more. I like it.-
Wal, we axed him how he got thi fire started, an' after while
he up an' told how he poked around an' poked aroun' till he found
where thi Applejack was hid-- a.n' when he found it bottom thi
woodbox, it was a cinch to pour a little on the fire an' with
that firewater wettie thi wood, th; touch of a match sent thit
flames roarin' up an' thawed out that chinbley in no time.
Wal, we settled down to wait fer thy thaw, an' it wasn't
long afore all thatier ice loosened an slid down thAr gully to
thip river. Ala' soon after that we had thij logs rollin/ again.
But Noggin never got tired ribbiri us about hew we was fer
punishini him, an' the Applejack startin't14 fire an
Yup, by golly, yuh gotta Omit there ain't nothini like good 01/
112 percent in cold weather....